Mainstream media outlets were caught off guard by Donald Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016, and one of the most annoying measures they took to avoid getting blindsided in the future was to hire Trump voter-whisperers as analysts and columnists. That and the damned diner stories!
Arguably, recalibrating coverage made sense. But staging Cletus safaris and importing red state apologists to wag their fingers at readers who are appalled by Trump and his voters was the wrong response because it didn’t add anything of value to the conversation.
WaPo’s Gary Abernathy is a prime example of the genre. He has spent the past five years defending Trump voters as salt of the earth types who embraced Trump as a reaction to elite disdain. He confidently predicted they’d reject Trump after he tried to overthrow the government and install himself as dictator. Then he made excuses for them when they didn’t.
For those of us who live among Trump die-hards and/or count Trumpists among our loved ones, the question posed in the title of Abernathy’s column today (gift link) is a valid one: “On Trump, no one is changing their mind. So what do we do now?”
Instead of engaging his own question honestly, Abernathy gets knotted up in special pleading about Smith’s January 6 indictment, i.e., Trump is innocent until proven guilty. That’s fine as far as it goes, but we all witnessed — and are victims of — the crimes alleged, and Trump is still lying about the 2020 election and inciting sporadic violence in the run-up to 2024.
Moreover, Abernathy aims a squid cloud of butt-hurt at Never-Trump Repub Tom Nichols, who actually did offer an answer to the titular question, for the recommendation Nichols made to address the real and pressing problem of the Trump cult:
Nichols declared that “every American citizen who cares about the Constitution should affirm, without hesitation, that any form of association with Trump is reprehensible, that each of us will draw moral conclusions about anyone who continues to support him, and that these conclusions will guide both our political and personal choices.”
Let me understand: I’m supposed to jeopardize my relationship with my parents (on the eve of their 70th wedding anniversary no less) along with other treasured family members and lifelong friends by asserting a “moral conclusion” that their support for Trump makes them unworthy of further association? Not in this lifetime.
Abernathy is an ass whose babbling isn’t particularly worth discussing except possibly as an example of a larger problem, i.e., the party’s unwillingness to come to grips with reality. Among Repubs, there’s the 30% to 40% who are still in the cult, and there’s an additional plurality, of similar or larger size, who claim to be ready to move on but are unwilling to do the work that moving on demands.
Nichols isn’t denouncing anyone who refuses to cut all ties with Trump supporters. He’s saying we’ve got to stop indulging their delusions to move forward and save our democracy. He’s right, and if the cultists demand deference to their delusions as the price of maintaining a relationship, that’s on them.
Fuck their feelings.
Open thread.
Baud
White Republicans desperately want to unify white people under the Republican banner.
Maxim
Fuck their feelings all the way to fuckville.
dmsilev
Narrator: He doesn’t understand.
Baud
Two things
Aimai
At the very least the wapo should not permit him to wrote columns on the subject when he is obviously fatally compromised and lacks objectivity. They fired a woman journalists because she had been sexually assaulted so wasn’t objective enough for them!
pacem appellant
Trumpism cost my parents their relationship with their children and grandchildren. From this end, no regrets, from theirs, not but.
So to answer Abernathy’s inane question: Yes, in this lifetime. Yes, now. Or as @Baud notes, maybe wait til after the party?
RaflW
Yes, Gary, you are supposed to make moral decisions. Even the hard ones.
Abernathy and his ilk make it clear, there never was a moral center to conservatism. It was all bluster in service to prudish rule-making and reactionary dislike of change.
oatler
You’d think ABC would play down the Christie coverage, given his past as a regular panelist there, but there they are, giving him as much air as any other finger-wagging GOP Lites.
Lyrebird
More power to ya Betty C!
Abernathy has great skills for voice acting an anxious and unrealistic tween, but that ain’t journalism.
And he can take that “elite disdain” sht and snort it up his nose. The story only holds up for those who don’t believe non-white people are people. Well, actually, there is some truth to it, in that there are plenty of Gingriches and others who disdain the Republican base but are happy to rile it up!
MattF
WaPo article describing how politicians who knew DeSantis in Florida expected him to flame out (gift link):
Should note that, for Florida Republicans, not supporting DeSantis means supporting Trump.
West of the Rockies
Well now, Ms Cracker, Abernathy did offer the incisive point that Trump had been rather “surly” for four years. That explains why some voters don’t like him.
Surly.
Snarki, child of Loki
JD Vance did plenty of “elite distain” stuff. But that was written down, and those salty-dirt types don’t hold with readin’.
RaflW
If Abernathy wants to talk about “elite disdain”, I have two topics for him:
1. Clarence Thomas has received northwards of $500,000 of vacation gifts plus assistance buying a quarter-million dollar land yacht. He is utterly disdainful of the reporting requirements all federal judges but scotus are required to disclose. Should ordinary Americans be angry about this?
2. Voters have now, at least five times since the fall of Roe, made it abundantly clear that they are unhappy with the post-Roe legal-medical landscape. And yet Republicans, who in polling have the minority view by about a 2:1 margin, keep placing ballot measures and passing state legislation to further control women’s reproductive care. Should ordinary Americans be angry about this elite effort to circumvent the popular will?
Jeffro
There are straw man arguments, and then there are STRAW. MAN. arguments. This is the latter.
Hey Gary, how about if you just quit using your ‘platform’ to excuse trump supporters’ behavior, lie about trump opponents’ behavior, and make false equivalencies every two weeks? Would that be ok?
No one’s asking you to drive your fucking car through your parents’ bay window screaming “DARK BRANNNNNNNNDON!”
Lyrebird
@Aimai: Wish we could put you in charge of a big paper instead and have Betty and other writers be on your front page!
At least we have BJ!
UncleEbeneezer
There are some very online, very loud people on Twitter who are extremely judgmental of anyone who still associates with Trump-supporting friends/family but they are 1.) hypocrites because I guarantee every damn one of them has some LGBTQ-phobic family member who they still manage to make nice with at holidays and 2.) not a very big group and don’t really speak for most people. I think most reasonable people understand that none of us can completely silo ourselves off or cut off any Republican in our lives, it’s just not practical. It’s not a valid to expect everyone to do that and then judge them for not doing it. What IS VALID though, is to expect us all to stop defending these Republicans and making excuses for them. That seems to be the thing that really grates on people in marginalized communities. Not the fact that we have Republican family members, but when we do our own, personal Diner Stories to try and explain away their Racism/Misogyny/Xenophobia etc. and why they vote GOP.
WereBear
Do I detect this guy saying “what about me” over and over again essentially?
Baud
@Jeffro:
Although I would give such a video a like or an upvote.
SiubhanDuinne
@Aimai:
It’s very nice to see your nym! Hope your life is at a point where you can comment more often.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
So you hope she has no life?
j/k. I’m a big aimai fan and hope she is around more often.
UncleEbeneezer
This Barbie sequel sounds awesome!!
