Welcome to Just Say No to Gaslighting!
Episode 1: Sometimes a Nazi salute is just a Nazi salute, no matter who says it’s not.
h/t for the image from the person who sent it to me this morning, but didn’t include their nym.
In spite of the “oh so friendly” look on the muskrat’s face, he was not actually waving to people in the audience.
h/t Starfish
Can we talk for a minute about all the ways we can fight the perpetual gaslighting that will be an everyday occurrence for the foreseeable future?
If there are 50 ways to leave your lover, surely there must be at least 50 ways to call out and fight the gaslighting.
I’ll get us started.
We can share that image far and wide on social media.
We can take note of who our allies are.
Beyond thrilled to have Rep. Crockett and our incredible new subcommittee Ranking Members alongside me
as we hold Donald Trump accountable, defend our democracy, and protect the rights and freedoms we all hold dear as Americans.This team is more than ready to fight the good fight.
— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@gerryconnolly.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 3:56 PM
As we look around for allies, let’s not get distracted by the ways in which our allies are not perfect.
E.
The BlueSky app pulled up Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett as the first hit at “ja” when I searched for her just now. I guess the algorithm already has my number.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The “Pet Marco Rubio” measurement on the scale is a very nice touch.
The fact that he’s now Sec of State Marco Rubio are 4 words I’d never thought I’d type…and he’s probably the least damaging of the lot in the Kabinet Klown Kar.
different-church-lady
Repeating my rants on this topic from downstairs:
******************
So here you go:
Everyone can fuck off with the sanewashing. Dude was acting plenty Nazi before the heiled.
*******************
[Musk appears on TV with a swastika arm band]
MEDIA: “Awkward choice of wardrobe from Musk raises questions about autism”
*******************
They really are incapable of processing what’s happening. Of course it doesn’t make sense to you because you still think most everyone would see Nazi behavior as repulsive, and that’s no longer true. They’re not at all keeping up with what’s happening to our society. Just raw denial.
***********************
NARRATOR: “Nobody called for an explanation from Musk.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Yup. We all know what we saw. The one thing I hate about generative AI, aside from it essentially being theft because of it being trained on human work, is that it’s existence makes it more difficult for people to believe in a shared objective reality. Some of Musk’s fans were claiming AI faked Muskrat’s Nazi salute
Then again, even before the tech existed, people still called things like this “fake news”
Old Man Shadow
It’s pretty obvious he is a Nazi and he no longer feels like he needs to keep ip pretenses any longer.
Not that he was trying that hard to begin with.
NotMax
Don’t care to stain the start of a fresh day talking/thinking about Nazis.
Morning linger over that first mug o’ java watch: teeny tiny tech.
Why Are Scientists Making Robot Insects?
;)
Llelldorin
That last sentence is key. Murc’s Law lives in us all — it’s hard not to fall into “Why Didn’t The Democrats Save Us From This??” thinking.
I have a simple red line — are you proposing to abandon someone who needs help as a way out of this? If not, welcome to the coalition.
Belafon
It’s ok to wonder if that new ally is actually going to work against you or has a past that will hurt your cause. Just don’t expect them to be you.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
A quip I provided yesterday that’s apparently never gonna become dated:
Elon Musk has gone from being the Henry Ford of our time to being the Henry Ford of our time.
Belafon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Had he done that 15 years ago, half of the people who saw the video would have disagreed that it was the actual salute or that it was on purpose.
Leto
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: well when you’re confirmed 99 to 0, w/ 1 abstaining… really goes to show how “tough” that questioning was. Really holding these people to account.
This is for Betty Cracker:
Anyways, similar meme to the one WG posted.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Looking at the withdrawal from the WHO, the shuttering of CDC health alerts … I feel selfish for feeling glad that I’m not dependent on United States government infrastructure at the moment.
Also, Elon Musk is now my poster child for the saying “don’t punch Nazis; use a baseball bat instead”. And comparisons to Wehrner von Braun are unfair to the latter.
And in regards to your last, WaterGirl: to misquote or mistranslate Voltaire, “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
WTFGhost
Don’t be afraid to laugh, when appropriate, with a “sure, sure, pull the other one, it’s got bells on!” when someone says something stupid, and if they demand more of your time, explain that your time is very valuable, and if you want to spend it surrounded by BS, you’d work in a gardening center.
Don’t be polite; polite people don’t make the right kind of history. But don’t be too nasty, just, “oh, go on, you say that like you believe it, haw haw.” Polite people don’t say “oh, it’s so *funny* that you believe that!” so, that’s the only rule of politeness I’m asking you to violate.
Call out any news media (whether you watch or care about it or not) that you can for bullcrap headlines and story slants. Maybe start a network of people who will bounce ideas around and make the same basic complaint, all worded as per their own voice. The goal is to get volume, so you don’t want to try to Cry Wolf unless there’s a big, clear, easy-to-spot, wolf that everyone is willing to chase off. You don’t need thousands of complaints on *every* story, but if you can get thousands of complaints on *a* story, then people worry that you might get thousands on *another*, and that’s how you try to move the needle.
As for dealing with rude gaslighters, who won’t go away, Paul Simon did have some advice.
Just slip out the back, Jack,
Make a new plan, Stan,
Y’don’t need to be coy, Roy, just listen to me.
Hop on the bus, Gus
you don’t need to discuss (much?)
Just hope off the key Lee,
And get yourself free
Maybe we could make it less sexist?
Just flit like a fairy, Mary
Y’ain’t being a bitch, Mitch,
Just hop off the key, Lee….
different-church-lady
As harsh as this is, we really need to stop deluding ourselves that people will be disgusted by all this. There are some very ugly changes in the fundamental assumptions of our society. If we keep counting on the old rules of conduct we’re just resigning ourselves to being passive.
Not that I have the answers. But we can’t comfort ourselves with the idea that there’s a bridge too far that they’ll eventually cross, and they’re quite close to it, and that will break the spell. Disgusting is popular with half the country. We need to figure out how to address that.
TBone
Me, on my way to the vet hospital, in a funked up low rider
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8TkpolQKie8
Also AOC short video captures the Antifa mood
https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3lgcfqzjipl2a
Chief Oshkosh
The Federal Hiring Freeze from Jan 20 is much, much more horrible than people seem to understand. This truly weakens the country, not just the federal government. It’s not like everything goes back to normal at the end of 90 days, which is when DOGE (!) is supposed announce its “plan” for efficiencies going forward. This is the sort of stupidity that will affect the country for years, even if all that happens is resumption of previous activities.
pajaro
I hope that people will remember that Democrats in Congress ran and got elected promising they would work to improve the lives of their constituents. That means that there will be times that they actually vote or even work with Republicans. It doesn’t mean that they fail to understand the dangers of MAGA rule, or are making a fetish out of bipartisanship.
Starfish (she/her)
AOC clapped back at the ADL. (That’s an X link for people who don’t want to give Elon the click.)
Soprano2
I saw a post somewhere with what Musk did and Hitler doing the Nazi salute; they were literally the same. This is the kind of thing that can illustrate to ordinary people what he was doing in a way that’s harder to deny.
I don’t know if I’d say half, but it’s a significant amount of people. I had someone tell me a long time ago that she thought FFOTUS was kind of “naughty”, and she giggled when she said it, she thought it was funny and cute. Those are the type of people you’re talking about, they want do to things like openly make fun of disabled people. Those are the ones who weren’t at all offended by FFOTUS doing that, because they want to do it too. (ETA – she unfriended me after the 2016 election because I made it clear how I felt about FFOTUS, I haven’t seen her since.) Those people have always been there, but it used to be socially acceptable to be like that. I think the true believers are almost unreachable; I concentrate my efforts on “normies” who would still be offended at the idea that Musk is a Nazi. People who have supported FFOTUS all this time won’t be offended by that at all, but the ones who think he’s going to bring down grocery prices might still be appalled.
Kay
Look at this:
The WSJ editorial page is tougher on Trump than either the NYTimes or WaPo. The headline to the op ed is “Trump Pardons Cop Beaters”.
Lovely people Trump put back on the street, btw. Here’s one of his violent thugs, bragging:
Suzanne
There’s a rumor going around X that one of the Dem senators is going to switch parties next week. Apparently some anonymous tip by a staffer.
As I noted in the previous thread, I try to be a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” person. So…. fingers crossed that it is an unfounded rumor.
LAC
@Chief Oshkosh: Thank you for stating this. Along with all the other bad news we had to sift through during our morning meetings, this will impact our workforce. But what do we know, right?
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Least obviously damaging, three days in.
The only thing I trust these guys to do IS to fuck shit up.
Kay
It’s definitely a Hitler salute, but IMO Trump/Musk are doing much worse things than showing off for media/their base. Musk is a poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boy. He’s a vapid, shallow celebrity who has never once been told “no”. He seeks attention and he’s dumb and a bore so the only way he gets it is negative attention. Just like his co President.
Quinerly
“The texts and songs revolved around themes of compassion and togetherness, including a reading from Deuteronomy 10:17-21, which speaks of taking care of orphans and widows and all who are in need.”
Trump is demanding Bishop Budde apologize.
Rev Jeffress saying, “Budde insulted rather than encouraged our great president” and that “there was palpable disgust in the audience with her words.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-inaugural-prayer-service-washington-national-cathedral-interfaith-a95b36f962be93c8647cc5144266da11
Read elsewhere that the GA Congressman who authored Laken Reilly Act wants Budde deported
I guess the whining is the point.
