Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

We won’t go back.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

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

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

I was promised a recession.

“But what about the lurkers?”

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Fight them, without becoming them!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / They Can’t Beat Us If Everyone Knows Their Game

They Can’t Beat Us If Everyone Knows Their Game

by | 176 Comments

This post is in: 

I have been hearing about and reading about the dangers of autocracy, the road to autocracy, at least since Trump came on the scene in 2015.    But here it is, nicely laid out in just 45 seconds.  I hope you’ll watch it!

My amateur transcript:

The foundation of democracy is somebody has to be wiling to lose.  You have to have faith in the system.

The essence of these autocracies is they destroy faith in the system.

What Republicans have done is – you can’t just say Trump because it’s now Republicans – they have attacked institution after institution in America.

They attacked the Justice Department.  They attacked law enforcement.  They attack elections.

And the purpose of this is to kind of throw up your hands and say “we need a strongman“ to take care of everything because democracy isn’t working.

This is what the Russians have said since 1920s – the Soviet Union – that democracy doesn’t really exist in America.

And it’s a complete lie.  They’re embracing Victor Orban.  It’s a complete roadmap to autocracy.

They want us to feel helpless.  They want us to feel hopeless.  They want us to give up. It gets discouraging.  It wears us down.  We even see it here.  We even say it in the comments.

Except for the “we need a strongman” part.  Here on Balloon Juice, we are saying “hell no, we don’t want a strongman!” and we’re doing everything we can to stop it.

Most normies aren’t going to read a long post from Teri Kanefield or any of the other many people who have been talking and writing about this for years.  But they might take 1 minute to read a tweet and watch a 45-second clip.  Please think about sharing this with everyone you know who doesn’t understand their game plan, and that we are being played.

Not totally unrelated, we still have an Angel match from eponymous, who will match up to $50 per person.  To count toward the match, tell us about your match in the comments.  Or you can let me know by email.

Open thread!

Update: Angel match #4 from eponymous is now complete!  But our anonymous Angel from match #3 just volunteered to match another $1,000 of donations.

Reader Interactions

176Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat: Nice! It’s like Cole’s can you find the toad photos.

    When I look at it one way, the frog on the left reads like a dog to me.  The eye on the right reads like the nose of the dog, and the eye on the left reads as an eye on the dog’s face, from a side view.

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    @Villago Delenda Est: “If I lose, it will be a blood bath!”

    Now they are outright threatening us – in plain sight, no more dog whistles.  Fear and intimidation is their game.  I’ll have a post later this week about voting-related threats and intimidation in Arizona.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    Dougj can’t compete with this phucking foolishness 

    CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt (@CNNThisMorning) posted at 0:55 PM on Fri, Mar 15, 2024:
    Does Donald Trump’s former relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels actually play to his advantage with some voters?

    “Basically, there is a manly vigor on display that Biden doesn’t have?” @kasie asks @finneyk. Watch her answer below. https://t.co/grZBK2pULM
    (https://x.com/CNNThisMorning/status/1768697608669687870?t=vCZTjm8e2PBr2ffRh1LjUg&s=03)

  12. 12.

    Shalimar

    @rikyrah: WTF?  It was 20 years ago.  Even if you give Trump some kind of manly award for cheating on his pregnant wife, he isn’t even remotely vigorous now.

  17. 17.

    BlueGuitarist

    Postcard info follow up
    re: March 26 Special Election for Alabama State House of Reps.
    In the next few days you can write postcards with Postcards to Voters:
    https://postcardstovoters.org/

    The reason for a special election:
    the incumbent Republican resigned after being arrested for voter fraud; later pled guilty.
    Doug Jones (but no other Democrat) carried District 10 both times he ran for US Senate, 2017 and 2020; Biden got within 1% of Trump.
    The district is on the edge of Huntsville, includes Redstone Arsenal (which some Juicers know well) and Triana.
    Planned Parenthood and Doug Jones have endorsed the Democratic candidate,
    Marilyn Lands.
    In addition to postcards:
    phonebanking: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/604502/
    More info about candidate at her website: https://www.marilynlands.com/
    Postcards and phonecalls will help! For contributions: BJ Worker Power AZ Boots on the Ground!