Jeffro
@Baud:
He claims to have been finished, done, etc with trump after Jan 6th. Now his mission is the same as Hugh Hewitt and so many other GOP flacks:
say whatever is neededlie about everything to keep the party from completely disintegrating.Princess
Who will think of the parents?
On the eve of their 70th anniversary, no less.
RaflW
@Jeffro: TBF, Tom Nichols is asking Abernathy to try acting like a responsible adult and attempt to have a conversation whit his MAGA parents about the total inappropriateness of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate.
And Gary’s response is 1000 words that boil down to “I don’t wanna and you can’t make me!”
Old School
Abernathy:
Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, The Senate Intelligence Committee (headed by Marco Rubio) report.
So politicized.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Jeffro: they have a severe problem: the GOP has tied itself to the anchor that is Trump. How can they avoid drowning?
Baud
@Jeffro:
Oh jeez. I wonder what event will precipitate his reluctant and sorrowful decision to support Trump in the general election next year.
Suzanne
@Maxim:
Excuse me. I think it’s Fuckistan.
Jeffro
“Mom, Dad…I’m sorry to interrupt this outstanding 70th anniversary celebration, but there’s something I’ve just got to get off my chest…it’s about you too, Uncle Clem…you too, Aunt Rita…I have reached a ‘moral conclusion’ about you all, due to your continued support for Donald Trump.”
I wonder if Gary is aware that this scenario has occurred in exactly ONE person’s imagination – his?
Also is it just me, or does it positively reek of straw in here? Thanks a lot, Gary.
Baud
@Maxim:
@Suzanne:
Also acceptable are Fuck City, the Commonwealth of Fuck, and Canada.
RaflW
Several of my family members have tended Republican, not least of them my brother and his wife. In an ideal world, they’d still vote “R” about 60% of the time. I have a couple cousins who I think would be similar, and my uncle, who passed about 4 years ago was (nearly) a lifelong Republican.
But all of them, all of this batch that I’m thinking of at least, detest Trump & Trumpism (and the cousins and uncle are/were in the KS suburbs of Kansas City and also seem to revile Brownback and Kobach).
It’s a more buried notion in Abernathy’s piece, but he operates from the offensive notion that somehow Republicans just personally, in their makeup, cannot step away from Trump. It’s nonsense! Many have.
Just not enough so far to impact the primary process (in part because a lot of folks like my relatives are so frustrated that they’ve become independents, so they have lost that ‘steering’ power the party probably needs to maybe, just maybe course-correct. So the GOP must be handed frequent and harsh general election drubbings).
Hoodie
It’s likely that the conclusion Abernathy should reach about his parents is that they have reverted to toddlerhood and their political opinions should be ignored.
Kay
Good victory lap on Issue 1:
Brent Larkin was a Plain Dealer editor until he retired in ’09. Shame. We could use him.
MattF
@Jeffro: One might note that Jen Rubin was part of the RW phalanx hired to balance out leftists on the editorial pages. So it is, in fact, possible to do the right thing. Abernathy chooses not to.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: True. I’ve run into a couple of people like that, always online. Really, considering the scale of the damage Trump has and still is causing, I’m surprised there aren’t more folks demanding that people denounce their own parents, in-laws, siblings, etc. I’m pleasantly surprised!
Sister Golden Bear
@dmsilev:
Obligatory Upton Sinclair quote: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
p.a.
I should have cut my relationships with my conservaturd relatives after seeing their reactions to Obama’s first election*. Shame on me for waiting until their tRumplovefest.
* actually should have told them to fuck off after 2000’s “get over it” election.
When people show you who they are (by cheering outsider types getting a boot to the face) believe them.
narya
@Suzanne: @Baud: Also, Findoutville.
trollhattan
@MattF: How does Rick Scott fit into the Florida equation? He’s as weird and repellent as DeSantis–albeit the one with a hinged jaw–and can’t not get elected by Floridians.
IDK if he has presidential ambitions but do think his chances there would be as bad as DeSantis’.
Delk
I got rid of 90% of acquaintances before Obama’s second term started.
eta republican acquaintances
MomSense
Have any of the jackals listened to the podcast The Necessary Conversation? I highly recommend it. The host is a son whose parents are trumpers. He and his sister have a conversation with their parents that is – I DON’T HAVE WORDS FOR HOW FUCKED UP it can be. At the end of every show they always tell each other they love each other. It is fascinating horrifying interesting. I don’t think I could navigate their relationship. I have to hand it to them for trying to keep the conversation going. One of the issues that stands out for me is just how destructive Fox and the entire right wing newsertainment industry has been in our politics. The parents are living in a completely different world because of the information they ingest.
At some point we need to seriously consider what should be done about unscrupulous media outlets.
Tony G
I have a few Trumpies (and gun-nuts) in my extended family. People who I normally see once or twice a year (Christmas Eve and weddings and funerals). We coexist by just not talking about politics. Kids, football, some other bland topic. I know that I can never change their minds, and vice versa.
Jerzy Russian
@Suzanne: I think Fucksville is the capitol city of Fuckistan.
Tom Q
Two things about this:
1) I don’t think the fact that, as Betty mentions, DC pundits were so surprised by the 2016 outcome, can be divorced from the tenacity with which they cling to must-understand-Trump-supporters. Nate Silver (before he went COVID-bonkers) noted long ago ago that when a political result surprises the so-savvy crowd, they assume it must be of seismic significance. The AOC primary victory was similarly overstated, as if a wave of Bernie-ites were going to sweep to wins over standard-issue Dems. Narrator: that didn’t happen.
Trump’s 2016 victory was legitimate but wildly fluky, based on the maldistribution of the Electoral College, Comey’s 11th hour grenade, the belief of so many that Hillary had it in the bag, so a vote for Stein or Johnson wasn’t hazardous. I’ve always believed that, had people known Trump might actually be elected, he wouldn’t have been — enough of those 3rd party folk would have switched to eke by in the EC.
2) I know, Godwin’s Law and all, but isn’t it pretty obvious you can push Abernathy’s “it’s my parents’ anniversary” pleading into “Suppose they were supporting Hitler?” No one’s saying you have to send your parents to Coventry, but neither should you tolerate them offering approval of these horrible things. (And, right, no death camps to date, but overthrowing democracy would, just a few years back, have been seen as just as much an existentially vile position.)
As that memorable Twitter thread a few weeks back said, some of the worst enablers these days are those who insist getting along is the paramount virtue, regardless of what it is we’re getting along with. I think Nichols is right: people — and the press in particular — have been far too lenient about confronting the Trump lies and actions. It astonishes me that someone would keep arguing our primary goal should be to keep the peace with that camp. Chamberlain/Munich come to mind, which is not generally seen as proud analogy.
Ken
@Baud: I’ll guess the Maui wildfires, which are Biden’s Katrina.