Professor Bigfoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): For the past hundred and fifty years or so, ordinary laypeople could generally depend on the accuracy of photographic evidence.
It was just too difficult to effectively mock up a photo.
Now every blockhead with a phone can do it, so something we’ve relied on for decades is now just as suspect as any politician’s speech.
the pollyanna from hell
@WTFGhost:
drop off the key, lee
Starfish (she/her)
Meanwhile, some news stations (Bluesky link) have taken it upon themselves to rewrite reality to make it look like what Musk was doing was innocuous.
Quinerly
@Suzanne:
Well, I can only think of one possibility.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Ooof. I saw Fetterman posed with a rioter, grinning, wearing hsi stupd working class cosplay costume. It’s such a betrayal of his colleagues. The rioters were walking the halls looking for female House members to kill. They were calling out the names of the women they planned to attack. He is just a gross person. It’s not really a big loss.
They must hate him. You also now understand why your governor, Shapiro, loathes him. That was probably a red flag we missed.
matt
I think it’s great – day three and they’re spending their time lying in support of a Nazi salute.
Soprano2
@Quinerly: They are the biggest snowflakes around. That they cannot stand to listen to even one thing they disagree with so much that they would whine publicly about it and demand an apology shows how weak they are. I hope she tells them to fuck themselves – politely, of course.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
Thsi is the kind of stuff Trump supporters revel in. They are delighted when liberals focus exclusively on their various outrageous attention getting bids. You won’t beat them this way. It simply doesn’t work.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: You are hoping the rumor is not true because we don’t want to look at Fetterman in his ugly hoodies as he is splashed across the news when he says, “Pay attention to meeeee.”
Kay
@matt:
And avoiding questions on the 700 violent offenders they put back on the streets.
Kay
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Starfish (she/her):
A great response to this I saw in that thread:
Censoring it is an admission
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
I hope that’s not true, too
gene108
@different-church-lady:
There have always been people who identified with racist shit. The powers that be proscribed guardrails on what’s acceptable and what won’t be tolerated.*
The difference between 2025 and the past is the literal richest person in the world is a Nazi and throwing his resources behind this. The second and third richest people are also joining the Trump coalition.
The entities with actual power, like social media companies, news organizations, etc. are lining up behind the Trump agenda and don’t feel fear about public pushback.
*In public.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chief Oshkosh:
I gots to disagree with this to a degree having lived thru many, many hiring freezes from 1985-2023.
Everything you say in terms of effect is true…but a 90-day freeze, compared to many in the past is pretty marginal. For example, Fucking Reagan loved him his hiring freezes:
https://www.govexec.com/federal-news/2004/06/reagan-remembered-for-hard-line-approach-on-personnel-issues/16906/
And yes, those kinds caused massive, long-term disruption to the federal workforce.
90 days is nothing. Alas, it could be a harbinger of things to come. Already the Orange Fart Cloud has signed EOs telling all remote employees to get back into the office:
https://www.kuaf.com/npr-news/2025-01-20/trump-seeks-to-end-telework-for-federal-workers
Kay
@Suzanne:
Maybe we can run Summer Lee against him when he switches. THAT would be fun. A real person versus this fucking manufactured cartoon character.
oldgold
Trumplethinskin’s thin skin was on display last night.
Yesterday, at the National Prayer Service, Bishop Mariann Budde delivered a message directly to Trump. In her prayer and sermon Bishop Budde encouraged him to be more compassionate and, in particular, to show mercy in dealing with the less fortunate, including immigrants.
Late last night on Truth Social Trump ranted against the Bishop Budde. He said, “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: What I posted is disconcerting because this is the “everyone is entitled to their own reality” stuff. We can’t manage in any real way when everyone feels entitled to their own reality.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Quinerly: I watched that service and it was awesome. At first I thought the service of prayer for the nation was a reaction to his inauguration. Turns out the National Cathedral has been doing a day-after-inauguration service since 1933. So he was invited and was expected to be there.
And in fact, much to my distress, there he was in the front pew.
But in fact I think it was a reaction. He was obligated to sit there for an interfaith service, listening to prayers in Hebrew and Arabic, talking about unity and love and taking care of the weakest. I was delighted to imagine how uncomfortable he must be to have to sit there for it. It would have been perfect if there had been a Mexican pastor delivering a message in Spanish, but we can’t have everything.
And at the end, that sermon from the bishop was (chef’s kiss). Directed directly and explicitly to an audience of one, nothing but a pure Christian message of love that was a dig at him with every word.
Service is here. Bishop’s message is about 1:33:10
Oh also the music was excellent. Music at the National Cathedral always is.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
It’s possible Fetterman didn’t know who he was, but yeah he hasn’t covered himself in glory. It’s not a good look at all
dc
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m not paying enough attention to all the nuts and assholes nominated for cabinet positions. I knew Rubio was nominated, has he been confirmed?
A Ghost to Most
Good morning, Gilead. Tired of the christian supremacists, yet?
Chief Oshkosh
@LAC: Yep. Just got out of a meeting with some feds that was…bonkers. My guesstimate is that this will be akin to the PATCO firings by Reagan, only on a grander. Some outcomes will be obvious and immediate. Others will last for years, if not decades, but will be more diffuse. And even informed people of goodwill will not understand why things are falling apart. Hell, I can’t keep track of the issues just on Day 2, and I’m in the middle of it all, somewhat informed.
Sorry to be such a downer, dudes and dudettes.
SiubhanDuinne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Brilliant. I’m spreading that one as far and wide as I can.
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Brilliant, and so true.
eclare
Colbert was en fuego on the Nazi salute last night.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Old Man Shadow: What is it with Nazis and rockets, anyway? You would think any of us with a clue would have placed Musk within a single von Braun of fascism the moment he announced SpaceX.
TONYG
@Kay: I agree with you that members of the Trump cult cannot, and will not be influenced by anything. They will never changed their minds. But I’m hoping that there are a significant number of people who voted for Trump in November who are not yet members of the cult, who are capable of responding to facts and logic. If not, then we’re all doomed.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This was posted and discussed in last night’s Cole Open Thread.
His office came out with a “We had no idea who this was” statement, that was it.
Assuming that’s true, my reaction is “Great, a US Senator adopting the Lando Calrissian School of Leadership”, ie. “It’s not my fault!”
His office could have come out with that statement and added to it “If we had known, the Senator wouldn’t have posed given the seriousness of the crime the man was charged with” or words to that effect. Reiterate no support for the J6 insurrectionists, etc.
But no, basically “It’s not my fault”. What. A. Maroon.
gene108
@Quinerly:
Punishing people who disagree is the point. There will be no dissent allowed.
Torrey
One thing I haven’t seen pointed out (although WaterGirl briefly referred to it above) is the expression on Musk’s face when he made the salute. That is not the expression of someone expressing thanks or any positive emotion. It looks like the upper teeth are holding the bottom lip and chin is tensed, corners of mouth down. I couldn’t find anything in Paul Ekman’s work about upper-teeth-holding-lower lip, but the general pattern is anger, disgust or fear. I’d like to see someone ask one of the people who study facial expressions for an analysis of that one. If someone looks at me with that facial expression, I see threat.
Chief Oshkosh
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Hope you’re right. I’ve been through freezes, too.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@oldgold:
It was a pretty standard sermon on love and charity. So of course they felt insulted by it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@dc:
See comment by Leto above, #11.
One massive face-palm moment.
matt
@Torrey: yeah – hateful gesture, face filled with hate. it’s very simple and direct. It makes the liars all the more ridiculous.
zhena gogolia
@pajaro: How dare you be reasonable?
moonbat
Somewhat encouraging, if only a little, is that they still feel they have to gaslight so as not to awaken that mushy middle of the population who voted party because they always had and just wanted inflation to go away.
I would add to WaterGirl’s last plea that attacking folks on our side/allies is risk-free. We, being the good guys, don’t retaliate on our critics in ways that can harm. That’s why so many indulge in it rather than criticize the enemy across the aisle, which actually does come with risk. We’re about to find out who is willing to take that risk and who is not.
One reason people found it so easy to attack Biden, and Carter before him, was that both were good men who would never use the power of their office against their opposition unlawfully. IOW, safe targets.
LAC
@Chief Oshkosh: No, its okay – that is the one thing about speaking with those in the fed sector, they get it. With the remote worker situation, the Schedule F situation, the threatened firing of DEI staff, and the hiring freeze, yeah, NOT MARGINAL!
zhena gogolia
@oldgold: That was a fantastic video. It reminded me of Christopher Lee’s Dracula recoiling when the cross is held up to his forehead.
Kay
@TONYG:
I think if you’re trying to reach Right leaning centrists you’ll get much more traction with Trump putting 700 violent offenders back on the street. They really are law and order. They think the liberal focus on symbols is stereotypical liberal behavior and not relevant to them and none of them believe Trump or Musk are anti Semites since Trump and Musk spend a lot of time calling liberals anti Semites.
Jeffro
@Kay: The WSJ editorial page is tougher on Trump than either the NYTimes or WaPo. The headline to the op ed is “Trump Pardons Cop Beaters”.
spot-on, WSJ! (eww…can’t believe I said that!)
I’m also wondering…where’s the coverage of the J6er who refused trumpov’s pardon? She has more moral character than all the GOP elected officials in the country put together.
I’ve seen next to nothing about it. Wouldn’t want folks to start getting ideas…
lowtechcyclist
@Quinerly:
If he doesn’t believe in democracy, then he might should self-deport. At the very least, he should resign immediately from Congress which is the embodiment of our representative democracy.
