Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

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

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

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

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Bark louder, little dog.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

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

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Open Thread: Taking Back The Narrative One Song At A Time

Open Thread: Taking Back The Narrative One Song At A Time

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How about a bit of music to keep the day going? This was on twitter and by the screams from all the right people, it hit its mark. For those that don’t know, Offerman and his wife, Megan Mullally, were generally seen as favoring Republicans. I don’t know how much of that was true or wishful thinking. But Offerman has made his feelings clear with this fun ditty

I’m not a TikTok person (I’ve tried, but it is too easy to lose a couple of hours for no good reason there) but I hear there are accounts there doing the heavy lifting reaching folks we need for the blue wave. This is one of those accounts – there are hundreds of other accounts lipsyncing to this song, so again, reaching a larger audience and spreading the word.

Again, probably offending all the right people. The account (TikTok and YouTube) had lots of these types of anthems. If you need something to either reach or piss off your Maga red family and friends.

Other than that, don’t have much of interest to post – I’ve written and deleted several posts, so that tells you where my brain is at. As always, recipes and pet updates can be found here. There’s going to be a Reggie update tomorrow with video! I don’t want to post it in this thread – I don’t want to spoil it with political talk. Just where I’m at these days.

I have added a Joyful Warrior Harris Walz decal to my car and my Harris-Walz yard sign and buttons arrive next week.

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Reader Interactions

99Comments

  1. 1.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    I was at friends in Broomfield Sunday.  They live in one of the 50-era tracts that defined Broomfield until everybody in the country started moving here after the Great Recession.

    You enter the neighborhood from the main drag and the first thing that greeted us was a house proudly flying it’s Trump 2020 flag.  Heh heh, that’s more in keeping with the southern exurbs of metro Denver.

    Down the street and around the corner, where our friends are, was a Harris/Walz sign.  I’m assuming more of those will be forthcoming although I also remember that during Obama’s first run their campaign deliberately made yard signs hard to come by.  Some 11-dimensional chess reason or something.

  2. 2.

    Maxim

    Good for Offerman. And so glad there are social media folks amplifying positive messages for our side.

    ETA: never heard that about the yard signs for Obama. Huh.

  3. 3.

    NaijaGal

    My mom just sent me this Jamaica Global Online article written in 2020 by Kamala Harris’s dad, Donald Harris, which talks about her Jamaican great-grandmothers and has a picture of one of them with baby Kamala on her lap. I hadn’t seen this before. He mostly talks about the influence his grandmothers had on him but does seem a little bitter about a California custody system (circa 1972) that is “based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting.”

  4. 4.

    mrmoshpotato

    Anatidaephobia

    I am not convinced this is a real thing.  (See her blog; see two dogs – and a duck.)

  5. 5.

    OId Man Shadow

    Offerman and his wife, Megan Mullally, were generally seen as favoring Republicans. I don’t know how much of that was true or wishful thinking.

    Because he played a libertarian, over the top masculinity guy so well, people assume that’s him in real life.

    People are dumb.

    ETA: Of course, Ron Swanson would not have been a MAGA anyway. Despite his outer crusty shell, he still had a good heart inside.

  6. 6.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Swedish pop group ABBA (perhaps you’ve heard of them?) have joined the phalanx of musical artists demanding that TCFFG/PAB stop using their music at his fucking Nürnberg rallies.

  7. 7.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @OId Man Shadow: And Mullaly’s most famous character was definitely a Republican, more money focused than social issues.

    Ron Swanson would not have been a MAGA anyway. Despite his outer crusty shell, he still had a good heart inside.

    No one legitimately supportive of small government would take a second look at MAGA or any Republican since…I don’t know.

  8. 8.

    Hungry Joe

    POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2

    Postcards to Swing States:

    Yesterday — 10

    Running total — 82

  9. 9.

    Matt McIrvin

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Obama’s campaigns didn’t give out free yard signs, they made them a premium for donating. The reasoning was that in a presidential campaign, yard signs don’t actually have much effect on votes (they only really do anything in local races where name recognition is a problem), but people seemed to really want them, so they’d use that for fundraising.

    One result, though, was that it contributed to the impression that he was losing in 2012, because Romney absolutely carpet-bombed with yard signs.

  11. 11.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Thanks for filling in the memory hole.

