Dave Roth, at Defector:
At the most basic level, there is just no percentage in trying to parse a political campaign’s decision to try to incite a pogrom. It does a favor to the people doing it, for one thing, because even assessing it along the lines of any other campaign decision provides a cosmetic coat of reason to something that hasn’t earned it. More than that, there’s no sense in searching for a justification when the people involved know that they are doing something that can’t be justified. That is more or less why they’re doing it, and any supposed tactical advantage should be understood as secondary to the primary purpose, which is to see what they can get away with, and to begin seeking permission in earnest for something that is (probably) still impermissible.
There was surely some calculation in J.D. Vance’s decision last week to elevate the entirely unsubstantiated claim of Haitian immigrants killing and eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. There is an adjacent calculation in his decision to continue doing so even after the woman behind the initial Facebook post making that claim repudiated it; there is a great deal of Psychology in Vance himself saying, on Sunday, that his decision to repeat and repeat and repeat this lie was a reflection of his willingness “to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people.” Vance also noted that “the media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes.” That conflation of the lurid threat that the Trump campaign conjured out of nothing—to real people, in a community that Vance notionally represents as an Ohio Senator—with those Hang In There Kitty posters is easily the boldest part of this cowardly and rancid campaign. Probably the most novel, too: Rich as it is in pogroms, and pogroms incited by and justified by similarly stupid, similarly obvious viral lies, American history had not previously provided an instance in which the most powerful proponents sought to pre-disclaim their responsibility through vigorous use of the classic cry-laughing ROFL emoji…
Nothing about Vance is really very mysterious, even relative to the other clammy aspiring genocidaires in the Trump movement; he, like everyone else that has fallen into formation behind Trump, is betting on the hope that, through him, they might get away with the same things that Trump has always gotten away with, and get more of whatever they want without having to pay for it. Whoever they were or whatever else they wanted before they made that decision is made irrelevant as a result of their having made it. Whether it’s a gag or a gambit, the choice can’t really be excused. It explains itself.
This one was a gambit. Vance and the campaign saw a story gaining momentum in reactionary spaces on social media and bet that amplifying this particular lie—and Vance acknowledged last week that “it’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false”—might work for him. That is, it might get and keep enough people scared and angry enough to support the only fully articulated policy position of the Trump campaign, which is a bloody campaign of domestic warfare against the enemies of Trumpism writ large, and more specifically against the neighbors you personally dislike. Trump is not a big believer in consequences, but has a capacious and lazily brutal affinity for vengeance; he lives, fuming and dead fucking serious, within the Mel Brooks joke that “tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” Vance, teacher’s pet that he is, did not take this incitement very seriously, either. Not in terms of the consequences it might have—Springfield’s schools and city government and hospitals have, quite predictably, been shut down by repeated threats of violence since Trump repeatedly mentioned this in front of 67 million viewers during last week’s debate, and the Haitian community has been terrorized by people who believe they have been granted a hunting license by the 45th President of the United States—but also not in any deeper sense, either. For Vance, it was just some new sound to make, to see if some other people might make it back at him. Some of them have…
It was not surprising that Donald Trump would bring the story up during the debate, and not just because nothing that Trump does is ever surprising. By then, Trump had surely seen the story on television, and therefore believed it was both important and true. Repeating whatever odious lie he just heard on television back to an audience that’s grown grown brutal from that fare has always been his big play; a man whose signal ambition was always to be on television is now not merely on it but trapped, suffocating, within it. When one of that debate’s moderators pointed out that there is no evidence of the claim, that it was denied by Springfield’s city manager and police department, Trump seemed confused and affronted. “Well I’ve seen people on television,” he insisted. “The people on television are saying my dog was taken and used for food.”…
… The tide rushes out on everything else, every other idea that the conservative movement (never very convincingly) pretended to have, and leaves this behind. The actual beliefs are self-evident: that the suffering of others is a tool, or a toy; that everyone else in the world is a threat or an obstacle or something to wad up and throw away; that even the most abstracted inconveniencing of their own sainted comfort is tantamount to the end of the world. A cohort of the most fearful and most credulous and most idly vicious people this country has ever produced, who have lately awakened to some strange and terrible appetites and whose only real faith is in their own unshameable blamelessness, watches to see what will happen next. This is what the lie is for—to freeze this uneasy moment in place and hold it there forever, a threat unspooling endlessly over the horizon, not so much into the future as instead of it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
If there were any justice in the world, then right now, J.D. Vance would be looking for work as a fry cook, and Donald Trump would be rotting in a prison cell in Ossining.
