Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

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

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Do Say “Loser” (Open Thread)

Do Say “Loser” (Open Thread)

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Remember epic loser Ron DeSantis? It wouldn’t be surprising if non-Floridians already forgot the forgettable face-planter who set $160M aflame only to come in a very distant second in the Iowa caucuses.

But those of us who have to share a peninsula with the failed pretender to the MAGA moron throne get frequent reminders of his existence as he grasps for ongoing relevance. As reported in this space, formerly obsequious statehouse minions are already giving Ron the “new phone who dis?” treatment.

To remove the sting, DeSantis is trying in vain to spin his losses into wins. Here’s an editorial from the Tampa Bay Times that notes a wipeout in a recent settlement over Ron’s signature “Don’t Say Gay” law:

OK to say ‘gay.’ The DeSantis administration wasted no time this week spinning a settlement over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act — also known as the Don’t Say Gay law — as some kind of victory for state-sponsored bigotry. The agreement between the state and parents, teachers and advocates who challenged the 2022 statute keeps the law in place. But it clarifies that the restrictions on classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation were not sweeping bans on discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in the schools. By removing that uncertainty, the settlement defangs a key component of the Don’t Say Gay law. By leaving the restrictions purposely vague, lawmakers all but invited parents and school districts to overreact. The result was a chilling effect that caused teachers to clam up, administrators to remove books with LGBTQ+ content and school districts to pull their support for anti-bullying and other programs. As part of the deal, the Florida Department of Education will send a memo to all Florida school districts explaining that the law is not as restrictive as some schools have interpreted. We’ll withhold judgment until we see that letter; the Education Department has sent out rotten guidance lately. But this is a huge step in the right direction toward restoring some fundamental human dignity.

Emphasis mine since “purposely vague” is the key here – it’s a tactic adopted by hard-right totalitarians everywhere to intimidate opponents, and it works. For two solid years, this crappy law created chaos in Florida schools. The settlement intends to rob it of its power by introducing clarity.

DeSantis and allies like the Moms for Liberty degenerates will keep lying about the outcome, but make no mistake: This settlement is a huge win for groups like Equality Florida, which demonstrated that with perseverance, it is possible to claw back rights, even in a state run by corrupt Republican authoritarians.

That’s worth celebrating!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  1. 1.

    SFAW

    Maybe DeathSantis can have Ladapo to write the letter. He seems like a nice, intellectually-grounded person.

  3. 3.

    laura

    Thrilled to see a  witty Cracker post- and one that takes a swing at that loser!

    I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank valued commenter Raven. We had a dear friend die several months ago Mitch Brown. Mitch was the son of author Dee Brown- a prolific writer who focused on the West and best known for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Mitch was exceedingly private about his personal life and friends respected that privacy. His death was sudden and unexpected and I felt a moral obligation to track down his next of kin. Raven knew Mitch from his days in Champaign Urbana as well as a mutual friend Nate Coen and very kindly reached out to Nate who responded with contact information for Linda Brown, Mitch’s sister. I contacted her and shared to sad news.

    Yesterday, we attended Mitch’s memorial service at the federal Military Cemetary in Dixon California which included a rifle report, Taps, Color Guard and a flyover formation including a C-5 as well as a low flying military helicopter. It was a somber and fitting tribute to our dear friend. Had it not been for Raven’s efforts, Mitch’s family would not have known of his passing. He only knows me through this here blog, and I am so very grateful that he would take the time and make an effort to find a way to connect two complete strangers.

  5. 5.

    steve g

    But it clarifies that the restrictions on classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation were not sweeping bans on discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in the schools.

    I can’t figure out what that really means. Any restriction on classroom instruction about gender identify or sexual orientation seems like a sweeping ban on discussions about LGBTQ+ issues to me. Is it really going to specify which things you can and can’t discuss?

  6. 6.

    rikyrah

    BlackPAC (@voteblackpac) posted at 7:03 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    There are a ton of polls being shared that paint an inaccurate picture of how Black voters feel about the government, our elected officials and voting in November. BlackPAC and brilliant corners (@cornellbelcher) just released a new poll of Black voters. Here is what we heard:
    (https://x.com/voteblackpac/status/1768790264078848201?t=-aCP3LNm5VqB2GPVUb-KEQ&s=03)

    They did a poll, exclusively of LIKELY Black Voters in battleground states.
    If you want to see the powerpoint of their results.
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tckKGhZiH-9Jno-CCTJaz4wBjVuYRoeV/view?usp=drivesdk

    Confirmed to me why the GOP can’t stand Black voters and why the MSM refuses to interview the average Democratic voter. We don’t fall for the shiny objects that they’re trying to sell.

  10. 10.

    Miss Bianca

    But those of us who have to share a peninsula with the failed pretender to the MAGA moron throne get frequent reminders of his existence as he grasps for ongoing relevance.

    Oh, Betty. I have mentioned that we missed you, right? :)

    I am sorry that DeathSantis and his ilk continue to be the grit in your particular oyster, but I can’t regret that it spurs you to give us pearls of prose like this.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    DeSantis flew too close to the sun, and now he’s just another lame duck.

    Quite a mixing of metaphors. But a good description of DeSantis’ hubris.

  14. 14.

    frosty

    @steve g: My take in this is that it clarifies where and when it can be discussed, not the content. So Don’t Say Gay applies to the curriculum but not to teachers discussing it outside if the classroom setting. If I kid needs someone to confide in, teachers can do that without losing their jobs. But i am of course not an expert.

  15. 15.

    HinTN

    @steve g: The subject cannot be in the lesson plan but teachers and other school officials are no longer barred from engaging in conversations with students on these subjects. That’s the way I read it.

    ETA – @frosty: has the same read.

  17. 17.

    Hilbertsubspace

    @Geminid: Flew too close to sun?  Far too noble a description.

    Oozed into a salt pile in the desert and was turned into Excargot.

  19. 19.

    ETtheLibrarian

    “Intentionally vague” also leave a lot of room for proponents to gaslight and give them cover for an obsequious press to write stories that are “balanced” (only if this involves Republican policies of course).

  20. 20.

    Jackie

    @laura: Thanks for sharing! This sounds exactly like Raven – he has a huge, compassionate ♥️ and always goes above and beyond. We can tell a lot about a person’s character by how much they love their four-legged kids.

  25. 25.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Also worth noting that 21 of 22 anti-LGB and especially T bills this year died after the legislature adjourned. They included some of the most severe bills ever proposed against trans people.

