it's also why trump is going to flay and eat him alive https://t.co/JFP00T4IwG
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) March 14, 2023
intra-Republican politics? Or the echosphere of hyper online Republican? Ukraine, Covid19, Captain Ron will sail wherever he needs to chase that sweet clout.
— RambleAppleBrandy (@AppleRamble) March 14, 2023
Sure, he probably made a nice chunk from his new “book”, but DeSantis doesn’t come from money, and his is currently a one-income family with three young kids. As many pundits have said, he’s young by presidential-candidate standards, and barring other issues could easily choose to run in 2028, 2032, et al. But a presidential run is always a prime form of brand extension marketing, and a tour on the right-wing anti-chatauqua would no doubt fatten the coffers as well as increasing his exposure to both donors and voters. Pouting & stomping in sassy white shrimper boots may look risible to us normies, but no doubt it’ll seem homey to the fearful geriatrics watching Fox.
On the other side of the equation, Carlson is spiraling, getting ever more shouty over increasingly abstruse forms of far-right vice signalling. And while Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan may fake oppositional defiant disorder for the ‘cousin fucking’ rubes, money is still their lodestar, and Little Prince Fishsticks is nothing more than another employee. If Carlson’s mouth keeps writing checks, I doubt he can count on the Murdochs to cover the overdrafts…
Mostly, of course, I like this idea because any such rumors will lead to hurt feelings between Carlson & DeSantis, and Repubs in disarray! is a beautiful thing.
DeSantis tells Tucker Carlson that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a "territorial dispute."
Sort of in the way that 1939-40 was a territorial dispute between Germany and Poland. And Belgium. And France. And … pic.twitter.com/qkOqwHwiOc
— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) March 14, 2023
So, DeSantis couldn’t answer the question in person (twice) and now has to submit written answers to Tucker Carlson.
Yikes. https://t.co/gCtX4F5QIJ
— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) March 14, 2023
And called for giving them offensive and defensive weapons. pic.twitter.com/mhDprOmC06 https://t.co/iTI521WORf
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) March 14, 2023
DeSantis is auditioning for Putin. He wants Putin’s help.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 14, 2023
Repubs! in! disarray!
GOP breaking with DeSantis on Ukraine: "I'm disturbed by it. I think he's a smart guy. I want to find out more about it but I hope he feels like he doesn't need to take that Tucker Carlson line to be competitive in the primary," Cornyn said. https://t.co/8dnAVPqmjj@NancyVu99
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) March 14, 2023
Trump in #Iowa goes after DeSantis for opposing ethanol, raising the retirement age for seniors & supporting Medicare cuts. "Ron was a disciple of Paul Ryan, who was a RINO loser…who would constantly vote against entitlements," Trump says. "Ron reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney."
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) March 13, 2023
Sidebar: It’s always dumber than it looks…
I actually thought "Ron DeSanctimonious," while clunky, captured something about DeSantis' uptight, angry-scold personality. But it turns out that isn't even what Trump meant, since he doesn't know what "sanctimonious" means. https://t.co/38TdtiiFl6
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) March 14, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 384: I Think The Numbers Are Back on Track
Suzanne
I know it’s not the topic of the post…..but Li’l Marco isn’t looking so li’l. He’s looking really old and crappy. #sellbydatehaspast
Cameron
So Trump thinks “sanctimonious” is the long form of “woke.” Or maybe “CRT.” Or “antifa.” Or “groomer.” Whatever.
Chetan Murthy
Our boy Li’l Donnie probably thinks “whited sepulchre” refers to some sort of white supremacy shit.
Bupalos
Ukraine. Highly recommend Timothy Snyder’s Making of Modern Ukraine course, where he does a great job reorienting on Germany’s actual colonial goal in WWII: Lebensraum most specifically on the black earth of Ukraine.
Suzanne
@Cameron: I dated a dude who would insult people by saying, “they don’t know what words mean”. It always made me laugh.
Mike in NC
As presidential campaigns go, Ron DeSantis’ will be remembered as “Marco Rubio 2.0”. Zero appeal outside of Floriduh.
Mr. Bemused Senior
A Giant Blob of Seaweed is Heading to Florida (gift link)
It’s so unfair! Poor Ron, he will have to deal with this.
Bupalos
@Cameron: I can’t figure out what part of Rhonda Santos trump is even targeting with “sanctimonious.” Maybe it’s just a word he doesn’t really know and thinks deplorables won’t really know and will just kind of write in their own meaning?
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: he’s clearly #pasthisprime
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Suzanne: how can I resist?
Inconceivable
SpaceUnit
I’m hoping that Trump, Tucker, and DeSantis all die in a three-way knife fight.
Politically speaking.
oatler
@Suzanne:
You’ll know he’s Done when the press stops filming him from their upward/grovelling angle.
Suzanne
@Bupalos: LAWL, Trump accidentally sounded like he had a read a book at one point, so he real quick-like had to make it clear that, don’t worry, he really is that dumb.
smike
The main reason FF won’t use sanctimonious is that 5 syllables uses up his memory test allotment. Add in Ron and D’ and it’s just too much.
hueyplong
@oatler: Not sure he’d survive a full week of high-angle shots.
Chetan Murthy
AL, can I just say, *excellent* choice of epithet moniker!
Splitting Image
I can imagine DeSantis trying to get Carlson’s job, but I can’t imagine the Murdochs giving it to him. He has the charisma of wallpaper paste.