WV Blonde
This is a terrible – terribly sad, terribly scary, terribly infuriating – read in the cold grey dawn. Yet thank you, AL, for sharing. We are not allowed to avert our eyes from what these monsters are doing.
Mai Naem mobile
I tell you if my pet disappeared and I thought my neighbor was behind it, my first call would be to my Senator. It wouldn’t be to my local cops or sheriff. It wouldn’t be to my local councilwoman, not my Mayor or Vice Mayor. Not my state rep or state senator. Not even my congressman. Nope, it would be to my US senator.
Raoul Paste
This is why Dave Roth is writing at the defector, and not me. A superb and insightful analysis
Yutsano
I’m all out of can’t evens with Vance. I just hope Ohio feels really stupid for electing this man over Tim Ryan. And furious at Ryan for totally fucking his own campaign up.
NotMax
Going after Purina next by spreading rumors about the ingredients of Puppy Chow?
//
charon
The message is very simple, very clear: “Do not mess with us, be afraid of us.” Enough of the Republicans in the HOR have gotten the message, they do whatever the Boss, Donald Trump, wants.
Don’t pass legislation, they don’t. Attach a rider to a bill, yes sir boss.
After all, they would rather not have what happened to Paul Pelosi happen to them. They noticed the mob chasing Mike Pence yelling “Hang Mike Pence,” that’s not for them.
Actually there is a secondary message also though – “Facts don’t matter, truth doesn’t matter.” This works better with the claims continuing after exposure to be lies.
R-Jud
Absolutely perfect distillation of the man: “Trump is not a big believer in consequences, but has a capacious and lazily brutal affinity for vengeance; he lives, fuming and dead fucking serious, within the Mel Brooks joke that ‘tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.'”
Baud
Via reddit
Shalimar
@Mai Naem mobile: But the woman whose cat disappeared didn’t call Vance’s office. She accused her neighbors of taking it and called the police to file a report. Then Vance’s office got that report and turned it over to reporters as if it proved his accusations, at which point the reporters called the woman and found out that her cat had been found in the basement a few days later and she had apologized to the neighbors for being a raving lunatic.
She’s still a loon. Still wearing Trump paraphernalia when she talked to a reporter despite knowing they are lying about her story. But even loons aren’t as callously horrible as JD Vance.
charon
Trump is clearly demented and clearly cratering fast, but that has not lessened anyone’s fear of him in the slightest, or anyone’s desire to suck up to him either.
Maybe losing the election might help, I hope so.
Baud
OT comments are pretty funny
satby
@R-Jud: Agree. And this too is a perfect summation of his supporters:
Chief Oshkosh
@satby: This reminds me of some of HST’s writings.
Chris T.
@Shalimar:
I think your snarkometer is out of whack (though only Shalimar can say for sure).
HinTN
@satby: @R-Jud:
The man clearly has the eye and took to heart the writing of Hunter S Thompson. FSM help us but this reminds me of the time between the peaceful Moratorium Match Against the (Vietnam) War in Autumn and the inevitable violent May Day event where we canne KNOWING there would be trouble from Nixon’s goons and we came because We.Had.To.
HinTN
@satby: @R-Jud:
The man clearly has the eye and took to heart the writing of Hunter S Thompson. FSM help us but this reminds me of the time between the peaceful Moratorium Match Against the (Vietnam) War in Autumn and the inevitable violent May Day event where we canne KNOWING there would be trouble from Nixon’s goons and we came because We.Had.To.
Odd courser I had to be too long winded and @Chief Oshkosh: got right to it.
HinTN
Sorry for the double comment. I’ll explain to WG later.
Shalimar
@Chris T.: probably
satby
@Chief Oshkosh: it’s a tour de force in political writing, for sure.
p.a.
Always a warm cuddly feeling knowing a considerable %age of our fellow citizens are trash.
NotMax
@Chief Oshkosh
Truman?