RaflW
@Kay: Conservatives these days are a mix of people who, despite repeated evidence, cannot fathom that their policies are unpopular (epistemic closure folks who just have no sense of popular opinion), and people who know their policies & goals are unpopular and seek to find end-arounds to subvert democracy.
Add in the toxic lies that any loss must be ‘voting irregularities’ rather than the unvarnished truth of their poor policies and candidates, and the whole thing becomes untenable.
The center is not holding. I have certainly not lost hope, but the risk of slipping into chaos is real.
Almost Retired
I’ve completely cut out all Trump supporters and vaccine conspiracy theorists from my life. Trump support and vaccine denial are not examples of differences of opinion that should be respected – these positions are evidence of deep-seated personality disorders. I don’t need to see it on my Facebook feed, and I no longer want to politely change the subject if a Trump supporter starts spewing nonsense.
Granted, I live in Los Angeles where Trumpkins are thin on the ground, so this wasn’t a huge sacrifice. And it saved me about $1,000 in travel costs since I skipped my High School reunion in my Trumpy home town in Steve King’s old district.
Fuck ’em (although most of the ones that I knew were incels, so no one apparently was).
John S.
Sorry, but every person I know who is a Trump humper is either:
A) Sociopathic
B) Racist
C) Narcissistic
D) Scared/Angry
E) All of the above
In my family, that includes my brother who is a conspiracy nut and is angry about everything, and my sister-in-law who only cares about money.
Outside of that, I do not have to deal with any other members of the cult in my daily personal life. I let go of any friends or acquaintances long ago who failed the basic decency test.
JustRuss
Jeezus. I have Trumpy relatives. They know how I feel. Mostly, we just don’t talk politics. When they try to, I refuse to engage and steer the conversation somewhere else. It’s not that hard, and only a little uncomfortable. Sack up, Abernathy.
p.a.
@MomSense: Murdoch got American citizenship just so he could get around laws prohibiting “excessive” foreign ownership of American media. I don’t know how “excessive” was defined or if those laws are still extant.
Betty Cracker
@Tom Q: Great points, and the first may be at least tangentially related to the reason an obsession with “wokeness” is all the rage even at leftish outlets: If it affects them personally, it must have world-historic import!
@MomSense: I have never heard of that podcast but have added it to my queue because the struggle is real. Thanks for the tip!
MattF
@Ken: People, somehow, forget that Biden is a good politician— so finding things that he can be blamed for won’t be easy. Note, for example, the exit from Afghanistan. It was rushed and it was a mess but Biden understood that it had to be done ASAP, if not faster. And so it was.
Villago Delenda Est
What do we do now? We purge the media of choads like Abernathy, that’s what we do.
Kay
@RaflW:
Something has to flip soon in Ohio or it’s a goner as a viable, growing state. It’s not just the extreme Right wing views of the lawmakers – it’s the corruption. Ohio had the two largest scandals in state history in the last ten years. Both of them involved elected Republicans, Republican leadership and Republican donors. They’re flamboyantly corrupt- there’s not even an attempt to hide it. We’ve dropped 11 places in national rankings of public education since the GOP got a lock on the state.
CaseyL
I am very thankful not to have any Trumpies, or even GOPers, among the members of my family I still talk to. (I mean, even before Trump: there’s whole raft of cousins I lost touch with when I moved out West umpetty years ago.)
There are a couple of friends who I dropped who weren’t “out” Trumpies, but who agreed with whatever MAGAs said, so: bye bye! They were good friends, too.
pacem appellant
@John S.: I have a couple of (E)s in my life. Or did. I hope the PragerU videos are better than a real relationship because that’s their cold comfort now.
Rob in CT
“…that each of us will draw moral conclusions about anyone who continues to support him…”
Worth pointing out that this is not a demand that you must cut every Trumper/Trumpette out of your life.
As an example, my mother is a Trumpette and she is well aware what I think about that
[“you and millions of other Americans disgraced themselves and the Republic on election day”]
but I have not cut her out of my life.
You can remain family and refuse to coddle.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: I’m lucky that I don’t have any over Trumpers in my family, but I do have several NeverTrump Republicans and Libertarian Gary Johnson-voter idiots. Fortunately, I was never close to any of them so it’s been easy for me. But most people I know have Trumpers in their immediate family and I feel for y’all, cause that must be hard.
FelonyGovt
Or that results they don’t like are the result of “outside money” or “liberal billionaires” or other ooga-booga boogiemen.
BeautifulPlumage
I did the “dead to me now” in 2016 when sis & fam supported the PAB. Still civil when necessary but not going out of my way to interact with them.
Kay
I haven’t shunned any Trumpsters. For one thing, they’re in mixed groups so I’d also have to stop seeing a lot of other people who haven’t shunned them and for another I don’t think your shunning makes a bit of difference to the most extreme – they hate you anyway.
It hasn’t sorted itself out so neatly in my life, where I can just slice out single Trumpsters.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
The basic problem is that they can’t give up on Trump without the party disintegrating. There are too many people in the party who are part of the Trump cult. If the non-cultists start treating being in the cult as a make or break issue for whether they’re worth dealing with, it will break the party. So die-hard Republicans, even ones who would be perfectly happy to see Trump disappear, will see giving up on Trumpists as a command to break the party.
That’s a big ask. It’s a reasonable ask, mind you, but it’s a big ask. The Republicans who recognize that Trump is a problem need to recognize that continuing to support the party is making the problem worse. If the party has degenerated into a personality cult, it is already broken. There’s no way to repair the party except through recognizing that it is broken and trying to fix its problems. Hiding the problems and trying to fix them behind the scenes will not work; they’ll just let the problems fester.
Barbara
@Baud: Turn the question around. What makes him think that his parents are willing to jeopardize their relationship with him over their divergent political views? He’s a coward who doesn’t want to burden himself over his parents’ awfulness. He prefers to pretend that it’s just one of those things.
hitchhiker
What would it look like to treat your parents like adults instead of toddlers who must be humored to prevent them from melting down?
Keeping the peace with toddlers (currently have 3 grandkids in that stage) requires a fair amount of managing expectations and willingness to pick your battles. (No, you can’t run in the parking lot, but you can ride in this special yellow cart that has a steering wheel, and you can pick the fruit today.)
Mom, Dad, you can’t ask me to pretend that this monster is a hero, or even a regular politician, because that kind of pretending has turned out to be dangerous for the country. He’s a bad person, and it’s troubling that you can’t see that. You’re welcome to your opinions, but if you choose to demand that I respect them, you’re going to be disappointed.
rikyrah
And, thus is the problem.
Our Kay made this point in early 2017
Their vote for Dolt45 showed THEIR lack of character.
Nothing has ever been said that is more clear.