DeSantis’ best job is right where he is, governor of a state where he can hurt as many people as possible and Republican voters will reward him for it. His next step up would ordinarily be Senator, where he could come up with new ways to hurt people exery day and get rewarded for it whether or not any of them actually happen. Unfortunately Florida’s next Senator up for re-relection is guilty of Medicare fraud, which makes him something of an overachiever.
On the other hand, as was said above, Marco Rubio may be past his sell-by date, so he’d better watch out.
Princess
I can’t see Meatball Ron hosting even a Fox show. Carlson had that “nice preppy young man” thing going for himself once, for oldsters who are into that. Trump once had a canny quickness and even a kind of charisma for those who see themselves in him. Meatball is just grumpy, awkward, resentful and charmless.
eclare
@Manyakitty: Hahaha…unlike Michelle Yeoh.
Amir Khalid
That DeSantis can’t/won’t be forthright about his stand on military aid to Ukraine tells us he doesn’t have one. Eventually he will say whatever he figures will get him the most votes, but for now his focus is on not alienating anybody, including Fox’s openly pro-Putin and still influential Tucker Carlson. Is DeSantis angling for covert assistance from Putin himself? I tend to doubt it. I don’t think he’s even visible on Putin’s radar yet. (ETA: And I’m not confident he ever will be.)
In other news, PM Anwar Ibrahim has had to quash social-media rumours claiming there’d be a public holiday to mark the first-ever Oscar win by a Malaysian. It’s a bit embarrassing to think there were any Malaysians dumb/lazy enough to fall for this.
HumboldtBlue
@Princess:
Yes, he’s got all the appeal of cancer. He has no charisma, no verve, no soul about him. He looks sour, he sounds sour, and I bet you dollars to donuts he smells sour. A life fueled by bigotry and hate to try and reach your political ends stinks, and stinks badly.
kalakal
And that interview was with the London Times ( prop. R. Murdoch). Ron ‘gift of the gab’ DeStupid can’t even handle a soft ball interview from one of Uncle Rupes’ papers, he’s got no chance in even a mildly hostile environment, let alone primaries. The man has the strength of a soggy Triskit
brantl
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Maybe they’re talking about Ron? It describes him perfectly….
Jeffro
@Bupalos: I’m shocked he isn’t just going with “Little D”
Delk
And you know despite his anti-drag ranting he has worn his wife’s capes.
Geoduck
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Just label the blob a woke groomer. Problem solved!
kalakal
@brantl: Made me think of Trump
Welcome to Merde-a-Lardo
cain
@Suzanne: I thought the same thing. He’s lost some weight on his face.
Jeffro
Ok, time out: I follow all this nonsense far too closely for my own good, and I still can’t recall for the life of me why Ron DeSantis is the leading GOP candidate for their 2024 nomination (other than trumpov). Zero charisma, nothing really new to offer here, just “same cruelty, less corruption”?
How exactly did this guy get so high in the (R) polls? The loudmouth anti-Covid ‘jab’ stuff? Shipping some immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard? I think that’s about it.
So…he’s kinda slowly getting hoisted on his own Fox “News” petard, it looks like. May they all follow this extremely dumb, obnoxious path. Keep playing to the Faux base and nothing else, Rs!
eclare
@kalakal: MJ has said for a while that in a debate TFG will annihilate him.
Suzanne
@Delk:
That’s not all of hers that he’s worn.
Amir Khalid
@kalakal:
The GOP presidential contenders are cowards who don’t dare say what they think. Except for TFG; he’s a coward who doesn’t stop to think before emitting one of his brain farts.
eclare
@Jeffro: I think his overwhelming victory in the latest FL election helped his reputation/numbers a lot. He won in 2018 by what, less than 1%? Four years later he wins by 19%?
Jeffro
@eclare: yeah, that’s probably part of it. We have the similar (but lesser) effect here in VA with Youngkin, who supposedly won this amazing victory for the Governorship despite it being entirely in line with the state’s post-presidential tendencies. A big win like DeSantis’ makes him look that much more mavericky and viable.
BUT STILL
It’s a big country. Why isn’t Barbie Noem stepping it up? Kemp? Come on GOP people, where’s your ambition? This guy is like a sack of wet, angry noodles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Delk: How bout the gloves?
BR
Minor thing I realized this week. People like presidents with a sense of humor. Or at least more of a sense of humor than their opponent. Even if that sense of humor is a mean spirited one, as it often is. But having zero sense of humor won’t fly.
Manyakitty
@eclare: exactly!!
eclare
@Jeffro: Noem and Kemp can easily wait until 2028, and they are smart enough to do so. At this point TFG has the nomination, period. If they challenged him, they risk getting stuck with a career ending nickname (is Low Energy Jeb! even still alive?). There is absolutely no upside to running in 2024 and plenty of potential downside.
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ooooh…that’s good!
kalakal
DeSantis isn’t just charmless, he’s actively repellent
Aussie Sheila
@Jeffro: I think he is the ‘establishment republicans’ punt to beat trump and bury him.
Fortunately, it looks like they picked a politically talentless dud, whose utterance on Ukraine, could, if skilfully exploited by the Dems, sink him.
Unfortunately that leaves trump as the only viable candidate in the primaries. I think this time though trump is a known quantity, and again, I believe this time round he would be defeated even more heavily than in 2020.