;)
Mai Naem mobile
@Shalimar: i read about the background of the story but why does the media report it for days and days before debunking it. Doesn’t the story sound crazy to the average reporter? Does nobody stop and say, hey, this is stupid and makes no sense?
Vance is a POS and I have no idea why Usha Vance stays married to this POS. His response to the Loomer’s WH smelling like curry comment alone should have had a response from his wife. Your response is to dog whistle a fried chicken comment? Really? GFY Jethro Dull.
Ten Bears
People that bob the pipes on their motorcycles will tell you that “loud pipes save lives.” Take it from an old, tattooed, pony-tailed motorcycle enthusiast: bull shit*
The monkey in front of, or coming at from someone’s blind-side, talkin’ on the cell with the air conditioning and radio going full bore isn’t going to hear what’s comin’ out their ass ~ they’re just being rude assholes, annoying everyone else
There is that whole Fascism creeping in the back door thing, ten steps fourteen characteristics, each step ever so slightly more egregious than the last overlooked ever so slightly more egregious than the last (links at my house, which send my comments into the ether here) … but really, that’s a little too complicated for most
They’re just bobbing their pipes to be assholes, and there lay the metaphor
Trump and the Traitor Trash are just doing it to be assholes, annoy us
*And it makes you bike run like shit …
Manyakitty
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: fact
Manyakitty
@Baud: good. Even though they probably won’t do it, I’d love to see a bunch of felon and couch boy voodoo dolls stuck with all the pins.
TBone
@Baud: first thing I noticed: they’re all women standing by their banner. Thanks for sharing that symbol of courage and resistance.
Birdie
I’m stuck on the “highlighting the suffering of the American people” part. It’s just so whiny and melodramatic. Like, what suffering? There are people who are actually doing it tough in this economy, but Trump’s constituency is affluent small business owners, they aren’t “suffering”.
It honestly sounds like the kind of phrase a teenager would practice in front of a mirror in their room before screaming at their parents. Maybe JD will grace us with a “I wish you were dead!” before all this is over.
TBone
I woke up today thinking about the Revolutionary War reenactments I participated in as a young, teenaged kitchen wench at the Colonial Plantation. I don’t know if I dreamed about that time in my young life last night, but my first conscious thoughts today were those memories. I was on the side of the colonists and the Redcoats had a helluva time trying to catch me and put me into ankle irons. I was fast when young (granddad the track coach taught me well). But catch me they finally did. Forced me to cook for their invading army. I think those ankle irons are a kind of a symbol for what women face today (state sanctioned murder by religious zealots).
Suzanne
I think Vance is slightly different than this. The “Know Your Enemy” guys did a deep dive on Hillbilly Elegy (which I haven’t read). They noted that there is this lifelong theme for Vance of trying to ingratiate himself to whichever man his mom was with at the time. He would try to take on their interests and hobbies, and basically be a huge suck-up. This is understandable for a kid from a fucked-up home, but to continue it as an adult is evidence that there is no core belief there. Vance doesn’t have core beliefs, he doesn’t have moral themes throughout his life. He hasn’t always wanted rich-guy tax cuts.
But he’s always wanted to be loved by a daddy!
TBone
@Baud: 😆 oh dear Lort
I used to offend as many RWNJ people as possible on Fascistbook with a meme of Jaysus getting “nailed” on the cross by Roman soldiers if they dared to come on my page to argue. Even by my standards, it was outrageous. The meltdowns were epic.
Suzanne
@Mai Naem mobile:
Because she’s also a social-climbing POS?
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Great. He’s wants a Daddy to love him, and he hates his Mom/women.
TBone
@HinTN: thank you for your service.
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax: Sorry; Hunter S. Thompson.
TBone
@Mai Naem mobile: chef’s kiss
Suzanne
Vance reminds me of this dude I knew in high school. We used to be friends before I realized he was a terrible person. He grew up in a non-religious household, but our community was heavily LDS, and he joined the LDS Church in high school. Was secretly gay, though some of us knew and kept it quiet. He basically dropped the Church and most of his LDS friends the moment we graduated and went to college. He apparently always thought the religion was nonsense but he saw it as high-status. Subsequent events demonstrated that he just….. really wants to be popular and well-liked, and he treats people as if they are stairsteps to his popularity. He will take on whatever the people around him take on.
