TFG, no longer God-Emperor of the Heartland…
even this toad, this amoral sycophant, this absolute grotesquerie of a human being, this servile little worm…wow, lost my train of thought https://t.co/kTGsCLXinn
— romney lost so now i terrorize my neighbors (@CalmSporting) September 2, 2022
Biden: "Not all Republicans are bad. Just the ones who support violently seizing control of the state if they get electoral outcomes they do not like."
Fucking Everybody Apparently: "Biden declares plot to exterminate conservatives in Hitleresque rant."
— Starfish In Charge Of WB Tax Evasion Dept. (@IRHotTakes) September 2, 2022
it *is* funny that the authoritarians keep stepping on the message from conservative columnists who are trying to cover their asses, though
— GONELIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) September 2, 2022
It's pretty simple: Many people voted for Trump because they're Republicans who disagree with the Democrats, not because they were religiously devoted to Trump himself. Biden is distinguishing between those two groups of Republicans, not lumping them together. It's not that hard.
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) September 2, 2022
The great suburban realignment illustrated in a tweet.
— Baptiste Lerak (@Baptiste_Lerak) September 2, 2022
Joe Biden hasn't alienated these people. Liberals & progressives haven't driven them to this. They've alienated themselves. Further, they're *proud* of it. Hence bumper stickers featuring Calvin peeing on liberals & declarations of "I'M WHITE & STRAIGHT. WHO ELSE CAN I PISS OFF?" pic.twitter.com/2HLkEqZmWr
— Magdi Semrau (@magi_jay) September 2, 2022
huh look at that she was right https://t.co/SR3XGS3X0f
— Jort-Michel Connard 🐘 (@torriangray) September 2, 2022
Our Failed Media Village Idiots, the last to get the memo…
People involved in negotiations over Thursday’s address said the networks deemed Biden’s remarks as “political” in nature and therefore decided not to televise it. https://t.co/7rF15xDVm0
— Andrew deGrandpré (@adegrandpre) September 2, 2022
“My question is whether this speech was a politically savvy move”—literally the first words out of Asma Khaled of NPR’s team commenting on Biden’s democracy speech. Gah. They’re hopeless.
— Micah Sifry (@Mlsif) September 2, 2022
Roosevelt never had the newspapers. Radio allowed him to get around the Hearsts and McCormicks and connect with people directly. https://t.co/l87zQx2tTw
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) September 2, 2022
Remember how mad the fascists were at fox news after the election? They were literally saying their election desk should be executed. There's no appeasing these people and it's silly to try
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@BartenderHemry) September 2, 2022
The old right wing argument trick of
“I know you are but what am I?”
Ain’t cuttin it anymore.
We see you.
MAGAFascists
ChristoFascistsYou’re done.
#MAGAIsOver pic.twitter.com/QhwtaS9JP1
— TheFifthHorseman (@AlwaysIdiots) September 2, 2022
we have enough votes to fight back a movement which wants to kill us in our beds. we should desire more but understand that we can prevent the worst together just by standing shoulder to shoulder. they will not find us sleeping.
— Andreas Schou (@revhowardarson) September 3, 2022
HumboldtBlue
May their tears and lamentations sustain us.
And Trae Crowder hits a note.
ian
I don’t know who that Nick Adams guy is, but his chutzpah really takes the cake. Like, google mein kampf quotes dude… you don’t have to show your total ignorance like that.
Sister Golden Bear
Tiny tears of impotent rage taste so delicious on a hot summer night.
Keith P.
That’s some chutzpah for Jeff Zeleny to complain that Biden is breaking from “White House traditions”. Seriously?!?!??!
Lyrebird
@ian: Everything you said!
I’ve never heard of that guy, so I don’t know if his comments are even worth being censured by the ADL, but wow.
What Biden said was not a tenth as critical as what Drumpf used to say about protesters at his rallies, and Biden certainly did not try to sicc the crowd on protestors or press people.
How can Nick Adams look himself in the mirror?
Which kind of monster is that has no reflection, was it vampires? Maybe that’s his story. He certainly has no shame.
different-church-lady
Barr is just pissed that Trump is trying to subvert democracy without using correct procedure.
The Oracle of Solace
If they don’t want to be called fascists, they can stop doing fascisms.
If they don’t want to be called threats to democracy, they can stop threatening democracy.
Pretty simple, really.
Lyrebird
Hopefully someone here can get the tweet someone responded with with pictures of Pappy Bush, GW Bush, etc standing in front of Marines making speeches.