Lets hope so. The world would not survive another trump presidency.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: I’m a little surprised Kemp hasn’t gotten in, or at least made noises and moves that look like he’s thinking about it. I haven’t seen him a lot on TeeVee, but he can’t be more repellent than DeSantis, and the waiting-for-trump-to-die wing of the party probably loves him. Maybe he thinks it’s still too soon for a not-quite-never-trump candidate, and he’s quietly hoping for an R loss in ’24
kalakal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think you nailed it there
Jim, Foolish Literalist
He’s already endorsed DeSantis, I think. The Bushes are deeply committed to getting another generation (Son of Jeb, R-TX) on to the national stage. Probably too much to hope that Barbara The Younger will run as a Democrat. Just to piss the rest off.
Delk
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: ha!
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unfortunately you’re probably right about Barbara, but you never know, her grandma sure could hold a grudge.
Jackie
@Jeffro: According to Stormy Daniels, *Little D* would hit too close to home ;D
Suzanne
@kalakal: So Meatball Ron appears to be sensitive about his looks. I contrast him with Chris Christie, who was appealingly not insecure about his weight when someone gave him shit about it. He just comes off to me as snively.
I can’t tell, though, if I think he’s going to lose because I find him so terrible and I’m engaging in wish fulfillment fantasies, or if he really comes off badly to others genuinely and I’m being prescient.
Gvg
@Jeffro: the media felt like it. They didn’t have any better ideas and sort of glommed on to him. He was sort of around, seemed sort of plausible just as enough of them realized trump was actually losing steam and could become a has been, plus it was time for some new drama about who was leading the republicans. It’s sort of like the news is actually controlled by sitcom writers.
i don’t know if that is really how it works but to me that’s how these things seem sometimes.
Rudi666
@Suzanne: Ron DeStainitis loves pegging!
kalakal
@Suzanne:
This is my fear too. I felt the same about Trump.
Trump I think had more going for him, he did know how to work a crowd from all his WWF presenting, he has a certain charisma ( not to me ) for a lot of people, he was a national tv star, he had a certain ‘life’ to him, you could tell he loved doing those rallies, they were catnip for him.
DeSantis has none of the above. He comes across as a miserable, whiny little creep. A Donald Pleasance character without the joie-de-vivre.
I like to believe he’s Scott Walker redux.
I also think he would be terrible on stage against Biden
Aussie Sheila
@kalakal: Yes he would be. The questions re Ukraine will be brutal. That still leaves trump. I continue to think he will win the nom. Biden can handle him in any debate. The real question is whether the Dem gotv apparatus will up to snuff. I expect it will be, but the next election is going to be brutal. For both parties imo.
Just like the next UK election. I think we are witnessing the final collapse of the post Cold War political and economic consensus. But those that did well out of it aren’t going to go quietly.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@kalakal: This.
TFG had more than that(probably worth a percent or two at the poll and I said this in 2016): he was not a politician, he ran a “successful” business(and played that on the TV machine) and he was known for years by everybody.
Jackie
Quite the coincidence, but the WaPo has an article out tonight about this very subject:
“On the trail, freewheeling Donald Trump counters scripted Ron DeSantis”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/14/trump-desantis-2024/
Viva BrisVegas
@Cameron:
‘When I use a word,’
Humpty DumptyTrump said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said
Humpty DumptyTrump, ‘which is to be master, that’s all.’Although I think that Humpty Dumpty is a far too intellectually robust role for Trump to play. He would make an excellent Queen of Hearts though.
sralloway
I think Ronduh made the same mistake a Romney made in 1964 when he said the generals brainwashed him about the war in Vietnam. George was honest about it, unlike the current collection of republicans. I’m an old and remember it well. As an aside, parents were New England republicans and we went to that GOP convention in San Francisco at the Cow Palace. Four weeks in a Chevy van and taking in all the parks we could.
kalakal
One thing I will confidently predict.
If Trump doesn’t get the nomination a large chunk of voters is pretty likely to not vote for the nominee ( espescially if Trump goes into ” I was robbed” mode*)
If DeSantis isn’t the nominee no-one is going to abstain from voting in protest
* and he will
Aussie sheila
@kalakal: Yep. That’s what I am hoping for. If trump goes after the republican nominee that isn’t him, they will be sunk. Fingers crossed and all that. However I plead guilty to looking forward to the debate between little D and trump. It should be very entertaining. Trumps insults will be epic, and little D won’t be able to land a glove on him.
Shalimar
@Jeffro: Most of the billionaires who have decided already are endorsing DeSantis, including some key Trump supporters. These are the same idiots who were all-in on Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. I wouldn’t put too much stock in their political judgment.
Citizen Alan
@sralloway: I still can’t believe that George Romney gave birth to someone like Mitt. Possibly the last truly decent Republican. And Nixon shivved him. And then his own son betrayed all of his values.
Amir Khalid
@Citizen Alan:
I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Unless you happen to know something about that family that the rest of us don’t.
Aussie Sheila
@Citizen Alan: Did he though? I get his father was a moderate Republican, (from all accounts, I have no first hand knowledge), but isn’t Romney now what passes for a ‘moderate’ in the Republican Party? Looks to me he is behaving the way he thinks his father would have. He voted to impeach trump and he obviously hates him.
The Republican Party has taken on the worst aspects of the southern democrats, and Romney has chosen to run as a Senator from a Mormon state, presumably because he can count on religious loyalty to support his vote total. Anywhere else in a ruby red state I think he would be toast.
Of course I would never vote for him in a million years if that were possible. But I think he is distinguishable from the Republican senators from the South in obvious ways, to my mind.
