Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The words do not have to be perfect.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

How stupid are these people?

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Republicans do not trust women.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Illuminating Late-Night Read: Scene Report from Fascist Prom

Illuminating Late-Night Read: Scene Report from Fascist Prom

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A second Weimar Republic, but with more plastic. Shawn McCreesh, for NYMag, “Trump Reassures His Loyalists That He’ll Do Better Next Time”:

This past Saturday night, a thousand or so gleeful, tuxedoed, and fur-swaddled conservatives — some toting actual plutocrat-style canes as if costumed to play villains in a Tim Burton–era Batman movie — descended on Cipriani Wall Street for the annual New York Young Republican Club gala. Despite the very recent eviction from Congress of one of the club’s own hatchlings, George Santos, things seem, on the whole, to be swinging their way. A Trump restoration is looking more likely than ever, and they even managed to secure the once and perhaps future president himself as the headliner for tonight. The protesters chanting out front might as well have been hired for the occasion to add to the apocalyptic drama and self-importance of it all…

Sure, there’s all manner of chaos on the other side of the aisle, what with the guillotining of Kevin McCarthy (now retiring early!) and resulting weeks-long leadership standoff. But for this crowd — and it ought to be recognized that the New York Young Republicans are not, despite the location of this gala, sensible, patrician pro–Wall Street Rockefeller Republicans but rather revanchist firebrands with a collective crush on Viktor Orbán (and, possibly, Mussolini) — it has all turned out well in the end: They finally have a solid January 6er as Speaker of the House, have succeeded in blocking aid to Ukraine, and are hunting down Hunter Biden. Iowa is just weeks away, and the Republican Party’s primary system has never been as rigged to favor the front-runner as it is now…

In the past, this gala was a smaller affair, thrown uptown at a space on Park Avenue. But Trump’s presence has doubled the head count. “They are the fascist stronghold in New York, and I don’t use the word fascist lightly,” says Jamie Bauer, a 59-year-old protester outside the venue who uses they/them pronouns and does admittedly seem like the type who might use the word lightly. I asked Bauer if they think Biden is really the best Democrat to run. “I’m not here to talk about that,” they say. The Republicans shuffle merrily past the picketers and into Cipriani’s cavernous, Corinthian-columned ballroom.

The galagoers, many of them not particularly young, seem quite pleased by all this dictator discourse. Hopeful, even. “I think he might obscure some rules in the very beginning to do what needs to get done,” says Elizabeth Haney, 29, standing on the VIP line in satin Manolo Blahniks. She’s the director of major gifts at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, and says there is absolutely nothing about Trump’s rhetoric that scares her. “He knows exactly what needs to be done to get rid of the deep state.”

“No, there’s nothing that scares me,” says Nicholas Prytherch, a D.C. lobbyist in a bow tie a few paces ahead in the line. I ask what goes through his mind when he hears his preferred candidate refer to other human beings as “vermin.” An uncomfortable pause. “We’re all human, hah. I’m sure, as we all have, I bet, have called people names in the past, or used terms. But, yeah.” He shrugs. “We’re all human.” Howard Feldman, an 80-year-old former banker, similarly waved off the verminous remark: “He just does that to irritate people, to get into their craw, but, it’s meaningless, really.” Is there anything Trump has done that has made Feldman waver? “Not really,” replies his 49-year-old wife, Kelly.

Inside, members of the press get stuffed around a table in the corner. I wiggle free to make my way to the VIP balcony for cocktail hour. There, I see Queens councilmember Vickie Paladino, tanned and leathery as a handbag, and Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew. A creepy, bespectacled German man who says he’s part of Germany’s, uh, historically fascist right-wing party, AfD, is holding forth, like some kind of Bond arch-foe, about “destroying” his political “enemies.” Trumpy presstitutes like Jack Posobiec mingle alongside Representative Lauren Boebert and assorted Ivanka look-alikes. A circle of gay right-wingers forms. “We’re one George Santos short of a royal flush,” jokes David Leatherwood, otherwise known as @thebrokebackpatriot on social media…

Everyone heads downstairs to take their seats for dinner. At my table is Jim Hoft, founder of the far-right website Gateway Pundit, and Lucian Wintrich, a conservative media troll who for some reason once produced a photo series called “Twinks 4 Trump.” His young-seeming friend this evening looks like a malnourished Timothée Chalamet, shirtless under his double-breasted, pin-striped suit jacket. Next to him is Martin Shkreli’s ex-girlfriend, a start-up founder named Madison Campbell. There’s also Amanda Milius: She worked for Jared Kushner in the West Wing, then went to the State Department, and then directed a documentary about Russiagate called The Plot Against the President (her father is John Milius, one of the screenwriters of Apocalypse Now and Dirty Harry).