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack:
Yes.
And I will note….. though his mom was unquestionably messed up and his home life obviously wasn’t stable….. his mom and grandmother were at least there.
raven
@HinTN: I’m reading “May Day 1971” and there is so much I didn’t know even though I was there for Operation Dewey Canyon III.
TBone
@raven: thanks for hipping me about that FTA documentary with Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda, et al. I wish I could have watched it with my stepdad who added his fuel to the fire in my belly. I was born with that fire but he recognized and channeled it. As best he could.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Obviously (to him) if they had fulfilled their destined role as nurturers properly his father would have stayed and then his life would have been perfect. See? Mom’s fault. Isn’t it always?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: morning 🌅
Shalimar
@Mai Naem mobile: Usha Vance is royalty, and royalty doesn’t care how the rabble is treated or insulted. From what little I know about her, it sounds like she is even more of a POS than he is. She helped mold him into the cosplay rage muppet he is today.
I agree with you completely about all of this.
raven
@TBone: Ah, glad to do it!
TBone
@raven: 💙
Anyway
Curious — any cite for this?
TBone
@Anyway: um, elite law school, clerking for elite judge, married to vulture capitalist?
TBone
@Suzanne: Vance’s human skin suit, though ill-fitting, is so easily metamorphed that you have to wonder what supports that exoskeleton. Like, what is the structure? Dollars fold.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Hot fetid air.
JoyceH
@Baud: I saw that earlier and am frankly baffled as to what the plot would be for a sequel. Granted, I never saw the original movie, but it was my understanding that they pretty much wrapped up the earthbound portion of the story – so assuming Christ is the lead, what exactly is he going to be doing? Lounging on clouds like Endora in Bewitched, gossiping cattily about his disciples’ progress at founding a new religion?
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 👍 makes sense. Good morning!
TBone
@JoyceH: I predict that they will present a dystopian future war somehow and that Jaysus will win it for the U.S.
TBone
Another good cartoon (use ad blocker if you get inundated at sites like this):
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/09/woman-wave
Blurb:
On my first thoughts today theme!
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Good morning from Chicago-land, where the sun is just now just turning the sky orange and the air smells like fall 🍂🍁
JWR
@Suzanne:
From Daily Kos Youtube:
So yeah, Vance got what he was after, or so he thought. Thing is, he’s confusing being needed with being used.
MagdaInBlack
@JoyceH: I suppose we would get to see the part where he is resurrected and spends some time with his old crew.
Kay
I worked at the headquarters last night. I think D turnout is going to exceed expectations. I can do a real comparison since I’ve worked the last push before the election in this county since Bush/Gore. The energy is higher than at any time other than 2008.
We have the potential to have a really good election night. Not Obama 08 level but we could surprise the Nates :)
Baud
@Kay:
👍
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Said in an American context. Sigh. It’s not like we don’t have a long, sad history of that (Tulsa for example) but the fact it’s being promoted by one of the two mainstream (I use that term loosely irt the anthrax-and-tire-rims party) parties during a presidential election is beyond awful.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 😊 we’re still having an Indian Summer after the crisp Fall mornings dissipate here. It’s like standing with one foot in each season. The
fullwaning gibbous moon only just disappeared (it may still be visible but hiding behind one of the clouds in an otherwise blue sky).David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Baud
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch:
👍
K-Mo
@Suzanne: This is about where I am at re both Vance’s. I haven’t read Hillbilly Elegy and I don’t plan on it. I don’t really care why these people are the way they are, I just want to keep them out of power. If I had to guess I’d say they are weak people who have little personal integrity and have followed along as a right wing rewards structure nurtured their worst impulses. But at this point it doesn’t matter.
Baud
@Kay:
I hope Nate loses his shirt.
Kay
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch:
I’m ordering more yard signs, which I didn’t expect to have to do.
She won’t carry Ohio but maybe we can get Sherrod and Marcy Kaptur over the line on Harris coattails. Kaptur’s opponent is a(nother) religious nut who hates women.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Thanks for the good news this early morning.
Hildebrand
@JoyceH: I have the sinking feeling they will either try to do the mostly extra-canonical harrowing of hell, or find a way to bend the book of Revelation into some kind of massive action film with Malibu Jesus at the forefront of some cosmic battle.