Another Scott
There was one of those Swole Doge vs. Cheems meme things on Twitter in the last day or so that was apropos. […]
On Popehat, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue: He is always so good. Thanks!
different-church-lady
@Keith P.: A sitting president encouraging an insurrection was kind of a break with traditions, if I recall correctly.
eclare
@Lyrebird: And TFG holding the RNC convention at the White House. IIRC that was a big thing.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
Gotta love a logic that says, “Accusing someone of being a fascist is mean; therefore there are no fascists.”
Keith P.
@Lyrebird: There’s one already making the rounds of Trump in 2020 in front of a couple of Air Force officers & AF1 calling Democrats “fascists”. Because of course there’s footage of that.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@HumboldtBlue: I cracked up at “evil racist ghost pig”
different-church-lady
And with that, everybody but me leaves for the long weekend…
HumboldtBlue
@eclare: @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
He’s been going for a few years now, he’s really honed his craft.
Origuy
Brain cleanser
RaflW
I think this was the key nugget of that Yair thread partly quoted in the OP
HumboldtBlue
@Origuy:
May I suggest as a gentle reminder, the little girl is autistic, she does not “have autism.”
(Sister has 35 years special education experience)
Lyrebird
So true.
And thanks @Keith P.: !
So good to have the receipts handy.
Ken
@Origuy: Dusty in here….
Anotherlurker
@Origuy: My apartment must be very dusty, all of a sudden.
RaflW
I mentioned this in an afternoon thread, but Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va, retired) talked on NPR today about the terrible state of the GOP and in particular made mention that people should take note that sycophant Barr has flipped (she of course didn’t say it like that).
But along with trashing Trump, Masters and others, she did say: Hey Barr is making a worthwhile point.
I’ll add, he should still not be allowed in polite company. And while he was perhaps second only to Pompeo in terms of “heat seeking missile for Trump’s ass” brow-nosing in office, I’ll take the flip now, thanks.
randy khan
Bill Barr has a keen sense of who’s winning and who’s losing, and he will never, ever back a loser. He might bide his time to see how things will turn out, but once he knows he won’t look back.
Major Major Major Major
I hop into a rightish subreddit sometimes to see what the nutters are up to and they are losing their shit over this speech. So the first thing I learned about it was the right wing memes, then the headlines, so I finally actually read it, and… that’s it? This is what everybody is melting down over?
scav
@RaflW: Barr sure did discover worthwhile when it became personally worthwhile to put a leetle firebreak between him and the Orange In-Fürer-no.
Damien
My favorite response so far has been “If you’re mad about Biden’s speech then you’re exactly who he’s talking about.”
eclare
@Origuy: So sweet!
Sanjeevs
America just needs more NYTsplaining
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/us/politics/trump-biden-democracy.html
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Most of the rightwing folks I know cannot stand to be challenged. They’re very angry at Biden because he called them out slightly, and they’re angrier because they can’t refute him without screaming and looking like an idiot.
Not that it stops them in their own safe spaces, though.
MisterForkbeard
@Sanjeevs: “Republicans subscribe to a different version of democracy where only Republicans are allowed to vote or win” is not the argument this person thinks it is.
scav
Sanjeevs: Got a narrower definition of who is recognizably human, let alone human with rights that should be non-theoretically respected when push cones to anything they fancy too. Whaddja know. Democracy-lite.
Edmund Dantes
@Ken: it’s okay to cry about stuff like this and not resort to euphemisms as to why we are emotionally touched by something.
Origuy
@HumboldtBlue: The poster’s wording, not mine. One of the comments in the thread said the same thing. I should probably have added it to my post.
dm
@Sanjeevs: That’s kind of selective editing misrepresenting the article as a whole and Hemmer’s remarks in particular (Hemmer knows the enemy very well).
For example, the next sentence:
Or how about this from the article:
(I’m responding in part because I’ve heard a couple of interviews with Hemmer, and she knows the Right and how it got there.)
Cathie from Canada
Great post!
I have been tweeting today also about the “But the Marines!” take from way too many talking heads today — they didn’t want to talk about Biden’s warnings so they thought they could find refuge in complaining about optics.
John Harwood was fired from CNN this morning – this Steve Schmidt tweet quoted his last comment on the Biden speech:
https://twitter.com/SteveSchmidtSES/status/1565812216577900545?s=20&t=9-JK-WuzgFv_xV5UNFZFZg
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: “he called half the country fascists!” is the common refrain even though it’s very obvious he was referring to the 27% of registered voters. Snowflakes all of them.
Leto
Liberal redneck is on fire again. “Evil, racist, ghost-pig.” Hard laugh at that
Edit: Nevermind, HumboltBlue got there at comment #1. Note to self: next time, read comments first.