    I did remember the entire yard-signs-don’t-affect-voting rationale when we were discussing the scarcity and availability of Obama yard signs.  It seemed like a radical departure at the time.

  12. 12.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Way back when my BF and I thought Kerry would win easily not only because of GWB and the Iraq war but because all we saw in our blue neighborhoods were Kerry signs and bumper stickers. Too busy working, I guess we didn’t drive the not so many miles needed to dismiss us of our comfort.

    Leave the city limits of Denver, Boulder or Aspen and the tally is 60/40 republican at best. And so we end up with glibertarian governors like Hick and Polis.

  13. 13.

    Kelly

    Trump flags have blossomed here in rural Oregon. Looks about the same as the last two times. Not that it will matter. The commie hellhole that is Portland will overwhelm and oppress all these fine people.

  14. 14.

    Chris

    @OId Man Shadow:

    ETA: Of course, Ron Swanson would not have been a MAGA anyway. Despite his outer crusty shell, he still had a good heart inside.

    Most fictional characters, even villains (and Swanson wasn’t even that) would not be MAGA types, because they require something humanizing or redeeming or just interesting to get people to keep watching.  And most real life bad guys just aren’t that.

  20. 20.

    UncleEbeneezer

    We are in Cambria to celebrate our twelfth Anniversary :). What a stunningly gorgeous town and area.  Reminds us a lot of when we visited the Olympic Peninsula in WA.  We are staying right off the Trenton entrance to Fiscalini Ranch Preserve.  We only got to explore a little yesterday as we didn’t really get here and settled until almost dusk.  Today we are heading to Hearst Castle which we are excited to check out.  Friday we will probably just chill here and spend most of the day hiking.  The highs here are 68 degrees which is so nice after a brutal Summer and knowing when we get back to LA we have another heat wave coming next week.  I can definitely see why people with way more $ than we will ever have, choose to live here.  It’s lovely.  Though I imagine drought, wildfires and flood/mudslides give them the same regular scares that they do for us (we live in the foothills of the San Gabriels).

  21. 21.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Geminid:
    He’s bad, the slurring and the poor pronunciation, he rarely makes sense, but now it’s just stream of consciousness bullshit with no coherence or logic. I mean, the man said Jesus would come down and cunt COUNT the votes in California, and he would be the winner.
    What the fuck does that even mean?​
     

    And why the hell am I in moderation?

  22. 22.

    Almost Retired

    @UncleEbeneezer:  Wonderful place. Our youngest son went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and we went to various places in SLO County all the time when he was in college.  Sometimes we even visited him.

  24. 24.

    Redshift

    @Matt McIrvin: As I recall, their poli sci research-driven logic was also that lots of people want to “do something,” and if they put up a yard sign you give them, they feel like they’ve done something and are less likely to volunteer to do more effective things.

    In any case, the Harris campaign (and the Biden campaign earlier) definitely aren’t following that strategy. They’re freely giving away signs at campaign offices, though you still have to pay if you want one sent to you.

  25. 25.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Leave the city limits of Denver, Boulder or Aspen and the tally is 60/40 republican at best. And so we end up with glibertarian governors like Hick and Polis.

    In part but also because the self-professed “progressives” that have moved here over the last 10+ years are of the 80s-era “Socially liberal, fiscally conservative” types.  Back then, it was always a cover to vote (R).  But now that the GQP has gotten so extreme, the only outlet is to vote (D), given the fact that almost all come from what we now quaintly call “Moderate Republican” parents, neighborhoods, etc.

    It’s what’s pushed CO “blue” in how the national media might view us but as you know, we’re basically dealing with “Well, I voted for Obama and support abortion rights so that makes me Bernie Sanders” types.  Get them into econ and civil rights issues and they’re neoliberal and racially tone deaf.

    Thus, they *love* a glibertarian techbro like Polis.  As I said in one of yesterday’s threads, techbros will be the death of all of us and Polis can be lumped into that category.

    Combine that with as you say, the essential 60/40 split elsewhere in the state, is why we elect who we elect.  The alternatives, as everybody knows, would be far worse.

  26. 26.

    Juju.

