Stipulated: the political press in the United States is steaming hot garbage. Sometimes I wonder if we spend too much time complaining about it. Sometimes I think the theories folks put forth to explain its willful toxicity cross the line into paranoia.
But for me at least, the core issue is never in doubt: The D.C. press is wired for Republicans, and over the better part of a decade now,* the political media herd has demonstrated it lacks the capacity to adjust to changing circumstances and is poised to both-sides a democracy into a dictatorship.
The bumbling DC MSM are too rigid or compromised or stupid or whatever to perceive the threat and come down on the side of democracy. Even when a fluorescent orange fascist and his slack-jawed horde scream “enemy of the people” in their goddamn faces daily.
I thought I’d accepted that and made my peace with it. Then I saw this CNN analysis by Stephen Collinson with a promising lede, and it awakened my fury at these gormless sheep all over again:
CNN — Donald Trump’s voters get all the attention. But it’s Joe Biden’s who may decide the general election.
That’s promising, right? I braced myself for the shock of reading about, I dunno, maybe a union member who appreciated the president’s stint on the picket line, or a person whose crushing student debt had been forgiven, or someone whose town was in the process of being revitalized due to a long-neglected infrastructure project.
Hahaha, nope! Here’s a screenshot of a video clip that prominently illustrates and allegedly adds to the discussion of Biden voters — the subject is a Trump-voting moron who’s so mind-bendingly gullible that he’s convinced himself one of the most corrupt villains to ever walk the earth is incorruptible.
Other clips include 82-year-old Bernie Sanders speaking for America’s youth about their discontent with Biden’s policy on Israel and several black voters who worry that people won’t show up for Biden because there’s been too little progress on issues they care about. And you know what? Fair enough on the latter two clips.
Some Democrats do worry that the president is getting played by Netanyahu and/or hasn’t sufficiently used U.S. leverage to protect civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Some Democrats do question the administration’s priorities. These are legit angles to cover in the runup to an election where coalition turnout will be key.
But can we not get some fucking balance here? I mean, if you’re going to include the views of a white man who is so self-lobotomized that he sincerely believes international commodity Donald Trump “pretty much can’t be bought,” how about a mention of a Democrat who can’t wait to vote for Biden again?
I shit you not, y’all — here’s how the CNN piece on Biden voters ends:
“They didn’t like his act or his Twitter, but he got things done,” said [Dominick] Lombardi, [vice chairman of the Orange Republican Party in New Haven County, Connecticut], who was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap at a Trump rally in New Hampshire last weekend.
If democracy is to be saved, we Biden voters will have to do the saving without any assistance from the Fourth Estate. In fact, we’ll have to save democracy with their dead fucking weight strapped to our backs.
Open thread.
*God help us, next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump’s descent down the golden escalator to launch his campaign. I laughed at the time. What kind of goddamn moron thinks a bloated, scammy jerk and his stale, scowling arm-candy riding an escalator down to a lobby constitutes a grand entrance? What I did not understand back then is that the rest of us were descending too, straight into Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell, where we will apparently remain until that fucker finally dies.
Baud
Kudos. Great, and greatly damning, post.
We were talking below about how media is failing themselves into bankruptcy…and possibly dictatorship.
Alison Rose
something something mussolini something trains
JFC. Wake me up after the election. Or after I’m dead.
Jay
Fucker Fishsticks Failson Carlson came to Calgary, Alberta (our Dallas, our Texas, Edmonton is our Austin) to do a show with Premier Daneille Smith, (our Alina Habba), and it did not go well.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/tucker-carlson-danielle-smith-calgary-analysis-1.7094117
Unfortunately, no fatalities.
Skippy-san
Well said. What I still cannot understand is why people support the orange bastard when he is clearly unfit to be in society, much less political office. Americans themselves are to blame for their own stupidity.
Nukular Biskits
Since this is an open thread, allow me to rant a second, purty please.
The jackasses in the MS Legislature are bragging about how they’ve finally worked out how to “restore” the ballot initiative process:
Twitter: MS House Speaker Jason White
However, what Speaker White does NOT say is that this legislation severely restricts what Mississippi citizens can attempt to address via that ballot initiative process:
AP: Mississippi ballot initiative proposal would not allow changes to abortion laws
Bastards. And they’re gonna try to ram it through as quickly as possible.
Sorry, Betty C, for my rant.
cmorenc
…and did you know that Joe Biden is OLD?
It infuriates me to hear likely Biden voters who have picked up and are repeating this GOP-fed drumbeat, as if this is something *they* should worry about Joe’s capacity, as opposed to worrying whether this drumbeat will inhibit turnout for Biden with other less-regular voters. And nothing about Trump’s 77+ yo mental capaciy in the worry-circle discussions, except maybe as a casual afterthought.
Scout211
I have conflicting reactions to that.
I do agree that the political media is hot garbage, for many reasons, few having to do with informing their readers/viewers and many having to do with marketing their brand.
I do agree that we complain too much about it because most of what we complain about rarely reaches the independents and Democratic normies to the extent that we pore over it daily. It might be wasted energy and contribute to dooming.
I don’t agree that we complain about it too much because it’s right on brand for this here almost top 10,000 blog. It’s just what we do here and I am here for it.
