FL Gov. Ron DeSantis’s sad trombone of a campaign was womp-womp-womping its way through Iowa last week and had planned to be in South Carolina today. But a racist terrorist attack in Jacksonville that killed three and a storm aiming at the state forced him off the trail and back to Tallahassee, according to WUSF:
Crises at home pose a new test for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose presidential campaign travels are now up in the air as his state mourns a racially motivated shooting in Jacksonville and prepares for a tropical storm.
A day after appearing in Iowa, DeSantis was back in the state capital of Tallahassee on Sunday for a news conference on Tropical Storm Idalia. He urged Floridians to heed the advice of emergency managers. He also offered condolences and condemned the killing of three Black people by a white man who authorities say left behind a suicide note, a will, and writings with racist material.
We can’t know for sure, but it was probably the storm that prompted the governor’s return, not the racist terrorist attack. He sucks at consoling people and is notoriously extra-squirmy after violence or public outrages committed by white supremacists and antisemites, i.e., The Base. He tends to get angrier at suggestions that he should address these incidents than about the incidents themselves.
DeSantis and his awful wife did attend a Jacksonville vigil for those killed by the racist gunman. This surprised me, and I’m still weighing whether he should get credit for it or if it was a campaign stunt. But while he was speaking, he got booed by attendees until a local councilwoman stepped in to save his ass: (Orlando Sentinel)
Following services earlier in the day, about 200 people showed up at a Sunday evening vigil a block from the Dollar General store in Jacksonville where officials said Ryan Palmeter opened fire Saturday using guns he bought legally despite a past involuntary commitment for a mental health exam.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is running for the GOP nomination for president, who has loosened gun laws in Florida and who has antagonized civil rights leaders by deriding “wokeness ” — was loudly booed as he addressed the vigil.
Ju’Coby Pittman, a Jacksonville city councilwoman who represents the neighborhood where the shooting happened, stepped in to ask the crowd to listen.
“It ain’t about parties today,” she said. “A bullet don’t know a party.”
Councilwoman Pittman’s saying that was understandable. Things were getting mighty uncomfortable, and beads of sweat were rapidly forming on Tacky O’s upper lip. But we all know there’s only one party that prioritizes guns and ammo over people. There’s only one party that is whitewashing black history, including the state’s appalling record of racist violence. So, no credit. The crowd booed the right person.
Soon-to-be Hurricane Idalia must strike the flailing campaign masterminds as a potential godsend for their broke-ass effort. The earned media is already rolling in. When I left home at 7 AM to complete my storm preparations (beer! cheese! more wine!), I turned the TV on to keep the dogs company, and when I returned, DeSantis was droning monotonously on CNN about likely downed trees and power outages.
He’ll probably get a chance to bust out the shrimper boots by Thursday.
Publix, a regional grocery chain down here, used to make hurricane cakes that were decorated with icing depicting the radar image of a storm and the slogan GO AWAY written on the side or top:
But some people found that in bad taste and complained, so Publix stopped making them. Then people complained about that. Tampa Bay Times columnist Stephanie Hayes defended the hurricakes today:
Lastly, and this may seem like a leap, but stay with me. I often wonder if seemingly innocuous moves like this contribute to individual apathy and extremism. A lot to put on a cake, right? But it’s already nearly impossible to shop anywhere without referencing a historical flow chart of bad corporate behavior. Is my toothpaste purchase adjacent to an insurrection? Does this tasty sub sandwich harm the LGBTQ+ community? Did I just ding the planet by expelling the fuel it takes to get to another store that might be less financially nefarious? Did ordering my toilet paper online contribute to a billionaire’s evil plot to establish a colony of space cadets on Mars? Have I eaten anything today? Where are my keys?
I am just saying, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that a small story concerning a dessert themed around regional weather interests might be the weight that tips an already exhausted and confused person off the scale. Why try to do the right thing when everything is wrong? Disillusioned, this person will start using the word “woke” unironically and head to the dark web, where they inevitably become radicalized and forge a campaign as the next president of these United States of America. We will all watch this person gesticulating wildly on a political debate stage sponsored by Publix as we eat plain white frosted cakes and a tropical weather event bears down on our uninsured ramshackle homes.
