Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Red lights blinking on democracyā€™s dashboard

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Despite his magical powers, I donā€™t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

If you thought youā€™d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Nothing says ā€˜pro-lifeā€™ like letting children go hungry.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Please don’t feed the bears.

ā€œEverybodyā€™s entitled to be an idiot.ā€

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

It could be worse. Vance could have said ā€œpost-menopausal sows.ā€ Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

When I decide to be condescending, you wonā€™t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Democrats are back in array!

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck ā€“ May 30, 2024!

No Justins, No Peace

People are weird.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Late Night Open Thread: šŸŽµ SCHA-den-FREU-de!šŸŽµ

Late Night Open Thread: šŸŽµ SCHA-den-FREU-de!šŸŽµ

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šŸŽµ HA-le-LU-yah! šŸŽµ


OK folks: Trump is 78 w. a family history of dementia. He's shown syntactical & verbal signs of cognitive decline for a long time. His convention speech was a disaster.
It's time for our neuro-board-certified press corps to zero in on the huge risk to the Republic his deteriorating brain represents

— Boston Tom Levenson (@tomlevenson.bsky.social) Jul 21, 2024 at 4:45 PM

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  2. 2.

    VeniceRiley

    Well. That won’t help Vance’s creepy stalker vibe he’s got in spades. Please proceed, weirdo.

  5. 5.

    Jay

    If there is a Santa Walz, JV Vance debate, I hope that someone stages one of Ethan Allen’s finest leather couches, slightly off stage, but within Shillbilly Eulogy’s peripheral vision.

  6. 6.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    That rant from Trump about Biden taking back the presidency. As I said, Biden the American Cincinnatus is going to drive Trump nuts because Trump so desperately wants to be seen a martyr for the country.

    Also, is Trump planning on trying to crash the DNC?

  7. 7.

    Ten Bears

    Are we sure the Repubs are in this to win? They’ve made such a mess of things their only way out is to lose, let (as ever) the Democrats clean things up

    I think they’re throwing it, they’re trying to lose …

  8. 8.

    Donatellonerd

    great post. Ā i read it through twice smiling and then realized that’s probably a definition (or illustration) of schadenfreude.

  9. 9.

    TBone

    @JWR: šŸ˜ thank you for sharing, starting my morning off in solidarity is a great way to start the day!

  11. 11.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    IsĀ schadenfreude four syllables instead of three? Serves me right for giving up on American television. (Which is also how I thought the Koch brothers’ name was pronounced like Ed Koch, the former New York mayor, and I thought Sarah Palin’s last name was pronounced like Michael Palin’s from Monty Python, and how it took me years to realize that Kamala Harris’s name wasn’t pronounced like Kamala Khan, the new Ms. Marvel.)

  14. 14.

    patrick II

    In my life, Elon Musk and O.J. Simpson are the two people who dropped the furthest from my original estimation of them.Ā  O.J. still tops my list but Elon is still alive, working on being evil, and still has a real chance to pass O.J.

  15. 15.

    TBone

    Since I am not on social media, I can’t post a direct link, but if anyone would like more schadenfreude in their coffee, this is great!Ā  Took him out behind the woodshed and opened a proper can ‘o whoopass! šŸ˜‚

    https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-trans-daughter-vivian-144756099.html

    ā€œI understand your new angle is this ā€˜western values/christian family manā€™ thing but itā€™s such a weird choice,ā€ she continued, then she absolutely went for his neck. ā€œYou are not a family man, you are a serial adulterer who wonā€™t stop fucking lying about your own children. You are not a christian, as far as Iā€™m aware youā€™ve never stepped foot in a church. You are not some ā€œbastion for equality/progressā€. You called arabic the ā€œlanguage of the enemyā€ when I was 6, have been sued for discrimination multiple times, and are from Apartheid South Africa.

    ā€œYou are not ā€˜saving the planet,ā€™ you do not give a fuck about climate change and youā€™re lying about multi-planetary civilization as both an excuse, and because you want to seem like the CEO from Ready Player One. I would mention the birth rate stuff, but I am not touching that weird 14-words breeder shit with a ten foot pole. You single-handedly disillusioned me with how gullible we are as a species because somehow people keep believing you for reasons that continue to evade me.ā€

  17. 17.

    TBone

    Too late to correct my punctuation when I realized I misplaced the apostrophe, pls. forgive.

