In my Trumpy little corner of the world, you can chart the stages of grief among the local MAGAs in the Letters to the Editor section. I’ve smugly watched them cycle through denial and despair and anger and depression while hoping for eventual silence. Increasingly, I’m getting my wish.
In a column yesterday, WaPo’s Philip Bump charts — literally — the astonishing collapse of The Former Guy as a media sensation:
For about half an hour Tuesday, a former president of the United States appeared on television to offer his unfiltered assessment of the state of American politics, of foreign policy and of the various controversies flitting around the political world. You probably missed it, because it was Donald Trump offering the same pudding of rhetoric we’ve heard so often to an anchor on the far-right network Newsmax. It was to presidential appearances what a pre-dusk set at the Indiana State Fair would be to Kid Rock.
I heard part of Trump’s spiel and thought about highlighting the ways in which his nonsensical claims about the 2020 election being stolen (it wasn’t) have evolved slightly. I’ve written before about how the Republican Party has seized on the idea that changes made to election processes before the contest were unconstitutional, as a way of implying wrongdoing by Democrats without embracing Trump’s obviously untrue claims about fraud. So Trump has seized on those, too, presenting them as another part of his pride-preserving all-you-can-eat buffet of dishonesty.
That highlighted turn of phrase — mwah! Chef’s kiss!
As for the entirety of the piece and its conclusion, that Trump is an increasingly irrelevant media has-been whose antics entertain only a dwindling pool of dead-enders, I fervently hope that proves true over the long haul and that Republicans’ decision to double down on Trumpism proves catastrophic.
But like someone screaming NO! HE’S STILL ALIVE, AND HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU! at the protagonists toward the end of a cheesy slasher film, I lack confidence that the beast has been sufficiently dispatched. It’s a form of PTSD maybe.
Open thread.
Price shocks and plan choice in West Virginia
hells littlest angel
Michael Meyers and Jason worked to get where they got. When Trump dies, he’ll just be dead.
cope
Me too because I know the really, really good scary horror suspense slasher movies do a very effective job of making the audience really believe the worst is over before springing the huge nasty surprise at the end.
However, that’s in the movies and I am growing more hopeful that the orange monster cyborg alien psychopath is really fading into irrelevance.
WaterGirl
T**** was on TV yesterday? What channel?
Soonergrunt
@hells littlest angel: chef_kiss.gif
Geo Wilcox
The thing about the 2020 voting changes is that they were in all sorts of states: blue, purple, and red.
MisterForkbeard
@WaterGirl: Newsmax.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Bump says TFG was on Newsmax and notes that niche network has lost about half its viewers from its post-election high. I’m watching less news these days, but last night we did watch a good bit of it, and if they mentioned Turnip’s TV appearance, I missed it. Good!
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Newsmax. That was part of the point of the article, that the only TV channel he can reliably appear on is a tiny fringe operation with a small fraction of the reach that Fox has.
Leto
@WaterGirl: One that no sane person would watch. The fact that it wasn’t recognized that he was on any media platform is a good thing. Treat him like the move It monster: ignore him, deprive him of his “power”. Treat his minions like the worthless Confederate poop chair that they are.
Salty Sam
Damn! That left a mark!
WereBear
tRump is like a stubborn yeast infection or the cough that makes the doctor frown at the x-ray and order another round of antibiotics.
Hard to kill, when some of the body has thrown in their lot with the enemy.
Joe Falco
@cope:
So President-elect Ted Cruz in ’24?
p.a.
Open thread, so:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2021/04/06/meet-the-creepy-men-behind-the-qanon-hoax/
WereBear
And all the “reprogrammable meatbags” as the Professional Left podcast puts it will turn on tRump as he gets more and more loser stink, and the rest of us will show them evidence of their words and emails and get a blank look back.
“No, I was never that big on him, you misunderstood.”
MJS
I’m okay if he sticks around, at least in Republican circles, all the way to 2024. Anyone who thinks they’re going to run for the Republican nomination will at a minimum have to kiss his ring, and thereby be covered in his stench, or wait him out to make sure he isn’t running. Either one works to our advantage. The ass kissing DeSantis and others will be doing will likely be occurring during one or more Trump trials, which will make it even better.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I see Junior cited more than I see TFG. That’s the power of kicking him off social media, which is the format he’s most comfortable with. He can’t say anything sensible, so the more sustained forms are useless to him. Also, I think MAGAs respond better to emotionally charged social media posts.
Leto
In other laughable news, Rudi-patooti’s kid, Andrew, is planning on running for NY gov. I guess his White House “sports liaison” experience is enough to vault him into the lead among the GQP.
lowtechcyclist
My take is that Trumpism has metastasized to a point where it doesn’t need Trump anymore. He gave the GQP the OK to go all in on racism, sexism, authoritarianism, hatred, and grievance. That’s not going away.
Best thing the Dems can do is what they’re doing: make things good enough for most people that the GQP culture of grievance starts seeming small and silly to most people.
(Feels good to be able to say that the “best thing the Dems can do is what they’re doing.” I could get used to this.)
NotMax
Next stop, local cable access channel.
“They bumped reruns of Ugly George for this? Where’s that damn remote?”
//
Snarki, child of Loki
“No, I was never that big on him, you misunderstood.”
Which is WHY it was important that MAGAts needed to have a big “T” branded on their foreheads, as indelible proof of their allegiance.
Barbara
Not thinking about Trump day in and day out is one of the true blessings of 2021 (post January 21). But the toxic stew Trump unleashed remains with a force of its own and it’s going to take all we have to get beyond it.
randy khan
@NotMax:
Ugly George. That’s a deep cut.
trollhattan
@Leto:
Speaking of has-beens and wannabes, Trump has perhaps burnished the Bush family name sufficiently for Gen 4 to arise.
Fuck me sideways. Goddamn Texas.
WaterGirl
@MisterForkbeard: @Betty Cracker:
I had no idea Newsmax was a TV channel; I guess I thought of them as an internet-only thing.
Happy to hear that he was most ignored!
NotMax
Palm Beach Boulevard: “I’m still big. It’s the megaphones that got small.”
//
Barbara
@Leto: Andrew Giuliani is an entitled asshole who apparently can’t find his way forward in any world that doesn’t give deference to his last name.
sdhays
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I saw someone, I think maybe Josh Marshall, noting how Twitter’s 140/240 character limit was TFG’s perfect format. Now that he’s reduced to press releases that he has to rely on people who still have Twitter accounts to put out, no one wants to wade through that shit.
It’s sobering just how much that Twitter account made him possible. Without Twitter, I’m not sure he ever would have made the jump to politics. He’d probably still be hosting a shitty game show.
randy khan
Open thread, so: My county just opened up vaccinations to my priority group (the last priority group, so barely a priority group at all, but I’m not complaining because I know all the people in line in front of me belonged there). I put in my bid for an appointment within about an hour of when they opened up (I know this because I’ve been, uh, refreshing that page a lot), so fingers crossed.
Best guess based on my county’s vaccination dashboard is that they will schedule my appointment in about a week. Fingers crossed.