    As far as the “OK to say gay” settlement, the only thing still banned is discussing LGBTQ issues as part of curriculum, which rarely happens as part of K-12 education. (I’m assuming teachers still aren’t allowed to talk about things like Stonewall in an American history class.)

  26. 26.

    Betsy

    My longtime conservative libertarian friend told me last week “you gotta watch theSOTU address” and “I usually vote for a third-party candidate when I can, but this year I’m voting Democratic up and down the ballot.”

    She was very outraged  about the Jan 6 insurrection and believes we need to save Ukraine to preserve democracy for Europe.

    The SOTU address, she told me, said exactly what needed to be said. “I’m no Biden fan,” she said, “but  Biden sounded dynamic and totally on point.”

    This is anecdotal but I’m getting vibes of this kind from various encounters, even in my reddish surroundings.

  29. 29.

    Sister Golden Bear

    While we’re talking about losers, I wanted to share again for the morning crowd that the Wizard Lady has been engaging in Holocaust denialism, implying “that Nazis never targeted trans people in Germany, calling it ‘a fever dream.’ She doubled down when challenged with sources — including the Holocaust Museum — showing trans persecution in Nazi Germany.” JKR is now using British broken libel laws to threaten to sue a prominent Jewish activist, among others, who called her out.

    Just a reminder that the famous photos of the first Nazi book burning show Nazi students destroying the library of Berlin’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, which pioneered research, treatment and advocacy for gay, transgender, and intersex people. The Nazis also sent numerous trans people to their deaths in the camps.

    I’d urge you read a good summary of it: The persecution of trans people by the Nazis was devastating – and it still echoes down the ages, and more about the history of the institute: The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic.

  33. 33.

    Tony Jay

    Welcome back, Betty. Good to see you survived your sojourn to Cenobite Hills Teaching Hospital. That place can mess with your mind.

    Also nice to see De Santis drowning in an inch deep puddle of yesterday’s piss. He’s currently the political equivalent of ‘that guy who played piano on that other’s guy’s breakout hit and is now reduced to gigs three nights a week between 7pm and 4am belting out barely audible covers of Richard Marx and Billy Joel at different O’Slatterns Oirish Jazz franchises in the Tri-State area, and only because the regional manager owes him a favour for giving him an alibi when a couple of local schoolgirls went missing back in ‘09’.

    By which I mean, fucking great.

  36. 36.

    laura

    Thank you all for your kind comments. Never underestimate the gifts each one brings to this community. I’m humble and grateful to each of you even when I am not actively commenting. Thank you and please accept my warmest of regards.

  37. 37.

    cain

    @Betsy: I think that SOTU was awesome .. a key part is when he said ‘My god, what other rights will you take away?’

    That stuck out to me.

  40. 40.

    Cathie from Canada

    The “vague” guideline also seems to be used in anti-abortion laws, so doctors and hospitals will default to “never” instead of providing abortions that are clearly life-saving. It’s understandable, though cowardly.

  42. 42.

    Melancholy Jaques

    I’d like to see someone put together a panel of DeSantis’s most enthusiastic supporters in the political media to have them reflect on their own failure to understand that he was a loser. Then have them address the question, after that failure, why should anyone listen to you about political matters?

  44. 44.

    Tony Jay

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Rowling’s descent from ‘Left-leaning midwife of a powerful anti-Fascist mythology’ into whatever the hell kind of gaslighting harangun-for-hire she is today via the slippery slopes of Gender Fundamentalism has been… instructional.

    There’s not a person with even a rudimentary knowledge of the Nazi period who doesn’t know that Hitler’s ‘common-sense patriots’ went after the gays and the trans and the otherwise inclined with the same intensity they showed Der Juden. Denying that used to be the preserve of the pro-Likud lobby over here who pitched fits a few years ago when a bipartisan group of British MPs (including Jeremy the Red Hitler, natch) suggested that Holocaust Remembrance Day should refer to all of the victims of the Nazi death camps, and not just the ones Bibi’s crew would prefer everyone to remember.

    Rowling has picked yet another indefensible hill to die on, lashing out at those pricking her ego with lawyer-powered lightning bolts. Quelle fucking surprise, I don’t think.

  45. 45.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @steve g:

    As others noted, it means you can discuss queer issues outside of formal classwork, and can be queer without violating the law.  Also the ruling explicitly states that this has to apply to both queer and straight sexuality equally.  If you can’t discuss one, you can’t discuss the other.

  46. 46.

    Bupalos

    Excellent point of emphasis Ms. Cracker, the vagueness creates a kind of cowardly scramble to comply with the worst possible interpretation. An interpretation that is inadvertantly boosted by opponents trying to publicize worst-case possibilities. This is authoritarianism 101. They thrive on the freakout.

    The antidote is Timothy Snyder’s “don’t obey in advance.” Force them to force you. Because they don’t really have the ability to do so on issues which lack democratic consent and legitimacy. They don’t possess anything close to the levers and mechanisms they would need. And as long as we make a habit of exercizing our own agency, they never will.

  47. 47.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Bupalos:

    The antidote is Timothy Snyder’s “don’t obey in advance.” Force thwm to force you. Because they don’t really have the ability to do so on issues which lack democratic consent and legitimacy.

    They have the ability to drag random people who can’t afford it into court with a big risk of that also being ‘into jail’.  Most people do not want to risk that and just disobeying is not a good strategy.  I admire the bravery of anyone who engages in civil disobedience, because the danger is real.

  50. 50.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Betsy: Interesting, since Real Politics current Electoral College poll aggregation has Shitstain blowing out Biden 312 to 246. However, we know how polls go, in 2016 Shitstain was losing right up until the polls closed.

  51. 51.

    Betsy

    @rikyrah: I totally agree. Thank you for  making  that note here.  We all need to be thinking about it.

    ETA: I went to the FDR Presidential Library (what a museum, just wonderful, highly recommend) last summer,

    and as I was making my way through the timeline and came to 1940, I was absolutely struck by the similarities between England and Churchill’s pleas to Roosevelt, and the nazi sympathizers and isolationists in the US,  to Ukraine / Zelenskyy / Biden and the isolationists and Repugnican lovers of autocracy today!!

    No one suggested this to me.  My ignorant self could see it plainly there in the halls of history!

  52. 52.

    Bupalos

    @Frankensteinbeck: there is so little danger it’s almost ridiculous. If fascism succeeds in the United States it will because we react to dangers that aren’t actually there. And then the dangers will be increasingly real.

    One of the issues here is that people think of a 1% chance of “losing their job” or “getting sued” with an existential dread. This is a kind of slack cowardice that is incompatible with freedom and weaponized by authoritarians. Agency. Use it or lose it.

