Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I really should read my own blog.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

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

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

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Politics / Information Warfare / Late Night Open Thread: Meanwhile, at Dealey Plaza…

Late Night Open Thread: Meanwhile, at Dealey Plaza…

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There’s a good chunk of our fellow Americans who just can’t cope with reality democracy…

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54Comments

  1. 1.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Basically what I was saying earlier after getting into with it that anti vaccer, a lot of people with the minds of children in adult’s bodies.

  2. 2.

    Fair Economist

    Here’s my idea for a strategy to deal with the current political environment (including this kind of Q nonsense) – a “memetic strategy” to deal with a politics being driving by social media and MSM toadies. I was partially inspired by this link on fighting disinformation. A key point is that the counter has to be highly memorable – people are often willing to change their opinions based on provided information, but they tend to change back rapidly because we forget most of what we learn quickly.

    I want to focus on an issue that’s intensely memorable – bodily purity. Specifically, purity from COVID infection, which Republicans have been actively spreading by barring vaccine mandates, making vaccination difficult, barring simple public health measures, etc. First, I think we should shift to the derisory term “ReGermAgain” because that’s what they are doing and people need to associate Republican with bodily corruption.

    Second, we need repeated evocative messaging about how nasty COVID is. Not dry medical terminology but catchy animated graphics showing COVID viruses crawling around in the body (make it extra gross) causing blood lesions on body organs, filling lungs with blood and pus, ripping tissue apart, shinking testicles, putting lesions on ovaries, etc. Gross, vivid, and easy to understand. It needs to be understandable for young children, because where we’re really getting clobbered is among people who didn’t go to college and literally don’t read books ever.
    Third, anti-COVID measures need to be expressed as simple military-style metaphors. Masks are “armor for your lungs”. Vaccines “arm your immune system” (make the pun with the arm injection site – helps memory and thus belief). Air filters and surface sanitation are “search and destroy the enemy”.

    Finally, all Democrats should be running as defending Americans against “ReGermAgains”. “We’ll keep you safe”. “We’ll keep your children safe.” “We’ll keep infectious people at home”. “Don’t let ReGermAgains kill any more Americans.”

    Get it to the point that Republicans make people feel like their bodies crawling with virus; feel a cough coming on; feel their fever rising; and want to reach for their masks. Then we can win.
    I know some will say this is excessive; but you are wrong. This disinfo, with Republicans now the spearpoint, has killed more Americans than Hitler *and* that spearpoint is now a dire threat to American democracy. Extreme measures are a moral requirement now.

  4. 4.

    JoyceH

    @Fair Economist:  I’ve long thought that we need to treat anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers as DIRTY. Dirty, disease-riddled filth… brrrrrr, get away from me! You can tell they think of themselves as such bold freedom fighters and being treated as something disgusting to be shunned is a countermove. Because they’re not acting from reason but to feel and invoke a feeling. And if they’re looking for admiration but getting revulsion… It could work. All these earnest homilies about trying to understand their point of view certainly hasn’t.

  5. 5.

    Elizabelle

    @Fair Economist:

    @JoyceH:

    Good comments.  Thank you for the Northwestern article.

    RE the Q topic:  I really don’t care about these stupid slobbering fucks.  I don’t.  Not even going to read about them.

  6. 6.

    The Thin Black Duke

    A lot of this country’s problem would go away if it was easier for black people to vote, but no, let’s waste time begging the white people who have always made up their minds.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    It’s now past 12:29. At 12:29, the crowd recited the Pledge if Allegiance.

    Somehow, the typo seems apt for this group of idiots. Their actual allegiance to the US tenuous at best.

    QAnon people in Dallas who have been waiting all morning for JFK Jr. to make his miraculous appearance are calling local reporters “Fake News.”

    Laughable. But this is probably how Christianity got started. Some goobers waiting for Jesus to come back.

  10. 10.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    They now think JFK Jr. will reveal himself at a Rolling Stones concert tonight.

