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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

You cannot shame the shameless.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The words do not have to be perfect.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cleaning Up After the Looters

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cleaning Up After the Looters

by Anne Laurie|  July 8, 20216:50 am| 163 Comments

This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Open Threads, President Biden, Proud to Be A Democrat

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Rep. Andy Kim's bright blue suit took on new meaning as photos of him kneeling in it while picking up trash after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol went viral. Now, Kim is donating the suit to the Smithsonian. https://t.co/KAgnVLWGpX

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 7, 2021

President Biden said that his focus remains on his administration’s expansive efforts to invest in programs that touch many facets of American life, not just the bipartisan infrastructure agreement that has spent weeks in the spotlight https://t.co/Vn04zgnoJH

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 8, 2021

President Biden said Wednesday that his focus remains on his administration’s expansive efforts to invest in programs that touch many facets of American life, not just the bipartisan infrastructure agreement that has spent weeks in the spotlight.

Biden toured McHenry County College, which has a workforce development plan and on-site child-care facility, two programs that exemplify cornerstones of his American Families Plan. Those initiatives are not part of the infrastructure framework agreement that Biden and a group of Republican and Democratic senators announced last month.

In the opening minutes of his remarks at the community college, which is a 90-minute drive northwest of Chicago, Biden lauded the work of the legislative group that had forged a framework for a compromise on infrastructure. But the president spent the bulk of the half-hour speech stressing that much more needs to be done…

During a meeting with reporters on the Air Force One ride to Illinois, press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s focus was on benefits that are on “generational investments in infrastructure … that aren’t included in the bipartisan framework.” And after touring the McHenry County College campus, Biden stressed that his sights are still set on the American Families Plan that his administration has proposed, which he said Wednesday would energize the economy, boost the middle class and make America more competitive on the world stage.

Biden in his speech highlighted a slate of liberal priorities: investments in child care and the workforce; universal prekindergarten and two years of free community college; investments in affordable housing and a “care economy” that would include caring for seniors; and a clean-energy standard that would require power companies to source more electricity from renewable and clean sources.

“It’s about time,” Biden said. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us to finish the job, but we’re going to get it done. We’re going to reimagine what our economy and our future could be, and show the world … that democracy can deliver for its people.”…

… Biden stressed that in his five months in the White House, he has still been able to get things done, including making strides on the pandemic and presiding over a rebounding economy — using an across-the-aisle reference to make his point.

“The last time [the] economy grew at this rate, Ronald Reagan was telling us there was an American morning,” Biden said. “This is going to be an American century.”

"Why won't Democrats show more respect for working class Trump voters?" you ask, as Democrats beg them to be vaccinated against a deadly disease (for free), try to raise their wages, expand Medicaid, give them stimulus payments, increase their child tax credit…

— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) July 7, 2021

Maybe it's my chronic savvy deficiency but I don't think that Republicans abandoning any attempt to criticize the Democratic president's agenda and retreating into an echo chamber constructed from 2018 era op-ed screeds is the sign of strength this sites pundits have taken it for

— Syndicalist Weedle Collective (@Weedledouble) July 6, 2021

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Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 6:59 am

    Why won’t Democrats show more respect for working class Trump voters?” you ask, as Democrats beg them to be vaccinated against a deadly disease (for free), try to raise their wages, expand Medicaid, give them stimulus payments, increase their child tax credit…

    Commitment to civil rights trumps all that.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 7:02 am

    Percolate up economics whomps trickle down by a country continental mile.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:02 am

    As part of the normification process, I’m paying less attention to news.  How’s Jaime Harrison doing at the DNC? From what I can tell, he seems to be more into management and less into media than we’ve seen in the past.  I certainly haven’t heard anything bad recently, which is a good thing when it comes to the DNC.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:04 am

    @NotMax:

    Anything that’s top heavy is fundamentally unstable, whether you’re talking about physical structures or the economy.

  5. 5.

    Patricia Kayden

    July 8, 2021 at 7:07 am

    Biden’s accelerated vaccine rollout has saved over 1 million people from being hospitalized & hundreds of thousands of lives based on a new Yale study.More work to do but vaccines save lives. https://t.co/0ff0Y0SwIS— Andy Slavitt ??? (@ASlavitt) July 7, 2021

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 7:11 am

    @Baud

    Or strippers.

    :)

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    July 8, 2021 at 7:12 am

    Good Morning, Everyone ???

  8. 8.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:12 am

    @rikyrah: Good morning.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:15 am

    @NotMax:

    It’s why they have unusually small heads.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 7:15 am

    I’m watching a back-and-forth argument on FB between two of my brothers. One is appalled at anything Trump and 1/6, the other (the one born with an eternal sense of grievance and hair-trigger temper) thinks it’s all been overblown, is costing too much money, should be moved past. I think he thinks he’s cleverly couching his racism and resentment in reasoned words, but I remember listening to him rant for hours about the birth certificate, the speech mannerisms—anything but acknowledging his racist beliefs. He fools no one.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 7:17 am

    Summer morning earworm (carried over from an evening thread).

  12. 12.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:20 am

    @Patricia Kayden:

    vaccines Democrats save lives.

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 8, 2021 at 7:23 am

    @NotMax: Summer Belongs To You

  14. 14.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 7:23 am

    Andy Kim (D-NJ): another member of the talented Democratic House Class of 2018. Kim flipped a red suburban seat district, like the suburban districts  Democrats  won that year in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas. Some of these red suburban seats were left on the table in 2018, and these will be prime Democratic targets next year.

  15. 15.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 8, 2021 at 7:25 am

    @debbie: Sounds like it’s more I-wish-you-could-slap-people-over-Facebook than it’s entertaining.

  16. 16.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 7:26 am

    Here’s a long tweet thread on the Trump suit (hence the Thread Reader App unroll), but it is a really amusing finale to the careers of ancient, mediocre PI lawyers. I know guys just like this – they came up in practice in a really forgiving time with a much smaller bar, and made the mistake of assuming that they were smart.

