Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republicans do not trust women.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

You are here: Home / Economics / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The GOP Death Cult Hates America

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The GOP Death Cult Hates America

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… The scariest part of the recently disclosed GOP economic agenda, however, has largely gone under the radar. It’s the plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage next year, which could easily precipitate a global financial catastrophe.

Republicans have withheld their support from raising the debt limit before, usually framing their hostage-taking as a commitment to fiscal restraint. But the debt ceiling has nothing to do with new spending; rather, it’s a somewhat arbitrary statutory cap on how much the government can borrow to pay off bills that it has already incurred, through tax and spending decisions that Congress has already made. Refusing to raise the debt limit is like going to a restaurant, ordering the lobster and a $500 bottle of wine, and then declaring yourself financially responsible because you skipped out on the check.

Actually, it’s worse than that.

If lawmakers dine-and-dash on behalf of Uncle Sam, they tarnish the creditworthiness of the United States and can make it more expensive for the federal government to borrow in the future because investors don’t trust us. Worse, they might accidentally blow up every other financial market on Earth, too.

That’s because U.S. debt is now viewed as the safest of safe assets. Virtually all other assets around the world are benchmarked against U.S. Treasury securities. If we default on our debt obligations — or even come close to default — that raises the question of the riskiness of everything else investors buy and can send shockwaves of panic through every other market.

Boom, financial crisis…

Recall that when Republicans held the debt limit hostage in 2011, the United States’ credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history because we came perilously close to default. Since then, the GOP has become more politically unhinged, which means brinkmanship might well go further, which makes a debt default — even by accident — more likely…

But then, they’re not big fans of freedom in general:



They objectively prefer dictators and murderers. That’s their brand.

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    Betty Cracker

    It will be an absolute shit-show if Repubs win one chamber, let alone two. As others have noted, the buffoonery in the UK today is a preview. Only worse here because the US would be a nuclear-armed hyper-power led by belligerent reactionaries, billionaire edgelords and assorted other fanatics.

  4. 4.

    catclub

    Since then, the GOP has become more politically unhinged, which means brinkmanship might well go further,

    I would just say it is not brinksmanship if you are really crazy and mean it.

  6. 6.

    Rusty

    Up here in New Hampshire, we have a 25 year old former Trump White House intern, running against an incumbent Democrat Pappas.  She is an election denier, wants to privatize and cut social security and Medicare (in a state with the second oldest population in the country) and is against abortion without any exceptions (in a state that is majority pro-choice).  Last week the AARP, which is strongly against changing Social security or Medicare, said the race is dead heat.  All I can say is we get what we deserve with elections.  It also looks likely we will elect a legislature that will go all in on school vouchers and gut the public schools.  What a state and what a country.  We have met the enemy an they is us.  To watch the olds flood to the polls to vote for someone that will cut their benefits is mind boggling, but so be it.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    @Rusty:

      To watch the olds flood to the polls to vote for someone that will cut their benefits is mind boggling, but so be it.

     
    Millennials and younger are a majority of voters nationally. (Don’t know about NH.)

  8. 8.

    karen marie

    I’m having a bit of a computer emergency – can anyone help me understand what the problem is?

    I’m using Chrome on my desktop, and when I try to google something or open twitter, I’m getting  “ERR_BLOCKED_BY_RESPONSE.”

    What the everlovingfuck does this mean?  Did I accidentally change a setting without realizing it?

  9. 9.

    Baud

    Arizona GOP Candidate Arrested For Allegedly Masturbating In Truck Near Preschool

    Maricopa County officials say it’s too late to remove Randy Kaufman from the ballot in the race for a college district board.

  10. 10.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   Not because of you!!!  Nevah.

    In keeping with the season:  it’s like a never-ending horror movie.  The zombies want in the house, and you cannot keep them out.

    A movie eventually ends.

  11. 11.

    karen marie

    @Baud:   Despite announcing that he’s suspending his campaign, he hasn’t formally withdrawn.  What I’m reading is that, if he wins and subsequently resigns, the GOP – who hold a majority on the board he’s running for – can appoint his replacement.  If he withdraws, the Democrat automatically wins.

    But I can’t google anything because “ERR_BLOCKED_BY_RESPONSE”!

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Elizabelle:

    We just cannot let the Republicans win the House. Period.

    Okay, but they probably will, so we need plans for what we do if/when that happens.

