Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

No one could have predicted…

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The lights are all blinking red.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Petty moves from a petty man.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / It’s Always About the Race

It’s Always About the Race

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Times like these make me really hate the media. All of the domestic Afghanistan coverage is focused on one thing- whether it is good/bad for Biden. It’s always about the horse, not where the jockey is taking it or why with these fuckers.

I personally do not give ONE fuck whether this is good or bad for Biden’s poll numbers. I don’t think Biden does, either. What matters is we are finally getting out of there, and what matters in the short term is getting our people and our friends out. That is it.

Do I feel bad that the Taliban is going to do awful things to people in the upcoming years? Yes. But what the fuck do you want us to do about it? Our own democracy is in shambles.

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    Joe became president already NMFTG Joe and I think it suits both him and the country. Afghanistan will echo to the midterms, but no way it’s in the public’s “mind” come 2024.

    BTW the Taliban weapons haul is pretty damn big.

  4. 4.

    JPL

    I guess the Biden Administration was told last month that Kabul would fall.   That’s proof that he should have been prepared.   There’s a little problem though, cuz the same report said September.

    This is the same news that is reporting Mr. Rosenberry had suffered a recent loss when his mother died.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    These pretty much provide all the information you need to know about what is going on:

  6. 6.

    johnnybuck

    I’d say your last two paragraphs of this post sums up pretty much how the American people feel about this. I think this causes the media to double down even more, Honestly, I just got back from a convention and nobody even mentioned it. They’re all too busy worrying about the delta, gas prices, and employee shortages to care. Actually, it’s not that they don’t care- they would care very much if it involved putting boots on the ground to avoid this from happening.

    And these are, by and large, republican voters- from Georgia no less.

  7. 7.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mousebumples: I’m not surprised. Something finally went badly for Biden, and the media can now hit him dramatically for clicks and views.

    They’re not interested in why it’s not a huge problem, how it wouldn’t have worked out better in any meaningful way, etc. They’re just happy to have a plausibly legit reason to hit Democrats.

  8. 8.

    chopper

    I don’t think Biden does, either.

    yeah both because poll numbers aren’t really his thing, and he’s 6 months in so there’s plenty of time for all this to fade off.

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mrmoshpotato: She’s reading it off her phone, because all of this stuff is being heavily astroturfed by Mike Flynn. He’s streaming at least once a day pushing this stuff. Often multiple times on different people’s streams/channels, as well as as a VIP guest speaker at online rallies.

  12. 12.

    Cacti

    Bad news for the perpetual war crowd:

    66% of Americans say Afghanistan war not worth it, per latest AP poll.

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    @Adam L Silverman: Colbert had one of these reading at top speed off her phone, and he had a funny tagline for her, having to do with being an auctioneer. I wish I could remember it.

  17. 17.

    PsiFighter37

    Fuck the media. After all these years, they still get hard-ons when it comes to keeping our troops in the Middle East. Fuck. Them. All.

  18. 18.

    Spanky

    Our own democracy is in shambles.

    Yes! And THANK DOG Biden has finally done something that we, the networks, can use to distract everyone from it, while simultaneously trashing his administration. Win-win baby!

  19. 19.

    SpaceUnit

    I wish I had a time machine and a 2×4.  I’d do some research and find out who first described the US as a ‘superpower’ in the wake of WWII and then I’d go back in time and break the 2×4 over their head.

    For 70 odd years we’ve had neocons and imperialists fantasizing that we could shoot beams out of our eyes that magically blast dysfunctional hellholes into thriving, capitalist-loving republics.  But military power is essentially a destructive force, not a creative one. We can blow things up and kill people.

    You can’t bomb a wheat field into a wedding cake.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @JPL: Or ignore it.

    I guarantee that each major newspaper and each of the networks has the same thing going on, which is why they’re all having a meltdown right now.

  21. 21.

    Marci Kesserich

    Do I feel bad that the Taliban is going to do awful things to people in the upcoming years? Yes.

    I’d add that if any of these crocodile-tear assholes just desperately need to “feel bad” for some brown people, we’ve got a whole southern border full of Honduran and Salvadoran refugees.

    The only correct response to “oh, these poor Afghani women and children” is “yes, it’s awful. How many refugees exactly is your neighborhood prepared to admit?”