    You may as well name this suit “My Struggle”, because you know Trump personally read it and approved every grievance set forth in it.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1412848065841672198.html

  17. 17.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 7:28 am

    “Why won’t Democrats show more respect for working class Trump voters?”

    I lived Rachel Bitecofer’s comments on this topic:
    “ Now, IDK if its just that I’m one of fewer academics that come from the real, unpolished, bottom 50% world, and not the romanticized bullshit painted by J.D. Vance of working-class America- the real one where people have 3 kids from 3 different women and get angry when 1 of them is reticent to let them visit their kid when they get out jail. AGAIN. In THAT working class, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry run rampant: and not only are these “isms” prevalent, there is a belief that they shouldn’t have had to be buried (see how that relates back to their culture war champion?) That the old days were far superior bc they could just call someone a f&g or slap their female co-worker in the ass is they were in the mood. There was a hierarchy, a caste @Isabelwilkerson notes, and they were at the top of it. Everything else might be a shit sandwich, their job, their house, their marriage, their debt, but that hierarchy & their place at the top of it- as Wilkerson notes in her book, that shit was SOLID. And now its gone. And do you know who took it? The Democrats.”

  18. 18.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 7:28 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I love seeing it referred to as LOLsuit on Twitter.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:31 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    News is taking the lawsuit much too seriously.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 7:32 am

    @Suzanne

    “You’ll have to pry my wifebeater from my cold dead torso.”

    //

  21. 21.

    sab

    July 8, 2021 at 7:33 am

    @debbie: Yikes. I only have one brother, and he is the aggrieved white privileged kind. Glad I never had to see him argue with a more sensible brother.

    My oldest sister thinks he is okay, and cannot understand why her own children find him appalling.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:33 am

    @Suzanne:

    Whenever someone talks about how Dems “betrayed” the working class, this is what comes to mind.

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 7:34 am

    Also…. can confirm that Bitecofer is 100% correct. There are plenty of white working class people — like my in-laws — who are solid Dems, and who aren’t afraid of black people, and who think college is a good thing, and who have lived in cities at one point, and who eagerly got their vaccines. But no one’s interviewing my in-laws at a diner.

  24. 24.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2021 at 7:34 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I thought of you yesterday when I checked Twitter and found out that Cenk and Glenn were in a spat.  It was glorious.  Glenn even went after whoever leaked about Flynn’s Russian contacts.  A lot of roses lost their petals.  Heh.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 7:35 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thank you for the link. I will forward it to my Atlanta friend. Warren is a retired attorney who despises trump and his minions, and I think he will appreciate it.

    I’m curious though. How is your leg? I remember you hurt it badly a few months ago. Are you moving around OK now?

  26. 26.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 8, 2021 at 7:36 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: There’s excellent mockery in that thread

  27. 27.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 7:36 am

    @Suzanne:

    Posted here the other day, we still get 40% of the white without college degree vote.  Wish it was more, but that’s still a lot of decent people who shouldn’t be treated as invisible.

  28. 28.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 7:37 am

    @Baud: Yeah, for sure.

    I really, really do not want to be in political coalition with those people. That’s not to say that I dont want to act in their interests. But I don’t want them to have influence.

    So much of this is about influence.

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2021 at 7:39 am

    @debbie:

    I’m sad for you that your family has this conflict.  I’m also intrigued about your TFG supporting brother.  Do you think his personality sort of predisposed him to be sympathetic to messaging that reinforced his existing sense of grievance?  Did he have some kind of formative experience that pushed him in that direction?

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 7:39 am

    @MomSense

    Beck or Greenwald?

    (Presume it is not Close.)

  31. 31.

    sab

    July 8, 2021 at 7:40 am

    @Suzanne: That is my brother in SF to a T. My husband thinks he is gay because he is in SF and not married. I disagree. I know many happily married gay guys in SF. My brother is straight and not married because he is an a****** and a RWNJ in SF where no decent woman would have him however rich he is.

  32. 32.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 8, 2021 at 7:41 am

    @Suzanne: My parents were solid white blue collar people who lived in Detroit. We always had enough money for food and utilities but I remember having fragments of two baby teeth pulled without novacaine because we didn’t have the extra $10 it would have cost. They voted Democratic.

    My DIL’s father worked in the steel mills around Gary. He was a union steward at one point. He says he eventually noticed that he did better when the Ds were in power, so that’s how he voted.

    Vance is full of romantic, nostalgic nonsense.

  33. 33.

    sab

    July 8, 2021 at 7:44 am

    @Suzanne: Diners are an expensive way to eat. Actual blue collar people cannot afford to eat there.

  34. 34.

    germy

    July 8, 2021 at 7:49 am

    NEW–> GOP Congressman on bipartisanship: We want “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done” pic.twitter.com/yvsGTNkDGB

    — Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) July 6, 2021

    “OMG he admit it”

  35. 35.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 7:50 am

    @Geminid:

    Hey, thanks!

    Leg is better than I ever expected. I’m still a little timid on descending steep inclines and stairs (I can tell it is weak), but I can mow grass, walk the dog and do a lot of normal stuff. We joined a local Planet Fitness so I can have access to weights, cardio, etc., and I can already tell an improvement on the elliptical cross trainer. I’m going to shoot for 45 minutes tonight (did 30 last night, didn’t feel it until the end). I think the trick is going to be to push it within limits, and I’m well aware of those.

  36. 36.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 7:51 am

    @sab: Diners are an expensive way to eat. Actual blue collar people cannot afford to eat there.

    Speaking as an actual blue collar guy who regularly ate at diners, Huh???

  37. 37.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 7:51 am

    @MomSense:

    I absolutely think he was predisposed for Trump. He’s always been so angry and resentful (once literally knocking me down and strangling me). He was hyperactive as a child and always felt he wasn’t getting enough attention. He used to pick on my youngest brother (he’s the middle of three) until he cried. He watched me watch him hurting him to see how I would react (he had that look Chauvin had). He was always complaining about every slight to him. He walks around calling himself “Mr. Nice Guy,” so I’m seeing a narcissistic similarity to you know who.

