Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Monday Morning Open Thread: MLK Day

Monday Morning Open Thread: MLK Day

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Per NPR — “Service helps on MLK Day, but some say it’s not enough”:

… The service project at Herzl was one of countless others planned throughout the U.S. on Monday, in what has come to be known as “A Day On, Not a Day Off” since 1994, when Congress designated King’s birthday — observed as a federal holiday since 1986 — as a national day of service. But many familiar with King’s life and work say one day of service does not do justice to his legacy.

The Rev. Frederick Haynes III, who leads the civil rights group Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said the day of service was a result of efforts by “those who were determined that it not become the typical, commercialized American holiday where we take a day off, go shopping, and while shopping, we get discounts in honor of Dr. King.” Among these advocates were King’s wife, the late Coretta Scott King, and fellow civil rights activist and late congressman John Lewis, Haynes said.

Still, he added, the day to mark King’s legacy has been diluted over time.

“We have dumbed down the legacy of Dr. King by calling it a day of service,” he said. These “niceties of service,” continued Haynes, will “make you feel better, touch your life, but then you go back to business as usual. We still have an immigration policy that is broken, we still have what is raging over in Gaza, nothing has changed. Because we are so caught up in doing something nice for a moment that we don’t deal with changing the world for a lifetime.”…

Knox College professor Konrad Hamilton, who has taught classes on MLK, said people forget King was “arrested countless times [and] denounced by presidents and by powerful people during his lifetime. There wasn’t that opposition to Dr. King because he was out doing canned food drives. Now, he would not have been against canned food drives, but he also would have said, ‘What kind of a country builds an economy in a way in which people do not have their basic needs met?'”

Hamilton said on King’s birthday, it would do Americans well to emulate the leader in asking deep, fundamental questions about how to create systemic change. He also said individuals and organizations should partner with others — including those whose beliefs may not line up perfectly on every issue — to bring about the “beloved community” of which King often spoke…

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

     He also said individuals and organizations should partner with others — including those whose beliefs may not line up perfectly on every issue — to bring about the “beloved community” of which King often spoke…

    I’m pretty sure the modern view is to be as small as possible to maintain authenticity.

  4. 4.

    Jeffro

    A good non-drinking game for this afternoon and evening while watching the 2 remaining NFL playoff games:

    1. Look up every GOP Senator’s Twitter feed and see how many of them quote that one quote (and just that one quote) from MLK Jr. today.
    2. Be glad that you are not taking a drink for every one of them that quoted that one quote (and just that one quote), because it will almost certainly be all 49 of them.
  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    -2 this AM. Blech. The woodstove has been burning constantly for 3 or 4 days straight, will continue to burn till Wednesday when we are supposed to hit 39. You can tell how cold it is by the number of burns on my hands and arms.

  6. 6.

    MomSense

    Heather Cox Richardson’s piece last night was wonderful.  She talked about heroes as flawed human beings choosing to put others first and gave examples including MLK, jr.

  7. 7.

    satby

    MLK Day of Service is just a dash of King’s legacy; but if it introduces and helps solidify the concept that we all should be in service to others it’s still valuable.

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    OT but here’s a good one…a warning to the GOP that it will most certainly not heed until everything comes crashing down for them this coming November:

    Republicans have no idea what to think.

    (well of course not, Ramesh…they are authoritarian followers, they need trumpov and Fox to tell them what to have for breakfast)

    Consistency, small minds, all that…perfect for a party of hobgoblins…

     

    During the last debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley before Monday’s Iowa caucuses, they often seemed to be in a contest to see who could be the pettiest. Actual policy arguments came close to emerging, though, over three issues: immigration, aid to Ukraine and Social Security. All three times, the candidates illustrated that the 2024 presidential campaign has done nothing to resolve a long-deferred debate over what it means to be a Republican. Donald Trump has left the party in a state of confusion about what it stands for and, worse, unable to resolve it.

    Even on immigration, perhaps his signature issue, Trump has been more flexible than advertised. During the primaries in 2016, Trump said he would deport millions of illegal immigrants; after getting the Republican presidential nomination, he softened his stance.

    If Trump weren’t dominating the primary contest, maybe Republicans would be arguing these issues out. But instead the distinctions between the leading non-Trump candidates aren’t getting wide attention or close scrutiny.

    The DeSantis-Haley undercard has done nothing to get the party out of its muddles. During the debate in Iowa, Haley refused to engage when DeSantis brought up legal immigration. DeSantis dodged when asked whether he would deport every illegal immigrant, neither endorsed nor ruled out changes to Social Security benefits for future retirees and left his options open on Ukraine.

    The methods that parties normally use to decide and cement their positions on policy aren’t operating. Trump has not really tried to use his political power within the party to impose his views on it, in part because those views are inconstant.

    Republican primary voters do enforce discipline on some issues. Members of Congress can rarely get through the primaries if they favor gun control, or voted to impeach Trump. But the voters aren’t forcing Republican politicians to pick a side on the current divisions. Republicans can win primaries whether they favor Ukraine aid or oppose it.