    Can O’ Whoopass

  18. 18.

    Tony Jay

    Whenever I see MAGAts in the flesh, it reminds me to thank the French for bankrupting themselves to support your rebellion.

    Then I see our own Far-Right slatebrains causing chaos and misery and Iā€™m like oh, FFS, go drown in a bath of snot you shameful taintspawn.

    I need a holiday.

  25. 25.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    That tweet from Trump about Biden getting back in the race has a real Don Ameche in Trading Places “turn those machines back on!” vibe. Talk about a case of wishful thinking out loud.

    I do wonder when we’ll get multiple above the fold stories about how polls show a majority of Republican voters think Trump is too old now that the national polling shows him falling behind. Doesn’t fairness and balance demand that MSM? I know, not gonna happen. But the Trumpies leak like a sieve and are going to start throwing each other under the bus in a New York minute. The press won’t be able to totally ignore all that chum in the water. I know their preferred prey is Democrats in disarray but they’ll take second best if it’s the only thing on offer.

    Biden timed this perfectly. He waited until just after the Republican convention when their ticket was locked in, then stole their thunder. Sucks that it came to that but he managed to inflict maximum confusion on our enemies and that has to be some consolation. Schadenfreude ist die schƶnste freude.

  26. 26.

    TBone

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:

    Digby sez!

    A Morning ConsultĀ pollĀ published Monday revealed that voters are suddenly viewing Trump as the decrepit candidate after Biden dropped his campaign. Americans are apparently far more likely to describe Vice President Kamala Harris as healthy, mentally fit, and a strong leader than the 78-year-old Republican presidential nominee.

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/06/the-contrast-is-sharp/

    The worm has turned, hasnā€™t it Trump? Letā€™s see how he likes his own crude ageism thrown back in his shiny orange face.

  27. 27.

    Princess

    @Other MJS: Creepy Stephen Miller is a fascist of the first water. Heā€™s an awful person who wants bad things and he is clearly comfortable with cruelty.

    But in terms of what he *looks* like, he probably looks like his father and his uncle, who have publicly disavowed his beliefs. He looks like colleagues of mine and even some of my relatives. Thatā€™s to say, he looks like a Jew. And the fact that you and so, so many look at his face and see ā€œevilā€ in it as a physical feature tells me just how deeply ingrained antisemitic stereotypes are in our culture. Yes, I know you have no intention of being antisemitic. You may yourself be Jewish even. But when you look at the face of a Jew ā€” the face, not the opinions or actions ā€” and say that is what evil looks like, you too are playing a very old game whether you know it or not.

    Youā€™re one of many, many on this blog to do so but this is the morning Iā€™m calling it out I guess.

  28. 28.

    3Sice

    Trump and his clingons are all so longwinded and tiresome.

    The campaign will not pivot because potatoe brain will never let go of its grievances.

    Multi-campaign losses embed loser stank to a candidate.

  29. 29.

    David šŸKHivešŸ Koch

    @patrick II:

    O.J. Simpson are the two people who dropped the furthest from my original estimation 

    The Naked Gun turned you off that much?

  30. 30.

    TBone

    @Princess: that’s not the way I read that comment (his physical appearance didn’t factor into the impression of a fictitious Nazi character from a TV show).Ā  As a fifty percent Jewish person, I didn’t take offense but, as always, maybe I’m the outlier…

  32. 32.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @patrick II: I’d have to include Bill Cosby and Neil Gaiman on my version of that list, but yeah, Elon Musk has fallen far and fast.

    (Seriously, this timeline has gone wacky, though. We’ve got a Black woman running for President against a convicted felon who has already tried once to overthrow the government, Snoop Dogg is a booster for the American Olympians while Bill Cosby is rotting in prison, and if 25 years ago I’d met a future version of myself who described the year 2024 in those terms, I’d be asking when my future self started using hard drugs.)

  35. 35.

    Ken

    @3Sice: That was my thought too, when I read the Calcaterra tweet “GOP surrogates… promising Trump will soon show he can run a focused campaign”. No, he won’t, because he can’t.

    It’s reminiscent of all those solemn “today Trump became President” pronouncements by media figures during his first term, which were invariably followed by some idiocy that showed how wrong they were. Those were made often enough to become a joke, and I hope some of those media mavens have enough self-awareness that that stings.

  37. 37.