And at least one part of the system is working very efficiently – I got automatic notifications that my registration was complete via email, on my home phone, and on my mobile (both a call and a text) within a minute of clicking the submit button.
JanieM
@cope: Not a big slasher/horror movie fan, but I did see Wait Until Dark as a teenager. I remember waiting in line for the previous showing to end, and all of us laughing scornfully when we heard the whole audience cry out. We were sure we weren’t going to be taken by surprise like that. Heh. It all ended well, but I’m not sure where we are in the plot right now.
Salty Sam
This is what I suspected would happen after the election, even though the Big Lie and the Capitol Insurrection were nerve-wracking- I suffered my share of PTSD, thinking “OMG, the monster will never die!”.
But I take comfort now in watching TFG fade into obscurity. I love this analogy of General Decker (Rod Steiger)in “Mars Attacks”: https://youtu.be/W208Y8etcj4
Brachiator
I don’t know if Trump might make a comeback. I would like to say that I don’t care. But, I think it was a huge mistake that the Republicans did not join with the Democrats to vote to convict Trump and to make it impossible for him to ever hold office again.
This is bad for democracy.
Also, I will just note that the European allies thought that they had defeated Napoleon the first time around. And he rallied support for another try after seemingly being totally vanquished. You always have to make sure that a monster is done away with. Stake through the heart. Burn the grave. Scatter the ashes.
But I am more pissed off that the GOP keeps Trump’s lies alive. And that a good chunk of the population is eager to dump democracy if the right white savior comes along.
And I am angry as hell that some Republican state legislatures are doing all they can to make it legal to steal a presidential election through voter suppression and voter nullification tactics.
They want to make it as easy as possible for the next monster to rise up and take over.
Eric S.
OT: I got my Fauci Ouchie yesterday. A one-and-done J&J jab. The pharmacy I went to was the furthest from a model of efficiency that you could imagine but it’s done. The only side effect so far is minor arm soreness.
PS: I posted in the I Got The Shot thread too.
WereBear
@JanieM: One of my favorites! I was already an Audrey Hepburn fan, but it made me an Alan Arkin fan, too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The best part about watching TFG fade is that you know it hurts him
Patricia Kayden
Good
sdhays
This reflects my sense too. TFG is personally fading, but will remain a problem for the GQP for awhile yet. What remains to be seen is how much of the hatred and grievance that he activated continue to vote for Republicans without him on the ticket. If they stay home if TFG isn’t on the ticket (as they did in 2018 and, apparently, in the Georgia recall), the GQP really is screwed.
Redshift
Awesome piece. And at the “hell no, I’m not clicking” end of the WaPo spectrum, McMegan has a column entitled “An extra half-million Americans died in 2020. How much can we blame the virus itself?”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump now has to compete with the likes of Gaetz who can out stupid and out sleaze Trump in his sleep and Ted Cruz who so obnoxious even Cruz’s own supporters hate him.
waspuppet
You know how you get used to something, but once in a while you realize “Wait, that is a totally f*cked-up thing to get used to?”
This country managed a safe, secure election in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, has helped develop several safe, effective vaccines in a mind-bending amount of time and has put together a huge effort to get people vaccinated. These are tremendous success stories — largely AMERICAN success stories — and the people who pay themselves tremendous amounts of money to cover What Is Happening In America Today will not call these things what they are, because about 35% of this country is actively rooting for American failure so it would hurt their feelings.
That’s what I’m realizing today.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. For a toxic narcissist who fills the empty void where his soul should be by flaunting power and receiving adulation, relative powerlessness and obscurity must be the worst punishment of all. Good!
NickM
Anecdote rather than data, but I drove through hundreds of miles of rural North Carolina last week and saw fewer than 10 Trump signs/flags total. From my previous experience driving in similar places in 2020, it wouldn’t have been unusual to see 10 signs in a mile or two. It struck me as a good sign (no pun intended).
Mike in NC
Over the past couple of years, the newspapers we see have mostly given up printing that garbage entirely, since 9 times out of 10 they are from wingnuts regurgitating FOX News propaganda.
LurkerNoLonger
It just goes to show how Twitter and 24 hour news were propping this guy up. Without them he’s nothing.
Benw
@Brachiator: agreed, the GQP is the monster. TFG was the blend of toxicity, racism, and pseudo-fame that pushed them over the top in 2016. But the GQP has openly ceased to govern, and is just trying to rule for ruling’s sake. They will absolutely end democracy if they think they need to
Cameron
I think the monster is the Republican Party. Trump is a symptom; he isn’t the disease. There should be no let-up on exposing and expunging the toxic Republican horseshit and the people who spread it around. Republicans need to go the way of the Whigs, or at least have their level of relevance reduced to that of the Libertarian Party
ETA: I see others have gotten there before me. That’s what happens when I think fairly common knowledge is some profound insight I’ve had.
Betty
@Geo Wilcox: In Pennsylvania, they were enacted by Republicans who now cannot wait to reverse themselves.
AnotherBruce
@Brachiator: Yes this, but DC is a small village. They rarely kick anybody to the curb. I’m betting some quatloos that Matt Gaetz keeps his chair. The kickers to the curb are afraid of getting kicked themselves.
NotMax
@Cameron
At least the Know Nothings were upfront about it.
:)
MattF
I’m also unsure. The R party, like TFG, has a limited behavioral repertoire. I can see TFG running again in 2024 because the R party simply has no answer to his appeal.
tokyokie
@JanieM: When I saw Wait Until Dark, I did so with my friend Greg, who was one of those who always knew when and what the movie surprises were. So he was sitting with his feet braced against the rocking back of the seat in front of him, and when the surprise came, the person in front of him jumped out of her seat, causing Greg to lose balance and fall to the floor. He was literally rolling on the floor laughing. And because Greg is a big guy with a high-pitched laugh, he had me laughing as well (although I remained seated). The rest of the audience thought we were crazy.
Ken
Same here. Now I know how Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells felt during the first season, when the theme song was “and the rest”.
Almost Retired
I have reached the blissful state where I often can go days without thinking of TFG or his vile spawn. And on an unrelated note, according to this morning’s Los Angeles Times, there are shots going begging in the super Trumpy and vaccine-resistant county of Kern, two hours away. A carload of my oldest son’s friends left this morning for shots (and Basque food) in Bakersfield. For now, they’re being distributed on a walk-in basis.
Redshift
A heads-up in case this gets enough traction for anyone else to see it: Last night someone on my twitter forwarded a tweet of “OMG, Biden is going to restart border wall construction! Be outraged!” With a link to a Washington Times story. And it just quoted “restart construction to ‘plug gaps'”, which probably means it’s ordinary maintenance, which isn’t wall construction any more than it was when TFG made that claim.
Nonetheless I ended up in a brief and very strange conversation with the National Butterfly Center twitter account (which may well be a fake troll account), offering arguments like “yeah, they’re a right-wing source, but that means they could have sources who were ‘in the room’ from ICE and CPB” and “we’ve known all along this would happen.”
