Josh Kovensky at TPM on Q-addled family members:
It’s a problem that’s confronted families across the country as they struggle to find ways to reach loved ones who are sliding into extremism, and may mobilize to violent acts that land them in jail. One hotline devoted to the issue has seen its call volume triple since Jan. 6.
But researchers say that the U.S. lags behind other countries in programs to prevent extremists from mobilizing to commit violent acts. In Germany and Scandinavia, for example, the government has developed programs for families to intervene with loved ones who, relatives worry, may be considering committing a politically motivated attack.
Brian Hughes, co-founder of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University, told TPM that families with radicalizing relatives reach out to him periodically. He’s also noticed an uptick since Jan. 6.
“It tears families apart as surely as drugs and alcohol,” Hughes said. “The level of destructiveness to personal relationships is unbelievable.”
There’s a subreddit called QAnonCasualties that is full of family members of Q addicts sharing their stories. It was especially poignant on Mother’s Day, with children detailing how they lost their mothers to Q. The latest Q conspiracy theory that’s tearing families apart is the Q belief that people getting the vaccine shed virus on others and kill them.
rikyrah
???
Really?
Raoul Paste
So the organisation is PERIL? Catchy
Wapiti
I had an epiphany of sorts this weekend. I realized that the somewhat cloying “does it bring you joy?” question from Marie Kondo’s book can be revised for my less cheerful self.
If I catch myself thinking “This. Does. NOT. Bring. Me. Joy.”, it’s a sign that I should correct or discard or unfriend whatever is disturbing me.
geg6
I really do feel bad for these people’s families. It’s a cult and they are dealing with trying to deprogram them from the cult. I don’t know how I would handle this situation if I had it happening with my family. Thank FSM, I don’t have that problem as we are all, every single one, DFHs.
VOR
As I understand it, the theory (?) is people with the vaccine have had their DNA altered and can somehow pass the DNA alterations to non-vaccinated people. There was a kerfuffle a week or so ago about a school in Florida run by a MAGAt where they were telling staff that getting vaccinated was a firing offense, that nobody who had been vaccinated could work there.
Kay
My assistant’s parents have fallen down this rabbit hole. They pitched a fit because she bought her youngest child a tablet that is not an Apple tablet, because “Bill Gates”, child molester, covid inventor.
It’s sad. They were really nice people. Now they’re paranoid and horrible.
bbleh
It IS pathetic, the more so because I don’t know what can be about it other than perhaps isolation and “deprogramming.” Like any cult they reinforce each others’ delusions, and the delusions themselves are self-reinforcing: all contrary information is a product of the conspiracy against them and further proof that their delusions are real and conspirators are out to get them.
I’ve seen these kinds of conditions described as “strong but brittle,” in that the victims defend strenuously against any contrary information because any that actually gets through is liable to shatter the entire delusion. (And then of course the family gets to help pick up the pieces.)
Like any other mental disease, it’s terrible.
Betty Cracker
I do feel sorry for people whose loved ones are lost to this madness. I’ve got family members who are Trump-voting bigots, and that really sucks and has a negative effect on family relationships and holidays, but at least they’re not obsessed with dumb conspiracy theories. That would definitely be worse.
Yesterday, we went to see my hubby’s mom for Mother’s Day, and on the way to her house, we rounded a corner, and there was van parked by the side of the road that was covered in Trump flags and “Fuck Biden” flags, car magnets and some other really offensive shit, including “Joe and the Ho Got to Go” signs, etc. The guy was parked there to SELL this crap to Republican crybabies in the nearby senior housing developments (this was not in The Villages but also not far from there).
Anyhoo, when we rounded the corner and saw the van, the mister and I both immediately flipped the guy off, and he flipped us off too. We laughed about it for the next mile or so.
Kay
Of course he’s noticed an uptick. For a brief period there the whole Republican Party wasn’t egging them on, and now they are. Again. They’re absolutely validating and encouraging all of this and they think they’re going to get away with it by speaking one way on Right wing outlets and another way to the general public. They think they can keep their base delusional and not have that leak out to the rest of the country, and it’s delusional. Of course it will.
kindness
My liberal sensibilities no longer kick in when I hear stories about people who gulp the Koolaide. I feel bad for their families but the Koolaide suckers….not so much. Karma will happen them.
Guess I’m not a great liberal but those folk have worn me down. Now it’s all on their heads.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wife’s mom died 3 years ago at 63. My SIL and wife went to the cemetery yesterday which sucks for a million reasons but it’s made worse because said SIL is constantly sharing her beliefs on whatever the latest conspiracy is.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Going by my aunt’s crazy husband, yes. And the guy is an engineer so that stops from going full stupid. But, exactly how does one legally intervene in the US over a political view point? The only thing I’ve seen that worked was when my Jewish brother in law told his mother that if she doesn’t stop with the MAGA spew at every family dinner he was going to cut her off from her grandkids.
Cameron
I’m sure there are a few specimens in the development I live in, but they prefer to keep this stuff to themselves. There are a few American flags hung here and there; no MAGA or Trump or such like, though. Thank goodness – whenever I go to downtown Bradenton, I see vehicles adorned the same way as the one the Crackers encountered.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Isn’t, “Get a job, you filthy hippee” the correct reply to that type of low rent grifting? But I can imagine Bubba there wiping the chewing tobacco off his face and turning to his friend and saying”Liberals are real haters”
Nicole
I feel so bad for these families- you’re right, it is like living with an addict (coming from a long and distinguished line of alcoholics, that’s something I had many years’ experience with). And you just desperately want them to stop. Knowing that they’ll feel so much better if they do, but they won’t stop. Because they can’t. And then I guess some of them get so deep into it that it’s a sunk cost fallacy; the shame of admitting they were taken for a ride is so great they’ll keep it up, even right into prison.