Also too, I usually like Collinson’s essays because he usually is all over Trump. But yeah, this one was not up to his usual.
feebog
J have a Face Book chat series starting up again for 2024. Mostly retired seniors with a smattering of younger folks. Our first Zoom meeting was last night. This came up toward the end of the chat, mainly how the press seems to give TFG a pass, even when he is drooling into his microphone in front of a couple thousand true believers. Don’t know what the answer is, other than to bitch on social media at very turn.
Old School
But they talked to both sides: The Trump voters who love Trump and the Biden voters who are unhappy with Biden.
Baud
@Scout211:
I see a lot more awareness and pushback now than I used to several years ago. That to me is the value of raising the issue.
VFX Lurker
I was so naive that when I saw that escalator footage, I expected him to lose in a landslide.
I’ve written 4000+ Postcards to Voters since 2018. I’ll be writing postcards for the rest of my life.
PS – My “Make America Kittens Again” browser extension still works. My browser swapped out the original image for this post with that of a soft, cuddly kitten.
Skippy-san
@Alison Rose: Funny part about “he got things done” is that he really didn’t. He destroyed much of what makes the country work. I was living and working in Germany and Israel at the time and his choice for ambassador was a disaster. His vaunted move of the Embassy to Jerusalem was itself a disaster that set back relations with many countries for 2 years.
The economy was no prize, and even though the stock market went up, the other economic indicators were anemic. He coasted off Obama’s momentum till COVID hit.
The list goes on and on. People who think he “got things done” do not understand what getting things done really means. And they certainly have no understanding of how policy and economics works.
Chris
Literally the only thing Trump accomplished during his time in office was the bare minimum of a tax cut for the rich: he couldn’t even get the ACA repealed, the one thing his entire caucus had been clamoring for all decade, and even his successes at anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies were pretty limited. He then spent pretty much the entire Covid crisis paralyzed by the fear of doing something that would upset too many voters, which is why the response to it was largely Pelosi’s. Even if your own standard is whether a politician “gets things done,” Trump’s achievements are pathetic: Dubya, HW, and Reagan all accomplished a hell of a lot more. (This is in fact why Trump is demanding dictatorial powers, so that he can command the things that he and his supporters don’t have the patience and attention span to do legally and through the constitutional system).
But, yes. On the broader point, I literally have never seen the media this bad, and it’s been pretty bad my entire life. Their thumb on the scale has gotten so blatant that the only analogy I can think of in U.S. history is that time railroad barons would crater train ticket prices to any place where McKinley was campaigning, while sending them through the roof for any place Bryan was campaigning. That’s probably my single biggest source of worry for this election cycle.
Shalimar
@Jay: Your Alina Habba isn’t as hot as our Alina Habba.
Alison Rose
@Skippy-san: Yeah, it’s a statement based in volitional ignorance. They’re the same people who think he’s a great businessman even though his casinos went bankrupt. They have to convince themselves he’s the greatest at everything because what they really care about is that he sticks it to the people they hate, but most of them have the one molecule of awareness necessary to realize they can’t say that to a MSM reporter.
Betty Cracker
@Scout211: I think the fact that it was under Collinson’s byline is what put me over the edge. You’re right — he’s usually better.
schrodingers_cat
@Skippy-san: People vote for him because he is their alter ego who can do and say things to women, immigrants, trans people, all other minorities, people with disabilities that they think but cannot say aloud
Baud
Someone also mentioned in the morning thread how he had a reporter friend that said that the news media shifted in the 80s and 90s because of a barrage of complaints by conservatives. Pushback works, as long as you don’t expect instant results.
Chris
@cmorenc:
The average low-info voter takes his cues from the media; if everybody’s talking about it, it must be important. (I doubt if 90% of Americans could even tell you which decade of his life Joe Biden is in, but that would be true for any other politician as well).
Republicans are somewhat better immunized from this because they start from the basic assumption that the media is biased against them and conspiring against their candidates, so any negative news they get from there comes with mountains of salt. The number of Democratic voters who not only don’t do this but take it as some sort of badge of honor to repeat any criticism of their candidate they hear, just to make sure you know they’re not sheeple who blindly follow the party, is one of the most irritating things about our voter base.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. That’s at the bottom of it.
Tony Jay
It might not primarily be a conspiracy, but it definitely is primarily a business, and since the product that this business makes its money from isn’t ‘journalism’ so much as it’s the production and dissemination of approved narratives that benefit the interests of the businesses’ owners, the end result is indistinguishable from any other conspiracy.
So let’s just call it a conspiracy.
Jay
@Shalimar:
Neither are “hot”, both are dishrags.
If you want to be pretty or handsome, first get a soul.
And both are dumb as posts.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
The news media does suck, but for what’s it worth, I just saw this front page headline in the NYT: “Why Trump Is Vulnerable Despite Wins”
Alison Rose
In news about better people, today is Zelenskyy’s 46th birthday. З днем народження, герой
ETA this photo of him kissing Olena’s hand is adorable, and certainly a step above DeSantis shaking Casey’s hand like she was showing him around a model home in a new subdivision.
Chris
@Alison Rose:
As always, Hannah Arendt’s greatest insight may have been that totalitarians don’t say what they believe is true, they say what would have to be true to justify what they want to do anyway.
