I wrote about the goblins in charge, an old boss who bit me on the arm, and the use and abuse of contempt. defector.com/kingdom-of-t…
— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) March 28, 2025 at 4:33 PM
National treasure David Roth. at Defector:
,,,,, When my boss bit me, I had just questioned his wish to include an easily disprovable lie in his bio, which I was writing on his computer, at his desk. I was shocked by the bite, but less surprised by the look on his face afterwards—he was flushed and eager, like a child that has just discovered how to be naughty, his eyes shining and a little wet. As with the cohort that generally does that sort of thing, which is weird little kids acting out in daycare settings, there was a question implied in that look—what would be the consequence for doing a thing that you are absolutely not supposed to do? In retrospect, I wonder if he was waiting to see if I’d hit him.
Instead I said something like “what the fuck was that,” although I already knew what the fuck it was, and had known it from within the first few weeks of starting the gig. I had known since then that I would leave the job as soon as I could figure out how; I knew what kind of place it was, and what kind of person was running it, and if I didn’t literally know until that moment that my boss could be described as A Biter, it was more startling than actually surprising to find out for sure. I think I understood at some level that this boss was not merely the sort of person who might bite me—hard enough that I could show the imprint to my wife when I got home and she asked how my day was—but the sort of person who would eat me if need be, or just if he thought he could.
I knew, too, albeit in an abstract way, that there were a lot of people like that out there, certainly in real estate but also just in the world. One of the most important lessons of adult life is understanding people like this for what they are and learning to identify them as quickly as possible; keeping people like this away from those you care about is, in no small part, the work of being an adult. Not being able to do that—putting your trust in people like this, or letting yourself believe that there is any kind of fair and mutually advantageous deal to be made with them—means that you will get victimized a lot….
… Even during the campaign that re-installed him to office, Trump was receding into something memetic and abstract. This version was not so much a leader who would bring his will to bear on the direction of the state—he couldn’t really remember his lines well enough anymore to pull that off, but also Trump has always worked better as a fantasy of business mastery than as the real and shabby thing he actually is—as something more like a gilded Trojan Horse. That rotten piñata would, after getting through the doors of power, burst to release a payload of chittering ideologues who would not otherwise have been able to breach those gates on their own. Trump himself would be free to watch television and go on television and wheeze and drawl from behind his big messy desk during ceremonies in which he signed whatever order those goblins handed him; the goblins, for their part, would be free to feast and shit and caper hideously about as goblins do.
It did not change him and certainly did not improve him, but Trump’s experience of power clearly made an impression on him. His lack of interest in the work that the administrative state actually does was and remains total; that work benefits other people, and so would naturally be of no interest to him. He grew to hate it, and has now survived long enough to watch on television as the people that he picked to oversee the project go about that work in haphazard and sadistic fashion, pausing frequently to celebrate and thank Mr. Trump and heatedly demand apologies on his behalf.
The collection of degenerates that make up Trump’s cabinet makes sense mostly if you think of it as Trump, in his role as executive producer of the end of the American Century, casting the various roles in the cable news television programming he watches. These are, more or less without exception, people who would not be able to hold down a regular job; they are, all of them, instantly and obviously identifiable as predators, and the violence and harm that they have done to more or less everything they’ve touched over the course of their reckless lives proves it all out. But they are also the faces that have represented various broad archetypes—War, Computer, Medicines, Crime, Gold—on rightwing media, and this most avid and credulous consumer of rightwing media would instantly have understood them as credible.
The ways in which these grasping and venal incompetents manage both towards and like Trump were all right there on the emoji-strewn page in the classified war-planning chat to which they mistakenly invited Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this week. They are thoughtless and reckless, terrified of being assigned any kind of personal responsibility but blithe and breezy about the prospect of blowing up a few dozen bystanders in a country they know nothing about; their concerns are transparently self-centered and fatuous; there is no evident strategy, only the classic Trumpian interplay of grievance and impatience. There is nothing like collaboration, because these are not the sort of creatures that collaborate; these are all inveterate biters, and have long since given up wondering about consequences. Whatever the state once was, it is now this—a bunch of middle-management gangsters fucking each other over or doing each other favors according to their sense of how doing so will benefit them, with no other consideration ever entering the equation. This is how it works, from one day to the next: a bunch of absolutely amoral gangster boss types and various industry elites scratching each others’ itches and cutting each other in and making business decisions; the mores and moral logic of Jeffrey Epstein’s island, but everywhere.,,,
But for all the ways in which this feels like the end, and all the ways in which it really represents something like the final surrender of a power structure that seems to have lost faith or just lost interest in itself, it is not actually an end. That cynicism, too, is Trumpian; the world will cease to matter to him the moment he leaves it, and so he is more than happy to decree that everyone and everything be buried alongside him. It will be important to remember the shame of this moment, both how it felt and how it worked, when it is time to build whatever will rise from it—to remember the blithe and brutal and self-delighted contempt with which this elite set out to devour every other better thing, and to work to build a life and a world that is not just strong enough to resist it but dedicated to its opposite.
