Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

I really should read my own blog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

We are aware of all internet traditions.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

This blog will pay for itself.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / President Biden / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Happy Warriors Are the Best

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Happy Warriors Are the Best

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Thursday Morning Open Thread 4

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

And right now, the Republicans: *Not* happy!



Even the clickbait-prioritizing ‘Founder of Politico’ was impressed!

… For the historical-minded, it was also evidence of how standards of decorum are highly fluid. Recall the big fuss in 2009 when Republican Joe Wilson of South Carolina interrupted President Obama’s speech to Congress by shouting, “You lie.” Even many Republicans were embarrassed, and Wilson apologized.

This time, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted out at least nine times, by the count of a POLITICO reporter in the gallery, that Biden was a liar. No one was surprised — certainly not Biden, who recognized an opportunity when it is delivered gift-wrapped before a nationwide audience.

… Predictably—and laughably—the Republican opposition walked right into every clout. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, dressed (as a friend of mine said) like the White Witch of Narnia, howled from the backbenches. Speaker Kevin McCarthy was on camera as often as the president was, and we could all watch as the vice grips got progressively tighter. As for the rest of the Angry Children’s Caucus, they hit all their marks and delivered their lines perfectly as the president led them merrily over the falls…

The real party piece came when he dared to mention that the Republicans want to gut Social Security and Medicare—which in the case of Social Security has been a Republican goal since “The Shadow” was on the radio. He baited them and baited them, and they went for it like starving carp…

Then, right on cue, the Republicans launched into a tantrum. The president has not been in politics since god was a boy to miss an opportunity like that one.

Folks — so folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They’re not to be — all right. We’ve got unanimity…So tonight, let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare. Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it. And if anyone tries to cut Social Security, which apparently no one’s going to do, and if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I’ll stop them. I’ll veto it. And look, I’m not going to allow them to take away — be taken away. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. But apparently it’s not going to be a problem.

It was far from a conventional political address. There were very few oratorical bells and whistles. Instead, it was something akin to FDR’s fireside chats: colloquial and intimate. So many sentences began with the word “look” and were addressed to “folks.” More than anything else, its tone sounded like it had been drawn from a particularly energetic ward committee meeting down at the AOH Hall.

It was the best speech Joe Biden ever has given because it was the most Joe Biden speech anyone ever has given. It was all him, aimed right at all of us, addressed to all of us—you know, the folks.

Reader Interactions

254Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    The Republicans are clownishly talking about sunsetting Social Security. Four Pinocchios to Biden!

  2. 2.

    different-church-lady

    The election was hokey grandpa versus creepy uncle. Now it’s hokey grandpa versus crazy aunt.

  7. 7.

    oldgold

    Matthew Dowd nailed it with this observation concerning Margaret Taylor Greene: “Tonya Harding in a fur coat.”

  9. 9.

    cmorenc

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    To quote Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “It’s normal versus crazy.”

    SHS failed to grasp that people outside deep-red areas, most people’s take on who’s “normal” vs “crazy” is going to be the polar opposite of what she’s assuming.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    ABC’s Jonathan Karl said Biden’s comment about some Republicans wanting to cut Social Security was “over the top” because “there’s nobody seriously talking about sunsetting Social Security in the Republican Party”

    Karl is just flat out wrong

    Where in the fuck has Karl been? Did he just recently remove his head from McCarthy’s hind parts or what?

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I just went downstairs for another cup of joe. BillyJean is on the couch with my blanket clenched between her forelegs, her eyes closed and the tip of tongue sticking out. One funny dog.

  15. 15.

    NorthLeft

    Up here in Canada I sometimes wonder how anyone can vote for the Conservative party, but I have to admit that most of their policies are not that far off the mainstream, and they defend the key social programs pretty well….while undercutting them very slowly. They also look and act like normal human beings for the vast majority of the time.

    So after seeing the antics of the Rethugs on national TV how the hell can any sane person vote for them? I mean, what an embarrassment in front of the entire world.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    I hope we never have another Republican president, but odds are we will someday. If so, do y’all think it will it become a cross-party tradition to heckle presidents during their SOTU addresses? Even though Biden ably turned the tables on them during his SOTU, I bet GOP loudmouths like Greene, etc., raised big money off of their buffoonery, so it will probably continue.

    There are worse things. The rowdy parliamentary antics in the UK and Australia can be entertaining — and occasionally clarifying. One of the galling things about this crop of House GOP howler monkeys is that heckling wasn’t part of our democratic tradition, and they did it anyway. Not surprising since they don’t give a shit about any aspect of our democracy, but it’s irritating that Dems upheld the tradition when GOPig Trump was in the well and that courtesy wasn’t returned.

  17. 17.

    SFAW

    I liked this line from Charlie:

    [Howard Cosell voice:] “Down goes McCarthy! Down goes McCarthy!”

    Having watched that bout [Foreman vs. Frazier, for youse kids], I can still hear Cosell’s voice. And love Charlie’s calling it to the fore (although what Foreman did to Frazier was pretty brutal).

    Good Christ, it was 50 years ago. Damn, I’m old.

  21. 21.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Did anybody else see James Carville call MTG “white trash”? (On Ari Melber, I think) Actually, Carville called the whole MAGA crowd white trash. I literally laughed out loud.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m still hoping to see a Republican Congressdude dressed up in fur and horns like that shaman guy. Maybe at Biden’s next SOTU address.

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    He is setting a great example for the rest of our (very deep) bench of Dem pols: take it straight to the GOP, call them out on their bullshit, and smile all the while.

    I am positive that Harris, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Newsom, and so on are taking good notes!

  25. 25.

    marklar

    @Math Guy: “That’s kinda rough on Tonya Harding, don’t you think?”

    Agreed.  Read Tonya’s backstory, and you’ll come out impressed. The amount of grit that she showed being raised in poverty and rising through the ranks of an incredibly expensive and economically exclusionary sport is quite impressive.

    I’m not one to scold liberals as being ‘elitist’, but when I hear people use Ms. Harding as an archetype for “White Trash”, I wince.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    @Ken: ​
     

    Only because her Dalmatian coat was at the cleaners.

    Someone was talking about someone near Sinema wearing a black-and-white houndstooth outfit, and all I could think of was someone is riffing on Cruella.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t remember any heckling going on while Nancy Smash was Speaker, and I feel like it’s something that future Speaker Jeffries will stress to his Dem majority: ‘you do our party no favors by blurring the contrast between the parties heckling the President’

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’m still hoping to see a Republican Congressdude dressed up in fur and horns like that shaman guy.

    Like that shaman guy? What makes you think they wouldn’t elect the actual shaman guy, given the red-enough district?

  30. 30.

    Kay

    I just love how they’re like “who, US?”

    My entire adult life they have been gunning for Social Security. They have been gunning for Social Security since the moment it passed. How is it even a question? Of course they want to ruin Social Security.

    Within days after the election, President Bush made it clear that he did not intend to play it safe on Social Security reform and other controversial issues. In a post-election press conference, he asserted, “I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” He was as good as his word. By mid-January of 2005, the White House had launched a huge initiative, directed by Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman, to mobilize public opinion and build public support for Social Security reform and other key presidential proposals.
    The President followed up two weeks later, placing a lengthy discussion of Social Security at the heart of his 2005 State of the Union address.
    Having invested so much political capital in this issue, President Bush embarked on the first of what proved to be a long series of tours crammed with events at which he pitched his plan to the people. It soon became apparent that it would be a tough sell. Within weeks, observers noticed that the more the President talked about Social Security, the more support for his plan declined. According to the Gallup organization, public disapproval of President Bush’s handling of Social Security rose by 16 points from 48 to 64 percent–between his State of the Union address and June.
    By early summer the initiative was on life support, with congressional Democrats uniformly opposed and Republicans in disarray.