IIRC, she was talking about conspiracy theories, but it works equally well for inane boilerplate talking points like “he gets things done” or “he’s not a politician” or my personal favorite, “the economy was great under him.” (It was the same economy as in 2015 and 2016, half the country just suddenly decided to tell pollsters it was good at inauguration time because they see “the economy is good” as a code word for “the president is doing a good job.”)
Chris
@Baud:
I believe it was also because of a concerted campaign by rich conservatives to buy up media and put their thumb on the scale. “Become Dan Rather’s boss.”
Anyway
@Baud:
“Working the refs” – Rs did/do that very well.
NotMax
When do we get the deluge of articles such as “I ordered the meatloaf at the diner and the check was for $82!”
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: It’s that fucking show he was on. Alot of his voters also believe pro wrestling is non-staged.
Almost Retired
Damn Mark Burnett and his wretched bible-thumping wife to the darkest depths of hell for rehabilitating that gaseous failure with the unwatchable Apprentice show. The Orange Hellbeast played a successful businessman on television – just like Robert Young played a doctor without actually being one.
zhena gogolia
@Paul in KY: Yes. He was dead in the water before that.
Alison Rose
@Paul in KY: Which proved absolutely nothing about his supposed business prowess. It just showed he was good at being an asshole.
Which is precisely the thing they actually like. They couldn’t give a fuck about his business acumen.
ETA Oh, am I thinking of the wrong thing? I thought you meant The Apprentice, but zhena’s comment makes me think maybe it’s something else?
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. That too. No-name POSes who wish they could be a POS of his caliber. What sad lives they must have.
NotMax
@Almost Retired
If one comes to Father Knows Best with the assumption Robert Young was a hitman the show makes much more sense.
Actually, so do a lot of 50s family sitcoms.
;)
rikyrah
I see no lies here.
The endless Cletus safari.
Democracy vs Fascism is what’s at stake in 2024.
They are too busy trying to both sides thing.
It’s why they are trying to ignore Body Autonomy and the continued fallout from the Dobbs decision. They can’t both sides it.
E.
Well, the headline does say the Trump voters get all the attention.
Harrison Wesley
Who says Trump didn’t get things done? He put a Supreme Court in place that has already started to radically change American life and will probably continue to do so for the next 15-20 years. That’s certainly getting something done. Now, whether or not you like what he got done….
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: No, I’m talking about The Apprentice too. There was a time when Trump was a national joke, his Atlantic City businesses were all bankrupt, etc.
Old School
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: The Apprentice. The show said he was a ‘successful’ ‘billionaire’, etc. etc. and his rubes just ate it up. They loved him ragging on minor ‘celebrities’.
geg6
Just in case you need something to point to and laugh at: ” Tesla shares plummet as analyst decried ‘train wreck’ investor call.” Subhead: “In an earnings call this week, CEO Elon Musk failed to allay concerns over falling demand and persistent price cuts.”
LOL!
https://wapo.st/4b6UtAp
Gift link!
Paul in KY
@NotMax: Where actually does that money come from…
Weapon X
@Alison Rose: do they ever ask these people what exactly he got done? The answer is very little. His administration was all marketing, no product.
NotMax
#zhena gogolia
Leave us not forget the USFL, also too.
Eyeroller
@Baud: I think that’s just an excuse. It seems to me to be multi-factored. First is that “MeToo” seems to have shown that the media, especially but not exclusively the broadcast media, are and have been for a very long time run almost entirely by shitty white males. Second, media consolidation, often going to the control of rightwing superwealthy individuals or hedge funds. Third, loss of revenue with the rise of the Internet, as has been discussed here. And finally, what I think is the biggest factor, is that perhaps due at least partly to the ownership and management issues mentioned, the media only really care about the opinions of white males. Maybe to some extent white women, especially if they seem to echo white males. So of course there will be a Republican bias.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Ah, okay.
Alison Rose
@Weapon X: They just burble out his lies. “He made the Covid vaccines!” (The ones most of them won’t take and he had zip to do with.) “He got the world to respect us!” (The world fucking hated us under Trump, except putin and NK and China maybe.) “He made the economy great!” (Numbers tell a different story, but we all know numbers are liberals.) And so on and so on.
JML
The consistent to refusal to talk to real, live Democrats is part of what’s so maddening. They never talk to the committed Democrats who have been voting D for years and recognize that Biden is doing a good job. Their profile of “independent” voters is so out of date they’re identifying people that haven’t never for anyone other than the GOP candidate as indy. They can’t even spell swing voter at this point. God forbid they talk to people of color or non-evangelical women…
rikyrah
@Scout211:
They are garbage, and should be called out about it.
They can’t push garbage, and we’re just supposed to sit here and take it.
Not when our very country is at stake.
They want to polite-shame us.
Phuck that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
That was me. WH reporter for a paper during most of the Bush Reign of Error. The following is the gist of a many-year conversation I had with her.
Editors prior to the widespread use of Teh Internetzes could more or less ignore what they clearly saw as right-wing “working the refs” b/c the business (the paper) didn’t suffer financially.
That all changed with the loss of revenue beginning in the Aughts (as somebody else in the morning thread mentioned). Now the coordinated wingers could communicate their displeasure easier (no more snail mail letters to the editor), bring larger numbers of like-minded subscribers to bear. And they all threatened to cancel subscriptions. And given the financial tectonic plate shift papers were experiencing, they felt they couldn’t lose what they had.