Baud
Reposted from below. Hillary is on Blue sky.
bsky.app/profile/hillaryclinton.bsky.social
RobinS
Cory Booker is holding the Senate floor right now to disrupt business as usual
On CSpan but I can’t make a link
Elizabelle
Anne Laurie: I hope you are feeling so much better.
That photo is fabulous. Jebus, the real Nazis looked better than that.
NotMax
From downstairs.
FYI, straight outta Detroit.
Fact check: Donald Trump’s tariff claims on auto industry.
Cliff’s Notes summary: he lies.
Scout211
Thank you, AL. David Roth is always such a good read. Thank you for the excerpt.
Yep.
ETA: AL, I am glad you are feeling well enough to post.
JoeyJoeJoe
Regarding the Florida 6th district congressional election tomorrow, for anyone who doesn’t know, Randy Fine is a piece of shit and bigot:
reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1jmzp6m/florida_state_senator_randy_fine_told_a_member_of/
Spanky
@Elizabelle: That photo reminded me of this.
narya
QFT. And it’s at the very heart of the shitstorm we’re currently enduring.
Manyakitty
@RobinS: good. (About Booker)
Elizabelle
@Spanky: Monty Python had upper class twits.
We have Trump’s lower order twats. Very sad.
brantl
@Elizabelle: yeah, the real Na than that, these are still real Nazis, though just Nazi babies with rabies.
Scout211
I’m not familiar with Arizona Democrats, but she sounds good. Any jackals from Arizona have an opinion?
Scamp Dog
The link in the first paragraph of the block quote is busted, but the link in the tweet (skeet?) works, which is how I got to the article.
Baud
@Scout211:
Don’t know anything about her, but a lot of folks here have been against relatives running for seats.
Scout211
@RobinS:
It may be too late, but here’s the YouTube:
Cory Booker live
ETA: still speaking
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I followed her already.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, Dan Osborn is working to continue what he started with his Senate campaign.
Working Class Heroes Fund / About:
We need to keep an eye on efforts like this, and support them when they are genuine, even when we disagree with some of his positions (like “close the border”). Normal people need to see and feel that sensible people that can represent their interests are in elected positions.
Unfortunately, a couple of sensible normal people – Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown – lost their Senate seats, so that’s only part of the puzzle. And not having a “(D)” behind his name didn’t help Osborn enough either. There are many variables in puzzling out ways to defeat the MAGAts, and some are likely hidden!
It’s a tough problem, but we have to keep working on it.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Baud: That reminds me of the people who were against Hillary Clinton because she “represented the Clinton dynasty”.
So, in their infinite wisdom, they helped kick off the Trump dynasty instead.
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all. Or at least I hope the rest of you are having one.
Shinobi42
I can’t help but think that this was how the writers of our declaration of independence and constitution felt –
They had spent so long under the thumbs of men given power because of their birth. They had no check on their insanity, no balance to their power except the disapproval of their peers.
And now we learn that eventually even a system full of checks and balances will fall if enough people are complicit in setting aside the rule of law – turning a blind eye to the corruption, murder and other crimes being committed to gain absolute power.
How do we build a system that can be safe from bad actors when there are so many.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Existential Comics – The Frog and the Scorpion from a Rational Point of View.
Hmm… Maybe the artist is making an analogy to current US politics. Can’t be sure though… ;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
E.
@Interesting Name Goes Here: It’s a very liberal district with a large indigenous population. They have a deep bench.
ewrunning
@Scout211: Not too late. He plans to hold the floor as long as he’s physically able to continue.
different-church-lady
So the question we gotta answer somehow is: what is it about predators that the current electorate finds so appealing, and how do we change it?
Elizabelle
Cory Booker reminds me that we should not allow silent filibusters. Make them do this. For hours.