Starfish (she/her)
@Chief Oshkosh: Ooh. This is not good.
TBone
@Jeffro: good eye!
Jeffro
deleted (didn’t realize it went through the first time)
Chris Johnson
@Chief Oshkosh: Don’t sweat it. I’m just mad that someone’s able to tell him where to strike: impossible that he would know such things, this is coordinated. It damn sure ain’t the Musk Nazi wing so it’s the Russians who’ve worked out which bricks will bring the Jenga tower down. That was always the plan and I’m pissed off that they found the bricks they needed.
Take-away is, wonder why we’re suddenly shittier than Siberia? It’s not an accident. It was just war, and time we figured that out.
Phylllis
@Torrey: Isn’t there a photo of the assh*le with much the same expression? Not googling to try to find, but it (unfortunately) rings a bell.
WaterGirl
@Starfish (she/her): Exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote “no matter who” in the post. I just added a screen capture of that tweet up top. Thank you!
Chris Johnson
@TONYG: The only thing you can do is let them discover it, against a concerted effort to NOT ever let them discover it. I’m faced with that frequently, I know such people.
They thought they were helping.
woopsy.
TBone
@Quinerly: I got a fuckin’ apology for that fucking guy but if it came out I’d be quickly restrained.
Kay
@TONYG:
The anti Semite charge has become “no you’re the anti Semite!” by the Right (college students protesting against US I/P policy) and then “no, You’re the anti Semite!” (Musks embrace of Nazi far Right parties in the EU).
Right leaning people simply don’t think Trump is anti Semitic. It never stuck, partly because he’s been wholly embraced by Israel. He has like a 65% approval rating in Israel. He’s more popular there than anywhere else.
I propose we launch political attacks that have a chance of succeeding. This one doesnt.
WaterGirl
@Soprano2: If you find that image, please send me a link.
Kay
@Jeffro:
That’s always neat. A truly honest person. I’ve had really well raised juveniles plead when I could have taken it to hearing and won. Some people just have a lot of integrity. Its rare though :)
WaterGirl
@Kay: New rotating tag:
TBone
@Quinerly: I am now truly glad that the new church I chose for my return to any church is Episcopalian. Thank you for sharing that.
jimmiraybob
I googled “Nazi salute” videos and found modern NAZIs giving the exact same enthusiastic salute. The same. It is what it was.
Intentional or not, I attribute Musk’s NAZI salute to his overcharged enthusiastic state …. possibly enhanced by whatever drug concoction that he’d consumed that morning.
Just a week or two ago the German government called him out for his enthusiastic support of a German far-right (possible neoNAZI) German group.
Sometimes things really are as they appear.
Suzanne
@Kay: I have seen speculation that it would be Fetterman, but we know nothing at this point. All this is rumor.
As for Fetterman and his outlook toward women…. he’s supporting Hegseth for DoD and supports the Laken Riley Act, even though his wife was undocumented for a time. So.
Leto
@oldgold: For those that want to watch Bishop Budde’s speech to Trumpov, here you go. Sound icon bottom right, but also has subtitles.
TBone
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I love this so much.
different-church-lady
@TONYG:
That window is closing fast. And we need to figure out a way to deal with it.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: It’s waking like a duck, quacking like a duck, and wearing hoodies and shorts like a duck.
zhena gogolia
@Leto: It’s a great sermon. How dare she confront them with the words of Jesus of Nazareth? So nasty!
Kay
@WaterGirl:
I got off TikTok because its fascist now too. That was planned for them. I was getting so many notifications of replies to my MAGA trolling on TikTok my poor husbands worry lines got deeper. He thinks they’re all violent nutcases and frets about me.
MAGAs hate, hate, hate the jibe that they don’t know how to act in public. My most responded to comment was that they had weak fathers and that’s why they turned to Daddy Trump. I admit this was mean, but boy did it strike a nerve. I think its true too. I have three boys, now men. They all behave better than these people. They had a good role model.
jimmiraybob
And king cries out, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” And soon the priest was gone.
Kay
@Suzanne:
You know I love rumors, Suzanne. Rumors are the best. Bring all of them to me, please.
WaterGirl
@jimmiraybob: I have never been so enthusiastic about anything that I found myself accidentally and inadvertently throwing out my arm in a Nazi salute.
No excuses! A Nazi salute is a Nazi salute.
Professor Bigfoot
@pajaro: I think some of us want to fetishize “resistance” to be something like what Mitch McConnell and the GOP are doing when our goal isn’t power just for the sake of having power.
Besides— “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.”
Suzanne
@Kay: Rumors end up being true more often than I’d like, so I figure awareness is a good strategy.
Leto
@zhena gogolia: something I’ve found that both conservatives and fundies absolutely loathe, is the actual words of Jesus himself. They’ll attempt to spin it every other way, to put some horrible meaning onto it, instead of doing what they prescribe with most of the Bible: the plain words on the page. An “originalist” interpretation, if you will. /shrug.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Any speculation on who it might be?
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): See my comment above.
jimmiraybob
@WaterGirl:
When I reread what I posted it occurred to me that it could be read as dismissing his salute to mere “enthusiasm’ as some are doing. My intent was that his enthusiasm caused the mask to fall.
Yes, it was definitely a NAZI salute.
oldgold
Following the French Revolution, the Bourbons were briefly returned to power in 1814 when Louis the XVIII was placed on the throne.
It was an unmitigated disaster that was famously summed up by Talleyrand: “The Bourbons learned nothing and forgot nothing.”
Given our present circumstances, history might be doing more than rhyming.
dc
@Kay:
I love this!
Belafon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Go back a few threads and Cole points out that Fetterman didn’t know the guy because he was taking pictures with a bunch of people.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Oh geez. I’ll guess we’ll see what happens
zhena gogolia
@Leto: Absolutely.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chief Oshkosh:
Hiring freezes are presidential performative politics at their worst.
The remote work EO will take at least 2 years to implement fully because this clown has no idea what it will take to get people who’ve been working remotely for close to a decade now back into office space that no longer exists for them.
If I hadn’t retired at the end of 2023, I would have retired at the end of last year, post-election, knowing what might happen.
Good luck going forward.
zhena gogolia
@Leto: If Jesus Christ himself were standing there saying those things, Trump and his evil brood would have the same disgusted looks on their faces.
Tiffany with her blowout. Somehow she’s the one who gets to me the most.
Only Usha maintains some kind of human expression.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Torrey: That’s definitely F U Face.
japa21
There are already people who have said they regret voting for Trump, that they didn’t vote for stuff like this.
Excuse me? There is nothing he has done that he didn’t say he was going to do.
It reminds me of January and February 2017 when all the anti-Muslim EO’s came out. They had focus groups of Trump voters who said they didn’t believe him when he said he would do this stuff. They though it was normal campaign promising which never gets followed through on.
OT, I have a grandson who is going to school in Pensacola. He grew up in the Midwest and is having fun watching how the natives are dealing with the weather.
E.
Because I am determined never to learn any lesson, I am going to remain a Fetterman loyalist to the bitter end, but I feel we may be nearing the bitter end of that now. I am so disappointed.
One of the things that is so awful about all of this is my inability to construct a theory, really any theory, even a very poor theory, that describes what is happening to us. I have a friend who went from more or less sensible to a raving MAGA. Awake at night, trying to get it to make sense somehow, and it doesn’t, and the vertigo comes.
ExPatExDem
Agree fully with the premise.
A fascist salute isn’t a Rorshach test. It’s a fucking fascist salute.
Scout211
@Suzanne:
Fetterman denies he is switching parties.
John S.
@Leto:
Jesus warned about people pretending to be his followers at the Sermon on the Mount:
I don’t know who they think they’re fooling, but Jesus has their number.
ETA: The English word “prophet” comes from the Greek word prophetes which means “one who speaks forth”. So in context, Jesus is referring to anyone who claims to be a Christian and speak his word.
catclub
@Belafon: Except for the not wearing pants part. I still want to criticize that one.
zhena gogolia
@John S.: Every time she mentions Jesus, their faces pucker up (especially Vance).
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Is Fetterman actually supporting Hegseth? Hadn’t heard that. I know he met with him, which some Dems refused to do (wisely, IMO). Fetterman said he met with him because that’s his job, and okay, I’ll buy that. But supporting Hegseth, as in voting for him? If so, fuck that guy. He might as well switch parties if he votes to confirm that fascist, sexist, abusive, drunken swine.
catclub
2022 for me.
Yeah, I feel really bad for my younger co-workers who have to put up with this. When the administration level above us was good, that meant they were shielding us from all the crap raining down. Now there will be a whole lot more.
Jeffro
so true
also 110% true. weak fathers, toxic fathers, completely absent fathers…AND…zero reflection about it, zero desire to do better. Just them and their pain, teeing off on other people their whole lives
John S.
@zhena gogolia:
Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. By their fruit you will recognize them.
Ruviana
@zhena gogolia: Tiffany, like Barron, appears to have completely surrendered to the Trump cult. And her mother tried so hard to save her!
FelonyGovt
I was pleased to see that the two (avowedly unpolitical) sports teams Subreddits I follow are planning to ban links from Twitter. “We don’t support Nazis”.
Kay
@E.:
It happens to everyone. We’ve all backed people who turned out to be horrible. Its not a reflection on his supporters unless its revealed and they deny it or defend. IMO.