QAnon got mentioned in one of the columns on that website I happily shared so many of you could lose your weekend, the one about every #1 Billboard hit. The columnist said, while he couldn’t pick a most favorite #1, it was easy for him to pick a least favorite: “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” The entry on it is good reading (for me, it took me back to 8th Grade Social Studies, where my excellent teacher played it, along with The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, as a look at how Vietnam was being commented on in art at the time). One of the things the columnist says is that it’s not feasible today that such a reactionary piece of music would dominate the popular charts- it was #1 for five weeks and sold 9 million copies. As he put it, it would be like a song praising QAnon going to #1. As a child of 1980s, I was very familiar with rah-rah America Yeah! movies dominating the box office, but I don’t think that will come again, either.
So there’s my optimism, in the midst of grieving for these families of QAnon addicts- 50 years later, I still hear “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (and “Eve of Destruction,” which my teacher also played for us) on oldies radio stations, but the only place I ever heard “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was in Social Studies class and in “Caddyshack.” The reactionary viewpoint won’t ever die, but it loses more relevance every decade. And recognizing that it’s not the first time families have been torn apart by these things, and it won’t be the last.
Baud
As with drugs and alcohol, it’s going to be important to teach people how not to be enablers.
Tragic situation.
Kay
Just amazing. They will never, ever get it.
They think these people are just going to go away after the ridiculous fake audit? They think putting off telling them “no, you lost” gets better after they validated it with an audit?
Worse. It gets worse. Always.
The state lawmakers in Arizona were going to allow these lunatics to go to voters HOMES and interrogate them. If the DOJ hadn’t have stepped in and warned them they would have happily thrown the citizens to the mercy of these nutjobs. They basically invited unhinged lunatics into other peoples houses. “Sure! Go on out there”
Jay
@VOR:
we shed cells loaded with DNA everywhere we go, more if you have dandruff.
what a load of bs.
They are really reaching.
f/n morons.
MattF
And being smart doesn’t keep you out of the cult. Thread on Stefanik.
zhena gogolia
@Wapiti:
This is the strategy I’ve been employing (with variable success) since TFG’s regime began.
Raoul Paste
@Nicole: that was a great comment Optimism is welcome
Kay
GOP lawmakers in Arizona sent unhinged lunatics out to interrogate people. Encouraged this. Gave it the state seal of legitimacy. They would have gone thru with it too, but for the intervention of the feds.
How did they imagine that was going to go? The federal government rescued them. They should all send a thank you letter to the Biden DOJ, aka “the only adults”.
WaterGirl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Where do extreme political viewpoints end and mental illnesses begin
edit: Because these Q people definitely seem to have crossed into mental illness or at least mental incompetence.
Roger Moore
@Nicole:
I don’t see why that’s so unbelievable. Yes, QAnon is popular with only a narrow slice of the population, but they’re fanatical about it. I can easily imagine them seeing it as their patriotic duty to buy a song praising QAnon and play it on an endless loop so all their neighbors could hear. It doesn’t take a huge group to push a song to #1 on the charts if they’re all in on it.
debbie
Haven’t spoken to my brothers and their families since 2016. Not likely to change, either.
JCJ
@kindness:
You and I, we may look the same but we are very far apart
There’s bullet holes where my compassion used to be and there is violence in my heart – Trent Reznor (My Violent Heart lyrics)
MattF
@WaterGirl: I’ve noticed that following politics these days requires some knowledge about mental illness.
MisterForkbeard
I’ve followed the subreddit and a few others (/r/parlerwatch is where a lot of this stuff is documented, though usually for laughs).
The problem is that the Q and Q-Adjacent theory is what drives the Republican party. It is standard republican orthodoxy that Joe Biden has dementia and that someone else is controlling the presidency. It was part of the Trump campaign and is echoed daily on Fox News. It’s also orthodoxy that Biden somehow stole the election. They train their voters to be susceptible to this, and there’s an entire media apparatus to back them up.
And the Party itself tolerates and promotes this stuff, too. You can see their relative silence on vaccines and on covid prevention as part of the same toolbox
And when theres this much effort devoted to it, it catches other people. This is why you see conspiracy minded leftwingers buying in, too – it fits some of their preconceived notions and theres mountina of “evidence” for them to find.
Chief Oshkosh
@MattF: I don’t know whether Stefanik has succumbed to the mental illness or whether she’s just an opportunist. Either way, her ACTIONS are what she should be judged on.
I’d say she needs to be fit for a straightjacket. Maybe a muzzle, too. She’s infecting others.
Roger Moore
@Chief Oshkosh:
I assume she’s an opportunist. There are plenty of people on the Republican side who are Trumpists in public but happy to tell their friends in the media they really hate him. But I agree it doesn’t really matter whether they believe or not; it’s their actions that matter, not their motivation.
Kay
@MisterForkbeard:
The loonies are a small group and they wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that they are controlling an outsize number of lawmakers.
That’s the difference. They can punch way above their weight, because Republicans have given the power to act and influence actual events- the fake audit in Arizona. It isn’t the loonies that are a concern, as far as numbers. It’s the lawmakers who are taking orders from them. That’s when it goes from a Republican Party problem to a national problem.
They may be 25% of the GOP base, but they have a majority of the GOP minority in the US House, and lots and lots of state lawmakers.
Agoners
It is not just righties that are falling down these conspiracy theory rabbit holes. A large contingent of my family and friends are pretty far-left and are now parroting much of the same nonsense. Some of them were already anti-vaxers, some were not. The loonie crap that comes out of their mouths whenever COVID-19 or vaccines come up is enough to drive one mad. It is really frustrating and disappointing to find out such generally wonderful, intelligent people can be taken in by conspiracy theories so easily. They are all parents, so I am wondering if it stems from the terror that nature is out to kill their offspring. They are used to the idea that humans are evil, but have traditionally thought of nature as something to be respected but also embraced. Whatever it is, it really sucks to find yourself disgusted with at least half of the people that you love in this world.
rp
Is there historical precedent for Q? I know the US has a long history of wackos and conspiracy theories, but I don’t have a sense of whether any previous examples can match Q’s scope and destructiveness.