    Gaining a seat in Alabama would show further Democratic gains post-Dobbs, and provide a further rebuke to liar Katie Britt.
    Not sure why describing the border as an out of control current crisis based on an inaccurate description of a horrific event 20 years ago isn’t self-refuting. Not passing on the opportunity to name check a great Steely Dan album: Katy Lied. (Having said further twice in the same sentence: holding off on a link to a Grateful Dead song, at least until the special election results, but hi Alison Rose.)

  22. 22.

    sdhays

    @Shalimar: Even if it was last year, is it really plausible that there’s someone who says, “I was leaning towards not voting for Trump this year, but then his felony fraud case reminded me that he banged a porn star while his wife was pregnant, and now I’m leaning back to voting for Trump.”?

    I mean, I assume there’s at least one person in America for whom this is their thought process (because why not?), but they’re’ not statistically significant. And if they ARE statistically significant, then that picture in the thread below should be a powerful dissuader for them.

  23. 23.

    Redshift

    There are more of us than there are of them, that’s the reason they’re turning against democracy. We just have to make sure our normies, er, less politically engaged people, know that and turn out.

    They’re horrible and insufferable, but beating them will be sweet.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I did!   I will try again.  Are you still on aol?

    edit: I just sent it again.  IF you don’t get that one, can you send email to me so I can reply?

    watergirl at balloon-juice.com

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    Did Mother finally release his cajones?

    During an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation program on Sunday, host Margaret Brennan asked Pence if he agreed with Trump when he referred to the Jan. 6 criminals as “hostages and patriots” at a recent rally.

    “Well, I think it’s very unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza, that the president or any other leaders would refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages,” Pence replied. “And it’s just unacceptable.”

    “I was there on January 6th,” he added. “I’ve no doubt in my mind, Margaret, that some people were caught up in the moment and that entered the Capitol, and they’re certainly entitled to due process of law for any non-violent activities that day, but the assaults on police officers, ultimately an environment that claimed lives is something that I think was tragic that day and I’ll never diminish it.”

    If you have difficulty believing Mikey actually said this, video proof is here:

    https://www.rawstory.com/mike-pence-donald-trump-hostages/

    I can’t wait for TIFG’s response to this and Pence’s refusal to endorse him!

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) posted at 8:07 AM on Sun, Mar 17, 2024:
    President Biden at last night’s Gridiron dinner: “The big news this week is two candidates clinched their parties’ nomination for president. One candidate is too old, mentally unfit to be president: The other’s me.”

    “You know he ain’t the same guy that I beat in 2020…But don’t tell him. He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama.”
    (https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/1769349837965697069?t=Q71_DT-ZS9n1Foy2bpHYfQ&s=03)

  28. 28.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you, eponymous, for the angel donation!

    Thank you, schrodingers_cat, for the frogs!

    Thank you, BlueGuitarist, for the postcarding boost!

    Thank you to everyone who keeps on moving forward, despite efforts to slow us down or discourage us from moving at all.

  30. 30.

    West of the Rockies

    Trump “a strongman”…

    He is a morbidly obese, fragile, stupid, mean; he punches down, dislikes animals and children; is physically abusive, pissy, and ugly.

    He is no strongman.

  33. 33.

    eclare

    @JPL:

    From everything that I have read, she has gone far right.  I guess she’s that part of CNN’s “strategy” to be attractive to both sides.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: Wow, that’s even stronger than just not endorsing Trump.

    “Well, I think it’s very unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza, that the president or any other leaders would refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages,” Pence replied. “And it’s just unacceptable.”

    Wowser.  I did not think Pence had it in him.  That said, I presume that Pence is making this choice because Pence somehow thinks this is good for Pence.

  38. 38.

    Another Scott

    Speaking of knowing their game, Roger Parloff (of Lawfare) thread on the latest in Cannon’s rulings in the classified documents case.

    A taste:

    Roger Parloff
    @rparloff
    1h

    … Finally, it sounded on Thurs. like Cannon will deny the the other motion also, relating to the Presidential Records Act (PRA). She regarded it as “premature” because it hinges on disputed facts. (But that circumstance makes it meritless, not premature.) …

    /15

    (nitter.poast.org still works fine for me, but if you have trouble replace it with twitter.com – but you’ll only see the first post unless you have a twitter account.)

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  41. 41.

    BlueGuitarist

    @rikyrah:
    Good morning!
    But re Stormy Daniels: enraging! and gross.
    Did someone respond, she said it was “the worst 90 seconds of [her] life”?!
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/08/stormy-daniels-talks-about-trump-and-the-worst-90-seconds-of-my-life-on-stand-up-tour
    and her nickname for him is “Tiny.”
    (probably have to explain for the benefit of incels and news-talkers why 90 seconds and tiny insult their fuhrer and are neither manly nor vigorous.)
    It is all so grotesque.

