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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Answer To Charlie Pierce’s Question Was Answered Before He Asked It

The Answer To Charlie Pierce’s Question Was Answered Before He Asked It

by Adam L Silverman|  May 3, 202112:56 pm| 106 Comments

This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Crazification Factor, Domestic Politics, Information Warfare, Open Threads, Politics, Silverman on Security

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This morning The New York Times reported a story on the rise of Hispanic Republicans in the Rio Grande Valley with a special focus on the Latina women who are leading the rise. Charlie Pierce, from his shebeen at Esquire caught the crazy that was clearly visible from orbit:

So the story ably tracks a genuine political phenomenon, and certainly one that’s worth watching going forward. But this is 2021, and these are Republicans, and sooner or later, there’s a serious bustle in the hedgerow.

Elisa Rivera, 40, said she had voted for Mrs. Clinton in 2016, but did not understand the fierce reaction against Mr. Trump. “I was following along the family tradition, my dad is a hard-core Democrat, my father was really for unions, and I thought the Democrats defended the union,” Ms. Rivera said, before adding: “But then I started to research myself and found out the Democrats are supporting witchcraft and child trafficking and things like that, things that get censored because they get labeled conspiracy theory.”

He then concludes with:

If you think the Republicans won’t weaponize this thinking, and if you think it won’t work, I have a couple of first-term members of Congress I’d like you to meet. It’s just so damned exhausting.

Pierce literally wrote the book on American’s insatiable appetite for grifts, cons, and conspiracy theories. It is excellent and well worth your time to read. And right now there has never been more of this stupidity to keep track and it is, as Pierce states, so damned exhausting. So it is understandable, especially as The New York Time‘s reporter, Jennifer Medina, did not herself make a connection in her reporting between what she quote Ms. Rivera as saying and what she quotes Texas’s Governor Greg Abbott as saying eleven paragraphs prior (emphasis mine):

“I’ve never been onstage with so many accomplished, articulate Latinas as I have been tonight with this group of ladies,” he told an enthusiastic crowd. “This is amazing. If I were the Democrats, I would be very afraid right now, because there is a storm coming, a storm that is going to win Hidalgo County. I wanted to be here in person, wanted to say thank you.”

One of the signature components of the QAnon conspiracy theory is the Storm:

One phrase that serves as a special touchstone among QAnon adherents is “the calm before the storm.” Q first used it a few days after his initial post, and it arrived with a specific history. On the evening of October 5, 2017—not long before Q first made himself known on 4chan—President Trump stood beside the first lady in a loose semicircle with 20 or so senior military leaders and their spouses for a photo in the State Dining Room at the White House. Reporters had been invited to watch as Trump’s guests posed and smiled. Trump couldn’t seem to stop talking. “You guys know what this represents?” he asked at one point, tracing an incomplete circle in the air with his right index finger. “Tell us, sir,” one onlooker replied. The president’s response was self-satisfied, bordering on a drawl: “Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”

The Storm was then picked up on 4chan and it was off to the races:

On October 28, someone calling themselves Q began posting a series of cryptic messages in a /pol/ thread titled “Calm Before the Storm” (assumedly in reference to that creepy Trump quote from early October). Q claimed to be a high-level government insider with Q clearance (hence the name) tasked with posting intel drops — which he, for some reason, called “crumbs” — straight to 4chan in order to covertly inform the public about POTUS’s master plan to stage a countercoup against members of the deep state.

In this fantasy world, all of the far right’s wildest dreams come true: Q promises that Clinton, Obama, Podesta, Abedin, and even McCain are all either arrested and wearing secret police-issued ankle monitors, or justabout to be indicted; that the Steele dossier is a total fabrication personally paid for by Clinton and Obama; and that the Las Vegas massacre was most definitely an inside job connected to the Saudi-Clinton cabal.

They believe all of this will be coming to a head any day now. That “The Storm” — of arrests, political turmoil, and Republican vindication — is coming. Though there have been some, uh, miscalculations as for exactly when.

Governor Abbott, or more likely his speech writer, seems to be fluent in Q speak. To the point of being able to work a coded reference into an otherwise innocuous speech to a Republican organization that means one thing to those in the group and another to those outside of it who are not aware of how the group uses these specific terms. Like The New York Time‘s reporter that seems to have missed the dual meaning of Abbott’s statement and failed to link it to what she reports, eleven paragraphs later, she was told by Ms. Rivera.

We don’t have to wait for Republican members of Congress or candidates seeking to serve in Congress to use this language, Republican elected officials, like Greg Abbott, are already using it.

We are off the looking glass and through the map.

Open thread!

 

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    BruceFromOhio

    May 3, 2021 at 1:03 pm

    This would be amusing if it didn’t mean the end of this splendid experiment in democracy. Well done, Russian ‘bots.

  2. 2.

    Joe Falco

    May 3, 2021 at 1:05 pm

    It’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” updated daily and varying by region.

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    May 3, 2021 at 1:05 pm

    Suspending disbelief is an undercurrent I continually encounter, I suppose paired with confirmation bias. Per an acquaintance he cannot visit his grandmother in her care facility because of Gavin Newsom. Not because of a killer virus, not because of the care facility’s policies (which would be the same for a bad flu) but because of a Democrat [sic] governor oppressing a Trump voter. Who, related, happily voted three times for that proud serial rapist, who he would not leave his daughter or wife alone with.