I ask if she believes the liberal media when it says Trump will behave as a dictator, or if she even cares. “I don’t believe it, and even if he does, I wish he would, because we actually needed him to do more of that,” she says. “People think there were loyalty tests and all of this, and actually there weren’t. That was the problem.” She says this time around he needs an empowered chief of staff (Devin Nunes, she suggests). I point out that there have been four former Trump chiefs of staff, most of whom, after attempting to work with him closely, agreed with many other former high-ranking Trump officials that he was entirely unfit for office. “Well, that’s because he kept hiring the wrong chiefs of staff,” says Milius matter-of-factly. Is Trump himself in any way at fault for this since he chose them? “I struggle with his personnel choices at times,” she admits. “I sort of think about it the way I think about my family. Sometimes I like the decisions they make, and sometimes I don’t. But I’m still onboard.”…

Sitting at Trump’s left is Gavin Wax, the ambitious 29-year-old head of the New York Young Republican Club. He brought with him tonight a box of cookies especially for Trump — Keebler Vienna Fingers, the former president’s favorite — which he puts on the table alongside some ketchup he brought for Trump’s steak. “We could never have imagined in a million years we would be graced by the presence of the greatest president of all time,” Wax gushes in his speech. “This is a man who understands loyalty.” (Or at least blind toadyism, as Bill Barr, Rex Tillerson, General Mark Milley, and many, many others discovered the hard way.) Other still-loyalists at Trump’s table: his lawyer Alina Habba, Cory Mills, Boris Epshteyn, Matt Gaetz, and Steve Bannon…

But even among the die-hards, the never-not-Trumpers around me, there is an undercurrent of concern. What true right-wingers feel, and will sometimes say, especially when they’re liquored up, but almost never on the record, is that Trump has often been a flake and a disappointment. Many feel frustrated by how, Supreme Court aside, he squandered his time in office, allowing his administration to be hijacked by the go-go globalists from Goldman Sachs and his skinny son-in-law. Bannon got kicked aside pretty quick. As some in the room see it, Trump never went far enough but instead got rolled by the deep state, then screwed up COVID and lost reelection. So while the MSM panics about a coming Trump dictatorship, the fear in this room is the very inverse of that. What if we get him to the finish line and he fumbles like last time?

Perhaps Trump senses this. It struck me how much he seemed to want the room to understand he has patched things up with Bannon, that they’re back to where they began, ready to rip the face off the Establishment forreal this time. Trump kept pointing from the stage down at Bannon and cooing. “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter, Steve? … Remember, Steve? … Steve was there! … Steve! Steve! … Bannon, should we do it?”

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  2. 2.

    HumboldtBlue

    This is the only goddamn blog left standing that makes you do homework.

    And you do it.

    Fuckers.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    “I think he might obscure some rules in the very beginning to do what needs to get done,” says Elizabeth Haney, 29, standing on the VIP line in satin Manolo Blahniks. She’s the director of major gifts at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank, and says there is absolutely nothing about Trump’s rhetoric that scares her. “He knows exactly what needs to be done to get rid of the deep state.”

    Jeez. It is weird that so many supposed adults believe in this “deep state” conspiracy stuff.

    Hail Hydra!

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Does the media ever do write ups like this for Biden events?

    Biden events would be gatherings of sane people and so, less newsworthy.

  11. 11.

    ColoradoGuy

    Surprising how they think they can control the Seven Mountains Dominionists. Aside from the death of the Republic, a Night of the Long Knives is baked into their scenario. And who would come out on top after that?

  12. 12.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Baud: No, no they don’t.

    Why do you ask? I mean Biden is boring amirite?
    And all those icky people who actually work for a living in jobs where they don’t need keyboards 24/7, hanging around workplaces where people the media never interview actually do useful work.

    I mean, whose interested in that?

  14. 14.

    SpaceUnit

    Folks, just say no to all the trump porn.  It’s nothing but clickbait.

    This blog is starting to feel like the USA Today, a newspaper edited by Homer Simpson.

     

    And fight among yourselves.  I’m going to bed.

  15. 15.