    Assholes claiming Trump didn’t rape E Jean Carroll have an advantage because it would be gross to respond, why are you emphasizing the part of the trial about trump’s dick being so tiny that she couldn’t be sure whether trump assaulted her with his tiny dick or his tiny fingers? Puke.

    Can we talk about something more pleasant?
    No, not Tiny’s threat of a bloodbath if he doesn’t get to steal the election with his smaller number of votes (no, not “prediction” NYT, threat!)
    argh.

    Thanks WG for posting Dr. Wu from Katy Lied.
    Time to take a deep breath, listen to cool music, write some postcards; that album has some great guitar.

  42. 42.

    Roberto el oso

    @Jackie: I suspect that Mother is the one providing his long-lost spine. According to some accounts I’ve seen, Dame Pence was very put off by Trump’s grossness.

  44. 44.

    West of the Rockies

    @sdhays:

    Correct me if I’m wrong,  but Trump did not “hook up” with Stormy for mutual pleasure.   He paid her.  He popped, she said, “Okay, then, that’s done”, and that was it.

    That’s not exactly “banging someone “.

  45. 45.

    George

    After dealing with malignant narcissists as supervisors and as family members over the past few years, what the GOP has been doing over the past few decades looks to me more than a little like malignant narcissism writ large. Control, manipulation, blame shifting, lying, avoiding accountability, gaslighting–it’s all part of the narcissistic–and perhaps psychopathic–playbook.

    And as I found on a personal level, narcissists need squadrons of flying monkeys to help them flourish. The GOP has thousands of them in the media.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Mr. Softsoap, dancing around the heart of the question.

    “Unacceptable” when the clear, declarative “wrong and dangerous” are right there for the using.

    Pence exhibits all the spine of an amoeba.

  49. 49.

    schrodingers_cat

    @WaterGirl: Actually, I would like to cover the upcoming election for Balloon Juice. I will be in India later this spring. Voting will take place from late April to the end of May.  This could be India’s last independent election if Modi wins a 3rd time with an outright BJP majority.

  51. 51.

    Cacti

    As little as I like the guy, David Frum was right with one prediction.  If the American far right had to choose between their unpopular policies and democracy, they would abandon democracy.

  52. 52.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Except for the “we need a strongman” part.

    People here don’t generally want a Strongman as President, but I’d argue that the fantasies about Trump being handcuffed on 1/7 are very much from the same desire for a Strongman spectrum, only applied to AG/DOJ.  It’s one of the reasons the really gratuitous, Garland-bashing has never sat right with me.

  54. 54.

    Redshift

    @WaterGirl: Or maybe his blip of a presidential campaign finally made it sink in that TFG is the reason he has no future in Republican politics, so a shiv/truth-telling isn’t going to make that any worse and might be a path to something.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @UncleEbeneezer: I’m with you on *that.

    A strongman, but for our side!

    Strongman rule is a fantasy.  Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman.  He won’t.

    In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents.  We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something.

    But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance.  The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing.  We get abused and we get used to it.

    ~Timothy Snyder

    edit: Though in all fairness, I have to say i think that the enjoyment of picturing Trump marched off in handcuffs is along the same lines as when I used to joke about putting sugar in the Dean’s gas tank.  I would never have done such a thing, but it was fun to picture it.

    The rest of what you said, though, I agree with.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Strongman rule is a fantasy.  Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman.  He won’t.

    A similar fantasy is behind people who want an “independent” person from outside the two parties’ establishments. Everyone believes that such a person will reflect their views, which of course all Americans share.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Redshift: Yeah, I have no idea how he got here, but even as I don’t trust Pence for a second, I am glad he is speaking out publicly.

    *If it took Pence nearly 8 years and one Trump-inspired near-murder for him to figure out that Trump has screwed him, Pence is even more Dense than I thought.

  61. 61.

    MomSense

    @George:

    Yes to all of this.  Not that we need confirmation but Sen. Bennett blamed the dysfunction in Congress on too many sociopaths.  Similar except the malignant narcissist is sadistic and the sociopath doesn’t care if they hurt others.  You can see the delight Trump takes when he causes pain.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    the roadmap to autocracy begins with the Republican Party’s unwillingness to lose. They cannot accept defeat so they attack every institution in America created to hold them accountable and elect a strongman like Trump.