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    And they aren’t serious about ending abortion.

    I won’t watch the Karl clip, but that line should be the go-to response when any MSM moron makes a statement like that: “Oh, you mean like they’re ‘not serious’ about ending abortion? What color is the sky on your planet?” (h/t Barney Frank)

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    vice grips

    My copy-editing OCD is twitching very badly. Vise, not vice.

    (ok, we’re talking about Republicans here. They probably do have special grips for holding their many vices. But still)

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    @marklar: IMO, we liberals do entirely too much (well meaning!) scolding, but the phrase “white trash” is sort of problematic in its own right. Greene is trash, period.

  36. 36.

    Tony Jay

    “How dare former Vice-President Biden inject politics into a State of the Union address! President-Eternal (redacted) would never have lowered his muscular bulk to such… lowness. I can only imagine the shock and disgust that must have assailed each and every patriotic American’s inner Citizen as they witnessed such depraved behaviour. Almighty God Himself alone knows how the brave men and women he has selected to serve as His Republican majority in Congress managed to restrict themselves to purely verbal defences of the unvarnished truth in the face of Hunter Biden’s father’s tsunami of lies. Shocking, Yes. But what else is to be expected from the leader of the criminals who have illegally occupied OUR Congress for the last two years? I can only hope that when future Speaker of the House Greene finally arrived at her Comic-Con Cosplay event, her enjoyment of the evening was not spoilt by lingering memories of The Illegitimate Usurper’s insulting behaviour. And as for what they said about Senator Sinema’s quietly formal choice of attire…”

     

    Excerpted from Justice Samuel Alito’s opening remarks at the opening ceremony for  the non-partisan William S. Lind Institute for International Peace & Understanding

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker:  the phrase “white trash” is sort of problematic in its own right. Greene is trash, period.

    I can totally see Stephen Colbert, back in the “Colbert Show” days, using that line. He would have prefixed it with his trademark “I don’t see color.”

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I see that President Biden will be in your area today. He’ll hold an event at the University of Tampa on protecting Social Security and Medicare, and lowering health care costs. Air Force 1 is scheduled to land near Tampa at 12:15 pm.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: This is where someone like Carville is useful, in he middle of actual fight.  He isn’t any good at policy or governing, but fierce campaigning is right up his alley.

  43. 43.

    marklar

    @Betty Cracker: “the phrase “white trash” is sort of problematic in its own right.”

    Amen. I highly recommend Nancy Isenberg’s book “White Trash
    The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.”

    Not only does the book humanize people who are often marginalized, it makes it clear that the power structures that create MAGA-type movements to use as pawns in concentrating power in the hands of a privileged few have been part of this country since before it was formed.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @Tony Jay:

    Alito doesn’t go anymore because it’s not about him and he doesn’t get to lecture anyone:

    For his part, Justice Samuel Alito explained in a candid interview with The American Spectator last year that he thinks it’s “strange” to go to the State of the Union as a justice when “we sit there like potted plants.” In that interview, Alito said he was done making appearances at the State of the Union address.

    Rage man is DONE being IGNORED at the SOTU. He’ll be watching it, seething, from his bunker.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @SFAW: Yeah, all he need do is move to Misery.​
     

    eta: I was only pointing out that he is no more ridiculous than some of the clowns already in Congress.

  46. 46.

    Ken

    @Kay: Hmm. There was a report that President Biden, after the speech, went over to the Supreme Court contingent and apologized that they had to sit through it. Now I’m thinking there might have been subtext there.

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    @Tony Jay: ​ Two thoughts on your mini-opus:
    1) The name “William S. Lind” was not one I recognized. Based on his Wiki entry, excellent cherce (that’s Brooklynese for “choice”) for the “Institute for International Peace & Understanding”
    2) I don’t know if you ever bop over to Lawyers, Guns & Money (a/k/a LGM), but there’s a commenter there (“keta”) who would writes comments/posts in a style similar to this one. (Although a little more subtle — sometimes you gotta check to see if he’s being serious.) His — well, I think keta is a he, but no matter — comments in that vein are hilarious. As was this one of yours. So, my long-winded way of saying “thank you.”​​

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Carville is a mixed bag, but he can be funny as hell sometimes. I don’t know the origin of the insult “white trash,” but when I’ve heard it in conversation (which is a lot!) the subtext often seems to be that the person being insulted was acting like trash even though they’re white, as if the expectations are higher for white people and the behavior is therefore more shocking. But I could be totally off base on that! And I didn’t mean to be scoldy — I’ve used the phrase myself countless times.

  52. 52.

    sab

    @Kay: How classy. It’s strange to go and sit politely listening to a speech he doesn’t totally agree with? That man needs to get out more to different venues. Apparently that Ivy League education with the private dining clubs failed in making him classier.

  54. 54.

    Quinerly

    @Betty Cracker: I’m so old that I remember when he called Paula Jones “trailer park trash.”

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I think it was a joke by Biden and if they’re really put out that they have to “sit through it” – like Alito is- then they’re even more whiny and coddled and entitled than I thought they were. Plenty of people sit through plenty of things for work and public events are part of their job. Alito gads about all over, including internationally, complaining about how he’s a victim of…everyone. He’s just mad because he doesn’t have the microphone at this event.

  57. 57.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Betty Cracker:

    I saw a Twitter thread yesterday that compared her, quite effectively, to one of the “housewives” on that Real Housewives of Wherever cable series.

  58. 58.

    SFAW

    @Kay: ​
     

    He’s just mad because he doesn’t have the microphone at this event.

    Well, if THAT is not the definition of being a victim, I don’t know what is.

  60. 60.

    marklar

    @Betty Cracker: ” the subtext often seems to be that the person being insulted was acting like trash even though they’re white, as if the expectations are higher for white people and the behavior is therefore more shocking. I could be totally off base on that!”

    It’s always been pejorative, classist, and exclusionary.

    From Wiki (well sourced entry): “It is used as a way to separate the “noble and hardworking” “good poor” from the lazy, “undisciplined, ungrateful and disgusting” “bad poor”. The use of the term provides middle- and upper-class whites a means of distancing themselves from the poverty and powerlessness of poor whites, who cannot enjoy those privileges, as well as a way to disown their perceived behavior.”

     

    I feel like I’m being a bit overly pedantic about this (“Lighten up, Marklar”), but our use of the term in a mocking way feeds into the ‘elitist liberal’ narrative (that ironically is promoted by the very power brokers who hold poor white people in disdain, while progressives work to create policies that improve their lives) that is used against us in elections.

  65. 65.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: I hope he hands out copies of Rick Scott’s plan to sunset Medicare and Social Security at every stop! Luckily, I’m well north of the Tampa Bay area, so any traffic snarls associated with a presidential visit won’t affect my movements.

  68. 68.

    Quinerly

    @SFAW: not sure to make of Mace’s outfit. Looks like black leather. Been really cool if she had had a riding crop.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    He has a lifetime, incrediby powerful position and a far Right majority on that Court. That’s not enough. He’s still a persecuted minority – wah wah wah. Unbearable.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @marklar: I hear you, and as someone who spent her early childhood in a trailer in rural Florida, I get the class aspects of it on a fairly deep and personal level.

  72. 72.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    To quote Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “It’s normal versus crazy.”