    Barbara

    @Princess: I didn’t read it the way you did but I agree with you that it’s important to stop and think about the implications of the imagery we use to describe a person in negative terms. I think latent misogyny and bias against gay people (especially gay men) areĀ  particularly prevalent in images used as slurs but it’s not limited to that.ā€‹ā€‹

  40. 40.

    David šŸKHivešŸ Koch

    A football coach who won a state championship. A Sergeant Major who joined the military at age 17 and went to a regular college on the GI Bill.Ā  A beloved high school teacher who won a red rural seat.

    If you wrote this for a screenplay it would get rejected as too unbelievable.

  44. 44.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @David šŸKHivešŸ Koch: Yeah, he’s uncomfortably close to the Republican platonic ideal of what a Real American should be … except that the same qualities that make him so stereotypically wholesome cause him to utterly reject the Republican ethos.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    The Shrinking Trump Channel/podcast professionals predicted that the assassination attempt would encourage Trump to feel invincible, and act more grandiose.

  46. 46.

    hueyplong

    @Princess: One of the few zero tolerance rules announced by Cole when things were melting down a couple of weeks ago is that antisemitism is the third rail of this site.Ā  Report specific instances and Cole is likely to act if he agrees with you.

    I’m not seeing it with Miller.Ā  He is the one member of Trump’s former administration who has nearly no identity outside of being a wannabe Nazi.Ā  He in fact looks a bit like Heydrich, a fairly notorious, high-ranking real Nazi whose assassination led to the murder of an entire town in Czechoslovakia.Ā  And I’m reasonably certain Heydrich wasn’t Jewish.Ā  In fact, not being Jewish was kind of the point of his career.

    In any event, the intense dislike of Miller is based not on his somehow looking the part of a Jewish stereotype but instead on his being a Nazi.Ā  He’s also called discount Goebbels, who also considered his non-Jewishness to be pretty important and who is someone who really didn’t look like Miller.

    This is the first time I have encountered “calling a Nazi a Nazi” spun as deeply ingrained antisemitism, and at first blush it feels like a bit like a stretch.Ā  As you noted, his own relatives seem to think he’s a Nazi.

    I’m going to stop saying he looks like this Nazi or that Nazi because it’s hurtful to you, but this is my disclaimer against your board accusation as I do so.Ā  And the accusation that Miller is a horrible and dangerous person stands.Ā  Trump wouldn’t have done as much damage without people like Miller, Barr, the on-air personalities at FoxNews, etc., etc.

  47. 47.

    K-Mo

    @Princess: Good point. Ā Although I probably havenā€™t posted here about Miller, youā€™ve called me out (in?) here as regards my offline life.

  48. 48.

    Nix Besser

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: It hadn’t clicked into place until your comment, but it makes sense if you substitute “Trump” for “Biden.” It’s still a fantasy, but yes, Trump wants to crash the DNC and seize his throne.

  49. 49.

    WereBear

    @hueyplong: He does remind me of Heydrich, the way he squints his eyes or something.

    A photograph can contain an expression or message which gives a sense of their personality, and every one I have seen of Stephen Miller exudes a sense of malice. As though he revels in it.

    Of course, I know the terrible things he has done. That will color any perception, now.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @WereBear: I would not doubt that; the shooting was bound to have an emotional impact. Trump is not a religious man but he is a cult leader, and he feeds off the adulation of his cult and they believe he is the Man of Destiny. I guess we’ll find out more in coming weeks.

  51. 51.

    Princess

    @K-Mo: Thanks. And I know itā€™s not intentional. Itā€™s just so deeply ingrained. And I agree with the person (Barbara?) who said that gay people are the recipient of similar visual slurs.

    Basically weā€™re on thin ice whenever we use physical appearance as a proxy for character and virtue (see also, people who weigh more than the ideal).

  52. 52.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @TBone: digby is not the MSM but maybe it’ll creep into their coverage eventually. So far the only folks who air his deranged ramblings are late night comedians. The news folks sign the elephant in the room because reasons.

  55. 55.

    AM in NC

    @Princess: But nobody says that about Jamie Raskin, who looks like a kindly dad/uncle.

    Something about trading in cruelty makes people look ugly on the outside, and Miller has that in spades.

    But I do take your point that we should be vigilant about anti-semitism (and other forms of racial/ethnic discrimination) rearing its head in subtle ways. Ā We can always do better.

