Sometimes I wonder how much lower Republicans can sink, and the answer is always “there is no bottom.” They elected a dumb, incompetent, malignant conman. Stood by impassively while he played cock-holster to America’s most implacable autocratic foe. Protected him when he attempted to extort a vulnerable ally to cheat in a presidential election. Made excuses as he bungled a deadly pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens. Protected him again when he incited the sacking of the U.S. Capitol Building, despite threats to their own safety when the horde of violent morons stormed Capitol Hill.
It looks like the next level of depravity will be valorizing those same violent morons and more actively peddling the Big Lie, thereby undermining democracy even further. Crackpots like AZ Rep. Gosar have already gone there, and after licking his loser-wounds in relative obscurity, Trump has taken the maximalist crackpot position at recent events, insinuating that jailed insurrectionists are being persecuted for political reasons and demanding the name of the cop who shot MAGA martyr Ashli Babbitt.
Josh Marshall at TPM wrote this about it yesterday:
One thing that was clear to me when I read about Trump’s comments on the January 6th defendants and the death of Ashli Babbitt is that he intends to make these claims and demands centerpieces of the 2022 midterm election. For Trump everything is the Big Lie, everything is the “rigged election”, which is to say everything is payback, retribution and grievance about being driven from power.
The insurrectionists are the symbols of grievance, the symbols of absolute loyalty to Trump and the angry and aggrieved victims who are at the center of every Trump political demand, every argument. They are inseparable from the Big Lie because they are the ones who fought hardest to vindicate Trump’s claims. They are the new version of the brawny but tearful factory workers calling Trump “Sir” and asking for justice. They are, in a word, the new mascots of Trumpism.
Marshall says mainstream Republicans would rather memory-hole the insurrection so they can focus on traditional culture war bullshit and screech hypocritically about government spending as they gear up for elections in 2022. Well, maybe. But traditional Republicans didn’t want Trump to be the nominee in 2016, and we saw how quickly and completely they fell in line.
To paraphrase something Kay has said about divining the hidden motivations of Republicans, it’s irrelevant. All that matters is their actions, and with a pitifully small number of exceptions, they’ve enabled Trump every step of the way. There’s no reason to think they’ll shrink from the next level of chaos and depravity. The usual handmaidens are already lining up to trivialize the attempted coup:
Florida is the state that has the most citizens arrested for the January 6 insurrection. Some fringe FL Republicans are holding a rally in Tallahassee this week to call for their release:
[T]his weekend, a handful of Florida Republican candidates will host a rally in Tallahassee calling for Gov. Ron DeSantis and others to put pressure on authorities to free the “political prisoners” of Jan. 6.The “Free Our Patriots Rally in Tally” will be held this Saturday, July 10, and is hosted by Luis Miguel, a far-right Republican candidate looking to primary Sen. Marco Rubio. “Folks, The patriots who have been hunted down by the corrupt, communist FBI are suffering. Many of them are veterans who fought for this nation,” tweeted Miguel. “Let’s do our part to ensure they’re liberated. We can’t allow this in America. Be there at the Florida Capitol July 10.
The “Free Our Patriots” rally is likely to be treated as a curiosity if it gets any coverage at all. But unless the “mainstream” Republican Party has an unexpected break-up with its gross orange boyfriend, this crackpottery will soon be the official party line.
The potential upside? Maybe Republicans who peddle the Big Lie and valorize rioters will make it more likely that Democrats can defy history and hang onto the House and Senate in 2022. Trump will demand that Republicans embrace these delusions because his wounded ego demands evidence that he’s not the worthless loser and fraud he truly is, and there’s no reason to think Republicans won’t go along. They have with everything that came before, no matter how absurd and/or destructive.
Open thread.
SFAW
Maybe if the Dems hammer on that every day. Even then, I am less than sanguine about the no-info voters who vote Rethug changing their votes. And that’s probably what it will take, although I hope it’s not an absolute requirement.
ETA: And Michael Tracey and Glemmy can go fuck themselves. Lying asshole morons.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“In this Ocala Dairy Queen drive-through….”
SFAW
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Is that an updated “Ohio-diner-where-the-white-people-congregate” NYT lede?
Cermet
Or this will cause his base and the far too stupid non-believers but will still vote thug come hell or high water to come out and vote as Dem voters are suppressed. This 2022 election is critical (but not as critical as the 2024 but that one can be won in 2022 if enough seats are gained by the thugs.) These are scary times – the worse since the (not at all) Civil War. Maybe worse since this could destroy our entire country – not just convert some of the States to a new country.
p.a.