The Senate rules do not serve the public. Whom they allegedly represent.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
Social media makes “hero’s” out of predators.
nitter.poast.org/P_Kallioniemi/status/1905584656881172552#m
Elizabelle
I enjoy hearing Senator Booker’s calm speaking style. Much more effective than speechifying oration.
Ebony
His boss but him? Yikes! I hope he went to urgent care and got rabies and tetanus shots. Also, I hope the wound was properly cleaned
bbleh
… to work to build a life and a world that is not just strong enough to resist it but dedicated to its opposite.
I think the world of, eg, Joe Biden was reasonably dedicated to “its opposite.” But I think too many people misapprehended the depravity and energy of “its” supporters. You see this in the comfortable-middle-class media: an ongoing assumption, sometimes explicit sometimes merely tacit, that “everyday Americans” — meaning basically everyone — have some fundamental “common sense,” which happens to accord among other things with the rule of law, the Constitutional order, etc. That this is not the case is … slowly? becoming apparent? to more people. One can only hope it does so with enough people and in time.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I do not think that, historically, United States Senators were ever supposed to represent the people. For that there is a separate body, which even has the word as part of its name.
WTFGhost
@different-church-lady: The zeitgeist includes the loner hero, not bound by “rules.” Why are they exempt from rules?
Because they’re doing something that has some appeal. Fighting crimes that the cops can’t fight, or revenge, or, fighting for one’s country, or, revenge, or, trying to protect one’s national interest, and/or revenge. The national interest is a good way to mix racism with the rules exemption for the Sacred National Interest, which indicated that a bunch of Iraqis had to die, because W was pissed that Saddam tried to kill his dad.
Ahem.
How do you break that? Well, again, if a person can’t reject it by hearing about it and realizing it’s terrible stuff, you only really get movement when something visible and terrible happens
RaflW
When Roth says “a bunch of middle-management gangsters fucking each other over or doing each other favors according to their sense of how doing so will benefit them” I have to admit that I’ve been a bit shocked that Dan Bongino has not gotten into some sort of public ego-fight with Kash Patel yet.
Early days, sure, but they’re all so impatient that I am just a wee bit surprised (I also want as much public infighting and nasty vituperation directed at each other because it’s really the only thing thatthese deeply depraved and horrible people deserve from each other).
Professor Bigfoot
Welp, they’ve gotten to “final solution for the Jews” territory, and damned quickly.
Gin & Tonic
So additional imaging on my aching knee has determined I have a small non-displaced fracture of the proximal tibia. That brings to four the number of long bones I have managed to fracture (some more spectacularly than others.)
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
What did you do, this time?
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: This was, shockingly, a skiing accident.
Professor Bigfoot
@Gin & Tonic: Clumsy one, aren’t you? ;)
I’m kidding of course, but how long did you put up with pain before you got the additional imaging?
Good luck with it
eta: Ahh, an accident. Sucks, but it’s always better to have a diagnosis, isn’t it?
Scout211
@Gin & Tonic: Yikes! That’s a lot of fractures.
Have you ever had a bone density test?
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: Well that sucks. And we remember at least one of the more spectacular, skiing related fractures.
What’s the protocol to heal it?
Down here I’ve added a torn rotator cuff to my list of skeletal issues. Probably going to have a higher priority than the thumb joint replacement, and both of those are much nearer term than the hip replacement.
I used myself rather liberally in my youth, and payment is coming due.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, god. I’m sorry!
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: I trust you’ll heal up quick and well! I’ve been reading recently that autologous cartilage grafts to knees have come along enough that us old farts can get it. When I see my doc next I’m gonna ask him about it. When I was a young’un I used to love to ski, but haven’t in decades b/c I have patellofemoral injury in both kneecaps. Boy it’d be great to ski again, even if it’s just the green slopes.
Gin & Tonic
@Spanky: I’ll have to wait until my ortho consult next week to see what can/should be done. Probably nothing.
I’ve had bone density tests, which are normal. Most of my injuries have involved traveling at speeds outside of design specifications. Shit happens.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gin & Tonic: glad it was a broken bone, not a torn meniscus. I had that, aching for months, then it snapped, and I crawled to my car and drove myself to the ER to get crutches and info.
The good news about a broken bone, is , bone heals to original strength. Sorry about the pain, and the missed spring skiing. Skiing definitely involves some high speed events. Ouch.