The defense rests. Bring back the cakes.
She’s not wrong — trying to live life in an ethical way is complicated, and extremism is an easy way out for people who can’t hack it.
Anyhoo, maybe I’ll make my own damn cake decorated with a hurricane graphic and DeSantis’s face in the middle and a slogan iced on the side that applies to both: GO THE FUCK AWAY.
Open thread.
ETA: Breaking from WaPo:
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024. A separate hearing was being held in Atlanta Monday morning to determine whether Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, can move his election-related indictment from state to federal court. Trump is a frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential contest, and the D.C. trial’s starting date is the day before the Super Tuesday primaries.
H/T to valued commenter Sanjeevs for the heads-up on the ruling.
Sanjeevs
4th March Trial for Trump in DC
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/28/trump-trial-date-2020-election-tanya-chutkan
matt
I looked it up – the violent crime rate in Jacksonville is even higher than in Thunderdome SF.
Betty Cracker
@Sanjeevs: Isn’t Super Tuesday the next day? LMAO!
Nancy
Let us eat Betty Cracker Cake!!
Redshift
Hey, I’d appreciate good thoughts from everyone for my bunny Joe, who is in the hospital with a bowel obstruction (which is probably a hairball, so not quite as serious as the same thing would sound in a human.) It’s been kind of a whiplash over the past day, since he had to go to the emergency vet yesterday (who aren’t rabbit vets, though they have one on call), and they were preparing us for the worst. But he made it through the night and our rabbit vet puts his condition as “guarded,” which was better than I was expecting, and he looks a little better today. His chances of getting through this are not bad, but he’s eight years old, and it’s bad enough for a hospital stay, so nothing is certain.
Rk
Why is his wife wearing a cocktail dress?
OverTwistWillie
The presidential campaign has developed not necessarily to the Governor’s advantage.
Did he and Casey show up in barrels and suspenders?
The Publix oligarchs are Trumpy.
Betty Cracker
@Redshift: Poor bunny — I hope he recovers fully and is rewarded with many carrots!
zhena gogolia
@Redshift: Oh, I hope Joe comes through!
Snarki, child of Loki
@Sanjeevs: U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s D.C. trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election for March 4, 2024
Verdict on 15 March
OHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE
Mai Naem mobileI
PuddnBoots had that ugly PO’d expression on his face when they booed him. I would normally call something like that a microexpression but it lasted a few seconds too long to be called a microexpression. How the hell did this guy win the governorship? How did all these rich business folks decide he was going to be their political savior? There’s zero retail political skills here. Zero.
OverTwistWillie
@Rk:
Skeet Surfin’!
dmsilev
@Sanjeevs: The judge was …less than sympathetic to Trump’s lawyer’s claims that the trial should be delayed for two years Because Reasons. The prosecution wanted January 2024, so early March is vastly closer to that.
Old School
@Redshift:
Best of luck to Joe, but if I had a hairball obstructing my bowels, I’d certainly consider it to be serious.
J.
I think the NOAA needs to skip the letter I when naming storms, sort of like how buildings/elevators used to omit the number 13. Also, I’m with my fellow West Coast Floridian when I say that I hope Idalia and DeSantis go the fuck away. Though unlike Idalia, we are stuck with DeSantis for another 3+ years.
OverTwistWillie
@dmsilev:
I don’t know what there is to complain about, she could have made it the 15th.
dmsilev
TPM’s liveblog of the hearing has some gems in it:
Ruckus
Life is beginning to sound about normal once again with rethuglicans on trial for being themselves, hurricanes, a segment of the population wanting to revolve around 200 yrs backwards when they believe life was better because they could at least get their hate and resentment on publicly without anyone giving them crap about it.
Humanity can be exhausting. I wonder, that if a large segment of the supposedly adult population would actually grow the fuck up and learn to share just a little bit that life might just possibly, maybe, get to be ever so slightly better. Oh wait no, I don’t wonder, I fucking know, it actually would be better.
