Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Books are my comfort food!

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You cannot shame the shameless.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Schadenfreude Open Thread: Infrastructure Week, But On-Line!

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Infrastructure Week, But On-Line!

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Paul Waldman, at the Washington Post — “Trump considers adding a social media network to his list of failures”:

… It’s of course possible that Trumpbook, or Trmpr, or whatever it might be called, will turn out to be as much a figment of the imagination as the spectacular health-care plan Trump kept promising as president. But let’s assume for the moment that this actually comes to pass.

I for one look forward to watching it fail miserably…

For years, we heard that Trump might try to form his own media company, a cable network that would be everything Fox News is, but Trumpier. It never happened, probably because as soon as he started to consider what would be involved, he realized it was just too daunting a challenge.

It would certainly be simpler to start a social media platform, but it’s not something he has any experience in. For him to succeed in a new line of commerce he’d never been involved in before, he’d have to bring around him some smart, competent people who knew a lot about the technical and business aspects of this endeavor.

And his track record on hiring leaves something to be desired. His White House was without doubt the most incompetent in modern times: It leaked like a sieve, it could barely issue a news release that wasn’t full of typos, and he went through four chiefs of staff and seven communications directors.

So who’s going to create and run Trmpr? Jared Kushner? Good luck with that…

That’s why Twitter worked so well for him: Because it’s the place where journalists congregate (along with a few hundred million other people), he could leverage it to achieve much wider attention than simply speaking to the like-minded people who followed him there.

But a platform solely populated by his supporters will probably suffer the same problem sites such as Parler had: With only conservatives in attendance, even those who went there enthusiastically at the beginning didn’t find it all that compelling. If you own the libs on your social media site but no libs are there to hear it, have the libs actually been owned?…

So maybe his ambitions are modest. Rather than starting a platform that will succeed so spectacularly it will drive Twitter out of business and restore Trump to gold-plated glory, he may just want to grab whatever he can get while he can. A bottom-feeding operation meant to squeeze as much money as possible from his most gullible supporters would be completely in character…

Hey, remember Brad Parscale’s ‘Death Star’?…

*All* the Trumpist grifters are desperate, apparently:

Schadenfreude Open Thread: <em>Infrastructure Week, But On-Line!</em> - STOCKPILE

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    counterfactual

    I am not a web developer, but even I know Parsquale doesn’t have the chops to “design” a social media platform, and has never demonstrated the ability to coordinate a team that does.

    I hope that at least it’s an entertaining disaster.

    (first?)

  2. 2.

    Brachiator

    It’s been five years and people are still writing stories based on assumption that things Trump spokesmen say have any predictive value

    Normal people are still writing about Trump?

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    Been hoping for an update on Parscale. Word was he was planning a tell-all book. Needs to leave the Tulsa rally off his resume.

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    Twitter banning TFG was the best thing that happened to my daily outlook since he came down that escalator. Thank you, Jack!

  6. 6.

    Spanky

    Someone should definitely get a jump on this and register “Death Shart” as a trade name. Make a helluva band name

    ETA: Google wants to tell me all about depth charts.

  7. 7.

    Frankensteinbeck

    All I’m hearing is that Trump’s grift has run out.  His former followers may tell pollsters they love him, but they ain’t dolin’ out a dime or begging to hear him speak anymore.  He’s flailing.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Alexandra Petri got an exclusive sneak preview:

    The site will be hosted by what appears to be GeoCities, circa 2003. It will all be in Times New Roman, ALL CAPS, except during the periods when it is down, which will be most of the time, because no one involved in it has ever, technically, successfully run anything. Jared Kushner will read 25 books about how to run a website. None of them will contain any useful information, but this will not stop him from coming to every meeting brimming with unhelpful Big-Picture Ideas that will make the meeting run long and not result in any tangible improvements to the network.

    The design of the website will manage to evoke Nazism in a cryptic way, which will momentarily distract everyone’s attention from all the overt racism of what gets posted there when the site is up, which, again, will not be often.