  25. 25.

    rose weiss

    Hear, hear, Mr. Cole! That’s exactly how I feel, and I’d guess most of the country agrees with us.

  26. 26.

    Benw

    @Adam L Silverman: if we assume that the other 3/10 who believe the war will “end well” are included in the 5/10 that want to go back in, that leaves only 2/7 who want to go back in WHILE ALSO believing it will end badly!

    2/7 = 29%, just saying.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’m going to lift weights and then walk the dogs. You all have fun being isolationist warmongers or imperialistic nativists or something.

  28. 28.

    Spanky

    Since this post is in both Open Threads and War, this probably falls under both:

    (CNN)For the first time on record, precipitation on Saturday at the summit of Greenland — roughly two miles above sea level — fell as rain and not snow.
    Temperatures at the Greenland summit over the weekend rose above freezing for the third time in less than a decade. The warm air fueled an extreme rain event that dumped 7 billion tons of water on the ice sheet, enough to fill the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall in Washington, DC, nearly 250,000 times.
    It was the heaviest rainfall on the ice sheet since record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, and the amount of ice mass lost on Sunday was seven times higher than normal for this time of year.

  31. 31.

    Cacti

    @Adam L Silverman: That polling really shows the co-dependent relationship Americans have with war.

    2/3 say it wasn’t worth, and half say we should still send troops back.

    The body politic in this country is addicted to war and afraid of peace.

  32. 32.

    Patricia Kayden

    Weird how the same people who were the first to criticize Sha’Carri Richardson for smoking a little weed to cope with her mom’s death are now eager to justify a white man threatening to blow up the Library of Congress because “he recently lost his mom.” ?— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) August 19, 2021

  33. 33.

    randy khan

    I think nobody who wasn’t already locked into voting against Biden will think this is important to how they see him by the end of the year.

  36. 36.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Adam L Silverman: I’ll be doing whatever the warmongers claim lets “the terrorists win” to bring back some early-aughts verbiage.  (In this case, grilling some Korean wings)

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    @Patricia Kayden: I think what most people are feeling is embarrassment that the US is losing face as we retreat from a war we lost.

    But, that’s generally how it goes for the losing side.

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    Adam Schiff has a petition to sign, demanding that DeJoy be removed.

    Republican megadonor and Trump’s hand-picked Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is making headlines…again.

    Not only is he under FBI investigation already, but the Washington Post just reported that the United States Postal Service signed a $120 million, five-year contract with XPO Logistics, a contracting company that DeJoy’s family owns.

    I don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty obvious and massive conflict of interest, to say the least.

    What makes it worse, DeJoy maintains strong ties with the family business by renting out four office spaces to XPO Logistics — which personally earns him at least $2.1 million annually. That also screams conflict of interest.

    Before I go any further about DeJoy’s personal financial interests, here’s the deal – this Trump crony needs to go. If he doesn’t resign, we need to kick him to the curb.

    .

    Now, here is why DeJoy’s corruption is so uniquely harmful:

    DeJoy purposefully slowed down the mail during the height of the 2020 election, decommissioned mail sorting machines, and has a 10-year plan for the Postal Service that represents the largest consumer rollback of mail services in a generation. And now, he may be enriching his family businesses with government contracts.

    The FBI is already investigating DeJoy. His alleged campaign finance scheme of reimbursing his employees’ donations to Republican candidates with salary bonuses may have violated federal campaign finance laws. It’s clear that DeJoy has no problem picking the wrong side of ethical dilemmas.

    We must remove DeJoy from running the Postal Service before he completely guts one of our country’s most sacred public goods.

    Multiple times, DeJoy has demonstrated that he’s unfit to serve as Postmaster General. From downgrading the Postal Service prior to the presidential election and during a pandemic, to his latest partnership with XPO Logistics — it’s abundantly clear that DeJoy’s primary interests are Trump’s and his own.

    Millions of Americans depend on the Postal Service to pay bills, receive medications, and connect with loved ones. We cannot let DeJoy get away with undermining the Postal Service for political reasons or his own personal benefit.

  43. 43.

    ruemara

    We can’t shape democracy for Afghanis. They have to shape it for themselves. When we try to shape a government, we wind up enabling corrupt leeches who steal the funds for governance and line their own pockets. That’s just the facts.

  50. 50.

    smith

    @Cacti:  It’s not really the US losing face that has them howling, it’s their own precious selves losing face. How often did these exact same bozos cheerlead for ever more surges, and ever more money down the drain in a war that was obviously futile from very early on?

