Looking hale and hearty there, Mr. Twice-Impeached President. I would swear your weren’t a pound over 214. https://t.co/mopbJQoqSB
— Chris Savage (@Eclectablog) September 7, 2023
Last year I told you to ignore midterm polls until the brutal reality of losing Roe realigns women voters. This year I'm telling you to ignore polls until Trump's trials bring daily revelations on his conspiracy to overthrow the government.
— Not up for trouble, please stop asking (@agraybee) September 7, 2023
In 2016 all of Trump's earned media was hours of him stomping around a stage to the cheers of his adoring fans. This year his earned media is going to be him slumping the defendant's chair, avoiding eye contact with the witnesses detailing his crimes.
— Not up for trouble, please stop asking (@agraybee) September 7, 2023
primarily because he has been convicted of fraud three times, operates under a dozen different aliases, has a long history of making wild accusations against prominent figures, and failed a polygraph test when he for some reason voluntarily took one https://t.co/LsnBSs4Kmq
— restorative justice ghostbuster (@revhowardarson) September 8, 2023
The National Review‘s Rich Lowry has a big sad — “The Best Anti-Trump Argument Can’t Be Used”:
Donald Trump is winning the Republican nomination race in a walk, and it’s been quite the pleasant stroll.
That’s because his opponents can’t make the most compelling argument against Trump — namely, that for myriad, deep-seated reasons he’s poorly suited to represent the GOP and become the country’s president again.
So, the other top contenders are left with more glancing, indirect criticisms that don’t land with the same force, if they land at all. Trump’s opponents tend to say that he’s not electable, or he didn’t deliver on his promises, or we can’t argue about the past, or we can’t have our attention diverted by distractions or we need a new generation of leadership.
This is different than saying that Trump’s poisonously stupid conduct in office and afterwards was completely unacceptable and alienated the middle of the electorate, that he creates his own private realities, that he will say anything without regard for the truth and that he is profoundly selfish, easily distracted and vengeful.
Any other frontrunning candidate with Trump’s qualities and vulnerabilities would have this case made against him every day on the stump, in TV commercials and during debates. But Republican voters have thrown a defensive shield up around the former president. They reject the fundamental criticisms of Trump, nay, are offended by them, so will punish any Republicans who venture to make them…
He’s ruining the GOP brand, and it isn’t wasn’t even *his* brand!
This is correct. DeSantis gave them, the National Review set, the sugar high they wanted: Trumpism without the vulgarity of Trump. Turns out DeSantis just doesn't have the personality to pull it off.
Scott Walker suffered the same fate when backed by the same people. https://t.co/tmA9uxE8C7
— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) September 7, 2023
Christian Vanderbrouk, at The Bulwark — “They Did This To Themselves”:
Donald Trump’s dominance over the Republican party and his overwhelming lead in primary polling has some conservatives shaking their fists at the sky.
“What, in Heaven’s name, is the case for keeping him around?” asks an exasperated Charles Cooke in National Review. “He’s broken his oath of office. He’s repeatedly revealed himself to be completely unfit for the presidency. He’s shown he can’t win. Politicians are servants. Trump isn’t serving anything or anyone. Why is he still in the conversation?…
TO SEE HOW CONSERVATIVES built this prison for themselves, go back to the spring of 2021, when Rep. Liz Cheney faced the second attempt by MAGA loyalists to remove her from party leadership.
At the time, conservative activist Erick Erickson speculated (correctly) that “a great deal of the sudden antagonism towards Cheney has to do with placating President Trump in the run up to the 2022 election cycle.” Though Erickson allowed that this was happening because Cheney “wouldn’t bend a knee to a lie,” he justified removing her anyway. “Sometimes the greater good of beating the left requires stepping back to avoid distractions.”
(One wonders, is there some good greater than beating the left that Erickson might acknowledge was at stake—like the good of protecting the sanity and independence of the Republican party, or of defending our constitutional order itself?)…
McLaughlin wrote last summer that the effort to depose Donald Trump would prove to be “a test of character” for Ron DeSantis. In fact, it has proved to be a test of character for the entire party—a test that most Republicans seem happy to have flunked.
Of course, the Cheney Family does not do ‘sad’, because they prefer ‘vengeful’…
Liz Cheney: "I’m going to make sure Donald Trump…is not the nominee.