MisterForkbeard
@MisterForkbeard: And the other problem is that there are a lot of people who dont believe in “Q” the person, but do believe a lot of the theory is plausible. They pick and choose. For example, I have a college friend who believes the following things:
With one or two exceptions, that’s an orthodox Republican set if beliefs. It’s like prosperity gospel – you take a set of beliefs and only grab the ones that are perfectly convenient for you. He thinks Q people are crazy but he overlaps with them 95%. And he’s a reasonable, normal republican.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
What she’s doing is going on Right wing outlets and promoting the lies to the base, and she hopes she can keep that from “normie” voters in her district and thus have it both ways. Base + normies= win.
That’s why it’s so important it get covered on mainstream outlets. So they don’t get away with that.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
What she’s doing is going on Right wing outlets and promoting the lies to the base, and she hopes she can keep that from “normie” voters in her district and thus have it both ways. Base + normies= win.
That’s why it’s so important it get covered on mainstream outlets. So they don’t get away with that.
Baud
@Agoners:
A while ago, anti-vaxers were more ideologically diverse. Now they are mostly righties. But you still have people like RFK, Jr.
I’m sorry to hear about your situation.
MattF
@Roger Moore: ‘Opportunist’ comes much more easily for a professional politician. That said— choosing, rationally, to be delusional— seems… strange.
Kay
@Agoners:
Agreed. I get emails from a local Lefty that are identical to Trump supporters on covid and the vaccine.
Got. I blocked her. Honestly though? It doesn’t surprise me that much.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Fixed.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Did you see Greg Sargent’s recent column on a related topic in WaPo? It reminded me of a point you’ve been making for a while now — that Repubs have to be judged on their actions and that it doesn’t make any sense to give them the benefit of the doubt for their “motives.” Sargent talks about how so much focus is on Repubs’ alleged fear of Trump but they are in fact taking affirmative steps to undermine future elections based on the Big Lie. True.
germy
The latest antivaccine disinformation consists of pointing to the large numbers of reports of death (and other adverse events) to the VAERS database. It’s nonsense.
catclub
@Kay:
 
ouch.
Agoners
@Baud: Thanks. It does suck. I had to cancel my wedding last summer and was sort of hoping to start planning it again; however, with that many anti-vaxers on the invitation list I just don’t see how I could morally do that.
Kay
I think Democrats have done a pretty good job making the distinction that this cult or religion or whatever it is is not of concern to the general public except to the extent that it is given legitimacy and the power of law by elected Republicans.
That’s where it crosses a line. That’s the threat. The loonies and 5 GOP lawmakers? Fine. It’s a big country and it takes all kinds. The loonies and 300 or 500 or 1000 GOP lawmakers? Not fine.
To be Frank
The simple fact is that politicians don’t lead, they try to spot a parade and try to get in front of it. The R parade is crazy, and with no choice other than “get in front of the parade” they have to get in front of the crazy parade.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What is this, Schrodinger’s RFK were he is both alive and dead that the same time? Sounds like a lot of doublethink with your friend.
Agoners
@Kay: I ran into a dear friend of mine this weekend. I told her I got vaccinated and she got this look on her face, half horror, half concern. She then proceeded to tell me how one of her clients (she is a massage therapist) got cerebral palsy from the vaccine. He is an adult man. I just didn’t know what to say.
wvng
@bbleh: “I’ve seen these kinds of conditions described as “strong but brittle,” in that the victims defend strenuously against any contrary information because any that actually gets through is liable to shatter the entire delusion.” One might recall that the Blogmaster himself was restored to reality by one of those delusion shattering events, in his case the Terry Schiavo travesty. I am actually surprised it happens so rarely, because there are so many self evidently crazy things that stir the right. Sadly the crazy is durable.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know why more media people don’t do it because it’s the best defense to the charge of “bias”
Make no judgments as to motive or intent. Don’t do any of it. Just hold them to what they say. They can cut the whole knot of whether they’re being “fair” and all they have to do is stop inserting words and ideas that Republicans are not expressing behind what they say.
Now they’re all in some wholly subjective wilderness where they are basically inventing good motives to replace the words these people said. They’re lost now. Now we’re at the point where they’re arguing Republicans didn’t really mean it. What? Why are they working so hard? Are they defense counsel for these people?
catclub
@Nicole:
I wish. My town will have a ‘Support the Blue’ rally next sunday.
The catholic church here has Knights of Columbus which seems to be an organization for worshipping police.
geg6
@Agoners:
My niece feels your pain. She also postponed her wedding from last summer to this September. I got her “Save a Date” (hilariously titled, “Let’s Try This Again”) the other day and it had a note on it to say that, if you are not vaccinated, do not accept the invitation. She says they will be checking vaccine cards. Her parent both have serious health issues (my sister has Crohn’s and my BIL has MS) and her babies, obviously, have not been vaccinated. I approve heartily.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Stephanik said there were 40k fraudulent votes in Georgia. Was that a lie? Okay, so she was lying to take Cheney’s leadership post? Has she said that? No? Then why are we giving it to her?
She has to say it or she doesn’t get the ulterior motive. It’s not our job to figure out her motives. It’s her job to say what she means. I don’t know what goes on in her crazy head, and I don’t care.
West of the Rockies
@catclub:
I read that as “Support the Blues” (music), which would be cool. Cops, not so much.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
So are we and our daughters were brought up right. But they have to deal with right wing in-laws. No Qanons as far as I know.
Another Scott
We’ve had issues with cults in the past, but the cults didn’t have ownership of significant arms of the mass media then.
:-/
On the lighter side:
It must be in the top 10!
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
PJ
@Agoners:
You could always have a smaller, safer wedding.
Prior to WWII, it was expected that children could get very sick and would often die in childhood or be subject to diseases that would either cut their adult lives short or render them disabled. Vaccines and antibiotics and improved public health measures have largely eliminated those dangers in Western countries, and it’s precisely for that reason that anti-vaxxers have proliferated – they cannot conceive of the danger to their children and to others because they have never experienced it. This lack of empathy and imagination is usually endemic to Republicans, but clearly extends to a huge portion of the left.
Excluding anti-vaxxers from personal events or gatherings is a rational response to their selfish stupidity, and if they get upset, tant pis.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: It really is ridiculous. The better stories come out of focusing on what Republicans are doing, not what they’re saying on background anyway.