    I love short clips like this and agree that they should be widely distributed.

    They want us to feel helpless.  They want us to feel hopeless.  They want us to give up. It gets discouraging.  It wears us down.  We even see it here.  We even say it in the comments.

    I understand that some people have concerns about too much negativity, but I do not fear discouraging words. I value deeply honest discussions of issues, including expressions of hope and fear.

    But I don’t think Republicans want us to feel helpless. They want us to surrender. And they take comfort in their strongman tactics because they are the ones who live in fear and uncertainty about their values.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Honestly, a good number of people on both sides don’t really care for democracy.  It requires adhering to norms when it would be easier or faster not to do so.   Most of the time, you end up with half a loaf.  You have to make tough decision.  The other path is easier.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

    But I don’t think Republicans want us to feel helpless. They want us to surrender. And they take comfort in their strongman tactics because they are the ones who live in fear and uncertainty about their values.

     

    truth. They think we’re not going to fight for the country we love and want to see. That we see our vision of America is better than theirs.

  70. 70.

    Cacti

    @UncleEbeneezer:  Trump belongs behind bars for trying to overthrow an election.  Garland didn’t have the stones to do what needed to be done.  He sat on it for 20 months then punted like a coward to Jack Smith.

    Now thanks to his dithering, Trump may have the chance to run out the clock.

    If trying to overthrow an election isn’t worthy of prosecution for a member of the political class, there is nothing else that clears the bar, and we are, in fact, a nation of men and not laws.

  71. 71.

    TBone

    @Cacti: grrrrrrrr nation of majority women but point is solid!  I’m not saying Garland was dithering.  We would have benefitted by immediate action as if BLM had stormed the Capital though.

  72. 72.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: No you haven’t at all. Half the joy I get from my art is from trying new things. New techniques, new media and new forms. Drawing and coloring nature with waterbased media is kind of my comfort zone.

    Here I have only used colored pencils. Something I don’t often do

    BTW many of my experiments don’t go as planned. I only share my successes (or what I think worked)

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat: Awesome.

    I tried watching those videos on drawing, but I haven’t been able to stick with it.  Same story with my learning Spanish. And really my whole life so far.

  78. 78.

    rikyrah

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Honestly, a good number of people on both sides don’t really care for democracy.  It requires adhering to norms when it would be easier or faster not to do so.   Most of the time, you end up with half a loaf.  You have to make tough decision.  The other path is easier.

    It’s only easier if you believe you’ll never be in the group for him the power of the state will land on negatively.

    As a Black woman in America, I have never been afforded such delusions.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @Cacti:

    He sat on it for 20 months then punted like a coward to Jack Smith.

    You continue to say things like that even after people have provided you with facts and information that shows otherwise.

    So what’s the point in engaging with you?

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I did not realize his family was there.  The image I have in my mind is Pence in the underground (garage?) surrounded by Secret Service.

    My first thought is that I would insist they be under SS protection, too, but maybe they were safer not being with him?

  83. 83.

    Cacti

    @WaterGirl:  I’m not sure what alternate reality you’ve been occupying to keep your good opinion of Merrick Garland intact, but that is, quite literally, what happened.

    He sure didn’t waste any time investigating Hunter Biden though.

  85. 85.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: there is video of his daughter talking to him at the loading dock secret location on J6.  I wasn’t aware Mother was there too!

  86. 86.

    Redshift

    @WaterGirl: But remember, the common wisdom was that Pence was such a fuckup that he wasn’t going to be reelected as governor of Indiana as a Republican before Trump rescued him from a slide to obscurity. I could see it talking a lot to accept it wasn’t going to happen again when he didn’t have a lot of other options.

  87. 87.

    japa21

    @Omnes Omnibus: Democracy is hard.  The problem is any alternative has results which are more painful.  There are a lot of institutions where the participants don’t have to think, just follow orders. Many religions, most corporations, etc.  Interestingly enough, these also tend to be areas with the most complaints.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: There’s the fear that comes from the paradox of tolerance: to be a democrat, you have to be willing to lose, but if the other side has announced that they’re going to cancel democracy and crush you by force if they win, can you really be willing to lose? Any loss is the end of democracy itself!

    So the authoritarianism one side projects eventually infects its opponents, through fear.

