Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

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

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

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

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Everybody saw this coming.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

When we show up, we win.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

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

Democrats are back in array!

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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JD Vance is going through some shit. And I have so little respect for that fucker he isn’t even getting periods in between his initials. But at any rate, ole JD is going through some shit:

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves 1

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves 2

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves 3

And that doesn’t even dent the surface. And he is not reacting well to the pressure. His notorious cat lady clip from a while back is still haunting him daily. Today, he apparently apologized to cats on the Megyn Kelly show (yes- she is still a thing, apparently), and then when responding to the pushback from Jennifer Aniston (who wrote “All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,”) he stated that Aniston is a creep for hoping his daughter can bear kids.

If this man was a D&D character, he would have negative charisma. Although I don’t know how that would work because you have to put the points somewhere and it shouldn’t be intelligence, wisdom, or dexterity, so maybe he has a berserker build with 20 strength and 20 constitution I don’t know.

At any rate Gen Z was apparently so relieved after Biden stepped down that they have decided to throw a party, and it is being held on JD Vance’s forehead.

***

Fraternity brother arrived last night, and another is coming down from Pittsburgh, so I am otherwise occupied with that and the Olympics Opening Ceremony. So I’ll pop in after Adam’s post and open up another Olympics open thread in a couple hours.

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  6. 6.

    different-church-lady

    At any rate Gen Z was apparently so relieved after Biden stepped down that they have decided to throw a party, and it is being held on JD Vance’s forehead.

    Today’s Internets haven’t been awarded to anyone else yet, have they?

  7. 7.

    JaySinWA

    Here’s hoping the press herd instinct works in our favor. Or is it a school of sharks smelling blood?

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    Prediction: Trump dies of confusion trying to figure out whether Vance’s attraction to shark rape stories is a positive or a negative.

  15. 15.

    wjca

    @Tom Levenson: That Vance-Palin chimera cannot be unseen.

    Is that what that was!  I was thinking “Republicans in disarray” generating an internal-to-the-right accusation that he’s trans.

    (Nothing wrong with that, of course.  Except in those circles.)

  19. 19.

    gwangung

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Damn. I simply cannot believe that this couch story had legs. I thought it was gonna be one of those inside baseball things that would puzzle the normals.

    Happy to be proven wrong…

    (And it doesn’t hurt that he’s as graceful as a hippopotamus in tap shoes in navigating these blowbacks…)

  24. 24.

    different-church-lady

    @dmsilev: LBJ: “I don’t really think he’s a couch fucker, I just want to hear him… wait… actually, you know what? I do think he’s a couch fucker.”

  25. 25.

    BlueDWarrior

    @HumboldtBlue: it really speaks to something. I am not sure if I can get into a frame of mind to figure out what that is, but it certainly is nothing good.

  27. 27.

    Danielx

    @RepubAnon:

    Could be worse, I’ve been told if you were in the same room as Sarah Palin while she was speaking you could hear the screams of your brain cells dying.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    @HumboldtBlue: This whole natalist thing where you rate people by their generative powers is unquestioned gold in alt-right circles and they really don’t get that it plays as creepy to most other people.

  30. 30.

    Hilbertsubspace

    More D&D.  Vance’s political career is current inside a gelatinous cube and taking 6d6 acid damage every round.  “That’s gotta sting.”

    No one saw the couch thing coming (rimshot).

  31. 31.

    piratedan

    staying with the D&D theme, if he has negative Charisma and apparently a Wisdom value under 6, I gotta believe he’s maxxed out on Constitution and Dexterity, because, you know those couches aren’t gonna fuck themselves….

  32. 32.

    HumboldtBlue

    @eclare: ​ 

    Adorable. But I sound like a preschool teacher:

    “Get out of there!”

    “Don’t chew on that wire!”

    “How did you get up there?”

    “What is in your moth?”

    “Isn’t it time for your nap?”

    Lots of snuggling, I do a lot of one-handed typing while he lays in my left arm suckling my shirt.

  35. 35.

    Splitting Image

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Glad to see you all are still jerking off to this bullshit.

    The value of the weird but not true couch story is that it is entertaining. It encourages people to do a casual internet search about J.D. Vance and discover for themselves the weird stories about him that are actually true.