THEIR.LACK.OF.CHARACTER.
rikyrah
@Maxim:
CLAP CLAP CLAP
BeautifulPlumage
OT: Newly uncovered fuckery in Texas (nitter link)
Brad Parscale & a bunch of rich RWNJs at it again. I don’t get why Paxton is so precious to them.
sdhays
@oatler: The last poll I saw showed Christie polling the same as DeSantis.
Not really a response to what you said, it just makes me happy how humiliating that must be for DeSantis.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Tom Q: Great post, but you must have missed Suzanne’s explanation a few days ago that “seismic significance” is a meaningless term because seismic forces are no stronger or weaker than any other forces. When the force of that explanation hit me, it rocked my world: i.e., it had a seismic impact on me. //
Betty Cracker
@MattF: I was surprised Joe Gruters openly criticized DeSantis like that. I figured he’d insist on anonymity like most of the slimy establishment Repub statehouse pols. I fervently hope DeSantis is heading toward such an embarrassing defeat that it not only knocks him out of contention in 2024 but beyond that. If so, when the post-mortems come in, it may turn out that firing and bad-mouthing Susie Wiles set him down that path. He got ahead of himself. One of the few true things Trump says is that he “made” DeSantis.
Josie
I am grateful to all of you who describe your detente with relatives. The other grandmother and I are opposites politically but get along beautifully in every other way. We pretty much raised our children the same way and work together quite easily as nannies to our two granddaughters. I have at times felt guilty about not trying to convince her to change, but I realize it would be wasted effort. I’m sure our children are happy that we avoid the subject of politics.
sdhays
@BeautifulPlumage: Time to check the basements of all the pizza restaurants Tim Dunn and his son own…
Baud
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride:
Your comment has resulted in a quantum leap in my understanding. Thank you.
Brachiator
Reposted from an earlier thread.
Thanks for the link. It is crazy that Abernathy is essentially saying that the Indictments are nothing more than political persecution because some people are upset that Trump defeated Hilary in 2016. This is not only insulting, it is practically insane.
Throughout the op-ed piece he refuses to judge Trump’s actions and reduces everything to whether or not people like Trump.
This is the contemporary equivalent of saying that Nixon must be pardoned so that the nation can heal.
Trump should be indicted and prosecuted. He should be punished if found guilty.
And Trump is the source of much of our national turmoil, not partisan anger.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer:
I have cut out anyone and everyone in my life who is a GOPer unless they are Never Trumpers. And those Never Trumpers are, at this point, no longer GOPers. They have all gone Indy or Dem.
I’ve lost friends, pissed off co-workers and refuse to speak to some distant relatives. I regret none of it. Fuck them and fuck this guy.
Jackie
@Baud: TIFG’s the Repug nominee – so has no other choice because he himself is a Repug?
Westyny
@Baud:
@Maxim:
@Suzanne:
Both the Village and Hamlet of Fuck in Fuck County ask not to be overlooked.
sdhays
@Kay: Even Kentucky has figured out it’s best not to let Republicans into the governor’s office. Hopefully Ohio figures this out too.
Suzanne
@Jerzy Russian:
I drove through the thriving metropolis of Bucksnort, Tennessee, one time.
Maybe there’s a Fucksnort, too.
Brachiator
That reminds me. A former coworker hates Trump with the fury of a million supernovas. Her husband is practically walking MAGA. And yet somehow they manage to respect each other and also raise a loving family.
I don’t know how they do it and don’t pry too much.
Roger Moore
@Almost Retired:
I don’t think it’s 100% a personality disorder. I think a lot of the people in these groups are suffering even more from being surrounded by misinformation. They’ve wound up in an environment where they’re surrounded by lies, and among those lies are commands to reject any information from outside their closed environment. It’s the same way abusers and cults will try to close off their victims from outside support, except now that closed group is something like 30-40% of the country. It’s a lot easier to get caught in the trap when there are several TV networks devoted to spreading the lies, and large swaths of the country where the vast majority of the people around you are either fellow believers or cowed into silence by those fellow believers.
Tom Q
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: Actually, as I was writing, some part of me was saying “Did I just read something about this being a misnomer?”, but I was on a roll and didn’t stop to correct. Perhaps “cataclysmic” would be the appropriate substitute?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Tony G: That’s how I am with some of my neighbors.
Tom Q
@Brachiator: I never understood those mixed marriages (almost always Dem wife/GOPer husband), even in the less incendiary Clinton vs. HW Bush days. My late wife was as devoted a Dem as I, and I can’t imagine living through things like 2000 or 2016 with someone on the other side.
Westyny
Abernathy (and Brooks, for that matter) should have the moral courage to STFU. Without a platform and therefore a job, he can move back in with his parents.
MomSense
DeSantis said that on day one he would slit the throats of deep state people which on earth 1 I think actually means government workers. It’s a good thing that DeSantis is not catching on with Republican voters, but why hasn’t he been deemed unworthy of office by every journalist/broadcaster on every news outlet. Why is this not widely and loudly condemned?
BellyCat
This. A good friend, a salt of the earth guy whom I previously considered to be very bright, has fallen down the right wing rabbit hole. I asked him whether he thought we could find a news report in which we agreed on the facts reported. He said no. And he feels that Fox (where he started) is no longer trustworthy because it’s become “too liberal”.
His info gathering universe is spread across the globe, composed of countless forums hatching and echoing absurdities.
The only possible hope is the creation of a bipartisan kind of snopes organization that reviews and rates the veracity of stories put forth?
gvg
I wonder if this journalist is actually afraid people will be cutting HIM out of their lives, and thats why he doesn’t want this idea to take hold?
gvg
@BellyCat: Snopes is not partisan. Reality is because republicans have chosen nonreality.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
My mother who is 89 and three of my siblings are Trumpers. The other three siblings despise TFG as much as I do. My mom, one brother, and one sister support him as evangelicals. The other sister doesn’t really believe in God so her support is greed (anti-tax and anti-vax upper middle class) and racism. Which is ironic because both those sisters are my half sisters (different father) and they have African American and Native American blood. The religious sister is dimmer than a black hole and believes everything her preacher tells her and my mother gets more religious as she approaches death. I avoid talking politics and religion with them at all costs. However, they know EXACTLY where I stand and I brook no nonsense in our conversations. They know if they persist with pushing their BS too hard I will stop talking to them entirely. I stopped talking to the greedy racist sister for at least a year as a result of her online obnoxious support of TFG. We are back to talking now but it’s a detente at best.
cain
@Betty Cracker: DeSantis has made enemies – he’s bullyd them into doing shit they probably were not popular and because DeSantis is now weak tea – he’s going to get backstabbed as his numbers continue to fall.
His relationship with the Florida legislature is also going to get affected. Basically, I think he’s a dead duck next election cycle and is likely up for a primary challenge by a Trump aligned candidate.
ETA – he has 3 years in his current term – it’s not going to look good. I expect a string of defeats on a number of things.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Thinking about people who still vote R.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wife’s sister is a conspiracy nut. Her family was celebrating their mom’s bday yesterday which they have done for the last years 5 years after cancer got her. They go to the cemetery and then lunch. Apparently my SIL started off with a nice prayer but then devolved into asking for the Apocalypse to begin which enraged my wife and most of the other relatives.