Conservatives want to go back in time, a process that has absolutely never, ever actually worked, to a time they THINK life was better – and it sure as hell wasn’t, because the conservative direction/answer is always and forever – go backasswards. Must be because of where they park their heads…..
RedDirtGirl
@Redshift: Sending good thoughts for Bunny Joe!
Doc Sardonic
Short course on how DeSantis became governor. Democrats in Florida ran a Bernie endorsed candidate that won an upset in the primary. DeSantis won his primary handily because Trump put his fat ass on the scale at the last minute because the more moderate Repub Adam Putnam would not kiss his ring. In the general election Andrew Gillum had some baggage with him that was known but really faded into the background until the FBI put their ass on the scale by making public their investigation into Gillum. As it was DeSantis only squeaked in by 4/10ths of a percentage point. Re-election was a matter of a very energized Repub base and a recycled Repub, Charlie Crist, for the Democratic Party nominee that nobody but his primary voters was going vote for so Democratic turnout was terrible and he coasted to reelection. This also caused the loss of a couple of house seats and a potential Senate pickup, although the Senate pick was going a very heavy lift even though Val Demmings was a good candidate.
Frankensteinbeck
@Snarki, child of Loki:
It will get moved up when Trump acts out.
@Redshift:
Good luck to your poor bunny!
delphinium
@Nancy: Yes, hope she posts pictures if she makes that cake!
Also, March 4th is my birthday and I won’t ask for anything else except for Trump to go away next year.
@Redshift: Hope Joe is on the mend and back to his bunny self soon!
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
Sending good thoughts to Joe! 🙏 Possibly insensitive question: bunny life span?
Burnspbesq
Meadows is testifying at the hearing on his attempt to remove his case to federal court. It sounds like he’s admitted violating the Hatch Act.
UncleEbeneezer
And only one party makes excuses and even encourages political violence. Remember that story about the whack-job that wanted to assassinate Trump? Have you seen ANYONE on the Left making excuses for her, downplaying the seriousness of the crime, turning her into some sort of hero/Patriot, using her image into their profile pic and inventing some conspiracy theory about her being unfairly persecuted? Because I sure as hell have not. The reality is that only one side tolerates/encourages political violence and makes excuses for hate-crimes. Sadly, the media will never point this out to viewers.
Ken
I have a thought for a new Balloon Juice drinking game.
CaseyL
@Redshift: Hoping for a great outcome for Bunny Joe!
Alison Rose
Door #2. Guarantee you that every thought in his head while he was there was about his campaign and, I don’t know, DMing Muskrat to see if he can send his next group of immigrants to the moon on SpaceX.
Alison Rose
@Redshift: Sending love for the bunbun!
Joy in FL
@Redshift: I hope Joe will be fine soon. 🤞🏼 and 🙏🏼
WaterGirl
Could it please be like the Wizard of Oz, and the storm lifts DeSantis out of Florida – and the world stage – and drops him into another land?
It can even be a nice land, with lollipops and everything, as long as it’s not here.
wjca
@dmsilev:
I wonder in what venue, and on what grounds, we will see TIFG’s lawyers trying to appeal the trial date.
For the lawyers here, is a trial date even subject to appeal? And if so, what facts are required to support it?
Doc Sardonic
@WaterGirl: I would prefer he be under the front porch personally
WaterGirl
@Redshift: Come on, Joe! We are all rooting for you.
WaterGirl
@Doc Sardonic: hahaha
He could borrow Trump’s shoes, which look very much like the shoes the wicked witch wore in the movie.
Doc Sardonic
@WaterGirl: lifts included
Hob
If you’d just said Hayes was right about the cakes being OK, I’d say sure, why not.
But on her bigger point, I can’t agree. By that logic, literally all boycotts are bad; she’s not just saying that this particular one is trivial, she’s trivializing all of them, making fun of the idea of ever wanting to take away income from a company that’s doing something you think is really harmful. And the cake thing wasn’t even in that category— people weren’t saying to boycott Publix because it gives its money to evil causes, they were just saying this one product was in bad taste.