    Even if they don’t win now, we can’t keep them out forever.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    I’ll swim against the tide… maybe I am wrong, but I have a good feeling that we’re going to show up and show up in big numbers.  I think the polling is off… why?  they continue to discount Dobbs and in seeing what took place in the actual elections that have happened post Dobbs seems to indicate a level of pissed off that simply isn’t being measured and perpetuated by those in the media who are invested in horse races and an uninformed public.

  15. 15.

    Leto

    (WaPo) Trump signed legal documents that he knew included false voter fraud numbers, judge says

    Former president Donald Trump and his political allies understood that their allegations of widespread voter fraud in Georgia were baseless but continued to push the unfounded claims in courts and the public, according to recent federal court filings.

    The revelations came in an 18-page opinion Wednesday over Trump ally and conservative lawyer John Eastman’s resistance to a subpoena for emails from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

    U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter found that several documents between Trump’s allies must be made public, as they showed that the group participated in a “knowing misrepresentation of voter fraud numbers in Georgia when seeking to overturn the election results in federal court.”

    “The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Carter wrote. “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

    If this was already covered below, apologies.

  16. 16.

    prostratedragon

    @karen marie: ​ I have NO IDEA, but searching on “chrome” and the exact error message sometimes helps.​
     

    ETA: I see you’re getting it on google-related products. So try startpage.com or some other search engine.

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    It’s interesting reasoning, the thought that they can get X and Y if they hold the debt ceiling hostage. Where do they think the limit is? It’s kind of like Putin making nuclear threats.

    If they’re really serious about being willing to cause a default, why don’t they demand that, say, we outlaw abortion, or that Biden and Harris simultaneously resign so a Republican can be Acting President? (They could appoint Trump Speaker first so it could be him! The Q MAGA crowd redeemed!)

    If they’re not serious, why do they think they can get anything? Are they doing some kind of game-theory calculation where they think the rest of us are minimizing an expectation value?

  18. 18.

    eclare

    @Rusty:   Does the AARP make endorsements or issue voter guides?  Asking because I honestly don’t know, but you would think it would be making a lot of noise about this.

    Or maybe it tries to stay “neutral”?

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    @Matt McIrvin:  Yeah.  Zip it.  Not going to engage. Sorry.

    @eclare:   Bless those cheetah cubs!!

    @piratedan:  That’s what I think so, too.  I think we are going to do well this fall.

    Really liked Anne’s links on the “sausage farm (?)” that infests polling, political consulting, media ownership.  Elite newspapers.  Networks.  Take a look at the publishers and owners, the top management, not necessarily the bylines.

    It’s men, men, men and they don’t get it.  (The men here rock.)

    It’s Jeff Zuckers and Les Moonves types.  Shareholder value.

    Kay had some good comments on how brittle the media — which drives a lot of conventional “wisdom” and tropes is.  They are.

  20. 20.

    Xavier

    Again, the Republican economic objective is “More Money for Rich People” and the strategy is “Keep doing what we’re doing ’cause it’s working.”

  21. 21.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Duggar/Kaufman for President ’36! Are you and your running mate prepared to debate them? Of course they could be doing some side bating of their own during the debates but think of the views and clicks!

  22. 22.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: They may not have kept Republicans out forever, but Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman kept Republicans out of the White House for 20 years.

    Myself, I think demographic trends and Republican radicalization could keep Republicans out of the White House for the rest of this decade and beyond, with a Democratic Congress to boot.

    I think Republicans understand this, and that’s why they lean so heavily into voter suppression and election theft.

  24. 24.

    karen marie

    @prostratedragon: Thank you!  That was so scary!

    The info I got searching on the startpage thingy said to clear the cache, so I went into “disk cleanup” and deleted temporary files, and everything is back to normal.

    You’re a champ!

  26. 26.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Padres take the lead — Thanks Obama (photo)​
     

    Everyone thinks God is California Angels fan, but there has to be some interest in the Padres.

  29. 29.

    Dan B

    @piratedan: I’m glad to hear your optimism.  The crazies are salivating at the thought of punishing all the “loose” women, “lazy” brown people, and the pedophile gays and drag queens.  Time for pushback!

  30. 30.

    gene108

    @Rusty:

    To watch the olds flood to the polls to vote for someone that will cut their benefits is mind boggling, but so be it.

    The beauty of cutting Social Security, if you are a senior citizen, is Republicans usually never propose to cut existing, i.e. your benefits, but rather will phase in cuts over a few years.

    The real issue is whether or not 45-55 year olds, who usually vote Republican, are being played for chumps.

  31. 31.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    Here in PA during the local news, I’m seeing TV ads calling out Mastriano as a Qanon loon for retweeting wack-a-loon (sp?) conspiracy theories. I hope this sins into the minds of  a few normies! It’s not a both sides type sitation.