    After that, it will always be down. Sometimes it will be down because Rudy Giuliani somehow spilled ketchup on the only server, and at other times it will be down because a very menacing bird flew into the office and everyone had to turn off the lights and electricity and sit very still until the bird went away, and at other times it will be down because the people involved forgot that they needed to renew the domain name every year and it has briefly become a site that sells a special kind of flexible seal that you can use to repair a boat.

  13. 13.

    Lapassionara

    @dmsilev: She is the best. She even worked in the “Jared read some books” bit. How did we all stay sane during the reign of error?

  14. 14.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @frosty:

    Where are you hearing that?

    It’s more a matter of negative news.  He’s not having rallies.  He’s made two appearances, and both were political C list stuff.  He’s trying to threaten the RNC for money.  We’re hearing no good news for him, no signs money is being dished out to him, only pie in the sky “I’m going to be big again someday!  You’ll see!” crap like this.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The vermin of the Village are such a collection of idiots, if they think that anything TFG proposes has the slightest chance of happening as predicted by his lackeys.

  22. 22.

    frosty

    @Frankensteinbeck: OK, got it. I gathered he wasn’t doing well, but I hadn’t extrapolated “flailing” from it yet. I’ll set the popcorn aside… or maybe get it out while I read the rest of Petri.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    There will be no advertising, only subscriptions and donations.

    “They’re not ads for My Pillow, they’re ‘independent endorsements.'”
    //

  25. 25.

    Cameron

    @Spanky: I dunno.  I could kinda go for seeing him in an orange jump suit, out there with the rest of the road crew mowing grass and picking up shit.

  26. 26.

    StringOnAStick

    I suspect that Jason Miller is just preparing the ground for what you just know is coming, which is TFG putting the touch on his fans to “help build out the last 5%” and ” become a founding member at the double plus platinum level, all for the low price of”, etc.  This doesn’t even rise to the level of vaporware.  TFG simply needed an ego boost and was probably fixated on losing his Twitter account so this is the lie they conjured to shut him up.

    Then again, maybe Putin will fund it.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    @dmsilev

    Jared Kushner will read 25 books about how to run a website. None of them will contain any useful information

    Will raise loot to purchase the NFT for Online Grifting for Dummies.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    @Major Major Major Major: Speaking of Parler…

    Ousted Parler CEO sues company, alleges stake was taken

    The founder and former CEO of right-leaning social media site Parler is suing the company he created and its controlling owner, political megadonor Rebekah Mercer, alleging his ownership stake was taken from him.

    John Matze, who founded Parler in 2018 with funding from Mercer, filed the suit in Nevada District Court on Monday. Matze has said he was forced out of the company in early February, just weeks after Parler became embroiled in controversy surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the site being knocked offline for more than a month.

    The suit, which was announced in a news release by Matze’s attorneys and uploaded online by the Las Vegas Sun, names Parler, Mercer, interim CEO Mark Meckler and investors Jeffrey Wernick and Dan Bongino as defendants, as well as a corporation believed to be controlled by Mercer.

    In the complaint, Matze alleges that Mercer and others plotted to steal Matze’s 40 percent stake in the company, later saying the fair market value for his stake was worth only $3. The “outlandish and arrogant theft” is “the product of a conspiratorial agreement,” the suit says.

    (emphasis added). By my math, that values the entire company at $7.50. Seems a bit low, surely they at least had a box or two of branded coffee mugs they could flip on eBay for fifty cents each.

  29. 29.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    So what’s the deal with Sydney Powell? She acted bug fuck nuts during the lawsuits last year and now she’s going, “Well, no reasonable person would believe my election claims” now that she’s being sued by Dominion. I don’t get it. She seemed completely unstable. Was it all just an act?

  30. 30.

    ET

    The only reason he wants to do this is because he is going through Twitter withdrawal after he got deplatformed. He doesn’t care if it is successful as long as he can type in capital letters, say he has millions of “followers” (even if many are bots/fake accounts), and he can make (and bank) a buck before it fails.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    @Frankensteinbeck: 

    All I’m hearing is that Trump’s grift has run out. His former followers may tell pollsters they love him, but they ain’t dolin’ out a dime or begging to hear him speak anymore. He’s flailing.

