Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

T R E 4 5 O N

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

People are weird.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Nepotism in the GOP

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Nepotism in the GOP

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When its inhabitants call the state Misery… Yes, Jay is in fact the son of John Ashcroft, Dubya’s choice for U.S. Attorney General and “the only U.S. Senator defeated for re-election by a dead person”.

But Jay will never reach the fathomless depths achieved by Willard Romney, son of that vanished species, a *decent* Republican…



(Of course, you can’t discuss the failures of nepotism in modern American government without citing the NYTimes…)

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  1. 1.

    AlaskaReader

    There is not one member of the Republican Party who has any redeeming value whatsoever.

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    @AlaskaReader: I agree with you, and there’s the exception that proves the rule: Liz Cheney.  She calls herself a Republican, but …. her party has pretty much disowned her.  And even *she* has redeeming value only b/c she doesn’t want to do all the fascisms everywhere all at once: she wants to space it out, take it slow, and above all, keep all the goodies for herself, her pappy, and their friends.  That’s what passes for “redeeming value” in modern (used-to-be-)Republicans.

  3. 3.

    Gretchen

    @Chetan Murthy: Liz has said that Democrats are for abortion up to the moment of birth, so she’s out of the Good Republican column for me. I don’t know if she’s stupid enough to really believe that, or if she knows it’s a lie and cynically pushes it anyway. Either way, she’s amoral slime. Better amoral slime than Stefanik, but that doesn’t make her admirable.

  4. 4.

    Citizen Alan

    @Chetan Murthy: Not to be contrarian, but I remain convinced that Liz Chaney’s only objection to Trump and the insurrection was that he was not a part of her faction of the GOP. I genuinely believe that if john kerry had narrowlt won in 2004 and there had been any possible way to contest the election, Liz chaney would have supported the Bush administration in doing so.  Including if a bunch of dumb rednecks had stormed the capital in support of bush because they all thought kerry and the democrats were proterrorist.

  5. 5.

    Splitting Image

    Republicans commit worse crimes, but one of the most persistently annoying is every variation of “get over it!” that comes out of their mouths. These people never forget a slight and will doubtless acknowledge Jimmy Carter’s passing (when it happens) by dredging up the malaise speech.

    When they’re not telling black history students that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, they are trying to reframe the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression”. Every part of the “culture war” is built on the idea that they are under constant attack by everybody they hate and they feed this idea by cherishing even the tiniest grievances unto the thirtieth and the fortieth generation.

    But any crime that they committed three years ago or three days ago? Old news, and shame on you for bringing it up.

  6. 6.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gretchen: yyyep. yyyep.  She also is all-in on voter suppression and gerrymandering to suppress and dilute the vote of Black Americans and other people of color.

    I’m pretty convinced that the reason she opposed TFG is mostly that she knows her history, and knows that if TFG’s gangsters get control, her pappy and her happy’s friends will eventually be dispossessed.  It’s what gangsters do.  It’s all they know how to do.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    In that first video, mute the sound and just watch Jay Ashcroft’s eyes. Shifty as all fuck. That dude is scary, and not in a good way.

  13. 13.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: ah, I was mistaken: she voted to acquit in the first impeachment trial.

    ETA: but what’s more important: she continues to caucus with the GrOPers.  As they say, if you sit down at a table with eleven Nazis, how many Nazis are there at the table?

  15. 15.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The “moderate Republican” is a myth that too many Americans are reluctant to let go of. That ship sailed into the abyss a long time ago.

  16. 16.

    Jeffg166

    Over the last 50 years as the GQP moved further to the right, finally embracing their inner fascist, anyone with one crumb of decency moved to the Democratic Party. That’s why the Democrats become much more conservative. A liberal democrat today was a liberal republican 50  years ago.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jeffg166:

    Another reason we became more conservative is that ~60 years ago there was a vacuum created on the starboard side of the existing Democratic Party as (mostly) Southern Dems like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond fled the party and became Republicans. So the people who had up til then been moderate Democrats suddenly became Conservadems by default. I do think continuing to use the old partisan nomenclature is so misleading today as to be nearly dishonest.

    ETA: Several small edits for clarity and readability, because it’s 4:30 in the ante fucking meridian.

    ETA2: I may have said the same thing you did, only from a slightly different direction. Not sure; it’s 4:30 in the afm.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Dixiecrats were Democrats more or less by default. When they emigrated in toto to the dark side they took their dire historical baggage with them. The aroma of its stink, however, took another number of decades to begin to dissipate.

  23. 23.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

     

    Romney to NYT: “I think the threat to democracy pitch is a bust.”

    Please proceed, Governor

  25. 25.

    TBone

    Proving the old adage “You can’t expect to shake a whore tree and have a housewife fall out.” These people use only their amygdalae and it shows.

  26. 26.

    Patricia Kayden

    Romney is so disappointing but what can you expect from someone who made a joke about his birth certificate during his presidential campaign knowing full well the racist implications involved.