    In other words, an all-around piece of work. We were all raised better than this. My parents were Rockefeller Republicans and they had hearts and principles. My youngest brother voted for Trump for the tax cut; this brother was all about the permission it gave him to show his inner monsters.

    /rant

  38. 38.

    germy

    July 8, 2021 at 7:52 am

    Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from practicing law in Washington D.C. https://t.co/hEzlRMprUP— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 8, 2021

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 7:53 am

    @debbie: Jeebus.

  40. 40.

    germy

    July 8, 2021 at 7:54 am

    Trump’s social media lawsuits, if they’re somehow allowed to proceed, could end up forcing him to testify under oath about Jan. 6.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 8, 2021

    Somehow I don’t think they’ll proceed, then.

  41. 41.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 7:55 am

    @MomSense:

    I think somebody posted a clip of him also saying that Marine Le Pen runs to the left of Macron as well as the French Soc!alist party.

  42. 42.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 7:56 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    But of course, I’m totally well adjusted and normal! ?

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:01 am

    @OzarkHillbilly

    With you all the way on the “Huh?” Especially as regards truck stop diners.

    Rule of thumb #1: If the menu doesn’t spill over at least a minimum of six pages it’s not a real diner.

    Rule of thumb #2: If there’s no meatloaf offered, it’s not a diner. Corollary: Also too, hash browns.

    ;)

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:02 am

    @debbie: My mother once said that the best thing she ever gave her 6 children was each other. Every now and again I am reminded of how very fortunate I am that she was right. My siblings are a blessing.

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2021 at 8:02 am

    @debbie:

    It’s interesting because I have observed many TFG supporters express a feeling of validation and belonging from being part of that group.  I heard some 8th cousins discussing him in 2016 and one of them said that he says the things we are thinking but can’t say out loud.  They are all rural farmers and ranchers.  They’ve never been out of Waldo County except on rare occasions.  They are probably on the racist but not violent side of the spectrum but they also haven’t had much opportunity. Then there are people who have had violent tendencies and knew they were different who found it so liberating to find their people.

  46. 46.

    A Ghost to Most

    July 8, 2021 at 8:03 am

    That hideous neon blue suit color is another shitty artifact of the Putin Regency.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:05 am

    @sab: My in-laws are working-class white people who own a farm and never finished college, and they shop at Whole Foods.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2021 at 8:06 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Wouldn’t be surprised. The Tweets were fast and furious. He’s always been a white supremacist.  It’s the only constant with him.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:08 am

    @MomSense

    Turds of a feather clump together.

    //

  50. 50.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 8:10 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Until Trump came along, I would have said the same thing about two of the three, especially the youngest one. We haven’t spoken since 2016, and I miss him like the dickens.

  51. 51.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    July 8, 2021 at 8:11 am

    @germy:

    NEW–> GOP Congressman on bipartisanship: We want “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done” pic.twitter.com/yvsGTNkDGB

    — Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) July 6, 2021

    “OMG he admit it”

    Ethos of the 21st-century GQP: rule or ruin.

  52. 52.

    MomSense

    July 8, 2021 at 8:12 am

    @NotMax:

    True that.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:13 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Vance is full of romantic, nostalgic nonsense. 

    Yes.
    I read Joan Williams’ book White Working Class a couple of years ago, and it crystallized some things for me. One is that the people she interviewed had this very strong through-line of pride about “hard work”. But that wasn’t drilled into enough for my liking. What does it mean to work hard? Because, I have to say, from my vantage point, I see a lot of not-very-hard work from the Trump cohort. Like, all those people on January 6 were not working. Williams writes about how that class hates doctors, lawyers, teachers, and considers nursing to be “women’s work”. I’m sure they consider anyone with an office job to be “an elite”. I work (and worked, in school) harder than most, and I resent the consideration that because I don’t physically hang the drywall that I’m not working hard.
    Especially from anyone who has ever done the punch-and-dump.

  54. 54.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 8, 2021 at 8:16 am

    Andy Kim seems like a good person.

  55. 55.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:17 am

    @NotMax: I can’t say about menus as I never look at them. My order is almost always, “Slinger, with cheese and onions, whole wheat toast.”

  56. 56.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 8, 2021 at 8:19 am

    @Suzanne: That comment also shows the gendered nature of how hard work is defined.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:21 am

    @OzarkHillbilly

    “Dijon on the side.”

    “Exit’s over there, bub.”

    :)

  58. 58.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 8, 2021 at 8:23 am

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: Of course they do, how is this any different that what the GOP has done since GW Bush? Remember Bush was the one who started with the executive orders because he couldn’t get congress to enact laws when his own party was in control of it.

  59. 59.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 8:24 am

    @Suzanne: I don’t worry too much about the influence of more white working class people joining the Democratic party. This is a shrinking demographic, and working class economic interests are already represented by organized labor. New infrastructure spending should make for a more prosperous working class; if some undecided white working class people can’t get past their culture war hang ups, that’s their problem. They’ll have take the Democratic Party as they find it.

    Latino working class people may be more open minded, and this is a relatively fast growing group. And while much was made of Latino trump voters last year, I’ve read studies showing that nationwide Latinos voted Democratic 2-1, even in Florida outside of the Miami/Dade County area (which voted 2-1 Republican). Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock carried the Georgia Latino vote, and this one reason they are now U.S. Senators.

    But why the fascination with white working class people? When in doubt, I blame the media. Reporters could find plenty of trump voters in any suburban Starbucks. But they’d rather focus on the people in diners than tell on their own social peers.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:25 am

    @debbie: Politically, we are a rainbow of leftists united by common feminist leanings. I blame my never a shrinking violet mother.