HumboldtBlue
We all understand the people behind Herschel Walker don’t love him, hell, they don’t even like him, but he does elicit a response.
Geoduck
@Cathie from Canada: There are reports that Harwood knew a month ago this was going to be his last day, so it might have been a last shot over the bow from him rather than his being fired for saying it.
Brachiator
@RaflW:
I don’t know. Maybe Biden is trying to save America.
People want to try to reduce Biden’s statements to political strategy. Why not take him at his word?
Brachiator
@dm:
This is absolutely false. Trump has not forced anyone to do anything. He has endorsed candidates who believe his lies, and in many places, voters have approved these candidates in primary elections. The sad thing, the crazy thing, is how many people believe the nonsense that Trump spews and are willing to follow him.
Trump supporters don’t express fear for democracy. They want their guy installed as president. No matter what the actual evidence says, they only believe Trump. And Trump has never said anything meaningful about election integrity. He has simply asserted that if he didn’t win, it must be because of cheating. And he brazenly asked Georgia officials to find him the votes he needed.
Horse shit. These people seem to believe that Biden’s policies are illegitimate and un American, and that accordingly, voters have no right to elect anyone but a Republican to higher office. They rarely speak in terms of democracy or their own freedoms, but instead blandly insist that Biden wants to give free money to unworthy people.
It is perverse to attempt to describe these people as trying to save democracy.
Sanjeevs
@dm: I looked at tweets and I agree with you about Hemmer.
But the tone of the article and the headline is classic NYT
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator:
That’s so unfair! Let he who has never adopted fascist positions in order to keep his cushy job throw the first stone[THUD! THUD! THUD!]
OK, I stand corrected.
sab
@ian: Accordimg to Google, Australian born American conservative commentator and conspiracy theorist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Or on an aircraft carrier, in a flight suite.
eversor
Barr has always said it’s cause Jesus. We going to take down Christianity yet because that’s the one side, the other side is we hand them a free win because “don’t want to hurt peoples feelings”.
Christianity again is the root of all our issues. So take it out or give up.
eversor
@ian:
He’s from The American Conservative and a Christian. Again. The issue is Christianity. Take it out or give up. It’s always Christianity.
Chetan Murthy
@eversor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Christianity%20is%20the%20most%20prevalent,Christian%20(about%20210%20million).
An electoral gold seam, I tellsya, an electoral gold seam!
Betsy
@Brachiator: That’s right.
When someone stands for and is guided by core principles, it can often look like 11-dimensional chess.
steve g
@Sanjeevs:
(NYTsplaining)
At some point, you have stop saying they are “redefining democracy,” and recognize that the GOP are flat out rejecting it.
Chetan Murthy
@steve g: David Frum enters NYT editorial offices, wielding a baseball bat.
viz. “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”—David Frum.
HumboldtBlue
There is nothing that makes me feel awe, incredulity and ‘we are mere specks on the ass of a speck’ like astrophotography.
Major Major Major Major
@Betsy: Biden is an unusually earnest politician in some ways but this speech has some flourishes that are obviously there to poke the bear and cause backbiting. At least that was my read, no I don’t remember examples I’m going to bed
opiejeanne
@sab: Nick Adams informed us on Twitter today that he is an alpha male. There was a lot of laughter at that.
sab
@opiejeanne: What is an alpha male? They seem ro think it is self evident, but I am clueless. Biggest incel?
sab
@Major Major Major Major: Yes he’s good at that. Knifing while nice: ” Noun, verb, 9/11.”
Shalimar
@sab: An alpha male is an asshole who thinks he is better than everyone else. It’s usually self-defined, because everyone else sees the asshole part clearly but no so much the better than part.
sab
@Shalimar: Just what I thought.A stands for alpha and also asshole. Can’t these guys even see how they project?
I have a seriously damaged by back surgery husband at home here. He is large ( 6′ 2″ ) and I am small but I have never been afraid of him. Twenty years of marriage where he was always ( sometimes obtrusavely) protective.
Frankly I don’t know how he would be getting through this back surgery without me. My baby sister’s eyes bugged out of her head when she saw me do the antibiotic i.v.
But I don’t know how I would have lived the last tumultuous twenty years without him.
That’s a good marriage. Ups and downs together.
But I still want a German Shepherd.
p.a.
Stuck pig’s gonna squeal
Sally
@sab: Ha – GSD’s are fabulous creatures to share a life with.
On another note, there is nothing BB could do to climb his way out of trumpov’s traitorous arse. The entanglement is such that no number of parsecs will disengage them from each other’s warm, dark embrace.