    Nick Offerman appears on the John Oliver show from time to time. I never had the impression that he leans republican, nor his wife. I’ve never seen “Parks and Recreation”, so I am ignorant in that regard, but He’s not a republican.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Nice! Been through, never to there but did encourage the girl to consider Cal Poly when college shopping because I wanted to visit her. :-) (Ditto on UCSB)

    Similar, had never been to Malibu until we went to a meet at Pepperdine last fall and holy cow, is that ever a nice slice of the planet, which the campus has sweeping views of. How do those kids get anything done?

    Enjoy that visit.

  28. 28.

    Eunicecycle

    @Maxim: I remember him saying “Lawn signs don’t vote!” The local campaign office never had any because they thought the money could be better spent elsewhere

    ETA as several other people have pointed out. Sorry I didn’t read all the responses first, as I usually do!

  29. 29.

    StringOnAStick

    My husband got a Facebook maga bot message that was pretending to be an old friend of his; his old friend’s Facebook account has apparently been hijacked and used for this purpose.  The message went from “hey how are you” to “God wants tRump to win to save the baybees” quickly and in somewhat broken English, so he responded with a casual reference to a past event and asked a question about it.  No response, but the whole thing was a bit chilling to me in a weird way; I read about this stuff as a Russian op, and here it is on my husband ‘s phone.

  30. 30.

    Tinare

    @OId Man Shadow: In the same vein, many years ago a friend who I thought was bright, but was a fan of GWB for some reason, described Steven Colbert and The Steven Colbert Show on Comedy Central, as one of the rare conservative comedians. She looked at me blankly when I said, “you do realize he’s playing a character, don’t you?”

  31. 31.

    kindness

    I ordered my Kamela car magnets.  I had had a Biden Harris 2024 one but removed that when the switch happened.  Nick Offerman… my impression is he’s a northern midwestern moderate to liberal guy.  I don’t think of him as Republican.  Maybe the Republican party of my parents but that party and my parents died 20 years ago.

  34. 34.

    Chris

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    In part but also because the self-professed “progressives” that have moved here over the last 10+ years are of the 80s-era “Socially liberal, fiscally conservative” types.  Back then, it was always a cover to vote (R).  But now that the GQP has gotten so extreme, the only outlet is to vote (D), given the fact that almost all come from what we now quaintly call “Moderate Republican” parents, neighborhoods, etc.

    Can’t say how well this applies in Colorado specifically, but on a national level I think there’s also been genuine change in the suburban communities that used to breed all these “socially progressive economically conservative types,” especially as generations change.

    Put simply, we’re not our parents.  We don’t have the experience of fleeing to the suburbs as crime and poverty engulf the inner cities.  We don’t feel the inner city as an omnipresent threat to be contained – on the contrary, it’s a fun playground that’s often too pricey to afford.  We (specifically whites) have our racial hangups, but we didn’t grow up in a country with overt segregation such that suddenly seeing a lot more black people acting a lot more freely would trigger us the same way.

    And equally important, “economic conservatism” doesn’t land the way it used to given all our issues.  Republicans keep trying to appeal to us with tax cuts, and meanwhile we’re like – what are you even talking about?  I’m being drowned by student loans, medical bills, cost of housing, and sticky wages, and if I have kids myself I not only have to worry about things like the cost of daycare today, but the cost of college in fifteen years, which at the current rate is going to be worse than ever.  What the fuck good are your tax cuts going to do me?  I barely have anything left to tax in the first place!

    In sum, the suburban middle classes today are just not what they were in the mid-to-late twentieth century, and the changes have made the Republican message vastly less relevant.  We’re less racist (please don’t misread that as not racist, we’re a long damn way from that if it’s even possible), we’re less comfortable, and our bogeymen aren’t the same as our parents’.

  35. 35.

    BR

    Time to up our game — more post DNC polling coming out, and still not seeing a polling bump. Emerson poll just came out for all the swing states, and over the 7 swing states we’re tied — +3 MI, +1 GA, +1 NV, tied PA, -1 NC, -1 WI, -3 AZ.

  36. 36.

    brantl

    @Matt McIrvin:

    One result, though, was that it contributed to the impression that he was losing in 2012, because Romney absolutely carpet-bombed with yard signs.

    ….. And still got his arse handed to him.

  40. 40.

    lamh47

    If you thought the ANC incident couldn’t be worse, you were wrong.