    Back and to the left

    Back and to the left

    Back and to the left

  11. 11.

    JoyceH

    @Brachiator: No probably about it. As I recall, in the early days of Christianity, they were expecting Jesus to return, not in some misty far-off future, but really darn soon. Ugh, I just had a horrible vision of hundreds of years in the future, a weird sect whispering to one another about the glorious Reinstallment of the Trump they were awaiting.

  12. 12.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    QAnon people are walking up to random people they think are dead celebrities in Dallas today and introducing themselves. So far they have seen “Robin Williams” and “Dale Earnhardt.”

    What, no Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana?

  13. 13.

    p.a.

    Richest nation (but not best educated) produces considerable population of cargo-cultists centuries into the scientific revolution.?

  14. 14.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Thin Black Duke: A lot of this country’s problem would go away if it was easier for black people to vote, but no, let’s waste time begging the white people who have always made up their minds.

    Or simply have no minds to begin with. But yes.

  16. 16.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    that “julian calendar” stuff is a dead giveaway to russia. The russian revolution is referred to by russians as the “october revolution” even though it happened on November 7th (photo) because they were using the julian calendar which made the storming of the Winter Place on October 25th. Lenin changed the russian calendar from julian to present day gregorian the following year.​​ the russians are the only ones who have a common knowledge of the julian calendar.​

  19. 19.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Phylllis: Death Becomes Her is evidence that Bruce Willis is a good character actor when he puts away the guns and his trademark smirk.

  20. 20.

    Gvg

    I can’t believe how stupid they are. Government isn’t something that is given. We elect according to the law. Even if JFK faked his death and revealed himself, he wouldn’t have any power to give Trump anything. Even kings didn’t pick their successors. We are a democracy and we elect on set timeframes. Good lord, the ignorance pisses me off. My vote and yours matter. These barbarians want to invalidate my right to have some say in my life. I don’t matter to them.

  22. 22.

    Eolirin

    @Gvg: I think you missed some subtlety in the JFK sr is coming back thing. They’re not saying he’s been hidden away, they’re saying he’s going to be resurrected by God to claim dominion by reinstating Trump, who’s viewed as God’s instrument. It’s a weird synthesis of rapture esque second coming apocalyptic cult and political conspiracy theory.

  23. 23.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Gvg: Well, in fairness, our voters don’t bother showing up to stop this shit unless and until their asses are literally on fire.

    So it seems most of us don’t matter to ourselves, either.

  24. 24.

    Subsole

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    Good catch.

    These chucklefucks are gonna be screaming for their “stolen days” back, aren’t they? Because everything old is new again, apparently.

    Detective Rust was wrong. Time is not a flat circle. It is a mobius hyperloop of infinitely recursive bullshit. Like some Cthuluesque Mandelbrot of stupidity.

  25. 25.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us

    @Fair Economist: The issue with this plan is it depends on Democrats getting better at messaging and that seems like something that is never going to happen. I live in the DC suburbs in MD so saw all the VA political ads. McAuliffe and company’s messaging sucked. Yes it was disingenuous but Youngkin and the guy running for Attorney General ran really good ads by comparison. I wouldn’t have voted for either of them but I could see how a low info voter might. I don’t know why the Dems have such issues with messaging but it would help if they got better at it. It’s not everything but it’s something.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    JFK would never appoint Trump, period. This alone should be grounds for involuntary commitment.

  29. 29.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Subsole: I think loyal Democratic voters showed up in Virginia yesterday. But not everyone who gave Biden that ten point victory last year was neccesarily “our” voter. There were Independents who were repelled by trump, but who fell for the appeal of the slick talking Youngkin. At least that’s what I think; exit polling is a cruder measure of voter motivation now than it used to be, so we may never know the full story. I just saw Youngkin running a shrewd campaign designed to appeal to Independents, and it seems to have worked.