    Every last bit of this.

    I’m tempted to hire him for my first post-Covid backyard bbq. He can, um, just wander around aimlessly in the yard, kind of like he did for four years in the WH. Maybe tend the fire pit or poisonous viper pit or something…

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    @dmsilev: so it’ll basically be a McDonalds milkshake machine, then?  Down most of the time and spewing nasty, illness-causing bile for the remainder?

  34. 34.

    The Moar You Know

    Twitter worked for Former Guy because it was free. He’s fucking broke.  Why won’t the media admit this?

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    @Jeffro

    He’d just spend all his time inside the bouncy castle casino.

    Or at least until the mandatory 45 minutes on the grill for his steak has elapsed.

    :)

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    @Frankensteinbeck: exactly right.  If he was ‘robbed’…if there was actual fraud in the election…where’s the rallies and marches?  Why did all the GQP Senators and Reps drop their objections to the election and start doing relatively normal stuff (even if it is heinous) like…just voting in Congress?

    so trumpov got kicked off of Twitter…what’s taking so long for him to jump on some other platform or slap one together and RALLY THE FAITHFUL?

    LOL

    suckers…suckerrrrrrrrss…

    And they all know it, too.

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    @Spanky:

    @Cameron:

    I used to think I’d settle for him being tarred and feathered, and then being forced – however long it took – to walk across the country like that while being pelted by rotten tomatoes.

    After 1/6…nope, sorry, not nearly enough.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    Trumpbook, or Trmpr, or whatever it might be called

    “White Pages of America”

    Consumed with debate as to whether Ivanka is a 9.9 or a perfect 10.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @The Moar You Know:

    Probably because he’s good for business for them. Even though he abused them there was never a dull moment with him and his constant tweets made reporters’ jobs easy for them. Wouldn’t surprise me if they want him to have a comeback

  40. 40.

    Martin

    BTW, this is some kind of perverted VC pitch. Not that Trump will fund a social media platform, rather that he’ll lend his name to one currently being developed, or starting now by people who think his name has some value, or that his followers are adequate to get to profitability.

    Guessing some idiots asked ‘how quickly could we build a social media platform’ and some other idiots answered ‘2-3 months’, and this statement is intended to motivate some of his followers to get on the ball and build it. Decent chance Parler just rebrands.

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    So what’s the deal with Sydney Powell? She acted bug fuck nuts during the lawsuits last year and now she’s going, “Well, no reasonable person would believe my election claims” now that she’s being sued by Dominion. I don’t get it. She seemed completely unstable. Was it all just an act?

    I don’t know if even she knows, herself.

  42. 42.

    Martin

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think so. Social media has never really had to form a coherent and consistently implemented moderation/content policy. They did everything they could to duck it but Jan 6 forced their hand.

    They have some real problems now. Congress is coming. Willing to bet that before long social media accounts will need to have enough verified ID information for the FBI to find you.  It may be publicly anonymous, but a subpoena to the platform will spit out your ID. Normally ID graphs are regulated in various ways. The infiltration by russian bots needs to be addressed.

    You have other platforms pushing back in other ways – witness Apple choking off some of Facebooks ability to monetize and Amazon dumping Parler. Trump is much more of a threat than an opportunity to any major platform.

  43. 43.

    randy khan

    I don’t think the world is kind enough to make this happen.  It would make the Fyre Festival combined with Enron combined with those old wacky film clips of attempts at flying machines seem like a roaring success.  I would enjoy every second of it.

  44. 44.

    Mary G

    I’m old enough to remember Sarah Palin trying this and failing. TFG has no chance. She was a rocket scientist compared to him.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:

    A few problems.

    He’d have to catch a sparrow. Not gunna happen.

    He’d have to find a curtain rod. Not gunna happen.