And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.”She won’t be alone. Millions of Republicans will either vote for Biden or stay home. A second Trump term would be the end of America as we know it. pic.twitter.com/HwFz4lTAn2
— Derek Friday (@DerekFriday) September 1, 2023
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump."
-Former VP Dick Cheney pic.twitter.com/VEwYshijCZ— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 7, 2023
Baud
Who’s Larry Sinclair?
Central Planning
@Baud: I didn’t know either. Amazon’s book summary:
I can’t even begin…
Baud
@Central Planning:
Kind of rude to talk about it then.
Thanks for doing the research.
Rusty
The fundamental problem for the Republicans is that they all agree on what Trump is selling (the white nationalism, anti social safety net, etc.), they just disagree on how it’s being sold. During the debate, even so called moderate Christie railed about how they needed to get rid of Trump before the Democrats could do anything about the Supreme Court. He is fine with a reactionary SCOTUS that will impose on the country policies that the Republicans could never pass through legislatures and strikes down Democrat’s efforts to govern. The same goes for the Cheneys. So there is no difference across the party in what, just disagreement about the style of how it is sold. The result is that the arguments for replacing Trump are weak because he does a better job tapping the energy of the party base than any of the alternatives. There is no policy difference, just presentation. So Trump will get the nomination.
piratedan
I would like to say something pithy along the lines that they all deserve each other, but passions and outrage run deep as I remember….
Hundreds of thousands dead due to COVID and if we had set a better example, perhaps millions could have been saved
environmental damage from pulling us out of the Paris accords and not addressing climate change sooner
hundreds, maybe thousands of kids torn from their families and sent who knows where
and the SCOTUS realignment that may well impact us for decades, with the corpses of women and children.
so fuck them and their precious party.
Dangerman
Another couple election cycles of defeats and they’ll be fucked. There will be post mortems and finger pointing and food fights. Should be a fun ride …. If we survive a couple more election cycles.
Baud
@Dangerman:
Exactly.
Brachiator
Was he murdered by Vince Foster using Hunter Biden’s laptop?
What a load of crap.
Baud
@Brachiator:
As others have said before, Trump just answered the casting call.
Dangerman
@Baud: No doubt. I’m talking some real WWE shit. MGT off the top rope like Jimmy Snuka. If we survive a couple cycles. Trump loses. Maybe gets convicted. McConnell checks out. It will be PPV stuff.
Tony Jay
Got to love that even Virgin Ben just had to throw a ‘significantly’ qualifier in there before he could post that drivel.
Like, “Sure, we all know that Sinclair’s musty old slash-fiction lacks credibility, that’s not up for debate. But is it by a ‘significant’ amount? What is ‘significant’’, anyway? Is it the same for everyone? Can’t people be free to find significance in different things? Who do the Left think they are to tell the American people what they can and can’t find ‘significance’ in. What arrogance! You know who else was arrogant? Barack Hussein Obama, that’s who. Flaunting himself around like he’s better than you. Who is he to tell you that you’re not allowed to know the degenerate things he was getting away with before he polluted our White House? Don’t you think it’s ‘significant’ that people have been killed to stop the truth about Obama coming out? I bet you do. And you’re right to. I’d say that’s ‘significant’. So buy this book and show Barack Hussein Obama that you’re on to him and his thug ways.”
And then Ben rested, for he was spent.
p.a.
@Baud: Yes. It was Dick, Lynn, etc what wrote the script.
Brachiator
The Democrats should use all this, and be sure to give credit to Republicans and other conservatives. “This is what the GOP really thinks about Trump…”
Steeplejack
I don’t get why Rich Lowry starts his apparently critical piece with “Donald Trump is winning the Republican nomination race in a walk, and it’s been quite the pleasant stroll.” Does he mean pleasant for Trump or for Lowry?
And there are other clangers in there.
Whut?
Actually, reading the whole piece, I think Lowry is fine with Trump, even after cataloguing his many faults and misdeeds.