    One big loser yesterday was trump. If trump’s electoral MAGA magic is so potent, how is it that another politician can run better than ten points ahead of him while keeping him at arm’s length? trump can spin this all he wants, but Youngkin just knocked a prop out from under trump’s electability argument.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    I slept about 90 minutes last night, and woke up angry.  Maybe that will keep me up for my 4 plus hours in the car today.

    Isn’t anger the first of Kubler-Ross’s stages?  Anyway, prefer it to despair, which is floating along very near it.

    Good morning, jackals.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  @Geminid:

    Thank you, gentlemen.  Coffeeing up now.  Thank dog for classical music stations.  No NPR today.  None.

    Geminid:  I like your take.  Youngkin threaded the needle, and appealed to low information voters.  Not happy with the results, but will give him some credit for skill.

    Although:  no credit for all the CRT and other dogwhistling shit.  That is demeaning.

  34. 34.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Things did not go well in NY either. NYC is too blue to be affected but we lost district attorney seats in Long Island and did poorly in places that were more borderline that we had won in the last few cycles. This feels like a reversion to mean after the post Trump gains.

    So yeah, seems like white people are pushing back on things now that Trump is no longer a going concern. And it seems national. That’s not great heading into 2022. Biden needs some wins and people need some reminders of how crazy and existential of a threat the Republicans are. Killing Roe might do it. Maybe. Gas prices coming down wouldn’t hurt either.

  35. 35.

    Another Scott

    “Large crowd” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in those tweets. And being deceptive in the process.

    It’s not that hard for the press to count the number of people in those photos and make extrapolations.

    “A few hundred unmasked people gathered during the continuing pandemic in Dallas to listen to lies about zombies…”

    :-\

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    No one hates CRT panic more than I hate CRT panic but I don’t think that’s all that’s going on with schools.

    There’s exhaustion and anger with the school closings and quarantines among normie parents that I think Democrats didn’t recognize sufficiently. It’s just been chaos for parents – really hard- and it’s now gone on several years. There is real damage among the “covid cohort” of kids for the disruption in schools- the standardized test scores that are coming out now show steep declines. It makes parents frantic.

    I don’t know that Democrats could have done anything about it and Biden actually DID recognize it, you’ll recall that a big part of his first 100 days was reopening schools, but parents of school age kids are just sour. They’re exhausted with juggling. When it didn’t “go back to normal” with the advent of Delta they lashed out. They can’t control the virus so they’ll try to control and run the schools.

    I still don’t think anyone can predict or understand how profoundly the pandemic rejiggers politics. It shifts. It appears to benefit one side at some times and another at another phase, but I wouldn’t be suprised if GENERALLY it benefitted the Right and harmed “progressives”, because progressive means “more change”.

  37. 37.

    Chris Johnson

    @Elizabelle: The useful thing is that he tried to distance Trump. He was playing upon what the Republicans and forces behind them are actively trying to pivot to. But Trump, and the MAGAs who are so brain-damaged that they worship the guy, are not going to want to pivot.

    Same weapons that work on us, will work on them. Accuse Youngkin of betraying god-king Trump and you’ll have some of the MAGAs actively trying to attack and hurt him because they’ve not got the current program. These people are not unbeatable, they have to thread a needle and play a very weak hand. The things they want are not popular, or the things they want are hyped-up stark lunacy that alienates what passes for normal people in America.

    Looks like anti-CRT hysteria is this year’s Trump. Last year’s Trump will not enjoy that, he doesn’t give a fuck about issues real or fake, it’s all about him. So let’s make a big fuss about how this renders Trump super irrelevant, and see how badly he wrecks the Republicans as they continue to try and pivot to new lies and bullshit… which they existentially need to do. They MUST reinvent the bullshit to survive, and that’s a weakness.

  38. 38.

    Eolirin

    @Eolirin: Oh, and most depressingly, all of the voting related ballot measures are looking like they failed. Same day registration, no excuse absentee ballots, and a bunch of changes to the redistricting process that would’ve made it easier for dems to lock the Republicans out of the process. That last one felt like a long shot going in, but I had more hope for the other two.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @Steeplejack:

    Please allow me to introduce myself

    I’m a man of wealth and fame

    “Taste,” not “fame.”