    He’d have to find fixings for the fire. Not gunna happen.

    He’d have to learn how to start a fire. Not gunna happen.

    If he got this far, which he won’t, he’d get to learn that clothes burn when fire is applied.

    The only point in his favor is that the word on the street is that his dick is so tiny that his suit on fire might not hurt it for several minutes.

    So the one thing he wouldn’t have to worry about anymore is his dick being too small. He’d still be cold, naked and hungry though

    And where is he going to find a big enough cardboard box to fit his very undeserved ego in?

  48. 48.

    Rich Gardner

    As far as Trump hiring good people goes, the younger George Bush told people during his 2000 campaign that he’d get smart people to advise him, so his being kinda dim wouldn’t really matter. Jared Kushner chose Peter Navarro as the Trump Administration’s economic adviser because Kushner browsed books on Amazon concerning China and was really charmed by the title of Navarro’s book “Death by China.” Similarly, Donald Trump, when he was president, described Dr. Scott Atlas as “one of the great experts of the world.” Hmm, was Atlas re-hired by the university he used to work at? People who aren’t all that bright, i.e., Trump & company, can’t distinguish between charlatans and actual experts.​​​

  50. 50.

    laura

    @counterfact:

    I am not a web developer, but even I know Parsquale doesn’t have the chops to “design” a social media platform, and has never demonstrated the ability to coordinate a team that does.         It’s a series of tubes – how hard can it be? If he needs an assist, word on the street is Barron is good at “the cyber.”

  51. 51.

    ruemara

    Oh, goody, open thread. So, I’ve been working on a little project which is a table read workshop for writers from underrepresented minorities – BIPOC, POC, LGBTQIA+ & Disabled. It just seemed like most of the table reads I attended didn’t have many of these people on, acting or directing and that seemed like a need. So I created a space. We’re having our first table read of a brilliant movie script I read last year called Driftwood. Set in Hawai’i, it’s the story of a native born Hawaiian young man, his found family, the girl he tries to rescue from herself & what happens next. It looks at a different side of Hawai’i than most people know. I was really on the fence about doing it, since the writer is white and male (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but his story was so completely endorsed by native Hawaiian actors and people, I felt it was ok as the mission is also stories from the communities. The cast is amazing, it’s basically watching a live play on zoom &, uh, I’m directing. Plus acting a few bit roles but, mostly directing & fretting. Show is this Saturday, 3/27 at 2pm PST. You can watch the trailer here, https://youtu.be/vX8tiFrNxxQ and if you’re interested in attending, reserve a seat at The Rising Workshop / performances and click “reserve a seat” to be added the mailing list. No, I don’t send out any emails that market anything. I do send out an email with the link the day before the performance as well as the link to the script so you can read along at home. Hope some of you can attend. It’s a heartrending story and once again, the cast just kills it.

  52. 52.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Martin:

    Willing to bet that before long social media accounts will need to have enough verified ID information for the FBI to find you. It may be publicly anonymous, but a subpoena to the platform will spit out your ID.

    I’ll take that bet.

  53. 53.

    Major Major Major Major

    I’ll toss up a Mastodon clone and call it whatever Trump wants if it’ll make me some real money tbh.

    OT. This weekend I went for a walk into the park and ran into some birders watching an owl. We chatted some—they’d just gotten into it during the pandemic and I said I’d been thinking about it but didn’t know how to start. So they recommended some stuff. I now have a decent pair of binoculars with a tripod mount and a smartphone attachment and plan to go poke around the park this weekend! There’s a neat app, Merlin, that helps you ID birds.

  55. 55.

    ruemara

    @O. Felix Culpa: Awesome! Also forgot to say we are looking for next month’s scripts. It’s looking like we might have to have work written by me and it’s the Rising Workshop, not the Ruemara Workshop. Any writers who feel like submitting, please go ahead and shoot me an email. On the website email. My personal email is at 1k unread and rising.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    @Major Major Major Major

    One of the ‘always plenty of them in the window’ items in the continuously Going Out of Business stores which used to line less desirable midtown blocks along Fifth Avenue – later pushed west to Seventh Avenue – was binoculars.