    I don’t know how to fix it but dragging it into the open at least forces it to be recognized as fact.

  4. 4.

    Spanky

    May 3, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    I still haven’t found Charlie Pierce’s question.

  5. 5.

    bluehill

    May 3, 2021 at 1:10 pm

    Every election is the most important until the next one. Just one long continuous election cycle.

  6. 6.

    Cacti

    May 3, 2021 at 1:11 pm

    As good a job as I think Biden is doing at this point, I still feel like the USA in its existing form is not much longer for the world.

    Because the GOP completely lost its fucking mind when the black guy was elected 12 years ago and has only gotten worse ever since.

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    May 3, 2021 at 1:14 pm

    Speaking of criming out in the open.

    “Anthony Kern, a former state lawmaker who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when rioters disrupted Congress, is among the people helping to count and inspect Maricopa County ballots,” the Arizona Republic reports.

    “Kern’s name appeared on all of the November ballots that he was counting Friday and Saturday as part of an audit ordered by the state Senate.”

    https://politicalwire.com/2021/05/03/capitol-riot-attendee-helping-audit-ballots-in-arizona/

    Very fine people.

  8. 8.

    UncleEbeneezer

    May 3, 2021 at 1:20 pm

    Adam, have you watched the Q documentary (I think it’s on Netflix) yet?  We only lasted 30 seconds or so, until we realized that seeing images of Trump and these a-holes, was too upsetting to do for 90 mins.  But I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, since it’s supposedly pretty well done.

  9. 9.

    Scott

    May 3, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    Yes and no.

    The Texas border region has  a lot of complexity to it.  Part of the attraction to Republicans is security.  Drugs and crime are an issue and people respond to it there just as they do anywhere.  Mothers don’t want their kids involved and don’t want to see it.  So they like to have state troopers in their towns and on their highways.  Along with the money that’s spent by them.

    They are also resentful they can’t just cross back and forth across the border like we did prior to 9/11.  Whether it is to visit family or just to shop.  When it comes to US borders, the terrorists won.

    I totally understand the attraction to Republicans and it is not conspiracy theories.

  10. 10.

    Ksmiami

    May 3, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer: infiltrate and disrupt their networks. sue Fox etc within an inch of their lives. Criminal and civil penalties on announcers and lie promoters- that or let Covid do it’s thing with the Republican sewer rat population

  11. 11.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    May 3, 2021 at 1:26 pm

    @Cacti:

    To be fair, the sainted and Godly inspired Founding Fathers (Peace Be Unto Them) were so brilliant that

    1. Their electoral college setup was so stupid in the beginning and created such a fiasco at the highest level of government that they amended it a dozen years later;
    2. The entire system they created blew up 70 years after their magnificent Constitution was enacted, in part over a ridiculous ruling from the Supreme Court (Dred Scott) and in part over an election which promised a dialogue over slavery;
    3. It took three significant amendments to patch the problem, and then, only half-assedly so (and which have resulted in over a century and a half of whining and mewling drawling voices; and
    4. The structural issues related to items 1 through 3 are still threatening the integrity of this government.

    I, for one, am enthusiastic over living in the upcoming North American Union with my brethren from Mexico and Canada, and will proudly spend my Ameros….

  12. 12.

    Urban Suburbanite

    May 3, 2021 at 1:33 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I did watch it, and for the most part, it’s pretty good. Jim Watkins is an insufferable creep who thinks he’s the smartest man in the room and his son Ron is essentially the distillation of every joke about weebs (he’s even filmed doing some ridiculous anime-style poses, and displays a huge porn collection). In my opinion, it does spend a bit too much on those two, but they’re so fucking creepy it’s hard not to.

  13. 13.

    Halteclere

    May 3, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    Abbott has always played footsies with conspiracy theories for political gain. He isn’t a believer like Ken Paxton, he is just a cynical disseminator.

    When the Jade Helm military exercise conspiracy surfaced, instead of tampering it down Abbot fueled it by ordering the State Guard to monitor the federal exercise. I’m sure the Russians were happy.

  14. 14.

    A Ghost to Most

    May 3, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    Meh. Once you brainwash em with religion, they’ll believe, and do, anything.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    May 3, 2021 at 1:38 pm

    They believe all of this will be coming to a head any day now. That “The Storm” — of arrests, political turmoil, and Republican vindication — is coming.

    This is crazy level bullshit. But there are Republicans, and some Bernie Bros, who have to invent reasons for not supporting Democrats. As the Democrats policies prove to be popular and effective, these opponents become more agitated and escalate their reasons for rejecting Dems.

    Not much to be done about this.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 1:40 pm

    @Spanky: Perhaps prediction would have been a better word, but the question is in here:

    If you think the Republicans won’t weaponize this thinking, and if you think it won’t work, I have a couple of first-term members of Congress I’d like you to meet.

    It is implied. But it misses the reality that they already are.

  17. 17.

    neldob

    May 3, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    It may have been as early as Reagan when Republicans started to elect actors and couldn’t tolerate facing the truth Carter told, the idea of living less lavish lives so that others could simply live and we could maintain our democracy. Then again there has always been this surreal aspect to a subgroup of citizens. It is really weird sharing a town with them, much less a state and a country, but at least the maggot hats are gone and they are in the minority around here.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    @UncleEbeneezer: I have not watched it. My understanding is that despite all the positive buzz, it has several significant logical/conceptual fantasies. Not the least of which is spending far too much time focused on Watkins.