    @MuellerSheWrote

    My GOD. Trump PLANNED in advance to stage a FAKE memorial at Arlington, film it in violation of the law, then attack Kamala Harris for not showing up. Knowing it was against the rules, his staff then PUSHED a woman out of the way and derided her as MENTALLY ILL, and then LIED about the incident.
    https://x.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1829185429587083575

    Here’s the TPM article:

    Trump’s Arlington Cemetery Campaign Event https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumps-arlington-cemetery-campaign-event via @TPM

  41. 41.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @SatanicPanic:

    Heh heh, I still tell myself we’re gonna win this in a landslide (however we define that in 2024).

    I was never worried in 2012 despite all the hand-wringing and garment-rendering that was going on then.

    Maybe the upside-downness of the last month is having a negative effect. :)

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    They say that yard signs don’t typically sway people.

    I, on the other hand, think they do.

    When I see who my neighbor 2-doors-down-and-across the street with a yard sign for Sheriff, I know to vote for the other guy.

    In this election, I would think that seeing your Republican neighbor with a HARRIS yard sign might help give someone permission to vote for Harris.  If they see a lot of them, permission surely adds up pretty quickly.

  45. 45.

    BR

    @lamh47:

    Ultimately the Arlington story isn’t going to hurt Trump as much as the medal of honor story that the Arlington story is a coverup for, because it *looks* good — most of the news stories are running the somber looking photo, not the one where he’s doing a thumbs up. I think we’re probably better off focusing on the medal of honor story. If anything Trump is probably happy because he’s always of the opinion that all news is good news if they’re covering him.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne,

    If you haven’t heard Nick Offerman sing “I’m not Ron Swanson”….. enjoy.

    “His colon is fictitious, but mine is all too real.”

  48. 48.

    lamh47

    @BR: it’s not about focusing on one over the other.  Ultimately is won’t matter to chump’s core supporters either way.

    I’m of the school that it does matter to folks truly “in the middle” when it comes to the choice of Harris/Walz vs Chump/CouchGuy.

    Also to, the fact that the employee was assaulted and won’t file charges out of fear is bullshit.  The only recourse for the poor employee is the reporting and at the least defense of her by ANC

  49. 49.

    trollhattan

    @lamh47: It starts with Gee’s mother-in-law, who’s a Trumper in the burbs here and who seems to have finagled a spokesperson role on behalf of 13 families of the service people killed that day. No idea if she’s welcomed by all.

    Shamblin said that the families of the Fallen 13 are close, and commemorate the anniversary at Arlington together. The Hoover family, whose son Taylor Hoover was killed in the attack, reached out to the Trump campaign and invited them to lay a wreath down on Taylor’s grave together. “The Trump team is very, very respectful and cognizant,” Shamblin said. “They wanted to be respectful to everyone there.”

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article291595505.html#storylink=cpy

  50. 50.

    SatanicPanic

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: haha that would make sense. Definitely feel like – is this too good to be true? Are we deluding ourselves?

    Having eight long years to contend with Trump being an Olympic level manipulator and narcissist has broken everyone’s brains a bit. Or a lot.

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @BR: The Arlington story is bad enough that the fucking army felt the need to scold Trump about it.  And we shouldn’t concentrate on one as opposed to the other.  These incidents are part of a pattern.  It’s the pattern that matters.

  52. 52.

    OGliberal

    @OId Man Shadow: Mullaly’s characters in Parks & Rec is harder to categorize politically but both of their characters in the latest season of Umbrella Academy are full blown, tin-foil hat wearing nuts that you’d certainly expect to see at a Trump rally ranting about the Deep State.

  53. 53.

    SatanicPanic

    The Fox News surveys found that the Democrat running for Arizona’s open Senate seat, Ruben Gallego, leads Republican Kari Lake 56 percent to 41 percent among registered voters. In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) is ahead of Republican Sam Brown 55 percent to 41 percent. And in the open contest for North Carolina governor, Democrat Josh Stein leads Republican Mark Robinson 54 to 43 percent.

    Hope this is true, but damn, 56-41 seems a bit much, even when one of the candidates is Kari Lake

  54. 54.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    I just picked on on the fact that at electoral-vote.com, at the top where they show a photo of each candidate next to their current, projected, electoral vote count, they have a nice head shot of Harris smiling.