The videos from 1/6/21 will make good election ads
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@SFAW:
Yuppers…
Roger Moore
Of course there’s a bottom. The Republican party might as well change the party motto to BOHICA given how much the party is dominated by bottoms.
Other MJS
“Propaganda coup”. Jesus Fried Chicken.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Of course Glen Greenwald ROFL.
I take is Greenwald is one of those dorks who wants a Totalitarian Dictatorship now because it will bring on his gildbertarian paradise sooner.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
Love “Glenn Greenwald retweeted” – chef’s kiss.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m still waiting to see it.
Baud
Wasn’t Tracey the one who was brutally thrashed by Maxine Waters? If so, he’s someone who knows what a real battle looks like.
Kay
That’s how it goes in any organization though. Unless you actively halt the slide or just scrap it and start over, hiring bad people and retaining them after bad behavior begets attracting worse people, and on and on. Each batch of new hires will be lower quality than the last. You’re literally selecting for “bad” through a combination of attrition and attraction.
It will get worse until they change something. It couldn’t go any other direction. There has to be a genuine interest in getting better and then actual changes. None of that has happened.
If Romney had won in 2012 there’s a chance they could have halted the slide, but he didn’t.
Joe Falco
Most Republicans in office have embraced the Big Lie (or Big Lie curious “Just asking questions”) so what’s stopping them from adding on to the Big Lie with more lies, big or small? The narrative is already set that the entire Biden administration is illegitimate in their eyes. Republicans are going to reinforce that view at all costs, including our democracy. The “Free Our Goons” rally will be the first of many between now and the mid-terms that will keep whipping the base into the frenzy since Tea Party bs is no longer the new hotness.
Roger Moore
@OzarkHillbilly:
There were more than 74 million bottoms in the 2020 Presidential election.
Kay
You can see it in real time. They’ll elect a new member who seems somewhat normal and then that person sinks to the low level of the rest of the organization. Elise Stefanik? She’s just sinking to the standard level.
There’s no incentive to be better and there’s a powerful self-preservation push that moves them to get worse. They’d have to actually DO something to change direction and they aren’t.
Kay
You can see it in real time. They’ll elect a new member who seems somewhat normal and then that person sinks to the low level of the rest of the organization. Elise Stefanik? She’s just sinking to the standard level.
There’s no incentive to be better and there’s a powerful self-preservation push that moves them to get worse. They’d have to actually DO something to change direction and they aren’t.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: “They know an Insurrection is something that happens with the syrup on their sundays, not in their America like they know their Confederate Flags”
Baud
@Kay:
They won’t reform until they lose at least 3-4 election cycles. It’s up to our voters.
Woodrow/asim
Kay is right about this — and more.
This is why you don’t see a lot of Black folx wringing hands about “who’s a racist [in their hearts]?” How the hell do I know?
Racism, along with Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia, and a dozen other ills, are not things you phuck with. Those are literally Life and Limb issues, and you have to hone a sense of when it’s safe and when it’s not, to survive their effects.
Those who do not, end up sounding a lot like our media elites (or, yes, certain clueless-sounding Democratic Senators) around the GOP — constantly trying to split differences and speak to some crumbling middle ground that these folx exploit far more other than they use. Be it a barely-bipartisan bill that “proves the system still works,” or treating that One Exceptional Black person well (where we can see it), these people know real damn well how to abuse our belief that the actually crap folx are “in the margins” to gather and increase power.
And this is a game they’ve been playing for a long, long time. Here’s an excellent set of tweets on how 20th century textbooks promoted that there was “good” treatment of slaves: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1412515103807664130.html
That’s how you get a whole generation indoctrinated that the only “real Racists” are Klanners. And that’s just an obvious one, about one side — think about how misogyny has been unspoken, how much peer pressure was and still is applied to keep how we treat women hidden.
Not every GOPer/supporter wants all that crap. But enough of them will vote for the people who support it, that it makes no damn difference to those who are impacted by their votes, and the rhetoric they allow to go, unchallenged.
That, to me, is the real sin in all this — Dr. King’s White Moderate who is empowering all of this extremism, while claiming to not believe it all. As long as these folx play into these assholes’ traps, over and again, we’re going to keep having these issues — if not worse.
And in the meantime, those of us in so-called marginalized groups? We’ll keep looking at Deeds, not Words.
Raoul Paste
@p.a.: And when you make election ads using the footage of the riot, be sure to include the sound. Of course, the GOP will cry foul and pressure TV stations not to show it
Kay
@Baud:
Agreed. I think back to Obama saying “the fever will break” and I believed that too at the time- I didn’t think they would get better but I thought the slide would stop. It is so much worse than it was then.