I’ve known for a long time that Lowry is an idiot, but he still has the capacity for surprise. Fortunately, I almost never run across him except occasionally here.
satby
I subscribed to the Bulwark (know thy enemy and all that) and the entire longer article is worth reading. Because at the end of the day we need the never-Trumpers like the Bulwark writers to prevail in the Republican party. I agree with them on very little outside of their tfg hate, but we have a two party system and it would work best for the country if the Republican party wasn’t consumed by insanity. The Bulwark is useful for sending to Republican leaners I know, helping to chip away at that “tribe before country” mindset.*
Edit: * besides, it’s kind of funny to read their resignation as they acknowledge that they’ll be voting for Biden (again), because what other choice is there?
BellyCat
Truth from Dick Cheney? Things must be dire for the GOP! 🎻
Cheney neglected to add: “And the greatest threat to our republic — and the entire goddamn planet — is the current GOP leadership and its base.”
EFG’em…
chrome agnomen
@BellyCat: Cheney’s undoubtedly angry that trump took his place on that pedestal.
Steeplejack
I ordered something from Amazon last night and, almost on a dare, picked the (free) option for “overnight delivery (4:00-8:00 a.m.).” I’ve never done that before and wanted to see if it actually worked. And it did! Got a text about 5:45 from the actual Amazon driver who delivered the package to the porch/stoop downstairs. I texted a thank-you and, since I had to get up and get dressed, motored off to McDonald’s to pick up a McMuffin and a cup of joe.
So the weekend is off to an early start. Which it was going to be anyway. Bro’ Man is going to drop off some things about 8:00 or 8:30, and I think I will accompany him to the farmers’ market in downtown Falls Church, which I think is his routine.
And I now have an Alexa device—an Echo Pop delivered an hour ago by the Amazon minion. I had been thinking of getting a Dot for a while, and I got pushed over the edge yesterday by a friend who was rhapsodizing about her setup. Didn’t know about the Pop. So this will be a proof of concept. Mostly I’m interested in streaming SiriusXM, on-line radio stations and maybe podcasts. Will gingerly explore all the other stuff in time.
Jeffg166
The GQP and their billionaire money suppliers created TFG. If he were a little more polished and not so overt they could probably live with him. The big problem for them is TFG intends to keep all the grift for himslef.
Cameron
Pompeo? DeVos? Barr?
Steeplejack
@Cameron:
Inorite. I think I blacked out for a second or two.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
Lol. He omits the tax cuts because those are now inconvenient when they’re pretending to be the Party of the White Working Man.
Trump’s single big legislative accomplishment is massive tax cuts for wealthy people. He forgot?
M31
HAHAHAHAHAHAH WTF
these never-Trumpers almost start to sound rational for a bit there, then they reveal they in fact were deranged idiots all along
Kay
@Steeplejack:
I mean, it’s an extra-obvious dishonest omission because there are no legislative accomplishments in there at all now.
Other than tax cuts Trump has none. They’ve changed the way Presidents are measured – lowered the bar- to accomodate the low quality hire they made – Trump.
Biden ran circles around Trump with successful passage of legislation. He’s better at the job.
M31
I got your cabinet secretaries of similar caliber right here!
[scrapes dogshit off shoe]
Kay
@M31:
Everything DeVos did has been reversed by Biden. That was possible because Trump didn’t get any legislation passed, other than tax cuts.
M31
that’s so beautiful
Kay
Trump and his team weren’t productive at all. For all his loud bragging about being a hard driving, money-obsessed New Yawker he got very little done.
Tax cuts are the single legislative accomplishment, but he also got almost nothing done administratively or by executive order.
Compare Trump’s Dept of Labor (run by a Scalia family nepotism hire) to Bidens Dept of Labor output. Biden’s team are much more productive – they work harder and are more effective. One could do this with every department. Trumps team talked a lot and engaged in a lot of unethical self dealing but actual work? Not so much.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
“Trump’s judges.” He rubber-stamped Leonard Leo’s Federal Society nominees. Bzzt.
“Anti-abortion policies.” I don’t remember any, other than seating three moles on the Supreme Court. Dobbs came later. Bzzt.
“Bombing campaign against ISIS.” I don’t remember anything sustained. He killed a couple of leaders in strikes. Was there something more than that? Bzzt.
“Tough border policies.” Well, he had chaotic border policies, most notably the obscene child-separation thing, but I don’t remember any big increase in efficiency or safety at the border. Bzzt.
And all of those things are pretty far removed from what “ordinary” Americans are concerned about.