    For Felonious D, they’re using his mug shot!

    Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

  56. 56.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic:Hope this is true, but damn, 56-41 seems a bit much

    That would be a tough split to reach in most blue states.  Still, Kari Lake is…something special.

    Regardless, I don’t put a lot of stock in polls.  Only one matters, and we must work to make sure people show up for it.

  57. 57.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @trollhattan: Malibu has some really great day hikes you can do that overlook the water.  When I first moved to LA my buddy took me to Topanga, Solstice and Sycamore Canyons for hikes and I was just blown away.  It is so nothing like anything I had ever seen growing up on the East Coast.

  58. 58.

    karen marie

    Are you all kidding with this Offerman thing? It’s fucking awful. Shove it in the back of the closet and never speak of it again.

  59. 59.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    @UncleEbeneezer: If you’re a fan of al pastor, try Boni’s tacos from their taco truck (haven’t been for a couple of years, but it’s usually just east of the main drag in Cambria). You won’t be sorry.

    Also, not making any assumptions about your finances, but the housing costs for properties that aren’t right on the water aren’t that much different than average for Altadena or La Cañada (don’t know where you are in the foothills of San Gabriels).  I know, because I’m also seriously thinking of retirement in the Paso/SLO general area so have been looking at costs. If you can stand to be totally isolated–between Paso and Cambria–that’s way more affordable.

  60. 60.

    TaMara

    @BR:  it was the lead story on at least CBS and NBC news last night and the local news here had their hourly morning news briefs on it and none of it was good – even the Fox outlet talked about the laws broken and the Army’s response.

    It’s probably not going away until trump does the next outrageous thing, which should be any minute now.

    Anything so they don’t have to cover his mental decline and hideous policies.

  61. 61.

    TaMara

    @karen marie: And you are one reasons I no longer feel like posting here. Fuck off

    ETA: The nasty commenters here are also why I no longer share critter updates or recipes. It’s just not worth my time or energy.

  63. 63.

    karen marie

    @BR: Who is this “we” and how does anyone benefit from this vague “we” “focusing” on “the medal of honor” story? Do you think this “we” is like Kreskin and can bend spoons by “focusing”?

    The bullshit thinking here sometimes astounds me given the advenced average age of the commentariat.

  66. 66.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Matt McIrvin: …in a presidential campaign, yard signs don’t actually have much effect on votes (they only really do anything in local races where name recognition is a problem)…​

    The dirty little secret re lawn signs is that no campaign needs more than a small number of them well distributed over the district in question, just as no campaign needs more than a minimal human presence at as many polling places as possible to greet voters and hand out literature. If the campaign has done its primary job, voters already know the candidate’s name and what office s/he’s running for, and has made its most earnest pitch for their votes. The task of lawn signs and people at polling places is not to win votes but to reinforce and reassure those voters who already intend to vote for the candidate. If enough voters signal their support for the candidate, through signs or a presence at the polls, it signals that voting for the candidate is a reasonable choice and not throwing their votes away – even if the opposition has 20 signs (or polling place volunteers) for every one of yours. We won a lot of elections on a shoestring budget once we understood the theory of a threshold minimal presence – and combined it with door-to-door across the district. (For one successful campaign I’m sure I walked the entire district 3 times.)

  72. 72.

    Manyakitty

    @karen marie: wow, joining the gfy chorus here. You don’t need to shit on everything and everyone. It doesn’t make you cool, it makes you a jerk.

    You can always just scroll past.

  74. 74.

    Suburban Mom

    @Chris: Agreed.  Don’t underestimate the impact of the growing disparity between the middle class and the truly wealthy.  When Trump capped property tax deductions during his first and hopefully only term many suburban middle and upper-middle-class families took a financial hit.  They remember, and they don’t trust Trump to be on their side when it comes to money.

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @SatanicPanic: Arizona polling outfit OHPredictives published a poll in February of 2023 that previewed the Senate race. Scary Lake’s Favorable/Unfavorable rating was minus 22 percent, ten points worse than Sinema and Governor Ducey. Gallego’s was plus 7. It looks like those numbers have held up since.