It’s been interesting to watch Florida Repubs try to justify the new restrictions on ballot access after they spent months bragging about how wonderfully secure the 2020 election in FL was. DeSantis in particular was all over TV late last year and early this year saying Florida was a model for the nation to follow.
Some of the political gossip rags speculated that DeSantis had to tweak the voting laws anyway to stay on Trump’s good side, but who gives a shit? Just ask him why it was such a huge priority to change this voting system that he just said the entire nation should adopt!
I am actually very partial to political gossip, and I often try to suss out people’s motivations for doing what they do. But even I can see that’s a shitty framework for covering national politics.
Kelly
She said 140,000. Out of 525,000 cast. She really thinks the R base are innumerate idiots.
Cameron
@Kay: Isn’t that the Sidney Powell defense? “No sane person could have believed the nonsense I was saying.”
germy
Ejoiner
@JCJ: you know, reimagining the “Year Zero” world as a Qanon one…kinda works? Damn, maybe Trent is Q :O
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Straight-up Animal Farm, from “four legs good, two legs bad” to “four legs good, two legs better” without missing a beat. OT, have you heard anything about a response to Norwegian Cruise Lines from our Trumpy guv? I assume that being a proper Trump mini-me, he’ll deny having personally issued the order banning vaccination passports and pass the blame to some minion.
Brachiator
Call me cynical, but I tend to be skeptical of stories that imply that “they do things better in Europe.” I wonder how effective these programs are.
But it is weird to think of mothers becoming radicalized, although I hear stories of parents brain-captured by Fox News.
Still, I more often hear about elderly relations being taken by Old School scam artists going after their money.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: I haven’t seen anything. Interesting how that backfired. Maybe he’ll go on Fox News and throw someone under the bus.
Hoodie
On a positive note, my wife was pleased to hear this weekend that her Fox-watching father no longer supports Trump and now finds him “scary.” My guess is that the Insurrection and the related events had a lot to do with this reversal, particularly the obvious wackiness of those involved. The Q-cult stuff is really off-putting to a lot of people who were previously Trump sympathizers. My FIL is a case in point; he’s a retired Army officer who told me in 2016 that he thought Trump could be another Reagan. Yeah, I know, Reagan sucked, but he didn’t bring on anything like the level of crazy associated with Trump. This makes me think that the more you can tie this nutbaggery to Trumpism, the better.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Baffert Update – he went on Fox and went full retard, blaming it on cancel culture. Says a groom could have peed in straw in the stall.
Mallard Filmore
@Jay:
There is even a whole movie about that: GATTACA.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: Haven’t heard anything from the Mouse (although I don’t follow news as closely as I should), but I figure that a private message has been sent that if this dumbass order holds, Orange County will become the 51st state.
Just One More Canuck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: In my field (forensic accounting) I deal with people from a wide variety of occupations. I find that engineers are some of the worst people to deal with because they become so convinced of the correctness of their position that they are unable to see any point of view but their own.
Doc Sardonic
All I have seen from Norwegian is summed up here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/norwegian-cruise-lines-florida-covid-vaccine-proof-florida
Sounds similar to Disney saying they will do what is in the best interests of our guests, cast members and company. DeShithead is just starting to get shown how much power he doesn’t have.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Right. It’s our job! They have to do the boring job of actually talking to these people. We’ll take it from there.
I bitch about Jake Tapper all the time but he’s been good in this period. He seems to have figured out how to do this.
It called for a different approach because it was a different situation, but half the time we can’t even get that- an admission that it’s a different situation. They keep wanting to jam it back into the “normal box” but it….won’t…go so they just push harder. It isn’t going to fit in there.
No One of Consequence
@rp: As I recall, I once read a story about Orson Welles who scared quite a few people via a radio broadcast once…
Peace,
NOoC
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: I read that commentary, and indeed listened to “Eve of Destruction” (tho’ *not* “The Ballad of the Green Berets” – I remembered hearing it as a kid, and that was enough for me!).
In fact, I have spent ALL DAMN WEEKEND and part of this morning on that Stereogum site! You have created a monster, a monster, I say!
Doc Sardonic
@Cameron: Mouse is already basically it’s own entity within the state or Florida…. Think Vatican in Rome. The Mouse can do pretty much what it wants to. They want to stick an international airport on property, already approved. Decide they don’t like their solar farm and want to put in a nuke plant, done deal. They do things with Orange and Osceola county more out of courtesy than necessity.
hitchhiker
@Brachiator:
Spend a little time on that reddit sub if you want to see stories of radicalized moms. And dads. And brothers, sisters, boyfriends, best friends.
There seem to be two basic stories. One is of relatives who have always been a titch on the crazy side, eager to believe theories on any subject. The other is much scarier — people who seemed perfectly rational until the last year or so, and are now beyond reach.
In any case, the frustration and despair of their friends and families is just wrenching. They reach out for advice, but there’s not much people can say except, “Get out. Protect your children. Protect your assets. Block her.”
Once in a while someone says to be gentle and make sure a path back to sanity stays open … my sense is that the Q folk make this very hard, because generally they’re dead certain that they’ve hit on the Ultimate Truth, and their confidence makes them ugly with contempt. “Just wait and see. Do your research, and you’ll understand!”
ETA: The big issue now is vaccines. You have adult children being shunned by their parents for getting vaccinated, and little kids being kept from relatives who might shed vaccine on them and cause them to be sterile.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Typical mind control cult stuff; the leader demands their followers dress and act obnoxiously so they are isolated from the rest of society and can’t leave the group.
Agoners
@PJ: To be honest, I have always wanted to elope. I just have to convince my someday husband :)
And yes, I agree, being anti-vax really is coming from this intense place of privilege. I have gotten into several fights with my sister because she thinks that childhood diseases like polio aren’t common anymore because of healthy eating and hygiene, not vaccines, and other nonsense like that. Every time we have a conversation like this, we get all heated and, eventually, I just have to agree that I hope to never be proven right because it will be my nieces and nephews paying that price.
catclub
Pol Pot will be so pleased.