Of course, their reading of Revelation will be as incorrect as their handling of the passion narrative, but why start sticking to the texts now.
Kay
Yard signs are the bane of my existence. I hate them. Never once have I called it right – I always have too many where I have to throw some out or not enough so everyone bitches incessantly.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Morning Joe had an appropriate observation, saying FTFNYT is the Baghdad Bob of polling for Dump.
Its true, when you go through the internal numbers its over sampling in Dumps favor.
Baud
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch:
But that good PA poll you just posted is NYT, no?
I’m not going to guess at what the correct sample is.
Baud
@Hildebrand:
Maybe they’ll portray the anti-tax, pro-gun Jesus right wingers believe in.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Baud: Which means she’s winning even in a notorious polling outfit that is slanted against her.
TBone
🔔Your daily reminder that John Roberts is a fucked up dickhead of a Manchurian Candidate. Presidents are NOT sposedta be kings! And the timing…JFC.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/supreme-court-trump-immunity-impeachment-rcna160171
Balls and strikes.
Hildebrand
@Baud: Certainly not the brown Jewish radical from Palestine who talked about loving your neighbor and serving others – that guy is a dirty communist.
TBone
@Kay: that’s why I purchased a 7′ tall inflatable Gritty that glows in the dark. It’s just right with my minimalist sensibilities (3) yard signs, illuminating them at all times.
Splitting Image
@JoyceH:
It will be a remake of Harvey, with Jesus as a 6’3″ rabbit who appears to the truly devout over the centuries, like Joan of Arc and Donald Trump, encouraging them to preach the truth to a world of unbelievers.
TBone
@Hildebrand: and he gave away healthcare FOR FREE!
TBone
@Splitting Image: 😆
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Not as long as Thiel’s money is around.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
Roberts is the foulest of balls.
sdhays
@Baud: As well as his shit.
SFAW
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
If there were any justice in the world, they each/both would have been smooshed by falling 16-ton weights.
Ken
@Hildebrand: The title is “The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection” so I would guess it’s going to be “based” on those stories — Mary Magdalene and the gardener, doubting Thomas, and a few other appearances.
Since it’s Gibson again, I would expect a lot of depictions of the wounds, and possibly that weird scene (which I think is extra-biblical but is in a lot of Catholic artwork) where Jesus opens up his chest to show his beating heart.
Oooh, now that would be a writing challenge — a sequel to The Last Temptation of Christ. (I have wondered if Kazantzakis read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” before writing that.)
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: 💙👍
Anyway
@TBone: that’s not royal. Words have meaninb
BlueGuitarist
Love all y”all
TBone
@Anyway: when spelled correctly. 😁
Just ask John Roberts!
A rose, by any other name…
Leto
@TBone: wait, wait, wait… where did you get this glorious Gritty?
chemiclord
@Mai Naem mobile: The goal of our current journalistic medium is to be the first with a story. They always feel they can make a half-hearted correction later.
We, as a society, repeatedly reward that philosophy. Our clicks and views are always centered on who “gets the scoop,” not with who gets it right.
TBone
@Leto: EDITED for correct website
https://shop.nhl.com/philadelphia-flyers/lawn-and-outdoors/philadelphia-flyers-gritty-inflatable-mascot/t-36489607+d-83000605+f-25908478+z-8-3181057081
Baud
@chemiclord:
It would be less bad if they treated the original lie as a big scandal that they uncovered. They only do that for Dems and often invent the original lie to boot.
Soprano2
@Kay: I don’t normally read Fox News, but I got a notification for this story on my phone so I looked at it. Evidently some person named Evan Barker, a Democratic fundraiser, was so disillusioned by the “glitz and glamour” at the Democratic convention that she’s “divorcing” the party. She does admit that the Republicans are probably just as bad, but they aren’t as hypocritical about it. “Democrats were having fun, and are completely unaware of the problems of the average person”, she wails. “They were touting the endorsement of Dick Cheney”, she moans. “We had to coddle big donors”, she complains. (Never mind looking at how wide the Harris coalition is, or how much R’s suck up to big donors.) I find all of this disingenuous – she says she was a fundraiser for the Obama campaign, but she never saw any of this stuff until last month at the Democratic convention? I find that hard to believe. She sounds like a young person who becomes disillusioned when they find out being an adult doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. The truth is probably that she was kind of conservative all along, and now the Democratic Party is too liberal for her, but rather than saying that she did this instead.