  77. 77.

    gluon1

    @Tinare: I was asked to watch Bill O’Reilly once in 2010 when Jon Stewart–I think; maybe it was Colbert–was the guest. It took me almost two minutes to realize that O’Reilly wasn’t doing a bit, trying to show he could do the Colbert thing, but was actually _like_ that.

  79. 79.

    narya

    I mostly missed Parks & Rec; I imagine I’ll eventually get around to it. Meanwhile, though, Offerman did a show with Amy Poehler called something like “Making It!” that had a bunch of crafty people doing various challenges. I think they only did two seasons, likely because I was one of maybe eight people who watched it. It was quite interesting, IMHO, as someone who has done a variety of craft-like stuff over the years, and Offerman’s knowledge about woodworking leaked through on occasion. (Also: his cameo in one of the last episodes of The Good Place.) Also, thanks for the link to his commencement address–I don’t normally listen to those, but listened to all of that one

    ETA: thanks, TaMara. :-)

  81. 81.

    narya

    @cope: Unless you were two of the eight. :-) (Slightly) more seriously, I’m glad I wasn’t alone! I thought it was fascinating what people came up with, even if some of it was way outside my taste or interest. There was a playful note to so much of it that really made it fun.

  82. 82.

    Chris

    @Suburban Mom:

    Yep.

    I look back at the messages Nixon and Reagan were spewing at people, and I’m like, I hope that if I’d been alive back then I’d have been smart enough to see through it, but I can at least understand how it would have seemed to speak to the issues of the times.  Take the Boomer version of white middle-class me, make him self-absorbed and politically incurious, and sure, that could be me.

    But for people our age, even white middle-class men, there’s just nothing like that.  They’re like a bizarro cult following for a fifty year old TV show that spend all their time being mad at everybody else for not sharing their fandom.

  84. 84.

    Mousebumples

    @Uncle Cosmo: I’ve got a Baldwin sign in my yard! Lots of Hovde signs around (booooo), but here’s hoping it encourages more votes and support.

  86. 86.

    Citizen Alan

    @TaMara:  I liked the Offerman vid. It won him back the cool points he lost with me for being involved in that repulsive “Civil War” movie.

  87. 87.

    Heidi Mom

    @Citizen Alan: IMHO Nick Offerman won so many cool points for his role as closeted gay prepper Bill opposite Murray Bartlett’s Frank in ep. 3 of The Last of Us that he’ll always be ahead on points.

  90. 90.

    No One You Know

    I’ve sent the music link to six people.

    My GOTV love postcards to Georgia are stamped and ready to go.

    Now,  if I could just get a job…!

  92. 92.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Probably the greatest book review ever written — Michael Deacon on Inferno, for UK newspaper The Telegraph, 2013:

     

    “Renowned author Dan Brown woke up in his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house – and immediately he felt angry. Most people would have thought that the 48-year-old man had no reason to be angry. After all, the famous writer had a new book coming out. But that was the problem. A new book meant an inevitable attack on the rich novelist by the wealthy wordsmith’s fiercest foes. The critics.

     

    Renowned author Dan Brown hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol.

     

    The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors. For some reason they found something funny in sentences such as “His eyes went white, like a shark about to attack.” They even say my books are packed with banal and superfluous description, thought the 5ft 9in man. He particularly hated it when they said his imagery was nonsensical. It made his insect eyes flash like a rocket.

     

    Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house and paced the bedroom, using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards. He knew he shouldn’t care what a few jealous critics thought. His new book Inferno was coming out on Tuesday, and the 480-page hardback published by Doubleday with a recommended US retail price of $29.95 was sure to be a hit. Wasn’t it?

     

    I’ll call my agent, pondered the prosperous scribe. He reached for the telephone using one of his two hands. “Hello, this is renowned author Dan Brown,” spoke renowned author Dan Brown. “I want to talk to literary agent John Unconvincingname.”

     

    “Mr Unconvincingname, it’s renowned author Dan Brown,” told the voice at the other end of the line. Instantly the voice at the other end of the line was replaced by a different voice at the other end of the line. “Hello, it’s literary agent John Unconvincingname,” informed the new voice at the other end of the line.

     

    “Hello agent John, it’s client Dan,” commented the pecunious scribbler. “I’m worried about new book Inferno. I think critics are going to say it’s badly written.”