  61. 61.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 8:26 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “Dressed cheeseburger, cheddar if you got it, with mustard and mayo, fries and slaw.”

  62. 62.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 8:26 am

    @debbie:

    I’m sorry.  Kind of hits home the whole brother against brother thing in the civil war.

  63. 63.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:27 am

    @NotMax: “Dijon on the side.”

    “Bathrooms are in the back.”

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:28 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, absolutely 100%. “Hard work” is something only men do.

    I just read one of those listicles about things people say that are red flags. I have to say that the term “hard work” or “hardworking” has become a bit of a red flag for me in political discourse. Because they never mean a student who worked hard to get into college or graduate school. They don’t mean a nurse on a 12-hour shift. They don’t mean an office worker doing a 60-hour week. Or a teacher dealing with little kids all day. They certainly do not mean creative labor like mine. It’s an appeal to another kind of bigotry, the kind that only sees some people as important or praiseworthy.

  65. 65.

    raven

    July 8, 2021 at 8:31 am

    @Suzanne: Sheeettt, they should see my pack mule of a wife in her garden!

  66. 66.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    July 8, 2021 at 8:31 am

    @Suzanne: Going by the kids I grew up with and my own family, any education post high school is elitist, being in a skilled trade is elitist, not being stoned or drunk all day is elitist.   A lot of the contempt they are getting is in their own families.

  67. 67.

    raven

    July 8, 2021 at 8:31 am

    grits yankees

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:32 am

    @Geminid: But why the fascination with white working class people? When in doubt, I blame the media.

    I think it’s just a default cultural hangover, that and the fact that WWCP are the ones currently whining the loudest.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 8:32 am

    @Suzanne:

    The part that’s even more ironic is that it often doesn’t even apply to physical labor done by minority men.

  70. 70.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:32 am

    @Geminid:

    Reporters could find plenty of trump voters in any suburban Starbucks. But they’d rather focus on the people in diners than tell on their own social peers. 

    “Trump voters” and “Trump diehards” aren’t the same people, though. That’s why part of the story of the last election was the shift away from Trump in the suburbs.

  71. 71.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 8:33 am

    @Suzanne: That the old days were far superior bc they could just call someone a f&g or slap their female co-worker in the ass is they were in the mood. There was a hierarchy, a caste @Isabelwilkerson notes, and they were at the top of it. Everything else might be a shit sandwich, their job, their house, their marriage, their debt, but that hierarchy & their place at the top of it- as Wilkerson notes in her book, that shit was SOLID. And now its gone. And do you know who took it? The Democrats.”

    This, 1,000%. This is a lot of their grievance against Democrats. It’s why they love the “culture war” stuff so much. They think it’s ridiculous that they can’t say slurs whenever they want (it’s not a slur if it’s true, they’ll say), and why is it so wrong to show a woman you think she looks good by slapping or pinching her butt? And now we’re saying they can’t even make fun of trans people (can’t you see how dumb what they want to be is, why it’s against nature why can’t I say that without getting in trouble? It’s just the truth!)  They “don’t mean anything by it”, is what they’ll say. They resent the hell out of not being able to do or say these things without paying a price anymore, and they know it’s liberals who took this away from them.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:33 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Short stack with sausage, English muffin, and keep the java coming.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:34 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    What is a slinger, please?

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:36 am

    @raven

    Heck, have been in places below the Mason-Dixon line where the grits come with a side of grits.

    ;)

  75. 75.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 8:36 am

    @Geminid:

    You’ll never see NYT deep dives with the following phrases:

    ”In this Brooklyn kombucha cafe…”

    ”In this Chicago bodega…”

    ”In this Louisville pho restaurant…”

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 8:37 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m glad you are doing well. There’s nothing like adversity to make one appreciate mowing grass.

  77. 77.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 8:39 am

    @NotMax:

    Grits are at their best when paired with protein and fat. Cheesy sausage grits, shrimp and bacon grits, etc.

    Make any of those and chop some cilantro or parsley over them, and you’ve got an $8 side in any restaurant.

  78. 78.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 8:39 am

    Why won’t Democrats show more respect for working class Trump voters?”

    Biden peeled away a significant number of previous Trump voters in 2020. And according to a recent Brookings analysis, Trump’s base is more stubborn grievance class than working class.

    The core coalition. Trump’s consistent appeals to his base bore fruit. His campaign for reelection was supported by 94% of Republicans, up from 92% in 2016; by 84% of White evangelical Protestants, up from 77%; and by 65% of rural voters, up from 59%. At the same time, he held the support of about two-thirds of whites without college degrees, and his support among white women rose from 47 to 53%.

    BTW, Biden’s proposals for free college, especially expansion of community college access, may be a good investment in future Democratic Party voters.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:39 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Every now and again I’ll get a waffle or maybe a chicken fried steak with biscuits and gravy. Hardly ever a burger, mostly because I’m just a breakfast kind of guy. Our local diner here (the DuKumInn) had a killer western omelet that I always ordered with biscuits and gravy. Unfortunately, the long time owners sold it a couple years ago and the new owners… Well, they just fucked it all up. I don’t know how they are still in business.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:41 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    “Today we’re talking to customers at the Arugula Corral.”

    :)

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 8:44 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Grits are at their best when paired with protein and fat. Cheesy sausage grits, shrimp and bacon grits, etc.

    The Platonic ideal is bacon and eggs or sausage and eggs, with a biscuit and a side of grits. The only thing you add to the grits would be butter and black pepper.

    Cheesy sausage grits is an abomination.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 8:44 am

    @Brachiator:

    and his support among white women rose from 47 to 53%.

    I don’t understand this.  I remember it was a big story when Trump won white women in 2016.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 8:45 am

    @Brachiator:

    Cheesy sausage grits is an abomination

     
    I blame Democrats.

  84. 84.

    Betty Cracker

    July 8, 2021 at 8:45 am

    @Brachiator: Bullshit!