    Those rascally GOP voters!  Why, it’s almost like they stopped caring about policy a long, long time ago…

    Trump destroyed the old Republican consensus without creating a new one*. It’s different in the Democratic Party. Democrats want to expand Social Security, grant legal status to most illegal immigrants and keep aid to Ukraine flowing. Nowadays it would be unthinkable for a Democratic congressman to suggest reining in Social Security’s growth.

    *Ah but here you’re wrong, Mr. Ponuru…trumpov most definitely has created a new consensus: the GOP will continue to have no principles save one, and it is bending the knee to trump regardless of the cost.

    For nearly a decade, the central question of our politics — sometimes it seems like the only question, especially among Republicans — has been: What do you think of Donald Trump**? The longer they have fixated on that question, the harder it has become for Republicans to answer other ones.

    **He’s wrong here too – he has it backwards.  The central question in the GOP has been, “What does trump think?”
    A party that gets its marching orders from Fox News every morning (and then all day long, every day) was never much on principle or policy to begin with…

  9. 9.

    New Deal democrat

    This morning Josh Marshal at TPM makes the same point as I did in yerdary’s Gaza thread: Israel has lost the support of a generation of younger Americans, who will age into a decisive majority soon:

    Let me go back to things I was writing here at TPM during the Obama years ….

    …[I]t is hard to overestimate the damage caused by having a generation of Americans learn about Israel through the prism of a long-serving Israeli prime minister plotting against a U.S. president [Obama in the 2012 election] they not only supported but viewed as central to their aspirations about America’s future. But beyond the anger over Netanyahu’s open alliance with the U.S. Republican Party was an additional point: do you not realize the folly of staking the U.S.-Israel alliance on the most rapidly declining political demographic in American society? How does that work out exactly?

    Of course, from the perspective of 2024 it’s not like it’s Democratic majorities as far as the eye can see. But the same gist still applies. At the most basic level, many of us predicted in 2014 precisely the dynamic of of the politics of 2024 — young voters, especially progressive voters and people of color, seeing Israel through a much different and less forgiving prism than their parents’ generation. You’re sowing the seeds of your own undoing and, what’s worse, you’re going to come crying to us for help when you reap this harvest and we’re not going to be able to provide much. And here we are.

    Link:
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/reaping-the-harvest

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jeffro:

    Consistency, small minds, all that…perfect for a party of hobgoblins… 

    Hating on hobgoblins so early in the week.  What’d they ever do to you?

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    Even though Axel Springer agreed to investigate the Business Insider  investigative report of Bill Ackman’s spouse Neri Oxman and exposing her plagiarism in her academic writing, the parent company of Business insider announced yesterday that they stand behind the reporting.

    Business Insider and its parent company, Axel Springer, said Sunday that they stood by the outlet’s reporting that Neri Oxman, a prominent former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, had plagiarized in her doctoral dissertation.

    In a note Sunday morning, Barbara Peng, chief executive of Business Insider, said the outlet had spent several days reviewing its reporting after public complaints made by Ackman. The review, Peng said, found that “there was no unfair bias” and that the “process we went through to report, edit, and review the stories was sound.”

    Peng said a pair of stories the outlet published earlier this month reporting that Oxman had plagiarized other scholars’ work and lifted more than a dozen sections from Wikipedia “are accurate.” She described Oxman as a “fair subject” and “has a public profile as a prominent intellectual and has been a subject of and participant in media coverage,” rebutting Ackman’s complaints that she should have been immune to coverage tied to Ackman’s recent activism.

    These billionaires really do feel that they can crash anyone’s career for reasons but no one can criticize them.

  15. 15.

    New Deal democrat

    Apropos of Joe Biden’s record on this MLK Day…

    The unemployment rate for Blacks in December was the 2nd lowest ever in 50+ years of history at 5.2%. The lowest was last April at 4.8%.

    Black unemployment was only 1.7% higher than White unemployment, also the lowest gap in 50+ years.

    The employment to population ratio for Blacks was 60.1% (vs. 59.9% for Whites), the second highest in 25 years (61.4% during Clinton’s tech Boom vs. 65.3% for Whites) after last March’s 60.7%.

    All statistics from the December jobs report via the St. Louis FRED.

  19. 19.

    citizen dave

    Early David Letterman joke, 1970s: “I walked into the room and my dogs Bob and Stan were having a heated argument.  Always the same thing: Did Mike Douglas ever have a hit record?”

    https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129609461

    Obama used to quote the “moral arc” a lot, citing MLK.  I like this article about Theodore Parker and the “moral arc of the universe…” idea.  Parker was an abolotionist, circa 1850s.  Also: “We’re talking about Theodore Parker, and there’s another speech from him in 1850 that included these words: a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people, which of course became part of the Gettysburg Address. And those words are also woven into President Obama’s Oval Office rug that we were talking about yesterday. So Theodore Parker has lineage to not one but two of the five quotes on that rug.”

     

    I guess it’s like when Bob Dylan “borrows” and improves source material.

    “Did he [MLK] also mention Theodore Parker by name?

    Prof. CARSON: I don’t recall him mentioning him by name. He may well have. Often what happens is the first time they use a quote, the do cite it. The second time, it’s probably someone once said. And then the last time, it’s as I’ve said previously. So it goes through a process in which the person kind of incorporates that into their own oratory.”

  21. 21.