And then she descends into pure nonsense here: “Why try to do the right thing when everything is wrong? Disillusioned, this person will start using the word ‘woke’ unironically and head to the dark web, where they inevitably become radicalized and forge a campaign as the next president of these United States of America.” I mean, I get that that has the form of a joke, she’s not literally saying people will all run for president, but the form of the joke makes no sense— becoming an extremist is not something someone does because they’re tired of “trying to do the right thing.” Becoming an extremist takes energy, and it’s inevitably framed in terms of that being the right thing. And if you were disillusioned by the idea of having to boycott things for ideological reasons, why would your solution be to become a wingnut— they’re constantly boycotting things for ideological reasons!
Karen H
@delphinium: Mine too. I’ll also take that birthday wish.
Redshift
Thanks, everyone.
Sister Golden Bear
It was a campaign stunt. He pulled the same shit at the Pulse memorial after continued demonizing LGBTQ+ people.
Ken
Some legal analysts were saying the “It was part of my official Federal duties” argument might work, but I have my doubts that “It was part of my official Federal duties to violate Federal laws” will be as effective.
Also, maybe it’s because I’ve seen too many Law and Order episodes where the defendants try the same stunt, but maybe he’s confessing to this crime because he’s worried something much, much worse might come out at the trial?
Redshift
@Steeplejack:
Not at all. These days, typical lifespan for an indoor rabbit is 8-12 years. So he’s into the range where the warranty runs out, but only just. (Outdoor rabbits have shorter lifespans, because of stress from temperature changes and because they tend not to be monitored as closely to catch when problems develop. Don’t keep your bunny in an outdoor hutch.)
JPL
from trump’s truth social “Roomer” has it that puddin face is dropping out of the race and running for Senate instead.
I have no idea who roomer is but that doesn’t seem plausible to me.
LAO
@Burnspbesq: We’ll, he has too because Meadows’ motion for removal was 100% based on his commission of Hatch Act violations.
Jackie
@Doc Sardonic: 😂 I wholeheartedly agree! With just his white boots exposed 🤭
HumboldtBlue
There is a lot of anger toward DeSantis and the GOP, and they think doubling down is the way to go.
Redshift
@LAO:
Also, from what I’ve read, he has a separate motion to dismiss the case against him claiming a First Amendment defense because all the things he’s accused of were political speech, which was protected. Which sure sounds like once again admitting to violating the Hatch Act, since political speech is expressly prohibited.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: “I’m really sorry about these deaths that I, in no way, helped to cause.” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
Scout211
I read inmate P00135809’s posts on Lie Social so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.
This morning he posted an interesting rumor about DeSantis. I wonder if this is even close to the truth, or just “aspirational.”
ETA: JPL got there first
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
I don’t think it will get moved up, that’s a relatively short time away in the court system. Now I believe, as I understand it, that he’s been told that if he doesn’t shut the hell up, they will remand him. That is, as I’ve been told, the normal course, a chance to actually act human, a feat he’s never really had to do, so one never knows, he may be held (frozen storage I hope) until the court date if he continues to be himself. SFB is the type that truly believes that the world revolves around his stick, stuck where the sun don’t shine, because, well him.
And as we’ve all seen, way, way too often and too much, he’s special, just ask him. (And yes that word special is doing a LOT of work)
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
Thanks. A young senior citizen! (Like so many here.)
different-church-lady
It’s actually very simple, in itself. It’s only when assholes get involved that it becomes complicated.
Alison Rose
@Scout211: LOL he’s still trying to make that nickname happen. Why not go back to Meatball Ron?
Hob
@JPL: OK Roomer.
Mai Naem mobileI
Can Chutkan change the date to an earlier date if TFG is seen making comments and doing stuff which would considered breaking his bail conditions or is the only option available to her is to lock him up?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mai Naem mobileI: Moving the date up is unlikely. Judges’ and lawyers’ schedules fill up. They have other cases, so once that time is set it isn’t fair to other litigants to move things around.