He’s kind of a lightweight anyway. Besides “legal weed, man” he’s not really a champion of any liberal policy issue.
Kay
@FelonyGovt:
Baud posted the IBEW Reddit page banning Twitter links. Good!
jimmiraybob
@zhena gogolia: “Every time she mentions Jesus, their faces pucker up (especially Vance).”
There is nothing that requires a president to place his hand on the Bible when being sworn in. Some do and some don’t Trump didn’t.
I have talked to a couple of UCC pastor friends and they agree that if anybody embodies the spirit of the antiChrist it’s Trump.
here we are. At the crossroads.
Jeffro
very true
because “feed the hungry, clothe the poor, visit the sick” is so very, very complicated (eyeroll)
no exceptions for immigrants either – what a left-wing loon!
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Bully parents teach their kids to be bullies and bullying is what they respond to positively.
It’s really amazed me how many of these mighty macho warriors regard abject submission to the biggest bully as a “masculine” thing. But I guess tyrannical dominance hierarchies are what they want. I wish they’d keep it as kink like a healthy person instead of imposing it on the world.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Fetterman was the sole Dem vote to get Hegseth’s nomination out of committee, apparently.
ETA: I am seeing conflicting reporting. Let me dig up the actual vote record.
Ramalama
Pep talk / song of hope from the Roches.
Jerks on the Loose.
“Nobody around here knows what happened to you
No one will ask you to explain
You have your arm around a drastic measure
All of your efforts down the drain…”
Kay
@Jeffro:
JD Vance and Trump, right? Absent and abusive fathers, respectively. Every accusation is a confession. Right wing families turn out shitty, immature, violent women-hating men and so media and Republicans launch a “liberals RUINED our BOYS” campaign. My boys are fine men. Theirs obviously arent. Have they considered poor parenting as a cause? They can break the cycle but not if they won’t admit it.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh:
GovExec.com has more on the hiring freeze, previous history, and the implications.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@E.: I relate to your comment about being bothered by an inability to construct a coherent theory to explain…all this. That used to drive me nuts too, and I got a preview of the national catastrophe by watching what happened in Florida.
What I’ve come to believe is that there is no neat explanation. There are many factors, some seemingly contradictory, that brought us here. So that means a way out, if one is still possible, will require action across multiple fronts.
Jeffro
agreed
If he votes for Hegseth (or Gabbard, or RFJ Jr, or Patel) I’d rather he switch than have a (D) next to his name. They’ll run some MAGA loon against him in the GOP primary next time around, or he’ll just go full MAGA – no great loss either way.
John S.
@Suzanne:
All 13 Democrats on the committee voted against Hegseth.
Link
billcoop4
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Budde was simply calling out the Sheep and Goats (from Matthew 25):
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”
And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”
Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?”
Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
The key to this depiction of the Last Judgement is its focus on NATIONS — this is not about individual piety or “virtue”.
BC
UncleEbeneezer
Someone on Bluesky noted that Musk targeted the ADL with months of millions of dollars of lawsuits recently. Which helps explain their dumb response. Still cowardly and sad though.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I was on a school committee about a decade ago and we put in an anti bullying policy. There were a group.of parents who objected – those horrible “beating the shit out of other people in school was ok in MY day!” people. What was sad for their kids is teachers told me some of the objectors kids were targets of bullies. They didn’t know their own kids were suffering.
ExPatExDem
@Jeffro: Evangelical Christianity is basically Christianity with all of the nice parts removed.
Talk of mercy, kindness, forgiveness, etc. brings out their fangs.
Suzanne
Vote record: Fetterman is the sole Dem to vote to advance Hegseth’s nomination.
Glory b
@Kay: Hey, Candidly tiff and I got dragged by lefties on X for saying that Conor Lamb, the regular Dem who managed to flip a very gerrymandered district blue, was the better candidate.
That they were so starry eyed because he wore shorts and hoodies (“he dresses just like we do! He’s sooo relatable!”), that they didn’t notice the black guy he pulled a gun on report that he was lying about the incident.
Once again, black people waving red flags, being ignored by lefties. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Suzanne
@John S.: I was mistaken about it being a committee vote, it was a roll call vote. See the link I just posted.
UncleEbeneezer
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
cain
@Kay: Will not be surprised if he switched parties.
Harrison Wesley
@Soprano2: “Bless your heart. Now take a flying fuck at a moving Ferris wheel.”
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: if Jesus even survived. I caught some flak on FB for saying the maga nativity shows baby Jesus in a cage, Mary is screaming and bloody, and Joseph was beaten and tased to death. Otherwise, miss me with that nonsense. Ooh, they did not care for it. Cry harder, you clueless fucks.
John S.
@Suzanne:
Yup, I was just looking at that. What a colossal disappointment Fetterman has turned out to be.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I’ve mentioned before that even a a little kid I noticed two distinct types of reaction among other little kids to being bullied: some kids became anti-bullying and some eagerly anticipated getting big enough to do the bullying.
I think parental behavior has a lot to do with it.
jimmiraybob
@billcoop4:
It’s my understanding that “nations,” as written in the Bible, means peoples, or, people groups.
artem1s
If it looks like a Nazi salute, and the user acts like a Nazi and sounds like a Nazi, it’s a Nazi salute.
Someone needs to instruct the new US Robber Baron Class how to do a proper royal wave if they are going to try to dog whistle their fascism in polite company
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Thanks. My guess is Fetterman will vote no on confirmation at the end of the week, but still, that sucks. It’s not even a hard decision if you discount the copious evidence that Hegseth is a problem drinker and a sex pest at best or a hardcore alcoholic and rapist at worse. Apart from the obvious character issues, he’s simply unqualified for an important job. No Democrat should have voted to advance him.
Ksmiami
@TONYG: I’m hoping bird flu wipes them out
John S.
@UncleEbeneezer:
Missed opportunity. They should have called it The Jerkoff.
rikyrah
No sane-washing a muthaphuckin’ NAZI SALUTE
billcoop4
Sure. It’s not about individuals. It’s about “people groups” or “peoples” … or as we would say in 2025, “nations”. As in the US of A.
BC
Quinerly
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I watched it too. I agree that it was excellent.
sixthdoctor
Posting a couple of links to interfaith and Christian groups that specifically call out Christian white nationalism in the US and may be useful resources:
The Interfaith Alliance – https://interfaithalliance.org/
Faithful America – https://faithfulamerica.org/
lowtechcyclist
@John S.:
And Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, says the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
These don’t exactly remind you of Trump or his followers, do they?
Harrison Wesley
@Suzanne: Fetterman not only comes from money, but IIRC he’s from York, which is pretty red. It sure isn’t Philly or the Iron City.
jimmiraybob
@Kay:
“‘beating the shit out of other people in school was ok in MY day!’ people.”
I grew up in the late 50s-early 60s. Bullying, and I mean violent, brutal physical beatings, was a norm in the hood – white kid on white kid violence. Nobody was doing anything about it. I finally figured out that the only alternative was fighting back.
The first time I threw a punch back I ended up bloodied and on the ground (which was the way it was headed anyway). Eventually I grew and my resistance grew stronger and they left me alone. It was very unfortunate for the next target. I learned my lessons about counter-bullying and it had nothing to do with a measured response. Going full Berserker often scared the shit out of them which shortened engagements.
I have used my hard won knowledge to step in to help others. That we are going backwards enrages me.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: … Anyway, I am skeptical that they didn’t know their own kids were suffering. They may have approved of the suffering.
Glory b
@Kay: Please note, the Gaza protests resulted in support for Israel INCREASING in the US.
Pissing off (see what I did there?l people who have to relieve themselves on the side of the road & are late for work (missing pay), blocking ambulances from transporting patients, destroying property, etc, turns out NOT to win hearts & minds! Who knew?
So, what was REALLY their goal?
Also, why did they change their name to “Abandon Harris” if they didn’t want Trump, who lifted Israeli sanctions yesterday, to win?
Doesn’t look like they thought this through.
After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, black people can’t rescue them from themselves anymore.
Peale
@Kay: They really do want boys to get beaten up and injured. I don’t know why that is, but it bothers them that there are so many boys who make it to adulthood without having suffered a broken limb.
It reminds me of that new story from about 5 years ago where in Louisana, public high school students were released for a field trip to some kind of Christian center so the girls could all be subjected to hours of videos of aborted fetuses and chastised for their sluttiness while the boys were all taken outside and forced to run around hazing. Yep, pretty much, this is what we’re signing up for on a national level.
What I don’t think I’m ever going to wrap my head around is that a majority of parents think “Well I didn’t get tetanus when I was a kid, but damn straight I want my boy to get it so he’ll grow up strong.” Its not just voting to restore things to the way that they were when you were a kid…its making things actually worse for your kids than you ever had it on purpose.
John S.
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m fairly certain the majority of MAGA folks possess none of those qualities.
Geminid
@Kay: People built a nationwide cult of personality around John Fetterman, and it manifested here. One sign was the vehemence of his defenders when someone argued that Conor Lamb would be a better candidate.
Now there’s a lot of buyer’s remorse, but not everyone bought into the Fetterman legend to begin with.
rikyrah
Apartheid Clyde is supporting the ACTUAL Nazi party in Germany…
but, we’re not supposed to think that was a Nazi salute.
GTFOH
ewrunning
So I see Drumpf was up at midnight posting on his hell site attacks on the Episcopal Bishop who asked him to be kind to immigrants and LGBTQ+ at the prayer service yesterday. No doubt his goons have already started with the death threats. I had been thinking we’d all be living in Texas for the next four years, but my wife points out it’s more like early 1980s El Salvador.