Editors felt the pressure from execs in terms of mitigating that pesky “facts have a liberal bias” thread that you’d find in what we could consider today fairly neutral reporting and passed that along to existing reporters. It’s *a* reason why our political coverage is hardwired GOP to the extent that it is: we now have 20 years of journalism that’s operated under that general editorial paradigm.
Again, the above perspective is from somebody who can at her worst, embody the most stereotypical of the Beltway Press Corpse. But, she’s always been straight with me all these years and that was the environment she and others experienced even tho how somebody like me on the “outside” interprets it can be far different than how they (mostly myopically) see it.
It also reflected a very different media landscape (this was all pre-Orange Fart Cloud).
brendancalling
@Shalimar:
Alina Habba is not hot at all. This is because:
She is not hot, because her inner ugliness—like that of all MAGAs and their enablers—shines through.
wmd
I’m not holding my breath, but it strikes me as newsworthy that there were more write in votes for Biden than Trump. Biden wasn’t on the ballot, yet people braved bad weather to cast a vote for someone that was not on the ballot, knowing that their votes were meaningless for the nomination. Perhaps some clips of these voters would be useful.
TBone
Speaking of the circles of hell, I had to look at billbard size campaign signs out my front windows for this Nazi for a long time. My next donation will be to C.R.E.W. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow here in PA.
https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/01/pennsylvania-us-capitol-insurrection-doug-mastriano-ethics-complaint/
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
He is their Prince of White Supremacy. They wanna party like it’s 1923, and think the rest of us should just shut up and take it
catclub
I think it was a guy named Burnett who produced ‘The Apprentice’. He has a lot to answer for for making people think Trump is a decisive, successful billionaire.
JoyceH
What irks me is that when a reporter does question a Biden voter, rather than ask why they support Biden, they always ask if his age is a concern for them. Voters in primaries are more politically aware than the average bear, so we need to come up with a response for that. The answer ought to be something like, “Any president of any age can die in office. If Biden dies in office, we’ll be governed by his VP, with an executive branch that he staffed. If Trump dies in office, we’ll be governed by his VP and his executives. I prefer to go with the government that Biden created.”
Alison Rose
@brendancalling: Pretty rich for that quote to come from an antisemitic, racist piece of shit.
Talk about one ugly ass motherfucker.
wjca
First ballot initiative: change the ballot initiative law to allow an initiative on abortion.
These morons aren’t as clever as they think they are.
Citizen Dave
From the tremendous wreckage and executive branch disfuction of orange man, and his cult, and his nonstop bullshit conning (why won’t my opponent just drop out so I can win?), this 10 year era is certainly the most embarrassing time of our nation. Thank goodness we’ve dug out of the hole, but the orange stain is still on the stage, abetted greatly by the F’ing press.
Captain C
All of the above?
TaMara
I’m busy trying to catch up with a week that will just not cooperate, so forgive me if this has already been pointed out about failing CNN:
There are plenty of articles out there on how bad Malone is and the ownership of Discovery/Warner/HBO and what they are doing to the media landscape. Now they are trying to merge with Paramount (CBS). And I’m suspicious that is to create a right wing media monolith to rival Murdoch
JoyceH
@catclub: Someone once said that Newt Gingrich was a stupid man’s idea of a smart man. Trump is a poor man’s idea of a rich man. If Trump’s supporters were billionaires, they’d behave exactly the same way, from gaudy penthouses to sexual assault.
catclub
So instead of catering their coverage to the liberal/moderates who were NOT threatening to cancel (i.e their best customers) they did the opposite.
NotMax
@TBone
Reside in central Pennsyltucky by any chance?
Full disclosure: Lived in Pennsylvania off and on for quite some time. There’s much to like.
FastEdD
Hundreds of UAW members yelling “Joe, Joe, Joe!” as the union endorses him. Is that who they talk to? Is that what the lede is?
Nope.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@catclub:
Heh heh, nobody said they were smart. As mentioned this morning, such businesses printed money literally until the evil internetzez (from their viewpoint) took it all away.
They were so unused to having to think agile about the business going forward, they simply responded to the largest noise maker at that moment in time. Classic near-term-results ‘Murkin bidness thinking.
Elizabelle
Peter Navarro gets four months.
NotMax
@TaMara
I blame AOL.
//
Captain C
@Alison Rose:
I still don’t understand why the Clinton campaign or a Democratic PAC didn’t flood the airwaves pointing out that anyone who bankrupted three casinos and ran an entire football league into the ground in the United States of America was obviously a shitty businessman.
TBone
@NotMax: yep with evangeluglican, very politically active neighbors. One son (Liberty U.) now works as a congressional staffer and is functionally illiterate. Was previously in Maddy Cawthorne’s office. Oh, and Gene Yaw is on our Senate ETHICS Committee??? Grrrr
catclub
I disagree with you here. He did not get in the way of super fast vaccine development. And that is the best any president can do, actually. And if he had handled covid just a little bit better, he would have been re-elected. or if the vaccine had arrived a month earlier and he was pushing it before the election. Just lucky. If he had been re-elected he would have pushed the vaccine hard.
H.E.Wolf
@VFX Lurker: “I’ve written 4000+ Postcards to Voters since 2018.”
That.Is.Phenomenal. Wow!