Are you visiting the Rockies? Should we throw together a meet up while you’re in the vicinity?
Chetan Murthy
Or as my Ortho once put it to me: “don’t feel too badly about your joint issues [fucked-up both shoulders lifting, both knees skating]: it just means you used ’em for real!”
dmsilev
If we get through this with a vaguely functional government and society, we need to insist on banishing the phrase ‘look forward, not backwards’. We absolutely need to look back, and have accountability and reckoning for all the people responsible.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chetan Murthy: you hurt your knees skating? Ice skating?
Spanky
@Chetan Murthy: I remember in my youth (well, it was probably in my early 30s) thinking “I’m probably going to pay for this in my old age” and well, here we are.
Seventy doesn’t seem like old age except for the aches and pains.
Chetan Murthy
@Gloria DryGarden: I learned at age 21. Spent basically an entire winter of grad school falling multiple times a day, every day. Eventually I learned how to skate pretty well, but it was quite a painful journey.
Gin & Tonic
@Gloria DryGarden: Torn meniscus was last year, other knee.
And thanks for the offer, but I’m home. Did this in Utah.
cain
@Professor Bigfoot:
It’s hilarious that you can’t criticize Israel but deporting Jews is totally fine
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
Deport them to where?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@cain: “a foolish consistency…”
Today’s version: you are foolish to expect consistency.
[ETA @Gin & Tonic: take care and my best wishes for a swift and complete recovery. I had a meniscus tear years ago, ow!]
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: Totally. And rather rapidly, too.
@Gin & Tonic: Wishing you a speedy recovery from the latest injury.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
Wishing you a speedy recovery
BellyCat
Roth’s overheated rhetoric is usually somewhat insightful even if it could use heavy shaving by a courageous editor. This one? Chef’s kiss!
Professor Bigfoot
@cain:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Y’all got me. I’m feckin’ gobsmacked.
Like I knew they were figuratively Nazis, but now I see they are straight up Nazis.
Percysowner
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Unknown, but while they are figuring it out we can park them in camps, where they can do healthy labor and there will be large furnaces for all the er “baking” that will be needed. Anyone using proven psychiatric drugs, vaccines and other drugs that RFK Jr. doesn’t approve will also be placed there, as will any trans or non-binary person. Black people will be sent either to theses camps or, if the Plantation of their ancestors can be found, they will be sent there to continue the “service” that those ancestors expected them to continue. I would say /sarcasm, but I’m not being sarcastic.
Scout211
Wired (web archive version)
. . .
Now they are just blatantly stealing.
BellyCat
First, kill Citizen’s United.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
@Percysowner:
Relatedly, I actually looked into immigrating to Canada. It’s incredibly difficult to do. They mainly only want skilled and educated workers with job offers from employers in Canada, and then only specific professions. If you work in retail, for example, which a lot of people do, you’re SOL.
Seeking asylum as an American is also virtually impossible. You have to be able to prove that you specifically are in danger with evidence (police reports, etc). It can’t be a generalized fear etc. You also have to try moving to other parts of the US first, such as a blue state, before trying for Canada. The US is currently still considered a “safe” country by the Canadian government. Wonder how long that’ll continue to last?
What good is fleeing to a blue state if the gestapo can get to you there too?
ETA: to give context to how difficult it is to be granted asylum as an American in Canada, from 2013 to 2022, there were 0 asylum applications approved for Americans
Chetan Murthy
My answer would be: there are more of us here. A ton more of us. I live over the hill from many, many LGBTQ folks, and the Bay Area is filled with Asians. And of course Hispanics. For them to get to me, there are a ton of others they’ll have to get thru. And that means that if they start in on us, there’ll be a ton of people who will get mad, and maybe do something about it. Perhaps we believe that nobody will ever get mad enough about it to take the law into their own hands: I doubt it, but if that were true, then the right move is to simply become an undocumented immigrant in some other country. But honestly, I do think that if the Gestapo starts coming after Americans in California, then Californians will not stand for it, and there -will- be a violent backlash. Maybe I’m wrong.
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: California could secede and become part of Canada in 5 minutes.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I got around to answering your question a couple threads ago, about Kay’s critique of Democrats. It took me so long, though that you may have missed it.
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami: The West Coast governors could openly defy Federal edicts – e.g. the ones on deportation – and arrest Federal agents trying to enforce them. But they’re not gonna. It’ll be up to the citizenry to decide to do these things.