John S.
@Peale:
I used to believe the natural tendency for a parent was to want their children to do better than them. To be happier, more successful and avoid some of the mistakes that we made.
I’m not so sure I believe that anymore.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
And the left-wing lunacy in the Bible goes all the way back to the Torah. Why, here’s a quote from the tenth chapter of Deuteronomy:
“The Lord your God…secures justice for widows and orphans, and loves the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt.”
Moses was just too damn woke.
japa21
@John S.: Natural tendencies can be overcome quite easily.
Suzanne
@Peale:
It has a lot to do with homophobia. Losing fights, weakness, etc. is coded as gay.
Harrison Wesley
@Leto: “Jesus? Jesus of Nazareth? Great guy, beautiful guy. He saw me at the Crucifixion, got right off the cross, came over – he had tears in his eyes – and said ‘Sir, I just want to thank…'”. No. I have to stop this stuff.
Princess
VERY interested to see that Connolly chose (is this how it works? how does it work? how does the vice chair get selected?) Crockett to be his number two after he defated AOC to be chair.
John S.
@rikyrah:
I’m sure it’s just as coincidental as hate groups feeling like they are ascendant once again.
Link
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: That getup he wore to the inauguration was ridiculous. I’m not big on meaningless formality, but gimme a break, he used to wear a suit from time to time. In other circumstances it might have been viewed as a gesture of disrespect for Trump, but that’s hard to square with the way he’s been interacting with Trump recently. I wonder if the stroke had some lasting personality effects.
matt
@Hoodie: I think it comes from a general ‘fuck this job’ attitude he’s having.
Doc Sardonic
@Ruviana: Her mother has no money, no power and virtually no public recognition any more. Most people couldn’t pick Marla Maples Trump out of a lineup. Daddy has all of that and more.
Suzanne
@Geminid: To be fair…. Conor Lamb was also deeply mediocre. His district has been trending blue and is now represented by Chris DeLuzio, who may also have a future in higher office. Conor Lamb hasn’t done anything in politics since losing that primary. I will note that his campaign office was in my neighborhood, and I went over there to learn more about him, and the campaign was not organized or informative. After Dobbs, I can absolutely do with a lot fewer white guys who are “personally opposed” to abortion.
But…. there were other choices in that race. Malcolm Kenyatta was kind of my “heart’s favorite” and I regret talking myself out of voting for him.
Kay
@Glory b:
I don’t know how I became responsible for Lefties on the internet. I never backed him. I thought and think he’s a spoiled, immature rich kid with a mean streak a mile wide. Another Harvard legacy admit – affirmative action for wealthy white people.
If you want me to denounce being on the Left side of the Party, forget it. This is never demanded of people on the RIGHT side of the Party. I’m not responsible for people you interact with on the internet. Don’t use me to promote your issue. Its fine if you dislike Lefties. I dislike many Righties and centrists in the Party. We’re stuck with one another as far as I can tell.
Quinerly
I don’t have time to stick around today. Saved this to read again later. So don’t look to me to summarize it in this comment.
I really don’t understand the ends and outs of crypto. I do get the basics. Money laundering. I thought the trading fees angle was interesting.
https://newstracs.com/trumps-crypto-grifts-memecoin-trading-fees-and-a-new-investment-from-justin-sun/2025/01/21/
Have a good day.
Kay
@Hoodie:
Its just hugely privileged behavior. Its a real tell that he doesn’t recognize that. Its “I, the special snowflake, don’t have to follow rules or norms”
Yuck. Another boy-man. Grow up, buddy.
Princess
@Belafon: Fetterman was taking photos with a bunch of people using the Trump thumbs up sign on Trump’s Inauguration Day at the Capitol. He may not have known this dude had been at Jan. 6 but he certainly knew he was a Trump supporter.
Belafon
@billcoop4: I’m a t-shirt with message kind of guy, and I’m thinking of making one that says:
I was hungry and you ______
I was thirsty and you ______
I was a stranger and you _____
I was naked and you ______
I was sick and you _____
I was in prison and you _____
To wear around my Red Texas area just to see what reactions I get.
MrPug
@Quinerly:
Is it just me or is it only women who seem to be fighting back?
zhena gogolia
@Doc Sardonic: Trump himself couldn’t pick her out (he identified E. Jean Carroll as her).
Belafon
@jimmiraybob:
Unless nation is the Aramaic or Greek word, I think we can use it to talk about the US. We are a group of people.
Old School
@Harrison Wesley:
“Sir, you have been treated so much worse than I have.”
MazeDancer
Timothy Snyder is leaving Yale. Taking a new job at University of Toronto.
This makes me unhappy.
Glory b
@Princess: I understand that they aren’t required, the ranking member can choose to have one or not. We will probably never know.
An older, experienced trial attorney, fast with a response to a Republican comment? Good at a pithy remark short and sparky enough to guarantee media coverage?
Gives him the opportunity to work with the chair while she does that. Good cop/bad cop.
As they say in my community, I ain’t mad at it.
P.S., I love her anyway. Full disclosure.
zhena gogolia
@MazeDancer: I heard that a long time ago. I don’t think it’s directly related to the election.
Quinerly
@MrPug:
Seems to be.
Love your nym. I am a proud godmother of my friend’s rescue Pug. His name is Goblin. I call him “my Gobson.”
Doc Sardonic
@zhena gogolia: Damn, I forgot about that one
sab
@MazeDancer: Yikes. Biden didn’t give him a pardon?
Old School
Via Pitchbot:
Glory b
And we must stop everything and laugh again at how her husband’s family fooled the Trumps into believing that they were fabulously wealthy, when her FIL manages a truck dealership in Nairobi and hasn’t been to the Middle East (is he still to be Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East? His “eyes and ears?”) in years.
karen gail
@John S.: I have maintained since those red maga hats started appearing that they were the new ‘white hoods’ of the Klan; rather than hiding faces they are now showing the world their true faces.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Academic jobs are decided a year in advance.
sab
@zhena gogolia: So he was prescient.
rikyrah
@Kay:
When you tell them that they have no home training…
LOL
Some of the posters on TikTok tell them that they are SUBS for Trump. That gets them HEA-TED
Geminid
@Suzanne: You say Conor Lamb was deeply mediocre like that’s a fact and not just your opinion..
When Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney endorsed Lamb, he said he respected all three candidates, but he wanted to win and he believed Lamb gave Democrats their best chance.
So Jim Kenney obviously didn’t think Conor Lamb was “deeply mediocre.” Why should I your word on this over that of the Democratic Mayor of Philadelphia?
Ed. Kenney wanted to win as much as you, and he knew all three candidates better.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Deported where…to New Jersey, where she was born?
eclare
@Old School:
Glad I stopped watching them a few years ago.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Nothing but the truth.
I’m tired of people trying to sane-wash it..
Especially with the autism bullshyt
Kay
@Princess:
Great that a US Senator apparently didn’t follow the blanket coverage of the attack on the Capitol. Where his now- colleagues were stalked down hallways by raving lunatics vowing to kill them.
Lightweight and lazy. He belongs over on the other side. He really is the new Sinema, but worse. She didn’t have every advantage coming up, like he did.
zhena gogolia
@sab: I have no idea what factors went into his decision. When I heard about it through the academic grapevine, there was no suggestion that he was afraid of Trump.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Also someone young enough to be ready for the draining fight.
Fauci, Milley… deserve to retire in peace; and these vile fuckers would never allow that.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: This was my question.
Gvg
@Leto: as a Floridian, my reaction is, is there any chance we can pick up his seat? I am so tired of him representing us, and he is probably saner than most possible Trump choices. In fact Trump seems to be picking from Congress a lot. The more obvious the other republicans hurt regular people, especially Floridians before a special election, the better the chance. The Democratic Party of Florida is not especially competent though. Still, individuals can be.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Phys.org:
18-34 is a pretty big group. It includes people just starting out, and people who may be 10 years past grad school.
Still, more carefully collected and carefully analyzed data is good.
The comments about the continued difficulty registering appeals to my truthiness detector as well.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Thank you for snuffing out my silly comments. False rumors are not helpful in times like these.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Well, I have no idea what’s behind it. I just know when someone told me about it, it didn’t sound as if he was running scared. But who knows.
Primer Gray (formerly Yet Another Jeff)
Anyone can see it wasn’t a Nazi salute, it was an exuberent attempt at a gesture to indicate a symbol made of an axe bound in a bundle of wooden rods….
brendancalling
Just for fun, I reported the ADL to the ADL for aiding and abetting anti-semitism. You can too!
zhena gogolia
@sab:
I tried to find info online and saw nothing, but I did find this from last March:
Princess
@E.: FWIW Here’s what I think happened with Lindsay Graham, who hated Trump until he loved him: I think they had some dirt on Lindsay. I also think they made him some big promises, offers of influence. Stick concealed inside a carrot (okay, the metaphor breaks down, but work with me). I think that can explain some people flipping towards Trump.
kwAwk
I think this is being done on purpose by Musk and in general Trumptards. They did this through out the first Trump term, where they would make racist hand gestures like the OK sign and then claim they weren’t doing it when called on it.
They’re gaslighting.
Suzanne
@Geminid: That’s fair. But Lamb wasn’t an especially effective legislator, either. He voted against Pelosi for Speaker, and he voted against removing weed from Schedule I. Both of which pissed me off. So I think “mediocre” is a fair description. Maybe “utterly adequate”.
