Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / At Some Point You Microtarget Everyone

At Some Point You Microtarget Everyone

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Tucker Carlson is getting (a very limited) amount of heat for mocking maternity flight suits for pregnant women serving in the Air Force. (Support the troops!  Thank you for your service!)  Dollar Store Sarah Palin is going to sign a bill banning transgender girls from female sports since, apparently, the South Dakota Legislature took a break from banning abortion to hating trans women.

I get both of these microtargeted efforts on the part of the Foxpublican Party.  It makes sense to point your hate gun at a small group to stoke up some outrage.  (Though, really, isn’t it accepted that women serving in the military means that women will get pregnant while they serve?)

I’m sure there are a lot of Fox viewers who have female grandkids serving in the military.  There may even be Fox viewers who have transgender grandkids that they haven’t disowned.  (Unlikely, I realize.)  The worst thing that can happen for Fox is that their viewers change the channel.  But, at some point, if you alienate enough people,  don’t you run out of fools?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  3. 3.

    A Ghost to Most

    They’re busy making new fools at the christian madrassas. They will never run out.

  4. 4.

    MisterForkbeard

    We’ve all said this before but: Tucker Carlson is a giant fucking asshat.

    His statement about our naval strength v China’s is wrong. What ships in China’s Navy and “more powerful than anything” in the American Navy? And to pretend that Biden’s notes about getting more women into the military and making sure they’re effective was a “response” to this is just more of the lying and so on that Tucker engages in daily.

    Dude needs to be shot into the sun.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    The GOP wants to ramp up the misogyny because they think it’ll distract from their racism and help get them more non-white male support.

  7. 7.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    The Lady And The Dale on HBO features some hideous commentary about transgendered people from conservative SoCal newsman Dick Carlson, Tucker’s father.

  8. 8.

    JaneE

    My mother’s cousin was a pilot in WWII. He was killed in action. Back in the middle 50’s we visited his family. His daughter had just completed her basic training in the Air Force and was home on leave. She joined the service to honor the father she could barely remember. Her picture in uniform was proudly placed next to his.

    F U Tucker.

  9. 9.

    Benw

    He’s learned from his Orange Master that you can still SUPPORT THE TROOOOOPS and shit all over actual servicemembers and not cause even a ripple in the Republican brain. It’s not even worth responding to it

    ETA: I mean, responding to it with rational counterarguments. If people he’s pissed off want to dunk on his stupid ass, I’m down

  13. 13.

    germy

    I don't want to prolong his attack on someone specific by RTing it, but I want to go on record that @TuckerCarlson is also the world's biggest POS for using his platform to repeatedly harass a reporter for doing her job.

    — Leaving Filmstruck (@LeavingFilmstrk) March 11, 2021

  15. 15.

    thebewilderness

    Is it your position that women and girls rights are anti trans?

    The Staniland question: Do you believe that male-sexed people have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with teenage girls?

  16. 16.

    SFAW

    Apropos of nothing in particular: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, and any of their offspring/friends/associates who think like them, cannot die soon enough.

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    But, at some point, if you alienate enough people, don’t you run out of fools?

    The question is whether people will be alienated by attacks on someone they care about.  A few of them will be, but the ability of Republicans to compartmentalize their feelings are impressive.  Not only that, but the party is surprisingly willing to accept people breaking from orthodoxy one one or two points when they affect someone the member knows personally.  As long as they stand tough on the few core party tenets- lowering taxes on the rich, cutting spending on the poor, and hating Those People- a few minor heterodox beliefs are acceptable.  It even lets them argue that they’re independent thinkers rather than the lockstep drones in the Democrat Party.

  18. 18.

    PPCLI

    @Benw:

    @Roger Moore:

    Jessica Watkins was (according to her lawyer) forced out of the military for (according to her lawyer) being transgender. And Trump was responsible for the transgender ban. That didn’t stop her from joining the III%ers and storming the Capitol with the objective of installing Trump as Pres.

    Trumpism is a powerful drug.

  19. 19.

    David Evans

    I have a serious question here. Not to support Tucker Carlson and his like who are beneath contempt. But to ask: is there not a problem if people with an unaltered male physique are allowed to compete in women’s sports? I know some feminists whom I respect and who think there is.

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    The worst thing that can happen for Fox is that their viewers change the channel. But, at some point, if you alienate enough people, don’t you run out of fools?