  51. 51.

    VeniceRiley

    @WaterGirl: 

    Adam Schiff keeps his eye on the ball. Doesn’t matter if the rest of us fell into an Aftrap.

    I took 2 days off to decompress. Watching Bon Apetít channel, and Hy-Yeah!

  53. 53.

    debbie

    @trollhattan: 

    Where’s all the pushback about the exit plan being TFG’s crowning achievement, kissing the collective ass of the Taliban? Who are these fucking GQPers who cheered Trump’s “achievement,” but are condemning Biden because he’s abiding by the terms of that agreement?

    We can’t do much, but we should be doing that.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    CNN Early Start
    @EarlyStart
    ·14h
    President Biden remaining defiant and defensive on his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

    “Defiant”. Good Lord.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    @Cacti: 2/3 say it wasn’t worth, and half say we should still send troops back.

    Of course those 50% would never dream of sending their children off to war.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    Do I feel bad that the Taliban is going to do awful things to people in the upcoming years? Yes. But what the fuck do you want us to do about it? Our own democracy is in shambles.

    This is a damn good question and I ain’t standing on no soapbox with an answer.

    But I think that human beings are the most primitive when they only care about their own family, their own tribe, their own nation, their own race.

    America, among other nations, has been known to exploit other nations for their resources, and then pretend that any lack of development was due to the inferiority of the locals.

    We try to do better than that. Some of us.

    There is a pandemic. If we manage to get fully vaccinated, we will still be at risk as long as the virus is mutating anywhere on Earth.

    And you cannot build a wall against a virus. It’s been tried before.

    Afghanistan. I don’t know what to do. But I remember that we very recently had a president who believed that only losers cared about other people.

  59. 59.

    SpaceUnit

    I don’t think the repubs even care about Afghanistan.  They’re just bitching out of reflex.

    They lost interest during the Obama administration when the mission was re-framed as a peace keeping operation.  They fantasize about war, not peace keeping.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @Marci Kesserich:

    The only correct response to “oh, these poor Afghani women and children” is “yes, it’s awful. How many refugees exactly is your neighborhood prepared to admit?”

    If it were solely up to me, I would say “All of them.”

    How about you?

  64. 64.

    topclimber

    @Adam L Silverman: What is truly laughable about the IPSOS poll is that 70% of Americans consider themselves very or somewhat familiar with the situation in Afghanistan over the past 20 years and of plans for withdrawal. I would have pegged it at 30% after year one and maybe 20% for the next 19.

    This poll was taken as the one-day panic at Kabul airport and the longer one within the US media were perhaps at their peak.

    No way half of America wants to fight the Taliban, unless they start harboring terrorists who can hurt us like on 9/11.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    @ruemara:

    I think it’s more than just democracy. The bigger problem with places like Afghanistan and Iraq is that they aren’t nations in the same way Germany and Japan were when we tried to set them up with democratic governments after WWII.  They are countries, but people there still tend to see themselves as being members of their tribe before they their nation.  If they can’t pull together as a nation, it’s pretty hopeless for them to try to function as a democracy.

  72. 72.

    smith

    Been looking all over for this:

    Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business. –Michael Ledeen, 2003

    He was referring to Iraq, but this quote most succinctly expresses why we were in Afghanistan in the first place, why we stayed for so long, and why the screaming is so loud now that our actual impotence in throwing little countries against the wall has been exposed, again.

  74. 74.

    CaseyL

    It’s funny/weird how everyone hates the MSM, albeit for very different reasons.

    I do love Biden’s NLFTG attitude.  Reporters were and are trying to give him grief for not taking any questions.  Me, I LOVED the way he just turned around and left after his Afghanistan speech.  He knows no one in the press gaggle will ask anything intelligent, insightful, or even honest.  Fuck ’em.

    The man has serious work to do, an Aegean Stable’s worth.  All the chickens coming home to roost, all the shit coming down, half the people in the country candidates for protective institutionalization.  He can’t be bothered dealing with media crap, and I adore him for it.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sure Lurkalot: I’m sure the usual suspects like the Mercers, the Uhliens, that crowd. And every MAGA head and Qnut is sending him small dollar donations via his PAC or purchases of Flynn gear from his online store. And he gets paid for every virtual and in person speaking appearance. How many of those small dollar donations below the reporting threshold that don’t have to be fully accounted for in the IRS filings are coming from Americans versus routed through burner accounts in the US from the usual suspects like Russia, UAE, Saudi, Turkey, etc, I cannot answer.