He, like Fetterman, comes from a wealthy family.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Glory b:
Certain types of so-called “lefties”. Same ones that always ignore black people.
The white transplants here in Denver have perfected that art, and the art of condescension when talking to, or about, issues that affect black folks.
sab
@zhena gogolia: Yikes again.
Betty Cracker
@brendancalling: Hahaha! Well done!
eclare
@Princess:
He also lost his buddy who seemed to keep him somewhat sane, McCain
I saw Graham on The Daily Show years ago, when Trevor Noah was host. He came across as reasonable with a good sense of humor and a killer game of pool. He said he learned to play early because his family owned a bar.
ExPatExDem
@Suzanne: Lamb was a bland, generic, corporate Democrat of the Clinton/1990s “third way” mold.
Princess
@Suzanne: Sickening.
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: I compared him to Tim (spit) Ryan and his absolutely shitty “conservative lite” campaign.
Lurch brought in POTUS and VPOTUS to campaign with him, and he won.
Either he’s a very complicated human or he’s a duplicitous crook.
John S.
@brendancalling:
That’s hilarious. I hope the ADL gets flooded with complaints about the ADL.
taumaturgo
@Leto:
Most people understand that Schumer is down to continue playing from the “bipartisan” failed playbook. He is not the party leader for the times, bur here they are playing footsie with the greatest danger the nation is facing, his words, not mine.
Suzanne
@ExPatExDem: The other thing that’s weird about this analysis is that Fetterman ran up his score by going to every county in Pennsyltucky, it’s not like lefties carried him to victory. He stomped Lamb pretty much across the board.
Princess
@Kay: I don’t think we have a crisis of masculinity in the country. I think we have a crisis of maturity. It’s not that they don’t know how to be men. They are unwilling or unable to grow up and behave like adults, to own their shit, and live up to their positions and responsibilities.
I sound like I’m 103 years old.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
+1
Fetterman’s campaigning statewide wasn’t some divine revelation from heaven. McCaskill did that repeatedly in Misery after learning the hard way when running for governor. People like Booman have discussed the whole “cutting the red, rurl margins” stragety for years.
It stopped working for McCaskill because of a combination of demographic trends in those rurl parts as people actually started to leave (prior, nobody ever left) and a simple deepening of the effect of 25+ years of media propaganda taking hold.
Fetterman’s schtick worked and probably “sold an image” better than Lamb in those parts. But the inference that he was more mediocre than Fetterman is a stretch. It’s also a stretch to see how effective his schtick will be should he run for reelection. It’s quite possible that the demographic/cultural shifts that we’ve seen over the last 20 years in various Flyover Country states take full hold in PA.
John S.
@Professor Bigfoot:
Por qué no los dos?
Princess
@MazeDancer: That’s fascinating. I can’t imagine U of T paying him more than Yale — it’s a public university and salaries are all within a range. Sounds like he’s bugging out of the US.
Princess
@Glory b: Oh, I think she’ll be fabulous! And given that he is ill, she could have enormous responsibilities.
RaflW
To me the thing to keep up front is that the vast majority of people, even a lot of people who were pretty tuned out, hated what they knew of Project 2025.
Ans these first few days have been 100% running plays from that despised book.
Make it plain. Spell it out if needed, but in stark terms that say to people “He’s screwing you. Yes, you. Exactly as Heritage and their billionaires planned. Don’t like it? Make noise. Now!”
(Gah, something happened to my nym. I’m still meant to be RaflW)
Professor Bigfoot
@Princess: Considering Trump’s “friend” (handler) has literally a nation-state intelligence apparat, I’ve always believed that was at least part of the answer.
Belafon
@taumaturgo: The minority party always calls for bipartisanship. It’s the biggest tool they have.
One of the things we lose with Biden as president was his ability to call for bipartisanship and then get nearly everything he wanted, which people tended to realize after they stopped screaming about him caving.
Ramalama
@MazeDancer: Here he is weighing in on Fetterman and the Mump Oligarchy:
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good afternoon.
Princess
@eclare: McCain was still around when Lindsay weny over to the dark side — McCain was the vote to preserve Obamacare during Trump’s first term, remember? He didn’t die until later.
Kay
@Glory b:
Not everything is about Democratic politics. The human rights orgs that were reporting war crimes and ethic cleansing in Gaza are the same orgs we relied on in opposing the war in Iraq. They were reliable on Iraq but all started lying on Gaza? Come on.
They think we’re – Democrats- are full of shit and opposed one and supported the other because one was Bush and the other Biden. They don’t support war crimes or ethnic cleansing. Opposed. There’s no “Middle ground” on that. Its not an area of compromise.
When foreign journalists and human rights orgs get into Gaza and what happened there starts trickling out its just not going to be defensible, for Republicans or Democrats.
Trump distanced himself from it yesterday. He said “its their war, not my war” (meaning Israelis). The Israeli Right and Trump screwed Biden but good. The people pointing that out were not the problem – the US validation and furthering of war crimes were the problem.
narya
@Princess: Completely agree. I don’t think he’s the only one, either. I think the project started with the folks who could be compromised, and then, with critical mass, they could bully or threaten others.
RaflW
@Princess: Graham may have been teetering, but he really fell apart after McCain slipped away.
gene108
@E.:
@Betty Cracker:
What’s happening is simple. The people who felt all the social progress of the last 160 years hurt America have taken charge.
They’ve been working at this for decades. The Federal Society, The Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, etc. came up in the 1970’s. They worked to transform Republican politics and legal jurisprudence. The only shocking thing is the rate their goals are being enacted in 2025 and the capitulation of business and media.
Trump is their Messiah and fellow traveler.
When social progress had a face put to it in President Obama, a lot of otherwise quiet racists started to agitate, ie the Tea party, in 2009.
The racists and misogynists purged all opposition from the Republican party, and are now purging opposition from the media, corporate America, and the government workforce. They fired the commandant of the Coast Guard because the commandant’s a woman.
The rate the revanchists are working at now is the big difference from the past, and their success in co-opting businesses and media.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Thank you for affirming my reaction to Tim Ryan’s dreadful campaign, which Kay thought was brilliant.
Not meant to be knocking Kay, since she lives in red Ohio while I don’t have to.
Tim Ryan was my congressman soon after he beat out my own congressman (the actually named Tom Sawyer) in a redistricting shuffle. At that point he was viewed as a Trafficant protege, which he was. He won and was a 100% NRA and 100% pro-life Catholic boy for his first couple of terms, and I reviled him.
Then he married a divorced public school teacher with a couple of kids, and he entered the real world beyond parochial school to life. He should have been there long since because his mother was a single mom, but Catholicism got in the way.
I came to to really like and admire the new Tim Ryan. I still do. He meditates. But apparently his polling flagged as he came to his senses.
The state legislature redistricted him out of winning, so he ran for Senate. And he ran as Republican lite. And he lost, to JD Vance, who didn’t even campaign. Had JD Vance been forced to come out and actually campaign we might have voted against that creep but who knows. This is, after all, Ohio. Beautiful state with many horrible people.
Suzanne
Here’s some more on Conor Lamb and why I think he was no prize, either:
Would he have been better than Fetterman? Maybe. But there are plenty of good reasons to not line up behind Conor Lamb.
Kay
@Glory b:
Its just as likely Right leaning Democrats didn’t turn out as it is Left leaning Democrats didnt. No one has ever shown me anything proving anything. Biden simply wasn’t popular – Left, Right or Center. That may be unfair but it was always true.
frosty
@Suzanne: Waters of the US was the core of my water resources career. Fuck that guy.
Baud
If you’re in a state that banned pornhub, you can always subscribe to the NYT.
Kay
@sab:
I told you I was wrong and you have raised it with me at least once a week since then. I usually admit when I’m wrong. Do you usually take that admission and hit the person over the head with it for the next two years?
Have you ever been wrong? I’m assuming “no” since you’re such an asshole about it when I am.
WTFGhost
@Kay: An anti-bullying policy can cause normal, age-appropriate behaviors to be met with an extreme over-reaction. I’m not defending any group of parents who protested such a policy – but I can imagine policies I’d demand to see softened, to avoid the possible over-reaction
Such parents might be imagining the policy used as an additional weapon against their children, for example, e.g., “taunt him into running at you, then we can get him suspended!”
That said: there’s also a lot of parents who don’t believe society can ever learn better, even on topics like bullying.
sab
@Kay: I am very sorry.
I will stop doing this because I am starting to feel like a typical horrible Ohioan.
You deserve better.
ETA Also too you have been consistently amazing on schools. ETA for years and years
ETA Do you know that your comments are in the top five reasons I even come here every day?
ETA I keep banging on it because I was so surprised you were wrong. I am wrong multiple times every day. In my experience you are rarely wrong.
Belafon
@Baud: That’s when you ask people how a man who was afraid the Bible would burn his hand was divinely appointed.
Mr. Bemused Senior
There was one time when I thought I had made an error but I was mistaken. [/attempted humor]
Kay
@Baud:
OMG. I subscribed to the WSJ. Rupert Murdoch’s paper is MUCH harder on Trump.than the NYTimes. They have an entire section on how the deportations affect US agriculture, with experts, instead of NYTimes reporters pretending to be subject matter experts.