  56. 56.

    Princess

    @hueyplong: Iā€™m not going to report someone for an unconscious antisemitism that I have seen over and over again from different people on this site. Iā€™m mostly using this instance as a way of pointing out that most or even all of us have these ingrained biases we donā€™t even recognize or question. But other people from those groups see their use.

  58. 58.

    Barbara

    @hueyplong: I want uphold a high standard against ethnic prejudice even when it comes to ghouls like Miller, whose whole being seems to revolve around hatred and vicious anti-immigrant stereotypes. “Mogadishu” being code for Somali immigrants.

  60. 60.

    Gvg

    @Princess: He does not look like a Jew. He looks like the person we know has done many specific horrible things and advocated treating many groups of people like things. We know these things and we canā€™t prevent it from affecting how we see that man.

    It probably affects the photographers and editors too in which shots they post, and it impacts us in which shots we post on blogs to match our preconceptions, whether we want it to or not.

    Every picture I see, seems to show an unsmiling man with dead eyes.
    Pictures of Jewish people are varied, across the human range of emotion and variety, including quite a bit of ethnic variation.

    which is not to say that there is not stereotyping of Jewish people, itā€™s just that there are so many around in real life that look all kinds of ways. I donā€™t really think of Miller as looking typically Jewish. I am not sure what typically Jewish should look like anyway. I donā€™t think he even looks like the evil jew caricature. He does look like he thinks people are things though.

  62. 62.

    Princess

    I love Gaimanā€™s writing but recent rereads of Stardust and to a lesser extent, Neverwhere made me absolutely cringe at how sexist he is. So I was not surprised at all to learn that he treats young women as objects for his amusement. Ā Unfortunately.

  64. 64.

    WereBear

    @Tony Jay: I’m likewise shocked, though I mostly know him from friends who are fans. But I understand how personal it feels, having grown up laughing at Bill Cosby’s humor.

    But people with such persuasive talents aren’t always good people.

    Not using their power for good.

  66. 66.

    TBone

    @Baud: šŸ˜ šŸ˜†

    I always get mistakenly pegged as of Italian descent.Ā  (To which I reply “Only by injection”)

  72. 72.

    Geminid

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Trump’s incoherence will make it into main stream reporting if he keeps it up. I think he will.

    In the meantime, his attack onĀ  Brian Kemp Saturday evening has hurt him, and not just in Georgia. This attack was fzirly coherent on its face; Trump can focus when it comes to matters of personal vindictictiveness. But when you step back and look at Trump’s electoral position, that attack was crazy as hell. An irrational act.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @TBone: Holy shit, she burned that prick to the ground!

    @Gvg: &Ā @hueyplong: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. When I hear someone say so-and-so “looks like a Nazi,” it doesn’t conjure images of physical anatomy in my mind but rather dead, soulless eyes and moral corruption and cruelty so deeply engrained that they’re stamped on the features. Nick Fuentes is an example of the type.Ā 

    That said, antisemitism and the use of antisemitic stereotypes are so rampant that it pays for those of us who are appalled by it to be vigilant in how we use the language and how it’s perceived by others, even if that differs from our take. So I’m glad Princess spoke up.

  74. 74.

    Nix Besser

    Can someone explain “Kamabla”? I assume it’s something racist, but it’s not as obvious to me as some of his other slurs.

  76. 76.

    WereBear

    For that matter, I gave up on Woody Allen with Manhattan. Echoes of things I had thought were jokes, even in the comedies, now bothered me. Also, I was older by then, and better at seeing red flags.

    But such people are also sheltered from rumors with powerful positions and deep pockets and sometimes ruthless PR. We know so little from the outside.

    I think this is why seeing The Convicted Felon fall apart in such a dramatic and surreal way increases the more it occurs. On the one hand, humanitarian concerns aside, it’s really past time for the relatives to put him into some kind of care, but I’m sure they cannot.

    I’m sure he’s at high risk for stroke or sudden decompensation or both, with his tantrums, diet, and habit of staying up all night rage-tweeting. Starting to wonder if he will last until the election, at this rate.

  79. 79.

    3Sice

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Also, is Trump planning on trying to crash the DNC?

     

    Iā€™m sure Stone and the boys have something cooked up and are feeding him a line about it. Reality will be a dozen idiots in a red Pinto and LTD wagon.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    @Nix Besser

    Offshoot of “bla people” from some time back.