    Mike Murphy, the most resentfully reluctant of the never-trumpers, said that she came across like a Karen.

    @Betty Cracker:

    I don’t know the origin of the insult “white trash,” but when I’ve heard it in conversation (which is a lot!) the subtext often seems to be that the person being insulted was acting like trash even though they’re white,

    yeah, it’s one I’ve tried to avoid since I did that math, but it still slips out.

  73. 73.

    Balconesfault

    @marklar: Easier to just call them deplorables … and this time mock the media personalities who go into fainting spells, instead of apologizing.

  74. 74.

    Quinerly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: MSNBC ain’t scared….Carville on MJ this AM.

    Has anyone seen or heard anything from Matalin? Last I saw of her was a fluff piece during the Trump Adm when they were putting their NOLA Garden District mansion on the market. I guess I can Google…..

  77. 77.

    delphinium

    @Betty Cracker: ​

    …I bet GOP loudmouths like Greene, etc., raised big money off of their buffoonery, so it will probably continue.

    One of the commenters yesterday mentioned that their RW relative was turned off by Greene’s outburst and that while they don’t agree with Biden, the president should still be respected. Only 1 example of course, but I do wonder how many other Republican voters were turned off by her shouts. Personally, I think Greene’s antics (outside of her rabid base) has a fast approaching expiration date and the more she is in the news, the less most folks will like her.

  80. 80.

    Quinerly

    @Betty Cracker: she’s been very vocal about the direction of the Repug Party. If she was from Illinois I would say she was gettable for party change. Sadly, she’s from SC.

  83. 83.

    Bill Arnold

    Marjorie Taylor-Greene, dressed (as a friend of mine said) like the White Witch of Narnia,

    She was at least in part cosplaying a Chinese Spy Balloon. There is video of her walking in the capital with a 3-4 foot white helium balloon.
    She deserves constant loud mockery everywhere she shows her face.

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Republicans are acting as if Rick Scott’s plan was written with disappearing ink!

    Vice President Harris also will be on the move today. She’ll travel to St. Cloud, Minnesota where union members will give her a tour of the New Flyer electric bus plant. Afterwards she’ll deliver remarks on the administration’s investments in electric vehicle manufacturing.

  85. 85.

    Quinerly

    @delphinium: I still think 95% of MTG is an act. She might be smart enough to pivet. And, no, she’s not my “pal” as someone in a thread accused. I think she is very dangerous….and possibly a lot smarter than people realize.

  87. 87.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay: But see, you are the real meanie for actually pointing it out! The whole premise of being Respectful to Republicans means that nobody is ever allowed to use their actual quotes, or tell everyone how awful their policies are and where they come from.  If we do ANY of those, we’re just being unfair to the GOP and their voters.  It’s Lincoln’s Cooper-Union speech all the way down.  It’s not enough to simply turn the other cheek to their awfulness, we are supposed to applaud it.  Otherwise they are the real victims!

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @Quinerly: ​
     
    She left the ricing crop in the hotel room that McQarthy had rented for the night.
    Just kidding; I doubt she would waste her time on Squeaker McQarthy’s “little squeaker.”

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @sab:

    All of the anti-woke, cancel culture justices speak exclusively to far Right audiences. It’s all part of the complete incoherence of the anti-woke, um, philosophy. It’s like how the only people who read the the anti-woke essayists are their paid subscribers- people who agree with them. They left mainstream outlets not because they were being silenced and persecuted but because they encountered a broader audience. Now they’re safe in SubstackLand and no one can ever be mean to them again :)

  90. 90.

    Quinerly

    @Bill Arnold: the thing with MTG (like Santos) mockery doesn’t affect or embarrass her. Those types thrive on it.

  91. 91.

    Paul in KY

    @SFAW: When Ali took on Foreman, I was scared to death that Foreman was going to kill him.  Could not believe the master boxing clinic that Ali came up with (and before said how he was going to do it) to beat Foreman.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Quinerly:

    If she was from Illinois I would say she was gettable for party change. Sadly, she’s from SC

    She was also all in on the twitter hearings yesterday, carving out her own niche on Covid/vax denialism

    Aaron Rupar @atrupar
    “I have great regrets about getting the shot” — Nancy Mace is out here trying to undermine Covid vaccines

    Rupar did a long thread on clips from those hearings, from our side and theirs, Jim Jordan admitting it’s not a First Amendment issue, and Maxwell Frost getting Chrissy Tiegen’s foul-mouthed and vituperative emasculation of Donald Trump entered into the Congressional record.

  93. 93.

    Jinchi

    @Betty Cracker: ​
      I don’t know the origin of the insult “white trash,”

    In my experience, it’s only been directed at poor white people. Tonya Harding was described as trash because she was a poor woman who didn’t know her place. If she’d come from money she’d have been called a prima donna.

  96. 96.

    Quinerly

    @Omnes Omnibus: thanks! I have MJ on in the AM on background on an Echo. Need to get moving anyway….morning hike with an antsy JoJo and late lunch in Santa Fe. We have had snow. It has melted. Need to get out. Lazy in the house all week.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    IMO, Republicans and some of their sympathizers among centrists and media are extra touchy about how people disrespect them because it is TRUE that they are less credible than they were even a decade ago. They have suffered a well-earned credibility hit- because they lie so much. They know this and it’s why they exert so much energy insisting that they are being treated unfairly. They want to lie all the time and still be taken seriously. They won’t change any behaviors- instead they’ll just petulantly demand respect over and over and louder and louder.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer: Agree 100%

    ETA: We need to adhere to our own standards, and self-police, and learn to ignore the media and the right wingers who tell us we’re doing it wrong.  They will always say that.

  99. 99.

    Paul in KY

    @marklar: It was ‘trashy’ to have whatsername’s knee busted. Just hit your triples and you’ll whup Ms. Sneery.  Guess that was too hard…

     

    Edit: Changed to just ‘trashy’

  100. 100.

    geg6

    @marklar: ​
     
    I used to really cheer for her during her heyday because she seemed to have overcome so much to be so great in such an expensive sport. But then she had to go and act like white trash and that was the end of that.

  101. 101.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Betty Cracker: 

    I hope he hands out copies of Rick Scott’s plan to sunset Medicare and Social Security at every stop!

    There had better be a prominent display of “THIS IS THE GOP PLAN” on every page or the Republicans will say “See what Biden wants to do?”

  102. 102.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker: I think maybe “redneck” has the same undertone, because white people shouldn’t be bending over in the sun to get sunburned necks. That’s reserved for others.

  104. 104.

    Quinerly

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I tuned out most of the day yesterday. Planning a trip with the dog to the Silver City area of NM. Glad you posted this. She’s a nut or at a very minimum playing to her nut constituency.

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    @delphinium: I do think the outlandish behavior of people like Greene, Gosar, Boebert, Gaetz, et al., has the potential to degrade the Republican brand in the eyes of normies to the party’s overall detriment. I hope so!

    The thing is, the party’s establishment has fewer levers to restrain individual kooks than it used to have because they no longer depend on institutional support to stay in power. That said, the Republican establishment did manage to jettison Cawthorn, so maybe that’s the floor — don’t talk about GOP orgies and drug use!

  106. 106.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Quinerly:
    I agree.
    I mentioned earlier that someone on Twitter had described MTG as fitting the profile for the Real Housewives franchise. Here’s the thread. See the comments as well; she grew up (with plenty of money) in Forsythe County, where the sundown town tradition continues.

    She’s performing; she’s smart enough to play to her selected audience, but whether she’s smart enough to pivot when necessary remains to be seen.