  19. 19.

    BruceFromOhio

    May 3, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Not much to be done about this.

    I regret to have experienced this first-hand with some god-botherer’s in the extended family. Trying to appeal with anything but solid, fervent agreement only makes ’em dig in further. What is astonishing is the level of bonafide batshit  crazy hiding in otherwise well-meaning and ordinary folk.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    May 3, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    Liz Cheney appears to be serious about this. Probably out of a job soon, IMO, but she knows that.

  21. 21.

    StringOnAStick

    May 3, 2021 at 1:44 pm

    We D’s tend to think that Hispanics are naturally going to become D’s if they get politically involved, but I’m not at all certain of that.  Some of the most anti-immigrant people I have known are themselves immigrants but they “did it the right way and waited in line”.  Also, around here the landscaping and lawn maintenance industry is nearly 100% Hispanic and just last week we were talking about banning all gas powered small engines and making these small businesses replace them with electric versions; how popular do we think that’s going to be with these folks (even though it really needs to happen given how much pollution comes from these machines)? Looks like a great topic to get some R and RU bots working the Spanish language radio stations, decrying this D gubmint overreach.

    Somedays I just sink into despair that we even have a chance at solving anything.  Looks like today is one of those days.

  22. 22.

    Frank Wilhoit

    May 3, 2021 at 1:45 pm

    @BruceFromOhio: No.  The problem is not upstream.  It is downstream.  The educational system has one purpose, one task, one only, nothing else: to make sure that every person who passes through it comes out with a perfectly-functioning bullsh1t detector.  Without that, there is no point in attempting to build anything at a societal level.  With it, it does not matter who tries to peddle what kind of stories, they will get no traction.

  23. 23.

    karen marie

    May 3, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    This plus both-siderism will be the death of us all.

    People I chat with who consume a steady diet of even non-Fox TV news tell me both parties are to blame. I got “Democrats keep changing the rules” last night from one neighbor. I had to go home and lay down in a dark room.

  24. 24.

    Anoniminous

    May 3, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    People really need to read Edward L. Bernays 1928 classic “Propaganda.”  It’s available in pdf at several places ’round the internet.  The tl;dr: People are stupid and ignorant, don’t realize they are stupid and ignorant+, and you can pretty much, most of the time, get a sufficient number of stupid and ignorant people sufficient for your purpose(s) convinced of anything if you use the right hooks.  Joseph Goebbels was an avid admirer of Bernays

    Here is a brief exposition of his life and works

     

    +  Dunning-Kruger conclusion decades before Dunning-Kruger wrote it

  25. 25.

    Baud

    May 3, 2021 at 1:51 pm

    @karen marie: 

    I got “Democrats keep changing the rules” last night from one neighbor.

    The correct response is “Pray we do not alter them any further.”

  26. 26.

    lifeinthebonusround

    May 3, 2021 at 1:55 pm

    The Qrazy is alive and well in the northern border regions as well.  Family in northern Minnesota are deep down the rabbit hole and believe Dems are demons.  Makes Zoom calls … interesting.

  27. 27.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    May 3, 2021 at 1:55 pm

    “I started to research myself and found out the Democrats are supporting witchcraft and child trafficking”

    Here, let me introduce you to Sen. Cruz (R-UncannyValley).

  28. 28.

    Martin

    May 3, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    What’s the equivalent term to ‘cletus safari’ where the NYT heads to Texas in search of latinos to validate the GOP?

  29. 29.

    theturtlemoves

    May 3, 2021 at 1:59 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: ​Not sure where all these “problems” with the Q documentary keep coming from, honestly. I thought it offered fairly compelling evidence that the Watkins boys are, in fact, Q. Not some nefarious Russian plot, although I’m sure the Russians have weaponized it after the fact, but simply a father-son porn empire that wanted to watch the world burn for the lulz. Just because the thought that so many people could be taken in by a LARP is so horrifying doesn’t mean it can’t possibly be true.​​

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 2:00 pm

    @Snarki, child of Loki: Cruz is so messed up he trafficked his wife and daughters across the border into Mexico.

  31. 31.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:02 pm

    I blame all of this on Harry Potter.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    May 3, 2021 at 2:04 pm

    @Martin: 

    What’s the equivalent term to ‘cletus safari’ where the NYT heads to Texas in search of latinos to validate the GOP?

    I think it involves Dora the Explorer somehow.

  33. 33.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    @StringOnAStick:

    around here the landscaping and lawn maintenance industry is nearly 100% Hispanic and just last week we were talking about banning all gas powered small engines

    I just had to open the door and yell at the “gardeners” to not weed whack my planters and roses with their loud gas powered weed whackers.

    (I’m still pissed they broke my car window.)

  34. 34.

    Martin

    May 3, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    @Frank Wilhoit: Yep. We’re starting to realize that. Not that we’re implementing it yet, but my institution has been exploring how to convert general education categories like science from ‘learn how to be a bathroom meth chemist’ to ‘learn how to call bullshit on claims Bill Gates is microchipping vaccines’.