  77. 77.

    Mary G

    @WaterGirl: Do these petitions ever do any good? I stopped signing them because it resulted in a flood of “gimme money” candidates and PACs fighting against whatever the petition was about.

  80. 80.

    gene108

    @Adam L Silverman:

    She’s reading it off her phone, because all of this stuff is being heavily astroturfed by Mike Flynn. He’s streaming at least once a day pushing this stuff. Often multiple times on different people’s streams/channels, as well as as a VIP guest speaker at online rallies.

    Who is Flynn working for? Which billionaire or foreign government is pulling his strings?

    Feels like the same or similar right-wing groups that started the Tea party found some issues to get their base engaged by demonizing masks, and dumping all their hostility to inclusive curriculum into the CRT bucket.

    This is about retaking the House and Senate in 2022.

  81. 81.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Uncle Joe doesn’t give a damn what the talking heads are screaming, and it’s driving them bugfuck. I love the smell of desperation in the morning.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:

    The cherry on top of Trump’s sewage pudding will be Erik Prince contracting with the Taliban to teach them how to operate all their fancy-schmancy new weaponry.

    Nobody try and tell me he wouldn’t in a New York minute.

  85. 85.

    gene108

    @dr. bloor:

    It really depends on how focused the media is on keeping the situation front and center.

    If they “Hillary’s emails” the unfolding situation in Afghanistan, it might start really impacting people’s perception of Biden and Democrats.

    I fear the media may succeed in doing this. Just keep bleating out “Biden failed”, and eventually the notion takes hold that “Biden’s a failure”.

  86. 86.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Soprano2: I hope you’re holding up ok. I found the hardest time is when everyone goes back to their normal lives while we figure out what the new normal is. Very weird time.

  87. 87.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @gene108: Don’t worry about it. Most Americans don’t care about Afghanistan. They care about Covid because it’s affecting them personally.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @SpaceUnit:

    I don’t think the repubs even care about Afghanistan.

    There’s an (maybe not so) old saying, “show me your budget and I’ll show you your values.” It’s a pretty good rubric.

    Did W raise taxes to pay for his wars? No. He kept most of his war expenses off budget to try to hide the cost.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  89. 89.

    Fair Economist

    I’ve stuck up for Biden before on this. Biden isn’t just not failing, he is handling the Afghan situation as well as is possible. Nobody criticizing him has made any specific alternative plan – because there isn’t any.

    Emergency withdrawal earlier would have just brought down the Afghan government faster.

    Sending in troops would just re-mire us.

    Unilateral alteration of Trump’s surrender would have risked the Taliban becoming aggressive and endangered our troops and allies there.

    Anybody saying there’s a clean way to deal with the abrupt collapse of a country is just lying. Limiting the damage to 5 people killed in a stampede is an amazing accomplishment.

  90. 90.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @CaseyL: The man has serious work to do, an Aegean Stable’s worth…

    The Greeks would like to know what your problem is with where they house their horses…

  91. 91.

    Lyrebird

    @Kay: “Defiant”. Good Lord.

    Yes.  I would say something about vomit worthy, but that underplays how dangerous the media games are.

    How about, “CNN, NYT remain defiant and refuse to accept any responsiblity for beating the drums of war in AFGH or Iraq to this day.”

    grrrrrrrrr

  92. 92.

    Another Scott

    @The Thin Black Duke: +1, but trouble is, most people had even less care about Benghazi until it was beat into their head for months.

    Fortunately, we’ve got the House leadership now so there won’t be years-long witch hunts by kooks.  Biden and Team D need to keep their eyes on the prizes and not get drawn into a defensive crouch.  But also need to try to take the air out of the balloon that these operatives are trying to inflate.

    And the rest of us need to keep pushing forward and not get discouraged.  Things are getting better and we’re on the right track.  Think back to how bad it was last fall and winter…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  94. 94.

    Fair Economist

    @Roger Moore:

    The bigger problem with places like Afghanistan and Iraq is that they aren’t nations in the same way Germany and Japan were when we tried to set them up with democratic governments after WWII. They are countries, but people there still tend to see themselves as being members of their tribe before they their nation.

