Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

All hail the time of the bunny!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

How stupid are these people?

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You are here: Home / Democratic Response to Trump 2.0 / Opposition to Trump-Musk / Sometimes We Focus on the Darkness, Sometimes on the Light

Sometimes We Focus on the Darkness, Sometimes on the Light

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Sometimes we focus on the darkness; sometimes we need to focus on the light.

I was in tears watching this short video from Canada.  Profound sadness.  But important to watch.

This is painful, and saddening, and embarrassing. I feel like we’re losing a member of the family – and for no good reason other than that some Americans wanted another season of the worst reality TV show in history.

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— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) March 27, 2025 at 3:34 PM

We can’t just watch and gasp with horror at the destruction.   We have to look for the leaders.  Jon Ossoff shows us how to call out what’s happening in a way that people can hear.

They are literally the elites they pretend to hate.

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— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM

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Ossoff: Trump’s cabinet is worth like $60 billion. That’s not even including Elon. They are literally the elites they pretend to hate.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 2:26 PM

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Ossoff: This is why things don’t work for ordinary people. It’s not because of trans kids or woke college students. It’s not because of our new arch-enemy… Canada.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 2:51 PM

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  2. 2.

    WaterGirl

    @japa21: I think he is quite likely our greatest senator.

    Please don’t reduce that to “my having a thing” for Senator Ossoff.

  3. 3.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Ossoff is right on the money. He’s a talented leader and politician. I hope Georgians are able to see that in 2026 and reelect him

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: We raised $790,000 for him on BJ in 2020-21.  He’s gonna need our help again.

    Love that he talked about FFOTUS being in “his palace in Florida”.  I certainly don’t click on every link in every post, but I hope that at least some of you watch the short clips above.

  7. 7.

    Loveofcoffee

    Ossoff, Warren, AOC, we have some good leaders standing up. I have Ben Cline as my congresscritter- I call weekly, but I doubt he cares. He is too busy sitting down.

  8. 8.

    Jay

    Word out of the “Coalition of the Willing*” meetings, in Europe, is only Britain believes that the relationship with the US can be at all redeemed, ever.

    *Ukraine’s actual allies, so basically, everybody but the US was there.

    Apparently the new “Minerals Deal” that DJTdiot’s Admin want Ukraine to sign, hands over everything, ag, minerals, energy to the US in exchange for nothing.

  10. 10.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    We raised $790,000 for him on BJ in 2020-21.

    Wow, that’s an eye-popping number! I think we’ll be able to help him get over the line.

    BJ’s fundraising over the past 5 years has I think made a big difference between victory and defeat in many close races

  14. 14.

    They Call Me Noni

    @WaterGirl:

    My paternal grandparents and both sets of Mr. Noni’s grandparents immigrated here from Germany.  I told him last year that right now they would be running back because they would definitely recognize what is happening.

    I knew it would be gawdawful.  I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly.

    When the time comes to help Mr. Ossoff count me in.

  19. 19.

    MagdaInBlack

    @WaterGirl: The Canadian one just makes my heart hurt. Most of my summers from age 2-16 were spent in Canada, as far north as my father could drive. They had made friends during those travels and kept in touch by letters (remember those?) and visits. My mother learned to make borscht from a Ukrainian friend in Regina, Saskatchewan. I swam in the pool at the RCMP training center there, because the woman’s son in law was RCMP and so his kids and I hung out when we visited.

    It hurts and it infuriates and its all so gd unnecessary.

    (wow i got kinda wordy there)

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @RevRick: I’ll be making the Balloon Juice thermometer for him soon.

    I may have mentioned that I spoke with Ossoff’s campaign and they agreed that our dollars could go to organizing and boots on the ground, not advertising or consultants, etc.

    So in my humble opinion, our thermometer would be the most effective way to donate to Ossoff.  Assuming that folks agree that organizing and boots on the ground is the best use of dollars.

  22. 22.

    RevRick

    @WaterGirl: I have a thing for Raphael Warnock. We have a great deep bench.
    And the GOP? They have yapping fools, sadists, and the Spanish Inquisition.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @MagdaInBlack: You know, even at the next-door-neighbor level, I always feel that it’s best if you can get along.  Nothing good comes when you don’t.

    FFOTUS and company are behaving as though we will still keep all of the benefits we have always had from these relationships while they  destroy them.  Evil idiots.

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    @They Call Me Noni: Like you, I knew it would be awful, and they would destroy a lot of things.  I really didn’t predict that they would almost literally burn everything down.  Practically on the first date.