    Any five minutes of him speaking on the subject of women is weirder by far, and way more damaging to his campaign.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    One impression I get from the Vance pick is that at the time, Trump thought he already had a winning hand and his VP pick could not hurt him. So Vance was not examined critically. A mistake caused by overconfidence. I wonder what his campaign team thought.

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    Another Politico story up tonight shining a weird light on the Trump campaign.

    How Trump and Vance went from a ‘threat to democracy’ to ‘weird’

    In the days since Vice President Kamala Harris has taken over the campaign against former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, Democrats are leaning into a new attack line against the Republican ticket: that they’re just really weird.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz , a potential Harris running mate who’s been using this description for months, said it during his first viral TV appearance of the week, and then in others. The Democratic Governors Association, which Walz leads, amplified it on social media. And the Harris campaign has adopted it as well, incorporating the label repeatedly this week in press releases and posts on X and TikTok.

    As this simple and quintessentially Midwestern description of Trump and Vance catches on, it marks a notable rhetorical shift — away from Biden’s apocalyptic, high-minded messaging toward a more gut-level vernacular that may better capture how many voters react to far-right rhetoric of the kind Vance in particular trades in.

    Weird is winning.  I want to shake the hand of the strategist who thought that up.

  40. 40.

    wjca

    @Geminid: I wonder what his campaign team thought.

    Perhaps they were thinking that Vance, by bringing Thiel’s big bucks, upped the chances that their paychecks wouldn’t bounce.

  42. 42.

    gwangung

    @Scout211: Better yet, give them a raise.

    Wouldn’t have thought of that angle, but it appears to be working for now (and when it stops, we can find other other angles, I bet…)

  43. 43.

    dm

    @Scout211: I’ve thought that for a long time, with their weird obsession with children’s genitals, the spreadsheets tracking women’s periods, and more. Republicans are just weird.

  45. 45.

    eclare

    @Geminid:

    What I’ve heard is that DJTJ wanted Vance, TCFG wanted Burgum.  But he followed his son’s advice.  Good to see it blowing up on him.

  46. 46.

    allium

    1st edition (70s/80s) D&D had rules for negative charisma (nowadays if for some reason your Charisma drops to 0 you just flat out unalive).

    Someone with negative charisma would horrify most good and neutral onlookers, causing them to flee, while evil creatures would actually be impressed by and even offer to serve them as minions

    So it tracks.

  47. 47.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Scout211: ​ 

    I wonder if it didn’t originate with their kids. The kids all know these guys are weird, and Walz mentioned his daughter in one of the interviews.

  49. 49.

    eclare

    @gwangung:

    Again, remember what W said after TCFG’s inaugural address.  “That was some weird shit.”

    So weird has been floating around since 2017.  Glad someone finally picked up on it and ran with it.

  50. 50.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Couches for Kamala held a massive Zoom call tonight

  51. 51.

    SpaceUnit

    By the time this election is over poor JD is gonna have to change his name yet again.

     

    Maybe JD Chesterfield or something.

  52. 52.

    MagdaInBlack

    @dm: I think “sick fucks” applies to that obsession, but you probably can’t use that phrase in the campaign.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: I didn’t know a thing about MN Gov. Walz until this week, but after hearing him do a guest appearance on the “How to Win 2024” podcast, I think he’d probably make a fine running mate for Harris. He’s got a great sense of humor and has some practical ideas about how Dems can appeal to rural voters. He’s a former high school teacher and noted that Repubs in small towns everywhere are destroying two institutional pillars of rural stability: public schools and local hospitals.

  56. 56.

    Ksmiami

    @Anyway: yeah sending the feds after women traveling across state lines just isn’t really popular… who’d a thunk?

  57. 57.

    ssdd

    @Scout211: painting the other guy as a flake does have a history of success.

    The Republican candidate for president in 1964 was Barry Goldwater, a conservative whose gimmicky campaign buttons often read “Au H20” (“Au” for gold, “H20” for water). Goldwater had voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was described by Democrats and opponents within his own party as a leader of right-wing extremists. His campaign slogan, “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right,” was interpreted as a nod to extremist views, suggesting that he was only saying what others believed.

    “He had five other slogans that he was testing out, and this one tested the worst out of all of them, but he was so committed to it,” Kaplan says. Goldwater insisted on using the slogan that tested so poorly, and it “immediately garnered critiques…because it was a concession of his extremism.”