Ruckus
@Mai Naem mobileI:
My understanding is that this is a pretty short lead time, so it likely wouldn’t be moved up. And, it seems that lots of humans spend time in lockup before trial because they don’t have the money for bail. SFB has been given specific limitations for his freedom and he seems to violate them because he thinks he’s special. He may continue to FAFO that he is not in any way as far as court procedures are concerned. And I don’t think it will take much more for him to be remanded. His FAFO quotient is getting shorter and shorter. Remember he’s been this person his entire life, reasonably wealthy, unreasonably humanity. Giving him any sort of power was never going to go well for him because his idea of who he is, has zero standing in any sort of reality. And at his age (physical not mental!) that is never going to change. I say that because his physical age is far, far ahead of his mental age. Decades ahead.
Betty Cracker
@Hob: I don’t think Hayes meant to seriously suggest that all boycotts are pointless or that everyone who gets exasperated about what they see as overly sensitive posturing becomes a right-wing nut. It’s a humor column about a dumb flap over cakes, so maybe we shouldn’t read that much into it.
But one broader point I took away from it is that acting ethically (not just about shopping — about everything) can be complicated given all the competing priorities. Some people find ambiguity difficult to live with, and maybe that discomfort can drive people to extremism, which makes everything simple.
One recurring theme you hear from people who’ve walked back from extremism or cults is that what attracted them to the extremist group/cult in the first place was that it answered all their questions and made everything simple.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: True, in the same way that sticking to a diet is simple until éclairs get involved. ;-)
PaulWartenberg
My takeaway from that memorial moment: Pittman would be a better governor than DeSantis.
Cameron
I’m sure that the guv was all set to give the assembled crowd his kindly PuddingPaw Pappy persona, but it was terribly uncivil to him. Fortunately, Councilwoman Pittman intervened and saved the group from tasting the wrath of his White Power Boots.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
But one broader point I took away from it is that acting ethically (not just about shopping — about everything) can be complicated given all the competing priorities. Some people find ambiguity difficult to live with, and maybe that discomfort can drive people to extremism, which makes everything simple.
THIS.
Life itself isn’t all that difficult, although it can and does have it’s moments for all of us. But for some people, who likely never learn, because they couldn’t or never had to, life has roadblocks and bumps and hills and gullies. SFB has never, ever learned these simple parts of life because I believe that he’s incapable, especially since he’s getting up there on this aging thing. The physical aging, he’s still 12 mentally, just with a very slightly larger vocabulary.
As for him being president, he was/is/always will hopefully be the worst possible candidate to actually run our or any country or even a small store in the countryside. Because if we get another person with a 12 yr old as crappy mentality as SFB trying to run this one, we very likely won’t recover.
Hob
@Betty Cracker: I’m not sure how you can look at the list of boycotts Hayes wrote, and the way she described each of them, and tell me with a straight face that she thinks ethical decisions by consumers are ever non-silly. Yes it’s a humor column, but people writing humor columns choose to mock things that they think are mock-worthy. Hayes isn’t really complaining that boycotts will make other people tired of trying to do the right thing; she is tired of trying to do the right thing.
And if you think the modern far right offers people a simple worldview that doesn’t require them to know about any lists of ideological enemy businesses, I don’t know what to say. Again, they are CONSTANTLY telling their followers not to buy this or that.
Someone who is sympathetic to doing the right thing (i.e. someone who would even consider keeping up with boycotts in the first place), but then gets tired of it, could become apathetic and stop doing that, and might even write a mildly amusing humor column about it. If instead they turn into a wingnut, then “getting tired of doing the right thing” was never the issue. Hayes doesn’t give the slightest reason for thinking otherwise, she’s just using “this is how you get wingnuts!!” as a lazy all-purpose scold for whatever she finds irritating.
Paul in KY
@Ken: I used to do that when caught by my parents for ‘multiple acts of mayhem’. You admit to the least transgression, wholeheartedly. You then abjectly deny all other transgressions.