Maxim
@Suzanne: Fuckville is the capital of Fuckistan.
Jess
@RaflW:
Love this! You beautifully summed up the thoughts roiling around in my head.
Roger Moore
@cain:
I think DeSantis is termed out in 2026, so this isn’t really an issue. That’s precisely why he made a push for 2024. If he were allowed to run again, he could try to get reelected in 2026 and then make a presidential push in 2028, by which point Trump will either be a two time loser or termed out of the Presidency.
Westyny
@Baud: Both the Village and Hamlet of Fuck, in Fuck County, ask not to be overlooked.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Surprised nobody went for Fuckytown.
Roger Moore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I think there are a fair number of Republicans who like a large swath of Democratic policy except the part where they treat minorities like equals. That’s their biggest single issue, and they’ll never vote Democratic because of it. They will still happily vote in favor of specific liberal issues when they can vote for them in isolation.
Cameron
One of my closest friends resides in Squirrel Hill (the mental and metaphorical one, not the place outside Pittsburgh), but he was already gone down the road before Trump. In fact, I think his current political infatuation is with RFK JR or KFC TLDR or whoever the fuck that guy is. But Richard and I don’t talk politics or vaccines or…well, a whole lot of shit, actually, but it’s OK.
cain
@Roger Moore:
At this point – I don’t see much of a political future for him unless he can use the next 3 years to accomplish something where running for president would work. Otherwise, I suspect he’ll run for Senate.
Soprano2
No, I think they completely understand the difference. They know they are slowly becoming outnumbered, so they’re using their power to try to institute authoritarian rule by conservatives. They want to do the same thing here in MO, but it got derailed again this year by other issues. Now, if they’re smart (ha!ha! they’re Republicans in a gerrymandered state) they’ll reconsider the whole thing.
cmorenc
Abernathy’s column starts out with some of the most pejorative “both sider” adjectives ever written by someone purporting to be a Trump critic rather than admirer:
I half expected the word “woke” to be in there too, in critiquing those against Trump. But OTOH, he did cite David Brooks’ brain-dead column about “when will we stop behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable”…
scav
“Well, Daddy and Mommy just happen to keep a small child in a locked cage in the basement to do their laundry, cook their meals, and, well, be available at night, but do you really expect me not to go to Thanksgiving dinner?”
“(I mean, aren’t they teaching lifelong skills valuable in the modern marketplace as well as providing shelter?)”
cain
@Maxim: who is at war with Fucklandia whose capital foundoutville
Manyakitty
@sdhays: maybe if we can find a decent candidate! The Ohio Democrats have put up lame candidates (except for Nan Whaley) repeatedly.
DougL
@Suzanne: re: Bucksnort. Right off I-40 bw Nashville and Memphis. Made that drive many times. Always laugh and try to imagine the town founders getting together and coming up with that as the consensus choice. The mind boggles at what the alternatives must have been.
Steeplejack
@MattF:
And the Afghanistan withdrawal was done on a deadline that had been blocked in by, oh, yeah—Donald Trump.
Jess
@Almost Retired: I have some (former?) friends in California who are New Age anti-vaxxers, as well as hard-left friends who despise Biden. Not as evil as Trump supporters, but just as deluded, IMHO. I haven’t cut them off, but have stepped waaaay back.
Maxim
@cain: I would think that Fuckistan and Fucklandia would be allies, at permanent war with MAGAland.
Old Man Shadow
I didn’t cut my mom and dad out for voting for Trump. I just lost a lot of respect for them.
Then COVID happened and they cut me out of their lives because they wouldn’t stay home, wear masks, or get a vaccine. So I didn’t want my immuno-compromised wife and my kids around them during that time. I told them over and over again that I wanted to see them, their grandkids wanted to see them, all they had to do was mask up and limit contact at first and then later get the bloody shot. But they wouldn’t. Mom tried to guilt me a few times over it, but it was her choice.
Then Dad’s cancer got worse and he was hospitalized. So I visited him at the hospital. Then I visited him during home hospice. By this time, the kids had their vaccines too. Didn’t seem to matter anymore. Now I visit dad at his grave. Fuck cancer.
Feelings are complicated. Mom and Dad taught me about ethics. Dad taught me about work and sacrifice for your loved ones. Mom taught me about being present for your loved ones and faith. Then they seemed to chuck all that out the window for… That… Man….
I see Mom now because Dad’s decline taught me that time is short. I still deal with resentment about the lost year and half when Dad was himself, but my folks wouldn’t do the simplest things to help ensure my family’s safety.
All of this is to say that I really don’t need to “understand” the Trump voter. I know them. I know that it’s mostly tribalism that motivates a lot of them. I know that it’s white supremacy that motivates many of them (like a cousin I have.) And I know for many people, it’s a choice. It’s a choice to follow their tribe even though it betrays all of its stated values. It’s a choice to be a fool and “just ask questions”. It’s a choice to be an edgy troll. It’s a choice to put politics over family and over country. It’s a choice to keep hating Those people and stay angry at Those people because you’ve let hate and anger define you for so long you can’t imagine letting go of it. It’s a choice because maybe you don’t believe that things will ever get any better for you, but you sure as fuck want to make sure that someone, somewhere, has it worse than you do.
It’s hearing the call to “love your neighbor” and responding “fuck you, I’ve got mine and I want his too.”
Betty Cracker
@cain: Even though he’s performing poorly, I’m not counting DeSantis out for the 2024 nomination yet because Trump could drop dead or whatever. But if DeSantis does wash out this year, his next US Senate pickup opportunity would be against Lil’ Marco in 2028, the same year as the next presidential race. He’d have to find something to do in the meantime after he leaves office in 2026.
Soprano2
@John S.: I think my mother was more D) Scared/Angry than anything, although she also had some racist tendencies (I found notes about links to the VDare web site in her stuff, for example). The world was changing rapidly, in ways she didn’t like. She wanted things to go back to a time when she was comfortable with them, say the early ’60’s. I think the growing acceptance of gay people bothered her a lot, as did the growing acceptance of having children without being married. She told me more than once that the shame around an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was good, because it prevented people from thinking it was ok. She would have said that the Dobbs decision would mean that now young women would have to keep their legs together, and that would be a good thing.
bbleh
… there’s an additional plurality, of similar or larger size, who claim to be ready to move on but are unwilling to do the work that moving on demands.
They do indeed CLAIM that, at least when talking with Dems or others of similar mind, but I’m not sure that the reason they don’t follow through is that they are “unwilling to do the work.” I think an awful lot of that additional plurality are actually sympathetic to some degree to the principles of the cult — bigotry, white nationalism, wallowing in perceived victimhood (notwithstanding obvious privilege, which of course they huffily deny), and even a propensity toward violence (against the appropriate people, of course). They may not be nearly as committed or as overt about it as true Cultists, but IMHO most of them are not by any means entirely opposed.