    Jay

    So, funny thing,

    I am pretty sure that I am being “catfished” via LinkedIn.

    I am playing it out, we see where it goes.

  20. 20.

    Tony Jay

    Says it all about where the ‘professional’ News Media is at.

     Sent to attend a gathering of New York’s most overtly Hugo Boss-styled revivalist sect, surrounded by extremely online half-goblins all festooned with Aryan 4 Life tattoos and neat little burning cross lapel pins who are so open about their desire for a lawless dictatorship that you half expect one or more of them to be hawking creased copies of their own Manifesto for an Ultimate Answer to the Liberal Conundrum from a booth in the toilet, and what is the first question thrown at one of the American citizens who have remembered their High School civics lessons well enough to protest this ugliness?

    “I asked Bauer if they think Biden is really the best Democrat to run.”

    Because Of Course You Did.

    Useless.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    IDF having a great PR day. Flooding the tunnels with seawater, which may or may not contain hostages, and Haaretz reporting that IDF is behind the ’72 Virgins – Uncensored’ Telegram channel that shows videos of Palestinians being killed and Gaza being destroyed asking people to share them so “everyone can see that we’re screwing them.”

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @Jay:

    Catfishing refers to the creation of a fictitious online persona, or fake identity typically on social networking platforms, aimed at deceiving individuals.[1] This usually involves the cat-fisher presenting themselves as an attractive person.

    I didn’t realize what I do at Balloon Juice had a name.

  30. 30.

    Tony Jay

    @Martin:

    Mmmmmm, that all sounds very damning and all that, and I’m sure the relevant authorities will give it every due consideration, but don’t you think it’s suspicious, even sinister, that you haven’t opened and closed with a sufficiently thunderous denunciation of Hamas?

    After all, we’re not going to get anywhere fast if we don’t stick to the proper hierarchy of concerns, will we?  /

  32. 32.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Tony Jay: Worse. Dilettantes who think they are above it all. No wonder people who actually work for a living hate the NY ‘high’ media and magazines. They and the people who write and work for them are execrable.

  34. 34.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Martin: The sooner Biden wraps up Netanyahu and his execrable supporters the better. Outside the US beltway international support and patience for Israel is ebbing, fast. Even little Australia, always willing to do US bidding voted for the UN GA resolution for a cessation of the assault on the civilians living in Gaza.
    I want Biden and the Dems to win big next year.

    I know most people don’t give a stuff about foreign policy in most national elections. But with a FPTP election system plus the skewed and undemocratic Electorate Vote Count system that the sainted FFs bequeathed the US, the Dems can’t afford to alienate too many parts of the jalopy that makes up its coalition.

    He needs to get on Bibi’s hammer, and fast. This needs to end. Now.

  35. 35.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch

    Vickie Paladino, tanned and leathery as a handbag, and Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew. A creepy, bespectacled German man who says he’s part of Germany’s, uh, historically fascist right-wing party,

    Only the best people

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    There were probably parties in 1940 similar to this one, where America Firsters were asked about Mein Kampf: “Well, of course Hitler didn’t really mean all that. It’s hyperbole. But if Hitler did mean it, so what?He makes some really good points.”

  37. 37.

    Martin

    @Aussie Sheila: It would be nice if more Democrats were on board. There’s a real generational split there which I’ve seen explained as a much higher tolerance for colonialism among my generation and older vs millennials and younger, so older generations don’t see the settlements as a hostile act that Palestinians are justified in fighting against, where younger generations do.

    I don’t know how Biden squares this up.

  38. 38.

    Tony Jay

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I saw that this morning. 61. Damn.

    Back in the day Homicide was must-see viewing for me and my TV Buddy, and Braugher, as Frank ‘The Stare That Walks Amongst Men’ Pembleton, owned every single scene he appeared in. I never watched Brooklyn 9-9, so I was never exposed to his comedy chops, but I’ll always remember him being genuinely terrifying in his justified arrogance and contempt for everyone who wasn’t as driven and professional as he was, and we loved that.

  40. 40.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Martin: I have been retired for six years. Among my peers, not all of whom share my politics, the patience and support for Israel is about at zero. That is why, imo, our government felt able to support the UN GA reso. Make no mistake. Even within ‘loyalist’ polities like Australia, Israel has done its dash. The US can rely on the fact that it has the biggest military in the world. And Israel can rely on the US to excuse and explain everything it does.
    But Israel can’t rely on US allies to follow it in its folly, especially in polities where there is a sizeable Muslim and Palestinian electorate and parties win via preferential/proportional voting. Our ALP government relies on the support of at least four urban electorates where the Muslim vote is crucial.