  27. 27.

    Tony Jay

    @David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:

      Romney to NYT: “I think the threat to democracy pitch is a bust.”

    Romney continued: “It has to be a bust. It simply has to be. Because if it’s not, if its relevant and important and motivates a majority of Americans to step up and vote for Joe Biden to protect our nation’s democratic traditions… then my friend, the Republican Party is f####d.”

    NYT to Romney: “Don’t worry, Senator. No one important is willing to let that happen. We’ve got your back.”

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone:

    Proving the old adage “You can’t expect to shake a whore tree and have a housewife fall out.”

    What, there aren’t any housewives (to use that increasingly archaic term) who are also sex workers?​

  29. 29.

    Baud

    Even if Romney is right that voters won’t respond to the threat to democracy, we kind of have a moral responsibility to warn them.

  31. 31.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

     

    “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars trying to catch one person.”

    Romney on the campaign trail criticizing Barack Obama in August 2007 for vowing to capture …. (Checks notes)…   Osama bin Laden.

    Mittens was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a home run.

  32. 32.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​

    @eclare: ​
      very creepy. Does he have a teleprompter or someone to his right or does he just look that direction. It’s always interesting to watch with the volume off.

  34. 34.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    It’s been 12 years since Romney ran for president, so people forget how bad he was a campaigning.  The story of him tying his dog to the roof of his car was released by him because he thought it would be humanizing.  And if that wasnt bad enough he would drone on about his dancing horse.

  38. 38.

    SFAW

    @superdestroyer: ​
     

    @NotMax: Since she was in the House, she did not vote to either convict or acquit Trump in the second impeachment.

    Oooh, sick burn, man!! [Or whatever the kids used to say.]
    Especially since NotMax was talking about Senator Murkowski, not Liz Cheney

  39. 39.

    Shalimar

    @NotMax: I think Murkowski is the closest we get to a good Republican.  But always keep in mind she had to run as an independent in 2010 to stay in office because she wasn’t pure enough to win the primary.  Republicans don’t really consider her to be a Republican.

  41. 41.

    EarthWindFire

    @superdestroyer: The pitch about democracy only works for those who were never vote for any Republican in any election.

    And since we’re engaged in a turnout election, that means we should keep doing it. It’s not like the people who think we talk about democracy too much would ever vote for a democrat.

  42. 42.

    BretH

    I think his camera is in front of him and his monitor is down and to the right. He’s still a waste of oxygen.

  43. 43.

    EarthWindFire

    @The Thin Black Duke: This. I have GOP voting acquaintances who felt violated (their words) when Roe was overturned. I was shocked. How could they have not known that was going to happen? Yep. The myth of the moderate Republican.

  45. 45.

    TBone

    Yes, I used an old saying containing language that is currently politically incorrect.  I also watch TCM and don’t change the channel when I see blackface or other stuff that hasn’t aged well.  There are pearls of wisdom everywhere and I stand by the point I was trying to (clumsily) illustrate.

  48. 48.

    Pink Tie

    I would add Adam Kinzinger to the list as well. He is always doing TV hits, going on every politics podcast, writing op-eds, etc. consistently sounding the alarm about the threat to democracy and going after not just Trump, but his enablers as well. And unlike Liz Cheney, there is no sense that he is anti-Trump because TFG wasn’t part of his faction — he is genuinely horrified and feels it is his duty to speak out whatever the cost.

  49. 49.

    StringOnAStick

    @TBone: Its a pithy saying and it can be restructured in all sorts of ways, like “shake a fascist tree and expect a democrat to fall out”, but I guess only our side and the politically aware would get it.

  50. 50.

    scav

    @StringOnAStick: Or, “Can’t shake an apple tree and expect a computer to fall out.” But somehow, I have this inexcusable urge to share the pearl of “Can’t shake a dick tree and expect a husband to fall out.”

    Giving someone a pearl that’s simply encrusted with shit somehow really really dilutes and confuses the message.

  51. 51.

    wjca

    @Jeffg166: anyone with one crumb of decency moved to the Democratic Party.

    If you can be bothered to look at the numbers, the vast majority of them became independents (aka No Party Preference).  They may vote for Democrats, but they haven’t embraced the party, just rejected the alternative currently on offer.  Not quite the same thing.

  53. 53.

    brantl

    @Chetan Murthy:

    @AlaskaReader: I agree with you, and there’s the exception that proves the rule: Liz Cheney.  She calls herself a Republican, but …. her party has pretty much disowned her.  And even *she* has redeeming value only b/c she doesn’t want to do all the fascisms everywhere all at once: she wants to space it out, take it slow, and above all, keep all the goodies for herself, her pappy, and their friends.  That’s what passes for “redeeming value” in modern (used-to-be-)Republicans.

     

    Preach!

  57. 57.

    brantl

    @Pink Tie: And yet, he’s still willing to starve poor children and force women to give birth, while taking any aid to them for having said child, away.

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