  85. 85.

    eclare

    July 8, 2021 at 8:45 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Our diner here is the DewDropInn.

    \\

  86. 86.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:46 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: 2 fried eggs (over easy for me), hashbrowns, and a hamburger patty drowned in chili w/ toast on the side. Most get it with shredded cheddar and onions on top, some don’t. Somethin’ wrong with those that don’t.

    Some folks look at it a go, “Ewwww…” but nothing satisfies a 2 AM after the bars are closed craving quite like a Slinger.

  87. 87.

    eclare

    July 8, 2021 at 8:46 am

    @Brachiator:  Aw hell naw!

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:46 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    More of a like ’em laid out on the plate, topped with a couple of over easy eggs kind of guy. Hint of garlic in the grits even better.

  89. 89.

    RSA

    July 8, 2021 at 8:47 am

    News reports of demographic voter breakdowns rarely talk about the relative sizes of the different groups, which is often important. For example, it was a surprise to me (long ago) when I found out how many adult Americans have a four-year degree (here by race):

    White 33.5%
    Non-Hispanic White 35.8%
    Black 21.6%
    Hispanic/Latino 16.4%
    American Indian/Alaska Native 15.0%
    Asian 54.3%
    Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander 17.8%
    Other race 12.0%
    Two or more races 31.9%

    So it’s a good thing to appeal to White people without a bachelor’s degree—there are twice as many as those who have one.

  90. 90.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:49 am

    @Betty Cracker: I was waiting for this.

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 8:49 am

    @NotMax:

    Heck, have been in places below the Mason-Dixon line where the grits come with a side of grits.

    That sounds about right.

    In some ways, grits are to Southern cooking what escargots are to French cuisine.

  92. 92.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 8:50 am

    @NotMax:

    Garlic is a given. I mince a few cloves in every time.

  93. 93.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 8:51 am

    @Suzanne:Williams writes about how that class hates doctors, lawyers, teachers, and considers nursing to be “women’s work”. I’m sure they consider anyone with an office job to be “an elite”. I work (and worked, in school) harder than most, and I resent the consideration that because I don’t physically hang the drywall that I’m not working hard. Especially from anyone who has ever done the punch-and-dump.

    This kind of thing has existed at every job I’ve ever had. Plant vs. office; Office vs. field workers; front of the house vs. back of the house. Each side believes they work harder than the other side, and knows more than the other side, and is more essential than the other side, and that the other side is lazy/dumb/mostly unnecessary. I think this is part of our natural tribal instinct. Thing is, one side can’t exist without the other one. What good is the stuff the factory workers are making if there is no one in the office to sell their products? How will the field workers know what to do if the office workers don’t do their jobs right? In a restaurant, who will eat the food the back of the house cooks if there isn’t a front of the house to serve it? And so on. It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen, and it exists EVERYWHERE. We all want to believe we’re the most important, most essential workers, when the truth is that we’re all interconnected.

  94. 94.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 8:52 am

    @RSA:

    So it’s a good thing to appeal to White people without a bachelor’s degree

     
    Well, yeah. It’s quite literally (hi, Steve!) the Dems’ white whale. But no one knows how to improve our numbers without sacrificing our values or our loyal voters.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 8, 2021 at 8:54 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Thanks! I obviously never hung out at the right kind of eateries.

  96. 96.

    Spanky

    July 8, 2021 at 8:54 am

    @Brachiator:

    In some ways, grits are to Southern cooking what escargots are to French cuisine.

    An abomination?

  97. 97.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 8:54 am

    @Geminid:But why the fascination with white working class people? When in doubt, I blame the media. Reporters could find plenty of trump voters in any suburban Starbucks. But they’d rather focus on the people in diners than tell on their own social peers.

    *le sigh* It’s because the white voter is seen as the “real, legitimate, normal and ordinary voter”, especially the white male voter. Whatever the white, male voter wants is seen as “normal” and “centrist”. Every other voter is seen as a “special interest voter”, even if they don’t say it like that. The white man is the “baseline person” in this country still, and all the press coverage promotes that, even if it does it unconsciously.

  98. 98.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 8, 2021 at 8:55 am

    The Countess is a monster and prefers ruined hockey puck eggs. I’m a “turn the burner off when the top is mostly done, give it one flip” guy.

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 8:56 am

    @OzarkHillbilly

    Suppose a close-up shot of local specialty loco moco is in order.

  100. 100.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 8:57 am

    @Soprano2: This kind of thing has existed at every job I’ve ever had. Plant vs. office; Office vs. field workers; front of the house vs. back of the house. Each side believes they work harder than the other side, and knows more than the other side, and is more essential than the other side, and that the other side is lazy/dumb/mostly unnecessary. I think this is part of our natural tribal instinct.

    It is, but one thing I have noticed over the years is that in a lot of businesses that natural tribal instinct is exacerbated by management in an attempt to divide and conquer.

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 8, 2021 at 8:59 am

    @Soprano2: 

    We all want to believe we’re the most important, most essential workers

    I don’t. I’m quite happy being retired.

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 8:59 am

    @Suzanne:“Hard work” is something only men do.

    It’s the worship of “dirty jobs”, like that show on TV, by a lot of people who don’t actually want to get their hands dirty. I work with a lot of people who do those kind of jobs every day, and I have nothing but respect for most of them.

    The karaoke DJ at the bar plays videos between singers, so I hear a lot of country music that I normally never would listen to. It’s revealing to me how many of the songs are about how butthurt these people are that “those elites” look down on their lifestyle, which is honest and hardworking. In some of the videos, how much they look down on “those elites” is made explicit. I think it’s revealing that they think it’s totally OK for them to sneer at white collar workers, but horrible if white collar workers sneer at them.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 9:00 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: It’s universal diner fare in STL, and I have eaten them in other locales but I don’t know that you could find one in Rochester NY or Taos NM.

  104. 104.