    There is no way they are going to sacrifice that support for a sentimental journey with the US down the memory lane beloved of the older boomer, centre left US electorate.

  42. 42.

    sab

    Others have noted, but Andre Braugher died. He was younger than my baby sister.

    I am shocked, but mostly just very sad.

  43. 43.

    Tony Jay

    @Aussie Sheila:

    I don’t think they have even that excuse. They’re not dilletantes. They’re professional writers working hard to give their Editors and Publishers exactly the product they want to sell.

    You see it over here, where the News Media insist on treating every new revelation of corruption and failure and ideological extremism amongst the Tories as if they’re just incidental side-effects that shouldn’t be allowed to distract for what people really want, which is juicy gossip about which Tory insider might or might not be up or down this week.

    That’s not bad journalism. That’s not journalism at all. It’s serialised fiction. Big Brother with longer gaps between evictions. They are killing the informed consent that allows democratic society to function and I can’t help but see it as deliberate.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: This war would continue even if Netanyahu and his three original coalition partners were somehow excluded from government. Opposition parties Labor, Yesh Atid, and Lieberman’s party basically back it. They have strong differences over other policies but not over the Gaza invasion. And Benny Gantz, whose party joined the government a few days after October 7, is helping conduct the war as a member of the 3-man War Cabinet.

    From what I’ve seen, only the Arab Joint List firmly opposes the war. The Arab Ra’am party is less firmly in opposition, perhaps because its Bedouin base in the south has a lot of animus towards Hamas.

    And rightly or wrongly, the Biden administration agrees with the basic goal of ending Hamas rule in Gaza, so even though we are trying to modify Israeli tactics we’re not pushing for a ceasefire. That could change, but not any time soon.

  45. 45.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Tony Jay: Same here. Especially with the ABC, our equivalent of the BBC. It has been systematically wrecked by a succession of conservative governments, ably assisted at times by conservative forces within the ALP. However, bad as social media is in many respects, I infinitely prefer the plethora of voices that have been unleashed and have some audience now than the cozy ‘insider’ ethos of the old dominant press, TV and magazines.

    That structure was perfect for the post WW2/Cold War regime but was very bad when the world radically changed in the 1980s.

    The old order and its media forms aren’t coming back.

    Time to invent new and better forms.  Social media is in many ways a boon for the previously unheard and ignored. The owners of course are scum. But so what? So were/are the owners of traditional media.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch: I know. I just picked 1940 because it was an election year, and the year the US adopted the Draft. America First’s political position was starting to erode by then, but the isolationists were still strong up until Pearl Harbor; in September of 1941, the Draft was renewed by only one vote in the House.

  47. 47.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Geminid: Thats a pity. Particularly for the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who have been killed in a territory that Israel itself essentially controls.

    The US is powerful enough to continue to coddle and support the insufferable and the insupportable. Until it’s not.

    Biden hasn’t done himself any favours outside the US with this latest blather in support of the insupportable. But it remains to be seen what effect it has in the US. Probably little.
    After all, it’s only Arabs and the Israelis are just like us right?

  48. 48.

    raven

    @Aussie Sheila: We got to see our friends from Sydney yesterday! The little one is four and a real pistol! She was hilarious when I asked her about what side of the road we drive on!!!!

  49. 49.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: You’re right; there were parties like that, and probably within walking distance of the shindig described in the post above. Rachel Maddow documented the historical analogues in her “Ultra” podcast and more extensively in her new book, “Prequel.”

    I found both worthwhile because it’s a history I never learned in school, and knowing it gives me hope that we can defeat the current American fascist movement as our grandparents did in their day.

  50. 50.

    Aussie Sheila

    @raven: Excellent! We drive on the left side. I was very sure I could handle US driving conditions sight and experience nil notwithstanding when I first visited, and hopped into a hire car to drive from LA to SF. Christ on a cracker. I’m lucky we all survived. I must have been mad.

  51. 51.

    eclare

    @Aussie Sheila:

    There is no way I would drive in a country that drives on the left.  When I lived in London I was lucky that there were markers on the street reminding me which way to look for traffic while I was walking!