Princess
@RaflW: That’s simply not true. McCain died August 25, 2018. Here’s Graham on Trump in April 2017:
“I am like the happiest dude in America right now,” a beaming Graham said on “Fox & Friends.” “We have got a president and a national security team that I’ve been dreaming of for eight years…
Iran is running through the Mideast. They are toppling every government they can get their hands on. North Korea, if I were Kim Jong Un, whatever his name is, I would listen to Mike Pence. The fact that the vice president of the United States went to the DMZ, looked across the way and said, ‘We’re watching you’; Donald Trump is not going to let this nut job in North Korea get a missile to hit America. And if I were North Korea and China, I would start thinking anew about the president of the United States. I am all in. Keep it up, Donald,” Graham added. “I’m sure you’re watching.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/lindsey-graham-praises-trump-237361
Citizen Alan
@jimmiraybob: Back when I was on social media, I told fundie Trumpists point blank that I thought they had taken the Mark of the Beast and would burn in hell for their heretical, unChristian beliefs. In retrospect, I wonder if that was what got me perma-suspended on Xhitter. (Still salty that it’s impossible for someone permabanned to delete their account.)
rikyrah
Trump rolls back bedrock civil rights measure in sweeping anti-DEI push
President Trump issued a sweeping executive order revoking decades of diversity and affirmative action practices in federal government.
Why it matters: This takes the current pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion into the next stratosphere — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crack down on the same in the private sector.
Zoom out: Trump’s order revokes one that President Johnson signed on September 24, 1965, more than two years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/22/trump-dei-lbj-rollback
Suzanne
@frosty: I would have voted for Conor Lamb in the general election if he’d won the primary, but, like, I would also have felt fucken dirty about it. Fetterman won every precinct with a majority Black population, as well, IIRC, except for Kenyatta’s.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Nauseating.
What were these people thinking who stayed home from the polls???
Ruckus
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I earned my healthcare from the Veterans Administration.
I did what was asked, went where I was sent, served as a normal human being, in the US military. What I earned was a normal service to someone having served in that US military. If shitforbrains screws me – and every other veteran using the VA, I imagine it won’t be a positive move for him. Of course his list of positive moves is likely to be exceedingly small, likely able to count them using the fingers of one hand. Quite possibly not all of them on said hand. I’m imagining one finger in particular…..
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: I’m sure nobody around here needs to be told this, but we are experiencing a white male supremacist coup d’état.
zhena gogolia
@Steve LaBonne: Can anything be done about this?
Kay
@sab:
I just feel like we have to put some of these past cycles in the rear view mirror. I feel burdened, like none of us can carry every loss, ever, into the next cycle. Fetterman is underwhelming. Win some, lose some.
Spanky
@Baud:
What if I was interested in more than one long, continuous sloppy blowjob?
Steve LaBonne
@zhena gogolia: Not AFAIK. EOs can always be overturned by a subsequent president (let’s hope this comes in handy in 2029).
Belafon
@rikyrah: having talked to a conservative coworker about this, it’s going to take their daughters losing jobs to mediocre white men for them to care.
sab
@Kay: Point taken.
Spanky
@Ruckus: He is more than stupid enough to start screwing around with large groups of folks with weapons and explosives training.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
They’re not like us.
Citizen Alan
I wonder what the reaction would be to a rise in gay gun clubs and gay self-defense classes. The MAGA idiots imagine that every gay dude is a scrawny limp-wristed twink wearing women’s underwear. I imagine they would piss themselves if they knew how many gay men cultivate the image of a leather-clad, cigar-smoking muscle bear who could crack their jaw with one punch.
WaterGirl
RaflW’s comment that you guys couldn’t see because a nym misspelling.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: Given a choice between “conservative lite” and an actual, hateful conservative Americans* will choose the conservative nearly every time.
Citizen Alan
@Doc Sardonic: The cynical, paranoid side of me wonders if Tiffany decided to bend the knee because she was afraid of her and her mother’s safety if she wasn’t openly supportive of the Junta.
Kay
@WTFGhost:
I think there’s often over zealous enforcement at the start but that’s just part of changes in organizations. It always moderates. There’s the rule and then the common sense interpretation of the rule. You can’t put that all into a code because it would be too long and convoluted, “whereas,if condition A is met…”
The adults in schools have discretion – they have to – and we have to trust they’ll be reasonable.
I do some juvenile defense for school discipline actions. In public schools there’s a very robust notice and hearing process. Its gotten easier because we have video survellience now in almost all public schools, so that cuts to the chase pretty quick :)
Phylllis
@Princess: The money guys in SC told Lindsey to get on board with ‘their’ candidate or or start job hunting. I was party to a conversation with a couple of the state’s big hitters at a Christmas dinner in 2016. Within weeks, Lindsey did his 180. That conversation has stuck with me ever since.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: I’ll tell you which Democrats sat it out: the WHITE ONES.
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I’m not sure there is a way to change minds that think it’s OK to fuck over millions of people, just for no reason other than fucking them over.
And no I do not apologize for using the proper swear word here. Reelecting this human and allowing him back in the building to “run” the country he defamed last time is not rational. On anyone’s part. It’s like scraping food off the floor and serving it to your guests.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: I thought these dingbats were really into Sparta. ;)
eclare
@Princess:
I get my health insurance through the ACA, yes I very much remember that vote and stayed up til around 2 am to watch. I was on the phone with someone else who gets insurance through the ACA.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Any data? I wouldn’t be surprised if non-white Dems have been frustrated with white Dems and also stayed home.
Kay
@sab:
We have a good Sec of State candidate. A physician. I met him a the Bds of Elections mtg in Columbus a couple weeks ago and he zoomed in to our county meeting last night. We all liked him. Name is Bryan Hambley. Dr. Hambley. He’s an oncologist.
rikyrah
@gene108:
All the while, wanting to put a drunk sexual abuser in as Secretary of Defense.
sixthdoctor
@Ruckus: The metaphor I’ve thought about is a patient that goes to the doctor asking them to stuff back in the cancerous tumor they took out four years ago.
Professor Bigfoot
Yeah. Even when I disagree, she gets me to look at things from another perspective.
Her recent comments, for example, about the ACTUAL power of the Techbroligarchy have been illuminating and, well, hope inducing.
Spanky
@Steve LaBonne: THAT’S TOTALLY NOT GAY
Eta //, just in case.
Citizen Alan
The percentage of poor or even middle-class people who can realistically run for a Senate seat is vanishingly small. Aside from the ability of rich candidates to self-fund to some degree, they are simply the people with the freedom to travel around the state and campaign instead of working a real job all day.
Kay
Michigan Sec of State Jocelyn Benson just launched to succeed Whitmer as MI gov – Whitmer is termed out and says she will not endorse in the D primary.
taumaturgo
Marco Rubio, Senate confirmation 99 -0 confirms the Senate democrat’s complete surrender to the felon and the continuation of bipartisanship.
“Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen (or weak politicians) who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I’ll only say that my own observation of Black folks in that election was that we were ENTHUSIASTIC AS FUCK.
Which is one reason why I, at least, am so fucking pissed off towards the demographic least likely to have supported a Democrat. A woman. A Black person.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Kay
Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, complicates it for MI Dems because he will run as an Independent. I don’t know what to think about that. He was a good mayor for Democrats but obviously thinks he can’t win a D primary, so who knows.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Peter Baker and his vile wife are, IMO, the most disgusting people in journalism, and that is really saying something. Their nepo-son won some prestigious college journalism award and I am convinced Mummy and Daddy made some unpaid NYT intern write it for him.
WaterGirl
@jimmiraybob:
Okay, now I totally get what you were trying to say. thanks.
Barry
@MazeDancer: ”
Timothy Snyder is leaving Yale. Taking a new job at University of Toronto.
This makes me unhappy.”
Does this say something about the Yale administration?
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think some Democrats equate “Moderate” with “Mediocre.” That’s shallow thinking in my opinion.
It also tends to be demoralizing because people end up looking down on half or more of their party’s members of Congress. They complain when we don’t win a majority, and when we do they resent the Democrats who help win it.
Elizabelle
@MazeDancer: That is concerning, actually. But good for Dr. Snyder.
Bupalos
@jimmiraybob: I think it was a nazi salute but not at all some kind of “mask-slipping” accident of enthusiasm. I think he’s trying out Trump’s post-truth politics of distraction. Seems to have been effective. Nothing could matter less in the scheme of the last few days whether we decide the wealthiest man in the world gave a fascist sign or not. It’s getting ten times the attention that the reality that the world’s very richest individuals openly had priority of place at the inauguration and in this administration.
Kay
Duggan running as an Independent is interesting, because he is very pro immigrant. He made Detroit a kind of haven for immigrants to help revitalize the city, and it mostly worked. He was great to have in Detroit when Republicans were trying to steal Michigan in 2020. He ably defended African American voters in his city from those who set out to steal their vote. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be a spoiler who hands it to the GOP. Then we’ll have to HATE HIM :)
Bupalos
@Elizabelle: I don’t understand the concern. UToronto is great. It’s better than Yale for him I think.
I could be biased.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: I agree those are major factors, but I find ALL simple explanations, including yours, incomplete. It’s a big, complicated country. There are no simple explanations for what’s happening, and the solutions won’t be simple either.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Replace “moderate” with “progressive,” and the same principle applies, IMO. Kay is right when she says we’re all stuck with each other in the non-fascist coalition. It’s not always pleasant!
John S.
@zhena gogolia:
Good question. Somebody would have to ask those people. I don’t really know any non-voters in my personal orbit.
John S.