  25. 25.

    Jay

    Canadian tourism trips and day trips to the US, (air, road, sea) are down 70% as of the end of February. , if that holds over the year, (it won’t it will grow), that’s a $21 billion dollar loss to the US economy. Scrub the Euro trips by the same amount and ruZZia will be your #1 tourism partner at $0.7 billion dollars, mostly anchor babies, China second.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @Jay: My Trump-voting sister and her Trump-supporting husband are taking a trip to Niagara Falls this spring or summer, with our cousins from Australia.

    I hope they get an earful from our cousins about how FFOTUS and the US are now viewed by the rest of the world.

    They certainly don’t listen to me, and they still appear to think this is just the usual “Republican-Democrat” thing, and they didn’t like all the horrible things Biden did, either.  So there!

    I have no words for how distressing it is to have the bulk of my extended family supporting the felon and his destruction.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    @cain: Okay, I’m gonna have to look up the senators from Oregon.

    edit: okay, looked them up.  Great senators?  I don’t see it.  Or were you joking?  You think I believe GA has the best pair of senators because they are good looking???  For real?

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @MagdaInBlack: And my other sister, the religious one, does not care when nazis march with torches in Charlottesville, that they killed Heather by driving into the group with their car, that children were separated from their parents, and on and on.  She cares only about the “6 million babies that are murdered every year”.

    It’s very hard.

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    They certainly don’t listen to me, and they still appear to think this is just the usual “Republican-Democrat” thing, and they didn’t like all the horrible things Biden did, either. So there!

    That sounds like it could be some of my relatives. There’s always the excuses they make; the deflections. I’m reminded of back during Trump 1.0, when the family separations were going on, whenever that was brought up, they’d reply that Obama did the same thing! Except he didn’t. Undocumented children were only separated from their parents if there was sufficient cause to do so, ie the children were in danger from the parents, etc, and they weren’t kept in the dehumanizing conditions the Trump admin kept them in

  35. 35.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: Are the threats against ActBlue by Muskrat and republicans causing any concerns for our future fundraising? See text I sent you.

  36. 36.

    MagdaInBlack

    @WaterGirl: One does wonder how people can grow up together and end up seeing the world so differently. I’m an only as were both my parents, so just an observer of this.

    Again, I’m sorry. I hope you have heart-friends who help ease it a bit.

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: Until something actually happens, no.

    If they do manage to cripple it, then one of the other alternatives will get more widespread use.

    I am aware but not yet worried.

  38. 38.

    Old School

    @Kelly:

    The American Art Museum currently features an exhibit that … claims that the United States has “used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.”

    How dare they!

  39. 39.

    They Call Me Noni

    @WaterGirl: I really think Elon and his juvenile delinquents should take a lot of the blame here.  Of course Trump is more than happy to let them take a blow torch to everything.

    There’s a special place in hell for them.  And Mitch McConnell.  I have a great amount of disdain for him too.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    A commenter on another site called Stefanik a “freaking opportunistic scumbag” – sounds about right.

  42. 42.

    jackmac

    I just posted this on the Toronto Star site and story on Prime Minister Carney’s statments:

    “I’m an American who is profoundly saddened and embarrassed at the wreckage that Trump has inflicted on the relationship between countries that have shared so much history and friendship. This doesn’t feel like a rough patch that can be eventually be smoothed over. Prime Minister Carney is quite right in saying that the old relationship “is over” and that Canada has agency and options that don’t include the United States. Canada still has many admirers and friends south of the 49th Parallel and I hope that if my country returns to some semblance of sanity we can renew a close friendship. But maybe Canada is better off without us.”

  44. 44.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m so sorry to hear this.

    In some ways, being the middle only child with almost no family to talk to, is an advantage.

    Again, so sorry to hear this.

  46. 46.

    cmorenc

    I am completely baffled why Trump came to be obsessed with trashing our relationship with Canada into a dumpster and setting it on fire.  Mexico, I can at least sort of get the twisted, racist-colored logic behind it, wrong-headed though it is but targeting Canada seems psychotically irrational.

  48. 48.

    Burrowing Owl

    @WaterGirl: I have a similar situation. You aren’t alone, and it is frustrating and baffling to be related to and raised with people you thought could see reality and be sensible and kind. They’re blinded by religious conviction to ignore the suffering of living people.

  50. 50.

    Steve LaBonne

    @cmorenc: They refuse to believe the perfectly reasonable argument that they should be happy to be annexed by the US. (Tl;dr: Trump is an idiot.)

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