Leto
@TBone: I’ll definitely take a look around for one. Halloween is right around the corner, but it’s also be a great early Christmas present for Avalune.
Soprano2
@TBone: We’re still having summer here – highs in the high 80’s/low 90’s this weekend, but hopefully it is also supposed to rain. It’s starting to look like the beginning of a drought here.
Baud
@Soprano2:
There are always several of these “The party left me” testimonials out there, and they all get wide circulation in the media. People leave us for all kinds of reasons, but it’s always our fault.
TBone
@Leto: see my comment at #90 which I fixed – link takes you right to it.
Product ID: 3669498
Brand: Logo Brands
Imported
Includes low-voltage fan, LED lights, stakes and tethers
Measures approx. 7′ tall fully inflated
Self-inflating design
Sublimated graphics
Material: 100% Nylon
Officially licensed
Soprano2
@Kay: I read this column by Amanda Marcotte this morning, where she talks about the two deaths of women Pro Publica wrote about. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to find that all the anti-abortion people are blaming the women for their own deaths; if only they hadn’t taken those abortion pills, they’d still be alive. It’s not the fault of the laws that prevented the doctor from treating them, it’s their own fault. Women-haters, the lot of them.
TBone
@Soprano2: I hope you get the desired amount of precipitation!
TBone
@Soprano2: this is why Jesus’s middle name is Fucking.
Suzanne
@K-Mo:
Agree 100%.
Tom Nichols was asserting on Xhitter, and I am paraphrasing here….. that basically a lot of liberals believe that “civics education” would fix a lot of our broken politics, and he thinks that’s a whole pile of cope. I am sad to say that I agree with this. These aren’t people who misunderstand our great system of government or our history. These are bad people and they hate many of their fellow Americans, and they want to use government power to humiliate and denigrate the people they hate.
The Vances are terrible people.
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, this just sounded particularly disingenuous. She’s been a Democratic fundraiser since Obama ran but she just now noticed that the convention is actually a big party for mostly the movers and shakers? Really? It sounds like she’s actually been going that way for awhile.
Suzanne
@TBone: Jesus’ middle name is Hussein.
TBone
@Suzanne: 😆
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Geez, I would settle for people understanding that there isn’t one big amorphous thing called “government”. I’ve seen letters to the editor saying that the local government utility company that has a big surplus should give their surplus to the public schools that need money! People think all their taxes go into one big pile and are then distributed. Many of them have no idea that different governments do different things, and no they can’t give each other money.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
Which was ridiculous from the get-go: district court judges call balls and strikes. SCOTUS gets the cases where the location and shape of the strike zone are up for grabs.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Not surprisingly, Nichols gets a tiny bit of something correct but is wrong on the rest.
Civics education would be no silver bullet, that much is right. But getting a strong civics edumacation back into the school system is still very important. It’s not gonna change the haters but what it will do is inform *everybody else* better so that they know when to spot some of the bullshit, or ask informed, intelligent questions instead of just not knowing how things work.
Getting some people past Soprano2’s characterization of how far too many people (alas) look at gubmint as one big blob would help. Civics education is critical to that.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Just because many people are bad (and education won’t fix that)….. is not to say that many people are not also stupid.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: 👍
Except one instance (of a few) when I was a Defendant. Shackled and cuffed and sitting in front of Magisterial District Justice for allegedly punching a cop (I was trying to get out of the ambulance they were stuffing me into against my will), he went above and beyond on a Sunday early morning. Way beyond. My bail amount was a lot larger than Dumbvict’s. Luckily, I had the money and got it all back. Only spent two days in prison, but I got COVID while inside or soon thereafter from my P.O. There was no “ten percent” either. He ruled full amount cash bail.