  56. 56.

    Miss Bianca

    @Tony Jay: @Sister Golden Bear: I will never fail to be sad, as well as infuriated, over JKR’s descent into TERF-ism and her concomitant mad-making nonsense.

    I mean, this is a person with more money than God, who actually did some good with it by giving it away rather than hoarding it like Smaug, created a beloved literary franchise that got millions of kids reading and *enjoying it*, creating characters that millions of kids could relate to, a world with a powerful anti-fascist message that resonated even with adults, if this adult is any example, and…

    she’s just torching it all, creating bruising disillusion that taints and tarnishes her signature creation and even makes a total mockery of its messages.

    FOR WHY?!

    I mean, I almost forgive her initial stumbles with regard to TERF-ism – it’s a painfully easy trap for a certain type of essentialist feminist to fall into, and British feminists seem peculiarly prone to that strain of essentialism.

    But MY GOD, when enough people – your own fans! – call you out on it, don’t you owe it to them to at least mumble an apology and shut up, if you can’t manage to re-evaluate your belief system? Why DOUBLE DOWN and continue to alienate people?

  57. 57.

    Bill Arnold

    @Tony Jay:

    Denying that used to be the preserve of the pro-Likud lobby over here who pitched fits a few years ago when a bipartisan group of British MPs (including Jeremy the Red Hitler, natch) suggested that Holocaust Remembrance Day should refer to all of the victims of the Nazi death camps,

    There were (maybe still are) one or a few Jewish academics who made a career of denying/downplaying the porajmos (Romani Holocaust perpetrated by Nazis), with similar (apparent) motivations. Vile people, who should be called vile to their faces.

  60. 60.

    Doc Sardonic

    Part of it with JKR is that she no longer gives shit, she has nothing to worry about.  Other commenters have stated she has plenty of money and will continue to as long as the royalty checks keep coming, so what reason does she have for moderating what comes out of her mouth. She can say whatever she wants, and will continue to, until the broadcasters quit streaming the movies, Universal closes Harry Potter world, books cease to sell and the money dries up. Mind that this is not a defense of her, quite the opposite, it is very sad to watch someone pull themselves out of the ditch, reach the height of success and light it aflame, but once existential fear is removed from the equation the real person shines through. Apparently, she modeled Dolores Umbridge after herself.

  61. 61.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Miss Bianca:

    But MY GOD, when enough people – your own fans! – call you out on it, don’t you owe it to them to at least mumble an apology and shut up, if you can’t manage to re-evaluate your belief system? Why DOUBLE DOWN and continue to alienate people?

    This is a thing I have noticed in transphobes.  They double down.  Not only will they not be corrected, criticize them and they become obsessed with transphobia, making it their identity.  I’m sure it’s not monolithic, but wow is it a pattern.  They tend to drift into batshit right-wingness in the process, since they’re obsessed with their anger at liberals criticizing them.

  62. 62.

    Madeleine

    I was too late to comment last night, soooo—I am so glad and relieved that you are back Ms Cracker! I hope your medical issue has been or will be resolved soon.

    edited a bit

  64. 64.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Frankensteinbeck: This is a thing I have noticed in transphobes. They double down.

    Well, they do have a “welcoming” community who is eager to have them.

  65. 65.

    Miss Bianca

    @Frankensteinbeck: This is what I struggle to understand – at the end of the day, why *bother* to be transphobic? How does it hurt Joe or Josephine Blow to know that someone else out there is trans?

    And why now? Geez, I was learning about “sex change operations”, as we used to call it, back when I was a tadpole in the 70s – it’s not like it’s this new thing!

  67. 67.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Miss Bianca:

    If you are deeply invested in men and women being fundamentally different, trans people are a threat and insult to your worldview.

    As for why now, the past fifteen years have seen trans women* go from a universally acceptable punching down target to mainstream social acceptance.  Transphobes didn’t have to freak out until now.

    *Conservatives have a lot of trouble grasping that trans men exist.

  69. 69.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Frankensteinbeck: As for why now, the past fifteen years have seen trans women go from a universally acceptable punching down target to mainstream social acceptance.

    And trans men get overlooked because they don’t fit the panic narrative.

  70. 70.

    Roberto el oso

    @rikyrah: “I stand 10 toes down on that” …. is this a “known” phrase or is it a rikyrah original? I like it very much!

  71. 71.

    japa21

    The whole transphobia thing, to the level it is at now, is relatively new (the Nazi approach being the exception). Same goes with drag queens. These were not significant issues because the gays were the issue. The term “punching down” was used earlier and some people are frustrated with their own lives and need to express anger somewhere, somehow, against someone.
    For years, it was almost socially acceptable to punch down on gays, blacks, Jews, you name it. There might be some tut-tuts issued, but generally speaking, these were marginalized groups that it was okay to attack.
    That just isn’t the case anymore. Those groups are more mainstreamed and acceptable. Not by all, but by many. So people needed to look for other groups. They have tried drag queens, but this has largely fizzled out (they still try though). Trans folks are a different story because they haters have picked up on 2 threats that trans people present to society.
    Before I go further, I’ll just point out I know both these threats are ridiculous and non-existent, but for a large block of people, of all ideological stripes, there is a certain resonance.
    The first threat is sports related. How dare these trans people try to compete as women, when we all know they have an advantage because they started out male (no they don’t).
    The second is harder to fight against because there is a visceral reaction to the “threat”. And this is the whole bathroom issue. I know a lot of people who are very trans friendly except for this one point. Most have daughters or granddaughters in HS and are afraid some guy who claims to be female will walk in and attack them. Again, nonsense, but because it is primarily an emotional reaction, much harder to talk people out of.
    If we can get past November in good shape, time will be on our side. But we have to do that first.

  72. 72.

    Tony Jay

    @Bupalos:

    They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said… isn’t that where all the proper fizzed-up wasters hang out?

    And this is a BC post. Got to keep up the standards.

     

    @Miss Bianca:

    Money. VAST amounts of it. Adulation. Ego-inflation beyond the wildest dreams of mortal ken, and all the legions of Wormtongues willing and eager to tell you how very wise and right you are, and all those people are just jealous, etc etc.

    Prick an ego that size, and it never stops gushing stale air. Sad, yes, but she chose her cross and is hammering platinum nails into it.

    Wait until the Harry Potter revamp series comes out in a few years. There’s no earthly way it’s not going to include a lot of very Woke, pro-Trans rights subtext to appeal to its target demographic, and by then Rowling will be even deeper in the mind-melt of her hate campaign. Her response will either blow the show up or blow her head off – one of the two.