    Fox News seems intent on testing the proposition.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    @JaneE: ​
     
    In the town adjacent to mine, the main city park is named Memorial Park because it has veterans’ memorials. The most impressive to me is a wall with pictures of every veteran from the town and which wars* they served in. The town is too new to have anyone who served in the Civil War, and there weren’t any women who served in the Spanish-American War, but there were women who served in every single war since then. Every single one of them volunteered for service. Tucker Carlson can fuck right off.
    *They include “Cold War” and similar for people who served during nominal peacetime.

  23. 23.

    Anoniminous

    Since this is an Open Thread:

    “Zoonotic pandemics, like that caused by SARS-CoV-2, can follow the spillover of animal viruses into highly susceptible human populations. Their descendants have adapted to the human host and evolved to evade immune pressure. Coronaviruses acquire substitutions more slowly than other RNA viruses, due to a proofreading polymerase. In the spike glycoprotein, we find recurrent deletions overcome this slow substitution rate. Deletion variants arise in diverse genetic and geographic backgrounds, transmit efficiently, and are present in novel lineages, including those of current global concern. They frequently occupy recurrent deletion regions (RDRs), which map to defined antibody epitopes. Deletions in RDRs confer resistance to neutralizing antibodies. By altering stretches of amino acids, deletions appear to accelerate SARS-CoV-2 antigenic evolution and may, more generally, drive adaptive evolution.”

    [1]

    IOW: under evolutionary pressure from antibodies produced by the vaccines SARS-CoV-2 is evolving immunity, as everyone who took Bio101 could and did predict.

    “A novel SARS-CoV-2 variant, VOC 202012/01 (lineage B.1.1.7), emerged in southeast England in November 2020 and is rapidly spreading toward fixation. Using a variety of statistical and dynamic modelling approaches, we estimate that this variant has a 43–90% (range of 95% credible intervals 38–130%) higher reproduction number than preexisting variants. A fitted two-strain dynamic transmission model shows that VOC 202012/01 will lead to large resurgences of COVID-19 cases. ??????? ????????? ??????? ????????, ????????? ??????? ??????? ?? ??????????? ???????????? ??? ? ??????? ??????????? ??????? ????-???, ?????-?? ???????????????? ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ????. Concerningly, VOC 202012/01 has spread globally and exhibits a similar transmission increase (59–74%) in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United States.”

    [2]

    [emphasis added]

    Since Decision Makers across the US are doing the exact opposite, cheered on the usual ignorant hick bigots, it is looking likely that the environment necessary for SARS-CoV-2 to evolve immunity to current vaccines is being maintained and even increased.

    So.

    Be prepared for more waves of infection as ignorant stupid people gather in great clumps in enclosed spaces. Also be prepared for announcements later this year the current vaccines are losing effectiveness.

    [1] McCarthy, Kevin R., et al. “Recurrent deletions in the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein drive antibody escape.” Science (2021).

    [2] Davies, Nicholas G., et al. “Estimated transmissibility and impact of SARS-CoV-2 lineage B. 1.1. 7 in England.” Science (2021).

  24. 24.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    “don’t you run out of fools?”

     

    I think P.T. Barnum made some on-point comments on this particular issue.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @David Evans: To the extent that that becomes a problem, I think we can worry about it when Trans folk aren’t getting death threats and more for simply existing.

  28. 28.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Baud:

    The GOP wants to ramp up the misogyny because they think it’ll distract from their racism and help get them more non-white male support.

    The misogyny from the GOP has been consistently at a high level. The GOP objects to having ANY women in the military except as nurses. Misogyny IS an integral part of how they appeal to their base and has been for decades.

  30. 30.

    Served

    Let’s nip a few of the transphobic questions and comments in the bud:

    Trans girls are girls and trans women are women. Period.

    “But the locker roooooms!” cries always position cisgendered individuals as victims of a trans person’s presence/existence. That’s transphobic. Have you stopped to consider whether the trans boy/girl wants to be changing in the women’s locker room? This is why gender neutral facilities are important.

    The hypothetical of “well then couldn’t men just pretend to be women and play women’s sports” is so delusional and stupid that it doesn’t dignify a response, just as much as it indignifies trans people as people. Please provide one(!) actual example of this being an issue.

    Gender and sex are not binary and not immutable and it’s been proven time and time again. If you can’t or won’t pick that up, then that’s on you.

  31. 31.

    Tim C.

    “Running out of fools” depends on your goals I think.