@VFX Lurker: “I’ll be writing postcards for the rest of my life.”
Right there with you. Can’t match your awe-inspiring totals, but I’ll be chugging along!
Geminid
@geg6: I think Tesla stock had already lost nearly 20% of its value in the last five weeks.
Alison Rose
@catclub: No, I meant some of these fuckers act like Trump himself developed the vaccines.
Scout211
@Elizabelle: 👍
Jeffro
this is, unfortunately, 110% spot-on
UncleEbeneezer
Apologies Betty, if you’ve already posted about this but…Oh Florida…
Chris
@Eyeroller:
Even among white people, the bias is palpable. Media pundits’ desperation for the approval of red state Trump voters is palpable. Even if they personally aren’t from that background and would never want to be, there’s still a deep sense that these are the “authentic,” “normal,” salt of the earth types that we should all treat as the default voters. Compare and contrast their contempt for blue-state middle-class whites, who’re generally excoriated as the enemy of the people.
Hoodie
Most of the things I’ve seen from Collinson are hot garbage.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: thank you for that rant. Today’s Jessica Valenti is also required reading. Feel like I’m risking something posting a shitter link but this is awesome:
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1750549196036337719?
I detest fElon Skum.
Soprano2
The press is stuck in the template they’ve been using my whole lifetime, that the R’s are the sober, stern father who we need to keep the reckless women, blacks, and young people who make up the D party in check. No matter how much evidence there is that this isn’t true, they stick with what’s comfortable. They act like R’s are adults and D’s are children.
Jeffro
true – I saw that one too.
there have been a few ‘takes’ here and there that have noted what some have been saying for a while: trumpov is not a strong candidate, and the GOP is definitely not a popular or majority party.
and that’s just right now…we have 9+ months of him acting like a maniac, alienating everyone but his hardcore base, the economy continuing to improve, and so on.
raven
I juts got word that my buddy is sick and we had to cancel the trip to Costa Rica!
TBone
@raven: damn. That sucks. Hopefully it will save you from some possible contagion. I had to rush home from a vacation (and cancel a visit to my elderly aunt we’d planned for our return trip home) because our pet sitter tested positive. Whale watching boat trip was set for that day.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits: So glad to be out.
Chris
@JML:
The refusal to talk to real, live Republicans in anything but the most specific contexts is almost as maddening, oddly enough. Let a Republican talk for any extended length of time, and it is not hard to get them to start spewing the most hair-raisingly racist and sexist shit about how they vote Republican because gay people are pedophiles, immigrants are terrorists, and women belong in the kitchen. There is no way the media types going on Cletus safaris aren’t getting multiple screeds like that daily. But they never broadcast that shit; they only ever broadcast video of people expressing the most absolutely generic shit about “the economy” or “politicians getting things done.” Videos like this are part of a constant cleanup campaign to pretend that the nation’s most successful fascist movement is in fact just a bunch of concerned and informed citizens upset about the deficit and capital-gains taxes.
raven
@TBone: Yea, we talked about that. He had heart surgery 6. months ago and I never thought this was a good idea.
UncleEbeneezer
@Jeffro: There are exponentially more books and studies aimed at understanding the Nazis, than ones aimed at understanding the Allies, Anti-Fascists etc. To most Americans, and definitely the Media, there is nothing interesting about Dem voters because we operate on common-fucking-sense and largely good intentions.
Media: Sorry…BORING…let’s send another reporter out to a Kansas diner to interview a KKK leader about the total mystery of why he always votes Republican…
Villago Delenda Est
I sincerely hope that David Broder is enjoying his sulfur hot tub in the Goebbels wing of Hell.
Mike in NC
Enjoyed this headline in today’s local rag: “Wounded DeSantis Moves to Reassert His Dominance in Florida”. Sucks to be in the Gunshine State.
TBone
@Mike in NC:
https://youtu.be/Kd_-VwkAs8o
Gravie
Re: Betty’s last sentence. In November 2016, when the unthinkable happened and Trump won the election, I was lamenting that fact to my then-34-year-old son. He looked at me and said, “Well, he just needs to die.” I immediately went into Sunday School mode and said something about, “Oh no, we never wish that on anyone.” As the years have gone on, I have come to appreciate the wisdom of my son’s visceral reaction.
Baud
@wjca:
No wishing for more wishes!
Skippy-san
@rikyrah: Quite true. I just can’t believe the country can’t be better than this.
trollhattan
Speaking of anniversaries, Mac turns 40. Its launch pricetag calculates as $7,318 today.
The ad was epic.
trollhattan
@Baud: Don’t you go de-wishing my wish, maaaan.
JustRuss
Members of the media who cover national politics–and their bosses–are predominately white, male, and wealthy. Why they tend to favor Republicans remains a mystery.
Subsole
@Chris:
They want a White Noble Savage. An honest, gruff, simple peasant who’s too sly to fool and yet also, somehow, too simple to scheme against his neighbor.
And I’m over here laughing through my tears because the journalists are idolizing a rich person’s idea of a poor person.
raven
@Baud: Gotta stop wishin, gotta go fishin, down on the rock bottom again. . .
RedDirtGirl
@Alison Rose: What a hero! And so crazy to think about the TV show he was in.
TBone
@raven: ❤️
TBone
Some anti venom.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ7z57qrZU8
Jeffro
WOW the RNC is just as terrified of a long primary battle as trump is!