P.S. No mention of the COVID vaccine or Trump’s “handling” of the crisis? Hmm.
Ohio Mom
I always thought Trump was extremely vain about his looks — why else the hairdo and the spray tan. He put a lot of time and effort into his appearance.
But lately he looks pale, unkempt, uncoifed, sloppy. Makes me chuckle.
Princess
“Tough border policies.”
Not enough children in cages now I guess.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
He caused incredible suffering to immigrants, to the point there were constant news stories about it. By itself, that is enough to convince the base he’s the most effective president in generations. He got elected because polite racism wasn’t working.
For the more intellectual, okay, Biden’s been cleaning up the damage, but Trump did spend four years breaking everything in sight in the federal government. They think that’s pretty good.
EDIT – @Princess:
That, and they absolutely loved ICE randomly terrorizing harmless immigrants, doing shit like grabbing them when they went to pick up their kids. He caused fear and misery, and lots of it. The cruelty is the point.
MattF
And there’s the totally innocent coincidence that so many of Trump’s choices for cabinet department and agency leadership engaged in self-dealing and corruption… It’s almost as if Trump wanted corrupt people around him so he could grab them by the sensitive parts if that became necessary for disciplinary purposes. I’m sure Trump’s various mentors would approve.
Steeplejack
@Ohio Mom:
I realized that Trump looks good (relatively speaking) only in his executive suit of armor. Even on his best days, when he was tooling around Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster in his golf attire, he looked like an old, out-of-it retired guy that you would avoid in the pro shop or the café because he’s such a blowhard.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
He didn’t get infrastructure done because none of the people he hired know how to work with anyone else. That’s great for strutting around and bragging and being a maverick but it’s not productive at work.
So they get nothing done. DeVos single accomplishment is gumming up the public service student loan forgiveness loan program to the extent that it ground to a halt. Admittedly, that was deliberate on her part – malicious- but compare to Biden’s education team. They run rings around her output. There’s no comparison as far as work ethic and effectiveness. Like his real estate and businesses, Donald Trump is wildly overvalued as a manager. If he hadn’t have come up in the nepotism-ridden, parochial NYC real estate world no one would have ever heard of him.
Frankensteinbeck
Does Trump always look as hunched these days as he looks in that picture?
OzarkHillbilly
Of course trump looks old and tired, whad’ya expect from a 77 year old man working hard on his cross country campai… I mean grift, so hard he doesn’t have time to prepare for all the witch trials he is faced with.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
All these guys took the Trump Geeni out of the bottle super confident that they could stuff him back in as soon as his usefulness expired. They had two chances to whip votes for convincing after impeachment, one AFTER HE LOST THE ELECTION AND ATTEMPTED A VIOLENT COUP! But they demurred even then because they thought there might be one more thing on their wish list he could grant. Or because they thought maybe there was some way they could get him to lift the curse that came along with the wishes if only they could figure it out.
If they’re anguished about the current situation, good. They brought it on themselves by trying to have it both ways with this stupid goon and would still be willing to waffle and hedge their bets, and probably still are, on the off chance that he might be useful still. His usefulness expired when January 6 failed. Their patriotism and concern for the good of the country and its institutions should have caused them to issue the coup de grace to his political career right then and there. They instead waffled despite what their country needed, and failed to convict in the Senate. Their cowardice and fear brought them here and if they’re miserable, they deserve to be miserable or worse than miserable.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Kay: One concert I have with the Biden administration is they haven’t staffed up fully even today. I work for a federal agency. We have 4 political appointments: Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief Counsel and Director of Communications and Congressional Coordination. Only one of those positions is filled – our Deputy Administrator. He’s acting as Administrator. We had a Chief Counsel for about 6 months at one point but he then left IDK why. That’s a lot of leadership to do without for years It puts career staff in the position of having to assume some of those duties. It’s not optimal.
Kay
I listened to a little of Trump’s new speech yesterday and, wow, is it negative. He plays this dark music and recites a litany of complaints about the country in that horrible honking voice and accent. It’s much more negative than it was even last year.
This is conservatives now. All they fucking do is complain. Imagine hiring one of these people. I would never. They’re just poison to any kind of productive work or life culture. Bitter, angry, pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. Hilariously, they have somehow decided that air traffic controllers are no longer efficient. Is this some kind of zany Reagan flashback? Raving lunatics.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
But if your premise is that we already have too much legislation, then this is a good thing. And that is the premise for many in the GOP (even if they’re kidding themselves).