    I don’t know if it’s true, but I once read that Keith was the one playing bass on that song.

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @debbie:

    JFK would never appoint Trump, period. This alone should be grounds for involuntary commitment.

    Well, considering he’d be 104 years old, with most of his brain missing …

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: My take is that turnout killed us again in Virginia.  Turnout was close to 75% last year.  It was around 54% this year – not bad for an off-off year election, but not good enough.  Even with expanded early voting, too many people didn’t vote, and that makes it too easy for the GQP to win 51:49 races.

    Success breeds success.  Voters can’t ever sit things out if they want the country to keep moving forward.

    Something that I haven’t seen mentioned much is that Northam didn’t really campaign much for the team (until the end) and endorsed others in the primary.  His full-throated support might have helped with those who worried that Terry was somehow too liberal.

    No time to be discouraged; gotta keep pushing forward because rust never sleeps.

    Hang in there everyone.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @Elizabelle:

    I slept about 90 minutes last night, and woke up angry.  Maybe that will keep me up for my 4 plus hours in the car today.

    It’s easy to nod off, especially on a long drive — hell, even on a short drive, if you’re sleep-deprived — so please be careful, take frequent breaks, etc.

  45. 45.

    RinaX

     

     

    @Kay:

     

    I’d love to see a front page post diving more into this topic. I did it a bit last night, but I’m trying to avoid going to my same thought process about what happened.

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    @Subsole: ​

    Time… is a mobius hyperloop of infinitely recursive bullshit.

    A Cthuluesque Mandelbrot of stupidity.

    I like these, both fit today’s semi-reality very well indeed. Thanks for sharing!!

  47. 47.

    Hoodie

    @Fair Economist: One account I read is that McAuliffe really failed to grab credit for Dems for VA’s relatively successful Covid strategy and didn’t tie Youngkin to antivax extremists.  Instead, he talked a lot about Youngkin being tied to Trump, but voters apparently bought into Youngkin’s silence on Trump or felt Trump was not relevant since he’s no longer president.  That speaks to the poor memory aspect in the cited paper, people are already forgetting how awful Trump was and thus discount his continuing salience to the GOP.  What’s left is the legacy of Trumpism in people like DeSantis, which they have yet to identify as a threat, probably in large part because of our idiot media.  I’m not sure that your particular suggested approach will be effective against that, but I’ve always thought that a good approach is to focus on the GOP-associated lunacy of the moment and frame it as a threat.  In 2020, it was Trump; today, it’s antivaxxers. You want to continually reinforce the idea that the GOP is the party of lunatics, but you have to use current information.  They’re nuts and Dems need to use the fact that the GOP is tied to this lunacy in the person of people like DeSantis.    That mirrors what Republicans do to Democrats (right now, it’s trans rapists and CRT), except for the Dems is would have the advantage of actually being true. That’s what LBJ did to Goldwater.

    I can give an example of the importance of stressing the lunacy angle from my own experience.  I have a colleague who is a devoutly religious, tends to vote Republican, mother of five, very pro-life, etc.   She’s highly educated, but really still a low info voter who concentrates on single issues that are directly in her experience, which mostly revolves around her family.

    She has an assistant who has worked for her for 15 years, they’re very close.   The assistant is a good worker, but is not very highly educated and has a hardcore wingnut husband who, as you might expect, has a strong influence over her.

    Covid comes along, and colleague’s assistant is revealed to be an antivaxxer.   Starts out relatively harmless, she thinks the vaccines “too new”, wants to “do her own research.”  My colleague is initially sympathetic, says stuff like “it’s a personal decision.”   Colleague even holds off getting vaccine herself for a little while, but eventually decides to get vaccinated because she’s worried about husband with medical issues.   Of course, nothing bad happens when she gets the shot.   However, she’s still sympathetic with assistant and her “personal choice” even though it’s beginning to cause problems at our business because everyone else is vaccinated and other people are starting to complain about having an unvaccinated colleague in a relatively small office.