    @Bill Arnold:

    Unfortunately all kinds of extremist nonsense like that was given the Establishment seal of approval over here a few years ago when Operation: Save The Nation From National-Socialism was in full effect. A lot of the bone-breaking contortionism displayed by both the Government and the Opposition over Gaza stems from the open-ended licenses to scream anti-Semitism handed out willy-nilly in that period that are now causing problems for the ‘moderates’ whose balls are in vices of their own construction.

  73. 73.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Her latent racist, anti-Semite and authoritarian leanings were evident in the Potter books from the beginning, so her descent into TERFism sadly wasn’t a surprise. I suspect it’s part of bigger meanness of her soul.

    TERFism, with its (white middle-class) women are the most persecuted people in history evah mentality, leads down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories — and those conspiring against women TERFS, i.e. trans women, must be punished eliminated. Cults need gods, but they require demons.

    As others have said having money and power means she doesn’t has to give any fucks about hiding it anymore.

  75. 75.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @tam1MI: I’d like to think that voters in Texas are livid about this waste of their money, but I am not holding my breath.

    Too many of them are livid the Biden administration’s “open border” policy is necessitating this expenditure.

    I wish I were kidding.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @Bupalos:

    If fascism succeeds in the United States it will because we react to dangers that aren’t actually there. And then the dangers will be increasingly real.

    Interesting.  This made me think of that J.D. Vance piece that was in Politico yesterday.  He’s terrified of “the regime” (i.e., government that he doesn’t control) and so he couches his fascism in all kinds of semi-worker-friendly, pseudo-intellectual BS.

    But in reality, he’s just another Republican fascist.

    One year into his first term representing Ohio, Vance has completed a dramatic evolution from outspoken Never Trumper to unwavering Trump loyalist and dogged defender of the ex-president’s most authoritarian assertions — from the lie that the 2020 election was stolen to the legally dubious claim the president is immune from criminal prosecution. In exchange for his public displays of loyalty, Vance has been warmly embraced at Mar-a-Lago, earning a spot on Trump’s shortlist of potential vice presidential running mates for 2024.

    But Vance’s new identity as the MAGA militant has existed alongside — and, at times, served to obscure — another influential role that Vance has taken on in Washington. In certain conservative circles, Vance has emerged as thestandard-bearer of the “New Right,” a loose movement of young, edgy and elite conservatives trying to take the ideological revolution that began under Trump — including his overt embrace of nationalism, his hard-line stance on immigration, his vocal opposition of U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts like Ukraine and his overt skepticism toward certain liberal democratic principles — in an even more radical direction. Unlike Trump’s more conventional Republican followers, Vance’s New Right cohort see Trump as merely the first step in a broader populist-nationalist revolution that is already reshaping the American right — and, if they get their way, that will soon reshape America as a whole.

    …Vance presented a sweeping and strikingly systematic account of the outlook that has shaped his tenure in office, premised upon a vision of the current moment in American history that is darker and more cataclysmic than anything he has described in public. He was candid about his desire to fundamentally transform the Republican Party, and he sketched the outlines of an agenda that would, in effect, amount to a radical restructuring of the American economy, U.S. foreign policy and even its constitutional order. He spoke about this project not in terms of election cycles but decades.

    “I feel like I’ve got a really good sense of senators, and he’s by far the smartest and the deepest of any I’ve ever met,” said Tucker Carlson, who backed Vance’s 2022 Senate bid and remains a close political ally.

    “He is absolutely going to be one of the leaders — if not the leader — of our movement,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank in Washington.

    “I’m sure he’ll run for the presidency one day,” said Steve Bannon, another Vance ally.

    Whatever else Vance might believe, this is the ominous core of his worldview: After decades of decline, America is teetering on the brink of complete civilizational collapse. Vance pushed back against my suggestion that his vision reflected a fundamental pessimism about America — “I think decline often proceeds periods of renewal,” he told me — but he did suggest that America’s political class has proved either unwilling or unable to grapple with the “fundamental stagnation at the heart of American society.”

    Vance seems blithely indifferent about other, perhaps more pressing antecedents of civilization collapse like climate change, and he has accused Democrats of “bring[ing] a large number of new voters [into the country] to replace the voters that are already here,” rather than embracing immigration as a possible solution to America’s rapidly aging population.

    But Vance’s seemingly genuine belief in the catastrophic trajectory of American decline provides the critical context for understanding his broader political project. During one of our conversations, for instance, I asked him what, exactly, he had meant in New Hampshire when he said that Trump needed to uncover the “truth” about Jan. 6.

    “Look,” he said, sounding a little peeved that he was being forced to talk about this again. “To get all the throat clearing out of the way, do I think that Jan. 6 was good? No. Do I think that people who, like, violently beat up cops should go to prison? Absolutely.”  He shifted into a more earnest register.

    “But there was this really weird attempt to spin a narrative around Jan. 6 that I just don’t buy. Like, do I think it was actually an effort to overthrow the government? No. But, like, the guy who was going around planting pipe bombs — we were totally uninterested in that guy. … How was our media and our security services able to spin a narrative that MAGA grandmas are participating in an insurrection, but meanwhile, we’re not interested in the guy who’s planting pipe bombs?”

    As he sees it, the United States is on the verge of going up in smoke, yet its leaders seem indifferent to this fact at best — or, at worst, cynically invested in covering it up.This same apocalyptic vision also underlies his enduring support for Trump. Vance does not believe that four more years of Trump will be enough time to realize his vision of America, but he believes that electing Trump represents the only hope that Americans have for getting off the path to literal civilization collapse. And he is prepared to go to extreme — and possibly unconstitutional — lengths to ensure that outcome.

    Good friend of Don Jr.  RWNJ “intellectual” like Steve Bannon.  Praised by (and often, sounds like) Tucker Carlson.  Against “some” unions (not the police ones!).  Nothing to offer on climate change.  Sweeps J6 under the rug.  Buys into ‘great replacement’ rhetoric.  Anti-Ukraine.  uh-huh.

    Anyway, I could cut and paste the whole thing, OR, y’all could go check it out when you have time.  =)

  77. 77.

    Parfigliano

    @Miss Bianca: Why now with the trans hatred?  Easy.  Racism and homosexual hatred are past their sell by date except with an every shrinking minority.

  78. 78.

    SteveinPHX

    Betty-
    I so fucking glad you’re back! Florida needs you, as do we all .
    That SNL link last night had me and my better half in stitches.
    Take care of yourself and that state. My family goes way back with Florida.

  80. 80.