    Same desperate exercise of attempted schoolyard taunting as “Peekaboo James.”

  86. 86.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Kambala appears to be a South-Indian buffalo race. Obviously what Trump had in mind and, also, he is the buffalo in this race.

  88. 88.

    BellyCat

    @TBone: Being 1/2 Italian, I often am mistaken for other identities. Neighbor of 5 years once said to me, ā€œHappy Hanukkah!ā€ during the season. I smiled and replied with same to her.

    She said, ā€œOh, Iā€™m not Jewishā€ and was very surprised that my response was the same. (ETA: We both chuckled at our wrong assumptions, she, too, was part Italian).

    Assumptions about appearances are curious/humorous/bizarre (pick one or more) in The Splendid Age of Mongrols.

  92. 92.

    TBone

    @BellyCat: šŸ‘ when I finally discovered my identity (Mom never told me, and I was too upset at being “abandoned” by bio dad, who really had no choice in the matter, to look into things until I was in my 30s)Ā  I made an announcement to some close friends. What I found out was absolutely shocking.Ā  Horrible, stereotypical attitudes surfaced immediately.Ā  Those ‘close friends’ were kicked to the curb.

  96. 96.

    kirbster

    Who would want to go to a Republican party? All they serve is moldy cheese on stale, soggy crackers and a lot of cheap, bitter whine.

  101. 101.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @kirbster: Who would want to go to a Republican party? All they serve is moldy cheese on stale, soggy crackers and a lot of cheap, bitter whine…

    …but enough about the hosts…

  103. 103.

    TBone

    @TBone: theme:

    HumanĀ carelessness has not been canceled.

    Nor has humanĀ carefulness.
    Itā€™s essential to keep those realities in mind.

  104. 104.

    TBone

    @Baud: šŸ˜†šŸ˜šŸ©·

    Bio dad raised me as a Jewish American Princess but when we moved in with my WASP grandparents, I got a rude awakening!Ā  No more being spoiled rotten and the star of the show.

  106. 106.

    Dave

    @TBone: That’s pretty painful and baffling to me I can understand how stereotypes impact the process of getting to know and interacting with someone but I’ll never understand the after the fact stuff like this. I suppose it’s treating the stereotype as an actual essential fact versus the heuristic with baggage that I view them as but good for you for not tolerating that crap.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    McCollum said she helped recruit Walz to run in the district back in 2006 after seeing how aptly he communicated with different groups across southern Minnesota.
    ā€œBeing a football coach and a teacher, he knew a lot of people in town, and he went out and talked to farmers and just talked to people and really listened ā€” thatā€™s how he took that district,ā€ she said.
    McCollum recalled being met with exasperation by Rahm Emanuel, who as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at that time, was in charge of overseeing the partyā€™s efforts to take back control of the House.
    ā€œI came back to Rahm, and I said, ā€˜I met this fabulous guy. Heā€™s in a red district, and I think heā€™s going to win,ā€™ā€ McCollum recalled. ā€œAnd Rahm looked at me like I was crazy. He said, ā€˜No, he has no money, no nothing.ā€™ā€
    ā€œTim put together a marvelous grassroots campaign,ā€ she said.

    lol

  111. 111.

    Dave

    @kirbster: I don’t know think Republican parties follow a bivalent sort distribution.Ā  Either as you described or so unhinged and debauched that they would make some of the more indolent and indulgent Roman Emperor’s step back and nope on out of there.

    They all do share the cheap bitter whine in copious quantities though.

  113. 113.

    TBone

    @Dave: they picked out very unflattering personality traits (frugality is a polite way to say one of those I encountered) and said “Oh, now it all makes sense!” I was like WTAF DID YOU JUST SAY????

  116. 116.

    Soprano2

    @Princess: To me he looks like that Nazi from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. That’s what I see every time I see him. So no, I don’t see “Jew”, I see “Nazi”. The first time I saw and heard him, that’s what I thought of. I didn’t even know he was Jewish until later. So no, not all of us are seeing him and thinking “evil Jew”.

  119. 119.

    hueyplong

    @Ken: I kind of agree with your theory as at least half of what’s going on.Ā  Trump mangles a name because he’s constantly mangling shit, then doubles down on it because (1) Dear Leader is never wrong and therefore obviously meant to say it that way, and (2) deliberately mispronouncing the names of the Other is a longstanding trope used by oppressors to belittle them.