  107. 107.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oversight Committee Democrats have much the stronger hand to play in these hearings. I think they will make the most of it too.

    This will also be good exposure for the seven freshman members. Many people have read about them, but seeing them on TV will make them more real in people’s minds.

  108. 108.

    lowtechcyclist

    I don’t know the origin of the insult “white trash,”

    It goes back to the 19th century.  The Wikipedia article mentions a book published in 1860 with a chapter titled “White Trash” and indicates that the expression was already known.

    White trash – Wikipedia

  109. 109.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The Actual Ubiquity of Gender Affirming Care:

    Really good article highlighting how common Gender Affirming Care is and how nobody objects, so long as it is Cisgender people affirming their assigned gender.  Breast augmentation, reduction, penile surgery, hormone treatments etc.

    “There is, of course, one hiccup. All these hypotheticals end a bit differently if the patient is not a kid with PCOS or CAS or hypothyroidism, but instead a trans kid. To illustrate, let me speak not hypothetically, but from my own experience. When I first realized I was trans, I consulted my insurance—and discovered that gender-affirming care—for trans people specifically—was specifically excluded from coverage. This would change years later, in 2015, after an administrative ruling under the Obama administration. After that, I was required to first see a psychologist, who subjected me to a bizarre and outdated psychological battery—an endless series of questions that were all just paraphrases of “But are you really a man or a woman?”  Naturally, I answered “woman,” and was eventually referred to an endocrinologist. Pursuing further treatments required seeing another psychologist (this one skeptical and hostile) for some time, then seeing yet another psychologist, then finally submitting my “portfolio” to a further committee of yet more doctors and psychologists—before finally getting a referral to a surgeon.

    Imagine if your daughter was denied medical care for years waiting for doctors and bureaucrats to get over themselves—as all the while a hormonal disorder was every day producing lifelong changes in her body. Imagine watching her classmates receive biologically identical treatments with nothing but a prescription from a GP, while the paper of record publishes handwringing articles about how she’s being rushed into irreversible decisions.

    Imagine being the daughter.”

  110. 110.

    artem1s

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
     

    Where in the fuck has Karl been?

    He’s being classic Turdblossom here. I’m pretty sure the GQP believe in their tiny shrunken coal hearts that they are going to force Joe to make budget concessions by threatening a shut down and then they will spin it in 2024 as “the Dems cut SS and Medicare”. That’s what they were howling about. Joe was stealing their spin.

  111. 111.

    marklar

    @different-church-lady: “Doesn’t that whole “conspiracy to assault and injure competitor” incident count in the evaluation?”

    Harding has always insisted that she played no role in planning the attack. In 2018, Harding, said she did overhear Gillooly and Eckardt talking about “taking somebody out” to ensure Harding made the 1994 U.S. Olympic team. She then claimed she only pieced everything together several days after the attack.

    That’s hardly grounds for an accusation of “conspiracy”, which has never been proven.  We also have no idea of the dynamics of the relationship between Harding and Gillooly, and how that might have contributed to any possible covering up that she did for him.

    The whole incident is ugly.  The attack. The classism. The guilt by association.

    To bring it back to the focus of actual thread, let’s focus on Greene.  As Betty said above, she’s trash.  No preceding adjectives are necessary (although difference-church-lady’s “bleached trash” made milk come out of my nose!).

  112. 112.

    delphinium

    @Quinerly: To me, she definitely seems to have anger issues which yes, makes her dangerous. And while I think she is smarter than say Boebert, not sure she will pivot if she is still getting attention and increases in fund-raising for acting out. Time will tell. : )

  113. 113.

    Kay

    My youngest has had long hair since about 7th grade- I never liked it but that’s not a hill I die on. Anyway, he’s now second year in college and he decided to get a haircut. Yay! I didn’t say a word – don’t want to scare him off. I met him for coffee and he has short hair! Looks good. But it was traumatic.

    He went to a barber in Michigan where he goes to school and the (older man) barber was teasing him about his having a girlfriend in a way my son thought was leering and gross. I don’t know exactly what the barber said but my son described it as “are you having SEX with your GF?” which is obviously (I hope!) an exaggeration. Anyway, there were boys waiting to get their hair cut and my son thought this unwelcome conversation he was trapped in was inappropriate for little boys to hear, so said so and barber got really offended. WTF is wrong with people? Why would anyone think this is ok? This is why we have cancel culture. People are awful. They should be cancelled.

  115. 115.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: also, gutting the New Deal has been the overarching Republican goal for most of my adult life. We all remember teh Janesville Eddie Haskell talking about doing keg stands for Medicare repeal, everybody who’s old enough to remember Newt Gingrich honking about letting it “wither on the vine” raise your hand.

    google is failing me in finding that video from 1996, also in finding Jonathan Karl’s history as part of the RW media farm team. ISTR he was (among other things) part of a program for college Republican journalism majors paid for by the Regnery family. He stood out among the bold face alumni for not having to gone to work for the National Review.

  116. 116.

    eclare

    @geg6:   I tried to watch the movie about her, I Tonya, but I gave up after about fifteen minutes because it was so depressing.  Just absolute despair.  Which is too bad, there were some great actors in the movie.

  117. 117.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Jonathan Karl got his education via the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer.  That’s not a euphemism. He’s a trained conservative/GOP operative that is “buried” in the MSM (ABC “News”). I write “buried” in quotation marks because absolutely everybody in the business, including his bosses, know this.

    What to do about that? No idea.

  119. 119.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @UncleEbeneezer: The hypothetical also dawned on me: imagine you name your child “Sam.”  Around 8 years old they tell you they want to be called “Samantha” because “Sam” is too masculine.  Nobody would bat an idea is the child is AFAB (assigned female at birth).  Schools, teachers, etc., would just use the name the child prefers.  We do that all the freakin’ time.

  123. 123.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Quinerly: Oh we LOVED Silver City!  We stayed there a few years ago on our way back from visiting Taos.  Lovely, cute little city and when we drove in one of the first things we saw was a local Dem Party HQ!  FYI- there is a really fabulous BnB there called Bear Mountain Lodge owned by a super-nice, gay couple.  Really charming place with hiking trails and great scenery.  About 10-15 minutes from downtown.

  125. 125.

    tobie

    I don’t think the term “white trash” necessarily refers to income. I see it as a synonym for a certain kind of rural or exurban Republican steeped in grievance culture and convinced that they make and everyone else takes.

  128. 128.

    NotMax

    @dmsilev

    Thank you. Hoped someone would catch that. Was biting my tongue about whether to let it slide or jump on it.

    The entire piece could benefit from some Strunk & White-ing. Esquire used to be much more punctilious.

  129. 129.

    delphinium

    @Betty Cracker: ​
    I hope so too! The way they behave now is definitely more and more of a contrast to Democrats, and it is not a good look. While their previous antics while Nancy was speaker may have been somewhat overlooked or excused, they are in charge now and would hope that the expectation for them to start acting like grown-ups becomes more of the norm.

  131. 131.

    Soprano2

    @marklar: Yes, but it’s not just about being poor, it’s about behavior. Everyone white who is poor is not white trash – it’s about acting and looking trashy, about having a trashy, dirty house. It’s about the idea that being poor doesn’t mean you have to be dirty or live in a dirty house or behave in a boorish manner.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    @a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):

    Sounds like you read the long article on her. New Yorker???