    TBone

    @Baud: I’m not even afraid of Black Bears unless they have cubs, and I have close up photos to prove it 😁 they are just like big dogs and I scare them (if necessary). Exception: Grizzlies.  I am afraid of them!  Grizzly Bears are not to be fucked with!

  81. 81.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bupalos:

    @Frankensteinbeck: there is so little danger it’s almost ridiculous. If fascism succeeds in the United States it will because we react to dangers that aren’t actually there. And then the dangers will be increasingly real.

    One of the issues here is that people think of a 1% chance of “losing their job” or “getting sued” with an existential dread. This is a kind of slack cowardice that is incompatible with freedom and weaponized by authoritarians. Agency. Use it or lose it.

    I’d have to refresh my memory about the penalties attached to breaking the “don’t say gay” law, but many states have passed laws that would punish doctors and patients alike with prison time for illegal abortions. So if it’s vague as shit where the line is, just how at risk a woman has to be in order for her abortion to be legal – that isn’t “getting sued” or “losing their job.”  And “1% chance,” my ass – you know these people are looking for a case to make an example of.

    It is absolutely disgusting and appalling that you’re belittling these nontrivial risks of quite enormous consequences. You’ve got a lot of nerve, accusing people of “slack cowardice” when it’s not your ass that might spend years in the Graybar Hotel if they did what you say they should.

     

  82. 82.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Miss Bianca: A few days ago someone posted a link to an excellent essay on authoritatian personalities (equally distributed between liberals and conservatives, BTW). Some key characteristics include a desire for simple, clear-cut (no gray areas) and group conformity, i.e. no tolerance for those who are different, and a need to force others into conformity.

    Trans and non-binary people break their gender binary, and are part of the much broader distress about the world conforming less and less with their worldview.

    Consequently, those people, Including trans and non-binary people must forced to conform, or else eliminated, to resolve the authoritatians’ fear and anxiety.

  83. 83.

    TBone

    @Bill Arnold: it makes me happy to see that deployed.  It’s a good list.

    P.S. I don’t think we’re advocating risking life and limb. Small acts of defiance can go a long way.  Such as mockery and refusing to cooperate.  I’ve gone to jail for having the courage of my convictions but it’s not for everyone.  Orange jumpsuit and anti-lice spray are degrading but not life threatening.

  84. 84.

    Bupalos

     

    @japa21: If we can get past November in good shape, time will be on our side. But we have to do that first.

    Much of this post is interesting, this I part I almost completely disagree with and find borderline dangerous.

    Time is not on our side, it’s not on anyone’s side. If the election goes our way It will be a gift to have a little more time and space to beef up logistics than we would have otherwise. Operating in the opposite direction will be the massive enervating sigh of relief and belief that time somehow just works for us. It doesn’t. It won’t.

  86. 86.

    japa21

    @Bupalos: Agree with you.  Mostly.  Not saying that everything will be hunky-dory if we win in November.  It gives us time, as you say, to bolster up, but winning in November won’t mean a thing if we don’t use the time it gives us.  I may have been unclear.

  88. 88.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Parfigliano: Also, religious reactionary groups made a strategic decision back in 2015-ish to target trans people because their actual goals of outlawing marriage equality and criminalizing LGB people was too politically unpalatable to the general public at the time.

    So they went after trans people with the goal of not only targeting us, but then leveraging the moral panic they created to broade against the LGB communities at large. We’re starting to see them try to do exactly that.

    BTW, we have the receipts, after getting our hands on internal documents and messages of these groups.

  89. 89.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Sister Golden Bear: So they went after trans people with the goal of not only targeting us, but then leveraging the moral panic they created to broade against the LGB communities at large. We’re starting to see them try to do exactly that.

    Gives a new meaning to low hanging fruits. I’ll see myself out now.

  90. 90.

    Gretchen

    I’m so happy to see you back, Betty, and sounding like your old self. I look forward to your wonderful turns of phrase – you’re an amazing writer.

    And yes, the vagueness of the laws is the point. This also happens with the abortion bans. Doctors are afraid to risk loss of license and criminal penalties if they aren’t sure what the laws allow them to do, so they err on the side of caution or just leave those states. Then when women have terrible outcomes, R’s blame it on the doctors and say the law wouldn’t have forbidden that, the doctors were just too cautious.

  91. 91.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jeffro:

    Anyway, I could cut and paste the whole thing, OR, y’all could go check it out when you have time. =)

    Thanks for the excerpt, but I think I won’t bother to click through to the rest. My loathing of J.D. Vance is already so complete and total that, as Dave Wasserman would say, I’ve seen enough.

    The only way this country is on the verge of civilizational collapse is if people like Trump and Vance and Stephen Miller take over.

  92. 92.

    Bupalos

    @japa21: yes you hit it dead on. WE HAVE TO USE THE TIME.

    We have to understand that democracy and civil rights are values that matter PERSONALLY, something for which we are willing to take personal risks.

    On the one hand, losing the election (pres, house, or senate) will tragically push that consideration to the front of millions of minds. On the other, winning the election gives us time and power that we might actually manage to use.

  93. 93.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Gretchen: And yes, the vagueness of the laws is the point.

    This might be something intrinsically helpful about the mindset of bigots. They don’t English good. The resulting vagueness of their laws has the chilling effect you and others here have described. Also this plays well into the plausible deniability of their dogwhistles.

    I just have a hard time watching these people operate and attributing their actions to any form of cunning.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    @Parfigliano:

    @Miss Bianca: Why now with the trans hatred?  Easy.  Racism and homosexual hatred are past their sell by date except with an every shrinking minority.

     

    They’ve never stopped hating the larger LGBTQIA+ community.

    But, it has become a minority view. Kids grew up with that out Aunt or Uncle, who has always had a partner around them. They go to school with kids who have two mothers or two fathers.

     

    It was Peanut who got me straight about using the correct pronouns and why it shows a fundamental level of respect.

    So, for the kids now, seeing gay couples with their families is something they know.

    Gay Marriage is coming up on its 9 year anniversary at the SC.

    And, the right-wingers are still mad. They still want to roll back all advancements made since Brown vs Board.

    Trans were easy pickings. And the gateway back to them trying to outlaw and ostracize the larger general LGBTQIA+ community. You can see it.

     

    Now that they got Roe overturned, they needed another cause for the religious nuts to hate.

  95. 95.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Small acts of resistance do go a long way, which is precisely why Republicans are trying to make them too costly when it comes to trans people (as they did with anti-abortion laws imposing heavy sentences to anyone who helps some get an abortion).

    There’s several bills being considered in Republican that would make it a felony sex crimes (with a 10 year sentence) for a teacher to recognize a student’s true gender, including using proper pronouns, and calling the student by their chosen name.