    LBJ’s campaign responded with its own slogan about Goldwater: “In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts.” That November, Goldwater lost in a landslide.

  58. 58.

    Bill Arnold

    @eclare:

    So weird has been floating around since 2017

    People on this site have been calling Trump weird at least since them. (e.g. me in Oct 2020: “Guy is so fucking weird.”)
    Anyway, the skill is in using it as an attack tool now.

  60. 60.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue: I wonder if it didn’t originate with their kids. The kids all know these guys are weird, and Walz mentioned his daughter in one of the interviews.

    I posted this ABC article downstairs. It states that the messaging strategy started with Kamala:

    The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”

    After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if it was tested in focus groups, maybe even young people.  But it is a Democratic messaging strategy and most of Harris’s surrogates are using it very effectively.

    ETA: paragraph added.

  62. 62.

    Wapiti

    @gwangung: I think part of the story’s success is that young/subordinate people generally enjoy scoring against their seniors. After being told to respect their elders, they take opportunities to act out, and get major cred in their peer group for a solid score.

    Assuming she wins, Harris could consider inviting the couch story person to the inauguration, especially if she doesn’t need many Repub votes for legislation. Ensure Vance never recovers.

  63. 63.

    SpaceUnit

    CNN should do a tell-all interview with JD’s sofa but with the throw pillows blurred out.

  65. 65.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    It’s interesting how much mockery of both Trump and Vance has blossomed in the last week. I just saw a pic of Trump with a chyron reporting him as saying “Kamala Harris doesn’t like Jewish people,” and the poster just says “Tough luck for Doug.” It’s like a jeer and shrug. It really cuts Trump and Vance down.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @eclare: The sons might have been paid to advocate for Vance. They don’t strike me as being that politically engaged, so why would they care so much?

  68. 68.

    karen marie

    @Other MJS:   I am ready to shoot myself having to listen to complete fucking morons who make way more money than me – people who graduated from law school! – so I really here for the Vance memes.  (It’s my literal job to listen to these idiots.)

    I’m beyond delighted that the dolphin porn thing is getting some legs.

    I am also getting joy out of knowing that Individual-1 is absolutely SCREAMING that he listened to his stupid sons.  Should we start a pool on whether/when he disowns one or both of them?

  69. 69.

    Trollhattan

    @ssdd:

    The daisy ad was the single most damning one in political history, and IIRC they paid to broadcast it once.

    Replays could not be counted.

  73. 73.

    Scout211

    @Geminid: They don’t strike me as being that politically engaged, so why would they care so much?

    They see themselves as kingpins of the coming broligarchy?

  74. 74.

    Martin

    @Scout211: You don’t even need to focus test that on young people. Young people really value authenticity. There is nothing funnier to a zoomer than a TikTok of a group of friends walking down the sidewalk and one walks into a pole and everyone busts out laughing. And what do you do with such an embarrassing event? You post it to the internet for everyone to see and share with you. You own your vulnerabilities in a way that older generations often find to be horrifying. The idea of being your authentic self among young people is a really broad idea.

    It’s why Kamala works for them. Her goofy dances, her laugh, it’s all very authentic. It’s a serious cultural disconnect because for those of us who are older, our expectation is a TV presentation – so lots of preparation, polish, well scripted, no hair out of place, etc. But that also makes you look, from a certain angle, untrustworthy because it’s not really you – it’s an act.

    Harris channeling her inner Leslie Knope when greeting Sen. Bennett is so goddamn charming and authentic. Does it look unprofessional? I guess. But you only do that with someone you have a good personal relationship with. It communicates something – I really like this person, and I’m okay that other people know that seeing me being goofy with them.

    So, yeah, ‘weird’ hits hard with young people. Weird says that they are inauthentic, and if that is their authentic behavior, that turns into them being a creep.

  76. 76.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    LEAVE VANCE ALONE!!! WHAT IS thIS cOUNTRY COMING TO WHEN SOME DEI HIRE CAN JUST WALKS IN AND TAKE A JOB fROM A GUY JUst BECASE HE WAS tO BuSY FUCKING A SOFA STICKING HIS DICK IN A VACUUM CLEANER  MASTURBATING tO DOLPHIN PORN TO DO IT????