    I also agree with the idea that Trump’s glitches and brain freezes will get more play because they’re increasing in frequency and by the time we hit October the failure of the MSM to highlight it won’t prevent the public from being very aware and worried about it.

    We need to remember that this is a guy who can’t even appear in a light rain without disastrous effect.Ā  When the feebleness theme becomes a same, it will be one relentlessly and, we can only hope, fatally for his campaign.

  120. 120.

    Soprano2

    @Ken:Ā  Ā ā€œGOP surrogatesā€¦ promising Trump will soon show he can run a focused campaignā€. No, he wonā€™t, because he canā€™t.

    It’s professional malpractice that after 9 years the press doesn’t laugh in their faces every time someone from the TCFG side says something like this. TCFG is who he is, and no amount of wishing by the press or by his campaign managers is going to change him.

  121. 121.

    JML

    @Tony Jay: Gaiman unfortunately has a real reputation in the comics industry among other creators as the dude who uses he status to get with young women who are massive fans of his work. Until recently, there’s never been any accusations of assault…but there’s been a lot of rumors that he’s used he standing and fame to take advantage of women who are fans of his work and are overwhelmed by getting the attention of their hero.

    It’s sketchy AF…did he cross any legal lines? Probably much harder to know or adjudicate, but it does seem clear that he’s much more of a creep and bad dude than his well-polished public persona. Sad.

  123. 123.

    hueyplong

    I look forward to the day when we’re not talking about Miller at all, except for the occasional “Stephen Miller?Ā  Who is he?Ā  The name rings a bell, but I can’t place him.”

    The events of the last couple of weeks generate hope that such a day may come.

  124. 124.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Look at all those black faces behind Vance, and all those white faces in the actual crowd.

    @Princess:

    While I really do think itā€™s expression the locals react to, because they have the same response to many other facesā€¦ I have to admit youā€™re right about the Jewish facial features. Ā He could be one of my Lubuvich neighbors, just from the face.

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    numerous allegations of sexual assault and abuse

    Yeah, the Gaiman stuff is bad. Ā Really bad. Ā Way, way worse than just harassment, which would be bad enough.

  125. 125.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Whst cracks me up is that Mankato, Walz’s hometown, is also the fictional home of Virgil Flowers. Flowers is Lucas Davenport’s sidekick in John Sanders’ Minnesota-based detective series. Flowers is the main character in some of them. His beat is southern Minnesota and its people.

  129. 129.

    Baud

    A large part of Trump’s campaign to his base was that reelecting Biden would make Kamala President. We just cut out the middle man. You would think pivoting would be easy for them.

  130. 130.

    Soprano2

    @Princess: Basically weā€™re on thin ice whenever we use physical appearance as a proxy for character and virtue

    This is true, but unfortunately way too many people make judgments in this way. It’s why I believe how I dress at work is important for my credibility. For example, one reason I think Pete is such an effective messenger is because his appearance and manner doesn’t code to most people as gay (even though we all know there is no “gay look”). Give him a more stereotypical “gay” appearance and a higher voice, and his effectiveness would be diminished even if the message was exactly the same. We may not like that, but for the vast majority of people on all sides of the issues it’s true, and I think we have to live in the real world. Another example – many people think they know what a criminal looks like, and no amount of saying a criminal can look like anyone will persuade them otherwise.

  131. 131.

    SFAW

    I have no doubt that TCFFG will run a focused — for him — campaign.

    Of course, his “focus” will be on repeating, ad nauseam, insults that a third grader* would be ashamed of for the stupidity and lack of originality, and making ridiculous, obviously false claims about what “Kama-blah” will do.

    *Or maybe a second grader. Or a pre-K.

  133. 133.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @JML:

    heā€™s used he standing and fame to take advantage of women who are fans of his work and are overwhelmed by getting the attention of their hero.

    I donā€™t give a damn why two consenting adults have sex. Ā Unfortunately, Gaiman didnā€™t stick to just sleaze, and he didnā€™t stick to ā€˜consentingā€™. Ā Ugh.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Thanks! I’m catching up on Walz-mania. I wasn’t a part of it.