H.E.Wolf
Dropping in late to thank Anne Laurie for the post, and to send good wishes for continued and full recovery.
hitchhiker
@Interesting Name Goes Here:
Yes indeed. HRC had to be held accountable for the Bush family dynasty, which included a director of the CIA, a vice-president, two presidents, and two governors. That was the dynasty part of her problem, because her name was Clinton.
Then she had to be held accountable for her husband’s horndog/predatory behavior before, during, and after his presidency.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if she’d divorced his ass and taken back her name.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Just come to Canada as a tourist, then stay. Worked during Vietnam.
Canadian Immigration is not looking for white English speakers, and should you get caught, well, Dolt47 will be over and the situation will change for better or worse.
Eric S.
@Gin & Tonic:
I broke a tibia a few years ago but because of slowness. I didn’t get out of the way of the batter ball.
Wishing you a quick recovery!
Gloria DryGarden
@Gin & Tonic: sorry about that. Will your meniscus heal cuz it’s just a partial tear? Or are they offering fancy solutions? I don’t dare try ice skating since I did this…
heal well, and smoothly. May it go well. I’ve never skied in utah. Only Colorado. And once in Illinois, very icy.
Chetan Murthy
@hitchhiker: I’ve never forgiven people who called Hillary some sort of dynastic successor! Ambitious women of her generation had few choices, and she had to make the best of what was on offer. She was one of the top 100 lawyers in America, when her hubs was a failed congressional candidate: that she married him is not something anybody should hold against her.
Today, sure/sure, a woman can have her own political career. Back then? Not. So. Much.
Grr.
Gin & Tonic
@Gloria DryGarden: The meniscus was last year, it’s been fine for a while. The tibia is this year, and I have to wait and see what develops.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That would be East Asians. The ones who I worked with were very uncomfortable with the wife succeeding the husband since it’s a common stunt over there to get around term limits.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
Uh, a problem with that:
As for the Vietnam era:
frosty
Well put – I LOL’d. Best wishes for a quick and uncomplicated recovery.
I’ve had three broken bones (if you include my nose). Alcohol was only involved in one of them. Sports (water skiing and softball) in the other two.
Chetan Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’d never thought of that angle. I always figured it was a just another wheeze, another “you don’t understand, the b***h woulda win!” thing. They’ve been hating her since the jump. Since 1992 for sure.
frosty
@Percysowner: That’s going to be a lot of people. Perhaps we can call those camps “Blue States” and send everyone there.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chetan Murthy: My coworkers also didn’t like Trump any better for all of his bankruptcies.
frosty
@Ksmiami: No it can’t. The question of secession was resolved in 1865.
Don’t forget the significant part of California that would secede from the state if this would happen – Shasta County and the north, Bakersfield and the Central Valley. We would have a bloodbath worse than Partition in India in 1947. They weren’t as well armed.
Chetan Murthy
@frosty: [I am -not- arguing for some sorta national divorce: I -do- understand how costly in blood and treasure (and esp. blood) that would be, how not-final-at-all that would be]
There will be little that us Blue-staters can do to help decent folk in Red states. Those folks can move to Blue states, and by doing so, they will help themselves, and help -us- too. B/c the more of us there are, the more of us there are all together, the tougher it’ll be for the bastards to fuck with us. And I’m guessing that some of these decent Red-state folks know their way around weapons too. Which is more than I can say for myself.
NotMax
@Spanky
As someone has observed about being above a certain age,
“When I wake up in the morning, everything I have two of — one aches.”
;)
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: “Once you get to a certain age …. we’re all used goods.”
Scout211
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
I don’t think that’s a good idea. Vietnam-era Canada was a different time. Justin T’s father was PM then and was far more lenient towards draft dodgers. I don’t think the current Candian government today, with all of it’s modern technology, would let somebody do that. Over the next few years, depending on how things play our, maybe that will change, if/when they no longer determine the US a “safe” country.
Plus, what would I do for a job? Here in the US, employers have always wanted proof of residency/citizenship, such as my SS card. I imagine it’s the same in Canada
satby
@Geminid: I replied to you. I get you’re trying to give grace to a long time commenter that people somehow still respect which I honestly wouldn’t even bother with, but it’s just another long convoluted attempt to ignore racism.
Though she would be on board with the idea that misogyny reduced Harris’ votes too. It was both.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You just need a SIN number, doesn’t even have to be yours. It’s 333-333-333. Don’t even need to show a card, just fill out a number on the form.