WaterGirl
@randy khan: The followup communication is impressive! I will bet a nickel that you will be at least setting up the appointment by the end of the week.
smith
The events of 1/6 notwithstanding, I always thought that the support for Trump the man was a mile wide and an inch deep. It was the same kind of tribal signalling as proclaiming Jaysus as your personal Lord and Savior. It shows you belong, but doesn’t necessarily mean you’d do anything in particular as a result of your supposed belief.
The Dark Avenger
@WaterGirl: Newsmax.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: Good news! And interesting.
I wonder what percentage of that 9% came from Independents vs. Republicans.
NorthLeft12
I love to hear that doofus Deadbeat referred to as TFG. Hopefully that will be his epitaph……very shortly.
I know that the real President seems to have popularized that moniker, but has anyone taken credit for starting it’s use?
The Dark Avenger
@Almost Retired: I just got mine yesterday here in Porterville, also a center of available appointments. Turns out my in-laws already got theirs as well. They aren’t Okies, FWIW.
feebog
Surprised that no one has mentioned the distinct possibility that Trump will be back in the news in a big way within a few months. Pleading not guilty to election fraud and obstruction charges in a Fulton County courthouse. I know there are a lot of juicers who think he will skate as he has his entire life, but the charges in Georgia are quite serious, carry a hefty jail time, and should be a prosecutors dream.
Brachiator
@AnotherBruce:
Many in the Village, including the press, are cynics who believe that all politicians are the same and that the Establishment will always endure. They also foolishly believe that they themselves are untouchable.
They barely protested when Trump called them all fake news. They will be shocked if the next monster throws reporters into prison and the public applauds.
randy khan
@Redshift:
I’d say 20-40%. The rest are the fault of the Trump Administration.
WaterGirl
@Redshift: Jen Psaki addressed that in her press briefing on Tuesday.
Benw
@Cameron: maybe we’re all stable geniuses!!
NotMax
@tokyokie
Heh. Nice.
Even when one knows it is coming, having seen the film previously, there’s one particular scene in Play Misty for Me which still packs a shock.
Redshift
@trollhattan:
Hmm, maybe. P was always talked about as the next generation prospect even during the worst of W’s administration.
It would be pretty ironic if he goes nowhere not because of W’s toxic legacy, but because the party has gotten too Q-and-TFG to elect a Bush.
Redshift
@WaterGirl:
Oh, cool, I’ll have to look that up.
different-church-lady
@sdhays: Twitter relies on the dopamine hit. Between the psychology and the chemistry the drug get injected straight into your emotions, bypassing all the reason circuits. It’s like mainlining bullshit directly into your bloodstream. You can’t compusively reload a press release a get a hit, so it’s never gonna be the same thing.
Mike in NC
After we moved into our present development, we were introduced one day to an older couple from NYC who seemed normal enough. Then I spotted a stack of NewsMax magazines on their coffee table and just wanted to slowly back up to reach the front door and flee.
SiubhanDuinne
@JanieM:
Never saw the movie, but I saw the original Broadway play in 1966 with Lee Remick. It terrified me so much that I could never bring myself to watch the film, although I’ve seen everything else Audrey Hepburn was ever in.
WaterGirl
@Redshift:
Search for border wall at this link to the transcript.
NotMax
@feebog
Months? That case will be dragged out for years, making Jarndyce v. Jarndyce look like a legal sprint..
artem1s
@Leto:
Always Be Grifting. He hasno more chance of getting past the primaries than his dad would at this stage. But he can still raise a bundle for his daddy’s defense fund from the rubes who voted for 45.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh, you really should see it, she is magnificent. It is scary, though. I think it’s the only time I ever screamed in a theater.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Could someone please jog my vodka-dimmed memory? Does TFG also mean “That Effin’ Guy”? If not, why not?
Back to ordering popcorn for the Gaetz Follies.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I hate scary movies, but I saw Wait Until Dark when I was a kid. It was terrifying! Though not as scary as The Birds.
But both were excellent movies, and I would watch Wait Until Dark again, for sure. Charade was also scary, but very good.
Apparently love for Audrey Hepburn! > dislike of scary movies.
zhena gogolia
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
It can mean whatever you want it to mean, but it’s based on Biden saying “the former guy.”
I love Biden so much more than I realized I would.
Baud
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
Former. Although yours works too.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I have seen Charade about 1000 times, including the first time in a drive-in when it first came out. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn — how could it be better?
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Rotating tag nominee!
NotMax
@artem1s
Looking forward to the announcement being made to the press bused in to stand in front of the Waldorf-Astoria Pest Control shop.
//
Mike in NC
Read something online yesterday about the Orange Clown calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola over the GQP shenanigans in Georgia. He’s seated at his desk and there is a bottle of Diet Coke just barely visible on the corner of the desk. Standing next to him is faithful servant and go-fer Stephen Miller, unemployable and broken. Several commenters noted his resemblance to Gollum.
artem1s
@trollhattan:
There is always a back up plan with the Bush Crime Family. JEB couldn’t bring home the WH in 2016 so they decided to let the 27% crazy-factor run amok for four years knowing it would make more moderate GOPers opine for W levels of incompetence and corruption. Barb is cackling in hell and rubber her hands in glee over the chaos created by 45.
JanieM
@zhena gogolia:
Me too.
Sasha
The beast is never fully dispatched. We all thought after WWII that that brand of fascistic white supremacy was fully dispatched too. That’s why the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Ken
@Mike in NC: More Grima Wormtongue than Gollum, surely?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Don’t be so sure, they will rollover and play dead for the next despot. Like most of the Indian media has (English and Hindi language news media is by far the worst) for Modi.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Movie overdid it with the theme music, playing it ad nauseum.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
They will blame be Democrats for not stopping the despot.
Roger Moore
A key thing that’s happened to Trump is that being in power hurt his communication skills. When he was just a TV personality or a candidate, he had to compete for attention. He did that by developing a crude but unique communication style that drew media attention. His insults were nasty but often included just enough insight to be memorable, and he could pack a lot into a 140 character tweet.
Once he was a serious candidate, and especially once he was in office, he could command attention just by who he was. He got more and more used to being able to blab out whatever passed through his mind and have it take over the news of the day, and his skill at attracting attention atrophied. Now he’s back out of office and he can’t demand attention because of who he is, and he no longer has the ability to earn attention through skillful manipulation of the media. He’s not getting the attention he craves, and he doesn’t understand why.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Not a Mancini fan, huh?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: That’s the schtick of the so called liberals in the Indian media. Why is the opposition so ineffective, and why is Rahul Gandhi is so awful is the constant refrain
ETA: The likes of Ram Guha, P B Mehta, etc, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai etc.
ETA2: Did anyone read the garbage fire of a column by Barkha Dutt in WashPost?
zhena gogolia
Aaron Rupar has a strong stomach, and he’s been watching a “comedy” show starring Greg Gutfeld that Fox has on now. I can’t even take 30 seconds of it.
Redshift
@NorthLeft12:
Not that I know of. Another delicious thing about it is Biden beating TFG at his own game, assigning nicknames to people, in part because he isn’t trying to be cruel and belittling, just not wanting to give unwarranted attention.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I hear he’s also having difficulty finding children who will mow his lawn for free.