    I make it a point to read up on people who disgust me. Palin came from left field for me. I knew nothing about her when McCain picked her. I won’t get caught like that again. And, dare I say,…MTG is smarter than Palin. A lot of this has become performance art….taking Palin to the next level. I see MTG as being a lot tougher than Palin….and smarter than Trump.

  134. 134.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Kay: Yup.  The truth hurts.  They are also extra-sensitive/defensive about being called “racist/sexist/xenophobicLGBTQphobic” etc., because let’s be honest, those hatreds have always been central to their lives and worldviews, and everybody knows it.  All we have to do is look at the policies they push, the things they say etc., going all the way back to Antebellum America.  They just don’t like when people point out the obvious.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    I can see that, but it IS used as a class marker in white rural areas so is mean and should be avoided, IMO.

    The white people immediately above them look down on them and it’s definitely a very specific smear. In our white rural school system they were called “the dirties” by other kids – can’t get much clearer than that! The kids all know it.

    I think MTG would not be of the lowest class- I think her father is an owner – her thing is mostly an act. She would be the person at school calling the people below her white trash.

  136. 136.

    eddie blake

    i dunno how smart she is, but empty gee acts like she’s in the grip of uncontrollable ‘roid rages… often.

    that twitter hearing was insane. i’m kind of astonished  the witnesses didn’t lambaste those fascist lunkheads for not knowing how the fucking first amendment works… or that twitter isn’t the fucking government.

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    Good on him. Takes some stones to confront anyone gripping scissors that close to an artery who is hovering over you. Did son “forget” to tip afterwards?

  138. 138.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: You should hear some of these people whining on Maher’s show. As they’re bringing up things and talking about them they’re also whining that you absolutely cannot bring these things up and talk about them or you’re cancelled. Sure, they’re so “cancelled” that they’re on Maher’s show talking about it! As they talk about the latest outrage at some college somewhere about a college student doing something they resolutely ignore what DeSantis is doing in Florida as far as censorship of books is concerned. Maher, defender of free speech, actually said once that he doesn’t care about book bannings in schools because they don’t affect him! They’d be a joke if they didn’t have such a wide audience.

  140. 140.

    geg6

    @tobie: ​
     
    This is exactly how I see it. I live amongst many, many white trashers. Very few of them are poor. I will continue to call them white trash because they call all minorities trash and I want to make sure they know I am referencing them and not any of the people of color who they regularly call trash in conversation. They don’t reference a color because it is assumed that only people of color are trash and no one who is white could possibly be trash.
    If you live among them as I do, you have a lot less angst about what names you call them.

  141. 141.

    Quinerly

    @UncleEbeneezer: thanks for piping in. It will all be new to me after the Owl Bar in  tiny San Antonio, NM (serving the best Green Chile Cheeseburgers for over 75 years) and the Very Large Array in Socorro, NM. I’m taking the long way around after Socorro thru Datil and Pie Town. All new roads for me….traveled the entire state over the years in detail, except this area. I saw that B&B on line. Looks fabulous but closed this time of year, plus I think no JoJos allowed. We are staying for 9 nights in a really cheap (off season) MIL apt AirBnB in town. Using  as a base to explore out. May hit Deming one day (I have been there, very Trumpy, but wine country and a nice museum). Of course, Gila Cliff Dwellings and some of these “ghost towns.” Did you happen to get to Shakespeare?

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay:

    I think MTG would not be of the lowest class- I think her father is an owner – her thing is mostly an act.

    As I recall from that Atlantic piece, her father owned a largish construction company that she and her (then?) husband took over and he expanded. She grew up at least upper-middle-class, big house on a swimmable lake in the suburbs. Again IIRC, when she ran for Congress, her disclosure said she was worth about $5M.

    @eddie blake: empty gee acts like she’s in the grip of ‘roid rages… often.

    I’ve wondered about that. It would not surprise me if it were true.

  143. 143.

    NotMax

    @Quinerly

    MTG is Michele Bachmann without the charm*.
    //
    *For the snark naive, Bachmannn possessed zero; MTG’s is measured in negative digits.

  144. 144.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Betty Cracker: The nearest equivalent to SOTU in the UK system is the Queen’s/King’s address to Parliament, in which the PM’s party, speaking through the monarch, lays out its plans for the upcoming term. There is no heckling while the monarch speaks.

  145. 145.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @lowtechcyclist: It goes back to the 19th century. The Wikipedia article mentions a book published in 1860 with a chapter titled “White Trash” and indicates that the expression was already known.

    The first time I encountered it was as a kid reading “Gone With the Wind” so I assumed it was a common antebellum term but I suppose there’s no guarantee that a historical novel  (GWTW was written in 1936) is necessarily accurate.

  146. 146.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Astronomers have spotted a ring around a Pluto-sized dwarf planet called Quaoar in the outer reaches of the solar system.

    The observations, by a powerful telescope on La Palma, reveal the ring to be much further away from the planet than is typical, calling into question how such systems form.

    Prof Vik Dhillon, of the University of Sheffield’s department of physics and astronomy, and his co-authors, said: “The ring came as a real surprise and doubly surprising was where it was, well outside the theoretical maximum for where a ring can survive according to classical theory. These are the most unusual rings we’ve seen.”

    The dwarf planet, which orbits beyond Neptune, is too distant and the ring too narrow to be seen directly. The detection was made during a so-called occultation event, when a planet passes directly in front of a star, meaning its sharp silhouette can be briefly observed by Earth-based telescopes.

    “Astronomers who work in this area predict these occultations to the second, years in advance,” said Dhillon. “One of these was predicted and we were on the observatory on La Palma.”

    I am constantly amazed by science.

  148. 148.

    Quinerly

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Pretty sure we are the only country to build monuments to losers 60 years plus later.

    And in states that didn’t even exist when the war happened. (See Arizona)

  149. 149.

    Gin & Tonic

    Your morning dose of comedy. Wagner Group (Prigozhin’s mercenary outfit) says it has temporarily halted conscripting russian convicts because it has recently received 10 million applications to join from US citizens, and can only take 1 million.

    Don’t believe me?

  152. 152.

    Quinerly

    @NotMax:

    Good one. I will admit that Bachmann was a very attractive woman….until she opened her mouth and I read up on her. Crazy eyes, though….religious zealot. True believer, imo.

  155. 155.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Quinerly: Oh weird.  They used to allow dogs.  No, we only spent the night in SC and had to drive to Phoenix the next day so it was a very short stay.  Our trip was predominantly spent in Taos since we have an old friend there, with just a day trip to Santa Fe which was a bit too fancy for my tastes.

    But SC is a lovely little town and we only saw a couple Trump or Blue Lives bumper sticker (we were expecting WAY MORE.  The brewery/taphouse downtown had some good bar food and tasty beers.

  156. 156.

    Betty Cracker

    @Quinerly: I read a feature on Greene in The Atlantic (link, possibly paywalled). It explained a lot about why she’s Like That and suggests that there’s a performance art element to her antics, but I didn’t come away with the impression that she’s particularly smart, more like an opportunistic kook.

    Maybe she’s smarter than Palin, but I don’t know. I remember googling Palin when McCain picked her — I’d never heard of her — and having a momentary panic when I watched a YouTube of her coherently discussing fishery issues on a local public access political show. But then she went all grizzly mom blah blah blah and I stopped worrying.

    Possibly these people get high on their own supply. It reminds me of a quote from a Kurt Vonnegut novel: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

  157. 157.

    Tony Jay

    @Kay:

    People rejoiced when Scalia was called downstairs for a surprise debrief with the Real Republican Deity, but at least he knew how to pretend to be an actual human being. Alito just strikes me as a colony of angry Spite-Beetles articulating a hollowed out human shell.