“Oh I could never be one of those Nazis, but you know the whole Jewish thing has been a bit of a problem …”
Jay
@Maxim:
Fuckistan is sadly, not a democracy, religiously dominated witha weak economy and an oversized, (for it’s population) Security State.
Fucklandia is a liberal democratic welfare state with a strong economy and free love.
Roger Moore
@cain:
I agree. His big problem with running for Senate after crashing and burning running for President is twofold:
Jay
When my Brother, SIL, nieces and nephews showed us who they were, we dropped them like a hot potato. Sadly, the only one that is probably redeemable is the SIL, but they are Fundi’s, so that’s probably only after my brother dies.
Scout211
Some good news out of Montana:
Judge rules in favor of young Montana plaintiffs in landmark climate trial
Sandia Blanca
@UncleEbeneezer: “Barbie and Louise”?
Starfish
@MomSense:
This issue is super important and was magnified by the pandemic. I called my mom and told her I had accidentally discussed politics at work. (I am very into local school board elections in a super nerdy way.) She is surrounded by Trumpers so she NEVER discusses politics with them, and she asked me what I thought about all of Hunter Biden’s tax evasion. Just a completely different reality that she navigates.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker:
Plenty of time to practice normal human facial expressions.
Jay
@Alison Rose:
or eating babies,…….
...now I try to be amused
When Eric Cantor went from House majority leader to political nonentity overnight I thought:
Cantor had allies, but he had no friends.
DeSantis is like that too. His allies put up with him only as long as he was seen to be winning. He still has the office, but I suspect we’re seeing the effective end of his political career.
Suzanne
@DougL: Do they even have a freeway exit?
Almost Retired
@Jess: Yeah, I have some RFK Jr.-curious acquaintances in Santa Monica that are probably overdue for a shunning :)
cain
@Maxim: They can all end up in fuckoffslovia for all I care. :)
cain
@Betty Cracker:
My guess? Fundraising a lot of money so he can go by private jet everywhere. He really likes it!!
Betty Cracker
@…now I try to be amused:
Oh please FSM, make it so!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If DougJ’s Twitter account was a person that would be Gary Abernathy.
Suzanne
I just ate an apple with some peanut butter for lunch, and I scraped out the last little bit of peanut butter with my finger, and now I’m feeling more DeSantis-like than I am entirely comfortable with, and it is time to wash my hands
scav
There are also a set of Trumpists who cling to the brand and double down primarily to save their own face and self-esteem after watching the shit-show evolve. My Reverend Aunt (she of the Obama to Bernie to Trump progression) has resorted to shrieks of she was betrayed!!! on the few occasions when my mother kindly checks in because of general health issues. I’ve not spoken to her since the election more because her arguments then revealed what an amoral logical and intellectual fraud she was to the very core (the bigotry is leaking too). She thinks it’s because of the Trump vote, I haven’t yet disabused her.
cain
@Soprano2: It’s sad when folks fall for the patriarchy argument – sexual freedom is important in a free society and there is nothing wrong in women being able to do what they want without judgement.
I think the existence of non-traditional relationships is a good thing. As long as no one is being harmed or exploited – we should love/lust each other however we wish.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: What are the odds that Pudd’n Boots “sees the light,” drops out of the presidential race, switches gears and primarys Rick Scott for his seat in ‘24? It’s not too late for him to Wake up, is it? 😉
Manyakitty
@Suzanne: (peanut) butter-fingers!
cain
@Roger Moore: He has a reputation of being vindictive which is why I believe the legislature have let him his way. But his weak tea is going to fuck with that. Sure, he can arbitrarily remove people – but that only works up to a point.
Mai Naem mobileI
I hadn’t been seeing TFG flags,bumper stickers etc and it seems like in the past couple of months I’ve started seeing them again. I was driving next to a truck with a couple of huge tfg flags with a bunch of blue line/we the people/US flag stickers etc. I truly do not understand this. Who drives around with huge flags on their truck? It looks dumb and it would look dumb even if it was Dark Brandon flags.
cain
@scav: in areas where there is a community of MAGA – it is always because they want to be part of the group think and identity. They couldn’t imagine losing their friends and neighbors by joining a party that they’ve traditionally been against.
RaflW
@MattF: There were two reasons to end the Afghan operation early in his presidency. First was to just stop the casualties for our people, given that we weren’t going to stay and end this with a (bloody) ‘win.’ And second was that by the time of the ’24 election while yes of course some pundits and other candidates will harp on it, voters will mostly be past the point of any emotional connection to the pull out. Just rip the dang bandage off. (All that said, we could have done better for some of our Afghan support folks, interpreters, etc. People paid prices for how it all went down.)
Mai Naem mobileI
@Betty Cracker: i think Casey dumps him and moves onto a more ambitious better skilled politician.
cain
@Mai Naem mobileI: I think after he’s actually going to jail there is going to be significant violence against minorities, LGBTQ+ and politicians.
Hang on to our hats – because we are going to see a very severe reaction in every state.
cain
@RaflW: I totally believe our mental health crises is also comes from our military operations.
Tony Jay
@gvg:
Yes, the Dershowitz Dilemma. How to get paid for being an obnoxious, scum-fluffing mouth-fart without it impacting negatively on your social life.
It’s the number one question at all the best cocktail parties.
Uncle Cosmo
More properly, that would be Fuckent (or Fuckkent). Since “-stan” is the generic Turkish suffix for “land of” and “kent” the word for “city.” (e.g., Tashkent = city of stone)
“Fuckville” would be the capital of le Départment or Province de Fuck, “Fuckstadt” the Hauptstadt of Fuckland or die Fuckgebiet, “Fuckměsto” the capital of Fuckkraj… a tak dale.
(We now remand you to your regular fucking programming…)
Jackie
@Scout211: The kids are all right – even in Montana!
Uncle Cosmo
@Roger Moore: IMHO the only real issue now is whether his minions can cobble up a process to remove the term limits before he manages to crash&burn so badly under national scrutiny that no one back home would touch him with a rake…
Jackie
@Suzanne: I hope you weren’t on a commercial flight!😂
Elizabelle
I am
working my fingers to the bonegetting a pedicure. But when I get home, to the beloved laptop, I will check out the reader comments on Gary Abernathy’s column. As for David Brooks , and MoDo, who disgraced herself this weekend, yeah, it’s sometimes the only way to read the material.FelonyGovt
@gvg: I knew one of my (now former) friends had gone off the deep end when I tried citing Snopes to her and she said they were a bunch of liberals and she didn’t trust them.
Roger Moore
@cain:
I disagree. I think there are problems with mental health among service members and former service members that are attributable to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but those are only a small part of the overall problem. The bigger issue is simply that our mental health system is even worse than the rest of our healthcare system, which is already fucked up beyond belief.