    I’m impressed he’s so well liked in the House – they just rave about him, from Left to Right. I’m also impressed w/Harris for perhaps factoring that into her pick because it means she believes she is going to win so will need to work with Congress. She’s confident. I really like that.

    The underdog thing is funny too. Part of Rahm Emanuel’s job in the role of congressional campaign committee was spotting new talent. Ooops! Walz got pretty far for being such a loser :)

  135. 135.

    karen gail

    @Princess: With Stephen Miller; what I “see” is a man without soul in his eyes, a slight sneer and overwhelming smugness. It has nothing to do with physical characteristics, it is the way that the evil inside of him shines through.

  139. 139.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2:many people think they know what a criminal looks like,

    You mean they don’t all look like Republicans? The things I learn here.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Because Trump’s a bore and there’s nothing new to cover other than whether or not he will “reset”, times 50. They have to churn this useless shit out every day and there’s only so much concern trolling of the Democrats they can do. So we get the umpteenth “Trump reset” story.

  145. 145.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: He’s introduced some great characters & worlds in sci-fi but if you don’t read that stuff you might not have run into him.

    “Good Omens” (co-authored with Terry Pratchett) was made into a TV series that was pretty popular, you might have heard of that.

    How about Coraline? He wrote that book.

    (Edit: I see I was too slow and all of the above have already been named by other jackals)

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    “Criminals are never very amusing. It’s because they’re failures. Those who make real money aren’t counted as criminals. This is a class distinction, not an ethical problem.”
    – Orson Welles
    ;)

  147. 147.

    karen gail

    @Baud: Physical beauty? funny thing the most evil people I have known personally have been called beautiful. We are trained by fictional characters to see evil as ugly when the opposite is true.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    I love that Mark Cuban is like a resistance wine mom now. I say this as a resistance wine grandma. We can have male members, I think.

    Would not have predicted that!

  149. 149.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nix Besser: Nobody can explain it. It’s probably just the usual asshole thing where you intentionally get a name wrong to emphasize that it sounds foreign.

  151. 151.

    cmorenc

    @Princess: Stephen Miller doesn’t fit any “Jewish” physical stereotype IMO – instead he looks like what he is, a crank ideologue full of resentment at people who he thinks are undeserving or “don’t belong”.Ā  It’s always a bit shocking to me that he does have some Jewish lineage in his background – because he strikes me as having an amazing resemblance to Joeseph Goebbels, German Chancellor and chief propagandist under Hitler – and as someone who would have fit right in working as Goebbels right-hand-man, had he been German in c. late 1930s.

  154. 154.

    TBone

    @cmorenc: that’s where the nickname Pee Wee German comes in.Ā  Someone here thoughtfully provided the meme photo to me recently.

  157. 157.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I haven’t read much SciFi in years (big time into it during my teens and 20s) only read it if one of my sons recommends something. Mostly read non-fiction these days. As far as Good Omens, if I ever did hear of it, it went in one ear and out the other. I was on a decades long hiatus from TV until just recently. Watching a lot of British stuff.* So much, so good. Never heard of “Coraline” either.

    I’m not hooked into popular culture at all, as 99% of the “latest things” are a mystery to me. For instance, I don’t get the Taylor Swift love. It’s nothing against her or her legions of fans, it’s just that her music leaves me flat.

    * maybe too much Brit TV, the other day I was looking at the hordes of hummingbirds at one of our feeders and I thought, “Them birds are really gettin’ at it.” The sad part is I thought it in a British accent.

  158. 158.

    Jeffro

    @David šŸKHivešŸ Koch:

    @Ken:

    right??!?

    but then again, the writing got sloppy back in 2016. Ā America’s most famous wrestling heel wins the WH, proceeds to lead country to chaos, death, and economic ruin?

    heel is bounced out of office by sharp old guy who unites his party and proceeds to right the USS America in record time?

    (and so on)

  159. 159.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Well, Rahm’s in a good place now: ten thousand miles away in Tokyo. Maybe the Japanese have smoothed off some of his sharp edges!

    Jeff Flake is another American politician with an important overseas position. The former Arizona Senator has been doing good work in Ankara since 2021. Maybe when he and Emanuel come home some network will hire them to do a foreign affairs show. Americans don’t know enough about what’s going on overseas so a show like that couldn’t hurt. And Flake could brag about swimming the Bosphorus.

  160. 160.