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @eclare: While on a lecture tour of the US in the 1920s, Winston Churchill walked into a car for that reason. He looked the wrong way. Churchill was pretty messed up, but he finished the tour anyway because he needed the money.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch:

    On November 21, 1922, the New York Times published its very first article about Adolf Hitler. It’s an incredible read — especially its assertion that “Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded.”

    In 1922, very few politicians or publishers recognized Hitler as being, well, Hitler. The NY Times was not special in its blindness.

    News reporter Howard K Smith noted in an interview that when he first went to Europe in the 1930s when things were heating up, his editor at the German bureau didn’t even speak the language and had no clue as to what the real political climate was like.

  63. 63.

    Abnormal Hiker

    @Aussie Sheila: I once spent 3 months in Australia. It wasn’t long enough to get completely accustomed to driving on the left. It was however long enough that I was totally screwed up driving when i got back home.

  65. 65.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Abnormal Hiker: Yes, it’s hard to swap driving sides. My mistake was thinking it would be a breeze, driving a difficult route from one ginormous city to another, driving with two other passengers, and driving to a deadline for a meeting at which we were all delegates.

    Other than that, I think I did ok! Not.

  66. 66.

    Barry

    @Brachiator: “Jeez. It is weird that so many supposed adults believe in this “deep state” conspiracy stuff.

    Hail Hydra!”

     

    That’s because it’s what they would do.  In the end, it’s all projection.

  67. 67.

    kalakal

    Reading the comments by those paid up members of the NSDAP GOP attendees I’m amazed these people actually have any money. How can someone that detached from reality function in society. You’d have thought that anyone that delusional would be unable to hold down a job

  71. 71.

    Chris T.

    @Aussie Sheila:

    Yes, it’s hard to swap driving sides

    Maybe not if you’re somewhat dyslexic, as I am. I’ve gone back and forth numerous times and only screwed up the side-of-road thing once.

    What always gets me is the positions of the turn signal and wipers.

  72. 72.

    Aussie Sheila

    @raven: A lovely performance. The ‘troubles’ aka the struggle for Catholic civil rights in Northern Ireland was the one great unifying issue between the Right and the Left in the Australian Labor Party. My friends and I were invited to and attended, a reception for Gerry Adams when he visited Sydney.

    His bodyguard was very scary, and we had no reason to be scared!
    It was a great night, with a lot of singing and cursing the British.

    I have always believed Adams was an active member of Sinn Fein, his denials notwithstanding.

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @Barry: I think the “Deep State” concept came from Turkiye. That nation seems to actually have had a Deep State composed of conservative elements in the military, judiciary and private sector. It controlled a lot of national policies from 1960 on into this century.

    But this was nothing like the fictional “Deep State” Republicans complain about. The Turkish model is really more like the Deep State that Republicans want to create.

  75. 75.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Geminid: Yes, the term did originate from Turkey. It gained currency in the 60sand 70s as struggles against the Kemalist regime intensified within the shadow of the cold war and U.S. support for the regime.

    It had a specific meaning in that context. Its use to describe US conditions is simply ludicrous. I suspect it has its origins in Bannon’s fascistic imaginings. The fact that elected representatives in a democracy would describe their own polity that way beggars description.

  76. 76.

    Aussie Sheila

    @raven: The whole of the NSW Labor Party attended. If a bomb had gone off, the elected government of NSW would have been no more.

    Looking back, I’m buggered how they supplied security. Gerry Adams’ security detail looked thuggish enough, but a few hard men wouldn’t have been enough against determined security assets. If you get my drift.

  79. 79.

    Yarrow

    They finally have a solid January 6er as Speaker of the House, have succeeded in blocking aid to Ukraine, and are hunting down Hunter Biden.

    Maybe I’m remembering incorrectly, but I think getting rid of McCarthy as Speaker required Dem votes. I think there was some discussion about whether it was a good idea or not. Wondering now if it was a good thing to do. Would it have made more sense to keep him? Johnson is clearly awful and dangerous. Well, they all are.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    Ugh. My least favorite type of political commentary – the ultra sophisticated “I’m in on the joke” essay.

    Trump is a delightful scamp eccentric – so interesting!

    I feel like it’s dated too – that this type of coverage expired in 2000.

    A creepy, bespectacled German man who says he’s part of Germany’s, uh, historically fascist right-wing party, AfD, is holding forth, like some kind of Bond arch-foe, about “destroying” his political “enemies.”

    This isn’t a movie. It’s real life. There really are fascist Right wing parties in Germany (and New York City).