Soprano2
I’ve got Republican friends on FB who have fallen down this hole, but they aren’t QAnon believers. No matter how much evidence you present that Joe Biden is lucid, they don’t believe it. They also think Harris/Pelosi/Schumer/Soros are controlling Biden and the whole Democratic Party. My only surprise is that I never see Hillary’s name in that list. I stay friends with them because we have other things in common, and because it gives me a good insight to what’s going on with that part of the electorate.
smith
@Doc Sardonic:
Interesting how even the governor of a major state could be so deep in the bubble that it didn’t occur to him that a lot of people might not want to go cruising on a plague ship.
Doc Sardonic
I feel for these people having to deal with their Qnut family members. I see it in my own family, watching it now tear up part of it. I’m lucky, my only reason to keep in touch with my family is dead now, so I no longer have to deal with it. Best advice I can give to others is part of the referee’s pre-fight ring instruction…..Protect yourself at all times.
Cameron
I guess I’m lucky that none of my siblings got into this crap – my younger brother was drifting that way, but SIL straightened him out.
Doc Sardonic
@smith: It is a pathological manifestation of fear. That is what motivates and drives most of this shit. They are afraid that they are going to lose their place in the pecking order, their power that they have worked so hard to get or that someone is going to get a benefit that they won’t. This malignant fear that they carry is pathetic, but truly dangerous. Great example comes from the book that shapes 14 year olds that involves Orcs, the character Gollum.
catclub
There were over 5 Million votes cast in Georgia in 2020. Who is the innumerate one now?
Chief Oshkosh
@MisterForkbeard:
Well, all the more reason to help the demise of the Republican party.
James E Powell
@MattF:
The people quoted in that thread all mentioned that Stefanik had a strong moral compass but lost it to Trump. Thing is, if you fall for a scumbag like Trump, that means you have no moral compass at all. The people who “used to be good “ only seemed that way.
Miss Bianca
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Wait, what? Did Medina Spirit test hot? Hope not, because I picked him to win! : ( (off to search the news sites, once I get off Stereogum’s Greatest Hits of 1959).
catclub
@Doc Sardonic:
Wait a minute. THEY didn’t work to establish white privilege. It was just there. They fear because deep down they know they did NOT deserve it, but got it. And they hate someone else getting the same thing they got for nothing.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The Qult actually had a thing about JFK Jr. for a while. He’d faked his death, he was actually Q, he was going to come back at the Republican convention to be Trump’s running mate, blah blah blah.
This was encouraged by one or two clowns who play-acted as JFK Jr. I’ve seen pictures of one of these guys, and I’m convinced he doesn’t own a mirror.
The funny thing is that Q wasn’t actually pushing this–but some of his followers were. After it caught on Q was intentionally vague, so the Q followers could (and did!) fill in the blanks with whatever nonsense they wanted to believe.
Doc Sardonic
@catclub: Let me clarify since you obviously had to knee jerk and fire off a reply without comprehending what you read. I was speaking of the political class including our state Governor. White privilege is only tangentially inferred, and yes THEY didn’t establish it, but in their mind,and that is what I was referring to, THEY believe they earned and built it.
If you want to lecture someone about white privilege, pick another party. I grew up in the Jim Crow south, so I know about the white privilege I was born into.
Brachiator
@hitchhiker:
This is sad. Most of my family and friends don’t mess with this nonsense. Part of it, I suppose, is that they have to deal with real dangers, not fantasy threats.
I sometimes think that the Fox News and right wing propaganda machine has spun out of control. Originally, they only wanted people to fear and hate Democrats. But they have gone too far and cannot shut off or direct the fear.
JoyceH
@catclub:
But Stefanik was talking about the votes cast in a specific COUNTY, Fulton I think. She said there was 140,000 invalid votes in that one county.
Miss Bianca
@hitchhiker: “shed vaccine that will make them become sterile”?
Jesus F Christ. Meanwhile, COVID – and other infectious, vaccine-preventable diseases such as mumps – can ACTUALLY make your precious babies sterile. If it were only idiots who caught these diseases and prevented them from breeding, I’d say “right on”. As it is, I just want to bang my head against a wall when I hear shit like this. The stupid just BURNS.
Roger Moore
@To be Frank:
That isn’t 100% true. It’s certainly true that part of what politicians do is identify trends and try to advocate for what people want, but they also have the power to shape public opinion. This is especially important when an idea is just taking root.
The lies about COVID are a great example. If the Republicans had shot them down when they were new, they never would have taken root except with a tiny fringe. But Trump gave them publicity, and the rest of the Republican party went along. Now a large fraction of the party believes them. That’s leadership. It’s terrible, destructive leadership, but it’s still leadership.
Just One More Canuck
@Miss Bianca: Apparently they are honouring the bets regardless.
On the topic of Stereogum, I decided to look up the Number 1#s from the year I graduated from high school (78). Dear god in heaven, that was an awful year
Matt McIrvin
@Agoners: There’s also a chunk of the “far left” that is gradually transforming into a pro-Trump movement while still claiming to be far left–they insist that everyone has the political spectrum reversed and the Democrats are really the right-wing authoritarian party.
It’s connected to a kind of cultural conservatism in left-wing garb and a general idea that racial diversity and liberalism are “corporatist” deceptions.
Ken
“Are you sure it was the vaccine? I was just reading the other day how impact on pressure points in the neck can cause cerebral palsy. It’s apparently very common with chiropracts but even ordinary massage can trigger it. Terrible, just terrible.”
If asked where you read it, say “Facebook.”
Doc Sardonic
@Miss Bianca: Very hot. 21 picograms of betamethasone
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think a lot of them are in deep denial about where the Republicans are right now. They don’t want to believe one of our political parties has gone off the deep end, so they try to interpret everything in a direction that doesn’t represent complete craziness. It does nobody any good in the long run, of course, but that doesn’t stop them from doing it.
James E Powell
@Nicole:
Something similar would have been popular in 2002-2003. I don’t think it would be #1, but very popular on country music stations. They’d probably have played it at sporting events.