I do think Romney was a kind of bellweather. Their rejection of him signaled a real lurch downward.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Someone here said Republicans will have to lose three straight election cycles to gain sufficient motivation to change. That may be true, I don’t know. But I think you’re right that they’ll get worse until enough of them collectively decide to change direction.
I’d hoped their big business donors would realize they need a stable country in which to operate and provide motivation by way of withholding money, but that doesn’t appear to be happening on a large enough scale to stop the descent into chaos and lunacy.
Soprano2
My comment to them is that it’s interesting that they’ve finally found police officers to hate, i.e. the Capitol Police.
Cameron
@Baud: I don’t see them surviving as a party if they lose 3-4 election cycles.
Betsy
I just feel so sad. It’s getting worse every year and we have no future.
Ksmiami
@Kay:we have to obliterate them. Or America dies
Baud
@Cameron:
I can live with that.
Ksmiami
One more thing, this isn’t an ahistorical event- many many empires and nations have been laid low and undone by pandemics and maybe it’s a chance to build something better in the long run. Maybe the challenges we face are bigger than National divisions can address.
waspuppet
This is the thing, isn’t it? It’s all just weird conspiracy theory stuff that isn’t worth covering until it becomes the official party line, and then none of our media stars who get paid six and seven figures to cover politics can understand where it came from but it’s so popular there must be something to it.
Biden’s gonna get like 162 votes from Atlanta in 2024 and Chuck Todd and Dana Bash will go “Wow, I guess he was a really uninspiring candidate I can’t imagine any other reason for a Democrat to get so few votes out of a Democratic-run city in a Republican-run state it’s not like anything troubling has been going on there the past four years.”
Mike J
With local elections coming up, everyone should make an effort to show up where candidates are in public and ask them wno won the presidential election.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It is no guarantee. As long as these revanchist tendencies exist political parties to represent them will exist.
Jan Sangh (BJP’s old name) was in political wilderness for over 40 years, they toned down their rhetoric to win power but once they gained absolute power (they could form government without allies, in 2014) they let their true colors show.
We have to outnumber them at the polls every time they are never going to completely disappear.
Successive defeats will make the casual hangers-on dissipate. The true believers will never go away. They have been with us before there was an America. And in India’s case for millennia.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
I thought he was still in a coma from the beatdown she gave him.
jeffreyw
@Betty Cracker:
I recall hearing that big business in Germany were very happy with Hitler. I think that they were happy with Trump, I know the media companies were.
oatler.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/07/allen-west-texas-gop/
jonas
Lest we forget, Hitler was basically installed as chancellor in 1933 at the behest of German industrial magnates who believed he would be “good for business” at the height of the Depression. They weren’t wrong. 15 years later, it was a different story, but ruthless tyranny and big business are traditional partners. Zuckerberg, Thiel, Bezos and these types have absolutely zero — I mean *zero* — loyalty to this country and would flush our republic down the toilet in a hot second if it meant fewer regulations and lower taxes.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
There is this common belief that the ultra-rich donor class must be a bunch of clever manipulators who are only supporting the Republicans because it’s good for their business. Their behavior says otherwise; the donor class is just as prone to believing the BS as the rank-and-file.
Booger
Currently reading Carl Bogus’ biography of William F. Buckley and am intrigued to see that the republicans/conservatives have been exactly like this for some sixty or seventy years–the religious fervor (Catholic, then as now), authoritarian in outlook, devoted to constant fearmongering, repeating unprovable assertions of imminent doom, utterly paranoiac & conspiracy believing, sworn to an aristocracy and contemptuous of the citizenry, and of course endlessly grifting. The only thing which seems to have changed is that decades ago there was some pretense of intellectual underpinnings which have since evaporated, and the percentage which is dedicated to the grift has grown exponentially.
But Putin’s genius move was to embrace revanchist fundamentalism in place of ‘godless communism,’ which apparently has made everything else okey-dokey between us and our former existential enemy.
SMDH.
A Ghost to Most
They will continue to double down until they are crushed. So be it.
Tim C.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Naw, I think Greenwald has been on the take from the Russians since 2015 or so. He’s an asshole of epic proportions and his views seem to match what Vlad wants on a near-perfect basis.
Betsy
@Roger Moore: especially the worthless sons and daughters of the donor class. Not ever having to have proved your worth or be tested by real-world conditions means that you aren’t subject to the same “reality pressures” and are even more likely to believe in unrealities and stupid ideas that don’t work, like Chicago economics, randian nonsense, rich = smart, etc. And it produces sociopathic tendencies since scions have always gotten what they want and are taught little regard for others, especially their ”inferiors”.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Obama’s 8 years showed that the Beltway media with their elite Ivy League degrees was as racist as the Republican diner patrons in mid western states they like to cover. They just know how to cloak it better in more socially acceptable terms.