Ken
@zhena gogolia: That’s on Fox News? I suppose after all the court cases, they don’t see any point in pretending they’re anything other than entertainment.
Patricia Kayden
@cope: Republicans will have to let the orange monster fade. We will see if they can let him go. It’s not as if he actually gives a dang about the Republican Party or anything that isn’t named Donald J. Trump.
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
Is George P. Bush by any chance the son of ¡JEB! Bush? As in, the one who hides his Colombian middle name?
zhena gogolia
@Ken:
Yep, Fox News.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/actual-comedians-roast-greg-gutfelds-new-fox-news-comedy-show
different-church-lady
The key to understanding whether Trumpism will rise again is to remember that Trump is not the product: he’s a pusher and also a user. The junk existed before he came on the scene. He merely made it more pure and more potent, and got it distributed wider and faster. The next time it happens it might not be called Trumpism, but at its chemical basis it will be the same junk.
schrodingers_cat
@sdhays: Yeah and BS from Vt and his mouthpiece in the Congress, Bro Khanna want TFG to get his soapbox again.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
They’ve tried having a comedy show before. It failed miserably.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: “Tragedy is when someone else gets to be a human being. Comedy is when I throw them into an open sewer.”
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
The very same. Mom’s name is literally Columba.
schrodingers_cat
Oh and from the great socialist mecca of Denmark, which all the brocialists aspire to and tell us unwashed masses that we should too.
Villago Delenda Est
Or, as Danny DeVito put it in Ruthless People, a banquet of bullshit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Yes, one of the “little brown ones.”
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Got the feeling that by the time the complete soundtrack was put together even Henry was sick of it.
:)
Run hot and cold on Audrey, too often not finding her, for want of a better word, engaging. Like she’s acting from across the room, or atop a pedestal. YMMV.
Did enjoy How to Steal a Million, at the time anyway. Also Paris When It Sizzles, if only for William Holden’s campy turn as a vampire.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, right wingers don’t want to laugh. They want to hate.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: And even after having your insightful observatons read to him, he still won’t get it.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Her clothes in Charade were worth the price of admission all by themselves.
I couldn’t get through Paris When It Sizzles, though.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
This Gutfeld just oozes malice and hate.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia:
For modern conservatives, malice and hate are the funniest things there can be.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Yup yup. Second middle name, Garnica, has been banished.
(Personally, if it came down to a made at gunpoint choice, I’d keep the Garnica and ditch the Prescott.)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Sounds like he’s a frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
It still amazes that his own grandfather, the famously kind and gentle George HW, called him and his siblings that.
Kathleen
@Baud: But their favorite comedy is Le Mis
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Higher on the z.g. fashion scale than Grace Kelly’s in Rear Window or Lauren Bacall’s in Designing Woman?
;)
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I don’t think it could be better!
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: I watched maybe four minutes of Gutfield yesterday? Just to make sure it was awful. It was awful.
VOR
Guy down the block finally took down his Trump flag after January 20th. Now he’s flying the Blue Lives Matter flag. His son used to have the Stars and Bars on his pickup. They aren’t gone, just lowering their profile a bit.
Baud
@VOR:
*Except Capitol Police
WaterGirl
@Baud: #Not All Blue Lives Matter
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
You’ve never seen Scream of Fear, have you?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
#OnlyLivesThatMatterToMeMatter
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
I mean, it’s right there in the title.
NotMax
@Baud
Those aren’t ‘real’ police. Jack Webb never glorified them.
//
Ken
@SiubhanDuinne: Is that the William Castle one where a character breaks the third wall, telling the audience the monster is loose in the theater and they have to scream to save themselves
Edit: Google informs me that was The Tingler.
StringOnAStick
@Patricia Kayden: If you go read No More Mr Niceblog on this topic, it’s not nearly as good as it looks. He’s a bit of a doom poster, but he’s got a graph of the R vs. D identification and some history to support his thesis. Bottom line is we can’t let up, even for a second.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
It’s actually not a bad column; she has been surprisingly good on COVID. She runs down the official death stats and shows how increased deaths in areas not obviously tied to COVID can still be a result of the pandemic. She also discusses some things like suicides being lower than 2019 even though people predicted they would increase and why the response to the pandemic (e.g. increased unemployment payments) might have helped.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
Scream of Fear is a 1961 film with Susan Strasberg. I saw it only once, half a century ago or more. I recall it as being quite good, but there’s this one moment…
NotMax
@Ken
Terrible movie. Less creepy than marshmallows suspended in a Jell-O mold.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I too cringed at the headline, but then I remembered that nowhere near 500,000 Americans died of COVID in 2020, since the number we’re all familiar with is as of today, and while it may not feel like it, 2020 is long over, lol.
She’s actually improved a lot over the years, especially since she moved to the op-ed page. I assume low throughput and intense editing deserve partial credit, though like many internet denizens she’s also mellowed with age.
Beautifulplumage
@Redshift: Wonkette is posting the press conference each day since the “news” channels stop carrying it. Not sure if they stopped because is was boring, or that it makes the WHCA journos look like the useless hacks they are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
did you have a Percepto! in your La-Z-Boy when you watched it, though?
germy
frosty
@NotMax: He won’t get any money if he ditches the Prescott.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think the ambiguity is part of what people like about saying TFG.
Uncle Cosmo
…until the case is turned over to the jury. Where inevitably will squat one or more righty-whiteys who wouldn’t convict their mother-fucking champion of misdemeanor assault even with a video of him pumping a full
clipmagazine of hollow-points into a little old lady in broad daylight.karen marie
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): That’s how I read it.
SFAW
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin):
To me, it does. At least, that’s my intent when I type it. No disrespect to my President, of course. [In that he was the one who popularized its use.]
Ruckus
@Joe Falco:
Does any actual, real human being actually like little teddy?
From all outside appearances it appears the answer is NFW.
So, yes he likely will be the candidate.
germy
https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2021/04/matt-gaetz-donald-trump-statement/
SFAW
@feebog:
A little-known provision of the new GA Anti-Voting Rights Act is that the lege can override a non-federal jury decision if they don’t like the decision. I don’t recall if they can also replace all the jurors with Margarine Twitler Greene.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
Brian Beutler dug up an old tweet of his own that sums up Gutfield
I remember channel-surfing years ago and stumbling across the guy who used to be Dennis Miller on what used to be the O’Reilly program. Miller made a reference to “Grandma Pelosi” and then the muse of comedy came to him a second too late and he smirked and said, “Or is it Grandpa Pelosi?”. O’Reilly doubled over in his chair with glee and said, “Wait, wait, what was that Dennis?” and Miller repeated that nugget of comedic genius and O’Reilly’s off-camera crew dutifully provided a laugh track.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Ted is the plastic seaweed in the political bento box.
Albeit not as attractive.
:)
Betty Cracker
@smith: Never thought of it in precisely that way, but it’s an apt comparison.
@StringOnAStick: Steve can be a bit of an Eeyore, but he’s usually right, damn him! My happiness at the news was dampened upon reading it in the original Gallup. It’s better to be ahead than behind, obviously, but given all this [gestures vaguely around at rubble], I would expect current margins to exceed those of 2012, FFS…
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@zhena gogolia: You’re short changing Walter Matthau!