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Steeplejack: That sounds like a great plan for your morning.
Gvg
@Rusty: the fundamental difference between racist bigot old republicans and Trump is that Trump does not believe in following the Constitution. They were slow to accept that he really meant that and slow to accept that enough voters didn’t care or were also traitor/criminal/revolutionaries but Trump said things like “I should be elected for more than 2 terms” before the 2016 election. He was always making references to not abiding by elections if they didn’t have him winning. Over and over, he SAID clearly he thought he got to own the United States and rule not just be a law limited executive for a defined term. He showed us he meant it too. He really never paid attention in school, do not understand basic normal Americanism or ordinary life. In a lot of ways he acted like he was a foreigner.
He showed he did not have a public school education. Why weren’t more people screaming get out of the election then? More republicans? I mean of course liberals hated him, and some republicans spoke up, but not the majority. They should have. It was reported on, it just didn’t get substained attention, and I really don’t think it was the medias fault. I think it was the Republican voters. They did not care.
Ramalama
@Kay: To that I say…
La Cucaracha Horn
as opposed to sad trombone (a la @Steeplejack from older thread)
Brit in Chicago
“He’s ruining the GOP brand, and it
isn’twasn’t even *his* brand!”Yes, but it’s also important that the brand wasn’t that good to start with. Bill Clinton was pretty popular, certainly by current standards, when he left office. GWB won/lost by the slimmest of margins in 2000, and only won in 2004 by lying the country into war and wrapping himself in the flag; by the time he left office he was really unpopular. Obama was pretty popular. Someone in 2016 looking back over the previous quarter century might think that Republicans were going to have trouble winning national elections for the foreseeable future. And I hope that that judgment turns out to be true, if not about 2016 at least about the next quarter century.
Rusty
@Kay: The Republicans at least at the federal level have mostly moved beyond legislation other than tax cuts for their accomplishments. By stacking the courts they can accomplish their aims without bothering to pass anything, and by controlling SCOTUS they can declare large swaths of areas unconstitutional and forever prevent the Democrats from legislating in those areas. The next step is to thoroughly politicize the federal government. A large number of federal jobs will be turned from career positions to political appointments, and then they can effectively gut those organizations for generations. I saw somewhere the argument that Senator Tuberville’s holds on military promotions is a similar action to hold them open with the hope Trump wins and they can stack the military too. Who knows? The hard part to accept is that while they are losing by traditional metrics, they are winning in ways that increase their power, and in ways that will be extremely difficult or impossible to reverse.
Denali5
You underestimate the appeal of tax cuts. And a lot of people are quite happy that abortion is no longer legal. Now they have new scapegoats-trans in particular. It is quite hard to change a culture. And the issue of migration has not gone away, in fact the governors of Texas and Florida have used it quite successfully to gain attention. Hate to be a downer, but there we are.
Ken
I think there was a substantial drop in immigration, but that was due to the plague.
Also, it made the racist part of the base happy, but the part that runs their small businesses with undocumented workers, not so much. (I’m not saying those are distinct parts.)
Joe Falco
@satby:
I’d rather if the Republican party would go to the dustbin of history, conservatives be scattered to the four winds, and the other major party be leftist instead of knuckle-dragging fascist lite filth. I also want a pony please.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Thanks! I’m home now, and glad of it. Temp not bad, 74°, but killer humidity—92%, dew point 69° (“uncomfortable”). Sweaty. But it was good to see the farmers’ market and get the lay of the land. I had never been before. Wasn’t even sure exactly where it was, because no trace of it during the week. (It’s in a parking lot by City Hall.)
I got a gigantic tomato and a few pastries, eyeballed some things for future visits. Oh, I also got a bag of dog treats for Chip the non-sighthound of Sighthound Hall and sent those home with Bro’ Man.
Steeplejack
@Ramalama:
You
rangbeeped?mrmoshpotato
Look at that fat, orange, fascist fuck. Definitely doesn’t have the stamina or belief in democracy to run for office.
Also, shut up, Ben Shapiro.
Steeplejack
@Ken:
What you say is true. But I also belatedly remembered that he didn’t even build the wall!