RNC moves to declare trump presumptive winner/nominee for ’24
like, WOW!!
Alison Rose
@Gravie: It’s a difficult conundrum. (For some of us. I know some of you heathens have no issue with it. I say that with all the love in the world.) I don’t wish death on anyone, and while there are certain people in the world whose deaths wouldn’t exactly make me cry (*glances in the general direction of the kremlin*), I also wouldn’t be cheering and celebrating, like how some people did when we killed bin Laden. To me, if someone’s death feels like a cause for celebration, that’s ultimately incredibly sad, because it means they were someone who used their free will to wreak havoc on the world. I wish there were people in the world who were so awful that their removal from the world was a good thing.
At the same time…I cannot help but wish Trump would just fucking keel over already. Because it feels like that is the only way we’re ever going to get to stop thinking about him and worrying about him and listening to him and seeing him, etc etc.
And what really hits hard for me is this is the same way I feel about an abusive ex-boyfriend of mine, who over 20 years after I broke up with him, still tries to find ways to insert himself into my life. At least a couple of times a year, he’s in my spam FB messages, or leaving a comment on an old Insta post, or emailing my old address which I still check occasionally. He refuses to accept that he doesn’t get to have me in his life again and that there is no statute of limitations after which I am required to be his friend. I truly believe the only way he’ll ever leave me alone is when one of us passes. I don’t want him to die, I just want him to go away, and it seems like those two might end up being one and the same.
And it feels like the same with Trump. And that feels fucking awful. If I had a time machine, I’d figure out when and where his parents met and then I’d kidnap one of them and drop them off in Nauru or something so their DNA could never combine to create the world’s biggest pain the fucking ass.
Chris
@UncleEbeneezer:
Studying the antifascists in depth means admitting just to what extent antifascism was a left-wing cause, for how long the only people trying to fight fascism in Spain and before that in Germany and Italy were left-wingers, just how long it took for the more respectable members of society to finally get in the game, and how many of them never did. Not a surprise that it doesn’t get much attention.
(Much of the post-WWII mythologizing is meant to retcon the war into a generic patriotic event that everybody was on board with, as opposed to the reality of how controversial antifascism was for a long time and just who it was who was usually pushing it. The Russian phrasing of “the Great Patriotic War” really does cover pop WWII memory very well. Of course, the Russians have their own extensive mythmaking about the war, different from the West’s but equally bullshit, and leading directly to the present situation where their definition of “Nazi” is “anyone we’re currently invading.”)
oldgold
In the Carroll v. Trump trial it “appears” Trump is going to testify this afternoon. Could be very interesting.
The trial resumes at 1: 50 EST.
It is being live blogged:
https://twitter.com/innercitypress
https://twitter.com/jruss_jruss
TBone
@Jeffro: COWARDS, EVERY LAST ONE. Sorry for shouting.
Mike in NC
@Old School: I hope Navarro enjoys jail. I also hope that E. Jean Carroll wakes up in a couple of days $10 million richer at Fat Bastard’s expense.
TBone
@Alison Rose: I have a meme. “Is it any surprise he’s forcing himself on us after we said NO!?”
Chris
@Subsole:
It certainly helps explain why what they see as the pinnacle of working-class America was a small business owner (never worker) making over $250,000.00 a year.
Mr. Bemused Senior
People laughed, people cried, a woman threw a hammer through a television screen…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@oldgold: Did the judge call Habba out on claiming she was sick?
oldgold
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No
Geminid
@Jeffro: If I were a cartoonist, I’d draw one with a frightened elephant perched on a chair, staring wide-eyed at a little mouse tagged “Nikki Haley.”
jimmiraybob
“…Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell, where we will apparently remain until that fucker finally dies. ”
You really don’t think that if they pumped the corpse full of embalming fluid and expanded the make-up crew that they couldn’t just prop him up and play recordings of his demented gibberish, the cult would abandon him?
I can here it now, “Yes, I know that he’s dead now and was always a bullying, narcissistic, socio-psychopathic, megalomaniacal, lying, pussy grabbing, woman raping, doltish, cognitively impaired, 91-felony indicted, twice impeached, racist proto-fascist dictator and loser shitstain conman, but I think he would still make things better for me if he were president.”
JoyceH
At my eye appointment and on the way here I saw a sticker on a pickup that said “Trump 2024 The Revenge Tour”. Economic anxiety, my ass! We’ve got to defeat these people! They’re dangerous!
Brachiator
I was really curious to get insights into the supposed declining enthusiasm of black voters (Milwaukee interviews?). I can understand the dismay of one voter, who mentioned “White supremacy, hate crimes, incarceration…”
But I was curious about whether these voters were positively affected by the overall increase in jobs and decline in unemployment. Instead, there seemed to be some sense of stasis, with the narrator noting “Their issues and their lives are being left behind…”
It was frustrating to see some of the voters interviewed want politics to be an entertainment show. They wanted new faces to vote for, looking at a potential Biden Trump contest as a rerun they had seen before. But they didn’t have any alternative candidates in mind.
It was also frustrating to see the voters who implied that they might stay home and not vote at all if they were not offered fresh faces to vote for.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I’m still waiting for Steve Bannon to go to jail.