Another Scott
I try not to be too sanguine, but I really think that TFG will be a non-issue in just a few months. “Thousands” attended his rallies in OH and FL. DeSantis skipped it. I don’t recall big-wigs attending the Ohio Revenge-a-Palooza. Much of the GQP makes noises about him being the leader, but they don’t seem to actually do anything to act like it. The want him and the 1/6 stuff and all the rest to go away and are doing everything they can to change the subject to scary crime and culture wars and hypersonic nuclear weapons that are going to kill us all in our beds.
If he were actually valuable to the GQP, he would be campaigning for Youngkin in VA for Governor. Terry Mac has dared him to come. He won’t because he’s a coward and because he knows that he’s toxic here.
Yes, we have to keep fighting the monsters, but we’re winning as long as we keep doing so.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Tim C.: Do you think he’s literally on the take, as in receives money? I have no idea, of course. Just always figured the “asshole contrarian” explanation was sufficient.
NotMax
What Dolt 45 says at this point carries less weight than an anvil at a Lagrange point.
Giving him virtual column inches is specious, unwarranted, and serves only to amplify the clangor.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Wasn’t Trump supposed to “just fade away” and become irrelevant? Especially since he’s lost his social media presence?
lofgren
The position that attempts to overthrow the government aren’t illegal unless they are successful is perhaps the greatest catch-22 since Catch-22.
Fair Economist
I have been saying for a while that no matter how bad Republicans get, they can always get worse.
And they will.
The soft authoritarianism they were pushing in the aught with judicial corruption (Bush V Gore) and media manipulation (Iraq War) was quite bad enough, but they have gotten so much worse some people who did that now support us (Rubin, and sort of W and Cheney). And even this isn’t the bottom, as now they are trying to explicitly support slavery.
Haydnseek
@Booger: Not to mention Buckley’s oh-so-genteel white mans burden style of racism. That whole “In time the Negro may be capable of self-determination, but until then the guiding hand of the white man is essential in guiding him toward that noble goal…..”
Fuck that asshole, and the Democrats who still point to him as “one of the good Republicans.”
SFAW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Don’t recall non-clueless persons saying that. Some pundits, maybe, but …
SFAW
@Fair Economist:
It’s like the converse/obverse/contrapositive/mumblemumble of “Peak Wingnut is a lie.”
Just Chuck
Good. Means we’re doing something right. Good hunting, G-men.
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He is much less relevant than he was before. He is no longer the President and doesn’t have his instantaneous megaphone to reach his minions.
He will be relevant as long as he has the Republican party at his beck and call. The fever hasn’t broken yet.
mrmoshpotato
Checkmate, libtards! Real insurrections aren’t easily subdued after a few hours! SAD!
Good grief, these fucking shitpiles of Trump trash…
Roger Moore
@Betsy:
I think it can be even worse than you say. It’s not just that the wealthy scions have never had to deal with the real world. A lot of ultra-wealthy people adopt belief systems to rationalize their wealth as proof of worthiness. I can kind of understand that for someone who worked their way to the top, since they genuinely did overcome a lot to get where they are, and that demonstrates something positive about them. For someone whose only claim to wealth was being born to the right parents it’s a really toxic belief, and it’s a gateway to all kinds of other toxic, anti-democratic beliefs.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly.
NotMax
@SFAW
The MSM is deep into Brokeback Mountain “I just can’t quit you” territory.
Matt McIrvin
@lofgren: Republicans believe in a “right of revolution”, for themselves and for themselves only.
(Somebody else tries so much as an agitated protest, and they want to send in the SWAT teams and start talking about legalizing running them over with pickup trucks. The right of revolution is a circumscribed one but it has 100% to do with who you are.)
Just Chuck
@jonas:
“would”? That’s what they’ve been actively doing for some time now.
Matt McIrvin
@Booger: Buckley gets so much credit for opposing the Birchers but that opposition seems to have been largely aesthetic. Put white Christian hegemony under the barest hint of actual threat and the mask drops.
rp
@Betty Cracker: This is double hearsay, so take it FWIW, but a close friend of mine asked a friend of his in the intel community about greenwald last year and whether the rumors about being paid by Russia are true. The friend of a friend smiled and touched his finger to his nose.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Republicans are trying to rig it so they can simply appoint the next President, and if it comes to that, the most likely guy is still Trump. If it’s not him it’s somebody like DeSantis who is trying to be the heir to the Trump brand.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Greenwald has been bought, lock, stock, & barrel for a couple-three decades, I think. Snowden was no accident.