Soprano2
@Kay: DeVos was one of the worst ones, too. She was all in on the for-profit colleges because she was making money from them, and from the shitty loans their students took out. IIRC, she reversed or tried to reverse all the progress Obama made on that issue. She also wanted to destroy public schools because she thought all students should have to go to private, religious ones. She was one of the worst, low profile, destructive secretaries TFG appointed.
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: That could be a sign of dementia, too. It’s something that often happens. My grandpa would wear pants over his pajama bottoms. No sign of it with hubby yet, but these are early days.
Soprano2
@Kay: Boy, none of them have ever been in an air traffic control tower, because if they had they’d shut right up about that. It’s one of the hardest jobs out there.
Ramalama
@Steeplejack: Oh man. You’ve done a true public service!
I use sad trombone with some frequency. With family I abbreviate it to trom-bone.
Now I am fully armed.
Steeplejack
@Ramalama:
The Mexican horn is a nice alternative when you want to mock a MAGAt or winger and want to give it an upbeat spin. Just came to me as if in a dream yesterday.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It woudn’t matter at all if they had been in a tower. They’re blowhards – they can do everyones job better. All that frantic talking, talking, talking covers up the complete lack of actual work and accomplishments. It’s like “look busy” taken to an art form.
I bet they all bore people with how many hours they “work”. That’s consistent with the type. Oddly unproductive yet claiming to work 60 hours a week – 50 of those hours are taken up by incessant complaining, boasting and criticizing others.
kalakal
@Steeplejack:
What nonsense, the Republicans have a very large supply of the very worst people
Kay
@Soprano2:
She had no experience running anything. She donates to far Right grift orgs and funds yacht races. That’s her job. I actually see the DeVos yachts- they race them on Lake Michigan and I sometimes go to races.
That was lucky for the 50 million public school students. She accomplished absolutely nothing. The minute she and her low quality hires left the building the student loan programs started to work again and it was then like they had never been there.
Ivan X
@Central Planning: You stoked my morbid curiosity: I went over there, in an incognito window since I certainly don’t want recommendations based on my browsing in this case, and read the rest of the book description. It should come with a warning; I think I actually lost brain cells reading it.
The reviews are something special, too. As is the out-of-print hardcover selling for $956.
moonbat
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I thought they refused to impeach him the second go round not out of cynicism, but because too many in their ranks were in up to their necks on the coup planning. If they convicted him, he might start naming names.
Ohio Mom
@Soprano2: The only thing I can say, besides I’m very sorry about Hubby, is at least you have lots of time to research and prepare, and be as strategic as possible.
I think there are probably somewhat better supports than in Grandpa’s day, you will find them and use them. It will stil be awful but maybe a little easier here and there.
Ramalama
@Steeplejack: Upbeat mockery…I’m all for it.
trnc
@BellyCat:
Dick Cheney is just getting around to saying something now, almost 3 years after the attempted coup? Whatevs. He’s pretty much at the top of the list of people who made DT’s presidency possible, so he can fuck right off. Liz’s pre-DT anti-democratic rants place some responsibility on her, too, but her early full throated criticism of him and her willingness to stand by it when it became clear it would cost her her seat deserve a fair amount of credit.
Soprano2
@Kay: We were lucky that most of TFG’s awful hires didn’t have any idea how government actually worked, or how to actually get anything done. We wouldn’t be that lucky if, God-forbid, he actually got elected again. Now they have a plan written by people who actually know how to do these things. For the sake of all of us TFG and his minions have to be beaten at the ballot box, again and again if necessary. I wish the press would talk about that plan more, and highlight parts of it, because it is truly awful
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: I am glad we know relatively early. I had lunch with a friend on Thursday whose husband died of Alzheimer’s last October. She said he knew something was different but wouldn’t go to the doctor for it; by the time he was diagnosed, he was so far into it that he didn’t even have the neuropsych test because they thought he couldn’t get through the testing. Knowing now gives me time to research things and prepare for when I need help. One way in which I know I’m extremely lucky is that I won’t have to worry about the financial side of it for a long time, if ever. This is already stressful, I can only imagine how bad the addition of financial worries would be.
LiminalOwl
@Kay: Not everything. Navient repeatedly messed up the records my student-loan payments; I was eventually able to get them straightened out, but it looks like I’m not eligible for most loan forgiveness because the record shows I didn’t pay on time. Let alone their “overdue” fees.