  32. 32.

    Alison Rose

    Those last two tweets from Fred made me start crying. I already wake up every morning terrified to check the Ukraine news, and every time I get a NYT notification, my heart is my throat. It’s horrifying to think that Republicans might hold in their hands the life of a man thousands of miles away, the most heroic leader I’ve ever seen or likely ever will see.

    I hate them. And I hate their voters even more. And this is why I cannot deal with people who say they have Republican friends. If you do, you’re just as bad as they are.

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    @Cameron: Of course Democrats are groomers.  Have you seen the pictures of Qanon and Proud Boys from Jan. 6?  They are seriously deficient on grooming – and – fashion sense.

  36. 36.

    prostratedragon

    @karen marie: Aw. shucks [blush!] I’ve just whiled away many an unhappy hour as a genuine hack-not-hacker trying to figure out why the ()*)(*^&_% thing isn’t working.

  37. 37.

    topclimber

    @Geminid: I think Dems kept the GOP from Congressional control for something like 50 years, from FDR and as far as Reagan. Lots of that was Dixiecrats, but it still meant positive stuff re: things like Medicare and tax equity.

  38. 38.

    Rusty

    @Baud: They may be the majority of potential voters, but they are not the majority of people who actually go to the polls.  Especially in off year elections.

  39. 39.

    Rusty

    @gene108: The last time there was serious talk about “reforming” social security under Bush (and I was a bunch younger), someone much older made the same argument.  They were protected so why should they care.  My comeback was, “most of social security and all of Medicare is pay as you go from current taxes on salaries.  How long do you think my generation is going to put up with paying for you, but getting nothing for ourselves when we are older.” I was met with silence.  Anyone who thinks they are protected is a fool.

  41. 41.

    dww44

    @Matt McIrvin:  I’m not ceding them a victory yet.  Maybe it will come to pass but I prefer to postpone my depression to til the last possible moment.  Then I will freely rant about the shortsidedness   Of too many voters.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @Leto: First I have heard of that!

    Besides not everyone is able to read every thread, so even if it had been posted, half of us wouldn’t have seen it anyway. :-)

  49. 49.

    Eric S.

    The real issue is whether or not 45-55 year olds, who usually vote Republican, are being played for chumps.

     

    We are.

  50. 50.

    dww44

    @Alison Rose: I appreciate your take, but there are some lifelong Dems like me who live in red/purple areas and for whom the majority of our relatives and friends are Republican voters because we are white.  The last white male Dem congressperson in this state was a decade ago.  Another byproduct  of gerrymandered voting districts.  Cutting off friendships and relationships because of politics is counter productive anywhere, but especially here.

  51. 51.

    karen marie

    @prostratedragon:   It was just so weird, because it was only when I tried to access google by typing in the address bar or going directly to twitter — everything else worked fine.

    The other day I unknowingly touched a spot on my tablet that caused the window to no longer rotate when I turned the tablet.   After my initial panic, I was able to find out how to reset it and all was well, but this must be my week for mystery computer issues.

    Magnets, how do they fucking work?

    Anyway, thank you very much for your helpful suggestion.  You indeed are today’s champ!

  55. 55.

    Scout211

    An interesting new development in Moore v Harper, due to be argued at SCOTUS on December 7th. newyorker.com

    A powerful new litigant has joined one of the most momentous cases slated to be heard by the Supreme Court this term. The respondents in the case of Moore v. Harper filed a brief today that included a surprising new signatory: J. Michael Luttig, who has been known for years as perhaps the most conservative Republican judge in the country. Now, though, he has joined a coalition of veteran lawyers and nonpartisan government-watchdog groups who are fighting against a far-right Republican election-law challenge—one so radical that critics say it has the potential to end American democracy as we know it.

    The former judge is a surprising co-counsel to Neal Katyal, the well-known Supreme Court litigator. Katyal is a counsel of record in the case for several respondents, including Common Cause and the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, that are opposing the far-right groups. The case is scheduled to be heard by the Court on December 7th. Luttig told me that he signed on as Katyal’s co-counsel because he regards Moore v. Harper as “without question the most significant case in the history of our nation for American democracy.” Putting it more colloquially, he said, “Legally, it’s the whole ballgame.”

  61. 61.

    Soprano2

    @Alison Rose: Am I supposed to hate at least half the people I work with and lots of my customers? Because that’s what you’re saying.  Must be nice living in a place where everyone thinks just like you do.

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