    @SFAW:

    You know, I’ve only ever been over to LGAM for very brief visits a couple of times, usually when directed by a link from over here. Something about the set-up and ambiance there just doesn’t thrill me.

    Not enough salted dick commentary? I think that’s what it could well be.

  158. 158.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Quinerly: is that the one with the chicken fried chicken recipe wherein the son says to the mother, “where’d you find a chicken this flat, Ma?  We oughnt to be eatin roadkill!”

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    Apparently that Ivy League education with the private dining clubs failed in making him classier.

    As it very often does.

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    I read a feature on Greene in The Atlantic (link, possibly paywalled). It explained a lot about why she’s Like That and suggests that there’s a performance art element to her antics, but I didn’t come away with the impression that she’s particularly smart, more like an opportunistic kook.

    It’s been a minute, and my memory isn’t what it used to be after almost a decade of pure chaos, politically and personally, but my take away was different, that she was pretty much depressed– not interested in either the family business or the upscale suburban sports-mom life she found herself in– didn’t she talk in her blog about resenting having to shuttle her kids around?– and she found fulfillment in CrossFit, and then Q-Anon* politics. I think she may have some kind of level of canny survival instinct and be able to put up a quasi-normal front, but she’s genuinely whacko, and dumb (Jewish space-lasers. I rest my case).

    *I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the clip, but apparently she pretty much accused the former twitter head of content management (or however they phrase it) of being a pedophile, in a Congressional hearing.

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    I’ve always thought it was because he doesn’t get to be nearly as big an asshole without that microphone. I mean really, how else can he show off his pompous, arrogant asswipe attitude?

  169. 169.

    Quinerly

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I could be wrong about the pups. I just knew I wanted to settle in a few days with a cheap place to sleep. This odd little apt fit the bill. The owner already recommended the microbrewery. I have been to their satellite in Las Cruces.

    I have moved from St. Louis after being there almost 40 years. Live 12 miles out from Santa Fe. Started coming out here every February, starting in 2011 when I was turning 50. Taos was my primary focus on that trip. Found Santa Fe and Albuquerque on subsequent trips and never looked back.

    Again, thanks for commenting. I’m really looking forward to rambling around for a couple of weeks. Hope the weather cooperates.

  173. 173.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Betty Cracker: Interesting. She’s funny. She’s sometimes called out GOP hypocrisy and expressed some disappointment in her fellow law makers. If she’s not careful, she’ll wake up as an independent.

  174. 174.

    Jeffro

    OT but Mardi Gras is almost two weeks ago and I want some jambalaya, red rice, or gumbo.

    Maybe if I make one of those dishes this weekend, I can make the other on the 21st?

  175. 175.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Greene is definitely smarter than Boebert. That ninny almost talked herself out her seat in what should have been a safe district.

    Greene is in a much stronger position electorally than is Boebert. Republicans in the GA 14th CD  have a double digit advantage over Democrats. They probably also are more conservative than average for Georgia, so Greene has few worries about being primaried from the center. I expect we’ll have to put up with that horrible hoyden for the rest of this decade at least.

  176. 176.

    Leto

    @Ken: they’re interchangeable depending on the age bracket. Keep thinking of how we can use existing child labor laws to rid of us the children in Congress. Always worth a shot!

  178. 178.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Quinerly: No I think you are right.  I think I remember when we went they told us that we got lucky because they were about to implement a No Pets policy and we got in just before it started.  Wish you luck on the weather.  That drive from Albuquerque through Gila NF, was beautiful but we got some rain and snow which made those mountain roads pretty exhausting.  Couldn’t see more than 15-20 feet.  But then once we got to SC the weather was nice.

  179. 179.

    Quinerly

    @Betty Cracker:

    Palin cost me one of my best friends.

    An atty I had worked with in a firm in the 1980’s. She left, but we stayed close friends. Very Liberal. Had been a social worker in NY before going to law school later in life. Then worked for Legal Aid and UAW. Then the firm where we met. She was over the moon over Palin. Had been a life long Dem prior to 2008.

    Will never understand it. She thought Palin was brilliant.

  181. 181.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @marklar:

    Amen. I highly recommend Nancy Isenberg’s book “White Trash
    The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.”

    Dead thread but Marklar’s recommendation is seconded.

  182. 182.

    Kay

    @delphinium:

    He often uses just slightly wrong words so when he told me he wasn’t going back to that barber he said “too much banter” so I expected “he talked my ear off- annoying!” – but no, it was much worse.

  186. 186.

    Quinerly

    @NotMax:

    Whoa….My Gumbo has won an award. I have the plaque to prove it.😁

    Soulard (St Louis) Mardi Gras 1992….Cajun Cook-off

  189. 189.

    delphinium

    @Geminid: ​
    Yeah, I only saw a few clips of the SOTU but it seemed like Boebert was much more subdued (albeit still sneering/frowning thru most of the speech) than Greene. So it would seem Boebert at least has an inkling that she is less popular in her district.
    Whereas Greene is in far less danger in her district, but I still think her antics will become less and less endearing to the general public.

  191. 191.

    StringOnAStick

    I’ve mentioned here that I recently realized some old friends from Canada that we hadn’t seen in years now being whackjob conspiracy theorists.  I look back and see how 10 years ago he had weird views on AGW, that it was the “party line you had to spew to get a university positions” .  I pushed back on that back then, and got a snarky email back about being a “contrarian by nature”; when I saw the recent study that a main feature of conspiracists is over confidence, all the pieces fell into place for me.

  192. 192.

    Betty Cracker

    @Quinerly: Was your ex-friend a PUMA? God, remember them? They went gaga over Palin and convinced themselves she’s brilliant because they were mad that Obama won the 2008 primary.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That squares with my takeaway — Greene is a kook with money who wants to be important. Not particularly bright, though perhaps smarter than Boebert, who really is a blithering moron.

  194. 194.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:

    I think she got brainwashed by Fox and her boyfriend. I missed the early signs. And, I regret very much introducing her to the boyfriend in 1993. He was basically a normal Repug back then. She had gone thru an ugly divorce and I thought Kevin would be fun for her to get out. Never dreamed it would be a long term match.

    Looking back, I think Obama’s race might have had something  also to do with her sharp turn. I let some comments pass. I tried to remain friends after the 2008 election but we had a huge blow up when Teddy Kennedy died. Both she and Kevin were giddy.

    I do wonder sometime how she felt about Trump. And her thoughts on the 2020 election. We were very close friends. Went thru a lot together. She had a really, really bad divorce. I was always there for her.

  197. 197.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    We could have used more PUMA energy in 2016 when the misogyny was actually real.

    in 16 I went looking for some of the on-line PUMAs I remembered from teh Great ’08 Blog wars (remember MyDD? Jerome Armstrong left politics to open a yoga school). I couldn’t find any of them

  198. 198.

    Soprano2

    @Ruckus: I have a story about something like that. I worked for a company that did ads on high school sports posters. I worked in the office, I didn’t sell the ads (they were telemarketers). The company was owned by people who lived in Idaho; I found out they had an office in Springfield so they could visit the wife’s parents in northern Arkansas and write it off as a business trip! The husband was a nice-looking man who dressed well; you could tell he was a business owner. The wife was something else, though. She wore nice clothes sometimes but had no idea how to dress herself. You could tell she permed and dyed her own hair; she would wear it parted in the middle and pulled back, which made it extremely obvious that her dye job was growing out. My co-worker said she once came to the office in a sundress with knee-high socks and sandals! She was probably the smarter of the two of them, but I’m sure people didn’t take her seriously because of the way she looked. I swear, I looked more professional than she did on a fraction of the money she had. She could have hired people to help her, but obviously didn’t. She looked like someone who grew up poor trying to look rich. It was painful to see.