(Each time I straightened it out, Navient told me that the only way to prevent future issues was to allow Navient to debit my bank account directly, rather than sending a check via autopay as I did. I was not willing to give Navient direct access, for reasons that may be obvious.)
And I very much doubt the I was the only person with whom Navient played these games.
Steeplejack
@Ramalama:
The trombone is for failure. The Mexican horn is more like “Not only did you fail, it turned out the opposite of what you wanted.” Cheery!
BruceFromOhio
Distractions like that pesky democracy and the constant annoyance of the rule of law, right? Party before country!
Face-eating leopards be eating faces.
hueyplong
@Ohio Mom: You’re on to something when you point out that the guy who looks like crap in that photo is Norma Desmond-level vain about his appearance.
If this were a movie everyone in the theater would assume the next scene will be showing him grinding/cutting up something to snort (with fewer minions on hand).
I’m liking what I see and look forward to more of it. I want his own fans averting their eyes a few months from now and pretending they always had a few nagging concerns that coexisted with their love of his “policies.” (The tipping point version of “God’s imperfect vessel”)
Of course, similar thoughts keep DeSantis gritting his teeth and awkwardly pretending to share characteristics with humans. So there’s that as well.
Kay
@Soprano2:
One of my sisters works with handicapped kids and their parents – ages down to infants- and I asked her once if it was better for parents to know ahead of time with prenatal testing or find out later. She said unequivocallly better to know and mentally and emotionally prepare, in her experience.
Miss Bianca
Jesus. The irony of being forced to agree with a pair of fucking *Cheneys* about Donald Trump being the greatest threat to American democracy – at least in *our* lifetimes – is anything but delicious. It’s a little nauseating, truth be told, to realize that I agree with any Cheney about *anything* to do with American democracy.
wjca
Well, but the standard of comparison is his other appointments, cabinet secretaries in particular. So, a very low bar indeed.
grumbles
Fuck a bunch of Dick Cheney.
That asshole became VP with an essential ratfucking assist from… who? Roger Stone. I rather suspect he would find this all merely distasteful if his daughter hadn’t ended up a casualty.
That vampire should stick to jerking off to memories of that time he got to torture people.
wjca
@Chief Oshkosh:
But they weren’t even good at repealing some of that “too much” legislation.
moops
Dick Cheney was fine with keeping his mouth shut and voting for Trump, until Trump ruined his daughter’s political career.
As with every conservative, nothing is bad until it affects them personally.
DougL
@Rusty:
“The hard part to accept is that while they are losing by traditional metrics, they are winning in ways that increase their power, and in ways that will be extremely difficult or impossible to reverse.”
This is the part that is so maddening about our own coalition. We act as if we are winning (so we are not as desperate as – imho – we should be with fascists so close to absolute power in the US) when by too many of the metrics that count, the far right is in effective control of much of the country already. And despite their many setbacks in the courts and in popular opinion, their power (and willingness to exercise it in extreme ways) is only growing at this moment.
Peke Daddy
@Tony Jay: “…after all, what IS reality really, anyway…”
RevRick
Fascism always appeals to the dark side of humanity. With its obsession about purity of blood and soil, it taps into the deep wells of fear and disgust. And so, it will offer the seductive notion that its leader will restore national greatness that has been contaminated by disgusting others. These others, who threaten the very fabric of the race/nation, are to be ruthlessly defeated.
Post World War I, for Germany, Italy, and Japan, these others were the victorious Allied Big Three of Britain, France, and the United States, who refused their legitimate claims, but also the internal forces of weak leaders who meekly submitted and despised minorities.
Prior to that was Jim Crow South with its program of white supremacy. And today, we face a thoroughly Dixiefied GOP. Trump is just it’s avatar.
Tony Jay
@Peke Daddy:
Exactly. We’re all just stardust cooling in a bowl of gravity, anyway, so why is reality any more real than dreams? Huh? Far out. You finished with that bong?
linnen
@Gvg: There is no “fundamental difference” between the racist bigoted old Republicans and Trump. They just did not use a loudspeaker. They had the same non-reaction to Bush wanting to be a dictator, or to their treatment of the Constitution as toilet paper.