  90. 90.

    japa21

    @Cacti: No, it isn’t literally what happened, far from it.  Also, he did not initiate an investigation of Hunter Biden.  Are you sure you’re not associated with QAnon, with your baseless conspiracy theories.

  92. 92.

    WaterGirl

    @Cacti: You stated these as fact.

    Garland didn’t have the stones to do what needed to be done.

    He sat on it for 20 months then punted like a coward to Jack Smith.

    People here, including myself, have shared FACTS and information that show that was not the case.  You ignore the facts you don’t like.

    This (below) is also untrue and misleading.

    He sure didn’t waste any time investigating Hunter Biden though.

    Hunter Biden was being investigated under Trump’s DOJ.

    Also, unrelated, did you ever get back to John Cole, as requested in multiple email messages?

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    @TBone:

    Who changed the combo for the lock on his office in the Capitol. We still don’t know who did that. The list of people who could do that is short. Very short.

  97. 97.

    Cacti

    @japa21:  I really don’t understand why Garland continues to hold a small cadre of supporters here.  He’s been a total flop as AG.  Zealous pursuit of justice has only been carried out against little people on his watch.  When it comes to the big fish, his chief concern has been appearing apolitical and above the fray, at the expense of the pursuit of justice.

    Garland sat on the Trump investigation, punted it to someone else rather than get his own hands dirty, appointed Robert Hur to investigate Hunter Biden, and signed off on his ridiculous report.

    He sucks monkeys.

  98. 98.

    Cacti

    @WaterGirl: In what way did he not sit on it.  He spent 20 months asking Trump “pretty please give that Natsec info you stole back”.  Finally got a search warrant for it, then Trump immediately declared his candidacy, Garland pissed his pants and punted it to Jack Smith.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    In a sense, I don’t believe that there are more of us than there are of them. I think we are them-the potential to be a monster (and, possibly, the potential to be kind and noble) lies within every human being. And that what we’re facing is a kind of memetic virus, a wave of fear and mistrust and other-hate. And that success is not at all certain or maybe even likely.

    My nightmare is a day on which everyone just goes kill-mad. If not directly, then by proxy, because kill-madness is something they will just put up with. I know that, to some extent, even I will. That happens in various countries from time to time. I think about that a lot.

  101. 101.

    japa21

    @WaterGirl: It is very seldom I use the pie filter.  Did only once before, for same individual.  For some reason I allowed him/her back in my life.  Won’t make that mistake again.

    Heck, I haven’t even used it for always sore.

  103. 103.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat:

    That’s great to hear – I was reading up on the OCI card thing and it looks like you could be not allowed to come to India if you criticize Modi or at least that is the impression.

    What a thin skin this man has. We Indians are big on criticizing – it’s a national sport! I grew up on RK Laxman political cartoons. It’s just some dumb fuckery.

  104. 104.

    Cacti

    @WaterGirl:  And your other defense of Garland was that he had no choice but to keep up Bill Barr’s investigation of Joe Biden’s private citizen son?  Dios mio.

    He definitely couldn’t investigate Ivanka or Jared though.  Even though they actually held positions in the White House and security clearances, while doing a whole lot of personal side business with countries of concern.

    That would have been too partisan.  (eyeroll)

  106. 106.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: yes!  And turned off AOC’s office panic button (and others)!  And the pipe bombs at Dem headquarters (looking at you, Madge Traitor Trash). My best stinkeye, not-resting, bitch face!

  109. 109.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: 😭 Jamie!  He is SUCH a hero!  Every quality we need in our fighters he embodies.  Brave and courageous and wicked smaht.

  112. 112.

    NotMax

    The foundation of democracy is somebody has to be wiling to lose.

    “There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one’s convictions and not tell the people the truth.”
    – Adlai Stevenson
    .

  113. 113.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @WaterGirl:

    People are not supporting Strongman Trump because they think he will do anything for them. They love him because he promises to hurt the people they hate.

  115. 115.

    PaulB

    @Cacti: You haven’t actually put forth an argument for Garland other than “Nuh-uh, I don’t think he did that”.

    That’s probably because you haven’t actually put forth an argument against Garland other than “Nuh-uh, I don’t think he did that.” You are the one making the ridiculous assertions; it is up to you to back them up. You can’t, of course, so you will continue to duck and troll, just as you’ve done multiple times before.