Juju
@Harrison Wesley: That was more Mitch McConnell and that Federalist Society guy. Trump was their puppet.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: Are you by any chance watching My Brilliant Friend on HBO? It’s a woman-centered drama set in 1950’s Naples. In season 3 the battle between Fascists and Anti-Fascists becomes a pretty major part of the story. It’s really superb, beautiful, well-acted and very stylish.
trollhattan
@Jeffro: That David, he sure be Bossie.
“Why? Because fuck you, that’s why!”
Bex
@Alison Rose: Happy 46th Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy! Thanks Alison for posting the pictures and biography.
trollhattan
@UncleEbeneezer: That series was amazing.
IIRC they’re not making any further seasons, so we just have to imagine their paths, going forward.
Cinematography, costuming, etc. were all absolutely top-notch. It makes postwar Italy appealing and horrifying all at once, especially the first season.
TBone
@Brachiator: I saw one such woman on teevee yesterday. Her issue is immigration. She’s a NIMBY dem in Chicago (if I remember the locale correctly) against shelters. At least that’s what she purported. She was pissed because no politicians (she said she knew the Mayor) had time to speak with her.
Dupe1970
@Jay:
I have bad news for you. Dallas is a lot more liberal than you probably realize. Calgary is closer to Lubbock or Amarillo.
Soprano2
@Chris: The culture still thinks of the white man as the “default” in all things, and behaves that way.
Soprano2
@raven: Oh, that’s too bad. I hope your buddy gets better.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
They can’t win on the facts,so they dispute basically everything; knowing they can browbeat the media into covering the dispute even if the verifiable facts are present.
That the media chooses to put the dispute above verifiable facts is all them. A lot of what you describe draws a lot of attention to the part of the problem where the media exists for profit.
oldgold
Judge Kaplan: What are your questions? Habba: That he stands behind his deposition. I’ll ask about his state of mind, he’ll say he was defending himself — Judge Kaplan: And that’s it? Habba: Yes. And that he never intended to hurt Ms. Carroll.
Judge Kaplan: Will your client abide? Habba: Absent having a glass ball Trump is speaking Judge Kaplan: Mr. Trump, that is not allowed… I will permit him to get on the stand. You ask if he stands by it. That’s it.
Habba: Only one question? Judge Kaplan: You can ask the 2d question. Habba: “Why did you make the statements”- Judge Kaplan: No. Habba: I have a right to ask about intent. Judge Kaplan: I will decide what he has a right to do here. That’s my job, not yours
Fake Irishman
@Nukular Biskits:
Fun fact: The state’s “Right to Work” laws were off limits in the old version of the state’s citizen initiative system. I’m not surprised abortion is going to be off limits too in the new one.
also, the state Supreme Court struck down the old system for a particularly obtuse reason.
Raven
@Soprano2: Thanks, part of the deal I guess.
UncleEbeneezer
@trollhattan: According to this, the fourth and final season is in production now and probably will be released in 2024. My wife loved the book and the series, but I was skeptical (just not the sort of thing I’d usually seek out) but then I quickly saw the appeal and now I love it. Though I struggle with it because I’m constantly like “Why does she keep going back to Lila?” (after so many times Lila has done shitty things to Elena), but I guess that is the complexity and the point of the story. It also certainly doesn’t hurt that the scenery, fashion and actors (women and men) are all very easy on the eyes
The “horrifying” nature, sadly, doesn’t surprise me as someone who comes from a Sicilian-American family and has witnessed the Italian culture of sexism for my entire life.
oldgold
The cross of Trump needs to be with a scalpel.
Geminid
Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky:
Chris
@UncleEbeneezer:
I have not, no, wasn’t even aware of it. Consider my curiosity piqued.
(Interesting that it’s a postwar and not a prewar story, but then Italy more than any other country was the place where the Fascists vs Antifascists war kept right on going after 1945).
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I think the Biden/Trump rerun poses a unique opporunity. Teach people there’s more to the government than the President.
You’re bored with the Presidential race? Look downballot. Most decisions that affect you personally are made locally. Get involved with statehouse and town elections. Got an issue you care about? How can you help?
This provides avenues for people who have long felt trapped by their dedicated red/blue state status to feel like they can make a difference. It fights the effect of complacency that may have lost us a few critical swing seats over the years.
And if the President buys into this with us, he could empower something like our reverse coattails effort. Bring attention to the important local work that helps communities and how the federal government partners to empower this and, while you’re at it, vote Biden.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: It’s really excellent. It’s mainly about the shitty Misogyny of mid-century Italy, and how it effects women’s friendships and decisions. But there’s much more to it than that. Highly recommend it. Just be warned: the men are pretty much all terrible!
oldgold
Habba: Defense calls President Donald Trump… Trump: Donald John Trump. Habba: You viewed your deposition? Trump: I stand by it 100%, yes.
Trump: She said something I considered a false accusation — Roberta Kaplan: Objection! Judge Kaplan: Sustained. Habba: I have no further questions. Judge Kaplan: Cross examination. Roberta Kaplan: There was a trial here, correct? Trump: Yes
Roberta Kaplan: Mr. Trump, is this the 1st trial between you and Ms. Carroll you’ve attended? Trump: Yes. Roberta Kaplan: No further questions. Habba: Did you have counsel at the previous trial & follow their advice? Trump: Yes. Roberta Kaplan: Objection Sustained.