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s good to remember that somebody else often writes the headlines. The subhead, “The pandemic had ripple effects that went far beyond the virus itself,” does a better job of giving the real flavor of the column.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
The last monster won, so conservatives think that was a mandate that their racism and monetary bullshit is a winner. We can win but we can’t stop building on what we’ve accomplished so far.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@frosty: I always thought his P was for Pierce, but I guess old Doro (Mrs Prescott) was still alive when he was born, and she was by all accounts a fierce creature. Even Bar was intimidated by her, as I recall.
brendancalling
Open thread, so here’s some personal news that’s unrelated to Trump’s downfall.
I just accepted a part-time position coaching middle school boys’ track, and also took on a position working with struggling students and English language learners at an academic day camp that runs over spring break. So hooray for me—now let’s see if i can find something for the full 21/22 school year, so I can begin concentrating on moving out of Vermont!
germy
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@NotMax: Also Grace Kelley in To Catch a Thief!
Tenar Arha
@VOR: my neighborhood flag guy did a similar thing. /sigh
(Unfortunately I think it’s replacement is worse. That thin blue line mod of the US flag upsets me every time I see it).
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Major Major Major Major: I still can’t forgive her. She hasn’t been crazy on the pandemic and in fact has consistently called for marshalling more resources to deal with it…this after a lifetime-to-date spent pushing an ideology of starving the government of resources.
Like, listen lady, you’re part of the reason we hollowed out public health programs and other resources that would have helped during the pandemic and all of a sudden you’re like “where are the resources?!?!” Like, my god, have some self awareness, or at least have the decency to write a brief op ed that says “forget what I’ve ever said in the past, I was wrong about everything!”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Astute observation by Brian.
Miss Bianca
@JanieM: Oh, man. That movie.
Still give me the creeps when I think about it. And you know *exactly* which image I’m talking about.
ETA: Ah, crap – I was thinking of Don’t Look Now. Still, your point is taken about Wait Until Dark.
@Brachiator: Frankly, I’d rather be dealing with the return of Napoleon than TFG.
NotMax
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Could become a tradition to reprint it annually.
//
different-church-lady
@germy:
Is that DA-speak for “What the fuck did you think you were doing bringing this crap across my desk?”
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Yes.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Yeah, higher. The top.
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne:
No.
zhena gogolia
@Ken:
I screamed at The Tingler, but it was in my den at home.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: To quote Joe E. Brown, “Nobody’s perfect.”
It sounds like there are judges and bureaucrats in Denmark that are blind and bigoted. Quite a feat of high hypocrisy, and heartlessness: Die in Damascus or waste away in our concentration camp.
zhena gogolia
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I didn’t list the entire fabulous cast, from Walter Matthau to James Coburn to George Kennedy to Ned Glass . . .
Dan B
@NotMax: Yup, the Prescotts of (Johnnie) Walker Point – bootleggers. Prohibition made for some waterside millionaires. Apparently made for good prep for CIA criming.
Subsole
@different-church-lady: Yep. The 21st Century Internet is basically what happens when a bunch of sleazebag computer nerds figure out how to put a coin slot on a skinner box.
Cameron
@zhena gogolia: Maybe I’m late to the party, but was Gutfeld ever funny? Unless your idea of funny is “LIE-bruls, uh-uh-uh, CANCEL, uh-uh-uh.” Which doesn’t work for me, but I’m a jaded old man.
Amir Khalid
@different-church-lady:
It sure sounded that way to me.
germy
@different-church-lady:
“After reviewing all the evidence, I see there is no evidence.”
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: but hey, we read it, people are talking about it.
Mudbrush
@Tenar Arha: At this point I’ve been conditioned to feel the same way when I see the thin blue line flag as I do when I see the stars and bars.
Major Major Major Major
@Subsole:
Oh come the fuck on. The internet has more than two websites.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
Complete financial ruin would be an equally terrible punishment for Trump – because as a corollary, powerlessness and obscurity would accompany his going broke.
mrmoshpotato
President Biden will be speaking in a bit about the American Jobs Plan on the White House’s YouTube page.
Ya know, if you’re interested in a President who actually wants to govern.
Roger Moore
@Cameron:
There’s a difference between trying to be funny and being funny. Some people aren’t funny because they try and fail, and others don’t even try. I think the accusation is that he’s given up even trying to be funny and now is just spewing Trumpist garbage.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Boooorrrrring.
germy
NotMax
@Cameron
Remember (although really, why should anyone) Fox’s short-lived, painfully contrived The ½ Hour News Hour?
schrodingers_cat
@Dan B: I brought it up because the purity lefties on Twitter and in the media will make statements like, Ds would be center right in Europe and hold up the Scandinavian countries as an ideal.
The generous social welfare policies of those countries exist because they are small and homogenous.
karen marie
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: This.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat: Is that unique to him? Or have they always been pretty supine for conservatives?
Subsole
@different-church-lady:
Damn. That is a really good analogy.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
In this case, it’s important to point out that the Social Democrats are in power in Denmark, so it’s not something that can be blamed on one of the right-wing populist parties. The purity left’s willingness to ignore this stuff is a good indication of where their interests lie.
Cermet
@different-church-lady: As a son of a DA, that is, in fact what that means. They can’t say to the cop “Go fuck yourself” but that is as close as they can legally say.
schrodingers_cat
@Subsole: Who are we talking about here? I just want to make sure before I answer.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major:
Twitter, Facebook and…. I’m coming up blank here…
Cermet
@schrodingers_cat: Is Denmark even grouped as a Scandinavian country/region? It seems far more Germanic.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
Balloon-Juice
germy
JoyceH
I think it’s cute that, though everyone had their own ways of referring to Trump, once Biden coined the deliciously dismissive ‘the former guy’, everyone adopted it. That’s influence!
But what’s disappointing is that he and his administration haven’t coined a term for their agenda, leaving the right to dub it the Green New Deal, which is actually the agenda of the more progressive wing in Congress. So here’s a suggestion, and it’s based on a Biden quote. Let’s call the Biden agenda the Big Deal. (We just clean it up a little.) Fits nicely with FDR’s New Deal, Truman’s Fair Deal, and the lesser known Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal.
Picture the scene – 2050. Tourists at a scenic overlook, listening to the holographic tour guide. “And on your right you will see OWF1, the first of the Big Deal era offshore wind farms. Following naming conventions prevalent in the earlier part of the century, this installation is known as Twirly McTwirlface.”
James E Powell
@different-church-lady:
For them, funny is a pickup rolling coal & running a Prius off the road.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
A terrible situation. To what degree is the media being intimidated? How many are willingly going along?
Brazil, India, a few other countries are democracies which have surrendered to right wing autocrats.
Didn’t Modi promise to cut through corruption and promise to bring technocrat expertise to problems?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Does that really refute Subsole’s point?
different-church-lady
@Mudbrush: Here in the upper union states I’ve been reading the Gadsden Flag as a substitute Confederate Flag for northerners.