    If your goal is winning elections?  Yes.   Don’t forget the magnitude of the gerrymander and electoral college in propping up the Republicans,  if they were half-way decent at governance,  even at the Bush 41 level, they would be in permanent control of the country.   So there are fewer and fewer fools for them to get to vote for them

    But if you are talking about making money?   No.  There are always suckers to ride the hate train.  And the haters are the easiest to fleece.

  34. 34.

    The Moar You Know

    But, at some point, if you alienate enough people,  don’t you run out of fools?

    The GOP has been doing this for two years since before I was born, almost six decades ago, so my answer is going to have to be “no”.

  36. 36.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Served: One of my fave podcasters pointed out that men who want to rape women in bathrooms can do so pretty easily, as things are, right now.  It’s beyond absurd to claim that 1.) they need to dress up in any way or that 2.) allowing Transgender people to use the appropriate bathrooms/locker rooms, makes that sort of attack any more likely.

  37. 37.

    Served

    @UncleEbeneezer: It’s extremely telling that they always exclusively bring up girls’ and womens’ sports, which conservatives are, at best, indifferent to, and at worst, openly hostile towards.

    They never ever bring up the trans boy changing in the locker room, which in their feverswamped brains should be more dangerous.

  38. 38.

    Dupe1970

    @David Evans: ​
      Most sports set and test for testosterone levels. Additionally, most transgender women take estrogen and drugs to suppress testosterone. But sure whatever.

  40. 40.

    Edmund Dantes

    I already spend plenty of time in the women’s bathroom as a man. As my daughter doesn’t like being in the men’s room. So since she is still young enough to need an adult with her. I just walk right in with her.

  42. 42.

    waspuppet

    But, at some point, if you alienate enough people,  don’t you run out of fools?

    That’s where voter suppression comes in.

  45. 45.

    The Moar You Know

    I had “gender neutral” bathrooms back in my college dorms in the late 1980s.  It was not an issue, period, unless you consider the lack of urinals a problem.  I considered it a blessing.

    I am willing to grant that we’re going to have to figure out some sort of accommodations for women who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of men and are justifiably terrified of all biological men, regardless of how they identify.  But I think that can be done without Godzilla-stomping all over the rights and dignity of transfolk, as quite a few of the TERFs seem hellbent on doing.

  46. 46.

    Redshift

    @Benw:

    He’s learned from his Orange Master that you can still SUPPORT THE TROOOOOPS and shit all over actual servicemembers and not cause even a ripple in the Republican brain. 

    That didn’t start with T****, Republicans have been doing it for decades. Back to Reagan at least, they repeatedly voted for huge increases in the budget for military hardware while leaving military families on food stamps because of low pay and in crumbling housing.

  47. 47.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @UncleEbeneezer: @Served:

    I agree that transgirls are girls and transboys are boys. However, people are still going to be really upset about this unless there is privacy for changing, rather than wide open locker room spaces. The US isn’t Europe. For a LOT of people, it is culturally and religiously unacceptable to see opposite sex (not gender) nudity outside of a romantic relationship.

  49. 49.

    Served

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    “But the locker roooooms!” cries always position cisgendered individuals as victims of a trans person’s presence/existence. That’s transphobic. Have you stopped to consider whether the trans boy/girl wants to be changing in the women’s locker room? This is why gender neutral facilities are important.

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @MisterForkbeard:His statement about our naval strength v China’s is wrong. What ships in China’s Navy and “more powerful than anything” in the American Navy?

    China has a lot of coastal cutters and PT boats and the like that makes it look like they have a lot of boats on paper. They’re nowhere close to challenging the US Navy on the open seas.

  53. 53.

    Nicole

    @David Evans: 

    But to ask: is there not a problem if people with an unaltered male physique are allowed to compete in women’s sports? I know some feminists whom I respect and who think there is.

    It may have been mentioned upthread (I have to keep stepping away from the computer and coming back to threads that have increased by 50 comments, which makes for excellent reading on my return) but the short answer is no. I read recently of a (middle school, I think) trans swimmer being told she couldn’t compete on her team anymore and even her coach said she wasn’t the biggest or fastest swimmer on the team; it was just a cruel thing to take her away from her friends.

    Testosterone =/= talent. And I know plenty of tall people who suck at basketball.

  56. 56.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Served: Those facilities cost a lot of money. The push for equality has to include an equal push to remodel every high school and junior high school locker room.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @germy: Loved this:

    Tucker Carlson doesn’t think women can serve in the military.

    Pretty bold words from a frozen food heir who couldn’t be bothered to serve himself.

    I can hear the sizzle from that burn all the way over here.