    To be more specific, as many have pointed out before, they aren’t real countries, they are “Frankencountries” with boundaries arbitrarily set by European imperialist totally ignoring legitimate communities and cultures there. No surprise they have trouble forming functional democracies.

  95. 95.

    Roger Moore

    @Mary G:

    Do these petitions ever do any good? I stopped signing them because it resulted in a flood of “gimme money” candidates and PACs fighting against whatever the petition was about.

    That’s what they’re there for.  Yes, DeJoy needs to go, but “signing” an online petition isn’t going to make it happen.  All it will do is to give your contact information to the person setting up the petition so they can ask you for money later.  The same thing with the stupid “wish so-and-so happy birthday” stuff.

  96. 96.

    Mary G

    @gene108: @The Thin Black Duke: I’m with the Duke. The public isn’t buying it and some major butt hurt is out there:

    The Biden team's cold political calculation is that Americans won't care what happens in Afghanistan as long as Americans are safe. To their point, today there are no front-page stories on Afghanistan in cities like Boston, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Fresno or Miami.— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) August 19, 2021

    The replies are glorious. I wrote three, because I hate that guy and have him blocked because tweeting at him is a waste of time, but I saw and screenshot of this and had to chime in.

  97. 97.

    Mary G

    @Roger Moore: I hate that birthday shit, even Obama’s. And I really hate “make a contribution of any size for a chance to win a trip to Miami and join the president for dinner.” I’d rather the president do his job.

  98. 98.

    gene108

    @ruemara:

     

    @SpaceUnit:

    Afghanistan ?? was caught by Pakistan actively undermining it and supporting the Taliban, while Iran played its own game sort of backing both the government and eventually the Taliban. However badly the government was run, without outside countries propping up the Taliban, they would have had a better chance to either get their act together or be toppled by popular protests and a new system of government drawn up. Having an active foreign funded rebel group operating against a fledgling government locked the U.S. and other countries to back an unpopular government, because otherwise there’d be less than nothing to counter the rebels.

    One problem Afghanistan had was not free and fair elections, but a country that lacked a functioning government administrative bureaucracy for twenty years.

    Trying to build one up from scratch in the model of a more established nation did not work. Low literacy rates and lack of educational institutions- from primary schools to universities- hurt being able to create the kind of professional administrators other countries have.

    There are plenty of countries with corrupt politicians, and some corrupt bureaucrats, but there are enough professional administrators to keep society functioning.

    Afghanistan lacked that group of people that make sure police salaries are paid, the number of people being paid actually exist, taxes are collected and sent to the government and not pocketed by the tax collector, and so on.

    The Afghan people do not have a problem with democracy. Electing people to run the country is the easy part. It’s the other things, like getting roads built, enforcing building codes, etc. that’s hard.

    Just look at poorly run states in the USA, getting politicians elected is easy, but having effective programs that help people isn’t and is neglected by malice and/or incompetence.

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    most people had even less care about Benghazi until it was beat into their head for months.

    Most people who cared about Benghazi cared about it only as an excuse to get their hate on for Hillary Clinton. The main way it hurt her was giving them an excuse to dig into everything she did and eventually turn up the stuff about her emails. Nothing else about the Benghazi investigation did anything.

  100. 100.

    Roger Moore

    @Fair Economist:

    To be more specific, as many have pointed out before, they aren’t real countries, they are “Frankencountries” with boundaries arbitrarily set by European imperialist totally ignoring legitimate communities and cultures there. No surprise they have trouble forming functional democracies.

    The countries in Europe started out the same way.  They became nations as we know them today by enforcing national identity on the people within their borders or forcibly expelling people who didn’t go along.  Nation building is long, bloody business.  It took centuries and oceans of blood to turn places like France, Germany, and Italy into coherent nations; we shouldn’t expect it to go any faster in the rest of the world.

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @Mary G: +1

    I get hundreds of political emails a week and read less than 1% of them.  If I make a donation its via ActBlue directly or doing a Google search.  If they can’t be bothered to have a reply link that goes to a real person (and only have a Donate Here in giant type, and a microscopic Unsubscribe hidden at the bottom), then it’s pretty clear that they really don’t want my input for their petition or whatever.

    And that’s fine.