    Ohio Mom

    July 8, 2021 at 9:01 am

    Now I want to go to our neighborhood diner for fried eggs, rye toast and hash browns with onions and smothered in cheddar cheese. Not a possibility, any time now the heat pump guy is due.

    On the subject of Republican relatives, mine are all men and most of them were fussy babies and cranky kids. Fortunately they are outnumbered by the rest of us.

  105. 105.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    July 8, 2021 at 9:03 am

    Alan Dershowitz is the new Rudy Giuliani.

    Dershowitz: This is the most important First Amendment case of the 21st century pic.twitter.com/7FNIoo1s1f— Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2021

  106. 106.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 9:03 am

    @Baud: These are the women who get their status through their husbands, and who are afraid that a woman is going to wrongly accuse their sons of rape, stuff like that. Plus, they’re bigoted in their own right.

  107. 107.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 9:04 am

    @NotMax: Mmmmm mmmm… Damn, that looks good….. googling recipes….

  108. 108.

    Baud

    July 8, 2021 at 9:04 am

    @Soprano2: 

    . I think it’s revealing that they think it’s totally OK for them to sneer at white collar workers, but horrible if white collar workers sneer at them.

    Also, that the Republicans they vote for are extremely white collar.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 9:05 am

    @Suzanne: Yes, trump die hards are a subset of trump voters. I’ll be interested to see what these two types of Republican voters do next year.

    The trend in the suburbs nationally is, as you say, away from Republicans. This is one reason Democrats flipped 40 House seats in 2018. Republicans essentially have swapped suburban voters for exurban and rural voters, a losing strategy.

    In Virginia, this has led to the beginnings of a demographic death spiral for Republicans. They are trying to reverse that spiral in this fall’s state elections, but I don’t think they can. The facts that most of Virginia is prospering and that the state government is in good fiscal shape will not help them. Republicans have a slim chance of picking up enough seats to regain control of the House of Delegates, but that’s only because they are fighting on a map they drew in 2011.

  110. 110.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 9:06 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: It is, but one thing I have noticed over the years is that in a lot of businesses that natural tribal instinct is exacerbated by management in an attempt to divide and conquer.

    Those are stupid managers, because it just makes everything worse. It’s so dumb anyway, everyone is necessary in the role they have. We as humans seem to have an irresistible instinct to find someone, anyone to look down on as being worse than we are.

  111. 111.

    Kathleen

    July 8, 2021 at 9:07 am

    @Geminid: They’re white and anti Democratic Party or do the media assume. Two qualities dear to media’s heart.

  112. 112.

    WereBear

    July 8, 2021 at 9:08 am

    @Suzanne: The more I read Bitecofer the smarter she and I get :)

  113. 113.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 9:08 am

    @Ohio Mom

    Toasting rye is a rarefied skill. Cherish those establishments which have mastered it. One second too much and it may as well be a buttered floor tile.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    July 8, 2021 at 9:09 am

    @Baud: I’ll be honest, it stunned me that so many of these people loved TFG so much. In many ways he’s the opposite of what they say they admire – he has never dirtied his hands in his life, he wears suits all the time, and he spends more time on his appearance than most women do. If he were their boss, they’d sneer and look down on him as an effete. Of the many things I find hard to understand about TFG’s appeal to them, this is the strangest.

  115. 115.

    Betty Cracker

    July 8, 2021 at 9:09 am

    One of the most interesting things I’ve seen from the recent deep dives into 2020 voter data is that Trump lost a lot of married men. He still won a majority of that group, but his margin declined by something like 20 points, which more than made up for Trump’s gains among Latino Americans. The latter gets a lot more attention.

  116. 116.

    Kathleen

    July 8, 2021 at 9:13 am

    @Geminid: They’re white and anti Democratic Party or do the media assume. Two things dear to media’s heart.

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 9:15 am

    @Brachiator: The local Hunt Country Store serves a very good shrimp and grits. Some bacon is used, to good effect.

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    July 8, 2021 at 9:15 am

    @Soprano2: Well, stupid is as stupid does but workers united are always a threat to the bottom line.

  119. 119.

    Helen

    July 8, 2021 at 9:16 am

    @Suzanne: I think there is too much focus on white working class. Do you really think that the white managerial class are really so different? I look at my managers, I believe most of them are straight ticket Republicans. And have most of the same cultural beliefs, just don’t say it out loud. From what I heard personally, a lot of suburban Republicans didn’t vote for Democrats, they just didn’t vote for Trump.

  120. 120.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 9:18 am

     

    @Baud:

    and his support among white women rose from 47 to 53%.

    I don’t understand this.  I remember it was a big story when Trump won white women in 2016.

    This was a misleading statistic that a lot of people clung to even after it was refuted. Even in threads here. NPR and others have recently been reporting on the Pew 2020 Validated Voter research analysis.

    The idea that a majority of white women voted for Trump quickly became one of the 2016 election’s most-cited statistics, as many Hillary Clinton supporters — particularly women — were outraged to see other women support Trump.

    While that statistic was repeated over and over, Pew’s data ultimately said this wasn’t true — they found that in 2016, white women were split 47% to 45%, slightly in Trump’s favor but not a majority.

    This year, however, it appears that Trump did win a majority of white women. Pew found that 53% of white women chose Trump this year, up by 6 points from 2016

    The 2020 election white woman vote may have varied because of the higher turnout of all voters, which included a resurgence of conservative voters.

    Also, married white women tend to lean more Republican than Democrat.

  121. 121.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 9:18 am

    Just taste tested the sausage, beef and black bean stew – faux feijoada – whipped up in the Instant Pot at midnight, for consumption tomorrow and beyond (waiting for it to cool down some more before refrigerating).

    Eat yer heart out, Michelin guide.

  122. 122.

    Spanky

    July 8, 2021 at 9:22 am

    @Gin & Tonic: I think being retired is most essential. To me, at least.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 9:27 am

    @WereBear: Rachel Bitecofer has a lively and interesting Twitter feed. She had published book analysing the 2016 election, which got little attention at the time because she was an unkown. But she put out an incisive tweet last fall: “2016 was a story of late breakers and third party defection. 2020 will be a story of whose ballot gets counted.”