    The writer thinks he’s in on the joke but the jokes on him – they’ll round him up with the rest of us. Idiot.

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: The presence of a Turkish Deep State can be inferred by the aftermath of the military coup of 1980. The military banned existing parties, then allowed new ones to participate in elections two years later. The generals were not afraid to hand control back to a civilian government because they still controlled key institutions. As late as 1997, a “Military Memorandum” was enough to make the civilian President reconstitute the Government so as to exclude the Islamist who held the premiership.

    A later manisfestation of the Deep State might be seen in 2010. Prime Minister Erdogan’s representative, Hakan Fidan, had been holding secret peace talks with PKK representatives in Norway. When the news leaked, prosecutors announced they were investigating Fidan for illegal contacts with enemies of the state. Erdogan’s AKP majority in the National Assembly passed a law shielding Fidan from prosecution. Fidan, whose father happens to be Kurdish, is now Erdogan’s powerful Foreign Minister.

    The abortive military coup of 2016 might have been the Turkish Deep State’s last gasp. Some Turks I follow on Twitter assume that coup had the approval of the CIA, even though they are otherwhise very anti-Erdogan.

  82. 82.

    Kay

    A Trump restoration is looking more likely than ever,

    God, they can barely contain their glee. NY media LOVE Trump. And why shouldn’t they? They created him. This relationship benefits both Trump and them – the only losers are the public.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    He’s not going to win. We’re going to beat him again and all these super-clever political observers who think they are living in a fucking movie will have to find real work, because Joe Biden is not eccentric and fascinating and a strong man bully like they adore – he’s just a plain good President. Four more years of boredom for them – oh well. There’s always the pronoun jokes about Democrats- those are always hilarious, even the 700th time.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    Good essay in a Lefty mag about the Rightward lurch among Lefties. I was surprised they are admitting it, frankly.

    These left-to-right sliders (or at least left-ish-to-right) — themselves migrants across the political divide — find themselves in strange constellation with those they might once have disdained. Pop feminist icon Naomi Wolf now conferences with hard-right student organizer Charlie Kirk over the prospect of ​“capital punishment” for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. YouTuber Jimmy Dore, another once-left comedian who lost hold of the joke, now marvels over his meeting of the minds with Tucker Carlson: ​“We should do a show together!” Call it The Horseshoe Hour.
    Except ​“horseshoe theory,” which imagines a political spectrum bending to meet at its extremes, doesn’t describe this drift. It goes in one direction.

    They pretty much conclude the same thing I did – that a combination of BLM, Me Too and covid was too much for people like Greenwald and Taibii to handle – they’re rigid, conventional people and these events really rattled them. I personally think it was entering middle age that turned a lot of them too- many people just don’t age well and never really get over wanting to be 21 forever. Think of how pathetic Kennedy and Joe Rogan are showing off their manly feats of strength.

    They’re just Right wingers now though- ordinary far Right media people:

    In November, Taibbi and two other Twitter Files reporters received a $100,000 award from a program of the Young America’s Foundation, long a bridge between establishment conservatives and each generation’s shoutiest right-wing youth.

    lol. The bold contrarians are 100% backed by billionaires. Still, I give In These Times credit for writing about it- most of the online Left prefers to pretend it isn’t happening.

  86. 86.

    Tony G

    New York City has a reputation for being a “liberal” city.  But it’s people like these psychopaths who have always run the place.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Tony G:

    The truth is it’s a money city. From the moment of it’s inception by Right wing Dutch it’s been 100% about money. The Dutch bankers and traders just let the artists in to entertain the money people. Which is why people like these psychopaths have always run the place.

  88. 88.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I didn’t realize what I do at Balloon Juice had a name.

    This usually involves the cat-fisher presenting themselves as an attractive person.

    Wait, you do this? ;-)

  89. 89.

    Kay

    jimsciutto

    1h

    New: Tesla is recalling nearly all 2 million of its cars on US roads to limit use of its Autopilot feature after a review of nearly 1,000 crashes in which it was engaged. The recall was disclosed in a letter to Tesla posted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

    There are lots and lot of car recalls for reasons both big and small, but you don’t see a car company recalling ALL OF THEIR CARS that are currently in operation. I wonder how many people the Autopilot killed before they saw fit to recall all of the cars they ever produced in the US.