Infamous Luzerne County, PA which wasn’t even the correct jurisdiction.
https://www.luzernecounty.org/177/Correctional-Facility
Lookit the picture of the prison, it’s nightmare fuel.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: agree very hard
Frankensteinbeck
This is a pretty good analysis. It leaves out that Vance and Trump are racist as shit, so exactly this kind of rumor is the kind of thing they believe automatically, but it still works and it’s all well stated. I thought the insight that people who yearn in their hearts to be assholes see Trump get away with it and are inspired to try the same was particularly wise.
charon
Long piece by Thomas Zimmer, who is always insightful.
A few excerpts:
“ThomasZimmer”
snip …
snip …
snip …
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I will also note that I am skeptical that any sort of formal class on how government works would be broadly effective. First of all, most places actually do require some civics education for graduation. (39 states require at least half a school year as a stand-alone class, and all states have at least some civics education as part of their social studies curriculum.) I’m sure many people regard this the way they do trigonometry: how much attention did most people pay to that? How many 40-year-olds could do more than recite the Pythagorean theorem?
I think the people that say dumb things like that just find government annoying — frustrating, inefficient — and they perceive it as intrusive. And their dumb statements are really just expressions of contempt.
For many people, their closest personal experience with government is the DMV, and they extrapolate that it works that way at every level.
TBone
Antidote time!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CvQhTbCY4xc&feature=youtu.be
TBone
Another mood lifter for morning consumption!
https://x.com/maddenifico/status/1834274585836949875
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I don’t think it’s that they’re stupid, it’s that they’re uninformed. When you don’t deal with things regularly, there’s a lot you don’t know about them. For example, some roads in our city are actually state owned and state maintained – mostly the major ones. I guarantee you most people have no idea about this, so they call us when they should call the state and vice versa. I got a call once that was literally “I saw a white truck at the intersection of x and y streets, what is it doing”? No truck number, didn’t know what logo was on the truck, just “what was it doing?” That’s a crazy request, but people who think government is one amorphous blob think we all know about everything that’s happening.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: I think they’re informed, or at the very least, they’re easily able to be informed and they choose not to be informed, because they mostly don’t genuinely care. None of this information is difficult to find.
We have the greatest information delivery tool in human history sitting in most Americans’ pockets. At this point, if there’s something basic that someone doesn’t know…. that’s because they don’t want to know. It’s not because someone wasn’t telling them.
Torrey
@Suzanne:
One likely source of the H in Jesus H. Christ is that it stands for the Greek word for “the.” So–fun fact–Jesus and Winnie-the-Pooh have the same middle name.
Torrey
@Soprano2:
@Baud:
I agree. But she’s also a fundraiser, which means that she needs to compete in a highly crowded field of people who are fundraising for Harris/Walz. She might be making a move for professional reasons: possibly it’s easier to get a high-paying job fund-raising for Republicans right now, especially with an “I used to be a Democratic fundraiser” backstory.
Kosh III
“If there were any justice in the world”
Kamala would be Sansa Stark and Trump, Vance, McConnell, Johnson, Blackburn, etc etc etc would be Ramsey Bolton.
Mike in Pasadena
The Wall Street Journal, that lie-beral media outlet, sends a reporter to the actual originator of the story, Anna Kilgore, and confirms the cat, Miss Sassy, is back uneaten and not still missing. Miss Sassy, turned up back home on her own. This all happened back in August, but humpty dumpty and his courtier, prince Shady Vance, run with the story anyway in a mid-September debate. “They’re eating the dawgs!” shouts dumpty. “They’re eating the dogs!” The rest is blather to be repeated again and again, never to be retracted and then defended as a created story because reasons. Have you no shame? Answer, no dumpty and Shady are proud of their lies.
TBone
@Torrey: 😍📢
I get warm all over just thinking that 😆
kindness
I wonder if Amy Chua is proud of her student Vance. Sadly I suspect she feels Vance is quite a notch in her belt.
brantl
@Suzanne: WE HAVE A WINNER!
West of the Rockies
@NotMax:
Post-birth abortion babies (executed!)… blue-eyed blonde ones!
thalarctosMaritimus
@Suzanne: I always heard it was “Haploid”.
rekoob
@Torrey: That was a great Paula Poundstone joke: What do Winnie-the-Pooh, Mack-the-Knife, and Attila-the-Hun have in common? Same middle name.
Tehanu
My dad told me when I was about 8 not to believe everything I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. Dump is 77 years old.