Redshift
@kalakal:
I would hate for DeSatan to get the nom and have any risk of him becoming president, but the one big advantage to that for the Dem side is that TFG would absolutely not go quietly. Remember, the primary reason he tried to overthrow the government is because the one thing he cannot accept is being a loser. (Trump’s Razor, as always, the stupidest explanation is most likely correct.) He would do everything in his power to burn down the GOP for their disloyalty.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Maybe it’s because he seems to be trying to make a bigger ass of himself. Some conservatives seem to like that in a candidate.
NotMax
@Aussie Sheila
No kudos given to Massachusetts.
//
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: It is the magic underwear.
Aussie Sheila
@NotMax: Yes. You are right. I had forgotten that. Nevertheless my point stands. He would never be elected in a thousand years in a traditional Red state. Utah is a much safer bet for him now , because I think in reliably blue states, the chances of even a moderate Republican are a lot slimmer now, especially post Dobbs decision.
cain
@Redshift: If he loses the primary you can bet that “rigged election” is going to be thrown out there – and there will be 8chan shit, and russia shit coming in and it’ll all be pointed at the Red States.
There will be so much “GOP in shambles” stories out there – it will hopefully depress the voting population. Of course, next election we will also be going through the whole ‘rigged election’ again.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
::cough:: Jake Javitz ::cough::
Also too, Nelson Rockefeller.
JoyceH
@BR:
A sense of humor, and at least one pet. Does DeSantis have a pet? I’m serious. Before Trump, you know who the last petless president was? Chester A. Arthur. Counting Trump, there were only four presidents who had no pets. Even Andrew Johnson had white mice!
Aussie Sheila
@JoyceH: Let’s see if the lame US media runs with the ‘pets test’, like they did with idiotic ‘man you would a beer with’ BS they ran with Bush.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Well, Arthur ascended to the office upon the death of Garfield. And he did keep horses.
Redshift
@JoyceH: His family page on the governor website doesn’t mention any pets, but he did call for people evacuating from the hurricane to be sure to take their pets, and he vetoed a bill that would have made it basically impossible for localities to stop puppy mills. So unlike TFG, he’s at least capable of pretending to care about animals.
JoyceH
@Aussie Sheila:
If there’s any justice, DeSantis will be soundly rejected just for inflicting all this wokety-woke stuff on us! (Did he start it or crib from someone else?) Now the wingnut Wurlitzer is warbling about wokesters and the wokeocracy, and I suspect that long before the new year, the media and the public will be ready to stab with a knitting needle the next person who says ‘woke’ to them.
NotMax
@JoyceH
Mr. P haz a sad.
;)
prostratedragon
@Delk: Call him “Phoebe?”
prostratedragon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Great line. Looks like a scene fron some version of Die Fledermaus. Also like she’s kidnapping that poor boy.
Aussie Sheila
@JoyceH: I hope so. I think the best defence against all this culture war stuff is ridicule. I get why Dems get indignant about the RWNJ kultur kampf against liberalism. But the political tradition I support in Oz is relentless ridicule against this kind of phony BS.
I get that it is a danger for the people targeted. But you can chew gum and walk. Defending the undefended and vulnerable, whilst heaping ridicule on the A-holes that target them is the best defence imo.
Less moralising handwringing, and more full throated defence of your own values, together with relentless ridicule. Together with relentless building of efficient political machines where you need to.
Harry Reid is the closest US pol to what I regard as effective against the Republicans.
Bar none.
Citizen Alan
@Aussie Sheila: The fact that Mitt Romney is now one of the “best” Republicans on the national stage is an indictment of the GOP rather than reason to praise him. In 2012, Romney ran on abolishing the Department of Housing and Urban Development. His father was the very first GOP HUD Secretary under Nixon (and third overall) and took great pride in his service, and his extraordinary efforts to bring about desegregation in housing. His father also famously limited his own salary when he was in the private sector because he thought it was unseemly for a CEO to be paid excessively in comparison to the regular workers. Mitt was a vulture capitalist and proud of it. George grew up in humble circumstances and benefited from a refugee fund set up for Mormons who’d been chased out of Mexico back into the US. Mitt was privileged his whole life and disparaged people who were two poor to actually owe any income taxes as moochers.
More on George Romney, the last good Republican.
Aussie Sheila
@Citizen Alan: I don’t need a lecture on why Romney shouldn’t be supported by any Social Democrat. I get what he is. My point is that he isn’t exactly the same as the Southern Republicans and their deplorable offspring elsewhere. In politics, if you can’t make correct, even if narrow distinctions, between your enemies, you will miss your target. Every time.
The 21st century isn’t the middle 20th. Romney is the best they have. Not good, at all. But the best. US Dem Senators should proceed accordingly.
And US Dems should take better care about the Senators they support. Especially from purple states they hope to win. Sinema anyone?
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila: I would guess that @Citizen Alan: is aware of this distinction. Maybe a simpler way of putting it is:
Romney fils maintains his position as a moderate GrOPer, as the GrOPers as a mass have shifted sharply rightward (and towards Fascism). This is a good thing when one thinks only in instrumental terms — how can I get things done. But when one thinks in moral terms, being the least prolific serial killer in the cellblock isn’t much of a recommendation.
Regardless, I’m sure that everybody is well-aware that if (somehow) we could get Rmoney to vote with the Dems more often, it’d be a Godsend. I’m sure everybody is aware of this.’