    Steeplejack

    The real winter weather has arrived in my corner of NoVA. Got up to see a generous coating of light snow outside—sticking to the grass and cars, melting on the street and sidewalks. Messy, as it’s 25° now and going up only to about 30° later today. Then maybe more snow tomorrow and even colder tomorrow night, down to 16°. Might have to let the taps drizzle a bit.

    And I will have to be out in it, unfortunately. The doughty Kia has its annual maintenance spa day scheduled at 8:30 tomorrow. I’ll be up early to scrape the car and take it nice and easy to the dealership.

    I was thinking of doing a few errands today, but I think I’ll stay holed up.

  24. 24.

    Tony Jay

    @Scout211:

      These billionaires really do feel that they can crash anyone’s career for reasons but no one can criticize them.

    I’ve come to a different conclusion. These people feel they can crash anyone else’s career because they have the money and, therefore, the power, to do it, while no one should be stupid enough to criticise them because they have the money and, therefore, the power to crush them for it.

    Obviously, each situation is different, but I think this is closer to the truth. In their world there are no morals or ethics, no right or wrong, those are just childish fairytales the little people tell themselves to make sense of the cold and uncaring nothingness that is real life. The truth is it’s all about power and dominance and the ability to take what you want, when you want, and stand invulnerable above the mob because people are afraid to challenge you.

    When you look at it like that, they’re the realists. The only honest souls rising above this suffocating miasma of self-righteous delusion people call ‘justice’. Punishing peons for drawing their ire isn’t an act of cruelty, on the contrary, it’s an expression of common humanity and as natural as a shark bite. In fact, the truly cruel people are those fools who think they can challenge the powerful without repercussion. They’re the ones who draw pain and disaster down on themselves and those close to them by thinking there are any laws or limits the powerful should have to recognise.

    O, let us worship and honour them. Etc.

  27. 27.

    Yarrow

    @New Deal democrat:  I read your excerpt and clicked through to the article. I don’t know who “You / You’re” is in the last paragraph. Biden? The Democrats? Republicans? Netanyahu? Israel? The US? Someone/something else?

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    @citizen dave:

    Theodore Parker is one of my heroes!!!  He kept his grandfather’s musket over his desk as a reminder that the American Revolution was not won until all were liberated.  His grandfather Captain John Parker commanded the militia at Lexington Concord.

    I went to visit his grave when I was in Florence.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Steeplejack

    Standard retort: “8:30? Don’t you have a slot at a civilized hour?”

    Dunno about you but I prefer not to have anyone poke around the auto innards without being properly caffeinated.
    ;)

  32. 32.

    Lyrebird

    @New Deal democrat: Thanks for those  key points from Joey O’Biden’s record!

    Note: I just found out that the Eyes on the Prize documentary is on Prime Video and appears to be on sale today – even withhout thhe sale, it’s $10 for the whole thing.  VERY worth it.

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    @NotMax:

    They start at 7:00, so 8:30 is a decent hour, at least for them. When I made the appointment three weeks ago, it seemed like a good idea to get it over with early in the day.

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  36. 36.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jeffro:

    I’m sorry, but this article is foolishness.  The GOP base knows exactly what they want, and have booed Trump on the incredibly rare occasions he doesn’t deliver.  The article focuses on issues they don’t care much about, like Ukraine and Social Security, to pretend the base are split on issues the base cares strongly about – like immigration.

    The GOP base cares about bigotry and war against the evil Democrats who elected a black man president.  Go against those and watch your career vanish down the toilet.  Trump is loudly, sincerely, and sadistically in favor of both of those things.  Deliver on those, and the base will cheer whatever else you say.

    Unless you can deliver those better than Trump, it’s not going to get you the nomination.

  40. 40.

    Yarrow

    Just saw this. Does he think DeSantis will win Iowa outright? Like ahead of TFG? Hilarious.

    I tweeted a couple of weeks ago that I expect DeSantis to win Iowa. All the polls say that is not so. If his organization is what they clam it to be, he should. But we’ll find out tomorrow. If he really does come in behind Haley, there’s no reason for him to continue beyond Iowa.— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 14, 2024

  42. 42.

    mvr

    Visited the National Civil Rights Museum on Saturday, without thinking about the fact that today would be MLK Day. It is in the Lorainne Motel which has been adapted into a museum. It is worth a visit, even if you know most of what you will be told. The juxtposition of excerpts from his last speech with then walking by a large window cut into the wall of room 306 where he was staying and outside of which he was shot, was probably the most moving part.

    One thing I didn’t know is that while the motel looks like a standard 1950s hotel with rooms opening to the outside, the hotel itself is much older and was one of the few hotels that black people were able to stay in starting in the 1920s. And it is in an older neighborhood with brick buildings from the 1800s to early 1900s on the nearby main drag. I got a better sense of its place in an urban environment and of why those visiting with King to support the strikers stayed there.

  47. 47.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    -10 two nights ago.  The high today was 6…at 5am.  Getting down to -8 tonight.  This kind of weather is more typical for some of the uber-cold spots in the mountains, or in Ames IA (coldest place I’ve ever been to, -20 one time for a bidness trip up from Jeff City).

    My bonehead friend wanted to go skiing today, in blizzard conditions at -8.  We told him “fuck no” which was our polite way of saying “Thanks for asking but no thanks today.”