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @Poe Larity: Jared and Ivanka are staying away it seems. So is Melania. Maybe they think Donald is gonna lose and want to stay clear of the trainwreck. They might know stuff we don’t, such as Trump’s actual mental condition.

  79. 79.

    Jay

    @Poe Larity:

    Thiel is worth $7.6 billion,

    Plus, Palantir is his, you know, the Tech company that spies on everybody, on line, their every tweet, email, tic tok, digital payments, efile, etc,……..

  80. 80.

    Ishiyama

    @Martin: Weird from the word “go”; why be normal. That’s the creed of my generation. It’s a different meaning for weird from today’s usage. English has strange flexibilities built in.

  85. 85.

    BR

    @HumboldtBlue: ​

    Where the fuck is our media?

    Don’t worry, the NYT is the paper of record and they’re on it: they tell us that both the Harris and Trump campaigns need to be better.

  86. 86.

    brendancalling

    @dmsilev: it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

    Also, too, someone should do a spoof of Toby Keith’s “I love this bar” as “I love this couch.”

    “We got ottomans/we got chesterfields/cheap Ikeas/ and sectionals…. Mmmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm (uggghhhh) I love this couch…”

  87. 87.

    Martin

    @Geminid: Yeah, my best guess, and this is a bit thin, is that they are on the same page that I am – that one of Trump’s opportunities with Biden as the Dem nominee was young voters. Vance is young. He’s 39. Now, I don’t see a single thing about him that would resonate with young people so they really biffed it there, but they could have leveraged his youth if he had any charisma or authenticity at all.

    Trumps kids aren’t old, and Junior has a zoomer daughter so they might appreciate the dynamic but not really getting it.

    To those that think I’m full of shit on focusing on youth voting turnout – 18-29 year olds turned out 44% in 2016 vs 59% of the total electorate. In 2020 it was 55% out of 66% for the total electorate. That 55% tied the previous record set in 1972. (51% in 2008, btw. 40% in 2000).

    That boost in turnout from ’16 to ’20 was the difference between Hillary losing and Biden winning.

  89. 89.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    @BR: i remember those heady days in1933, when the FTFNYT was in the tank for a certain herr hitler. they liked the cut of his jib. today we can see that there hasn’t been the slightest change in their operating philosophy in the interim.

  91. 91.

    BR

    @BR: ​

    Thinking about it a bit more — I think it’d be wise for Dems to turn their critique on the media but not on Trump for this kind of dictator stuff. I mean we all know that’s what he wants to do, and his supporters like it. He wants to be feared, and will amp up the threats in a hope to elicit fear. We have him on the defensive now with mockery and scathing takedowns of him and Vance and their creepy views. Maybe we should keep the tone there.

  94. 94.

    Sally

    @gwangung: I think it was Gov Walz himself. The sound bites just flow from his mouth. He’s such a good speaker. The video of him and his daughter at the fair is so gorgeous.

  96. 96.

    Anne Laurie

    @Poe Larity: BTW, where are Javanka?

    Hovering just off-camera, waiting to see whether Daddy’s latest grift will pay off for him, against all odds.

    (Technically, as it’s being reported, Jared is very busy sucking up to the Saudis managing his new sovereign wealth fund, while Ivanka is torn between her young family and her loyalty to her father.  Because ‘What’s in it for ME?’ is the Trump / Kushner motto.)

  98. 98.

    Martin

    @Ishiyama: Yeah, it is. Well, sorta. Being weird only worked for part of the generation. You had a lot of crew-cuts in your generation too. It wasn’t a universally held value. My mom was your generation, and seriously did not value being weird.

    But I think it’s pretty universal under this definition for young people that ‘weird’ means that you aren’t being yourself, where in your generation being weird meant you weren’t going to conform. For a generation where ‘be your true self’ is the mantra, the value of conforming is already extremely low so that definition isn’t really needed for them.

  99. 99.

    Martin

    @BR: They don’t care. They believe he’s going to look after him, and they’re so desperate for someone to rescue them from their demographic tailspin that it’s impossible to abandon him. He’s literally their last hope.

  100. 100.

    Gwangung

    @Martin: This definitely tracks as well. A lot of us run things exclusively through our left brain. And while that sharpens the focus frequently, it loses spontaneity and sometimes authenticity. Being able to use the left brain honing while remaining authentic is a skill not many master.