    Arguing with a ridiculous, and obvious, troll like you is a waste of time. I won’t bother to respond again.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cain: Reminds me of the McCarran-Walter Act–all sorts of people banned from entering the US for saying things that were obviously protected political speech, with no real justification other than, booga-booga, Commies! And that’s totally the immigration regime that the Republicans want to bring back.

  118. 118.

    WaterGirl

    @Cacti:

    You haven’t actually put forth an argument for Garland other than “Nuh-uh, I don’t think he did that”.

    For you to say that, it’s clear that you haven’t read my replies in these discussions in previous threads.  So it’s a waste of my time to engage with you.

    I will ask again.  Did you ever get back to Cole as requested?

  121. 121.

    Cacti

    @PaulB:  In the entire time Garland was investigating Trump:  20 months, 0 charges.  18 months to serve a search warrant for purloined classified materials.

    P-a-t-h-e-t-i-c.

  122. 122.

    E.

    @Matt McIrvin: I do too. I traveled through Yugoslavia just a few years before the war and it was so peaceful and beautiful and sweet. It was so eerie to watch it disintegrate into 100 percent violence. Makes a person think.

  123. 123.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Melancholy Jaques: They want the old national-origins quota system in which legal immigration was limited to a trickle of well-off white people who were not visibly leftist.

  124. 124.

    Kelly

    @Omnes Omnibus: Honestly, a good number of people on both sides don’t really care for democracy.

    Even you have succumbed to the NYT both sides mind set? /s

  127. 127.

    Kelly

    When I think of government by a strongman I see a brittle system with a decision making bottle neck and a single point of failure.

  128. 128.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Stupid comment of the thread (day?) alert:

    Trump’s and Stormy’s brief encounter of the most unpleasant kind (so says Stormy) occurred 4 months after Melania had given birth to Trump’s tallest spawn (not while she was pregnant).

    That is all.

  129. 129.

    cain

    Hey @Watergirl – given it is election season – and we are all working on raising funds. Might be nice to see if we can connect Balloon Juice to the fediverse via the wordpress plugin? – https://wordpress.org/plugins/share-on-mastodon/

    I’m not sure if bluesky has such a thing yet – but both can do fediverse things. Just an idle thought.

  130. 130.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They want the old national-origins quota system in which legal immigration was limited to a trickle of well-off white people who were not visibly leftist.

    But they also want their groceries stocked with inexpensive, fresh cut meat, their landscape tended and their elderly relatives well cared for in spotless facilities, requiring employment that Americans won’t take because no one wants to work anymore.

  131. 131.

    EarthWindFire

    @Matt McIrvin: I think the middle and lower class GOP base wants the quota system back. The donor class wants cheap labor that has to hide in the shadows. The House Republicans didn’t need Trump to tell them to stop the bipartisan border bill. There was at least a 50/50 chance they would have gotten there on their own.

    The ever-underestimated Joe Biden picked at a festering GOP wound with that bipartisan border bill. I wish more members of our base could pick up on that and appreciate it.

  133. 133.

    cmorenc

    @Redshift: There are more of us than them, in raw numbers.  The problem is whether there are more of us who will bother to vote or nor get discouraged from doing so than there are of them.

    Consider why *every* election there are news stories about heavily blue-leaning polling sites having long lines because of inadequate facilities – can you recall any news stories about long lines at red-leaning polling sites because of inadequate facilities?

  134. 134.

    PaulB

    @Cacti: In the entire time Garland was investigating Trump:  20 months, 0 charges.  18 months to serve a search warrant for purloined classified materials.

    Thank you for confirming what I wrote about you.

    P-a-t-h-e-t-i-c.

    Your presence here? Definitely. It’s  Pie time (3 days late).

  137. 137.

    hueyplong

    @WaterGirl: The only person who was actually there in the room with him seems not to have considered him virile and manly, and her opinion has not changed with the passage of time.

  138. 138.

    Jackie

    @TBone: When Pence was hustled down the stairs by the SS, his wife was just in front of him, with his hand on her upper back.

  140. 140.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Sure Lurkalot: Oh, that’s where ICE comes in. The smarter ones among them don’t actually want undocumented immigration to stop, they just want it to be illegal and for the people to stay persecuted and terrified, because that’s cheapest, and satisfies the cruelty boner too.

  143. 143.

    Ksmiami

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m not willing to live under a Republican fascist regime. So the elections become by definition – an existential battle – which is just not how a functional democracy is supposed to work.