    Last time I was in Manhattan it seemed to be phones and phone accessories from subsidiaries of Nocturnal Aviation.

    ;)

  58. 58.

    frosty

    @Major Major Major Major: I went down the slippery slope to birding on our Road Trip last year. Here’s some suggestions. Download the ABA checklist to keep track. I printed it and put it in a binder then went back and marked every one I remembered seeing. I’m up to 110 now

    Cornell’s eBird can build a list for you and record what you see. Old stuff too, like “Osprey, Maryland, 1970s”.

    Merlin at its best is like having someone looking over your shoulder. At its worst (today!) it’s “WTF!! That bird is in Canada, not New Mexico!”

    eBird also shows you hotspots where other birders have added their checklists. It helps too, when you can see that no one has ever seen the bird you ID’d it’s a clue that you goofed.
    Anyway, long comment. If nothing else it’s a good excuse to get out for a walk.

  59. 59.

    mrmoshpotato

    It will be hosted on the Sun!  And you can only join if you throw yourself into the Sun!

  63. 63.

    frosty

    @NotMax: @Major Major Major Major:   I’ve got Nikons the same size. A bit more than $14.99 but easy to carry and they suit me. No need for a tripod yet, the dang birds won’t sit still long enough!

    This could be a good subject for a post on a slow Sunday. Betty Cracker is into it as well.

  65. 65.

    Amir Khalid

    Trmpr (hey, great name!) happening is, I think, even iffier than Trump anointing the Republican party’s kings in in ’22, or running again in ’24. I think jackals are looking forward to the comedy of blunders that trying to stand up Trmpr will bring about. And to the moment it expires with a feeble whimper.

  66. 66.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Major Major Major Major: When we can gather in groups again I recommend going on local Audubon trips. They are wonderful, especially for beginners since the group will take you places where there are a bunch of birds, they will find them (and put a scope on them),  and they can ID what they are looking at.

    I know Central Park has a major birder presence (which I learned of through the Saga of the Pale Male). Birding is wonderful since it can be done literally almost anywhere outside, and if you have a guide (or guide group) you will see more and learn faster. Everyone I have met through our local Audubons is very nice (not snooty with beginners), and many have scientific backgrounds. (I say Audubons because Mendocino has 2 groups in the county, since the coast and the inland valleys are so different)

    Also, pay attention to sound. Bird calls will alert you to birds being present, although they are still hard to locate since they seem to be able to throw their voices. I guess that is a protection from predators, but it doesn’t help birders.

  67. 67.

    Gvg

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):It looks like she is in big legal trouble and doesn’t actually have any good defenses. So she is trying out silly defenses and looking like a stupid clown bad lawyer. I don’t think she has the money for good lawyers either.

    Unfortunately it looks to me like all her legal problems are money not potential jail but at least she has torched any good reputation and shouldn’t be getting any well paying clients after this. I am not a lawyer though, so I could be wrong.

  70. 70.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    It’s been five years and people are still writing stories based on assumption that things Trump spokesmen say have any predictive value

    Normal people are still writing about Trump?

    No. No one normal thinks about him at all any more, much less writes about him.

    D’inesh D’felon probably thinks about him all the time, and people of that nature.

    Criminals and mentally defective pervs.

    People like that.

  72. 72.

    J R in WV

    @Jeffro:

    so trumpov got kicked off of Twitter…what’s taking so long for him to jump on some other platform or slap one together and RALLY THE FAITHFUL?

    LOL

    suckers…suckerrrrrrrrss…

    And they all know it, too.

    You don’t suppose…

    John wouldn’t let him…

    It’s like the bartender, telling the drink passed out at the far end of the bar…   “I don’t care where you spend the rest of the night, but it can’t be here!”

    He can’t come here, right?!!!?!!!

    Well, if he tries it, instant pie safe, right? Right!

    .                        ;~)

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