I know lot’s of “illegals”.
Trouble comes if you follow “the rules” then break the rules, or you know, crimeing.
Nobody cares that the kayak instructor at the Tofino resort is an illegal Auzzi, or the Ski Instructor at Whistler is an illegal Kiwi, or the pot salesmen at the retail shop is a NorCal refugee.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
I saw that. I appreciated your response.
ETA:
I think you’re right that there’s some Dems out there that for them poor and POC are invisible.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
I also wouldn’t be able to access Medicare or have an old age pension. I guess if I were truly desperate it’d be an option, but I think at that point, the Canadian government would no longer classify the US as a “safe” country, and seeking asylum would there would be easier for Americans
Melancholy Jaques
@Scout211:
I know nothing about Adelita Grijalva & she’ll probably be fine, maybe even great. But I get a spasm in my neck when I consider how much of politics is a family business.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): however difficult Canada would be, economically job wise Healthcare wise Etc, a blue State like California or Massachusetts probably will be less difficult.
NobodySpecial
@hitchhiker: What would have happened is the chuds would have bashed her endlessly for daring to divorce a popular President and would have still stirred up the MRA’s to be forever anti-Dem. Nothing would have been appreciably different.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Medicare is not a thing here. Show up, get treated.
For now, while there is Social Security, it crosses the border. Welfare here pays more.
Minimum wage is $17.40 and most of that comes with 80% health, wellness and dental.
Chetan Murthy
@NobodySpecial: They’ve hated her since that “could have stayed home baking cookies” remark. Hated her. Hated her.
Melancholy Jaques
@different-church-lady:
To me, it seems that a lot of voters do not connect their votes with policy outcomes at all. They are looking for public spectacle, for a catharsis, for someone who resembles a WWE performer, but talks about society & the frustrations of modern life. Trump gives them what Rush Limbaugh gave them: validation of their stupidity, bigotry, and selfishness.
Someone in an earlier thread said something like voters are assholes is not a winning message. True. But I never suggested it as a message, only an accurate description of slightly more than half the electorate.
Unless & until we Democrats accept that reality, we will continue to bicker with & attack each other over minor issues & imaginary flaws
And to be honest, I have no idea what messages might change the way ignorant, hateful bigots vote.
NotMax
Decided to make a big batch of kasha varnishkes. Mmmm. Can hardly wait for din-din time later on.
Top of the box of kasha (buckwheat groats) retrieved from the depths of the pantry is labeled “Best if used by May 2019.” Once opened, looked and smelled perfectly A-OK.
;)
Martin
Watch the shift in the electorate from rule of law to force of law.
We’re entering a period where the only acceptance of guilt will be incarceration. Nothing Trump or Musk is doing is illegal because nobody is locking them up.
Might makes right.
Martin
@Melancholy Jaques: They are looking for someone who will fight for them. Trump has that affect. Democrats haven’t figured out how to present that to voters.
coin operated
@Gin & Tonic:
All the updings!!!
Kayla Rudbek
@Nukular Biskits: I managed to get in touch with the oncology team and they said keep my April appointment (that’s the earliest they can get me in) and contact the surgery team to see if they want to do an assessment. Surgery team called me and I need to call them back for initial triage tomorrow. And Mr. Rudbek is still working, with him being a Fed I can’t take that for granted anymore
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Melancholy Jaques:
I think it was said in the Le Pen consequences thread in response to my assertion that we’re going to have to confront the problem of those voters being assholes eventually. Thing is, the bigots concern me far less than the ones who talk a big game but flake when it matters or worse. We can’t keep saying that messaging is a problem when people will twist themselves in knots to avoid having to do the right thing. Eventually, blaming everything and everyone except the voting public is going to ring hollow because it’s going to become especially evident that none of those excuses hold much water (if any). Hell, that arguably came to pass in the last election. Now, perhaps someone can finesse things and talk some of these people into soft landings without hurting their feelings. I freely admit that I’m not that guy – after November, I think that an acceptable solution to the problem would be to gather a bunch of the most influential contrarians around a nice big table in a dining hall and march around them with a baseball bat a la The Untouchables. But however it gets done, the voter problem is going to have to be dealt with, and it needs to be dealt with effectively.
sab
After 40+ years in public accounting I have had many really crappy bosses, but none of them bit me.
Life never ceases to surprise.