I’ve been fantasizing about getting a Black Lives Matter lawn sign, a “we support the police” lawn sign, placing them right next to each other, and putting up a third sign over them both saying, “In a functioning society these two things would not be in opposition.”
Cermet
Isn’t it generally Finland that most people on the left site (and they aren’t Scandinavian but a culture that isn’t rally well established on its origins but likely derived from a culture that was located very far east of that area.)
This doesn’t change you basic point – all people suck relative to racism; but a matter of degree.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
The mice figured out long ago the packet of cocaine does not come out when you press the Balloon-Juice lever.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Wrench the A word from their grubby claws and call it the All-American Deal.
JoyceH
@VOR:
I have a visceral reaction to that flag, similar to the Confederate flag. Since it was adopted and widely used in opposition to Black Lives Matter, it seems to me to signify, “I support the right of the police to murder black people for no reason without consequences.”
NotMax
@different-church-lady
“Anthrax again? (grumble, grumble)”
:)
hat tip: Firesign Theater
JoyceH
@NotMax:
Too long. Big Deal is based on something Biden actually said and has that nice terseness of New Deal and similar.
MisterForkbeard
@JoyceH: Same. Police don’t need more support. When cops are killed there’s an enormous backlash, the perpetrators are hunted down (and frequently killed on spot), and the fallen police officers are honored by local and sometimes federal authorities.
If someone puts up a “Blue Lives Matter” sign, they’re doing it in opposition to the idea that Black Lives Matter, and that black lives are often ended (by police and others) at atrocious rates for specious reasons. You don’t glorify cops by ensuring they can murder without consequence. They can go fuck themselves.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator:
He is a liar. He conducted a successful pogrom in 2002 which launched him a national figure. I pay more attention to what people do more than what they say.
Cermet: Everyone from BS to AOC and their hangers-on in the media invoke Denmark as their socialist ideal. They used to say Sweden, then Sweden got some refugees and their inner racists came out. These days it is Denmark that is the ideal. Soon it will be Norway.
Amir Khalid
\mce-fragment=”1″>@JoyceH:
May I suggest the Big Biden Deal.
Brachiator
@germy:
The media loves the disaffected white middle or working class voter. But the media don’t know where Hispanic voters or black voters eat. I don’t know if they even know that Asian Americans even exist.
And of course, these people cannot be working class or middle class. So their opinions don’t matter. The racist identity politics of the media.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Shorter than Make America
GrossGreat Again.;)
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: They never come to New England either, where many WWC actually vote for the Ds. Even among the sainted WWC they focus on R voters.
jl
Let’s be fair to Kid Rock. Trump is last day of state fair pre-dusk.
Earlier pre-dusks can range from fair to really happening.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Its a bit of both. A lot of the older established names and media houses are willing cheerleaders and some of the younger folks are doing it for careerist reasons. Many who stood up to the intimidation tactics have lost their perches.
Ken
This map may help. It’s out-of-date, but any such map will be out of date within a few hours.
NotMax
@JoyceH
The trouble with Big Deal is the phrase is a two-sided coin. With one inflection it conveys belittling dismissiveness.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
Don’t forget the tire rims!
Geoduck
@Ken: Trivia for the day: the Gilligan’s Island producers only changed the theme song because Bob Denver went to them and forced them to do it. Dawn Wells (RIP) was quoted as saying she didn’t find out Denver had done this until years later.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
You’re being unfair. It’s obvious the media is just suffering from economic anxiety.
M31
@Major Major Major Major:
“we’ve got both kinds of websites here, Balloon AND Juice!”
rikyrah
Barbara
@Roger Moore: McArdle has been good on Covid at least partly because her father got it and she had to take care of him. We joke about information bubbles with socio-economic boundaries but they are real and they have costs when one group is totally disconnected from another. Would McArdle’s views be the same if her dad had not fallen ill?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Has anybody had any experience with delayed reaction to the shots?
My wife had the first Moderna jab two weeks ago. She was a little tired that night but otherwise symptom-free. The last couple days she’s been hit hard with a fatigue that leaves her barely able to function.
We’re guessing that since two weeks is a magic number for peak immunity after these shots, these symptoms must somehow be immune-system related.
germy
@Geoduck:
The lady who played Mrs. Howell was a close friend of George S. Kaufman.
Uncle Cosmo
(** FTFY.)
Friend who was living in Copenhagen late in the prior millennium told me about a local scandal involving Somali refugees who were admitted to Denmark as political refugees and quickly sponsored family members – but it turned out that the great majority of the latter were not related at all.
It was alleged after further investigation that most of the “politicals” had not in fact been at personal risk in Somalia (any more than was anyone else) and in fact were economic immigrants taking advantage of the Danish government’s financial support.
I never did the digging to determine if this was a fair account of the situation – but IIUC wide coverage of this in the Danish media was a significant factor in the subsequent election of a right-wing government for the first time since WW2.
rikyrah
MVP visited my favorite bakery during her visit to Chicago yesterday. Love their diabetes on a plate.. just divine ???
https://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-kamala-harris-brown-sugar-bakery-20210407-44g5dgeiofai7bw7v5urdp2f7m-story.html
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I think I had a delayed reaction to the pfizer.
One day, about a week after my first shot, I got a bad headache and some dizziness and chills.
JoyceH
OMG – I saw this on Twitter and thought it was a parody, but guys, go to the NRCC’s donate page and LOOK at the opt out of monthly donations box!
https://secure.winred.com/nrcc/retake-the-house/?amount=100&utm_content=nrcc_home_donate_section&recurring=true
germy
President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA).
Now 28 percent is too much?
Old School
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Mrs. School had her first shot (Pfizer) on a Wednesday, then experienced dizziness starting on Sunday. That lasted three or four days.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m not an Audrey Hepburn fan, but that is one of the few movies I actually liked her in.
I also enjoyed that Alan Arkin was one of the evil scary dudes. I think this might have been before he really got big in comedy.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Now that movie creeped me out big time.
“Wait Until Dark” was more of a big ass jump scare. Alan Arkin was tremendous. Wasn’t Richard Crenna in the movie as well? I just remember a great cast.
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah. There are a lot more than two sites. Many of them quite good.
The largest sites/networks, with the widest reach and heaviest throw-weight seem to be operating as skinner boxes with coin slots. Because their owners wish them to operate thusly. Which is a fault of the owners, not the tech.
I guess my inartfully-expressed point is that the last few years it has felt like the interwebnet has been operating along Galt’s Gulch principles. With predictable results in quality, service, and the ecosystem – meat AND data.
The dig at computer nerds WAS a little cheap. Sorry.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: FTR I had Moderna Jab 2.0 (Pandemic Boogaloo) last Saturday and FWIW the fatigue that hit hard on Ether Thunday is mostly dissipated, but the injection site is still sore and noticeably swollen compared with its mirror image.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Not my problem.
Scumbags all
WaterGirl
@Baud: Yep.
#IGetToDecideWhichLivesMatter
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@germy: She was also a decade older than Mr. Howell but kept up just fine with the rest of the much younger cast.
I’ve read or seen in interviews that Tina Louise (Ginger) was kind of a jerk and didn’t get along with anybody, during or after the show.