     

    The voice at the other end of the line gave a sigh, like a mighty oak toppling into a great river, or something else that didn’t sound like a sigh if you gave it a moment’s thought. “Who cares what the stupid critics say?” advised the literary agent. “They’re just snobs. You have millions of fans.”

     

    That’s true, mused the accomplished composer of thrillers that combined religion, high culture and conspiracy theories. His books were read by everyone from renowned politician President Obama to renowned musician Britney Spears. It was said that a copy of The Da Vinci Code had even found its way into the hands of renowned monarch the Queen. He was grateful for his good fortune, and gave thanks every night in his prayers to renowned deity God.

     

    “Think of all the money you’ve made,” recommended the literary agent. That was true too. The thriving ink-slinger’s wealth had allowed him to indulge his passion for great art. Among his proudest purchases were a specially commissioned landscape by acclaimed painter Vincent van Gogh and a signed first edition by revered scriptwriter William Shakespeare.

     

    Renowned author Dan Brown smiled, the ends of his mouth curving upwards in a physical expression of pleasure. He felt much better. If your books brought innocent delight to millions of readers, what did it matter whether you knew the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb?

     

    “Thanks, John,” he thanked. Then he put down the telephone and perambulated on foot to the desk behind which he habitually sat on a chair to write his famous books on an Apple iMac MD093B/A computer. New book Inferno, the latest in his celebrated series about fictional Harvard professor Robert Langdon, was inspired by top Italian poet Dante. It wouldn’t be the last in the lucrative sequence, either. He had all the sequels mapped out. The Mozart Acrostic. The Michelangelo Wordsearch. The Newton Sudoku.

     

    The 190lb adult male human being nodded his head to indicate satisfaction and returned to his bedroom by walking there. Still asleep in the luxurious four-poster bed of the expensive $10 million house was beautiful wife Mrs Brown. Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in. She was as majestic as the finest sculpture by Caravaggio or the most coveted portrait by Rodin. I like the attractive woman, thought the successful man.

     

    Perhaps one day, inspired by beautiful wife Mrs Brown, he would move into romantic poetry, like market-leading British rhymester John Keats.That would be good, opined the talented person, and got back into the luxurious four-poster bed. He felt as happy as a man who has something to be happy about and is suitably happy about it.

     

    Inferno by Dan Brown 470pp, Bantam Press, rrp £20″

  93. 93.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    From Nick Offerman’s Wikipedia Page:

    Politics

    When asked whether he is a libertarian like his character Ron Swanson, Offerman said in 2017, “While I admire the philosophy of the libertarian mindset, I think it’s proven to be ineffectual in actual governance. So no, I’m not. I’m a free-thinking American.” He described Donald Trump as racist and sexist during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but also mocked Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton for her private email controversy. Upon voting in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he tweeted a photo of himself with an “I Voted” sticker, adding the caption “#VoteWarren” in reference to Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. That year, he also tweeted his support for Democratic candidate Charles Booker in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary in Kentucky. Although some political commentators likened Offerman’s depiction of the US President in the movie Civil War to Donald Trump, Offerman denied that his performance was based on Trump and argued that politics did not serve as an influence on the film.

    In a 2024 GQ interview, Offerman described himself as “progressive”, but also “conservative in many ways”. In the same interview, Offerman believes that semantics have lost all meaning.

    So, in other words, Offerman reads as a bog standard center to center-left Democrat, claiming independence and mixed views for his own reasons. I would have guessed he’s doing it to avoid audience backlash, which would be reasonable given his career, but Offerman and Mullally both seem indifferent to that – as evidenced by the linked video at top.

  98. 98.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl: I noticed that local people, for the first time in a long time, really seemed *afraid* to put up Hillary signs or make any public indication of support in 2016, and that fact probably energized Trump fans to get louder and prouder.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: In 2012, smarty pants people could look at state poll aggregator sites like 538 and Sam Wang and say they had a nerdy crystal ball that said Obama would win, no matter what the national poll numbers and “fundamentals” analyses said. And they were right, and felt validated. The sites even called nearly every individual state win.

    We don’t really have that now, since it’s well-established that that shit doesn’t actually work, they just got lucky a couple of times. And the aggregators aren’t as encouraging at the moment anyway, they basically show it tied up.

    Never mind–I guess the takeaway should be not that we’re winning but that it’s gettable.

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