@Baud:
I agree with you, and I’d also like to see the homework on this particular claim.
Princess
@Phylllis: Oh, that’s very interesting. Follow the money rarely leads you astray. Anyway, your evidence confirms it had nothing to do with McCain dying.
Suzanne
@Geminid:
I equate “taking bad votes” with mediocrity. I mean, I think being a Democrat who votes for dirtier water, to keep weed illegal, and takes money from the fossil fuel industry is pretty fucken mediocre. The commentariat here absolutely tore into him when he voted against Pelosi (and for Joe Kennedy, LAWL) for Speaker. You may think that’s shallow, but what the fuck else are we here for? What’s the point of getting behind a candidate, giving them money, canvassing, writing postcards…. if they don’t do the right things?
If the argument for Lamb is that he would have been a good coalition candidate, then why did he get stomped 2-to-1 by Fetterman? Is the argument that he would have been been a better Democrat? More liberal? I mean, potentially, but there’s not a lot in his actual job performance that would fill someone like me, who cares about climate change issues, with much confidence of that. Are we in a best-of-only-bad-options scenario?
Probably. UGHHHHH.
Bupalos
@Professor Bigfoot: Emphasize whatever truth makes you feel best in your identity slicing and dicing. Harris marginally gained support among whites generally and marginally lost support among black men and rather catastrophically lost support among Hispanics generally, but especially Hispanic men. The best identity status for this election is college educated, and you’ve got professor right in the name. My advice generally is to deemphasize your identity as a man, and play up the college thing. Maybe spend some equal time lecturing the board about the lower political-moral status of people without degrees. You’re leaving some ego points on the table.
Elizabelle
OT, but I really, really like the Munira photo up today.
Enjoying these daily photos.
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
You can come sit by me, no matter what age you are (or sound like you are).
Elizabelle
@Princess: Had not read the thread yet, but that is a brilliant comment.
If we get to help define masculinity, so much the better. Don’t leave it to the ‘bros. Who are called that for a reason.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Looking at her face during that sermon, I don’t think she’s being forced into anything.
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: I heard about this last year and I didn’t get any vibe that it was because he was in fear for his life. But who knows. I just wouldn’t draw any conclusions unless he says something about it himself.
zhena gogolia
@John S.: Me either.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
There’s plenty of D/s stuff there too. Peter Baker is going to wear out those kneepads.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: Look, the difference was between a talented, intelligent, hard-working Black woman and a 34 COUNT FUCKING FELON, who ONLY WHITE PEOPLE gave the majority of their votes to and you want to tell me *whiteness had nothing to do with it?*
Please.
zhena gogolia
@Professor Bigfoot: Frustrating.
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: It’s gaslighting.
AND AS USUAL, it’s white men doing it.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Yep.
One does not win over bullies by talking behind their backs.
One cannot win over whiners by making fun of them – it’s very likely it’s way too late for that because that’s been done to them for possibly most of their lives and very likely has changed nothing.
You win over people by showing them better ways and that being who they think they are gets them doodly squat, no matter if they are bullies or quiet mice.
rikyrah
@taumaturgo:
Rubio was one of them. Not shocking.
There better not be any Democrats voting for that piece of shyt for Secretary of Defense.
Or any of the other nominees.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: WG, I sent you an e-mail link to where I found that video on Twitter.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I think the distinction between “Progressive,” or Liberal Democrats and Moderate Democrats is often exaggerated..
At least, when I look at our House caucus on an individual basis, I don’t see see the different wings as some sort of barbell shape, with members clustered at either end. It more resembles a fat Bell curve, with most members fairly close together and with a dozen or so outliers stretched out to either side..
There is a lot of ideological overlap between the Progressive and New Democrat Caucuses. In many respects, the difference is more a matter of branding than policies. Membership in either typically tracks our partisan advantage in their 215 individual districts, and not some over-arching ideological divide.
So I don’t feel like I’m stuck with anybody. I see a lot of talent accross the board, in New Democrats like Sharice Davids and Jason Crow as well as Progressives Ihlan Omar and Veronica Escobar. And I don’t value any one of these Democrats more than any other.
These four Democrats happen to members of the House Class of 2018. That’s the first group of House members I ever really studied, but it wasn’t the last.
I would recommend to anyone who cares about the Party’s future that they start looking at our House members on an individual basis, and not as part of one group or another. For one thing, they could learn a lot about about practical politics at the district level, and that’s a very important perspective in my opinion.
For another, they’d be a lot less gloomy and cynical about their fellow Democrats. Personally, I think the biggest internal problem we have isn’t “Centrism” or “Progressivism.” I think it’s Cynicism.
Miss Bianca
@MazeDancer: To be fair, I’d probably pick U of T over Yale for a teaching gig myself. Particularly…nowadays.
frosty
@Barry: IMHO University of Toronto says more about Dr Snyder covering his ass and moving out of the USA. Good for him.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I think you’re probably right about most Democratic lawmakers having more in common than not. I was talking about Democratic voter factions. There seems to be a lot of seething hostility, not just on social media but here too. That doesn’t bode well for our fragile coalition, IMO, but I’m not an expert.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Considering how Fetterman turned out, the results in that primary do not not prove as much as you say. Maybe the reason John Fetterman beat Conor Lamb by a margin of two to one is that people were too easily bamboozled, and bought into Fetterman’s celebrity schtick.
I could see Fetterman was shaky from two states away, and I said so several time on this forum during the runup to the primary. It wasn’t that hard, either
There’s not much point arguing with the rest of your comment, except to say I think Conor Lamb is every bit as good a Democrat as you are.
But I address the general issue we’re talking about at #313
TBone
@Betty Cracker: Patton Oswalt has some advice
https://bsky.app/profile/pattonoswalt.bsky.social/post/3lgdpjssibc2v
It involves recognizing how this all works
The Lodger
@Doc Sardonic: Even Trump had a hard time distinguishing Marla from E. Jean Carroll.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I think one thing going on is that we and other Democrats have suffered a severe shock. There is a very common phenomenon among communities that suffer wrenching external shocks; that is, they start hunting for an “enemy within” on whom to pin the blame. I can see that happening here.
Gretchen
@MazeDancer: It says he’s on leave from Yale. Distressing that he wants to leave the country.
KSinMA
@Ramalama: I used to just love the Roches! Thanks for the link.
zhena gogolia
@Gretchen: The decision was made last year.
Suzanne
@Geminid: I will note that in 2022, I was still following a lot of pandemic protocols and not attending meetings and the like. And I will also note that I was not really following Twitter in 2022, either, so I’m sure I missed some of the discussion. But I saw no groundswell of support for Lamb, and I literally live four blocks from the town he lives in. I saw one house in Mt. Lebanon which had like 20 Conor Lamb signs in the yard, and I asked about it, and it turned out it was his parents’ house. He followed a strategy of trying to rack up endorsements from party insiders rather than go engage with people directly, and it gave a lot of people the ick factor.
Fetterman was a pretty popular lieutenant governor under Tom Wolf, and had been a pretty successful mayor of Braddock. And, as noted, he built support by going all over the Commonwealth, and he was really effective at it. But I agree that he had his own issues. As I have mentioned, I voted for him with some pretty big reservations, and I wish I had gone with my gut and voted for Kenyatta.
But I seriously push back on the idea that Lamb was the best option for Dems in that race. Fetterman turning out to be weak doesn’t mean that Lamb wasn’t weak, also. More and better Dems.
RevRick
@WTFGhost: Today, on X, in response to the various butthurt RWNJs reactions to Bishop Budde, I pointed out that Jesus said a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, and that the tree of white evangelicals reaches back to the churches that vociferously defended slavery, advocated for secession and Civil War, and supported Jim Crow and its violence. White evangelicalism is exceedingly rotten fruit.
Glory b
@Suzanne: He had just flipped a district that was gerrymandered for a Republican. One of the ads that ran incessantly against him said he’d be “Nancy’s little lamb.” He said he wouldn’t vote for her after she said, “Just win, baby.”
At some level, he has to represent the voters in his district.
I wouldn’t be mad at him for that, he held his seat, so maybe he knows them best.
Glory b
@Suzanne: i live in Pittsburgh & saw more signs for him than Fetterman.
There was a good deal of discussion about the incident where he pulled the gun on the black jogger in my neighborhood, and his support in the town where he was mayor was lukewarm. People actually liked his wife better than him
Kenyatta is impre, but come on, we all know a black gay guy with a headful of dress, campaigning through Pennsyltucky with his husband wasn’t going to win a statewide office.
Suzanne
@Glory b: I also live in Pittsburgh and I saw much more Fetterman support. Shit, two of my neighbors on the next block — both older white working-class normie Dems — dressed up as him for Halloween that year. I have legit never seen that before. That is insane to me. He was not just supported by the left.
As for Lamb, I still maintain that he was a pretty mediocre candidate, for all the reasons I listed. And that district went even bluer after him; Chris DeLuzio is a step up. Interesting fact: Mt. Lebanon and Upper St. Clair, both of which are bougie white suburbs in that district…. they shifted toward Harris in this election.
It’s moot anyway. He left public service to go into private law practice.
Glory b
@ExPatExDem: As I’ve said before, HD flipped a district gerrymandered for a Republican.
He wasn’t going to win acting like 85% Dem district AOC.
Glory b
@Suzanne: I live in Homewood, a decent number of us didn’t like him lying about the gun incident.
Darkrose
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): “Zee rockets go up; who cares vhere zey come down. Zat’s not my department”