In watching reruns of the show many years later, something struck me that I’d never realized as a kid. Denver was actually the star of the show. As a kid I thought of him as a sidekick, but actually he was the comedian in the cast and everybody else was a straight man / woman. I may be the last person on earth to have figured this out.
rikyrah
@randy khan
????????
The Moar You Know
Lotta you folks posting about reading Trump stories from one outlet or another. Stop it now. The media very much would like for him to be President again. Cut off his oxygen. Stop reading the stories. Stop giving the media motivation to publish anything the asshole says. Bury him underground, a forgotten sad footnote in American history. If he goes away his supporters will as well.
DONT CLICK TRUMP STORIES.
JoyceH
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: You weren’t clued in by the fact that the show’s title was GILLIGAN’s Island?
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I thought the overarching theme was Build Back Better.
All the various bills are to help us Build Back Better.
rikyrah
@Eric S.:
Yeah ??
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Now that movie creeped me out big time.
“Wait Until Dark” was more of a big ass jump scare. Alan Arkin was tremendous. Wasn’t Richard Crenna in the movie as well? I just remember a great cast.
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: Yep. I had blocked his Twitter account a long time before Twitter deplatformed him.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I would like it to be called The Big Fucking Deal, but somehow I don’t think I am going to get what I want on this.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
YES
That is the cherry on top of the sundae
germy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Denver and the Skipper had sort of a Laurel & Hardy thing going on.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JoyceH: Nope. As I said, last person on earth.
rikyrah
@Redshift:
I just read that twice and went ???
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
That’s ridiculous. For those who understandably don’t want to go to the NRCC web page, here’s what it says (emphasis in the original):
They have a similar bunch of crazy verbiage trying to get you to make an extra $100 donation.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl:
Yeah, but when we say the Big Deal, people will know that’s what we really mean.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I FUCKING DARE YOU TO UNCHECK THIS BOX!!!
jonas
@Patricia Kayden: It’s an interesting number, but after 2016 and 2020, I’m convinced that polls systematically undercount Republican voters, either through methodology or because trolling pollsters is now a thing on the right.
rikyrah
@waspuppet:
They will not call them out because…
It would put the spotlight on their professional malpractice during the past 4 years.
Old School
@Roger Moore: And, of course, the box is pre-checked, so doing nothing defaults to monthly payments.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat: Modi.
Is the Indian media failing to stand up to him because he’s Modi, specifically? Is it because he’s rightwing, and they naturally defer to rightwing framing, like you see with our press here? Is it because they have a Rupert Murdoch who has unbalanced traditional media models? Or is it for some other reason?
WaterGirl
@The Moar You Know: What an excellent suggestion!
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: “GIVE US MONEY OR I’M TELLING TRUMP ON YOU!!11!!”? Honestly?
Oh, who am I kidding…of course it is!
laura
@Brachiator: Jack Warden and Richard Crenna were bad dudes in that perfect movie- but Alan Arkin, phew, just when you think it’s safe. Scariest movie I ever loved.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jonas: Remember when Jen O’Malley Dillon was saying in Sept/Oct that the polls were way off in WI/MI/PA, and the race was really close, and all the Savvy Folk were like “aw look at her trying to gin up fund-raising”? I don’t understand the polling business but one constant seems to be that campaigns spend a lot more money on those fabled “internal polls” than CNN, Quinnipiac, etc.
And I think even the pros were surprised that it wasn’t tighter in FL and OH, that it was so close in NV, et cetera.
Ken
@JoyceH: The real tell is the order in the credits, which matches the song (“Gilligan, the Skipper too…”). In fact if I recall correctly, during the first season Johnson and Wells (“the rest”) didn’t have their names in the title sequence, just the end credits.
Subsole
@different-church-lady:
Youtube.
Tiktok.
Pornhub.
Pretty sure that’s all five.
Dan B
@schrodingers_cat: Your analysis of small ‘s’ Socialist Scandinavian countries being homogenous seems accurate but I wonder if another contributor to safety net programs is the tail end of the Marshall Plan. It set a narrative that lifting all boats and helping the average citizen was good for prosperity and for defanging the extremism that leads to war. That, along with the generation that grew up on stories of the horrors of war and the necessity of efforts to ensure peace are dying off. There are many ways to view homogeneity. Ireland seems homogenous if you look at skin color and language. The same is true of the Burmese. Scandinavia used to believe in homogeneity but refugees from the middle east brought “foreign” culture, language, religion, and skin color. The left in Europe and Britain have demonstrated that a helping hand to ordinary people is subject to prejudice no matter your political views. I was around when American Socialists rejected any analysis that attempted to include race, gender, and, Dog forbid, sexual orientation. Country of origin was not as toxic to these Socialists of the 60’s and 70’s but probably because of severe restrictions on immigration of that era.
People dislike “the other” but they also are likely to be as disturbed by change. I’ve always embraced it but I’ve got limits when it comes to right wingers, bigots, and the heartless wealthy. Seattle, fortunately, is only seriously afflicted by the latter category.
Geoduck
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Supposedly, when Natilie Schafer (Mrs. Howell) heard that the Gilligan’s Island pilot had been picked to go to series, she reacted with horror. But as noted, she was a trooper, and did her job. I don’t think any of the cast, even Tina Lousie, was ever under any misapprehension about the show’s quality.
Subsole
@different-church-lady:
That’s because they didn’t press it right.
They should try again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I believe TL was told she was going to the star of the show, and it would make her a huge star, and she believed the people who told her that, then she got to LA and she was part of an ensemble where she was overshadowed by Maynard G Krebs, Mr Magoo and a series of giant spider puppets and grips in cheesy gorilla costumes.
(I love the way the conversations here ping-pong around, and I’ve just moved Wait Until Dark to the top of my mental queue. I know I’ve seen it, I remember my John Carpenter-formed horror fan mind thinking it was so cool that an old movie (as old as me!) could be so scary, but that’s about all I remember.)
Ken
@Baud: “Baud had created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple-dog dare and going straight for the throat…”
Roger Moore
@Old School:
It reminds me of something from the campus humor paper when I was in college. They made a joke about the college president asking for more money based around Oral Robert’s vision of a 900 foot tall Jesus saying God would “call him home” if he couldn’t raise a bunch of money. At the end they had the place to donate money with the options:
The difference, of course, being that was in a humor paper, not on a serious attempt to raise money.
Ken
I get more scared when it’s something that I could imagine actually happening. By that standard, Wait Until Dark is way more terrifying than any zombie flick.
Likewise, and I think I’ve mentioned this here before, the Lovecraftian horrors in The Mist aren’t half as frightening to me as the angry mob of humans hiding in the store.
Steeplejack
@p.a.:
Good, no-frills piece.
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sort of like everyone in Lost in Space who wasn’t “Will, Dr. Smith, and the robot”, along about the middle of season two.