    I mean, we’re still doing a LOT of good in that I think we’re turning out students that can identify with immigrants, POC, LGBTQ, etc. and are far more sympathetic to policies that affect them. But yeah, on almost everything else we’ve mostly failed – economics, science, etc.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    May 3, 2021 at 2:08 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    How come Dems never get accused of being wizards? It’s always witchcraft.

    Misogyny.

  36. 36.

    Miss Bianca

    May 3, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    @Snarki, child of Loki: That word “research” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

  37. 37.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    May 3, 2021 at 2:09 pm

    @Anoniminous: ​
     

    I’m reading Robert Leckie’s epic “Delivered From Evil” (Saga of WWII) and he talks about this vis a vis Hitler:

    Most impressive of all is Hitler’s penetrating analysis of the uses of propaganda…He had learned from his days in the monastery school the irresistible power of repetition on mediocre minds….he makes the point that the minds of the masses are soggy, sodden, absolutely incapable of prolonged retention…Thus, skilled propaganda must confine itself to a few points, beating them into the mass-man’s brain, again and again, repeat and repeat, with the relentless rhythm of a metronome.”

    We’ve seen this play out over the media and political landscape over the last 25 years.

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 2:12 pm

    @Martin: Fixed it for you!

    my institution has been exploring how to convert general education categories like science from ‘learn how to be a bathroom meth chemist’ to ‘learn how to call bullshit on claims Bill Gates is microchipping vaccines as a public service while being a bathroom meth chemist’.

  39. 39.

    mrmoshpotato

    May 3, 2021 at 2:12 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    (I’m still pissed they broke my car window.) 

    How’d that happen?

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 3, 2021 at 2:13 pm

    @theturtlemoves:  Just because the thought that so many people could be taken in by a LARP is so horrifying doesn’t mean it can’t possibly be true.​​

    I will point out that as a joke back in the ’00s I was asserting the water on Mars proved Noah’s Flood and that Model Railroaders were on the Christian Right’s Enemy list and in the last year I have had both those quoted back to me unironically by Conservatives.  The Far Right will grab on to anything that appears to support them, no matter how blatantly absurd in their desperation.

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    May 3, 2021 at 2:13 pm

    The crazy things that my housemate’s friends and family pass on Spanish Facebook are hair raising lies straight out of the Republican playbook. It worries me.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: And the media and political ecosystems have learned nothing in that time. Every day a centrally prepared group of talking points are prepared for Republican elected and appointed officials, Republican candidates, and conservative movement, news, and social media leaders. And they hit them. Which is why you get how each of these – and these are just four examples of dozens and dozens – are using almost identical language and why this reporter doesn’t seem to be able to understand what is actually going on here:

    Pretty telling of the ecosystem where in that not one of these people deleted their false claim that the Biden administration was giving Kamala Harris' book to migrant children. pic.twitter.com/vkgE4ZnvoU

    — andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) May 3, 2021

  43. 43.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 3, 2021 at 2:17 pm

    @Baud: How come Dems never get accused of being wizards? It’s always witchcraft.

    Misogyny.

    So the Democrats are a Pagan Fane of Dendrophilia and Dancing Goats?

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    May 3, 2021 at 2:18 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I can’t decide if Noah’s flood on Mars or evil model train fans is more batshit crazy.

  45. 45.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @Baud: Again, I blame Harry Potter.  The young think of wizards in a positive light, We boomers are ok with witches, we grew up with Bewitched.

  46. 46.

    germy

    May 3, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    https://whistleblower.org/in-the-news/organized-crime-and-corruption-reporting-project-how-afghanistans-president-helped-his-brother-secure-lucrative-mining-deals-with-a-u-s-contractor/

  47. 47.

    Martin

    May 3, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @StringOnAStick: But take note that the state and cities are also tipping up programs to replace that equipment.

    I think Democrats do okay when they say ‘look, 2 stroke engines are terrible for society, so we’re going to have society replace them with electrics’. That’s why the GOP goes after the economics – it makes Democratic plans unpopular when they can’t come through with the subsidies.

    I think so long as Democrats come through for groups, they’ll stick with the party. But if Dems continue to treat latinos like they have black voters – as guaranteed votes and provide nothing back to the community, then I think they’ll get in trouble. That’s changing since 2016. But black voters never had the numbers to be anything other than a tipping point voting block. Latino voters know they can build a larger coalition. In a decade or two, they could take over one of the parties.

  48. 48.

    germy

    May 3, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I always admired Aunt Clara.

  49. 49.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Whacked it while swinging their weed whacker and not watching what they’re doing.  When I got the window replaced, the guy at the glass place said it’s pretty common.

  50. 50.

    Malovich

    May 3, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    It’s always projection with these muthafookers.

    The only people who are bound to suffer a Storm are the pedophile-ringed, money-grubbing, fascist bootlicking master projectionists in the QOP right now and they’re working overtime-and-a-half to push the consequences down the road and lemme tellya, they have to shovel a profound amount of bullshit to save anything.

    It does explain the flop-sweat and creases of worry when we see them these days.

  51. 51.

    James E Powell

    May 3, 2021 at 2:23 pm

    @Urban Suburbanite:

    I thought it was too much “Who is Q?” and not enough “What is Q doing to the nation?”

  52. 52.