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    Greg Abbott didn’t let a winter storm kill enough Texans so…

    To update the vintage Roy Firestone bit:“It’s free Covid-19 day at the old ballllllllllllllyard! Free infections to the first 40,518 in attendance!” https://t.co/USR3xoxLme— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 10, 2021

  63. 63.

    Old Man Shadow

    I don’t know. You might be surprised at how people are capable of dissociating between the people group they hate and want to hurt vs. people they know who actually belong to that group.

    “We need to get rid of all those dirty, low down, so and sos!!” and “I DIDN’T MEAN HIM!!!!!” coming out of the same mouth.

  65. 65.

    Woodrow/asim

    @David Evans: Those questions are not mine.

    HINT: When Trans folx are dying in America’s streets just for being Trans, dragging around “Just Asking Questions?”

    Not a good look.

    Another Hint: For these Feminists you like? Agreeing with conservatives punts their  ideas outside the realm of “marginalized,” no matter their Feminist Credentials. This was true w/Anti-Porn in the 80s, and is still true, today.

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    You will never, ever run out of fools.

    Of course there is an old saying.

    You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time.

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    Transgender Americans are being scapegoated by homophobes. After the Supreme Court vindicated the right of same-sex marriage in Obergefel (sp?), bigots looked around and realized that gay people and their allies were too numerous for same-sex marriage to be stopped. So they they try to pick on the smaller group of transgender people, with bathroom bills and now a manufactured concern over women’s sports. But these bigots will never be satisfied until the Obergefel decision is overturned.

  72. 72.

    Woodrow/asim

    @David Evans: That article is as shallow as my serving plates.

    Here’s a different view, for example, on Mz. Hubbard’s capabilities, when stacked for Olympics-ranked women lifters:

    [Hubbard] goes into worlds ranked 33rd in the Olympic qualifying standings in the 87+kg division. Only 14 weightlifters will compete in Tokyo per division.

    […]

    The Australian ranked ahead of her — Charisma Amoe-Tarrant — lifted a total of 246kg at the same competition that Hubbard won in July with a 268kg total. But, unlike Hubbard, Amoe-Tarrant actually scored points in the earlier first phase of Olympic qualifying — 432.4134 to be exact — and has a 281-point lead on Hubbard going into worlds.

    “[Hubbard] has a shot, but I’d say she’s got an uphill climb,” USA Weightlifting CEO Phil Andrews said. “If she can medal [at worlds], then, yes, absolutely she’s a contender. I cannot imagine a circumstance where she medals in this world championships. Top 12, yeah, maybe.”

    She’s good, really good — but not the best. Other women can, and are as of 2019, beating her.

    I mean, the way people talk, you’d expect a woman like Mz. Hubbard to be busting out world records. She clearly — CLEARLY — is not.

    So what’s the concern, exactly?

  76. 76.

    Nora Lenderbee

    I hate to find GQP and Fox on the same side as me. But sometimes they are right, even if for the wrong reasons.

    I believe people should be able to live as their true selves, and if their physical sex doesn’t match who they feel they are, they should be able to live however feels right to them. Trans, nonbinary, whatever.They have the right to choose their own names and pronouns and have their choices respected.

    BUT. A person who is born male, with standard male equipment, has developed in a testosterone-rich in environment since they were in utero. That gives them certain physical characteristics that provide an athletic advantage over female-born people. The advantages are enormously increased if the person goes through standard male puberty.

    Trans women who go through full hormonal and surgical transition lose muscle strength, but the loss is gradual, and it’s not clear that they lose all of it. Even if they do, they retain other physical advantages. They don’t get shorter, their hands don’t get smaller, their stride remains just as long as before. It’s not the trans woman’s fault that she retains these advantages; it’s just an unfortunate accident of birth. But it’s wrong to pretend they don’t exist.

    Renee Richards herself said in her autobiography that it was wrong for her to compete in women’s tennis after her transition, that she retained an advantage from her previous male physique. I think she should know.

    The reason this doesn’t come up with trans men and men’s sports should be obvious.

    I’m an (aging) athlete, cis female. I don’t want women’s sports to disappear.

  77. 77.

    Keith P.

    just about any time I visit with my friends, somebody will bring up either a) some transgender wrestler kicking a girl’s ass, b) Mr Potatohead (I don’t really follow this one), or c) Dr Seuss (which nobody has read in 30 years).  It’d be uncanny except I know that some watch Fox News and others watch youtube channels of similar stuff.

    In each case, I’m expected to also be outraged by it.

  78. 78.