    Bitecofer is still somewhat of an outsider in her professional world. This may give her analysis a good edge.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 9:28 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Anything I write about food comes with a dash of snark. Whatever people like to eat or drink is fine with me.

    But I’m still right about grits. ;)

  125. 125.

    MagdaInBlack

    July 8, 2021 at 9:32 am

    @Helen: I can assure you that the majority of management ( from middle on up ) of my company are straight up big R. Trump supporters without all the external swag.

  126. 126.

    zhena gogolia

    July 8, 2021 at 9:34 am

    @Soprano2: Me too

    ETA: But racism.

  127. 127.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 9:37 am

    @MagdaInBlack

    Contra [Henry] Gray’s Anatomy, too often IRL the assholes are situated near the top.

  128. 128.

    Kayla Rudbek

    July 8, 2021 at 9:43 am

    @sab: I agree with you. When I lived in Silicon Valley, I saw that there were trips from San Francisco to Santa Cruz for single women to meet single men. I would also see ads in the women’s locker rooms looking for women to take dance classes at the gym. So there was strong geographical skew in terms of the location of single women and single men.

  129. 129.

    lowtechcyclist

    July 8, 2021 at 9:43 am

    @Brachiator:

    The only thing you add to the grits would be butter and black pepper.

    Damned straight.  Have whatever you want to with the grits, but butter and black pepper are all that go in the grits.  So saith my Southern wife, and I concur.

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    July 8, 2021 at 9:44 am

    @Brachiator: My husband is from Western New York and doesn’t understand grits. He claims they have no flavor, and that’s more or less true unless you add things to them, which is the same with potatoes. Some people like potatoes with just butter and salt and/or pepper, and that’s okay! More gravy, cheese, etc., for me!

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    July 8, 2021 at 9:46 am

    @Baud:

    So it’s a good thing to appeal to White people without a bachelor’s degree

    Well, yeah. It’s quite literally (hi, Steve!) the Dems’ white whale. But no one knows how to improve our numbers without sacrificing our values or our loyal voters.

    But isn’t this exactly what Biden did in 2020? Improved his numbers without sacrificing his values, or the values of Democratic Party voters?

    The GOP keeps trying to paint Democrats as being outside the mainstream. And most recently they have been pushing the strange lie that giving more breaks to corporations during the pandemic was good and right and natural, but stimulus payments and enhanced unemployment payments to individuals is wasteful, unpatriotic, un-American.

    This is almost too easy. The GOP is more nakedly declaring that they have no values at all, apart from loyalty to plutocrats. The Democrats just have to keep pointing this out, and asking Trumpers, “is this really what you want?”

    Those who want to continue down that path are free to do so.

  132. 132.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 9:52 am

    @Betty Cracker

    Possibly he’s more familiar with johnny cakes. Grits are (more or less) johnny cakes, without the cake.

    Found it hilarious when chi-chi upscale eateries latched onto polenta as a fad. Grits by any other name….

  133. 133.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 9:54 am

    @Betty Cracker: And then there are enhanced grits like scrapple and ponhous. I’ve had ponhous cooked after a hog was slaughtered. I’m not sure what was in it besides grits, but it sure was good

    Now I find myself craving scrapple. Maybe I’ll get some this weekend.

  134. 134.

    kmax

    July 8, 2021 at 9:57 am

    Open thread, so.. for Richmond VA juicers.. my daughter-in-law is an organic gardener in Richmond and sells at various markets.  Due to encroaching storm things are being cancelled.  She has an outstanding deal today on veggies delivered anywhere in Richmond.  see @jaymeadowco on Instagram

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 9:57 am

    @Helen:

    Do you really think that the white managerial class are really so different? 

    Anecdotally, I would estimate that 90% of the white “creative class” people I know hate Trump and are pretty left. I have seen multiple surveys and polls that reflect that. So, yeah, I think college-educated white people, who are much more urban, are different from the “working class” and “managerial class”. Williams calls it “professional-managerial class”, which I think erases an important distinction.

  136. 136.

    O. Felix Culpa

    July 8, 2021 at 9:58 am

    @NotMax: I hated that song from the time it came out (“if her daddy’s poor, you can do what you feel”). The debasing of women trumped any happy feels from the bouncy rhythm. YMMV.

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:00 am

    @Geminid

    Mmm, scrapple. One of the upsides to living in Pennsy Dutchland.

  138. 138.

    O. Felix Culpa

    July 8, 2021 at 10:01 am

    @Baud: I don’t know if someone has already posted this, but here’s a partial answer: DNC launches organizing program ahead of midterms (The Hill). It looks like a step in the right direction to me.

    More info here: Campaign Pipeline Project.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 10:05 am

    @NotMax: Do they have Spam scrapple in Hawaii? My friend Joan spent eight days on the Big Island in April. She had some kind of spam sushi, said Spam was much used there.

  140. 140.

    debbie

    July 8, 2021 at 10:07 am

    @MagdaInBlack:

    Or smart enough to keep that to themselves.

  141. 141.

    Suzanne

    July 8, 2021 at 10:09 am

    @Soprano2:

    I think it’s revealing that they think it’s totally OK for them to sneer at white collar workers, but horrible if white collar workers sneer at them. 

    I do think there is a pretty widespread cultural rejection that stings — and andrew Breitbart was right when he said that politics is downstream of culture. Everyone wants to see themselves as aspirational, to use marketing language. And increasingly, no one of cultural influence aspires to that life or even presents it positively in popular culture. I long said that one of the things about Obama that made him so hated is that he is cool and stylish and urbane. The whole dustup over the Vogue cover for Dr. Jill is that no one of taste gave a shit about Melania, and for people who think she’s pretty as opposed to trashy, that feels insulting. We don’t like their cars, their beer, their towns. Nike doesn’t want their money and they don’t want the Nike swoosh to be associated with those people. But, you know, marketers want my money. In a capitalist society, that’s a compliment. I have more influence.