    What we need is a giant private lawsuit against Tesla for money damages, since our regulators seem to be asleep. They’re going to keep killing people unless they’re stopped.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    On Tuesday, Collins of Maine slammed the Texas ruling denying Cox an abortion, according to Igor Bobic, senior politics reporter at the HuffPost, who quoted her on X, formerly Twitter, as saying, “I thought it was a terrible decision… that may affect her future ability to carry a child, was forced to leave Texas to get a much needed abortion—it’s just inconceivable to me.”

    Susan Collins should really stop talking about womens agency and health. She’s done enough damage.
    We don’t need your “help” Susan. We’ll take it from here.
    The abortion ban she voted for is “inconceivable” to her. How stupid does she think women are? What did she think would happen? Was she really unaware of miscarriages and high risk pregnancies? It’s too late for her to learn. We don’t have time to give her a 6th grade education in reproduction.

  92. 92.

    NotMax

    @Tony G

    Wow, broadbrush much? Since the La Guardia years broke the chokehold of the by then sclerotic Tammany machine, the ebb and flow of administrative liberalism has been measurable.

  93. 93.

    jimmiraybob

    @Brachiator: “It is weird that so many supposed adults believe in this “deep state” conspiracy stuff.”

    Substitute “federal government” for “deep state” and it makes more sense.

  94. 94.

    Tony G

    @Kay: The “leftist” radio station WBAI in New York City has, for decades now, featured five hours of ranting per week from the “leftist” “natural healing” (anti-vaxxer) guru Gary Null.  I tune in from time to time to hear the latest nonsense.  Yesterday he was ranting about “hordes of illegal aliens invading America”.  Far-right propaganda thinly disguised as “leftist” ideology.

  98. 98.

    Gin & Tonic

    Ohio Senator JD Vance supports increasing food stamps and introducing federal housing subsidies and/or mortgage assistance.

    “Right now, people in Ohio can’t afford food. Young people can’t afford homes. We’re paying for [Ukraine’s] government. We’ve got to focus on our own problems…That’s what we should be doing with American leadership, not writing more blank checks to endless war.” – @JDVance1🔥 pic.twitter.com/Bc37ppKwBw— Senator Vance Press Office (@SenVancePress) December 12, 2023

  100. 100.

    Anyway

    I’ve driven a few times in the UK – I’m usually ok once I make it out of the airport rental car parking lot. Roads are ok, it’s the parking lots (and roundabouts) that scramble the brain.

    AND of course trying to shift the door if you get a stick-shift!!!!

  104. 104.

    Marmot

    @Kay:

    … a combination of BLM, Me Too and covid was too much for people like Greenwald and Taibii to handle – they’re rigid, conventional people and these events really rattled them.

    Me Too and BLM are where my money’s at, for Taibi and the comedian, especially. How dare they threaten the social hierarchy!

    Greenwald and Taibi are a lot like Christopher Hitchens (spit! “America’s Premier Man of Letters,” and former Trotskyist) in their long-winded, self-important vehemence. Once left, then right, but never unsure or measured. I recognize the type, but I can’t comprehend it.

    Wolff is just a self-promoter with no real political principles after all. Her feminism was always just about her. A snake. Her stature in Dem circles through the 90s to the 2000 election is incomprehensible, and it’s a good example of why I’m reluctant to give Clintonism a pass for its approach to defensive politics.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @Tony G:

    Ugh. its worse than I thought. Greenwald was always xenophobic – I’m not surprised The Fake Left are embracing that too.

    its not a mystery why that city produced Giuliani and Trump.

  109. 109.

    Layer8Problem

    @Layer8Problem:  I haven’t listened to them in years and don’t know anyone who does, and am astonished that Gary Null still has a platform.  So that’s one worthless datum.

  111. 111.

    Layer8Problem

    @Kay:  Echoing NotMax, it’s a bit more complicated than just cosplay Thyssen/Krupp/Bund trust-funders in New York, the stuff in the Murdoch paper, and our caring giving sharing police union.  There are even nice people on Staten Island.

  112. 112.

    Soprano2

    @Kay:  I personally think it was entering middle age that turned a lot of them too- many people just don’t age well and never really get over wanting to be 21 forever. Think of how pathetic Kennedy and Joe Rogan are showing off their manly feats of strength.

    This, and they thought they were impervious to criticism. I think a lot of Tabbi’s was being held to account for his behavior toward women in Russia – how DARE anyone criticize him for doing what any white man thought was his due? Naomi Wolf suffered a severe humiliation on live TV – I think that’s what drove her that way. These people thought the world was going to be a certain way for them because of who they are, and it didn’t turn out like that, so they fled to a place where the world could be the way they thought it would be.