  200. 200.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:

    Lots of years. And, as I say….3 lifetimes ago. (I measure periods of my life in lifetimes….”People fit periods of my life”).

    The wondering about her feelings re Trump is mostly a curiosity thing. “How truly crazy is Jeanne, now?”

  202. 202.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I went to the ’08 convention in Denver and there were about 12 pumas gathered outside, being interviewed by twice as many media people. I had an argument with an AP reporter about it- she found the SINGLE puma in the OH delegation and turned her into a celebrity :)

    The southern delegations were the most fun at that convention because they’re overwhelmingly AA so were just over the moon about Obama and they had fewer white Democrat/AA Democrat divisions. So joyful. I felt lucky to see it.

  203. 203.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    The barber wouldn’t have any way to know this but they’re quite serious with each other. It’s not a teasing type relationship – more serious than that. But, you know, you DON’T know so that’s why you don’t go there. He would be offended on her behalf.

  204. 204.

    tam1MI

    Read Tonya’s backstory, and you’ll come out impressed. The amount of grit that she showed being raised in poverty and rising through the ranks of an incredibly expensive and economically exclusionary sport is quite impressive.

    And you know who else came from a poor background and, through sheer talent and tenacity, rose to the top rank of figure skating? Nancy Kerrigan. But that awkward fact didn’t fit the media’s narrative of plucky li’l Tonya vs the Elitist Bitch Who Had It Coming, aka “Sneery” so it was never mentioned. The way the victim of the attempted kneecapping was vilified for the high crime of getting her knee in the way of Gillooly’s baton tells you everything you need to know as to why rape victims don’t come forward.  (One of Harding’s and her apologists most bitter complaints about Kerrigan is that a fashion designer designed her skating dresses. Yes, they literally claimed that Nancy Kerrigan provoked the attack on her person because of what she wore!).

  205. 205.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Amy Siskind managed to pass herself off as a regular liberal feminist Democrat during the Trump years. She gained some minor media traction in that guise. It always annoyed me on Twitter to see a mutual retweeting Siskind’s comments into my timeline — if only you KNEW, I’d think! ;-) Someone outed her eventually (not me!), and there was a Twitter brouhaha, but she’s still carrying on, AFAIK.

    @Kay: LOL! Yep, I remember being annoyed by that shit back in the day. I think the PUMAs got as much attention as they did because some of them were rich and media savvy. Their numbers were negligible, as we eventually saw.

  207. 207.

    Barbara

    @marklar: I agree that the term “white trash” is offensive and should be retired.

    Regarding Tonya Harding, it’s pretty clear that she participated in the planning of the attack, even if it was just to give information to the attackers about schedule and accessibility of the venue.  She reminds me a lot of one of my in-laws, a very talented woman who just can’t climb out of her own childhood of deprivation and resentment, which she often uses to justify grifting and antisocial behavior.  It’s not quite but has some similarities to borderline personality.  The commentary and abuse Harding received from judges was horrifying but it took some serious personal pathology on her part to use that even partially as a justification for assaulting a competitor.

  209. 209.

    Splitting Image

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    in 16 I went looking for some of the on-line PUMAs I remembered from teh Great ’08 Blog wars (remember MyDD? Jerome Armstrong left politics to open a yoga school). I couldn’t find any of them

    I was able to find a couple. Hillbuzz and Hillaryis44 were pro-Clinton in the 2008 primary. Both of them supported Trump in 2016. The Hillaryis44 guy kept supporting Trump all the way through December of 2020 and then mysteriously disappeared around the time a bunch of people got arrested for storming the capital.

    Another PUMA guy from 2008 was a troll here at Balloon Juice called myiq2xu. He was another person who went from supporting Clinton in 2008 to Trump in 2016. His pro-Trump banner is still there at his blog. (The guy’s nym says it all, doesn’t it?)

  211. 211.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think the PUMAs got as much attention as they did because some of them were rich and media savvy.

    Also: Dems in disarray. MSNBC leaned heavily into Disappointed Bernie Supporters at the ’16 Convention.

    Remember Lady Lynn Forrester de Rothschild, Regular American Working Mom (in fairness, I gather Lynn Forrester was a rich and successful entrepreneur before she married His Nibs, Lord of Codswallop, but an American using a British title? Only Viscount Zonker Harris of St Austell-In-The-Moors-There’s-More-But-I-Forget could pull it off)

    Their numbers were negligible, as we eventually saw.

    at the national PUMA convention at a Ramada near a VA airport (I don’t think I’m completely making that up) one of the few attendees was quoted as saying plaintively “Are we really such a small sliver of the party?” Was that a tag here at one point?

  212. 212.

    geg6

    @tam1MI:

    Yeah, I don’t understand this martyrdom people in this thread are trying to hang on Harding.  She’s a terrible person, like so many I know who are “white trash.”  I don’t give a shit about her childhood.  She was a married adult woman when she and her little gang decided to advance her skating career by ruining Kerrigan’s.  That’s on her and blaming her childhood just says that anyone who is poor and grows up in terrible dysfunctional families either can’t be blamed for their poor behavior and we should excuse it always.  Talk about racist and classist.

  214. 214.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Splitting Image:

    Hillaryis44 were pro-Clinton in the 2008 primary. Both of them supported Trump in 2016. The Hillaryis44 guy … Another PUMA guy from 2008 was a troll here at Balloon Juice called myiq2xu.

    Holy cats! I remember those nyms! I remembered myiq as a Naderite, but there were a lot of on-line costumes being altered in those days

    ETA: I think Hillaryis44 was one of the main posters on MyDD. God, even in real time, that site was a hilarious train-wreck

  219. 219.

    Quinerly

    @Paul in KY:

     

    I haven’t discounted that. She is 12 years older than I. But she would have only been 59 years old at the time. I think more likely a combo of addiction to prescription pain medication for bad back and brainwashing by boyfriend, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh.

  220. 220.

    Splitting Image

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I remembered myiq as a Naderite, but there were a lot of on-line costumes being altered in those days

    That sounds about right, actually. I remember him as the sort of person who would have preferred a narrow Democratic loss, so he could spend four more years complaining about the party’s incompetence. Obama’s win must have been heartbreaking for him.

  222. 222.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Quinerly:

    I see MTG as being a lot tougher than Palin….and smarter than Trump.

    I’m watching a dust bunny swirling around in the far corner of my office. It’s smarter than Trump.

  223. 223.

    Ken

    @JustRuss: It would be bad for the Ukrainians, if it weren’t a ridiculous lie. I wonder who the intended audience for the lie is, though. Russian civilians who aren’t happy about the current “recruiting” programs?

  229. 229.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @geg6:

    If you live among them as I do, you have a lot less angst about what names you call them.

    Extremely counter-productive.

    My siblings and I grew up dirt poor and were called “white trash” by most of the kids in our early grade school – white, black, and asian (we weren’t totally white by the standards of the day, but we were close, and the only group that never partook in that particular form of torture were the native Americans – yes, it was a “different” sort of school). We were pretty much the exact opposite of white trash (our parents were poor but very liberal – think “Woody Guthrie”), and we knew it. But, it still hurt a lot, and honestly right up to today still does, as irrational as that may seem.

  230. 230.