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @Yarrow: Thanks for the tip — will add Erickson to my list of awful people to mine for schadenfreude if the DeSantis campaign goes tits-up tonight as expected. I don’t know if Erickson is among them (could just be a branding posture), but lots of DeSantis true believers are putting their faith in an Iowa ground game organized by the same inept PAC that squandered $150M only to see their candidate sink in the polls and the PAC management team devolve into rancor and chaos.

  51. 51.

    New Deal democrat

    @Yarrow:

    I don’t know who “You / You’re” is in the last paragraph. Biden? The Democrats? Republicans? Netanyahu? Israel? The US? Someone/something else?

    The relevant lines of Josh Marshall’s article:

    “young voters … see[ ] Israel through a much different and less forgiving prism than their parents’ generation. You’re sowing the seeds of your own undoing and, what’s worse, you’re going to come crying to us for help when you reap this harvest and we’re not going to be able to provide much.”

    Pulling out my old grammar school sentence diagramming skills here, the object of the penultimate line references attitudes towards *Israel*, rather than Netanyahu or any othe specific politician or party. Plus Netanyahu will presumably already be gone from the political scene when “you reap this harvest,” so I think it is pretty clear that he is speaking of Israel collectively.

    Hope that is helpful.

  53. 53.

    Layer8Problem

    @Frankensteinbeck:  Who needs National Review‘s thoughtful pieces justifying Falangism and highlighting new perspectives on racial discrimination when all the base care about are blatant racism, bigotry, and violence?

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    I am not commenting on local weather conditions today. Y’all would pelt me with ice-encrusted mittens!

  57. 57.

    Layer8Problem

    @New Deal democrat:  There are 120 thousand Israelis marching in the rain against Netanyahu who probably agree with Marshall.  The current Israeli government is not the entirety of Israel.

  59. 59.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: My impression is that he’s smart in certain ways, like TFG has a certain kind of smart in his ability to read a room, find people’s weaknesses, etc. Erick has been smart in ways like running Red State when blogs were a big deal, then getting out when social media started taking over. He’s found a niche as an uber Christian for the gated community set.

    But he went through some “can’t support TFG” to supporting him to not supporting him again shifts. Maybe he supports him now. I don’t keep up. He seems not to have a sense of where the Republican voters are and comes in late. He doesn’t seem to have a good sense of where the voters are. Maybe he fits better being all Christian-y. He may not be dumb overall but as far as politics goes he’s been dumb recently.

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    @New Deal democrat: Thanks. I did the grammar thing too and didn’t think it as clear. See upthread where another commenter thought it was Netanyahu’s government.

    Josh is a good writer and this bit is sloppy on his part. It’s an important issue. I wish he’d been clearer about what he meant.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Yarrow:

    Thanks for the explainer.

    For all i know, DeSantis has a good ground game and will surprise me. I won’t apologize to Erik though.

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    @Frankensteinbeck: no need to be sorry!  we’re used to it

    The author’s bemoaning the fact that the base doesn’t care about normal policy or issues.  (You’re noting the same thing, fwiw.)

    What he doesn’t do is name the abnormal things – the racism, the cruelty, the whatever-the-opposite-of-what-Dems-want – that the GOP base really wants.  (Which both you and I noted, fwiw).

    He doesn’t seem to want to go there, which is what I found interesting.  I know that he’s a right-leaning hack, so it’s probably important to him for multiple reasons that he not ‘get it’…but he’s so. close.

    “Huh.  Our voters have no principles on important policy positions – weird!  Oh well…” – R.P.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @TBone: yup – lots of East Coast dates coming up, starting in about a week.  =)

    (NoVA folks, if you want to catch them at the Tally Ho in Leesburg, that’s a pretty good venue and they ROCKED it there a few years ago!)

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    I watched the first episode of Monsieur Spade on AMC last night. It looks pretty good. Clive Owen and a solid supporting cast, excellent production values. The setup sounds a little unpromising—Sam Spade delivers a young girl to her father in Provençe in the early ’50s, likes what he sees and decides to stay around—but it gets smoothed out pretty quickly, and we end up with Spade living there in semi-retirement in 1963. Then stuff starts happening.

    The trailer seems a little overheated, at least going by the first episode, but I assume events will heat up quickly.

    Apparently it’s available on Acorn as well as AMC. I watched it on my cable system (9:00 p.m. Sundays).

  69. 69.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    I don’t want DeSantis to win, but I do want Trump’s returns to be surprisingly soft. If DeSantis, Haley, & others have higher turnout than expected, it will give them a little hope. Hope is all that is needed to get them all tearing each other apart.

  74. 74.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jeffro:

    He doesn’t seem to want to go there

    And that is one of the two.* big splits in the Republican Party.  There is still a big chunk who want bigotry and Fuck You, Libs, but they don’t want to be obvious Nazis.  They even have other policy positions they care about in a lesser way.  Still, they know they’re outnumbered by the Nazis and hate Democrats much, much more.  If the Nazis nominate Nazis they tisk a little then fall in line.  Priorities, right?