    JoyceH

    May 3, 2021 at 2:24 pm

    @Cacti: ​
     

    As good a job as I think Biden is doing at this point, I still feel like the USA in its existing form is not much longer for the world.

    Historical point of interest. After the Constitutional Convention, when a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government they were giving us, he famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

    Well, as it turns out, Franklin didn’t really believe we could keep it. Everyone knew that Washington was going to be the first president, so he thought we’d be okay for a while, but he believed the United States would have devolved into an autocracy within about a generation.

    So – if we could exceed Dr. Franklin’s estimation, maybe we can keep it up.

  53. 53.

    mrmoshpotato

    May 3, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Must’ve been some high weeds, or your land speed record car. :)

  54. 54.

    Baud

    May 3, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    @Malovich:

    The only people who are bound to suffer a Storm are the pedophile-ringed, money-grubbing, fascist bootlicking master projectionists in the QOP right now

    Fuckin A

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    May 3, 2021 at 2:28 pm

    @Baud:

    I’d like to publicly declare that I, indeed, am the map.

  56. 56.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: The end with the engine hit my car window.  On my “land speed record car”; hardly, it’s a Prius.

  57. 57.

    Steeplejack

    May 3, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    Interesting comment on that Pierce story by abc6831:

    America is crazy at its core (founded on slavery in the name of liberty; expanded through genocide on the principle of individual opportunity), and at the center of that crazy is an unresolvable cognitive dissonance: America is great and all powerful, but it is perpetually under siege and run through with traitors who must be purged through violence from the body politic.

    I think that last bit is the glitch that sends a lot of conservatives around the bend.

  58. 58.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 3, 2021 at 2:32 pm

    @JoyceH: The fall of the Roman Republic makes sobering reading since it was crazy rich people screwed things up so badly a dictatorship was the only solution.

  59. 59.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 3, 2021 at 2:35 pm

    It appears that Q did the GOP a favor in providing them a new set of dogwhistles after Trump blew out the old ones.

  60. 60.

    VOR

    May 3, 2021 at 2:35 pm

    @Frank Wilhoit: The educational system has one purpose, one task, one only, nothing else: to make sure that every person who passes through it comes out with a perfectly-functioning bullsh1t detector.

    I give you the Texas Republican Party platform of 2012:

    “Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

  61. 61.

    J R in WV

    May 3, 2021 at 2:35 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    So the Democrats are a Pagan Fane of Dendrophilia and Dancing Goats?

    I’ve been to those parties. Whoooo that was a lot of fun. But I’m too old for that cavorting kind of athletic exertion now. Sitting around a campfire with A beer, that’s OK.

  62. 62.

    Steeplejack

    May 3, 2021 at 2:36 pm

    @MattF:

    “Out of a job”? She’ll be a member of Congress until 2023, and she—like all of us—can wait to see how things shake out. Maybe McCarthy trips over his dick right out of the leadership. Not saying it’s likely, but a lot of weird shit has been happening lately.

    ETA: And, yes, I know you mean her “leadership” job.

  63. 63.

    trollhattan

    May 3, 2021 at 2:36 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Was one of scant few folks in my neighborhood who mowed his own lawn, back when we had a lawn, and everybody else has a mow&blow crew, who all come at a different day and time to wake the dead.

    Were we to have hired somebody, I always wondered how long it would have taken to find anybody who used rakes and brooms. “Que?”

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    May 3, 2021 at 2:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “Republicans don’t lie to be believed.  They lie to be repeated.” – LOLGOP

    I become more convinced of that every day.

    And people who repeat their nonsense – even to rebut it – are amplifying it.  They need to understand that.

    I don’t know the best way to fight it, but helping some outrage become the “Most Active” or whatever on T and FB isn’t actually fighting it…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    May 3, 2021 at 2:39 pm

    @Another Scott:

    ?

  66. 66.

    germy

    May 3, 2021 at 2:40 pm

    #FOIA lawsuit obtains Trump administration’s playbook on #drone strikes. @HinaShamsi writes about the broader lessons for secret presidential power to kill without congressional or judicial oversight.https://t.co/rC9e65AZB5— Just Security (@just_security) May 3, 2021

     

    From the outset, Trump’s Principles, Standards, and Procedures for U.S. Direct Action Against Terrorist Targets (PSP) is striking for the bellicose and nationalistic tone it sets and the message it sends to agencies involved in lethal operations.

    It starts by emphasizing flexibility to take “direct action”—a euphemism for lethal force as well as capture operations—as “a critical component” of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. It signals that heads of agencies have primary responsibility for proposing and taking these actions, and the president can swiftly give them more flexibility if they ask for it. It refers to “core principles” of the law of armed conflict, but in doing so, further transforms these legal rules that give states greater license to kill in the exceptional context of war into a blur of policy and preference that may, at the discretion of the president, apply outside of any recognizable battlefield. 

    This is not new in assertions of unilateral authority by American presidents to kill in the last 20 years, but where President Obama sought to signal policy constraint, regulation, and layers of internal executive branch oversight for his killing rules, Trump explicitly signaled that the gloves were off to “further U.S. national security interests.”

    Greenwald, Sirota, etc. unavailable for comment

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 2:40 pm

    @Steeplejack: One of the most ignored bits of history of the revolutionary period was the deliberate framing by supporters of independence of King George as the AntiChrist and his supporters in the Colonies as satanic. This was an attempt to rouse support among devout Protestant colonials for independence because supporting independence meant doing the Lord’s work in the fight between good and evil, Christ and AntiChrist, G-d and Satan.