  144. 144.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cliosfanboy:

    Happy St. Patricks Day, including to my fellow Scots-Irish!

    That aspect has always given me uneasy feelings. Someone asks “Are you Irish?” Like, yeah, I am Irish… but my ancestors were probably the assholes killing your ancestors. Pass the Guinness, I guess.

  145. 145.

    Cathie from Canada

    When Biden said that you can’t be patriotic only when you win, I didn’t really understand it. Thanks so much for making this clearer.

    Here in Canada we also have a politician, Pierre Poilievre, stumping the country talking about how Canada is broken, a hellhole, and there’s an good chance he will actually be our next Prime Minister. And yes he also seems to think democracy shouldnt ever deny Conservatives what they want.

  146. 146.

    Chris Johnson

    @rikyrah quoting some fool on CNN: “Basically, there is a manly vigor on display that Biden doesn’t have?”

    For fuck’s sake. They’ve SEEN Hunter’s dong.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @EarthWindFire:

    I think the middle and lower class GOP base wants the quota system back.

    They want all immigration of anyone brown stopped.  They have a childishly simplistic view of how this works, including that it all happens over the Mexican border.

    The donor class wants cheap labor that has to hide in the shadows.

    A lot of the donor class also want all immigration of anyone brown stopped.  They also have a childishly simplistic view of how this works, and end up puzzled when the cheap labor they’ve been exploiting stops.

    The House Republicans didn’t need Trump to tell them to stop the bipartisan border bill. There was at least a 50/50 chance they would have gotten there on their own.

    I agree.  First, it didn’t contain what they actually want, only what they said they wanted.  Second, shooting down their own legislation has become a hobby for the GOP.  It’s pathetic.

  149. 149.

    Captain C

    @rikyrah:

    @Shalimar:

    @WaterGirl:

    Also, didn’t Stormy Daniels say TiFG was weak sauce in bed?  Plus, I imagine any such ‘manly man’ numbers would be countered by losing a certain amount of the ‘got cheated on while pregnant’ demographic.

  152. 152.

    zhena gogolia

    @Sure Lurkalot: No, it was while Melania was pregnant that he attacked People reporter Natasha Stoynoff in their home when she came to interview him.

  153. 153.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Matt McIrvin:

    What they likely do not know is that the national origins quota systems under the immigration acts of the 1920s did not exclude Mexicans. They just had to pay a fee.

    The panic was all about scary Asians, Jews, and southern Europeans. Think for one minute what American cuisine would be like without them!

  154. 154.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Just dropped $50 to Worker Power AZ via ActBlue, Match me!

    NB From what I can tell, the nearest analogue to this year’s Presidential election is 1948 – and near as I can tell Biden/Harris is following an updated Truman playbook of taking it to the nation, attacking the Do-Nothing Congress, making sure everyone knows what the stakes are, and touting everything the Democrats have done to make their lives easier. If we all do our part, I think we’ll be just fine.

  155. 155.

    West of the Cascades

    Just contributed $50 to Worker Power AZ via ActBlue. Mon match, s’il vous plait!?

  156. 156.

    The Lodger

    @rikyrah: Hastie is full of it. Although what was “on display” in the Stormy incident makes Trmp sound like a fun guy.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Melancholy Jaques: McCarran flat out said he was concerned about “Jewish interests”. The airport in Vegas is named after him

    Edit: I guess not, they renamed it after Harry Reid!

  158. 158.

    WaterGirl

    Angel match #4 from eponymous is now complete!   And we just broke $13,000, so we get another pair of boots!

    Within the Margin of Effort – Another Match for Boots On the Ground in AZ 7

    Thanks to everyone who is helping to make this happen!

  159. 159.

    WaterGirl

    Our anonymous Angel from match #3 just volunteered to match another $1,000 of donations.  So Angel match #5 is now starting.  Matching up to $50 per person.

  161. 161.

    Soprano2

    @Cacti: The Hunter Biden investigation started when TFG was president. I’m sure you won’t let the facts get in the way of your ire with Garland, though.

  162. 162.

    wjca

    @Cacti: He sure didn’t waste any time investigating Hunter Biden though.

    It is necessary to move more deliberately when you know there’s a real case and you intend to win it.  With something you know is nonsense, you can move quickly, because there’s no case to jeopardize.

  172. 172.

    terraformer

    If there are debates between Biden and the orange fella, Biden should say *these exact words* during them. I think it’d be powerful

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