    Until we have publicly funded campaigns, this is the system we have to work with and campaigns are expensive.  So, they know the game and I do too.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    gene108

    @Spanky:

    Al Gore’s “ Earth in the Balance” brought the environmental problems that’d be caused by China and India expanding their economies and increasing consumption of resources getting them on par with Western countries.

    I can’t recall how much global warming was discussed, but people have been aware we’d get to some sort of environmental catastrophe, for at least thirty years,  if we didn’t make changes to how we think about economic growth, with regards to pollution and natural resource use and degradation.

  104. 104.

    eddie blake

    @Roger Moore:  uh, modern germany was sewn together by the prussians in a big fuck you to the austro-hungarian empire (and a slightly smaller fuck you to france) in about fifty years

    eta- sykes picot was DESIGNED to make countries that couldn’t work. less difficult for the imperialists to subjugate that way.

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @gene108:

    Quartz – Scientists have been forecasting that burning fossil fuels will cause climate change as early as 1882. It’s been in newspaper stories since at least 1912, also too.

    Too many people have had too much interest in cheap, power-dense fuel and couldn’t be bothered with effects decades later…

    :-(

    There’s probably an alternative history out there where coal and natural gas didn’t exist. Imagine burning down all the world’s forests to power steam engines… :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Dan B

    @Betty: That’s why they missed the fine print about snakes and apples, right?

    Now it looks like they’ll be banned from OnlyFans.  Didn’t see that coming…

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    @eddie blake:

    uh, modern germany was sewn together by the prussians in a big fuck you to the austro-hungarian empire (and a slightly smaller fuck you to france) in about fifty years

    That was just the conclusion of a process that had been taking place at least since the 30 Years War.

  113. 113.

    Cameron

    @Marci Kesserich: Yes, the people will suffer greatly. They’ll soon be looking back longingly at that Golden Age when their country was run by a foreign power which regularly rained down death from the sky on targets intended and unintended.

  114. 114.

    persistentillusion

    @Mary G: ​
      To be honest, they’re primarily fund-raising tools. However, a good politician will wave the results around from his/her more modest bully pulpit.

  120. 120.

    gene108

    @Fair Economist:

    To be more specific, as many have pointed out before, they aren’t real countries, they are “Frankencountries”

    I don’t know enough about Iraq or Afghanistan to know how they used to organize themselves prior to the current boundaries being drawn.

    There are multiethnic nations that have a national identity. We just do not consider the diversity and lump all people from China, for example, as Chinese, even though the Chinese clearly see ethnic differences in their country.

    India is a multi-ethnic country that has a national identity. The identity is born out of five thousand years of civilization on the subcontinent creating commonalities between people, who speak different languages.

    There must be some sort of national identity in Afghanistan, otherwise the Loya Jirga would not have survived as a tradition for centuries. Why this identity has not led to the strong central governments seen in European nation-state building, I cannot say. I don’t know enough to speculate.

  121. 121.

    Dan B

    @rikyrah: This could be an amazing shift of paradigms.

    On a similar note Deb Haaland (sp?) just visited a small Quinalt town a few miles north of where we go every Labor Day – Taholah.  We usually go to their quirky parade or just hang out.  There’s an Interior Dept. plan to move the village to higher ground to escape sea level rise.  The issue for most of the WA coast will be the very low elevation roads that will be underwater at high tide.  Where Casey L is thinking of moving is a sand peninsula that will disappear in several decades.  But crop failures and fires will be the first challenges.

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gene108: Most likely the usual suspects. We know from the reporting that the surviving Koch brother is funding the CRT stuff. My guess is the DeVoses and Uhliens and Mercers are as well. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Guo, who is Bannon’s paymaster, is as well.

  126. 126.

    Brachiator

    @gene108:

    There must be some sort of national identity in Afghanistan, otherwise the Loya Jirga would not have survived as a tradition for centuries. Why this identity has not led to the strong central governments seen in European nation-state building, I cannot say. I don’t know enough to speculate.

    Excellent point. I cannot explain it either, but would point out that ancient Greece existed as strong city states, not a unified country with a single national identity.

    There are some that would suggest that the unification of modern Italy only took place very recently, and is still quite shaky.

    There have been periods when Afghanistan was unified.

    But often the few big cities have been seen as something apart from the tribal areas. And yet the people still see themselves as part of Afghanistan.

    Complex nation, but not just a primitive feudal backwater.

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