It *is* a good thing, that many Dems have this reflex to consider the basic morality of things from time-to-time, and don’t think purely about tactics.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy: Basic morality is important in politics. I don’t need a lecture on that either. But basic good and effective social democratic politics is good political morality. I understand about Romney. I’m not praising him. I’m drawing a distinction between now and when his father was a Republican that supported civil rights.
Now, those distinctions matter less. However the performance of Democratic Senators regarding the Dems bill for voting rights was a disgraceful episode. Worse than the rejection of the BBB bill. There are no Republicans that don’t prefer voter suppression. None.
The fact that there are still Dems that prefer BS Senate rules to properly enfranchising their base is an absolute effing disgrace.
In the absence of a universal, clean, equally accessible franchise and the elimination of gerrymandering, very little can be accomplished by politics as usual. That rejection by Sinema and Manchin, and not a few other Dem Senators should live in infamy.
I won’t resile from the position that an honestly conducted and counted franchise is the basic foundation of any democracy, let alone social democracy. It is unbelievable that it still has to be fought for in the US. Inexplicable that there are some US Democratic Senators that don’t think it is an existential issue for democracy.
prostratedragon
Just ran across All About My Mother on TCM, near the end unfortunately. One of its many wonders is a character named La Agrada [Antonia San Juan], here telling her story.
Spoiler: Lola sees the baby.
Msb
Little Prince Fishsticks is very good. Tuckyo Rose is pretty good also, though I prefer Little Lord Haw Haw.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: “Nelson Rockefeller”
Attica. I’ll give you Javits though. Percy, in the Senate until 1985, wasn’t too bad either.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Attica was a f*ck-up, granted, but using it to define almost four gubernatorial terms is akin to using the internment of Japanese to discredit FDR’s entire time in office.
It’s a valid criticism but hardly the whole enchilada.
Manyakitty
@NotMax: can we hold FDR refusing boats full of Jewish refugees against him? What if we add that to the Japanese internment camps? Any dullness to his shine yet?
Cthulhu
There’s a common usage of “sanctimonious” among a certain level of businessmen/criminals: “We are all dirty. Why are you pretending you’re not?”
NotMax
@Manyakitty
Oh please. Why not also throw in marital infidelity? No human has ever been perfect and political calculus has never been a pristine art form; it is a messy and too often ugly business. Got to weigh the resultant good against the bad.
Brachiator
Tucker Carlson and the other Fox weasels are doing exactly what the Murdochs want. Power counts as much as money. Murdoch and other UK media barons were slammed with legal challenges and public outcry over celebrity and civilian phone hacking. They apologized and kept going.
The worst of the British media continue with slimy practices because that is what they do, and they know that they are practically immune to any real punishment or regulation.
Aussie Sheila
@Manyakitty: All politicians must have their actions weighed in the balance long after they are dead and gone. Was FDR wrong about Japanese internment? Of course. Was the US government derelict n their duty regarding the plight of Jewish refugees? Yes.
As was the UK government. As was my own country’s government.
The salient question is, has anyone learned any lessons from those mistakes? That is the test of a functioning democracy. Not who did what when, half a century ago. The Republican Party not only haven’t learnt any lessons, they seem determined to repeat the mistakes of the past, in spades.
All polities have made bad and murderous mistakes. My own included. The only relevant contemporary test is, have the lessons from the past been absorbed sufficient not to be repeated. And to be resisted if it looks like the same mistakes are being made. That is the test of a learning democracy.
Democracy means we can all learn about the past, agitate to change the present, and work to make the future better. Anything that blocks that, blocks democratic rule and a fundamental tenet of the enlightenment. That is why the US Republican Party must be defeated resoundingly at the ballot box, whatever happens with the interminable and molasses like movement of the US justice system when confronted with the wealthy and well connected.
I hope trump is convicted, but I don’t hold out any hope. In any case, my politics demands that he and his movement is smashed ….at the ballot box up and down the ticket.
Aussie Sheila
@Brachiator: Yes. You are exactly right.
Manyakitty
@NotMax: of course. My point is there is no reason to deify him.
Manyakitty
@Aussie Sheila: right. The FDR worship was a bit much, is all. He did lots of good stuff, and still managed to leave plenty to be ashamed of. It’s all a balance.
Aussie Sheila
@Manyakitty: Not just a balance. Have we learned from the mistakes of the past? That is the question. And the Republican Party shows that not only have they not learned. They are determined to repeat them. Against every group in the US that wouldn’t have passed muster 75 years ago in the US. That politics must and can be beaten.
TriassicSands
There is really only one “small” thing wrong with DeSantis — he a worthless piece of power-hungry, fascist shit. I won’t attach any species name to the type of shit DeSantis is because every animal’s shit is far superior to DeSantis. (And by a “small” thing I mean bigger than the entire universe, which isn’t possible, but stlll somehow true.)
Manyakitty
@Aussie Sheila: our current republican party has learned one thing very well: they need to cheat to win. And they did and they do and they will continue to cheat until they destroy the country or get destroyed trying. Not sure what this has to do with FDR, but here we are.
Aussie Sheila
@Manyakitty: It has nothing to do with FDR as far as I can tell. But it has a lot to do with contemporary US politics, and with the capacity of US Dems to select candidates for the Senate who will go to the mat for civil rights and voting rights legislation. That is the contemporary test of whether anybody has learnt from the mistakes of the past. At least that has been my points, badly made as I am sure they have been.
Nukular Biskits
Had to go look up “chatauqua”.
Interesting!
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
What am I going to do with all these balloons?
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Anne Laurie has the best words.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Are they green?