Betty Cracker
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s weird because the social media ban really did shut that fucker up to a remarkable degree, and he is irrelevant to the extent that he’s out of power personally. But we’ve only got two viable political parties in this country, and it sure looks like one of them is still 100% in thrall to Trump. Unfortunately, that makes him all too relevant, IMO.
rp
I’m tired of the gloom and doom. Yes, these people are absolutely horrible, but there are a lot more non-crazies than crazies, and we can beat them.
On the subject of non-crazies, someone posted a link to the George Packer article in the atlantic (the four americas) yesterday…I thought it was generally a good piece, but I think he missed a fifth group that might be larger than any of the other four: the normies. People who don’t vote or barely pay attention politics.
Matt
Little Marco has a point here – it’s unreasonable to expect the insurrectionists to ever understand that they did something wrong, or even a truthful account of what they did, given how thoroughly hypnotized by lies they are between their bullshit religion and their bullshit politics. So they can’t really be “punished” in the traditional sense.
Best to just put them down humanely, like a dog that can’t stop biting people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My vote is the Russians stroke Greenwald’s ego.
MattF
IMO, there’s 5 to 10 percent of voters on the margin and Trump’s present antics are driving them towards the Dems. It’ll be close, but it’s winnable. It’s also at least arguable that the lunatics are trying to game the polls, which would explain why polling has done so badly. That light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train, but it is a long way away.
Rick Taylor
“Sometimes I wonder how much lower Republicans can sink, . . .”
I remember thinking that back when George W. Bush was president. Oh, how naive I was.
CliosFanBoy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: nothing strokes an ego like cash
H.E.Wolf
It’s been my experience that taking a positive action, no matter how seemingly small, reduces despair.
Balloon Juice has links to 2 excellent organizations to support financially in this election cycle: Four Directions (getting out the Native American vote) and Voces de la Frontera (getting out the Latino/a and Hispanic vote).
I’ll add my usual plug for PostcardsToVoters.org
In addition to supporting liberal Democrats for election, they’re writing to every Democrat in FL who is not yet signed up for FL Vote By Mail, to invite them to do so.
I find postcard-writing very meditative (the Zen of applying white-out to my misspellings) – and I enjoy dropping little batches of 5 postcards in the mailbox on the corner.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I would not be surprised if Greenwierd took money from the Russians. Or, protection. I’ve speculated that although he is nominally an opponent of the Bolsonaro regime, there is a reason he remains untouched. Would Bolsonaro cooperate with Putin? They seem like authoritarian peas in a pod.
That’s just speculation. One thing I do know about Greenwierd, though, is that he’s gotta be one of the most bitter people I’ve seen. His tweets are eerily dispassionate, but the anger and bitterness behind them are palpable.
catclub
3 or more presidential elections. 8 years out is not enough.
Gravenstone
@Kay: The fever will break. Sometimes the body dies before it does, though.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@jonas: Yes, this plus…the big money guys think they can control the people they fund with purse strings, which is true, until it isn’t. Once one party has basically abolished democracy and seized dictatorial power, what do they need all that. campaign money for? Not to win elections.
Now, the purse strings don’t mean anything – the dictator and their henchmen are in charge and the moneybags can go pound sand, or even worse, fall in line or be persecuted along with everyone else. But the money folks think the money will always protect them and allow them to be in charge until it’s too late, and then it’s too late.
schrodingers_cat
OT: Dilip Kumar’s passing has hit me hard. He belonged to an era, when your identity as an Indian was not solely defined by your religion. When one didn’t obsess about the religious identities of leading men on screen. Rest well, uncrowned king of Hindi cinema.
This is from Naya Daur (New Era) about the promise of a newly independent India, the epic challenges a newly independent and largely agrarian India faced after Britain’s brutal rule and the harrowing partition that followed. The challenges were daunting but the mood was upbeat.
This was a B. R. Chopra venture. Chopra himself a refugee from Punjab from the Pakistan’s side of the border. They are singing the praises of India, the country of brave young men in this number and celebrating Punjabi culture.
Yeh Desh hai veer jawano ka (This country of brave young men..)
Booger
@Matt McIrvin: And apparently a lot of his opposition to the Birchers is that they would expose the fraud of conservatism by their blatant wackiness. Imagine trying to thread the needle between Birchers and Ayn Rand!
Gin & Tonic
Doom Juice again. We’re all gonna die.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: That made me smile.