  101. 101.

    BR

    @Martin: ​
    Oh yeah, I’m sure 98% of GOPer Christians don’t care. But in a game of inches, if they can figure out the microtargeting, it could work.

  102. 102.

    Bill Arnold

    @BR:
    Literally asking the Christians to vote for the/an antichrist, the beast from the sea in Revelation 13, the one with a wounded head, that healed.

    One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast

    Revelation 13
    Beast forked Christian eschatology a bit with the ear wound  of that head, but it does look fully healed in that video.

    I keep waiting for some brave soul in the press to deploy this.

  104. 104.

    Sally

    As for foreign policy, that was my concern for anyone replacing Pres. Biden. But what about an ad with that pic of TFG slumped next to a cocky Putin from Helsinki – with “what DID they talk about?” Next to a pic of Kamala striding across a tarmac or similar. Because, regardless of what RFK thinks, it is a binary choice. It’s Putin’s poodle or straight talking Harris.

  105. 105.

    Sanjeevs

    Bill Ackman’s IPO crashed and burned yesterday. Had to cancel it and sparked an SEC investigation.

    Ackman was a relatively normal fund manager who started becoming irrelevant as he couldn’t beat the algos.

    So he reinvented himself as a loud Twitter Trumphumper.

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

  106. 106.

    BR

    @Bill Arnold:

    Huh. I don’t know any Biblical stuff. If you get it out there it could spread. It’s clear that there’s a pipeline from social media to bigger media now.

  107. 107.

    Mike E

    @mrmoshpotato: c’mon man… we’ve been very serious about November on this here top 10,000 blog, this past week has been a welcome break from the torrent of misery so give us a break if we are enjoying the new furniture layout.

  108. 108.

    TF79

    @BR: my uncle is very much into evangelical circles (but not so much the prosperity gospel/FYIGM/christofascist stuff) and last week he said his bible group or whatever we’re discussing if Trump was the Antichrist, so who knows, maybe it does have some legs

  111. 111.

    catclub

    @eclare: But he followed his son’s advice. Good to see it blowing up on him.

     

    It is well known that whoever talks to him last makes the decision.

  115. 115.

    BR

    Harris’s team is on fire — and their responses to Trump and Vance are pitch perfect. Here’s the latest, going with the strange / weird / creep theme rather than the “scary threat” framing that Biden was using:

    Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words, insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant – let alone be President of the United States.

    https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3kya7qiwvx42g

  117. 117.

    catclub

    @Baud:

    I heard they were on the fence.

    They apparently were waiting for a great time to jump, with both feet.

  118. 118.

    Chet Murthy

    @catclub: From what I heard, they endorsed (and Harris recorded that endorsement) early in the week, but she waited until today to make that known publicly.

  121. 121.

    catclub

    @TF79: or whatever we’re discussing if Trump was the Antichrist, so who knows,

     

    They could easily twist it they same way the love the Jews – because we have to keep them around to instigate armageddon and get incinerated, but the born agains go to heaven.  Likewise for the antichrist.

    1000 years of tribulations, wars, other horrors, but without it ( the antichrist), no last judgement and armageddon, when the born agains go to heaven.

  122. 122.

    Martin

    @Baud: They were never on the fence. They needed time to wash their hands after talking Biden out of the race.

  123. 123.

    KatKapCC

    @Martin: He’s a 39 that feels like 59, and Harris is a 59 that feels like 39. I mean the former in a bad way and the latter in a good one.

  124. 124.

    Sister Golden Bear

    You may think you’re metal… but have you ever been French death metal legends Gojira performing a traditional song from the French Revolution at the castle where Maria Antoinette was executed—accompanied by a group of headless aristocrats in the windows—as part of the Olympic opening ceremonies.

    Just the French people reminding the world that yes, they murdered the FUCK out of the monarchy and no, they are NOT sorry about it.

  125. 125.

    catclub

    @Martin: For a generation where ‘be your true self’ is the mantra, the value of conforming is already extremely low

     

    is that the mantra? really?  I thought a lot of internet bullying was of kids who were not conforming to what their peers expected them to be.

  128. 128.

    Martin

    @catclub: Internet bullying is not cultural, it’s local. You don’t bully people on the internet you don’t know. You do your usual classmate bullying online.