    The only serious treatment of this is by a scholar of the history of religion in the US who was focusing on the history and development of Christian fundamentalism in the US.

  68. 68.

    Gravenstone

    May 3, 2021 at 2:43 pm

    @VOR: Can’t have the chilluns “thinking for themselves”, now can we?

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    May 3, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    @StringOnAStick: ​
     
    I think the thing to do with something like gas powered leaf blowers is to find some way to buy them out. Ban them, but offer a trade-in, where people can bring in their old gas model and get an electric replacement. It will cost a bunch of money, but it’s likely to be a cheaper way to reduce emissions than many other methods people have talked about. I would expect to get decent buy-in, since the electric models have some real advantages, like not destroying the operator’s hearing.

  70. 70.

    germy

    May 3, 2021 at 2:45 pm

    @Gravenstone:

    They got guns, We got guns, All God’s children got guns! I’m gonna walk all over the battlefield, ‘Cause all God’s children got guns! 

    (Duck Soup)

  71. 71.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    May 3, 2021 at 2:47 pm

    @trollhattan: I’m a renter, so that’s the landlord’s job.

  72. 72.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 3, 2021 at 2:48 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I would expect to get decent buy-in, since the electric models have some real advantages, like not destroying the operator’s hearing.

    The people who make purchasing decisions are not the ones who have to use them.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 2:48 pm

    @Another Scott: I’m not recommending anything, just pointing out what is happening and why it is happening and how it is happening and who is involved in making it happen.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    May 3, 2021 at 2:55 pm

    “Haunted” houses are actually just carbon monoxide poisoning ? pic.twitter.com/UXNzjvbYLz

    — Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) May 2, 2021

    That’s just what Satan wants you to think…

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    CaseyL

    May 3, 2021 at 2:57 pm

    The US is a swiftly failing state, due to one Party and its media propaganda organs selling an all-too-willing population pure poison.  (There’s been another multiple shooting, this time in Wisconsin, and our ability to de-arm the country is more distant than a successful Mars colony.)

    I honestly don’t know how much a united Democratic federal government can do to reverse the tide.  I do know that if the GQP takes back any power, we simply won’t be able to do so at all.

    There’s going to be small slices of densely-populated areas along the coasts where people do their best to live in a civilized manner, and the vast inland area will be a sea of churning savagery and ignorance.   The problem is that the savagery and ignorance won’t stay there, but will look to destabilize and overthrow the coastal regions as well.

    Hopefully not in my lifetime, but at the present rate of acceleration, who the hell knows.

  76. 76.

    The Pale Scot

    May 3, 2021 at 3:02 pm

    @lifeinthebonusround:

    believe Dems are demons.

    That is the huge problem. The non-mainline Protestant faiths use the idea of “spiritual warfare” to keep their people enthused. All of life is an epic battle between Dog and Scratchy. And you my friend, have been chosen by the side of light to be among the host of Dog. People not of our faith are agents of The Enemy or his unwitting dupe. Despite Dog being omnipotent and all knowing, he must have the assistance of drooling, gibbering primates living on a ball of mud circling a common star in one of 100 million galaxies. The fate of existence depends on YOU. People you have political and cultural disagreements must be put down by means both fare and foul. No Compromises are possible, your soul, and those of your family, are at stake.

    This spiritual warfare shit is the engine room of all movement conservatism. We’re not temporarily sentient bags of chemicals trying to make our way in an indifferent world. We’re soldiers in a righteous battle that spans all of creation, a time of myth, despite the existence of clocks and calendars. This is from of 300 hundred years of barely literate backwood preachers competing for •• money followers, unconnected to formal theological scholarship, ramping up the crazy (not that mainline religious scholarship isn’t batshit too, but those people had to live with each other, instead of sitting among yur critters mulling over how to keep asses in the pews on Sunday).

    The modern concept of politics as the art of compromise is deception, there can be no compromise (unless the money is really good, then we can talk). I don’t think there’s anyway to get these types rational, possibly with an EMP blast that only takes out communications and electro-mechanical printers, leaving them with themselves instead of plugged into the hive. The exuberance of being part of something epical instead of the drudgery of life is baked into humanity’s mind

  77. 77.

    Steeplejack

    May 3, 2021 at 3:02 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Huh. Interesting.

  78. 78.

    VeniceRiley

    May 3, 2021 at 3:03 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s what chased me off of religion at an accelerated rate. Finding out I was lied to repeatedly on all sorts of topics. I suppose they’ve no other plays in the book and will lose their children’s participation an regard. The ones that remain will go to Liberty U.

  79. 79.

    Brachiator

    May 3, 2021 at 3:11 pm

    @CaseyL:

    There’s going to be small slices of densely-populated areas along the coasts where people do their best to live in a civilized manner, and the vast inland area will be a sea of churning savagery and ignorance. The problem is that the savagery and ignorance won’t stay there, but will look to destabilize and overthrow the coastal regions as well.

    This would make a pretty good dystopian movie.