Mike in NC
Everything I’ve ever read about the Orange Shitstain indicates that his greatest motivator is getting revenge on those he thinks crossed him. Fucking loser.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay:
Reminds of the quality of Florida State football after it joined the ACC
artem1s
yea BULLSHIT. TFG told his deplorable followers he’d pay for their bail and lawyers if they got arrested for beating up people at his rallies as long ago as 2016. He threw them all under the bus on 1/7 and they stopped giving him money and were pretty vocal about how betrayed they felt. The folks who are in on this latest grift are still trying to milk that dying WWC, gun humping cow, so they’re using TFG by suggesting to him that these idiotic lawsuits will result in the same underpants gnome magic that was supposed to put him back in office. He’s doing this because he is desperate for attention and money. His brand is toxic. His name is toxic. Even the Traitor Tots are distancing themselves. The only people left to fluff him up are the worst of the sycophants and grifters who are attempting to breath life back into the rotting corpse of a headline act that couldn’t get booked in the crummiest
VegasAtlantic CityNiagara FallsTunica, MS casino.I knew on 1/6 there would be GQPers who would try to use the insurrection to turn the traitors into ‘martyrs’ for campaign fundraising. Anyone who remembers how the GQP and NRA turned Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Bundy standoff or Oklahoma City into a reason to hate the US Government, FBI, ATF, BLM, and actual decorated veterans like McCain, Cleland and Kerry knows how they do this. The fundraising must go on, no matter what kind of terrible, RWNJ, fundie, traitor, racist, terrorist fool you have to hitch the GQP wagon to. Trump is a liability to them right now. They can try to reform his underbussing image but for the most part that parrot is dead. Once he’s pushing up daisies and no longer a living example of corruption and horridness, the real revisionist history begins. That’s the martyr we really have to look out for. Then it’s “Ronnie into the dust bin of history with you”.
Betty Cracker
In defense of doom-and-gloomers, there’s plenty of reason to feel less than optimistic about the current state of affairs. Especially if you live in a state that is controlled by Trumpers and are therefore subject to laws enacted by fascist creeps.
evodevo
@Betty Cracker:
It didn’t bother the corporations/industrialists when Hitler took power…I doubt if it would bother them now….I don’t expect good behavior out of a corporation unless it is actively coerced…
Geminid
@SFAW: I personally am skeptical of a trump comeback, but I could be wrong. I worry more about who comes after trump. Although he was an effective demagogue, trump was lazy. There are ambitious, more energetic men who think about trump’s rise to power. He taught them that fascism sells. They will try to figure out how they can sell it in 2024 and beyond.
MattF
@Geminid: Valid concern, but I see the various Trump-wannabes as conventional politicians who now believe there’s a shortcut to political power. Weak people who want to be seen as strong.
Eunicecycle
@lofgren: I hadn’t thought of that but you’re right! Of course if it were successful, it wouldn’t be declared illegal either!
Betty Cracker
@evodevo: I don’t expect good behavior out of corporations either (well, most of them; there are exceptions), but I naively used to expect rational self-interest.
@Geminid: DeSantis is the one who worries me on that score. I think he’s a sociopath, and he’s infinitely smarter than Trump (not a high bar, but he clears it).
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know if Greenwald is actually taking money from the Russians, but he is deeply compromised on any issue that touches on Russia. Again, I don’t know if it’s ideology, gratitude for helping him break the Snowden story, payoffs, blackmail, or what have you, but he will take the Russian side on any story over the American every day and twice on Sunday.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I’m certain trumpov will not be coming back in 2024, not as a candidate at least. But his recent turn towards “who shot Ashli?” and willingness to stir up violent mobs to suit his own ends still concerns me greatly.
We need the 1/6 commission going full-bore, publicly, calling McCarthy to testify, calling trumpov to testify, arresting members of Congress who were in on it, etc. The threat cannot be overstated.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: Greenwald consistently acts as if he’s been paid off, is in fear of his life, or is being blackmailed. He’s THAT consistently pro-Russia, anti-Dem, etc.
It doesn’t really matter which. He’s completely compromised.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, it’s important to remember that corporations are ultimately run by people, and those people are subject to the same flaws as anyone else. A well run corporation is supposed to be resistant to becoming the personal plaything of its executives, but they seem to be getting worse on that score. Some of it is that a lot of the biggest, most important corporations are so young they’re still majority owned and managed by their founders: Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. fall in this category. And a lot of other companies have allowed their CEOs to control the board of directors, nullifying the protections that are there.