    *Abortion is the other.  There is a big, fat “But I never thought the Leopards would eat my face!” going on.  Fuck You, Libs is mostly winning, which is why the forced birthers work so hard not to let the issue be voted on by itself.

  76. 76.

    TBone

    Inspirational story. The kids are, indeed, all right.  Driving through town one day a few years back, I noticed an old bank building had been repurposed.  The “Open Discourse Coalition” had a big, new sign with a rump hairdo crest over the ‘O’ so it piqued my suspicion.  Checked the website, full of weasel wording, then checked their roster of events, which cleared things up right away. It’s a Festivus Airing of Grievance project.  Then found out there is/was a criminal investigation opened, looking into who hung up a large banner “vandalizing” the new project by renaming it “Center for White Victimhood.”

    https://www.dailyitem.com/opinion/open-discourse-coalition/article_2e7ab738-a93a-11eb-a49f-afe555e50321.html

  79. 79.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    I don’t want DeSantis to win, but I do want Trump’s returns to be surprisingly soft.

    This.  Hoping for clear evidence of what I suspect is a Trump enthusiasm problem.  One of those deals where he has a fringe of rabid, loud cultists, but most Republicans are more “Well, he’s the best option, but I’m just not feeling it like I used to.”

  80. 80.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Tony Jay: writes

    When you look at it like that, they’re the realists.

    This is true, money does confer power and billionaires can exercise power. There is a limit, though, and perhaps Bill Ackman is discovering it.

    I happen to be listening to the Panama Papers. It details one rather large example of the international system enabling the ultra-rich to hide their assets. Another book I can recommend on the subject is Moneyland.

    No doubt part of the reason for this secrecy is to evade taxes and hide wrongdoing, but I suggest there is another justification: people in general don’t approve, indeed reject the idea that arbitrary, unchecked power is “the way of the world.” When it is exposed to public scrutiny there are consequences.

    The strategy, and it is a deliberate strategy of those who benefit from elite impunity, is to flood the zone with misinformation and distraction. They intend to convince enough people that this is how things should work, it’s just realistic, pay no attention, nothing you can do.

    The French Revolution provides a counter example. I don’t advocate that kind of violence, I’m just pointing out that it can happen. “We are many, they are few.”

  86. 86.

    Kay

    @New Deal democrat:

    through the prism of a long-serving Israeli prime minister plotting against a U.S. president [Obama in the 2012 election]

    Since 2004, really. So twenty years. My youngest son’s lifetime. They think it’s a Right wing country and they think WE are the naive people, supporting a Right wing government that works against US liberals.

  87. 87.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: I don’t put up signs.

    Although this morning I considered putting up a lawn sign that says, “TRUMP IS THE ANTICHRIST.” But after brushing my teeth, I decided against it.

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @Jeffro:

    The methods that parties normally use to decide and cement their positions on policy aren’t operating. Trump has not really tried to use his political power within the party to impose his views on it, in part because those views are inconstant.

    This article is still trying to view Trump as a conventional politician. A fool’s errand.

    I suppose it might be interesting to see how much of Heritage Foundation policy Trump implemented.

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    The NYT is all in for Trump. Yesterday it was “The Secret of Trump’s Appeal” by Bret Stephens. This morning the front page had, “Among Those Lifting Trump: College Grads.” Their language around Trump is always positive; their language around Biden is always negative.

    I do not get why they want to be shut down once he establishes his Putinesque paradise.

  90. 90.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: ​

    The strategy, and it is a deliberate strategy of those who benefit from elite impunity, is to flood the zone with misinformation and distraction. They intend to convince enough people that this is how things should work, it’s just realistic, pay no attention, nothing you can do.

    Yup, it’s the “Firehose of Falsehood”: the Russian style of propaganda for an age of Information Abundance. It’s not just a right-wing technique, I see plenty of other examples across the political spectrum that do this.

    -High volume/multi-channel approach
    -Shameless in it’s willingness to broadcast lies
    -No commitment to, or requirement for consistency
    -Rapid, continuous and repetitive messaging
    -Point is not to persuade but to confuse and overwhelm
    -Assumes a low trust environment and lowers it further
    -Number of arguments matters more than their quality

    -Drown out competing messages thru sheer volume

  92. 92.

    TBone

    @Baud: My stepdad retired from being a cop, went back to school, and became a college professor of American history AND Russian history.

  93. 93.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Tony Jay:

    I don’t know.  There is some of that, but I see a whole lot of the ultra-rich falling for their own hype, mixed with being asshole bigots.  In both cases, that is definitely a “How dare you disagree with me!  I am always right!” rather than an “It doesn’t matter if I’m right.  I can crush all disagreement.”

    And look, that’s a basic human dynamic anyway.  If there is anything the last decade has proved, it’s that rich people are more irrational dumbasses than the 99%, not less.  This sure ain’t no meritocracy.

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

    The strategy, and it is a deliberate strategy of those who benefit from elite impunity, is to flood the zone with misinformation and distraction.

    True enough, but I think it’s being eaten away by the immature flailing of entitled dipshits who think they’re gods.  The hardcore bigot rich have been decompensating more and more since a black man got elected, too, and there are a lot of those.

  96. 96.