Frankensteinbeck
@kalakal:
Yep. Big fish in a small pond. The lack of being able to hit back at a moment’s notice will sink him on a national stage. Right now that weakness is visible only to people looking for it. When he has to actually complete? He’s toast.
@Jeffro:
He’s a loud and proud bigoted sadist. He has name recognition. It’s very early and but only Trump, DeSantis, and maybe Haley are visible to wingnuts answering polls.
@Aussie Sheila:
Mormons are not the same as other Republicans. They are serious about their dignity. They are serious about smiling in public and pretending to be Leave It To Beaver families. Evangelicals are sour-faced, corrupt, mean-spirited assholes. They like Trump’s sleaze. They like his pettiness and stupidity.
It may help if you understand that Mormons punish each other for not looking good. Evangelical doctrine is that nothing they do matters. If they say Jesus hard enough, they are Forgiven, making them instantly superior beings.
Of course, Mormons are still stone-cold bigots who would never vote Democrat. It still makes a difference in who they pick to represent themselves.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
When I win the lottery, I’m paying for billboards in red areas that say “Jesus knows you’re lying. You are not forgiven.”
NotMax
@Manyakitty
Strange definition of worship.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
It won’t cause self-reflection, but criminy, will that piss them off. Wow.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Baud: I would like to contribute to your lottery ticket GoFundMe
rikyrah
With the lawsuits against Fox allowed to continue, they can cost Fox upwards of 4.3 Billion. I don’t give a shyt what kind of power the Murdoch Family has on that company, if you cost a company over 4 BILLION DOLLARS, someone has to be the patsy. Someone at Fox behind the scenes and on camera is gonna have to go.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: They could just read their Bible, Jesus fucking SAID that.
…I know, that trick never works.
Matt McIrvin
@Cthulhu:
This is the default mode of Russian propaganda too, since Soviet days. Birds of a feather.
It worked well against the US during the Cold War since the default US propaganda mode is, in fact, to pretend our shit doesn’t stink. But Trump adopted the Russian model.
Aussie Sheila
@rikyrah: The only thing that would truly punish the Murdoch’s would be for them to lose control of the company. Unfortunately the Board structure ensures that can never happen. It is a private company essentially. This is a national issue. In Australia, the UK and the US.
They are a family whose dedication to its own enrichment is bringing democracy to the brink in three English speaking democracies. I don’t know what can rescue 400 million people from their clutches.
evodevo
@Aussie Sheila: Worked for Fetterman
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Without addressing your comparison, I’d say Attica was more than a fuck-up. I would concede fhat he was for most of his career too liberal for the party, and that whenever they took the field over Rockefeller for a nominee, they did worse for the country.
Kay
Embarrassing how many “liberal”, Left and centrist pundits either went along with the woke panic or actively promoted it. I wonder if they’ll try to distance themselves now that they sound exactly like Larry Kudlow and Tucker Carson.
Kay
the latest nonsense that the anti woke ninnnies have come up with is that “wokeness” causes depression in teenage girls. I’m not kidding:
Anti woke panic and attributing every problem to “wokeness” isn’t just on the Right- there is an entire cottage industry of centrist and Left pundits who entirely buy in to woke panic and jam it into every situation. Freddie deBoer, Taibbi and Greenwald are woke panic promoters, and so are Andrew Sullivan, Bari Weiss, Matthew Yglesias and Jonathon Chait. The NYTimes and The Atlantic promoted this nonsense too. It’s not a disease of ideology. It’s a disease of cloistered, bitter, middle aged elite pundits with huge platforms who are upset that the United States isn’t exactly the same as when they, individually, were in college.
There go two miscreants
Not at all! I am one of those maniacs who read almost every comment, and I definitely enjoy your clear and forthright opinions.
frosty
@NotMax: Mac Mathias. I’d say Bill Scranton but I think Romney was active longer than he was, so not the last decent Republican.
Baud
@Kay:
Seems like there is a lot of overlap between woke panickers and people who opposed Hillary Clinton in 2016.
That tell me something.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m constantly boggled by how ignorant Trump is, given his education and other advantages. Cripes, you don’t even need those to have heard “sanctimonious” used and infer what it means.
Geminid
More grist (grifst?) for the DeSantis versus Yrump mill, from Politico:
There is nothing spectacular in the article, just a review of probable lines of attack including a claim that DeSantis was “an extraordinarily lenient prosecutor” while an Assistant U.S. Attorney. This refers to what appear to be fairly standard plea deals.
Trump also will try to characterize DeSantis as the candidate of the Republcan “Establishment,” which is at least partially true. Trump’s team is testing these various attacks on focus groups.
The reporter notes that Trump is privy to insider views of DeSantis from current campaign advisors who have worked with DeSantis, including Susie Wiles and Tony Fabrizio.
brantl
@Aussie Sheila: Romney is a noticeably less shitty member of an exceptionally shitty lot, a somewhat high end tall midget among scraping the shot end midgets, only notable for the contrast.
Betty Cracker
Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons. The feasibility of Marco Rubio’s presidential ambitions can be measured in the distance of the part in his hair from the top of his left ear, and sadly for him, that metric has long receded from its 2011 high water mark.
Kay
Bethany Mandel is one of the woke panic promoters on the Right- she makes a living at it. She wrote A BOOK on the existential threat of wokeness yet she cannot define it when asked. She can’t define it because the definition is “anything that makes me, personally (as an extremely conventional and somewhat bitter middle aged person), uncomfortable”
Wokeness defines THE 1990s (lol) as the Golden Age of Politics and Debate and Culture – a decade that (not coincidentally) is the decade all of these people came up in.