  80. 80.

    raven

    May 3, 2021 at 3:15 pm

    @trollhattan: I fell backwards mowing my neighbors lawn last week. I hit square on by back and, two days later, my left ribcage started hurting like hell. I’m pretty sure it’s not broken but it sucks.

  81. 81.

    Gravenstone

    May 3, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Brachiator: Welcome to the Fallout universe (sans the whole massive nuclear exchange with China).

  82. 82.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 3, 2021 at 3:41 pm

    @The Pale Scot:

    The non-mainline Protestant faiths use the idea of “spiritual warfare” to keep their people enthused.

    Can you say “jihad”? I knew that you could.

    The modern concept of politics as the art of compromise is deception, there can be no compromise (unless the money is really good, then we can talk).

    Yes, the “civilized” democratic politics we’d become accustomed to is a product of plenty, literally a luxury. In times of plenty everybody can get something, provided we’re talking about what money can buy. Much of right-wing politics depends on scarcity, but another trick right-wingers play is inventing issues on which compromise is unthinkable, like abortion.

  83. 83.

    Ken

    May 3, 2021 at 3:57 pm

    @J R in WV: But I’m too old for that cavorting kind of athletic exertion now. Sitting around a campfire with A beer, that’s OK.

    That’s the best part, sitting there next to the fire in the big cloak wearing the mask and horns, watching as the cavorters run around and occasionally throw themselves at your feet screaming “Hail! Do with me what you will!”

    Seniority has its perqs.

  84. 84.

    Tony Jay

    May 3, 2021 at 4:22 pm

    @Brachiator: 

    Or a huge multi-part novel by Tolkien.

  85. 85.

    CaseyL

    May 3, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    @Brachiator: ​

    @CaseyL:
    There’s going to be small slices of densely-populated areas along the coasts where people do their best to live in a civilized manner, and the vast inland area will be a sea of churning savagery and ignorance. The problem is that the savagery and ignorance won’t stay there, but will look to destabilize and overthrow the coastal regions as well.
    This would make a pretty good dystopian movie.

    Actually, now that I think a little more about it, my description pretty fairly describes Europe and the Arab world during the Crusades, with the Arab world being far more civilized, literate, scientific, and even egalitarian than Europe… and getting its ass kicked all the same by the uncircumsized barbarians.​

  86. 86.

    Geminid

    May 3, 2021 at 4:39 pm

    I know the subject of this thread is not funny. But I thought satirist Brent Terhune’s “A Message from Q-Anon” was hilarious. And it does kind of capture the crazy.

  87. 87.

    Dan B

    May 3, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    @Anoniminous:  Great link to an influential propagandist. I’ve worked with a number of mass communication and branding pros. I’ve read others but not heard of this one.

    I asked my great friend who works in political communication what she thought of Biden / Harris messaging. She exploded with delight. I’ve had the same feeling. The communication has been very impressive. It’s helped make them Teflon. Great policy and excellent sales make me happy.

  88. 88.

    Ksmiami

    May 3, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @Cacti: I’m in agreement actually- we have too many dumb, hateful and violent people in this country to progress and counter real threats. Our system and selfish me me me first philosophy leaves I’ll equipped to meet the challenges of global warming, technology etc

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 4:57 pm

    @Steeplejack: @VeniceRiley: George Marsden’s Fundamentalism and American Culture. This is the 2nd edition:

    https://smile.amazon.com/Fundamentalism-American-Culture-George-Marsden-ebook/dp/B00F8CWCTC/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_4368549507?_encoding=UTF8&dchild=1&ie=UTF8&keywords=george%20marsden&qid=1620075321&sr=8-1

    Marsden is an endowed chair historian at Notre Dame and has written a lot on this subject.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    May 3, 2021 at 5:02 pm

    @Brachiator: @Tony Jay: Just as one can read Middle Earth in the 3rd age, outside of the Shire and the Elven strongholds of Rivendell, Lorien, Mirkwood, and the Grey Havens as a post apocalyptic society sliding at various rates into distopian decay across political, social, economic, and religious lines, there is a similar argument to be made for understanding the US the same way. Sure, we have all these technological advances that make are lives more comfortable; but our infrastructure is crumbling; our political economy is almost solely built on weaponized Keynesianism in terms of R&D and production, which is what produces these tech innovations as commercial spin offs of R&D done for the military, intelligence, and national security purposes; and our political system is a very old and sclerotic revolutionary state.

    Enjoy the rest of your Monday!

  91. 91.

    Dan B

    May 3, 2021 at 5:05 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ve encountered many people who are surprised that propaganda has been around for more than one hundred years and that propaganda coordinated from on high has been for millenia.  There seems to be a break in the awareness brought about by the rationalists.  Ever since we’ve been trying to quantify everything and marginalizing the power of storytelling, myths, and appeals to our basic drives.

    To borrow from FDR, “Those are great ideas, now make me do them.”  It’s basically a challenge to persuade the public so power brokers pay attention.

  92. 92.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    May 3, 2021 at 5:10 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:  the American Protestants were doing that the English Civil War; James II was the anti-christ and so on.

  93. 93.

    James E Powell

    May 3, 2021 at 5:12 pm

    @CaseyL:

    The US is a swiftly failing state, due to one Party and its media propaganda organs selling an all-too-willing population pure poison.

    It’s the all-too-willing population that is our problem and they are the only hope for a solution. The GQP their propaganda network are not going to change unless and until they lose like three, maybe four straight election cycles. The only way that happens is if we can get some of the all-too-willing to be less so.