    TBone

    @zhena gogolia: when I blow up my inflatable 7′ tall glow-in-the-dark Gritty to counteract the rumpy neighbors’ plethora of evangelicuglican campaign signs, I will put that sign in his hands.  So far, there are no campaign signs marring my view, but I’m at the ready.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    It is a right wing country. It has been in your son’s lifetime.

    The problem is that the other side of the conflict is also right wing. The conflict is right vs. right, and the fact that Western lefties having chosen the weaker side doesn’t change that.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Joe Biden has won a lot of elections. Trump has won one. The NYTimes is backing the wrong horse and it will be delightful when they lose. Biden never needed them and he’ll need them even less after they back Trump and lose. Their political coverage sucks- it’s terrible. Garbage work. If there were any smart, ambitious people at the other outlets they would stop following the NYTimes team like lemmings and go out and do good, interesting, original work. There’s an opening for quality political coverage.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: My preference is a stronger-than-expected second place finish for Haley that reveals Trump’s weakness and a distant third place showing for DeSantis that discredits him and his Trump-lite model.

    Republicans have been terrible all my life, and I expect they always will be. But the modern authoritarian strain that wants to overturn democracy needs to be walloped but good. 

  106. 106.

    Mike in NC

    Switched on MSNBC and Florida Man Marco Rubio bravely endorsed Florida Man Donald Trump! Rubio was perhaps the most hapless imbecile to ever launch a failed presidential campaign.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    Joe Biden got 81 million votes. He beat the NYTimes candidate, Donald Trump.

    Some other outlet, a competitor, should consider offering some coverage of the 81 million who supported Biden. That market is wide open. Underserved. Talk about a silent majority. We’re an ACTUAL majority, instead of the fake Trump majority media invented.

    I think media is a broken market. It’s not genuinely competitive in terms of offering variety. They all follow the leader, and the leader is rigidly conventional and narrow.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Mike in NC:

    It’s amusing to think back to how much political media promoted him. Remember that? He was the young, hip Republican! He’s a big pile of mush bleating out Bible verses and never working. Well, a smallish pile of mush.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I’ve always been amazed at this. Sometimes I wonder whether there’s something about the liberal news customer that I’m missing.  Maybe we’re just too diverse to serve.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I want to see Haley do well enough in Iowa and New Hampshire to stay in the race and attract more funding. I don’t think Haley can actually beat Trump, but the harder Trump has to work to win the nomination the worse off he’ll be for the general election, I think.

  114. 114.

    frosty

    @Kay: They [the young] think it’s a Right wing country and they think WE are the naive people, supporting a Right wing government that works against US liberals.

    I can’t say they’re wrong.

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    I heard a bit of Nikki’s elevator speech on an NPR news update yesterday. She knows how to cram a bunch of stuff into a short amount of time, and superficially appear reasonable doing it. Quite a contrast with TIFG and even Ronnie (roughly “vote for me because the Demonrats will unfairly take TIFG down and nothing will get done!!1”).

    Of course, Nikki’s spiel was word salad, like (roughly) “we have to fix Social Security, so 25 year olds will have to retire later because of their increased life expectancy, and rich people don’t need or want the benefits anyway, and benefits should go up based on the real cost of living not the CPI, and …” – while glossing over the fact that the last time a GQPer was in the White House life expectancy dropped by about 2 years, and later retirement doesn’t help people who do manual labor all their lives, and there are already clawbacks if you earn over a certain amount while on SS, and on and on. There’s a crisis in 40 years, so we have to cut benefits NOW NOW NOW, and you should thank us for it!!11 You can see why the Koch plutocrats dumped a bunch of money into her campaign recently.

    It’s just mouth noises for the rest of us.

    I hope, but do not expect, that TIFG ends up under 50% (“Looooser former president cannot even get half of the GQP in a very conservative state to support him. Only able to get participation trophy. Sad.”). But the rest of them are no better, and just as much of a danger to the commonweal.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay: When I wrote to Dean Baquet about this with respect to Hillary, he (or somebody claiming to be him) said that of course everyone in NYC knew people who were supporting Hillary, so they understood her appeal, but they didn’t know the people in the Ohio diners, so the New York Times needed to cover Trump supporters in order to inform their readers. They didn’t need to explain Hillary supporters to the highly sophisticated NYT readership.

  123. 123.

    frosty

    @TBone: My mother died a week before the 2016 election so she missed the whole Trump era. She was a lifelong Republican (County committeewoman in the 1960s) who gave it up when Reagan was elected.

    “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Party left me.”

  131. 131.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TBone: LC is the reason I picked up guitar (and drums).  They were my first parent-free concert (The Orpheum in Boston in 1991 I believe).  I’m pretty sure I saw them at the Trocadero too!  What year?  Have you read the 33 1/3 book Times Up?  It’s a very quick read and very interesting:

    The iconic Black rock band Living Colour’s Time’s Up, released in 1990, was recorded in the aftermath of the spectacular critical and commercial success of their debut record Vivid. Time’s Up is a musical and lyrical triumph, incorporating distinct forms and styles of music and featuring inspired collaborations with artists as varied as Little Richard, Queen Latifah, Maceo Parker, and Mick Jagger. The clash of sounds and styles don’t immediately fit. The confrontational hardcore-thrash metal – complete with Glover’s apocalyptic wail – in the title track is not a natural companion with Doug E. Fresh’s human beat box on “Tag Team Partners,” but it’s precisely this bold and brilliant collision that creates the barely-controlled chaos. And isn’t rock & roll about chaos?