    Quinerly

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    I totally get what you are saying. Dumb people obviously can become president. And I totally can see Trump picking MTG as his running mate. That’s what her performance art is all about. He ain’t picking Rep Mace (R SC) for sure. I guess I have gone full circle. Back to referencing that dinner last night and Mace. Mace managed to take out Kevin and Donald in the same quip:

    “I haven’t seen someone assume that many positions to appease the crazy Republicans since Stormy Daniels,” said Mace, referring to the adult film actor who accused Trump of having an affair with her in 2006.

    Mace later made a jab at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who she recently branded a “fraud.” Gaetz helped lead Freedom Caucus radicals who opposed McCarthy’s speakership until he promised concessions.

    “Well, let’s be honest. We all knew that Matt Gaetz would never let the vote get to 18,” said Mace. The joke about Gaetz’s alleged sexual relationship with a 17-year-old drew shocked reactions from the crowd.

  231. 231.

    Citizen Alan

    @Betty Cracker:  The thing that disgusted me most about Sarah Palin is that There was plenty of video footage of her prior to McCain picking her, and she didn’t talk that way. She talked like a normal person just like you would expect from a former news broadcaster. She intentionally developed a ridiculous folksy twand just to appeal to the sub literate wing of the Republican party.

  234. 234.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Citizen Alan: I do think the sum of the evidence suggests she is, in fact, dumb, but I think the famous “all of’em!” moment was her trying to think of the answer that would both sound smart (because she was insecure about what people like Couric and probably by then McCain and Shmidt thought of her), and was aware of her brand and wanted to give the right answer for her fan-base.

    Kind of like McCarthy being so unsure of when he could applaud and when he should sneer while sitting behind Biden, trying to see what the Goober Caucus was doing out of the corner of his eye.

  235. 235.

    Steeplejack

    Don’t be fooled by Nancy Mace. In the first week of the new Congress she got some favorable buzz on MSNBC by talking about how the Republicans were wrong to push their anti-abortion bill, especially as their opening item. Then she went into the House the same day and voted for the bill along with all of the other GQP lemmings.

  236. 236.

    Citizen Alan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I saw that as her being trapped between the need to appeal to the crazy wing without appearing crazy herself. No sane person would have knocked her for saying that she read The New York Times regularly. But the crazy people she was trying to appeal to would have considered her a squish for it.

    There was another incident in which some journalist asked her to name a Supreme Court opinion other than roe V wade that she disapproved of, and she was completely paralyzed by the question. What made it bizarre was that I had seen an interview with her as governor of Alaska in which she very forcefully attacked the Exxon Valdez decision. She could have mentioned that and actually presented herself as both thoughtful, well read and even somewhat populist. But she either forgot all about it or else recoiled from the idea of perhaps offending republicans in the oil sector.

  239. 239.

    The Lodger

    @Kay: His barber sounds like the ones I had to deal with in high school. It’s been 50 years and there are still barbers who don’t have any idea how to talk to guys under 30. That is one of the reasons I let my hair grow past my shoulders in college.

  242. 242.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: I expect Mace to calibrate her policy positions so as to stay as close as possible to the center of Republican gravity in her district. She intends to stay in Congress no matter what, maybe run for Graham’s Senate seat in 2026. Now that Republican redistricters shored up the SC 1st CD, Mace is safe from all but the biggest of blue waves.

    I’ve speculated about potential Republican defectors on the debt ceiling question, but Mace is not one of them. Too ambitious.

  243. 243.

    japa21

    @Citizen Alan: ​
     

    She intentionally developed a ridiculous folksy twand just to appeal to the sub literate wing of the Republican party.

    She learned that trick from Bush the Younger.

  245. 245.

    Subsole

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s complex, but it boils down to “whites it is okay to look down on and treat like utter garbage (while also, bizarrely, idolizing as some kind of salt of the earth clever-peasant, bless their hearts) but still members of the club if any minorities show up.”

    Basically whites you can treat like browns – until actual browns are involved. At which point society’s floorboards are expected to become its battering ram/nightstick.

  246. 246.

    Subsole

    @Citizen Alan: Mh. I think she was appealing more to the upscale midclass suburban wing that idolize a particular vision of the subliterate wing.

    I mean, let’s be real here: the subliterate wing were responding to her appearance, not her dialect.

  247. 247.

    Denali5

    Where I grew up, in East Tennessee, white trash was meant to mean people who had no manners, taste, sense of responsibility or work ethic. They did not take care of their property or themselves. They were also called hillbillies and tacky. Race had little to do with it; social class had a lot. I used to believe that people could pull themselves out of poverty and have a better life through education, but now I realize that some people are happy to live life just the way they are.

  249. 249.

    geg6

    @Chief Oshkosh: ​
     
    These are not people about whom I give a damn about how productively I interact with them. They’ve been threatening to me for years now with their threats of violence any time I stick my head up and interact with them. I have stopped going to any of my formerly favorite local restaurants and pubs because of their threats and disgusting behavior. We were reduced to only getting takeout well before COVID. Fuck them. I hope it hurts them like hell. They deserve it.

    And as I said in my previous comment, these are not poor people. Most are either well-educated professionals, skilled tradesmen or business owners. But they are trash and they are white. Thus, they are white trash.

  250. 250.

    sdhays

    @Tony Jay: I’ve been checking in there regularly recently, but I don’t comment there and will only occasionally skim the comments.

    The other day, there was a post about an article by some muckety muck whining about how they once a dinner party and their (ex?) husband (who, of course, is a wonderful chef) had whipped up a special 5 course meal, only to have one of their illustrious dinner guests have the audacity to show up with their own meal because they were on a “restricted diet”.

    The comments were all about “in my day, if someone took the time cook for you, you ate it all up, even if it was literal shit”. Oh, and mocking the guest for having a “feng shui” diet (I’m summarizing). The reason for the diet isn’t clear, and damn it, it shouldn’t matter. If someone’s on a particular diet/doesn’t eat certain things for whatever reason, that’s their fucking business.

    I don’t host much, but personally, being aware of everyone’s dietary requirements is something I care about when I do. It is literally incomprehensible to me that people think that hosting dinner for a group of people is all about the host.

    And the guest just brought their own food. They didn’t try to impose their needs on the entire group or the host. They brought themselves, under the (obviously misguided) assumption that their company was what was desired, rather than an audience for the chef’s prowess.

    All of which is to say, I like the commenters here better.

  251. 251.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: No, but I was having the same thought.  My mother was from Virginia and taught this CA girl the concept at an early age, and yesterday, while thinking over the SOTU address and MTG, I suddenly realized that’s exactly what she is. Ugh. It’s very non-PC, but it’s true (about her, anyway).

  252. 252.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @marklar: I hear you. The movie I, Tonya, was revelatory for me in terms of her story and background. Good for Allison Janney for winning an Oscar portraying her mother, but good God, what a woman. And let’s not even start with her abusive first husband and his merry crew of dimwits.

  253. 253.

    Tony Jay

    @sdhays:

    They sound like a bunch of wankers. Even worse, fusty conservative wankers. Who wants to go looking for that?

    I definitely prefer it here. There’s the odd divisive, one-note goon with an agenda, but that’s why the FSM gave us the ability to aggressively ignore those who grind our gears. Everyone else is a joy.

  254. 254.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @Quinerly: No, I don’t think I’d read that. I’ll go look for it. But I know enough about Georgia to know something of her background; she doesn’t come across as old money but she’s not from a hardscrabble background.
    And you’re right: we have to know something about these people to evaluate what they can do and might do.

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