    This is why young people have this view, because if they don’t conform locally, there will be acceptance online by others. Rates of bullying have been dropping for years. It’s half what it was a decade ago which was lower than the decade before.

    The problem is that when you do have a local bullying campaign online, it can be a LOT more effective than old school bullying. But I think it’s also reported on a lot better than before. I very nearly was killed by my bullies in middle schools, and in response nearly killed them. That was completely swept under the rug. Now that can make headlines.

  129. 129.

    KatKapCC

    @Martin:

    You don’t bully people on the internet you don’t know.

    Um. That is literally the internet. Talk to my niece and any other young woman who posts photos or videos of themselves and ask if any people they don’t know have bullied and harassed them.

  130. 130.

    BR

    @Martin:

    @catclub: Internet bullying is not cultural, it’s local. You don’t bully people on the internet you don’t know. You do your usual classmate bullying online.

    I dunno — there are *tons* of cases of dogpiling online, especially in gamer / discord communities, and none of those are among classmates.

  131. 131.

    Baud

    @BR:

    there are *tons* of cases of dogpiling online, especially in gamer / discord communities

     
    And Balloon Juice!

  133. 133.

    Martin

    @KatKapCC: Are they being bullied by other young people, or by older men? Or by a small subset of people?

    I mean we just discovered that 11 people can be responsible for almost all of the school book bans across the country. Just because the impact is broad, doesn’t mean the people responsible aren’t relatively small in number.

    My daughter was bullied by male classmates in school, but her sense is that online, it’s mostly older men, not her peers. I mean, men being creeps to young women is a whole thing, and always has been, which is why young people constantly try and find spaces that only they know about.

  141. 141.

    Jackie

    @brendancalling:

    🎶“We got ottomans/we got chesterfields/cheap Ikeas/ and sectionals…. Mmmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm (uggghhhh) I love this couch…”🎶

    A #1 hit coming soon!

  142. 142.

    eclare

    @Captain C:

    I think we’re talking at least Andes level high, if not Everest.  That video of DJTJ interviewing Vance is wild, I’m not sure DJTJ breathed at all he was talking so quickly.

    BTW, he and Gargoyle have been engaged since 2020.  When’s the wedding?

  143. 143.

    different-church-lady

    @Martin: 

    You don’t bully people on the internet you don’t know.

    That’s gotta be the dumbest thing you’ve said yet.

  148. 148.

    Fake Irishman

    @Baud:

    Welcome back!  We picked up a nice sofa for the BJ clubhouse. Some hedge fund guy was having a garage sale.

    You, uh, might want to slip on some pants before sitting on it tho.

  149. 149.

    KatKapCC

    @Martin: By anyone and everyone. Teens, 20-somethings, and older. There have been numerous cases of teenagers dying by suicide or coming close because of massive bullying online, and it did not all come from kids they went to school with. And it doesn’t stop once they’re out of adolescence. I’m guessing you’ve never been a woman online. Count your blessings. You have no idea how horrendous it can be, and yes, most of it is from strangers.

  150. 150.

    brendancalling

    Apologies to Billy Joel…

    Don’t fuck the couch Mr couch fuck man!

    Don’t fuck the couch tonight!

    Because someone may want to sit on it/you’ve got us feeling disturbed…

    And the chesterfield looks so inviting/

    and the ottoman’s looking quite coy/

    but I really could do with a sofa bed/

    that matress I’d really enjoy/oooooh [insert masturbation grunts for la-de-de-dahs]

    You fucked the couch Mr couch fuck man/

    please never come here again/

    youre banned from this fine establishment/

    go run for vice president….

    (shrug, it’s a work in progress)

  152. 152.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    JD Vance is the Sarah Palin of Dan Quayles.

    And yes, I’m gonna use that until I get banned. :P

  153. 153.

    Gvg

    @KatKapCC: yeah boy are you wrong Martin. It’s hard to get accurate statistics on the rate, but people commit suicide over internet bullying from people that don’t know them. It gets in the news from time to time. You didn’t say it was rare, you said it didn’t happen. That’s incorrect.

  154. 154.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Gvg:

    You are also invited to any Denver meetup with others of us who finally raise questions about the “valued commenters” and their troll-ish/gaslighting behavior that’s gone on for far too long.