    Gravenstone

    @mrmoshpotato: Even better, their left fielder/DH (Joey Gallo) is currently covid positive. So it’s not as if the bug isn’t present in the Rangers organization even as we speak. Nothing like a guaranteed superspreader event at the old ballpark!

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Thank you. I was trying to compose a reply that wasn’t basically FU for your trolling, but you provided a much clearer and respectful answer.

    Here’s another answer(focused on the current UK well-funded mostly-non-religious anti-trans push) for the bigots’ question; the full piece is longer and well-structured:
    The correct answer is that nobody has a right to undress in front of anyone, neither legally nor morally.
    (I have little personal experience with this to be clear, but the “intelligence phase” of bigotry needs pushback.)

  81. 81.

    Falling Diphthong

    @David Evans:

    1. They came up with a trans weight lifter who lifts a “mere” 66 pounds less than when competing as a man a decade earlier, and it means no women will ever lift anything ever again? This does not sound like a real problem affecting actual people, vs a hypothetical problem that will be experienced hypothetically by hypothetical people.
    2. She “bombed out” in the Australian Open. Beaten by a slew of other women. A thing your source said was impossible.

    This seems a tad disingenuous of you.

  83. 83.

    leeleeFL

    I find it amazing that having a single person use toilet available is considered too expensive to provide.  My flippin’ grocery store has one. The hospital bathrooms are all single person. No reason schools can’t have a few.  It would shut em up, and probably be cleaner.

    The male trans competition is more problematic, because it might provide unfair advantage, but that’s a rules issue.  In non-competitive situations, it’s just mean-spirited

  84. 84.

    Nora Lenderbee

    @Falling Diphthong: The women who lost to Rachel McKinnon and Renee Richards are real people.

    And speaking of disingenuous, no one ever said that all male-bodied people were stronger than all female-bodied people, or that it was impossible for a cis woman to ever beat a trans woman. So cut the crap.

  85. 85.

    Benw

    @Nora Lenderbee:

    Renee Richards herself said in her autobiography that it was wrong for her to compete in women’s tennis after her transition, that she retained an advantage from her previous male physique. I think she should know.

    But women’s professional tennis is stronger than ever! Renee’s career, whether or not she had an advantage, actually shows that trans women can compete in women’s sports without harming them, IMO.

  87. 87.

    Feathers

    @schrodingers_cat: With the nightmare that is Krysten Sinema, I’m becoming allergic to anyone with a Green/Rose background who hasn’t proven themselves to be hard realists about how legislative politics works in the real world.

  88. 88.

    laura

    @Geminid: these bigots wont be satisfied until Griswold is overturned. Agency is reserved for cis white males. The rest of us exist for their hate, lust and scorn.

  89. 89.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Uncle Cosmo: There are extensive interviews with Dick Carlson in The Lady And The Dale because he’s basically the reporter who hounded Elizabeth Carmichael in the 70’s.

    He’s a hideous person and you see immediately where Tucker got it.

  90. 90.

    Ken

    @UncleEbeneezer: I suppose I should insert a trigger warning.

    A few years ago, I read someone who said: The majority of incidents where men rape girls in bathrooms start with the door being opened and a drunken voice slurring “How’s daddy’s girl?”

  91. 91.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Benw: I think this is the right take.

    There’s no threat to women’s sports here. Like, trans women might beat some cis women in competition. Stick a woman in a men’s competition and you’ll see the same result. But trans women aren’t dominating women’s sports, and we have a lot of evidence about that.

  92. 92.

    PaulWartenberg

    But, at some point, if you alienate enough people,  don’t you run out of fools?

     

    The Far Right Noise Machine will NEVER go out of its way to alienate its audience of low-education, middle-income White Peeps. These are people of the flyover country. The common clay of the American self-worth. You know, morons.

  93. 93.

    ET

    Maybe Fox has done some viewer focus groups that show them that they and fools their  can keep insulting everyone, but their viewers won’t stop watching. That may be the only explanation.

  95. 95.

    Pete Mack

    Sports is the one place where transgender participation is really questionable. The statistics are just too far off: transgender victories are way too common for the relative number of participants.  Extreme cases imclude: (a) a victory in the very first bike race allowing transgender participants; (b) a track race where transgender women went 1-2.

    If this continues,  you can be sure that title IX will be invoked, and successfully.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: I would add that when spoke of bigots in the above comment, I was referring to the politicians and preachers trying to make political hay out of these issues, not people expressing good faith reservations about the ramifications for women’s sports.

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