    Time passes and colleague’s assistant, no surprise, comes down with Covid, which she caught from her wingnut husband.  She gets pretty damn sick, has to be treated with monoclonal antibodies, just barely avoids hospitalization.  Of course, she indulges in the usual antivaxxer nonsense, seeking out hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, etc.  So now she’s recovered and is still adamant about not getting the vaccine.  Some people are just fucked in the head.

    After she recovers, my colleague and another colleague try to have a discussion with assistant to she if she is more amenable to vaccination now that she’s had a near miss with the ICU.  No dice, assistant gets defensive and belligerent.  Now colleague thinks her assistant, who was basically like a sister to her, is probably crazy.

    That’s the kind of realization you have to build for low info voters.  They want to be mainstream and are afraid of crazy.  The GOP goes after that mentality by talking about things like CRT, transsexuals, etc., that they drag from some obscure corner of the internet.  The Dems need to find a way to tap into that where the GOP gives them an opportunity, but it has to be current.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Yeah, Northam did not participate much. I am not sure if that was on him or on the McAuliffe campaign. Maybe we’ll find out in the after-action reporting.

    I did get the feeling that McAuliffe was complacent, at least until the polls tightened. But I did not pay such close attention that I could say this for sure. But I never underrated Youngkin. As I’ve said before, he’s a slick motherf$$ker. And he benefited from starting the race as “a blank canvas,” as Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch put it.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @RinaX:

    I think there’s “bigger picture” issues around covid that we are ignoring, because we’re not normies so we key in on masks and vaccines but there’s broad damage to kids as a result of the pandemic because they missed a year or two years and missing a year isn’t the same in children’s lives as missing a year in an adult life because childhood is short- they only have X number of years to be children – you and I have say, 60 years to be adults :)

    If you’re ten years old two of your ten years have been during covid. So two of the only 18 years you have as a child.

    They lost a lot of the CRT school board races. They were outright REJECTED in Wisconsin, for example. I think Democrats have to zoom out more on covid, the fear and anger and sadness is bigger than ridiculous people screaming about masks and vaccines. It’s broad and it is perhaps being channelled by the GOP into these issues. It could have been channelled elsewhere. They were just what was available.

    The bright side to that is it is probably transitory- it dissipates when covid does.

  50. 50.

    Subsole

     

     

    @J R in WV: Welcome.

    Lord I am tired of these people and their lies. I am tired of the media telling me I deserve to be lied to.

    Did we win Jersey or no?

  52. 52.

    H.E.Wolf

    As usual, https://electoral-vote.com provides a well-written, well-informed (E-V is 1 voting specialist and 1 American History specialist) non-hair-on-fire analysis. First section of today’s write-up is on VA; further down are city elections, etc.

    I read their M-F blog postings before even Balloon Juice. :)

    As for current events – disappointing, yes; demotivating, no. I’m not about to throw in the towel after one off-off-year, low-turnout election.

    In the words of the late John Lewis – may he rest in peace and power:

    Use the words of the [Civil Rights] movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.

    [from Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America.]

  53. 53.

    Bill Arnold

    “Kennedy’s are the Jesus bloodline”

    This is a major thing with a long history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_bloodline
    Wikipedia doesn’t mention the Kennedies, though.
    This lovely large PDF on the http://www.cia.gov site mentions the Satanic Kennedies:
    Bloodlines of Illuminati, by Fritz Springmeier, 1995
    Quote: “Fortunately, there is information that allows me to identify at least part of the Satanic Kennedies from all the rest of the Kennedys.”
    (The plural for the Satanic Kennedies is different than the plural for the other Kennedys.)

  54. 54.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Bill Arnold: ​
     

    SHocking!

    Here I thought the Kennedys were irish and catholic and now it turns out they were jewish all along!

    mazel tov

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