  96. 96.

    eversor

    I walked past a church today doing my shopping, so no, Ron still wins.  That’s all there is to it.  Does Christianity exist, if yes GOP is fine.

  97. 97.

    Josie

    @Parfigliano: ​
     In order to avoid painting with too broad of a brush (which I’m sure you don’t want to do), perhaps you could amend that to “Fuck Texas Republicans.”

  98. 98.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Miss Bianca:

    I mean, I almost forgive her initial stumbles with regard to TERF-ism – it’s a painfully easy trap for a certain type of essentialist feminist to fall into

    I wish someone would explain it to me. How the existence of trans women challenges or changes my identity or threatens it in some way. How it doesn’t do the opposite, which is celebrate aspects of what my gender existence is which I can’t change the same way a trans woman can’t.

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    There’s several bills being considered in Republican that would make it a felony sex crimes (with a 10 year sentence) for a teacher to recognize a student’s true gender, including using proper pronouns, and calling the student by their chosen name.

    Think on that.

    showing respect would, at least in Missouri:

    get you charged with a FELONY

    and, place you on the child sex offenders list

     

    We’re talking about teachers, so basically their careers would be OVER.

    What School District would hire someone ON THE SEX OFFENDER LIST to teach at their schools?

    AND, FELONS CAN’T VOTE .

  102. 102.

    Gretchen

    @Bupalos: It’s reasonable to fear losing your job or getting sued with “existential dread” if you’re the average American with kids, bills, credit card debt and are one or two lost paychecks from disaster. It’s easy to be brave when you’ve got a cushion.

  103. 103.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    I think, apropos of nothing in particular, this is a great time to celebrate my Christian upbringing and how it started me on my path toward appreciating social justice.

  104. 104.

    Miss Bianca

    @japa21: You know, the only trans person I ever heard of who was actually competitive on the professional sports circuit both pre- and post-transition was Dr. Renee Richards. And that was a long time ago.

    If the great “trans women are coming for our SPORTZBALLZ OH NOES” threat was *really* a threat, wouldn’t it have manifested by now?

  105. 105.

    Citizen Alan

    @Miss Bianca:

    This is what I struggle to understand – at the end of the day, why *bother* to be transphobic? How does it hurt Joe or Josephine Blow to know that someone else out there is trans?

    And why now? Geez, I was learning about “sex change operations”, as we used to call it, back when I was a tadpole in the 70s – it’s not like it’s this new thing!

    I thingk the thought process goes like this. First of all, you have the religious nuts who are mainly straight white fundamentalist Christians who want everyone to be forced to conform to the gender roles as outlined in the Bible, gender roles which, by a happy coincidence, put straight white fundamentalist Christian men at the top, straight white fundamentalist Christian women one rung below them, and everyone else living as second class citizens at best. They hate trans people because trans people threaten the stability of their heavily gender-structured world view

    Leaving those people aside, however. I think think the mindset of most JK Rowling types works something like this. (Bear in mind that these are not my beliefs but rather my attempt to psychoanalyze non-religious transphobic people.)

    1.  A trans woman who has not yet undergone surgery still retains the capability to penetrate and even impregnate a cis woman.
    2. A significant percentage (possibly even a majority) of trans woman report sexual attraction to women.
    3. Therefore, in the minds of TERFs but also some women who have had any kind of sexual assault related trauma, a trans woman entering into what those other women consider a “safe space” registers as an intruding threat.

    This also ties into my personal theory that a lot of transphobia is really just lizard brain responses. At the end of the day, we are all chimpanzees that have been strategically shaved by evolution. But there is a part of our brain that spends 100% of its time doing threat analysis. And when we meet someone new and we get conflicting signals about something as basic (and normally as obvious) as what their gender is, it sets off an alarm bell. The question is: Are you going to be mature and sensible enough to ignore that false alarm? Or are you going to slip into hysterical poo-flinging chimpanzee mood?

  106. 106.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Sure Lurkalot: You’re looking for logic where it doesn’t exist. British TERFism is rooted in outdated Second Wave rad fem existentialism — female/woman = wholly good, male/men = wholly bad. Plus a massive victimhood complex, with (white middle class) women being the most persecuted people in history.

    So the notion that some people assigned male at birth and raise as boys/men wanting to be women absolutely breaks their brains, and they assume trans women must have sisnister motivations for doing so.

    Paranoid conspiracy theories by a number  about men trying infiltrate women’s spaces for nefarious purposes to undermine those spaces, pushed a number prominent rad fem activists at the time, also underlie Brit TERFs to this day. Although these days the TERFs focus making on the specter of trans women as sexual predators.

    Trans men are barely mentioned, and to the extent they are, TERFs portray trans men as poor, unfortunate souls who’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchy into aping men.

  109. 109.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Citizen Alan:

    1.  A trans woman who has not yet undergone surgery still retains the capability to penetrate and even impregnate a cis woman.

    The irony is that almost all trans women* who’ve been on estrogen for a couple years are now sterile, and also have difficulty achieving an erection. Plus there’s usually a good amount of shrinkage. These are clearly spelled out when you sign the necessary informed consent form to begin HRT.

    *The exception are trans porn stars who carefully regulate their hormones to ensure they maintain both size and the ability to perform.

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    I can’t find a single downside to this, nosiree.

    SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space company, is building a new network of spy satellites in a classified project for an American intelligence agency, according to a new report.

    Reuters, citing unnamed sources familiar with the classified contract, reports that the new network will involve hundreds of spy satellites. The revelation comes as military and intelligence agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere are increasingly reliant on SpaceX and its network of Starlink satellites. SpaceX’s dominance in the satellite internet market has given Musk enormous power in matters of war and geopolitics.
    The new spy satellites are part of a $1.8 billion contract with the National Reconnaissance Office, which manages spy satellites, Reuters reports. It remains unclear when the satellite network might be active. Neither SpaceX nor the Pentagon commented to Reuters. The NRO didn’t comment on the specifics of SpaceX’s involvement.
    “The National Reconnaissance Office is developing the most capable, diverse, and resilient space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system the world has ever seen,” an NRO spokesperson told Reuters.
    SpaceX has come under growing scrutiny from Ukraine and from some members of Congress for the role its Starlink satellites have played in the Russia’s war against Ukraine. Starlink’s satellite internet terminals have been a critical part of Ukraine’s wartime infrastructure and operations. But a Musk biographer reported last year that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO, one of the richest people in the world, blocked Ukraine from using Starlink to attack Russia’s fleet in the Black Sea in 2022.
    https://qz.com/spacex-starlink-spy-satellite-us-intelligence-elon-musk-1851342193

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @Doc Sardonic: I think a lot of people are nostalgic for the prices and interest rates of 2019, and think that bringing back TFG will somehow bring those prices and interest rates back, too.