  94. 94.

    CaseyL

    May 3, 2021 at 5:27 pm

    Shit, I did it again.

    Please delete comment from “quity.”

    Here is my comment, yet again!

    @James E Powell: I don’t think anything will break the spell. A pandemic and economic near-collapse didn’t do it. I can’t imagine what will.​

  95. 95.

    Tony Jay

    May 3, 2021 at 5:44 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    All that, but here at the end of the Fourth Age we’ve somehow got to deal with the fact that the Orcs have the vote, the Nazgûl own the Media and a good half of our political classes would sacrifice their mothers to Morgoth for a juicy donation. 

      Enjoy Tuesday too!

  96. 96.

    Morzer

    May 3, 2021 at 5:45 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Leave Marcus Licinius Crassus alone!

    Speaking of which, I see that Bill and Melinda Gates are apparently going their separate (micro-chipped?) ways…

  97. 97.

    Morzer

    May 3, 2021 at 5:46 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Make Hobbiton Great Again!

  98. 98.

    Bill Arnold

    May 3, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    @Frank Wilhoit:
    Not sure of your scope for “bullsh1t detector”, but very very much yes.
    My more extended take is two prongs of a defensive fork; (1) Build, starting in childhood, the mental habit of assigning approximate confidence levels to every thought/belief. This is basic meta-cognition. (2) Develop, starting in childhood, the mental skills to recognize when one is being manipulated. This second is (a) logic skills to recognize weak arguments, (b) the self-awareness to recognize that one is being mentally manipulated, emotionally or otherwise (this ties in with metacognition) (c) basic intuitive understanding, through practice, in understanding how cognitiive biases are used (often in combination with bad arguments) to mislead and manipulate people.
    And yeah, have mentioned previously that a friend once described his job with a venture capital/incubator firm as literally their “bullshit detector”. Skills that people like oh Jim Mattis did not learn sufficiently. (Theranos)
    The side effect is that consumer capitalism breaks. Oh well. (There would be an arms race and AI-driven personalized marketting might eventually win, if we allow the capitalist panopticon that it would require.)

  99. 99.

    Bill Arnold

    May 3, 2021 at 7:00 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    That word “research” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

    It’s a parody of the activities described in the tvtropes entry for Doing Research .

  100. 100.

    WaterGirl

    May 3, 2021 at 7:20 pm

    @CaseyL: I changed it to CaseyL and then deleted it.

  101. 101.

    Bill Arnold

    May 3, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    I will point out that as a joke back in the ’00s I was asserting the water on Mars proved Noah’s Flood and that Model Railroaders were on the Christian Right’s Enemy list and in the last year I have had both those quoted back to me unironically by Conservatives.

    Are you proud of yourself? :-) Those factoids will probably be around 40 years from now.
    (I have zero right to complain, to be very honest.)

  102. 102.

    Procopius

    May 3, 2021 at 7:42 pm

     I started to research myself and found out …

    When I see a statement like that I want to scream, why didn’t the incompetent corporate “reporter” follow up on that. Ask, “Can you tell me where you found that evidence? My research skills aren’t all that good. I’ve been trying to find evidence of that and just haven’t found anything.” See what happens. Ask Lin Wood why he won’t reveal what evidence he was going to present to the court. Ask Sydney Powell the same. I wonder if there’s any way to find out if they were paid for their bizarre performances, and, if so, how much. Lawyers, of course, don’t have to believe the case they make for their clients, but they are not supposed to lie to the court.

  103. 103.

    Tehanu

    May 3, 2021 at 9:25 pm

    I still can’t believe the number of supposedly literate adults who are (1) allowed to vote and (2) believe in witches. What are they using instead of brains?

  104. 104.

    Procopius

    May 3, 2021 at 11:02 pm

    @germy: The story says that Trump’s Rules allowed for killing anybody “except in America,” but didn’t quote any sentence that actually excepted CONUS (Continental US). I’m pretty sure the rules that Obama revealed (redacted) did not, but I admit I did not read them. I’ve had the feeling, without being able to prove it, that once Obama allowed  American citizens to be targeted he pretty much allowed it anywhere, even in CONUS, and the media just assumed that was still unthinkable. I have no doubt that someday a President will assassinate his political opponents and claim they were terrorists under some Alice Through the Lookingglass definition. I expected Trump to make the jump.

  105. 105.

    Nobody in particular

    May 6, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    @BruceFromOhio:

    I hesitate to remind you all how it ended in Athens. And the main body of their history, they were at war with each other and everyone else. Franklin expected, if not predicted this in his final speech at Independence Hall before Rat. It may have been a rhetorical tactic and it did serve his purpose, to achieve ratification – finally. It’s worth a read, and brief, wonderful prose. 

    I had to look that one up, Dr. Silverman, “shebeen.”

    Great word. You do look Irish. It’s the best whiskey.

    REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.

    Ambrose Beirce.

    It was Santayana who wrote: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Not Plato.

    And this oftquoted  and abridged comment:

    Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  106. 106.

    Nobody in particular

    May 6, 2021 at 2:16 pm

     

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @JoyceH:

    I should have read the comments before posting.

    You may delete my comment now lest I be accused of plagiarism.

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