  113. 113.

    Subsole

    @Kay:

    Man. This filthy centrist shitlib sure is glad we went through the last 5 years of bullshit just so Our Progressive Betters could end up slobbering over Fishstick Ribbentrop.

    Thanks Bernie. You colossal fucking hemorrhoid.

  115. 115.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Kay:

    In fairness, she did get reelected. I think she has some justification for thinking people are stupid.

  116. 116.

    Subsole

    @Subsole:

    Jesus. 8 years, if you count before the election.

    I am tired of these sparkly-Carhart fascists. I am tired of their garbage. I am tired of their cruelty. I am tired of every dipshit with access to a word processor in NYC telling me to pretend they are not exactly what they are.

    4/5ths of a decade down the drain over this asshole and his followers.

  118. 118.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Aussie Sheila: Of course she did! That’s what we all call it!

    Really? I thought you all called it Oz. And that you were all either Ozzies or Shielas depending on gender. (Though your side really oughta be Harriets per the 50s US sitcom – which every loving one of you is aware of, as I was informed on Loopy Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree bulletin board decades back.)

  120. 120.

    WeimarGerman

    My ears burned.  I heard my nym.

    When I first showed up here a few years ago, I chose my nym to bring a little attention to the idea that we were experiencing a rise in facism and many signals of our dwindling democracy were hauntingly familiar.  Familiar to me because my father and grandparents lived through the first Weimar Republic, survived the war and came here in ’48.

    It so sad.

  121. 121.

    Tony G

    @Layer8Problem: Not me, but that’s how they portray themselves.  I’ve been listening to them on and off since I was 13 years old in 1969 (yes, I’m old).  They had some interesting programming … a half century ago.  They’ve been in a downward spiral ever since.

  122. 122.

    Jinchi

    @Brachiator:

    It is weird that so many supposed adults believe in this “deep state” conspiracy stuff.

    When Martin Shkreli’s ex is one of the guests it should be obvious that what they call the Deep State is just the set of laws that protect the rest of us from the vulture class.

  125. 125.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Anyway: I’ve driven a few times in the UK – I’m usually ok once I make it out of the airport rental car parking lot. Roads are ok, it’s the parking lots (and roundabouts) that scramble the brain.AND of course trying to shift the door if you get a stick-shift!!!!

    I’ve driven for a weekend in Northern Ireland (on the left) and in Czechia (on the right). Both manual floor shifts, though I hadn’t driven one of those in ages.

    I rented the stick in NI for a 3-day weekend for the daily cost of an automatic. I found that shifting with the left hand wasn’t a problem, as the shift directions were the same. Never tried to “shift the door”.

    My diciest moments came when there were no other cars about (else you just drive on the side where the rest of them are). Happened once at a momentarily empty roundabout with friends along. I’d just taken over, we were arguing which road to take for the Giants’ Causeway, and absent traffic I turned to the right entering & cars screeched to a halt all round (could swear I heard them screaming Damn Yank! as I sped by). Pulled into a parking lot & said, We will decide which road before I get behind the wheel again…

    Once on a deserted rural road I was by force of habit in the right lane until a car came at me over the rise. We both braked to a halt then I sheepishly crawled over to the left.

    The most annoying differences were (1) glancing to the right to check the rearview mirror (when of course tt was to the left) and (2) staying too far away from the centreline ;^D on the right, I was told that every rental car in the Aisles had breakaway leftside mirrors because visitors accustomed to right hand driving were constantly bashing them into telephone poles and other obstacles…

    In the Czech Republic I rented a Renault station wagon with a 6-speed manual floor shift. Great mileage but an adventure shifting from second to third and not landing in fourth, or third to fourth and not landing in sixth. Scariest moment behind the wheel in Yerp came on a 2-lane country road with trees up to the asphalt’s edge with a truck approaching. Suddenly a BMW pulled out from behind the truck to pass & decided he damned well was going to make it. Which he did. By about 4 meters. Only because when I saw he was accelerating I stood on the freaking brakes til I slammed to a halt. Major tachycardia ensued 8^O.​​

  126. 126.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Subsole: OK, I’ll bite ;^D, you’ve got my interest peaked ;^p – who the everlovin’ fuck is “Fishstick Ribbetrop”? I googled it & came up with bupkis so I presume it’s your own coinage…

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