  113. 113.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Doc Sardonic:

    We cannot ignore the polls and we shouldn’t lament the polls. What we can do is move the polls. By our actions and our conversations with everyone we know, beginning now and continuing till election day, we can make a difference. And that difference will show up in the polls.

  115. 115.

    Citizen Alan

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    The exception are trans porn stars who carefully regulate their hormones to ensure they maintain both size and the ability to perform.

    This actually makes me wonder to what extent public awareness of trans existence is driven by misinformation that comes from watching trans porn and thinking it represents the entire trans population. In much the say way that men who watch too much porn might come to feel inadequate because they come to believe that every man in the world except them must a 9-inch penis.

  116. 116.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Citizen Alan: You also touched on an important point, British TERFs both rigidly enforce (white middle-class) gender stereotypes, and feel stifled by them.

    For the former, there’s a whole phenomenon of “trans investigators” determined to declare a woman is trans — invariably based on not confirming to their constricted ideas of “what a woman is” in terms of physical features, behaviors, clothing, etc. Ironically there’s numerous occasions with the “we can always tell” brigade has concluded a photo shows a particular woman is trans — the woman in the photo being JKR.

    On the flip side, I think part of the rage against trans women is because we’re breaking the gender norms they feel shackled by, but feel they are unable break themselves. (In reality they’re unwilling do to so.)

    Many TERFs were radicalized by the infamous Mumsnet forum, often as new first-time mothers — which is often an extremely hard and isolated time for a number of women. And for some women, it’s likely a time where there’s a yawning gap between their expectations for womanhood and being a mother vs the reality they’re experiencing.

  117. 117.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Citizen Alan: Absolutely. I’ll note that Red States have long had a higher percentage of viewers of trans porn.

    I’ll also note the the vast majority cis het men hooking up with trans women desire to be the receptive partner, so there’s also a bit self-loathing about their “homosexual” urges involved.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Betsy:

    It’s humanity. It repeats itself century after century. After century.

    It’s good, bad and every point inbetween. We humans comprise the best and the worst. People who think that it is their right to steal from others, rather than earn anything but contempt and hate. People who work for others, often at their peril, for as much betterment as they can build.

    And everything inbetween.

    Most of us know people from both sides of the aisle of humanity, I once knew a Catholic priest who was from the worst side and another one out of the same seminary who was the exact opposite. And most of their fellow priests/brothers fell somewhere in the middle. It’s humanity, it’s complex and at the same time it’s simple. It’s humanity, it’s beautiful and at the same time it’s horrible. It’s humanity, it is amazingly good and at the same time it’s amazingly bad.

    It runs the gamut of possibilities, probabilities and least likely crap one can imagine. It’s humanity. It’s humans who think the world owes them EVERYTHING, it’s humans that sacrifice EVERYTHING for the rest of us. It’s humanity.

    If we are lucky we miss most of the worst of the worst or they are at least a far enough distance that we are minimally affected. If we are luckier we get to meet at least one of the best of the best, but that is far rarer than meeting the worst of the worst, because it seems that it’s easier to be the worst of the worst than the best of the best. Last place in any race is always an easier position to end up in than first.

  119. 119.

    Anoniminous

    @Betsy:

    Another bit of evidence to think this election will be a Black Swan Event —-  a high-impact event that is difficult to impossible to predict under normal circumstances

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    Black Bears have killed far more people than Grizzlies. There are also far more Black Bears than Grizzlies, and they live far closer and in some cases, amongst humans.

    When Grizzlies, kill humans, it’s most often a startle response, a human walking into them on a trail or stumbling into a site where the bear has cached a kill.

    When Black Bears kill humans, it is most often a bear that has, through human interactions, (un-gleaned fruit trees, garbage, garbage dumps, being fed) and they stalk then charge their prey.

    On the other hand, humans have killed way, way, way, way more bears than bears have killed humans.

  121. 121.

    cain

    @Jay:

    On the other hand, humans have killed way, way, way, way more bears everything and everyone than bears have killed human 

    Fixed

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Miss Bianca:

    Why DOUBLE DOWN and continue to alienate people?

    Because while she has been massively successful at her chosen profession, she likely has not been as successful at being human. She’s created a lot, but it’s likely not given her what she wants in the end or what she did it for in the first place. Humanity can be stunning and ridiculous at the same time, the two ends are not necessarily equivalent.

  123. 123.

    cain

    @Ruckus:

    I knew an observant Muslim man back in the early 2000s around the time when Japan had that big nuclear leak.

    This man woke up one day and thought .. I need to help these people and doggedly raised millions of dollars. He was also a brilliant technologist.

    Some of us are blessed or cursed with abundant empathy that transcends whatever religious background. It’s almost never the religion but the person.

  125. 125.

    Jeffro

    @lowtechcyclist: ok.  I loathe him too, so it was worth it to me to see how he’s framing his nonsense “arguments” and who’s with him and what direction this post-trumpov GOP might take.

  126. 126.

    TBone

    @Jay:  I’m not saying people should take any stupid chances.  I happen to have had personal experiences that left me loving bears more than fearing them.

    https://bear.org/bear-facts/how-dangerous-are-black-bears/

    Black bears have killed 61 people across North America since 1900. This no longer worries me. My chances of being killed by a domestic dog, bees, or lightning are vastly greater. My chances of being murdered are 60,000 times greater. One of the safest places a person can be is in the woods.

  127. 127.

    FelonyGovt

    BC, I’m so happy you’re back posting! Hopefully you feel better.

    The older I get, the LESS I understand about why some people feel bound and determined to get involved in things that are none of their damned business. Others’ sexuality, gender identity and expression, reproductive choices, etc.etc. Heck, I’ve even learned to (mostly) not flip out about my daughter’s multiple tattoos.

  129. 129.

    Ruckus

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They have accepted a bit of bullshit that says that humans must be as close to perfect as possible and the definition of what that concept of perfect is, is a real mess. But it also means that if anyone calls that person on their concept of that perfect they have to fight back.

    IOW thems fighting words. What they have accepted does not have to make any sense or reality, the only thing that counts is that they have accepted it. I doubt that there is much that can be done to sway a mind that has gone down that road. And yes there is more than one road to follow. I’d bet in some way, deep, deep down they know it’s bullshit but it overrides any concept of no. I was a mental health counselor for 4 yrs and this concept of acceptance of unreality is very difficult to counter. We had instructions that if we got someone with this acceptance of unreality as a client we had to refer them to full time professionals so that an attempt to recover was possible. It was unlikely but possible. And took a lot of time.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    They still want to roll back all advancements made since Brown vs Board.