Miss Bianca
@Just One More Canuck: Yeah, I had made my way through the seventies and 74-75 – years where GREAT rock albums were being made – the #1s were such crap that I went back to the 50s for relief! : )
Shame about Medina Spirit – I liked him and picked him to win (no bets placed, just informally) because I liked what the Kentucky Derby site’s commentators had to say about his pedigree. Also, he only sold for $1,000 as a yearling, apparently. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the “scrappy underdog” narrative.
Gravenstone
More than a handful of canvassers and/or residents getting shot is how it would have gone.
Kay
That’s just really good. They have to be pleased with that. It makes everything he wants to do easier.
Kelly
@catclub: She specified Fulton County Georgia
James E Powell
@Kay:
Curious to know the numbers in AZ & WV.
Also curious to know the visions in Sinema’s and Manchin’s heads.
J R in WV
@rp:
Yes, there is. They called themselves the the “Know Nothing” party, and they all knew nothing about their political party, so they couldn’t answer any questions about it for others.
I dunno how they recruited new members, which may be why we don’t hear about them any more. I’m hoping the GQP goes the same way asap.
I get along with my RWNJ brother by institution a rule. We don’t mention politics either on the rare bi-annual birthday phone calls, which may drift away as he didn’t call me my last birthday, nor in our slightly more frequent emails.
He knows I’m a dirty fuckin’ hippy, and will not put up with GQP bullshit. And I won’t ever see him again, he’s living in a “villages” senior development in TXass, where I will never go again.
J R in WV
@MisterForkbeard:
NO, he isn’t normal at all. Nor are the GQP normal in any way shape or form.
Kay
@James E Powell:
The most interesting thing to me about the Cheney fight (because I don’t care about Cheney) was that they withheld Trump’s bad polling from GOP House members. That’s what made Cheney speak out again- that she saw the Party was misleading members.
Wow. What is going on there? Are they really that far into magical thinking that if they don’t say it it goes away?
Brachiator
@Nicole:
@James E Powell:
Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” hit Number 16 on the Billboard charts and Number 7 on the country charts when it was hot. And I guess it has become a perennial for some.
Back in 1959, “The Battle of New Orleans” hit Number 1.
J R in WV
@Agoners:
Have a real, tiny wedding with your best friends who aren’t crazy, in your backyard, with a BBQ cookout as part of the ceremony.
Wife and I stood up for neighbors at their wedding in their yard, probably a dozen or 18 neighbors, all dirty hippies, string band music by groom and his friends, Episcopal minister who worked for the AFO/CIO as an organizer to make a living. Was a great party, 40 years ago, still married, live next door now.
Tell everyone they have to be vaccinated, or only invite folks you know are already vaxed. Informal, creative, make up your own ritual. Be hippies just for that day. Have fun, don’t worry !!
And feel free to ignore this recommendation. You won’t hurt my feelings.
smith
Yeah, but that one had alligators.
Soprano2
Yes, they are. I just had a discussion with a MAGA at work who argued to me that “we don’t know if masks really work” and “I got vaccinated, but we don’t really know the long term effects of it”. I told him that if people don’t want to get vaccinated I don’t want to hear them whine about masks because increasing vaccination is the way we get rid of the masks, then he said that stuff about not knowing whether they work then he started to talk about herd immunity. It was pretty crazy, because I was agreeing with some of what he said but he couldn’t seem to hear that! I agree that they don’t really know how or when we’ll reach “herd immunity” partly because we don’t know how many people have had Covid. He argued with me about that! Sheesh….. He’s pretty mad that Biden and all his people wear masks outside, too. I kind of wish they wouldn’t because if they’re going to argue for the CDC protocols then they should follow them, too, but I’m not mad about it.
Miss Bianca
@Brachiator:
And it was at #1 for *six weeks*. That’s fucked up.
(The song is burned into my brain because of a band called The Royal Guardsmen, who recorded “Snoopy and the Red Baron” along with a bunch of other novelty hits and made a whole album out of them. Had the vinyl when I was a kid and played it over and over – must have driven the rest of the family nuts. And one of the most weirdly wonderful birthday presents anyone ever gave me was a CD copy of that album, given me by a band mate when I happened to mention it to him.)
Kay
@J R in WV:
I helped with the high school prom over the weekend and it was really wonderful. They didn’t know if they were having one so it got thrown together and the kids really seemed freed by the lack of planning. Perhaps also freed by the fact that they’ve lived with this shit all year and they were out and about, but it was a mess and also delightful. They came alone or in groups or with students from last year, they came in shorts and thrift store dresses and whatever else they could throw together on short notice, but they all came. Freezing- too cold, 50 degrees, and outside. If you’re bound and determined to have a party you’ll have a party :)
Roger Moore
@Kay:
You can refuse to release polling numbers to your members, but they’re still free to look at publicly available polls if they really want to. That very few Republicans were willing to acknowledge what the public polls said is deeply troubling. Restricting access to information from outside the group is one of the classic cult methods of mind control. That the Republicans are willing to shut their brains to outside information is just one more sign of how deeply in the cult they are.
Cameron
@Kay: I’m not sure it’s magical thinking – I’d be more inclined to believe that there are con artists making money off this delusion.
catclub
@Roger Moore:
Wow. When you no longer consider it crucial to have accurate polling information for politicians… that is bad. Politicians are usually desperate for accurate polling info.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s striking how much the polling doesn’t match how the media or, frankly, social media talks about things. It’s better than it used to be in many ways, but not where it needs to be.
catclub
@Kelly:
I may not be innumerate, but apparently i am illiterate.
Kay
@Baud:
Well, having one President be more popular than another is really unfair. They have to even it out.
They take Trump’s number, add it to Biden’s and then divide by two. Then they both get that number. If it’s “50” they did a good job.
Nicole
@Miss Bianca:
Ha! That made me, indeed, laugh out loud.
I posted a link to the Green Berets entry on my 8th grade teacher’s FB page. I think I’m turning into the pop culture version of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who would ring our doorbell when I was growing up: “Good afternoon, may I share with you the word of Tom Breihan and the blessed news that he gave ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ a 9 out of 10?”