Ninnies. An entire clique of elite ninnies. And not just on the Right.https://twitter.com/jonathanchait
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Thanks, now I need brain bleach.
LiminalOwl
@Aussie Sheila: I hope you’re right. “Moderate” Repub governor Charlie Baker was far too popular with Massachusetts Democrats for my liking, throughout his tenure. Fortunately the GQP candidate “Raw” Diehl was too extreme for the majority in the most recent election.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Ah yes, the decade when they were still ranting about ‘woke’s predecessor, ‘PC.’
Geminid
@Kay: There does seem to be real generational aspect to this Wokophopia panic among the formerly liberal, currently “Centrists.” What they thought of as their world is now past, and they can’t (or won’t) adapt.
Baud
@Kay:
@lowtechcyclist:
@Geminid:
Ok, Boomer 2.0.
Kay
@Baud:
I think it’s absolutely hysterical that all these expensively educated professional essayists believe that the 1990s were the pinnacle of human experience.
Can’t they just sort of reminisce about their boring Glory Days like everyone else? They’re older than they were and youth culture has moved on from them. They have to let go. They can’t be the vanguard, the Big Thing, forever.
I have never seen a group of people age so poorly in public. It’s terrifying to me that some of them may be influential in public policy regarding the mental health of teenage girls. WHAT is their expertise in this? They read a poll?
Baud
@Kay:
Springsteen needs to update his song.
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
Not to mention, from the get-go he was using the Presidency as a shield against lawsuits and the possibility of prosecution. He needs that shield even more than ever now.
Kay
@Geminid:
Bethany Mandel had children and decided the world had gone to hell in a handbasket. This is a common experience for people entering middle age. It’s not new and using it to base your career on is insane, unless you’re Andy Rooney.
We now have a whole genre of pundits who are “didya ever NOTICE?”
Can’t have 50 Andy Rooneys folks! They need to come up with some other career gimmick – that ones taken.
Baud
@Kay:
It’s too bad young people don’t know who Andy Rooney is. The comparison is hilarious and spot on.
NotMax
@Kay
It was the end of history, don’tcha know. Time froze with pets.com.
//
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Because ‘being against bigotry’ is clearly a bad thing. They know what the word means. Conservatism has worked like this since Atwater.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Which reminds me, there’s a chain of Glory Days restaurants. Looks like a sports bar-type thing. Apparently they count on people completely misreading the song, the way Republicans used to think (still do, for all I know) that “Born in the U.S.A.” was a patriotic anthem.
NotMax
@Baud
Lewis Black was metaphorically passed the torch and trods the crusty curmudgeon beat. Quite successfully, one might add.
Anne Laurie
I’ve written posts about Bethany Mandel before; she’s the ‘point person’ for testing the latest terrible right-wing ideas before her bigger-megaphone comrades start using them. If they flop (she was responsible for the ‘If it means I can take my kids to the park, call me a grandma-killer’ tweet at the start of lockdowns in 2020), she can take a year or two off, because her husband is a high-dollar think tank official and she’s technically ‘a full-time, stay-at-home mommy’.
For the same reason, anyone who contradicts her wildly dishonest narratives (there was another gem, just a few months ago, about how NYC needed to ‘crack down on the homeless, whatever it took’ because she claimed her kids were frightened by some harmless dude talking to pigeons when she took them on a field trip from her gated NJ community) is being mean to a mother, which just goes to show all lie-berals hate kids, also the flag and probably apple pie.
My personal suspicion, cuz I’m a Cynic, is that BrieBrie’s ‘takedown’ has already been snipped & circulated by the right-wing wurlitzer as an example of how those nasty leftist colored ladies will attack decent God-fearing conservatives — it’ll probably be on Tucker Carlson’s show tonight, unless Biden does something more than usually positive that Little Prince Fishsticks needs to complain about instead.
Frankensteinbeck
@lowtechcyclist:
Not paying attention to what a song is actually about is common, from what I have seen. Conservatives are merely particularly bad about it. People seem to latch onto a lyric they like, and the rest can go hang.
EDIT – @Anne Laurie:
Sounds like Greenwald. Same sort of insulting straw man defense.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
“Lola is about a romance between boy and a girl.”
Kay
Imagine being part of a group so spoiled and cranky and brittle that having to attend a DEI session at work inspired a million bitter newspaper editorials about wokeness.
It’s about control. It’s about who decides what the norms and culture are. It can’t just be allowed to evolve, where extremes temper and we end up with a kind of generally accepted “common”. They MUST steer it. If they’re not steering it is by definition headed for the rocks.
They’re going to be clinging to the steering wheel with white knuckles for the next 20 years.
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
They’re skidmarks on the underpants of society.
//
Geminid
@frosty: I thought that Virginia Senator John Warner was a decent Republican. Warner served 5 terms, from 1979 to 2009. He was probably the most popular Virginia politician since at least the 1970s. I almost voted for him once, but in the end my tribal loyalty kept me on the righteous path.
Interestingly though, Warner came in second to the more conservative Mr. Obenshain in the 1978 Republican primary. Then Obenshain was killed in a plane crash, and the party put Warner on the ballot. After that, conservative Republicans grumbled a lot about Warner but could not successfully challenge him. Virginia’s primaries are open, and the state’s many Independents considered Warner the ideal Senator.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: IMO, young people aren’t the target audience for the Rooney comparison — it’s the neo-Rooneys, and they remember.