Habba: No further questions. Judge Kaplan: Jurors, you may go until tomorrow morning, closing arguments.
gene108
The MSM national political media seems concentrated in DC and NYC. Two very heavily Democratic areas.
I think most of the people they meet are Democrats or Democrat leaning voters.
I bet they cannot comprehend that much of the country does not live around such heavily Democratic areas and the only depiction of Biden voters they get are from right-wing media.
MSM’s just small minded and unimaginative.
Nelle
We are just getting around to watching the Ken Burns’ US and the Holocaust. The fascists have always been part of the American story. Between that and reading historian Heather Cox Richardson, history is rhyming awfully hard these days.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Someone get history a good beat and a record deal.
Chris
@Nelle:
The book I’m currently halfway through is Code Name Edelweiss, where the setting is 1933 Los Angeles and the main character is a German-American (gentile) woman who’s recruited by Leon Lewis to join and spy on the growing Nazi sympathizer movement in the city (and the German community especially). Good read so far. Similar point that the fascists have always been with us.
Barney
Maybe it’s “because a fluorescent orange fascist …”. They want to continue their jobs in all circumstances, and that means treading carefully around the moronic psychopaths forming about half of the Republican vote (the other half are just plain morons, but they’re unlikely to seek retribution on reporters who portray Trump accurately).
Geminid
@oldgold: Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, led the lawsuit by people injured at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. The resulting jury verdict bankrupted several people and organizations that organized the rally. The suit relied on an 1871 civil rights law and may be the template for lawsuits by law enforcement officers injured by the Capitol mob on January 6.
Kaplan also represented Edith Winsor in her successful effort to overturn portions of the federal DOMA law. Winsor sued to have her inheritance from her late wife treated as from a spouse for taxation purposes, despite DOMA. The Supreme Court decided Winsor v. U. S. in Winsor’s favor, presaging its decision to uphold same-sex marriage in Obergefel.
Brachiator
Also, I want to note that I love the title of this thread.
Tony Jay
@JoyceH:
Good of the MAGAts to be so open and honest. I’m waiting confidently for some variation of –
“Donald Trump has vowed to take revenge on the people who turfed him out of office. For the record, that would be the American people he’s threatening. Vote Biden/Harris to tell Trump he can keep his hands to himself.”
– to assail the ears of Normiekind.
Captain C
@rikyrah:
FTFNYT reporter during a TFG dictatorship: “Hmm…TFG’s people are stretching me and my colleagues to death on a rack for existing, but at least it’s not that old dude who didn’t perpetually kiss my ass. Yep, both sides are the same. AAAAAAAAAARR RRRRGGHGHGGGHHH!!!!”
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Well said. Also, before Trump became the GOP candidate, back in 2015, there were a lot of people saying this out loud about non-white people, women and immigrants. Especially out here in Southern California on a couple of talk radio stations in particular, some people were yearning for someone like Trump to do what even mainstream Republicans refused to do.
...now I try to be amused
@Brachiator:
Oh hell yeah. One of the few true things Trump said was, “I am your voice.”
gratuitous
I agree! Trump totally can NOT be bought. Unless you try to bribe him with money. Then, yeah, he can be bought. For a shockingly small amount of money. Oh, and shameless flattery. That’ll buy him as well. The more shameless and the more obsequious the flattery, the better. You can also curry his favor by standing silently by as he says and does the most disgusting things you can imagine. That’ll get him on your side, a demonstration of abject toadying.
Chris
@gratuitous:
“You can’t tempt me!”
“Really? There’s nothing you want?”
“Hmm. I forgot you could tempt me with things that I want.”
Raven
@TBone: She was seriously pissed.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Alison Rose: Thanks, was going to say something similar.
Dahl is full of inner ugliness, and this passage doesn’t actually spread a good message. But this is at least the second time I’ve seen it shared here.
Ugliness on the inside HAS NO CONNECTION to physical appearance. And Dahl was a raging bigot.
oldgold
@Geminid: Yes, she is a very skilled litigator. She was recommended to Carroll by George Conway.
frosty
@raven: oh no!!! So sorry to hear that!!
Geminid
@Brachiator: The late M.D. Russ:
From Russ’s 2020 Bearing Drift article, “Trump is the Republican President.” Still the best analysis of Trump’s relation to the party that I have come across.
Paul in KY
@JoyceH: And I guess all the ones who said ‘Fuck, no!’ ended up on the cutting room floor…
Paul in KY
@Captain C: Yup. She focused too much (IMO) on stuff that repelled her. I’m sure all of his oeuvre repelled her (sure does me), but she focused on the chaff of his evil personality and not on the wheat.
Elizabelle
Great blogpost title, Betty.
And you are not wrong about what cowering quislings the DC press corpse and MSM in general are.
When you see headlines like Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show is going to shake up the presidential campaign, you know the fucking press is not doing their fucking job.
We have to go to late night comics and talk show hosts, because the journamalists employed by the same media outlets are too craven and careerist to do their jobs.
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: Whites of the stripe that brought up this bill are just so so so lame.
Paul in KY
@raven: Sorry about your buddy and the cancellation. Darnit!
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: I need him to hang on just long enough for Pres. Biden to whup his ass again. Then, he can DIAF.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: The slave states are the cradle of American fascism.