It worked quite well a few times.
Ironcity
@Rk: I didn’t see Joe the bunny’s wife Pat in a cocktail dress, just a good Republican cloth coat
Joseph Patrick Lurker
Given the volatility of political contests, I generally avoid making predictions but given the jaw-dropping incompetence of DeSantis, I predict he’ll withdraw from this race within days of the New Hampshire primary. He’s simply too stupid and gutless to reverse his pathetic polling numbers.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: TFG has only ever learned what he wanted to learn. And it ain’t much.
Gravenstone
I was going to bid you to batten down the hatches ahead of Idalia, but I see that you have your priorities well in hand.
Other MJS
@Betty Cracker:
Well said, Betty, pushback in the comments notwithstanding. We don’t have the time or energy to “research” everything we do, and if we try, we end up spinning our wheels, which suits the Forces of Evil just fine. I think the essay was sufficiently over the top not to be taken literally.
Betty Cracker
@Hob:
All the potential consumer decisions mentioned in the column reference Publix and its wingnut founder family in one way or another — toothpaste, tasty subs, etc. — and the others involve buying from a different entity to avoid Publix (i.e., ordering TP online, driving farther to patronize another grocer), so no, I don’t think you can fairly extrapolate that Hayes finds every single consumer action silly, though it seems fair to conclude she’s decided it’s not worth the effort to boycott Publix.
I think extremist movements do offer a simpler worldview, but I never said that doesn’t require adherents to know about ideological enemy businesses, so I’m not sure where you’re getting that. If some third party tells you what to buy and what not to buy, that simplifies your life, no? You don’t have to weigh competing factors and make moral tradeoffs. You don’t have to think for yourself. That’s the attraction for some people, IMO.
I don’t think Hayes seriously meant being boggled over boycotts is “how you get wingnuts.” She was tying it back to the cakes for effect. But I do think an inability to handle the complexity involved in figuring out what’s right can be a factor that contributes to extremism. Do you disagree?
Brachiator
Very busy, and hot, day today. Not much time for watching the news.
But I did see a clip of the despicable GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy suggest that the Florida shooter was not a racist, but was mentally disturbed and possibly set off because liberals insist on talking about race.
Had to shut the news off and go do something else.
narya
@Betty Cracker: This reminds me of The Good Place. The argument Michael made was exactly this–that choices that once were simple have become extremely complex, so old methods of assessing whether an action was good or bad, and assigning a static point value to it, doesn’t take change or complexity into account. And, of course, taking complexity and change into account are difficult! But, IMHO, that’s what it means to try to be a “good” or “moral” person; it’s a process, not an event.
George Herscher
@Betty Cracker: Betty, stop wasting your time with this guy Hob.
BeautifulPlumage
@Redshift: late to this, but best wishes for Joe to be up & hopping soon.
RaflW
DeathSantis claims that he was pushing harder for insurance reform than the FL legislature delivered, per Florida Politics:
Of course, the ‘reporting’ does not offer a single iota in proof of Rhonda’s claim to have pushed for something/anything extra. Huh.
He’s just trying to underbus the legislature when this or the next hurricane bankrupts the state fallback-insurance, and more for-profit insurers cancel policies or flee the state entirely.
Of course I have terrible expectations of the press, but they’ve all failed to discuss Ron & the FL GOP’s massive homeowners insurance gap and the trouble that’s brewing there.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
There’s definitely simplicity from not having to think, but keeping up with the latest outrage and who you’re supposed to hate this week has to be exhausting. Honestly, this is one of the reasons I tend not to involve myself with boycotts. There are just too many companies you are supposed to avoid doing stuff with for one reason or another.
This reminds me of one of the dilemma at the heart of The Good Place. They eventually discovered that nobody had made it into the Good Place for 500+ years because modern society was just too complex. Even people trying to do the right thing were graded as bad because everything they did got filtered through gigantic, evil corporations. I feel the same way about boycotts. The only way to avoid dealing with some kind of moral compromise is to live completely off the grid.