The Lodger
@Uncle Cosmo: You completely forgot Fuckopolis and Fuckem City.
Baud
@The Lodger:
efgoldman’s home town. Miss you, man.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: The deeper problem is that many Republican voters have come to believe the rhetoric of people who well before Trump rose to prominence saying in effect, no Democratic political leadership is legitimate.
And it’s more than just who is Potus. McConnell scorched-earthing the Senate, and the pederHastert rule that all House bills must have complete R caucus support to advance are strangling our effectiveness as a system.
A functioning democracy is predicated on both parties accepting “you win some, you lose some, and you all work for the American people.” That’s in ashes on the floors of Congress. I don’t see the genie getting back in the bottle in my lifetime in terms of cooperation and just disagreeing on the margins of cost/policy/reach of gov’t.
Maxim
@Uncle Cosmo: You’re assuming there have been no territorial shifts or cross-cultural influences (see, e.g., Strasbourg in France). I’m pretty sure the forces of FAFO get around, in all possible senses of the phrase.
scav
@cain: undoubtedly — but many of them in fact have the same mixed environment we’ve been discussing above. The Rev Aunt may have a bit of a closed environment in friendsville but she is the only one in the family that voted for T. Every one of us has had exchanges with her at some point and we don’t tend shy or subtle when we get going. And if there is one thing the Rev Aunt knows, it’s reading the crowd’s motion so she can lead the parade with pompoms. Her cries of betrayal is all about preserving her from admitting a mistake as the mob behind her isn’t the fashionable one she is due.
Maxim
@FelonyGovt: I remember a few years ago when there were suddenly a bunch of comments whenever anyone on social media cited Snopes, to the effect that they were corrupt, known to share incorrect info, not at all trustworthy. It was pretty obviously a concerted effort to undermine the site’s legitimacy.
Tony Jay
@The Lodger:
The orbital habitats of High Fuck, Higher Fuck, and Holy Fuck also send greetings.
Chief Oshkosh
No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die…
https://youtu.be/Mx9z99YJ_7s?t=48
Or at least in the case of Gary A, donate all of your material goods and wealth to a legitimate charity and retire to a monestery that requires a vow of silence.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jeffro:
I am!
Righteous Hazard
I am really tired of the opinions of cowards, especially when their opinions boil down to “be a coward.” Nichols is right, it has come down to it, and there is no longer any point to evading it: Trump is an enemy of the United States, and an entire major political party has given in to cowardice in the face of that fact.
Democrats have shown resolve, spine, and unity, that I honestly never believed they as a group possessed, in the face of that fact.
Abernathy is a fucking Wormtongue, and seeks to weaken us and our Never Trump GOP refugee allies at a critical moment. Fuck that guy.
I lost my Dad for a bit in 2012-2014. The month before the election, he sent me on a propaganda chain email that he and his Fox-addled retiree friends were sending to their children and grand children. It was the last goddamned straw. I replied-all to him and every single one of his friends and their children and grandchildren (he was a computer programmer, but was losing his grip on his tech by that time, and hadn’t scrubbed the cc list. I didn’t hold back, I wasn’t mean or vicious, but I was honest. I humilitated my dad in front of all his friends.
He didn’t speak to me for two years. When his decline worsened in 2015, I took him in to my home and cared for him. I cut off his access to Fox propaganda, and created some email filters that stopped his idiot friends from spreading madness. And I cared for his ass. Every day. Kept him alive in the pandemic. In October 2019, he filled out his last presidential mail-in ballot, and asked for my help choosing who to vote for, and I told him that people like me would never vote for Trump, because he was an enemy of America. My dad voted for Joe Biden.
In November 2019, on the friday before the election, my wife got a cancer diagnosis, and I had to hand my dad’s care off to my brother in December. We finally lost the battle for my dad’s care, and he died four months later, but my wife won hers.
I also got to watch Joe win. Then I had to fucking watch as the cowards in the GOP coddled Trump and fucking nearly murdered my country on 1/6 with their “what’s the harm in humoring him” bullshit.
I was goddamned proud that Nancy, Schiff, and the entire Democratic party fought back, and impeached that traitor’s ass again, despite the chickenshit warnings of Wormtongues like Abernathy. They fought back, with everything they had.
I didn’t tell the story of my dad to brag or for sympathty. I tell it because this is just one example of who we Liberals and Democrats are. We fucking care for people, and our care is the real goddamned thing. We don’t lie to people we love, and we don’t coddle them when they are turning into fascists.
Fuck Abernathy, and every coward like him.
rikyrah
@cain:
They might try, but, they will learn
trollhattan
@Westyny: Monterey County, California features Fuck By the Sea.
trollhattan
@Chief Oshkosh: Seconded. Or do that movie thing holding a boombox over your head outside the bedroom window.
rikyrah
@Righteous Hazard:
I will continue to say this.
For all their flaws, and there were many, the Founding Fathers saw a muthaphucka like Trump coming.
They did. And, they set in place, the mechanisms by which to deal with him.
What they failed to account for is an entire political party going against their oath to the Constitution and betraying the country. They didn’t count on that.
Dan B
@John S.: Trump supporters put me and my partner and the lives of 80% of our neighbors at risk. The urge for everyone to “get along” is deeply disturbing to every marginalized group. This attitude shows a lack of understanding of the existential threat to a huge number of people.
Westyny
@The Lodger: This entire thread has been so helpful. I’m constantly confusing Fuckberg with Fuckburgh. I know one’s in NY and the other in PA.
rikyrah
@Dan B:
Preach.
I can find no common ground with muthaphuckas who would deny me and mine my right to actually EXIST IN PEACE.
There shall be no compromise.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: “by which point Trump will either be a two time loser or termed out of the Presidency”
The guy doesn’t believe in election results, flouted the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution with open glee, so I have no expectation that he’d honor term limits, either.
John Stoher has been saying that Republicans (and the press) are idiots to be covering the GOP primary as if it’s even a viable thing. Trump would never, for one instant, accept that he hasn’t swept the GOP nomination in advance.
We are still a long way from the official general election. Donnie dazzlehands really could get convicted of a crime before then. What the GOP does to manage that will, no doubt, be a shitshow. May as well pop some corn and watch the chaos.
trollhattan
@RaflW: The sole source of Afghan withdrawal butthurt I’m aware of is from the Tories, who seem to think that we should have fought the Taliban to the last American.
The rapidity of the fall demonstrated with certainty the government was the most fragile of card-built houses. Not that the Taliban aren’t among the worst bastards the planet has to offer. “Women? Girls? Aieee! You have ONE job and we’ll replace you if we can figure out a workaround. Now go sweep something then bring me dinner.”
Maxim
@Dan B: Especially because “let’s just all get along” really means “Please stop making me uncomfortable by pointing out inconvenient truths.”