Shalimar
@Betty Cracker: If it was just “asshole contrarian”, there would be at least one instance in the last decade where Greenwald’s contrarianism would cause him to have an opinion differing from Putin’s propaganda. He’s either on the payroll, they have compromat on him, or both.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
And Russia is only the most obvious of Greenwald’s weaknesses as a journalist. He’s been at least sympathetic to, if not actively cooperating with, white supremacists since before he started blogging. And he’s gotten worse about ignoring inconvenient evidence when making arguments. He’s sufficiently useless I only pay attention to him because other people keep mentioning him. He’s solidly in DNFTT territory.
ETA: Greenwald is exhibit A in my argument that “he’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole” never works. They’re never our asshole. Assholes are for themselves first, last, and only; that’s what makes them assholes. Your interests may occasionally align, but you should never, ever confuse that with them being on your side.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, they are trying to do those things. But if it were so easy to do so, surely it would have been done by now?
I understand that many things are different now (6:3 SCOTUS, etc., etc.). But we still have many protections to keep them from easily installing who they want.
We are not doomed.
We have done well in many, many contests since January 2017 and are in a much stronger position than then. We need to be clear-eyed about the dangers and continue to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott
Geminid
@MattF: The current cast of characters all seem wanting in one respect or another. But there are people out there we have not heard of, or have barely heard of.
I don’t see the Republican party withstanding another effective demagogue any better than they withstood one in 2016. I still believe the Democratic Party would defeat another trump, even one smarter and more energetic.
The Republican program of election subversion gives me pause, though. William F. Buckley used to express a pragmatic political axiom: he would vote for the most conservative candidate who could be elected. But what happens when the electoral process itself is compromised? For one thing, a skilled demagogue becomes that much more an attractive option for the rest of the power hungry Republicans.
dave319
@SFAW: I wish I could be more sanguine about the Democratic focus being emotionally charged hard-hitting attacks bringing it to the traitors. For the life of me, I cannot fathom why this Democratic elite acts like the high school class president endlessly deferential to the GOP’s Principal Poop. The impression I’m always left with is of high-ranking men and women who seem to bend over backwards apologizing for not being fair to a gang of violent extortionist rebels who actually want to kill them.
randy khan
The Michael Tracey tweet (not to mention the GG retweet) makes me happy. Calling that event what it was is getting to them.
(It was, in fact, a textbook insurrection – to quote Merriam Webster, “an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.”)
Baud
@Another Scott:
I am, but for reasons that have nothing to do with politics.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I read that after his official inauguration, DeSantis had a private one at the Governor’s Mansion. Reportedly, part of it involved some preacher anointing him with oil, like he was an Old Testament king. This definitely makes me wary.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: I agree about DeSantis. I don’t see any of the other ones who can pull it off. I do think he’s beatable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: Have at it then.
trnc
Of course, they don’t see the loss of our democracy as a cost. It is now their goal.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: We have one viable political party.
Kathleen
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My vote is money and there are others who have been paid off as well.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: Sadly, that’s not the case. Republicans held the presidency, House and Senate as recently as 2016. Now if you mean we only have one SANE party, I agree 100%!
artem1s
@randy khan:
I watched Argo not long after the 1/6 insurrection. The scenes depicting the Iranians scaling the embassy walls…scary… in a whole new light. I looked up photos later and they look eerily similar to the photos of the crowds at the Capitol on 1/6 – only less body armor. After watching the film, I’m convinced the insurrectionists would have murdered and publicly executed members of Congress and their staffers if they had gotten to them. I doubt those traitors would have behaved with as much restraint as the Iranians did.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: to be fair, you were warned that there would be consequences if you replied to Omnes
NotMax
@Baud
Rest assured the larger sizes in pants are expected to be back in stock and available for order soon.
:)
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: LOL! A case can be made that one “party” is a criminal enterprise dedicated solely to maintaining power. Adam did a brilliant analysis several months ago. One of the best analyses of the current situation that I’ve read.
Kathleen
Deleted. Duplicate comment
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
This is true.
Ruckus
Republicans do not want government.
They do nothing positive when elected because that makes government work.
They do everything they can to destroy government because they want their wealthy “money makers” to be in charge – that is their goal. Rupert Murdoch, if not their leader, is their vision. In their minds the wealthy got that way by being all knowing and better prepared to lead. They know nothing except money is the kingpin of life. Nothing else matters, only money. They can not understand how we don’t see that money is everything. Their mascot is the golden calf. They use religion as a scam to collect money. They use/violate laws as a scam to move money from the sheep to the powers that be. They do not want a democracy, they want a meritocracy based upon money. They worship wealth and the power it buys, not democracy in any way because that takes money and power out of their hands.