  142. 142.

    Miss Bianca

    July 8, 2021 at 10:13 am

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    Ethos of the 21st-century GQP: rule or ruin.

    Rule *and* ruin. Because, por que no los dos?

  143. 143.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:13 am

    @Geminid

    Spam musubi.

    Or, if you have a coronary specialist on speed dial, the spam, egg and Portuguese manapua at 7-11.

    Spam, along with the vile canned corned beef, is majorly adored in Hawaii. Can’t abide it myself, find it to be basically a salt lick with a vaguely meaty coating.

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:15 am

    @NotMax
    Correction to repair omission.

    spam, egg and Portuguese sausage manapua

  145. 145.

    Miss Bianca

    July 8, 2021 at 10:17 am

    @Betty Cracker: Grits is grits, *any* way you gits them. That’s my theory, anyway.

    (mmm…grits…)

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 10:21 am

    @kmax: I hope your daughter-in-law makes it through the storm OK. It’s supposed to blow through and be gone by tomorrow morning. Things should open back up by the weekend, unless tornadoes are a problem.

    I live about 60 miles west of Richmond. Right now it’s very still under grey skies, but we’re supposed to get thunderstorms and flash floods later. We need the rain, but not the floods. There will be good kayaking next week, though.

  147. 147.

    bluefoot

    July 8, 2021 at 10:26 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:  I miss honest-to-god diners. There are some posh diners in my area, and formerly-old school diners which have transformed into posh diners. But I miss regular diners where you get no-fuss food. My favorite one near me closed shortly before the pandemic, and that was one of the last.

  148. 148.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:26 am

    @Miss Bianca

    Gotta link it.

    :)

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 10:34 am

    @NotMax: So you can’t abide spam! I noticed that it was not included in various dishes you prepare and talk about. But I figured you were just holding out on us.

  150. 150.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:44 am

    @bluefoot

    No recollection of the name of the place (Snydersville, maybe?) but was (is?) a truck stop diner in Pennsylvania near where I-80 junctions with I-380 (rightfully) known for its pies, which were available for purchase whole (deposit on the pie tin). All baked on premises, can’t recall any less than a dozen varieties available.

  151. 151.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 10:47 am

    @Geminid

    Food* of the devil’s devil. YMMV.

    *and I use the term in the loosest possible sense

  152. 152.

    nclurker

    July 8, 2021 at 10:50 am

    @Brachiator: 
    the only thing that goes with grits ;country ham and red eye gravy.
    melt a tablespoon of brown sugar with a tablespoon of butter.
    cook the ham in the sauce until done.remove and add black coffee.reduce by a third.
    spoon red eye over the grits.
    generally served with over-easy eggs and the ham.

  153. 153.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 8, 2021 at 10:52 am

    @MomSense: I thought of you yesterday when I checked Twitter and found out that Cenk and Glenn were in a spat.  It was glorious.  Glenn even went after whoever leaked about Flynn’s Russian contacts.  A lot of roses lost their petals.  Heh.

    Oh the hilarious stupidity that must’ve ensued!

  154. 154.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    July 8, 2021 at 11:02 am

    Gotta rise in defense of the noble potato. A freshly boiled new potato has plenty of delicious, delicately earthy flavor. A tiny bit of butter is lovely, but could be considered gilding the lily.
    All the diner-fave descriptions startle me. I guess my sister and I (both retirement age smallish females) eat atypically for middle class suburbanites; no way do we have that amount of animal protein on our plates, ever, except at family holiday feasts. Probably just as well, it’s be a challenge budgeting for it.

  155. 155.

    SFAW

    July 8, 2021 at 11:05 am

    @Geminid: @NotMax:

    Scrapple: used to have it as a kid. Not sure if my father was big on it (he grew up during the Depression, so maybe), or my mother. Either way, I liked having it. Wandered in the wilderness for many years, then started buying it a few years ago. I love it, but it’s not exactly “heart healthy,” so I don’t cook it as often as I’d like.

    My wife likes Spam, it reminds her of her childhood, although she grew up fairly poor. I never touch the stuff, because oy vey, but I sometimes buy it for her.

  156. 156.

    SFAW

    July 8, 2021 at 11:08 am

    @NotMax:

    Still haven’t figured out that linky thing, I see. [I know, I know — it’s still pre-dawn in the 50th State, so things look different.]

  157. 157.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 11:12 am

    @SFAW

    Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. Other than the nym attribution there was no link, so didn’t bother with a correction (no edit function here).

    :)

  158. 158.

    SFAW

    July 8, 2021 at 11:14 am

    @NotMax:

    Sure.

  159. 159.

    Amir Khalid

    July 8, 2021 at 11:19 am

    @eclare:
    It’s not a terribly original name, is it? I remember that in The Waltons one of the sons (Jason?) was a musician, and he often played at a local establishment named the Dewdrop Inn.

  160. 160.

    NotMax

    July 8, 2021 at 11:22 am

    @Amir Khalid

    Grandma Walton was none too pleased with his being employed by such a den of debauchery, also too.

  161. 161.

    Geminid

    July 8, 2021 at 12:04 pm

    @SFAW: Now I remember the other dish prepared alongside ponhous: souse. I sometimes see souse in stores. It’s somewhat gelatinous. In terms of heart health, souse makes a nice piece of scrapple look like a bran muffin.

  162. 162.

    Doc Sardonic

    July 8, 2021 at 12:16 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Dammit, now I wanna go to Skeeter’s for an Asher Special

  163. 163.

    dnfree

    July 8, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    @Suzanne: the people I know who talk about “I worked hard for what I have” are college graduates and beyond with management jobs, or who inherited a family business. I’m sure Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, plus Jared, all would tell you how hard they worked.  They’re trying to justify why they “deserve” to be so much better off than the working class

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