Betsy
I’m sayin a sneering HA-HA because DeSankis’ stated “plan” for ensuring residents of Florida continue to be able to insure their properties is to hope that no hurricanes come around for a while.
What a stupid stump! What a chump!
Betty Cracker
@RaflW: It’s laughable because the statehouse GOP supermajority did everything DeSantis asked it to do, even things that were blatantly unconstitutional! I think you’re right — he knows another hurricane is going to make the already intolerable homeowners insurance crisis worse — right in the middle of his presidential campaign!
@narya: & @Roger Moore: It reminded me of The Good Place too. Such a great series!
Feathers
@Redshift: Best of wishes to Bunny Joe! There was a time when I had a hankering to share my home with one of those beautiful angora rabbits. Yes, I had just come back from a fiber fair where I got to pet one. Then I learned that hairballs can be deadly for rabbits, due to their being unable to yack. Put idea of bunny out of my mind. That’s just more upkeep than I’m comfortable being responsible for. Became far less annoyed with cleaning up after my kitty’s hairballs. 🙏🐇🙏
Hob
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for your thoughtful answers; I hope you don’t think writing them was a waste of time as George Herscher does. And I hope it’s clear that I’m not trying to get on your case, and I’m not taking the Hayes piece as a literal manifesto, I know it’s a humor column. It just rubbed me the wrong way, and I’m a bit tired of “this is how you get wingnuts” arguments— which I really do think this is an example of; she is absolutely saying that well-meaning liberals should check themselves to avoid being the cause of right-wing extremism, even if she’s saying it in an exaggerated ha-ha way. I do think it’s worth pushing back on that a bit, because it lets the right off the hook; it’s not that different from saying for instance that LGBTQ activists or BLM activists should shut up because people might get tired of trying to understand their concerns and then those people will become bigots, and saying that in a jokey way wouldn’t make it less obnoxious. And I wouldn’t have bothered arguing about the piece if it had just been a random thing I ran across, but you made a point of telling us “She’s not wrong” like we should take it seriously, and I felt like saying no, she is wrong.
Last thought on the boycotts thing: yeah, I get that a lot of wingnuts prefer to just be given a simple enemies list and be told what to be mad about day by day, and not have to do a bunch of research (although hardcore Q-heads really do put a lot of work into it). But we have that on our side too— there are plenty of left-liberals who prefer to just read a single blog, or a couple of Twitter accounts, or a site like Raw Story, and go by whatever they see there. I don’t think that’s ideal, but it’s a practical compromise for a lot of people and I’m pretty sure we all know a fair number of people like that. So it’s not as if a well-meaning person who wants a less complicated worldview has no choice but to go wingnut; it’s equally easy or easier for them to go liberal-but-not-overly-thoughtful, or to just tune out— or to just decide that this particular kind of thing isn’t for them, a legitimate choice that (for instance) Roger Moore @76 had no problem doing without turning into a villain.
Hob
@Other MJS: If it sounded like I was saying that everyone must research everything they do and follow every boycott, then I failed at writing comments, because I don’t think that at all. Hayes could’ve just said what you said and I would’ve been fine with it. I was just irked by the idea that the potential problem is “you’ll cause good people to actively embrace evil” rather than “it might not be not the best use of your time.”
Other MJS
@Hob: Fair enough, and I apologize if what I said seemed like an attempt to represent your position; I agree that it was not.
buddhacat
@Betty Cracker:
Externalizing all environmental / health / etc. harms imposes those costs on the end consumer. And so we end up having to decide between which arsehole oligarch gets our pennies.
StringOnAStick
@Hob: I admit to mostly just reading here but mainly because I’m getting information from podcasts now. I also quit going to Rawstory at all, when I used to go there a few times a day. I was getting a lot of heat and not much light from there. The big tell though was not going to Rawstory left me happier, just like how quitting Twitter improved my mood significantly.
Ruckus
@Paul in KY:
TFG has only ever learned what he wanted to learn. And it ain’t much.
Very, extremely, absolutely freaking TRUE!