    TBone

    @NotMax: and now I know I shouldn’t reveal this but I can’t resist: my mom sent me into the future with that same exact first name.

    Born from the Gaelic surname Ɠ Treasaigh, it is a gender-neutral name blessed with a courageous spirit. Stemming from the Irish word treise, “power” or “strength, ****** is best defined as “warlike.” It means brave, bold warrior.

    From the Greek: harvester

  163. 163.

    NotMax

    @TBone

    Nominative destiny.

    One grandmother was named Hilda. Looked it up once: battleaxe. That shoe certainly fit.
    ;)

  164. 164.

    hueyplong

    @Kay: … and thereā€™s only so much concern trolling of the Democrats they can do.

    If so, that would mark a welcome change from the last time the Dems ran a woman.

  165. 165.

    Tony Jay

    @JML:

    Urgh. Sounds like the Warren Ellis situation from a while ago. Superstar creator, adoring fans/aspiring female talents, advantage taken, position exploited.

    But if Gaiman has strayed across the ā€˜thatā€™s sleepy, dudeā€™ line into ā€˜thatā€™s non-consensual, shitheadā€™ territoryā€¦ he can go swing.

    Dream would not be happy with him.

  166. 166.

    JML

    @Tony Jay: It very much does sound exactly like the Warren Ellis scenario…and now there are people coming forward to say he crossed the line from exploiting a significant power imbalance (bad and gross and wrong, even if not technically illegal) to violating consent.

    It sucks, especially from a guy whose public persona has always been feminist, pro-LGBTQ rights, anti-bullying, and always seemed to have a very positive and supportive interaction with his fans. I really enjoyed his work and met him a couple of times, had him sign some stuff. Another reminder that you don’t really know those people from their creations.

  169. 169.

    dnfree

    @Princess: That is an excellent observation, much appreciated. Ā I dislike any reference to someone as being evil or good or anything else based on appearance . Ā Looks donā€™t indicate someoneā€™s basic nature.

    i recall my shock when I realized how many legendary fantasy books relied on the bad characters being ugly. Ā Even Orcs.

  170. 170.

    Citizen Alan

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: That was the Avenue Q song, which was a stage musical that was an “adult” parody of Sesame Street. It was also the origin for “The Internet is for Porn” and “For Now,” which was a song that kept me alive through the Bush years.

  171. 171.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2:Ā  Same here. Every time I see Stephen Miller, I think he looks like one of those guys standing in the background during the famousĀ DownfallĀ Hitler-rant scene/

  172. 172.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @WereBear: A photograph can contain an expression or message which gives a sense of their personality, and every one I have seen of Stephen Miller exudes a sense of malice. As though he revels in it.

    I agree.
    I see inside the person in a photograph. Their personality, the energy, or sense of their intent. What kind of spirit they have. Thereā€™s no guarantee of precise accuracy, but an impression comes across. Gut reactions, like fear, should not be overlooked. when I imagine what the sign on his forehead would say, itā€™s a variant of Ā ā€œIā€™m up to somethingā€

    While miller may look like his ancestors in feature, and thus a comment on his appearance may offend, I think a lot of us see moreĀ about his qualities. The first time a friend told me some of his doings, and then showed me a photo, my first thought was, that he looks creepy, slimy even, like under that smooth exterior, something Disconcerting was roiling. He just has a quality of disassembling and undermining. Itā€™s ok to get a ā€œfeelingā€ about someone, and trust it, while still questioning oneā€™s impression. I can remain curious.

    Today is the first time I knew he was Jewish. (There are too many people and issues to pay attention to them all)

    meanwhile, Iā€™ll start considering the delicacy of appearance connected to judging others. Maybe Iā€™ll ask myself how much of my sense of someone is connected to associating them w a particular group or stereotype.

  173. 173.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Soprano2: youā€™ve reminded me of what I heard in trainings to work the rape hot lines. We asked some cops on a panel, what did rapists look like.
    The answer: often they look as American as apple pie, boy next door, football team guys.

    so, what does a criminal look like? The worst is when they seem smooth and kind and get you to trust them. Like con artists and narcissists. First Impressions donā€™t always tell us.
    And negative or less than fabulous first impressions can also change, as we know more about a person.

  174. 174.

    wjca

    @Baud: Many people have mistaken me for a decent person on account of my physical beauty.

    A pity our nyms don’t come with images.

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