    Living Colour’s sophomore effort holds great relevance in light of its forward-thinking politics and lyrical engagement with racism, classism, police brutality, and other social and political issues of great importance. Through interviews with members of Living Colour, and others involved in the making of Time’s Up, Kimberly Mack explores the creation and reception of this artistically challenging album, while examining the legacy of this culturally important and groundbreaking American rock band.

  133. 133.

    Layer8Problem

    @Steeplejack, @zhena gogolia:

    We’re watching that too. We’re enjoying it, although it’s a head-trip watching Sam Spade listening to a woman singing a Françoise Hardy tune. Ok, so it’s 1963. Maybe he meets Antoine Doinel next.

  134. 134.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: Dean Baker makes the point frequently that there is no such thing as a free market.  There are always guardrails and prohibitions and favored players and the people in power write the rules.

    E.g. from January 11:

    A friend called my attention to a piece by Dan Drezner disputing the current fashion that neo-liberalism is dead. Drezner makes several good points, and gets some important things wrong, but like most “neo-liberals” and critics of neo-liberalism, he still gets the basic story wrong.

    The basic point that both sides miss here is that no one was actually committed to a free market without government intervention. The difference was that the so-called neo-liberals liked to claim that their policies were about the unfettered free market, whereas their opponents liked to claim that that they were attacking the free market.

    In reality, the neo-liberals were simply trying to structure the market in ways that redistributed income upward, while claiming that it was all the invisible hand of the market. Their opponents bizarrely chose to attack the market instead of the way the neo-liberals were shaping it. I’ll come back to this basic issue in a moment, but first it is worth dealing with a couple of key points that Drezner gets right and then a big one he gets badly wrong.

    […]

    It’s the same with FTFNYT and the rest of the MSM.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  135. 135.

    TBone

    @UncleEbeneezer: I cannot remember the date 😉 but I bet we were at the same show! They were at the height of their popularity when I saw them. Thanks for that read, and I’m so glad they inspired you to pick up a guitar and SING IT BROTHA!

  137. 137.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TBone: Thanks.  I’m a super-fan.  I got to meet them at a record signing when Stain was released and they were super-nice guys.  And as the book details, they have all, always been “woke” as fuck.  Their parents were all involved in social justice activism, academia etc., in some way.  Corey and Vernon are also semi-regular guests on The Black Guy Who Tips podcast (my fave black comedy podcast) and they are both hilarious too.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    I don’t think they understand Democrats at all, besides maybe some tiny subset of “college educated, Right leaning NYC Democrats”

    Biden had 80 million voters. The Democratic coalition is wildly diverse, much more so than Trump voters. It could be really interesting just because it’s so undercovered. Interview “college educated AA Cleveland Democrats” or “Muskegon white working class Democrats”. They could do a whole state – “Democrats in Texas”. They’ve done about 50 “Republicans in Michigan”. I feel as if I know every Michigan Republican personally.

    Doing something different never occurs to any of them? Yet another Trump voters article?

  143. 143.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    They’d probably do series about the diverse array of Dems who are disappointed with Biden.

    Probably best if they ignore us.

  144. 144.

    smith

    Such a shame Old, Old Grandpa Joe is so unpopular:

    President Biden’s reelection campaign raised over $97 million in the past three months and has $117 million on hand — a record for any Democrat ever at this point in the election cycle, the campaign announced Monday morning. The campaign has raised a whopping $235 million since the campaign launched.

    Note especially:

    About 97% of all donations were less than $200, with an average donation of $41.88. The Biden campaign also touts a large number of recurring donors. There are 130,000 people who have pledged to give monthly to his reelection effort – that’s just about double the number at this time during the 2020 cycle.

  146. 146.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Yeah, I bet she doesn’t come within 20 points of Trump. But if she’s closer to 20 points behind than 30, the media will make a huge deal of that all the way thru NH, where she should do better. Then bust out the popcorn! ;-)

  147. 147.

    zhena gogolia

    @Layer8Problem: I put it on my watchlist. We’re doing McDonald and Dobbs right now. My husband loves Jason Watkins. I had to show him clips from “The Two Tonys.” (I’m so mad that Friday Night Dinner has disappeared.)

  148. 148.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: I think it was a mistake to regard capitalism as an ideology you have to embrace or reject. It’s more like an economic technology with many advantages and drawbacks. No technology is an unalloyed moral good. There’s always some cost and danger, some need for safety measures. But treating a technology as the Devil is usually wrong-headed too.

    The centrally-planned socialist enterprise is another economic technology. It’s good for some things that capitalism is bad at (education, libraries, health insurance). It’s not so good at other things (mass entertainment, consumer products).

    But even in the sectors where market capitalism runs rings around it, there’s a need for social controls. And, yes, as Baker says, usually “free-marketers” aren’t, anyway–they just want social controls that favor rich investors and bosses.

  152. 152.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Another unheard group: Florida moms who aren’t GOP political operatives whose children attend private schools.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, hope is not a strategy.  A tree is not a bulldozer.  Lots of things are not lots of other things.