Kay
I love so much that their insanity now ruins their own stupid elections. Ha ha. None of their insane base are going to believe the results. They shouldn’t bother with elections anymore. Settle it with a duel.
smith
Seeing politicians seal themselves into the same epistemic closure that holds their most gullible supporters is exactly what you’d expect from cognitive dissonance theory. Even if they start out mouthing the lies in an effort to gain votes, after enough repetition they come to actually believe them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Miss Bianca:
steroidal anti-inflammatory
Brachiator
@Baud:
It’s apples and Zagnut bars. Polling and Internet gossip has nothing to do with the each other. And both polling and social media ramblings can be wildly irrelevant in different ways.
Polling is a tool that journalists can use, but too often the reporters don’t know how to make sense of polls or substitute it for other ways of getting at a story.
MisterForkbeard
@J R in WV: “normal” for a Republican now, but I get you. And that’s the problem. The “normal”, bog-standard Republican now believes a number of incredibly stupid and contradictory things that all paint Democrats as a uniquely evil force on the planet.
MisterForkbeard
@Soprano2:
This is so easy, though. They’re modelling being cautious with a simple task. They’re making sure masks are still regarded as ‘normal’ so that people won’t stop wearing them before they’re supposed to.
Geminid
@Kay: In Virginia, the paranoid Republican governor campaigns have been operating under the principle, “No honor among thieves.”
They could have the state run a primary for them for free, but they are scared of their own voters. So they ran a “Disassembled Convention” Saturday, with only 30,000 preregistered “delegates.” voting at 37 locations. By comparison, in 2018 Abigail Spanberger won 35,000 votes in a single Congressional district’s primary, and the next of four other candidates received 20,000 votes.
After the fiasco of this Disassembled Convention, the Virginia party should adopt a new motto: “The Virginia Republican Party: Some Assembly Required.”
Kay
@Geminid:
Thanks. I love every part of this story. Can you start posting “stop the STEAL” on their Facebook pages?
It’s essential they no longer take part in elections, which as we all know are “rigged”.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
A very good political pun.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
“Trump’s bad polling.”
What bad polling?
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
In 1980, Charlie Daniels Band’s “In America” hit #11 on the Hot 100.
The lyrics are dumber than dirt.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
He was a 15 point “drag” in swing districts.
James E Powell
@catclub:
Is it possible that polls of their voters show strong support for all that they are doing? I feel that if they saw their numbers dropping among white people with no college degree, they’d change their language, if not their policies.
I haven’t seen any polling on this, but I’m betting that a majority of white people support the voter suppression measures. If anyone has data to prove me wrong, I will stand down.
Gravenstone
They should at least go with the culinary convention (pretention) and call it the “Deconstructed Convention”.
Martin
I’m pretty close to that point with my mom. She’s not a Q junkie, but she does believe the election was stolen and Trump actually won. We’ve spent some time talking about this after 1/6, and while I don’t think I’ve made much headway on convincing her, I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing she’s really in the weeds on. She thinks masks and getting vaccinated are critical, etc.
She’s a pretty typical boomer in that she has a very enduring white bias. She falls in that very large part of the population that will meet a black person and treat them, an individual, as an equal, but also believes that all unnamed black people are predisposed to criminality or laziness, etc. Very 70s/80s republican stuff. Lee Atwater knew exactly how to reach her:
I can tell she’s conflicted on 1/6. She got very flustered when we had a conversation specifically about that. I made it clear that I view 1/6 as a bigger attack on the US than 9/11, and that I think every person who was on the Capitol grounds should be charged with sedition. And anyone providing any kind of support for the 1/6 individuals should be treated the same as anyone who provided support to Al Qaeda.
At the same time, I challenged her why she didn’t support the folks on 1/6. If she did indeed believe the election stolen, that Biden was being installed in office as a sort of soft coup by Democrats, then wouldn’t stopping the certification of the election be a patriotic act? I mean, if I believed the big lie, then I would have been right there with them.
She can’t square the two ideas, so she’s not that determined in her belief the election was stolen. I think she wants it to be true, but doesn’t actually think it’s true. The big lie is comforting. The big lie means that whites still have cultural and political power. Accepting that Biden rightfully won means that era is over and that’s a bit terrifying to her.
I haven’t lost her, but for now, she’s lost her grandkids. I’m trying to pull things back together, but I’m not sure I can. That really depends on her.
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Here
Kay
Or here
Tenar Arha
@Soprano2: I don’t know if it’ll help, but here’s how I’ve begun to discuss masks
1) Do you realize how hard it is wo a mirror to get a mask seated on my face with my glasses & keeping my hair out of the way? So if I’m going from indoors to outdoors to indoors, then yes I tend to keep my mask on.
2) Yes of course I know I since I’m fully vaccinated I don’t have to wear a mask when I’m taking my walk outside. But the family with kids approaching me on the path in the park doesn’t know that! It seems only common courtesy to show them I’m both careful & polite by either putting distance between us or pulling up my bandanna. I just don’t think me shouting at people 20-30 feet away that I’m fully vaccinated is more polite.
3) You know me with my allergies, & you’ve seen me sneeze explosively a dozen times in a row, enough so that you don’t even say “bless you” anymore! I literally haven’t had or passed on the flu or one of my bad colds in about a year and a half because of masking & everything else we’ve done. So, i do appreciate the info that I don’t need to wear a mask outside, but don’t be surprised if I incorporate masking into my regular routine when I feel under the weather.
...now I try to be amused
@Kay:
Anyone who’s watched sitcoms knows that. The tissue of lies gets thinner the more you add to it.
Kay
@…now I try to be amused:
They’re not going to accept the results of their own Party elections. Why would they? It’s all rigged.
Chief Oshkosh
@Soprano2:
So stipulate that and say “Yeah? So what?”
...now I try to be amused
@Kay: On one level I don’t care what the RWNJs believe, as long as Democrats and independents are alarmed enough by them to turn out and vote. We win if we close the outrage gap and keep it closed.
Martin
@Kay: To expand on this, Trumps approval rating even among Republicans has been falling since 1/6. GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression allows them, on average, to win up to about a D+5 district. Trump would have trouble winning in an R+8 district right now. And presumably anyone who campaigns off his name would as well.