    Farther back than that, a lot farther back.

    In some ways life has gotten more difficult, in that now as a society we now have choices that didn’t used to exist or at least were unspoken. IOW many people never ever wanted a choice. But now that stares them in the face and they have to actually make a decision, they have to choose. And they may really, really not have a clue how to do that. A bit of a story. My mom had very specific concepts of what HER children were to do and become. And none of us actually wanted what she did. At the end of the day we did what we wanted and were happier and better adjusted for it. But the road to get there was full of potholes and boulders and roadblocks. IOW life. But we realized that we got to choose our lives, make them what we wanted, even if our decisions were bad. And how to live with the consequences – even if they were good or bad.

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    @Citizen Alan:

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    RE: The exception are trans porn stars who carefully regulate their hormones to ensure they maintain both size and the ability to perform.

    This actually makes me wonder to what extent public awareness of trans existence is driven by misinformation that comes from watching trans porn and thinking it represents the entire trans population. In much the say way that men who watch too much porn might come to feel inadequate because they come to believe that every man in the world except them must a 9-inch penis.

    I use to do taxes for an independent video store owner. Adult videos were a big part of his inventory. Steady rentals of various categories.

    From talking to him and other store owners, there was a time when trans titles started to become more popular. However, the most popular titles featured “lady boys,” trans men with “feminine” features and slim bodies. And with smaller, but functional penises.

    There’s all kinds of fantasy and probably identification going on here, but not feelings of inadequacy.

    BTW, these were stores in Southern California. There are also some popular graphic novels which feature hyper feminine looking trans characters.

    I don’t understand the extreme hostility towards trans people coming from religious extremists and don’t think that some of the earlier comments here quite explain things. One weird thing is that some of these bigots appear to accept or at least acknowledge the existence of homosexuality, even if they disapprove. But this is probably a reflection of the intellectual confusion of their arguments.

  132. 132.

    sab

    @TBone: Fuck. Rottweilers kill more people than black bears.( My vet has no opinion on black bears or pitbull types, but he really doesn’t like rottweilers.) And he likes pitbulls and loves german shepherds even though he is basically a cat guy.

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    I believe that some people want the entire world to justify their lives. To admire them for who/what they are. And they will condemn anyone who doesn’t live up to their concept of humanity. IOW their world revolves around the pole stuck up their ass and everyone else is at the other end of that pole.

  134. 134.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    IOW their world revolves around the pole stuck up their ass and everyone else is at the other end of that pole.

    Could be.

    Very funny, and disturbing image.

  135. 135.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Doc Sardonic:

    She can say whatever she wants, and will continue to, until the broadcasters quit streaming the movies, Universal closes Harry Potter world, books cease to sell and the money dries up.

    Not only is Universal not closing it down, they’re building a gigantic new theme park in the Orlando area with a new “Wizarding World” area. Though I’ve noticed that seems to be the part the theme-park fans are least excited about. Originally the idea was to theme it after the “Fantastic Beasts” movies, but it seemed like that series was destined to flop even before JKR went publicly around the bend.

    It is a pity–the theme-park adaptation was truly spectacular, and to my mind, the thing that really established Universal as playing in the top tier and possibly out-Disneying Disney.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: There’s a selection effect. Most people in Western society were pretty transphobic by today’s standards even 10-15 years ago. The ones who didn’t double down basically stopped being transphobes.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Miss Bianca: I think that as long as trans people were viewed as rare and amusing curiosities, people weren’t that scared of them. I remember the sort of prurient fascination with “sex-change operations” too. I think a lot of people had a live-and-let-live attitude but it was all with the understanding that this was something marginal that they didn’t have to think about much.

    (And it still coexisted with this idea in mainstream developmental psychology that “gender confusion” was a pathology that you wanted to prevent somehow. If only to make things easier for your kid, you know…)

    But when you start to realize, wait, there are actually a LOT of people out there who might want to escape the gender identity they were assigned at birth, that they might be people you know, they might know your children or be your children… at that point, a lot of people freak out and become susceptible to bigoted demagogues and conspiracy narratives. It’s the same thing that happened when a lot of well-known gay people started coming out.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: From Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951):

       A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding someone elses.

  141. 141.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Brachiator:

    However, the most popular titles featured “lady boys,” trans men with “feminine” features and slim bodies. And with smaller, but functional penises.

    Yeah “lady boy” porn is definitely a popular sub-genre. There’s a couple factors.

    First, in this sort porn usually features trans women who are hyper-feminine, in a way that everyday cis women typically aren’t (it takes a lot time an effort to be high femme). Similar to how cis women in porn can often be done up hyper femme. Which is turn-on for some men. It can also tie into an Asian fetish, since “lady boy” is a Thai term, and many of the performers in that sub-genre are Asian.

    Second, trans women who “pass” — i.e. their appearance matches the standard for conventional beauty for cis women — generally have it far, far easier than those of who don’t. Most trans performers transition young enough that their bodies avoided the effect of testosterone. That said, the opposite can also be true — I was an the infamous “Silver Swan” bar in NYC years ago, and there was chaser who made a bee line for the most masculine looking trans women in the room.

    Third, these sorts of performance can mitigate the who “am I gay for wanting to suck her cock” issue. I.e. if she looks “woman enough” it’s not really gay.* I will note the chasers usually will immediate drop you like a bad habit if they find out you’re post-op and no longer have the candy they’re looking for.

    *That said, trans-amorous is its own sexuality, and some men (and women) are attracted by the blend of anatomy, but that’s a whole separate discussion, and that porn viewers usually ready to have with themselves.

  142. 142.

    Kosh III

    When is that tsunami gonna scour 100 Ocean Ave, Palm Beach? I’m sick of waiting. (joke)

  143. 143.

    Paul in KY

    @Tony Jay: For some people, when they sit on a giant pile of money, their brain turns to mush. Plus, they get all kinds of Wormtongue type lackeys that give them 24/7 tonguebaths and the narcissistic ones really lap it up.

  144. 144.

    Paul in KY

    @japa21: In response to this excerpt of yours: ‘The first threat is sports related. How dare these trans people try to compete as women, when we all know they have an advantage because they started out male (no they don’t).’

    Maybe they didn’t start out mentally male, but they did physically and it the sports that emphasize higher, faster, farther, quicker it helps, IMO.

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