Kay
@Anne Laurie:
Exactly. Agreed. That’s the infuriating part. They are supposedly yearning for open debate yet every time one of them says something dumb (so daily) or writes the 50 thousandth “indictment of wokeness” they whine and stamp their feet because the people who respond them on the internet are mean.
There go two miscreants
@Baud: No Kink shaming, please!
RAM
I’ve thought from the beginning that DeSantis isn’t ready for prime time politics. He’s not stupid, but he is ignorant, humorless, prickly, and quick to anger with no discernible personality. He finds it extremely difficult to function outside of his friendly Florida bubble. On the other hand, those seem to be characteristics the national media swoons over–“Please sir! May I have another!” So we’ll see…
Baud
@There go two miscreants:
I see what you did there.
Kay
I was in the drive thru at McDonalds yesterday and a panhandler approached me for money. I gave him a dollar and then he asked for a Tic Tac – so he wants fresh breath, okay, I gave him the whole package. Then ANOTHER panhandler came up to my window and I said “no, I just gave a dollar to him I can’t give a dollar to everyone” – REALLY whiny and exaggerating, right, no one said I had to give a dollar to everyone – he said “blah blah blah” and walked away. I Iol’ed. Good answer :)
delphinium
@Kay: This is so awesome and completely, 100% true. Grow the fuck up indeed.
NotMax
Baud
Could be an amusing game.
Copacabana is a loving reminiscence of a nightclub.
American Pie is a dirge about the demise of tabletop jukeboxes in diners.
//
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: Cause he’s as mean as TFG, but not batshit crazy. Just mean & boy do they like that!
Kay
@delphinium:
I think the centrist and Left anti woke crusaders should be asked whether or not they agree with anti woke crusaders on the Right that there are too many women and/or minorities in power now.
Because we all know that’s what Righties mean by “woke”. Is that what the centrists and Leftists believe too? Do they believe that letting women and minorities in (to businesses, to careers, to institutions) amounts to a lowering of standards? Because that to me is the commonality. If if it isn’t they should have to explain in some coherent, specific way what they are objecting to.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
They agree that women and/or minorities are getting too much respect and white men should be able to abuse them without pushback. Close enough, and intertwined.
I think ‘left and centrist’ is a description that makes it sound like these people are more liberal than they ever were. The ‘left’ examples are people who always wanted women/minorities to shut up and let white men fight a class war against other white men.
Frankensteinbeck
@Paul in KY:
Actually, I think DeSantis is meaner, and that that’s important. Trump was a racist bully who liked hurting the weak and applauded others for doing it. DeSantis is a sadist, constantly trying to top himself by coming up with more and more cruel stunts. It’s hard to know how much of that is cynical and how much comes from DeSantis being a cruel asshole already. It’s a different tone, though, and will play differently to many subgroups.
trnc
I’m not actually sure what they mean by woke because they’re never asked to define it, which means they can get away with yet another lazy-ass catchphrase that is the boogeyman for every current right wing grievance. I’d really love for the media to start pressing them on it.
Frankensteinbeck
@trnc:
DeSantis’s lawyers were asked to define it in court. They said it meant ‘claiming that systematic racism exists* in America’. They know what it means. They use it consistently. They don’t say the ‘wokeness’ that supposedly killed SVB is some money handling practice, they specifically point to DEI training.
*I can’t remember if they included ‘or ever existed.’
trnc
Ukraine/Crimea/Obama question on why he didn’t provide offensive weapons after the Crimea invasion – isn’t it because the Ukraine govt was so unstable and corrupt that he wasn’t sure how they would be used or if they would be sold on the black market? Wasn’t the Ukraine govt also somewhat more Russia friendly, or am I conflating them with Lukashenko in Belarus?
I’m asking because the right wing claim that Obama should have nipped it in the bud at the time seems to be popping up a lot again.
trnc
@Frankensteinbeck:
Thanks, but as we know, right wing pols aren’t beholden to any particular thing said in court, especially as it relates to other politicians. Some have used it when referring to LGBTQ issues, which clearly have nothing to do with racism. And, if the DeSantis admin lawyers did include “ever existed” in their definition in court, that’s preposterous. I doubt many people would side with that definition.
louc
This proposed law is yet the next ugly authoritarian step in Florida. This sounds like the Stasi in East Germany.
Paul in KY
@Baud: ‘Dear God’ is a soulful prayer to the allmighty.
Paul in KY
@Kay: That’s what I do in Chicago. Have a few bucks for the panhandlers and it is 1st come 1st served. Once the supply is extinguished, then no more bucks for you.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: I think you are correct. Man, even meaner than Trump is sick!
Frankensteinbeck
@trnc:
Correct. The meaning of woke is ‘anti-bigotry’. But by saying systemic racism in court, they make it clear that, yeah, they know.
trnc
@Frankensteinbeck:
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I know they know (at least, some of them). Asking them isn’t meant to find out if they know – it’s meant to demonstrate they don’t have a good answer.
rikyrah
@Manyakitty:
Or that he set up Social Security to EXCLUDE the professions that most Negroes were in (giving into Southern Democrats to get the bill passed)…and, that exclusion followed that generation(s) of Black folks to this day. …all those YEARS they were unable to put into Social Security…which meant that they had a lower check when they did begin to collect.
rikyrah
@Kay:
a bunch of Whyte, mediocre men
rikyrah
tell it, Kay.
Nail them