This we know. Because they prove it to us every day. Take taxes for an example. We believe that everyone should pay taxes, in ascending percentages of their wealth, IOW the government is by, and for all of us. They believe that the government is for those who can buy what they want and therefore doesn’t need to work. People wonder why SFB is their guy. It’s is precisely because of who and what he is, an incompetent, useless POS who couldn’t find his way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. They like vlad because he is one of the worlds wealthiest men, in a country that is rather tough to do that in, and he rings all their bells. He has power, he has money, his government exists for him and him alone, he is not a leader he is the de facto king. It doesn’t make full sense, but neither does their world view. And their world view is old and ours is almost child age in comparison. This is a country of contradictions and sometimes half steps because no country has done what it is that we are at least attempting to do. The conservatives don’t like what they don’t know, they’ve never learned to actually think and see and that the country we want is better for all, because it is not better if they can’t steal what they want without paying a price. We not only have to protect the vulnerable, we have to protect the idea that everyone is equal, because they only equate your bank account and your sweat with your value. They are not for democracy because they don’t see that it has value for them. They are selfish bastards, in all meanings of the words. We have to sell that.
Ruckus
@Geminid:
Greenwierd. Nice, and he’s earned it.
He’s bitter because the world doesn’t actually work the way he thinks it should, which is to regard him as the one all knowing, all seeing, all understanding human being. He keeps proving he’s not those things, we keep seeing him as not being those things, and he doesn’t understand why.
Kay
@randy khan:
I read his Twitter for a while. Reading people you dislike on Twitter is more fun that reading people you like.
The weird things about his diminishing the import of the insurrection is he’s a full-on crime panic promoter. Apparently “street crime” is the only kind that sends him into a panic.
The new law n order people are even worse than the old law n order people, because they’re ridiculously inconsistent. It makes me doubt their sincerity. If your thing is “crime wave!” that should apply to all manner of crimes. I personally value “order” so I get upset at insurrectionists, tax cheats, random shooters, under-oath liars, the whole varied criming spectrum :)
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Of course he’s worried about street crime; that’s the kind that it’s easy to demagogue as being a result of out of control minorities. White people storming the Capitol- or stealing billions through fraud- isn’t politically useful to white supremacists like Greenwald.
“Law and Order” has always been about enforcing a racist social order under color of law. It has never been about enforcing all the laws equally.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Organizations usually have to hit bottom before enough people recognize that the system is failing. And those who will benefit from the fall usually will lie about, well anything/everything, to keep the fall happening, so they can scrap up the crumbs and big pieces. When money is your overwhelming driver, most people will do whatever it takes to get more. And lying, stealing, cheating has a low upfront cost. Sure in the end it doesn’t but by then the people who benefited by doing it are dead or wealthy enough to buy their way out. And the more support they get along the way, the more voices making lying, stealing and cheating seem normal makes it easier. Life has been such throughout history, and to win this we have to fix what has worked for the few to what works for all. We have to sell that.
Betsy
@Roger Moore: Agree. Being born ultra wealthy is absurd, and as such, is a kind of an “absurdity gateway” to other irrational beliefs. And as we know, those who can be led to believe absurdities can be led to commit atrocities.
Kay
@Ruckus:
But that’s part of it. That’s the nature of it. The people who recognized it was going downhill no longer work there. The people who come in midslide have a different definition of “succeeding”. That just cycles until you end up with 100% shit.
The people who work for Marjory Taylor Greene are a whole tier lower than the people who would work for a better member. The thing becomes worse, so you have “the best (worst) staff member”. They don’t even know it’s worse. It just is.
Betsy
@Betty Cracker: You said it.
Look, I know it’s hard to hear gloom, folks. But I lost a lot in the last dour years. Friends dead of Covid. Lost income. Rampant daily misogyny and ‘tude from those emboldened by TFG to be brash and rude and worse. It’s tough for a single woman right now. The TFG era left me with an honest-to-goodness anxiety disorder, greatly increased my social, financial, and physical vulnerability, and fear of what’s next. I don’t really want to hear it from the guys who think that i and others are a “downer.”
By the way, I’ve given at least 30 hours a week over the last two years to intervening and strategically volunteering in the political movement to fight this shit, so please stuff the advice about “getting involved.”
Betsy
@Eunicecycle:
@lofgren:
Treason never prospers.
Do you know the reason?
For when treason prospers,
None dare call it treason.
Betsy
@Kathleen: Yeah, where was that?
Ksmiami
@Betsy: I’m there with you. I’ve donated a ton of money and time and yet the nation is dangling on an existential cliff. What’s wrong with a negotiated split?
J R in WV
@Ksmiami:
You can’t negotiate with a sociopath, they’ll tell you anything to get you off their back, and then stab you in your back. So a negotiated split just postpones your death by a very few weeks.