Starfish
The Trump fanboys are positively unhinged. Look at this nonsense.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve been looking at their “Liberal Hunting License” bumper stickers and other invocations of violence for 45 years and the etiquette convention was that we just had to be polite about it. We had a President who would hold rallies where he came right up to the edge of telling the audience to lynch the reporters in the press box and they were “oh, that lovable scamp, he’s so unpredictable.” But a President actually mentions all this and they lose their shit.
raven
@sab: I broke my back in a wreck almost 50 years ago. I spent two months in the hospital and I always have said that it was worse for my wife (at the time) than it was for me.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
This.
In fact, this whole thread is thissable.
Barbara
@Starfish: That’s just . . . Wow. Like a mental health disorder. Oddly, however, it reinforces my view that Trump’s successors are unlikely to command the same level of fealty. It’s bizarre and more than a little disturbing to think that 20 years from now these people will still be pining for Trump, but that’s the way it seems to be heading.
Barbara
@sab: If you have to tell people you are an alpha it’s kind of an admission that they aren’t in alignment with your preferred narrative. They either reject the category entirely or don’t think you qualify for it.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/02/deja-vu-dojs-classified-documents-narrative-feels-like-a-get-trump-trick-weve-seen-before/
According to the Federalist, leaving evidence of a crime means that no crimes occurred because that would be stupid, QED.
Yes, they is very smart people and should control all functions of government and society, they will tell you.
germy shoemangler
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Matt McIrvin:
“How dare you criticize us for how we act. That is oppression.”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Baud:
This.
Matt McIrvin
“…fuck… m-m-m-MY feelings?!”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Dump would scream “the media is the enemy of the people” and revoke press credentials into the WH and they would run to their laptops and post their 80th “pivot” article with a sidebar on “but her emails”.
Frank Wilhoit
@ian: Yes, he does have to show his total ignorance like that. It is his ticket to ride.
MattF
Steve Benen reminds us that Trump’s version of the motive for the FBI search of MAL is totally, completely, unreservedly nutso. They were searching for Hillary Clinton emails, he says. And also too, for good measure, ‘Russia hoax’.
Barbara
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: A lot if not most criminal activity seems incomprehensibly stupid when it comes to light. Most criminals are just banking on not getting caught. That’s the extent of their gaming out the future.
ETA: And TFG has a long track record of not getting caught.
germy shoemangler
@Frank Wilhoit:
In my mind, the only NIck Adams is the TV “Rebel” who died of a pill overdose.
Okay, maybe the Hemingway character… but that’s it. I don’t recognize this new guy.
Cameron
@eversor: Damn those fascist Quakers!
Geminid
@Barbara: I’m hoping that they’re still pining for trump and telling their friends, “I voted for trump in 2020 because we had a chance to make America great again. Then the RINOs stabbed him in the back and I haven’t voted since.” Some will.
germy shoemangler
germy shoemangler
@Geminid:
I’m wondering if many of them died from COVID.
ian
@eversor:
What really cracks me up is that you share a logical fallacy with the people you are so bitterly opposed to
Baud
@ian:
Either you believe in AON or you don’t.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@germy shoemangler:
Fun fact: “After James Dean’s death late in production [Giant], Nick Adams overdubbed some of Dean’s lines, which were nearly inaudible, as [Jet] Rink’s voice.”
CCL
Late to the thread, but on Tuesday when I drove to the town offices, I passed the giant bedsheet sized American flag that’s been stretched out between two trees since the 4th of July and at another house the gazillion Maggot signs of the “no Biden,” “Trump won” etc ilk that have been up and constantly added to since Jan, 2020.
Friday, same route – all gone, drive was through serene, empty of signs, green.
Baud
@CCL:
👍
eclare
@germy shoemangler: Wow. I saw yesterday that she had died. Her book Nickel and Dimed was incredibly eye-opening, and those words are not nearly strong enough.
Honus
@Barbara: that “best albums of all time” list is a hoot. Kid Rock and Ted Nugent better than Pet Sounds, Blonde on Blonde and Revolver.
RedDirtGirl
@germy shoemangler: she will be missed. A great mind and a great writer.
Honus
@Barbara: precisely. Other people will tell you if you are an alpha male by allowing you to lead them in completing a task. “Alpha males” like Adams usually lead a crew of one.
Honus
@eclare: her daughter, Rosa Brooks, taught law at UVA and wrote a column for the LA Times. She live right down the road from me in Free Union. I believe she’s at Georgetown now and still writing.