    ;⁠-⁠)

    (I don’t get the feathers thing.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  157. 157.

    TBone

    @Another Scott: Emily Dickinson poem.  It’s lovely.
    “Hope” is the thing with feathers –
    That perches in the soul –
    And sings the tune without the words –
    And never stops – at all –

    And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
    And sore must be the storm –
    That could abash the little Bird
    That kept so many warm –

    I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
    And on the strangest Sea –
    Yet – never – in Extremity,
    It asked a crumb – of me.

  158. 158.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Another Scott: (I don’t get the feathers thing.)

    The pigeons provide.

    Ignoring the artist yet loving the art, I quote:

    “How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not “the thing with feathers.” The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”

  160. 160.

    Kelly

    A friend of ours reports that the winter storm knocked down his only tree that survived the 2020 Beachie fire. At 4 AM. Took out his electric feed, destroyed his gate. On the upside his generator is working.

  166. 166.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @TBone: “burner phones” are common knowledge, but I have a feeling the perpetrator might have been careless.  If so I expect there will be consequences.

  170. 170.

    cain

    @Jackie: it would be interesting to see if he can lean on the GOP and have a lot of ‘perfect’ calls and change shit around.

    Imagine the howl of rage if Nikki was denied because of election interference. She couldn’t do anything of course. But what it would signal to everyone …

  171. 171.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: False dichotomies will be the death of us.

    Either you die, or you withstand false dichotomies. There is no other way.

  173. 173.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud: I don’t know. I talked about this here the other day. I think if God has a sense of black humor, He might think it hilarious to send us an Antichrist who was an abject moron and yet who’s strongest Supporters included the loudest and most obnoxious “Christians” in the country.

  175. 175.

    wjca

    @Geminid:  I don’t think Haley can actually beat Trump, but the harder Trump has to work to win the nomination the worse off he’ll be for the general election, I think.

    Likely correct.  If he has to work to beat her, he will reflexively go full bore misogynist and racist.  Especially, all in on anti-abortion.  Think of her as a knee-mounted gun rest for him.

  178. 178.

    LiminalOwl

    @TBone: Who’s Jean Lafitte? (So I don’t know the answer, but glad you liked it.) Susan Werner is one of our favorites; TBD and I see her pretty much any time she’s playing nearby.

  179. 179.

    wjca

    @Another Scott:  the rest of them are no better, and just as much of a danger to the commonweal.

    Potentially, perhaps.

    But if anyone else is the nominee (including, I suspect, if TIFG kicks off or otherwise is unable to run) the cult will stay home and sulk.  And without the cult, their chances of winning are far lower than TIFG’s.  So less of a threat in practical terms.

  184. 184.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s why I consider myself to be a social democrat. And not, mind you, a democratic socialist. Democratic socialism is the evil twin of social democracy. I don’t want to smash capitalism. I simply want it regulated to protect capitalism from its own worst. Impulses for the benefit of society. And I want every vital public service treated as a public good and protected from profiteers. Which, you know  has been the democratic view of economics pretty much since 1932.

  193. 193.

    TBone

    I learned about Jean Lafitte while living in Galveston where I dated a ship captain who resembled Paul Newman.  His job at that time was dredging the Bay and he taught me to drive the boat by radar only when we couldn’t see anything through the windshield because of a storm. Saw my first water spout there.  He lived in Picayune, MS on an exotic animal ranch run by his dad (muntjac deer and all kinds of exotic birds) and took me to Biloxi for Mardi Gras. He had photos of his dad scuba diving with Cary Grant for stunt work. Gave me a platinum heart studded with baguette cut diamonds which I later sold at a Mexican pawn shop for gas money to drive back to PA when things went south. LaFitte is Local Hero.

  194. 194.

    mrmoshpotato

    So which of the GrOPers has been the first to take a dump on Dr. Rev. King Jr’s legacy today?

  195. 195.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    It is an Emily Dickerson poem.

    “Hope” is the thing with feathers
    BY EMILY DICKINSON
    “Hope” is the thing with feathers –
    That perches in the soul –
    And sings the tune without the words –
    And never stops – at all –

    And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
    And sore must be the storm –
    That could abash the little Bird
    That kept so many warm –

    I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
    And on the strangest Sea –
    Yet – never – in Extremity,
    It asked a crumb – of me.

  201. 201.

    Daoud bin Daoud

    @Tony Jay:  Truly, Billionaire-Gods like Ketamine Boy honor us with their mere existence here on Earth, before they fly off to Mars (or New Zealand, or Antarctica…)

  202. 202.

    zhena gogolia

    @Layer8Problem: It’s not as funny as Hot Fuzz, but it’s amusing. The mysteries are ridiculously complicated, but the buddy-cop interactions are entertaining.

  204. 204.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Looks like Rod Taylor and Tony Franciosa among the Hollywood celebrities at the March on Washington, sitting near Rita Moreno.

  205. 205.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    If there is anything the last decade has proved, it’s that rich people are more irrational dumbasses than the 99%, not less.  This sure ain’t no meritocracy.

    As far as I can tell, stupidity is evenly distributed among all human beings. At worst, the rich can pay more for self-deception and their desire to control others.

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