Westyny
@trollhattan: I’ve been there many times on my drives down Highway 1. The beach at Fuck Landing is not to be missed.
RaflW
@Jess: Yeah, I’ve had a harder time with that myself. Some of my partner’s extended family are Trump voters, but never, ever talk politics. We see ’em once or perhaps twice a year for a few hours, play card games and laugh about family antics and very safe topics, and go home.
It’s a handful of my far left friends who are so burned that they endlessly spout anti-Biden stuff and I want to scream “You won’t bring about the anti-capitalist nirvana by letting the fascist win.” But they’re as bubbled and unreachable as the worst Fox-er.
eta: I unfriended a couple people in my wider circle when they went left-loony anti-vax a few years ago.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Your comment 163. Spot on.
And a substantially unrepresentative and retrograde Supreme Court.
No. We cannot just get along like this.
soapdish
“Let me understand: I’m supposed to jeopardize my relationship with my parents (on the eve of their 70th wedding anniversary no less) along with other treasured family members and lifelong friends by asserting a “moral conclusion” that their support for Trump makes them unworthy of further association?”
Yes, actually.
JaneE
You have some choices.
If telling your parents the truth about Trump jeopardizes your relationship with them, they already care more for Trump than they do you. You can accept that their love is conditional, and you don’t meet that condition if you don’t support Trump.
You can let them persist in their delusion that Trump is the world’s best president, and avoid any conversations that contain references more recent than the last decade. The weather and “I love you” will let you keep in touch.
You could tell them that you will always love them, but you cannot agree on Trump, and you will not let his more egregious failings go unremarked. It is always a little sad when the people who were most responsible for the ethics and values you hold turn out to not hold them any longer. You could even tell them that too.
Paul in KY
@Manyakitty: The guy that lost to JD Vance was a fine candidate. Especially in comparison to that POS Vance. Anyone (in Ohio) with any sense should have went to the freaking voting booth and pulled the lever for him.
Librarian
@Uncle Cosmo: Then, of course, there’s Fugging, Austria (until recently spelled Fucking).
Fugging, Upper Austria – Wikipedia
Paul in KY
@Mai Naem mobileI: I think she’s stuck with him. They have kids & their ‘side’ is supposed to be all about the family values, etc.
Hoist with her own petard, as it were.
Paul in KY
@Righteous Hazard: My dad passed away last Saturday at 98 (1 month shy of 99). He was a lifelong ‘yellow dog’ Democrat. A very kind and good tempered man.
Dan B
@rikyrah: My partner’s brother and SIL gave us an Obama chia pet for Christmas. Racist? Then they screamed that Marriage Equality was settled law. Just like Roe. They view people disagreeing with them as persecution. They’re clueless.
RevRick
As a pastor, I thoroughly endorse the headline. One of the most insidious issues I’ve had to confront is the warped ethic of niceness, especially in churches. We’re told that we’re all supposed to be nice. But what I have found is that this just empowers bullies.
Nice people have a hard time confronting those who take advantage, and because they don’t confront, accountability becomes impossible.
I’ve dealt with this in my churches and I’ve had people I’ve called’God-damned fascists’ try to tone-police me with the rejoinder that I was a defective pastor, because I wasn’t being nice.
Bupalos
@MomSense: Well it sounded interesting, so I’m trying it. But the part that I’m having a hard time getting over is that 4 minutes in the son is saying that both parties are corrupt and that the whole system needs to be reformed so that individuals themselves (plus AI) direct taxes. His parents are raving fauxbot lunatics, and it’s interesting to hear them rave, but he is constitutionally unable to make anything like effective counter-arguments and it’s very frustrating to listen to.
RevRick
@Righteous Hazard: Good on you!
rikyrah
@Paul in KY:
Sorry for your loss :(
Tenar Arha
@Paul in KY: So sorry to hear of your loss. May his memory be a blessing.
CarolPW
@RevRick:
If I had someone like you as a pastor when I was growing up I might not have become an atheist.
RevRick
@CarolPW: Well, wow, I don’t know what to say. But I am flattered.
Righteous Hazard
Exactly. Especially considering that many of the same marginalized people built this country and have been holding it together for centuries. WOC and First Peoples, among many other marginalized folks, fucked trump up in 2020, and saved all of us, ffs.
One of my kids is trans, they also are an accomplished biochemist who works in rna biotech research. The work they do will save countless lives.
The GOP openly wants to eliminate my kid. They (and dumbass fucksticks like RFKjr) also want to prosecute rna researchers like my kid.
The time is long fucking past to stop “humoring” or “getting along” with people who, either knowingly or unknowingly, want to jail and murder the marginalized.
Yes, gramma and grampa, too. Greatest generation and old boomer motherfuckers don’t get to do murder on their way out the door.
Righteous Hazard
@Paul in KY: Your dad was a good man, I am sorry.
My dad voted for Nixon twice, for Ford, for Reagan twice, Bush twice, Dole, Bush twice again, and Romney. Didn’t vote in 2015 because of the health crisis which ended my parents independence.
So much woe, enabled by men like my dad. If more men had been like your dad, the world would be a very much better place right now.
Chip Daniels
I always suggest that people substitute “Authoritarianism” or its equal with “Pedophilia” and see how it would change the conversation.
As in,
“Let me understand: I’m supposed to jeopardize my relationship with my parents (on the eve of their 70th wedding anniversary no less) along with other treasured family members and lifelong friends by asserting a “moral conclusion” that their support for <s>Trump</s> PEDOPHILIA makes them unworthy of further association? Not in this lifetime.”
sab
@RevRick: That is very very interesting. I know Kay the( formerly Ohio) lawyer talks about anti-bullying in schools and how successful that was (very.) My impression is that bullying parents feel that anti-bully education in schools deprive their kids of an important life skill that would give them an edge in this rat race we call life.
RevRick
@sab: I suspect that bullying parents would see anti bullying policies as judgments upon them.
brantl
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I’m clapping-like-TinkerBell-might-die-if-I-don’t, just hoping this drowns the sons-of-bitches. Like, Mariannas Trench drown.
brantl
Canadians don’t want these shitsticks.
brantl
@Tom Q: I live with someone on the other side, she just admitted that climate change is real.
AM in NC
@MomSense: This is my dad and me. I try to nibble around the edges now and again, but he has full-on prion disease from FOX and AM talk radio for years. Propaganda works. Murdoch has completely poisoned the Anglosphere on 3 separate continents. And his evil spawn Lachlan is continuing in Dad’s evil footsteps. It is a serious problem when “news” can lie lie lie lie with little to no consequence for decades.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Thank you so much, rikyrah. He was ready to go. Had a very long & fun life.
Paul in KY
@Tenar Arha: Thank you for your kind thoughts. He was a great dude.
Paul in KY
@Righteous Hazard: He grew up in the depression. FDR was a god to him. I guess they cancelled each other out :-)