Chief Oshkosh
@dm: Gotta disagree with this statement from the article:
Those officeholders and candidates had and have a choice: democracy or fascism. They chose fascism. Why pretend otherwise? They are adults. They have agency. Hell, they are vying for LEADERSHIP roles in our country. They should be held to a HIGHER standard than the person in the street. They do NOT deserve some sort of benefit of the doubt. Indeed, a campaign and election is conducted to find leaders who don’t need the benefit of the doubt, citizens who are the best of us, not mediocre, and certainly not the worst.
J R in WV
@Lyrebird:
Just think back to W Bush on the flight deck of the USS Abe Lincoln, after landing in a fighter wearing a flight suit, and making a political speech surrounded by thousands of Navy and Marine military personnel. Press fawning all over W Bush.
But Biden having two Marines behind him? Unthinkable!
How does that compute?
UncleEbeneezer
“People involved in negotiations over Thursday’s address said the networks deemed Biden’s remarks as “political” in nature and therefore decided not to televise it.”
This is like the howl that we are “politicizing” something when we point out that racist thing X is done almost exclusively by Republicans, is racist. Build The Wall, Caravans, Birtherism, Voter Suppression etc. It’s totes unfair of us to point out things are racist if (mostly) only one party does them.
J R in WV
@Leto:
That’s OK, Leto, it’s worth repeating, even several times!
Matt McIrvin
@Cameron: I am not a crook
Matt McIrvin
@germy shoemangler: Personally, I felt threatened when Trump said that shit. Not because I thought it was true but because I thought he was going to kill us. There was no telling what he was going to do. Fortunately he had trouble getting the guys with the uniforms and guns to cooperate, but that might not be true forever.
opiejeanne
@sab: This alpha male nonsense applied to men is based on the concept that male wolves who lead a pack are the alphas, but their belief is that it means being a bully.
Elizabelle
100th!
Matt McIrvin
@opiejeanne: And it’s worth reiterating that the studies that established that concept were of unrelated wolves held in captivity under unnatural, stressful situations, like a prison gang. In the wild, the “alpha” couple that leads a pack is generally just Mom and Dad, and didn’t particularly get there through a bullying competition.
Bill Arnold
@J R in WV:
Watch the video at @germy shoemangler: it is literally D.J. Trump calling Democrats fascists while flanked by two uniformed men in the background. (Trump is reading a speech clearly written by one of his fascist staffers.)
The thread has a few more examples of Trump calling Democrats/his opponents fascists.
Wapiti
Related to the OP, there’s a WaPo column from McArdle, yesterday, titled “It’s time for Republicans to save themselves”. She argues that there may be short term losses, but the Republicans do need to deal with the Trumpism – no one else can fix the Republican Party except Republicans. They’re where they are now because every candidate in their 2016 primary wanted someone else to fix the problem.
Chris Johnson
@randy khan: I think Barr looked scared but determined. I think he knows a lot of the truth about what’s going on, and has made his assessment of who’s gonna prevail and is going to go forward with that regardless of consequences because he has no control over the consequences and knows it.
I think he knows Trump was turning over secrets to the Russians (selling? He was working for them the whole time, there is no ‘selling’, he has no money, he’s a puppet man)
I think Barr knows the Russians are fucked at this stage, well and truly caught. And it’s a matter of how to hide as much as possible from the American people, and he’s already got his Supreme Court justices and everything he could have got from assisting Trump while he was relevant. Now that is over, and all that’s left is the threat of getting whacked by Russian mobsters… and those mobsters are going to have to be very busy boys, and the US government ain’t playing anymore.
Barr is right to flip. Yes he runs a risk by turning against Russia’s puppet man, but to stay is WAY worse at this stage. I think he’s scared but determined, and will align with the USA out of simple self-preservation. Him flipping is a very revealing thing about what it looks like to the higher-echelon traitors and spies at this point. Particularly the smart ones, not like cannon fodder Trump. Hasn’t McConnell long since flipped?
El Muneco
@Barbara: “If you have to tell people you are an alpha it’s kind of an admission that they aren’t in alignment with your preferred narrative. They either reject the category entirely or don’t think you qualify for it.”
A true alpha male is like Russell Crowe in _Gladiator_. He inspires loyalty, affection, and devotion from others just by being himself and showing an example. He doesn’t posture, preen, or even really acknowledge his alpha-hood since the effect is just an inherent part of who he is. Fear and intimidation aren’t part of the equation.
Anyone who requests, demands, or proclaims the status of alpha male – isn’t one.
Citizen Alan
@Barbara: Twenty years from now, these freaks will believe that Shitgibbon is still alive and plotting his comeback along with John F. Kennedy junior and Elvis.