Subsole
@Ken: Say this for Baud, when they see an opening they go for it. Octopus style.
citizen dave
@Ken: Dropping in at the end of this thread, but yes, confirm the Gilligan credits. As a kid in the early 1970s the reruns were on after school every day. I saw each episode many times. Hard not to notice how the theme changed after season 1 “…and the rest”
It was so stupid–just two more names to sing.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve thought about those people more than once in connection with Covidiot mask-deniers.
And I’ve often said that Stephen King’s humans, right down to the 12-year-old friends in “The Body” (aka “Stand By Me”) scare me a lot more than the monsters.
King knows human nature.
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
I think fear of The Other has a lot to do with it. The US had many of the same experiences as Europe did- we weren’t invaded, but the country went all in on WWII in a way that’s difficult for people today to understand- and there was a post-war consensus on the need to help the average citizen to generate shared prosperity. That consensus was shattered by Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Movement, and the general understanding that helping the average citizen was going to have to include citizens who weren’t straight white Christians.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken:
Lost in Space? You mean the series CBS decided to go with instead of Star Trek?
Brachiator
@Ken:
The total number of castaways did not change, but three characters were recast and changed a bit. These became Ginger, Mary Ann and the professor.
The pilot was shot in Hawaii. Filming was completed on November 22, 2963, the day of the Kennedy assassination.
Bill Arnold
@Redshift:
It’s an honest piece about this:
The Leading Causes of Death in the US for 2020 (JAMA, March 31, 2021, Farida B. Ahmad, Robert N. Anderson)
In particular, the “Table. Number of Deaths for Leading Causes of Death, US, 2015-2020”
The psychiatrist trying to explain their profession’s bad predictions about 2020 suicide numbers (they are lower) was amusing.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: IIRC, suicides are down but accidental deaths that are probably mostly drug ODs are up, a fact that anti-lockdown people are trying to make hay about.
Dan B
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I had fatigue for about five days after the second shot. It was most intense 16 hours after and slowly faded. I have read that women’s immune response can be much stronger than men’s but don’t recall the reason but there was a connection to autoimmune diseases being more common in women as well. Vit D3, Baby Aspirin, and zinc may be in order and/or a Dr. consult if it continues.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t think anyone here does that. Our front pagers may, in order to keep us informed about TFG and his current disabilities and intentions, and I’m OK with thousands of Juicers learning about TFG from one click by Betty or Anne Laurie.
Information is our best weapon!
Brachiator
@Dan B:
And yet is fairly diverse if you consider the various tribes and religious groups that are part of the country’s history. The FitzGeralds were Anglo Norman and later became “more Irish than the Irish themselves.”
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: Denmark is culturally Scandinavian. See the flag, the language, etc.
J R in WV
@Geoduck:
It was a comedy, and people laughed at it.
What more do you want?
Gripping suspense and Shakespearean literature?
Naw!!!
Bob Denver moved to southern WV in retirement, and got caught receiving reefer from an anonymous source out west.
Of course, anyone could have sent that to him without his knowledge, right? Dunno why he didn’t just grow some himself! Was a well liked guy if I recall correctly. Loved him as Maynard G Krebs!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JoyceH: Stay classy Republicans. //
Bill Arnold
@VOR:
My local Trump2020 flag (below an American Flag) guy took his down and replaced it with the Irish flag mid-March. Baby steps. Perhaps he still believes that Trump will assume control of the presidency in (checks notes) August (?), but at least he’s not broadcasting it to a thousand passing cars per day.
Brachiator
@Geoduck:
It may not have been a question of quality. It has been reported that she just didn’t think the series would be picked up. She filmed the pilot in part because she got to go to Hawaii for vacation.
But she was a trooper and worked to make the series a success.
Geoduck
@J R in WV: I stand by my statement, since even by American sitcom standards, Gilligan’s Island is pretty stupid. Not the fault of the actors, tho. And yes, the show still managed some genuinely funny moments. “Must be a Yale man!” might be my favorite.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV:
Didn’t know he moved from the shores of Lake Sherwood, he lived there when he was still acting. I went to Jr. High with his son.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
If only more ordinary people felt the same way…
different-church-lady
@Barbara:
A big part of McArdle’s problem is that if she doesn’t personally think it or experience it, it doesn’t exist.
different-church-lady
@JoyceH:
Utterly without shame. No compunction whatsoever.
Anoniminous
For all of its iconic status, Gilligan’s Island only ran for 3 seasons: 1964 – 67 with ratings dropping every year: #18, #22, #48.
J R in WV
I got my 2nd Moderna shot and had extreme sleepiness afterwards, slept 14+hours a night and took a long nap too for at least a couple of nights.
Then a few days later I started in with muscle spasms and cramping, which was not a big surprise as I’ve had chronic problems like that for 40 years off and on. But this was different, in different physical locations, not as treatable with stretching and the like. Still going on, but beginning to recede slowly.
My family doctor had a unique reaction to his second vaccination, he described a tingling that started on top of his head and went all the way down to his feet. This only lasted a couple of minutes. Then from his neck down he got a hot flash, while his head got cold. Then for another minute or so the opposite, a chill below his neck and a flush of heat. Said it wasn’t real, just a neurological event, went away after not very long.
He was pretty goofy, but that’s normal for him. Old hillbilly country boy. Been seeing him for 40 years now. I should take him a mess of ramps next appointment.
Roger Moore
@Geoduck:
It may be stupid, but it obviously did something right, or it would have been forgotten like so many of its contemporaries. I think the stupidity and ridiculousness were part of what people liked. It went way, way over the top in a nod and wink kind of way that people liked.
Bill Arnold
@Uncle Cosmo:
How do juries work in Georgia? Would this mean a retrial, keeping it in the news, and then perhaps another retrial, keeping it in the news, etc?
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: A screenwriter whom I knew well believed that the most convincing ‘heavies’ – i.e., villains – were almost always successful in comedic roles, and vice versa. I’m not sure why that would be true, but he was convincing on the subject.
Denali
@The Moar You Know,
You are quite right. Cut off the oxygen.
schrodingers_cat
@Subsole: I don’t think its just Modi. BJP’s politics plays right to the caste and class biases of those who populate the upper echelons of the media world. Like I said in another comment, some are willing foot soldiers and some are careerists.
AFAIK there is no one Rupert Murdoch like figure.
mostly a lurker
I’m still traumatized by trumpism, and don’t think it’s post-TSD, it’s
Still-in-the-Midst-TSD (is there a word for that?). We’re still in the grip of crazy people who have every intention of bringing the country to ruin. I’d say we’re more like 1/2 way through the horror movie than at the end. It’s great having the Dems doing good stuff, but that could easily be for only 2 more years. We won’t know how many more scares are headed our way until the 2022 midterms, and what that presages for 2024. I’ve become even more blogs-dependent (compulsively reading my 7-8 regulars multiple times a day) and waiting for the shoe to drop. Nor do I think it’s paranoia. I’m just constitutionally more of a Cassandra than a Pollyanna (and with predictions that have more often proved right).
cain
@Patricia Kayden:
oh man, they are going to hit the accelerator on the voting suppression. It will be hilarious if it is in red counties. They’d have to war on their own people.
Tehanu
I won’t believe he’s dead till I see him buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart.
bluefish
@waspuppet: Thank you! Perfectly said.