  156. 156.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Bill Arnold: there was some Christian blogger who went through Revelations systematically comparing Trump to the Antichrist, starting as a bit of a joke but by the end he was pretty convinced that it wasn’t a joke anymore (I remember Trump worshipping a god of walls in it, don’t have the link right now on my phone). And my devout Catholic mother-in-law is also convinced that he’s the Antichrist and she gets annoyed with some of the other parishioners.

  157. 157.

    Citizen Alan

    @catclub: I think it’s more the fact that the lack of accountability we see on the Internet feeds sociopathic tendencies.

  158. 158.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kayla Rudbek:  I  haven’t set foot in a church in 10 years, but if the motherfucker does win, I will be 100% certain he is the Antichrist and revise my retirement plans on the assumption that I’ve only got 3 years left before the End.

  159. 159.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan:

    I think it’s more the fact that the lack of accountability we see on the Internet in the Republican Party feeds sociopathic tendencies

     
    Supplemented.

  160. 160.

    RaflW

    @BR: Mocking often really does take the air out of guys like Donald. He’s always been able to intimate his staff and even most if not all R members of Congress.

    But define him as a jackass, as weird to a debilitating fault, and he likely fizzles. He’s never had appeal outside the base. Making liking him embarrassing rather than a badge of “booya, I’m MAGA” seems a good way to depress voter enthusiasm over there.

  161. 161.

    HumboldtBlue

    @RaflW: ​ 

    Just a side note on a Friday night: I pronounce your nym RaffleDub in my head.

    That could be your rap name.

  162. 162.

    Lily

    @Captain C: Did you see the recent video of him talking w Vance. The short version edited to just him, waving hands and talking Very Speedy, makes his altered state clear.

  163. 163.

    SWMBO

    @karen marie: ​
      They are useful minions to underbus. They are convicted criminals in NY too. They can’t operate a charity or run Trump businesses for a year. If they talked Vance’s sugardaddy into bankrolling Trump, he won’t say anything against them until the cash cow dies.

  164. 164.

    wjca

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: JD Vance is the Sarah Palin of Dan Quayles.

    And yes, I’m gonna use that until I get banned.

    It really is unfair to Dan Quayle.  I mean, for all his faults, he advised Pence that he had to do his job honestly on January 6th.  Can’t imagine Vance doing something like that.  (It can be hard, I know, to remember just how very, very far the quality of Republican politicians has fallen.)

  165. 165.

    Mike Dixon

    “When Vance jumped into politics in July 2021, he had removed the periods from J.D.” (wikipedia)
    So to show deserved disrespect, you should either put in the periods, or call him Jimmy Donald Baldwin or one of the other multiple names he’s called himself but then decided weren’t good enough.

  170. 170.

    Geminid

    @Martin: Vance seems like the kind of guy that older Republicans think should appeal to younger voters. A lot of projection going on there.

    I’m still a little surprised that the management team of Wiles and LaCivita let the Vance pick through. But I think they know that in some areas they can only guide Trump and not control him.

    For instance, I bet they don’t want these long, rambling speeches like the one at the convention that went past midnight. A friend timed one a couple days day later that ran for 2 hours. He could see the audiences eyes glazing over midway through. But try telling Trump that! From a manager’s perspective, he’s still the candidate from Hell and that is where he is heading.

  171. 171.

    Fraud Guy

    @allium: negative charisma was considered horror factor, which probably explains Trump and his attraction to evil.  Vance’s charisma is just likely very low, say a 1, which would give a -6 reaction and loyalty penalty, IIRC.

  172. 172.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NotMax:

    Cheeseburger Couch Cushion in Paradise?
    //

    I’m still going with “Shut your fucking face, sofa fucker” from the South Park movie.

    You don’t eat or sleep or mow the lawn, you just fuck your sofa all day long

  173. 173.

    nomokesh

    Nerd jumping in with “Vance isn’t a point-buy character. He’s 3d6 in order, and the dice were not kind.”

  174. 174.

    Chris Johnson

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s because it ties directly to their Great Replacement, racist crap that is their whole reason for existence. All they need is to clarify, ‘oh and when we say parents get to cast extra votes for each of their children, we mean WHITE CHILDREN’.

    God forbid some lady in Harlem trots in with a whole pile of votes, after all. She don’t count. They’ve got to have some kind of disqualification for HER.

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