So the old problem of ‘how do you be fascist enough to win the primary and democratic enough to win the general’ is about 3x harder than usual once Trump gets mentioned.
If this holds through 2022, it’s a death blow to the GOP. And the NRCC who ran the poll and withheld the results did so because they know that. If Lindsay believes that they can only win with Trump, then this kind of evidence needs to never see the light of day.
Kay
@Martin:
In the story it says they didn’t reveal the bad polling “even after a House member pressed them on it” so that would be Cheney :)
Because she’s the only one of them that has any spine or self respect at all. And, I mean that’s what it is. Liz Cheney thinks she’s too good to bow down to the likes of Trump. Doing that would diminish her. Has nothing to do with the country. It’s..useful I suppose but it isn’t some noble position.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
Somehow I missed that one entirely. You’re right about the dumb lyrics. The whole thing is pretty bad.
Geminid
@Kay: There have a lot of funny stories coming out of this mess. Radio host Hew Hewitt has been boosting Youngkin, telling Virginia listeners to vote for his candidate. Then when he showed up at his Alexandria polling place, Hewitt was turned away. He insists that he registered weeks ago, but things somehow went awry. “Bummer…no provisional ballot…” he tweeted, but still urged his followers to cast a “bullet” vote for his guy.
Party leaders instituted ranked choice voting because they are terrified that State Senator Amanda Chase would win a plurality, and drag the rest of the ticket into the Dismal Swamp. That’s basically why they were afraid to have a primary.
Because there is no honor among thieves, campaigns have been watching each other like hawks. That’s one reason the ballots were not processed at the voting sites, but carried to Richmond for counting. Campaign representatives were to escort the boxes, but a reporter described how one driver took off alone from the town of Madison, telling irate campaign representatives, “Catch me if you can!”
Counting was to begin yesterday morning at some Richmond hotel. But when officials came together to the sealed banquet room holding the ballots, the security tape was broken!
It turned out that a housekeeper had entered the room to set up coffee, danish etc. But, there being no honor among thieves, campaign staff and party officials interviewed the housekeeper, then the managers, and examined security camera recordings. Finally, after nothing else was found amiss, they were ready to count- once the housekeeper signed an affidavit.
Virginia never-trumper conservative journal Bearing Drift has had good reporting on this nutty campaign. One update yesterday recounted how their managing editor, who happened to live a two minute walk from her polling place, was turned away because she was not in a car! Those are the rules, she was told. She wished the officials a good day, went home, and stayed home.
RandomMonster
@germy: Thank you for that article link. My brother posted that McCollough video the other, claiming it was important information from a “medical expert” who is “not an anti-vaxxer”. I suspected it was hot garbage but couldn’t find information on him. Your article is well-timed.
J R in WV
@Chief Oshkosh:
I think no one is allowed to have an opinion of Joe Biden’s “dementia” unless they watched every second of his speech to Congress last week, and can comment intelligently on every part of that evening.
Plus it would help if they have spent time with someone with dementia. I have, it’s hard. No one — NO ONE — with dementia can do what Joe Biden does every day. Can’t be done. People who say that are far more likely to have dementia than Joe Biden is.
Tenar Arha
@Martin:
@Kay:
Not to get subjective here, but I think it’s the politicians’, those who think they’re being super savvy, excuse to rewrite election laws in a way they think they will be able to win, or simply declare themselves winners even if they don’t win. OTOH after anywhere from 30-50+ years of RWNJ propaganda, there’s now a large group of politicians brought up in that environment, who don’t believe in democracy or the peaceful transfer of power or that everyone is entitled to vote etc, so rewriting the rules to award themselves wins by is fiiine with them.
Soprano2
@MisterForkbeard: I know that, and you know that, but to him it’s “Why aren’t they following the science? The CDC says you don’t have to wear masks outside with people who have been vaccinated, don’t they believe in science?” And sadly, he does have kind of a point there. That’s hard to argue with.
Soprano2
@Chief Oshkosh: That’s a good answer, I think I’ll use it next time. LOL
Geminid
@J R in WV: Biden’s press conference is definitive proof of his lucidity, and can be easily accessed. You could never get most of these people to watch it, though.
Soprano2
Yep, my grandfather had dementia, but it took about 15 minutes around him to figure it out. No way he ever could have spoken like Biden does. He couldn’t answer any question you asked him – all he could do was repeat the same three stories over and over. I doubt he could have read anything off a teleprompter. These people know Biden doesn’t have dementia, but they’ve told everyone he does and they’re too ashamed to walk it back. I also think some of it is projection – they know there’s something not right about how Trump acts and speaks, but they can’t acknowledge it so they project it onto Biden.
...now I try to be amused
@Soprano2:
After all the faults they attributed to Obama that were more true about GWB, I’m sure it’s projection.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
But people are saying “I don’t need or want the vaccination.”
How do I know who is who?
J R in WV
@Geminid:
Yes, but if they won’t access any evidence of their claims, their claims are so much tinsel and rubbish. But we knew that already, didn’t we?
catclub
@Martin:
Interesting comments. Thanks.
Quinerly
@Martin: very honest and poignant post. I’m late to this thread. So appreciate your writing this. Thank you.
Soprano2
@Brachiator: Sure, but they’re talking about Joe Biden and Jill, or Kamala and her husband still wearing them when it’s just them.
WaterGirl
@Kay: That link doesn’t work. :-(
I found an article, though.
dopey-o
I have a new mask, it’s bright red with bright yellow ideograms on it, the colors match the Chinese Flag. My MAGAt brother asked what it said.
“I got this from a friend’s daughter who is a student in Beijing. The CCCP hands them out. The lettering says ‘Covid brings death to America.’ Apparently the Party tells the Chinese people that Covid was engineered in bio labs as a weapon to destabilize India and the USA.
”So if you’re not wearing a mask or getting vaxxed, you’re helping the Chinese attack America. Some patriot you are.”
——————————-
Here’s what the mask really says. Forget about it, Jake, it’s the twilight zone.
Tim in SF
I’ve been reading /r/QAnonCasualties for a few months. It’s my favorite subreddit. The stories are all riveting, in a way. It’s mostly sad but also interesting.