"Republicans in Congress ignore imminent death of government to focus on actively killing government" pic.twitter.com/oZonObvsnC
— The okayest poster there is (@ok_post_guy) February 23, 2025
Warren Buffett issues a not so veiled warning to trump.
“Take care of the many who, for no fault of their own, get the short straws in life. They deserve better.”
He now holds more Japanese shares than US. He is bearish on the US for the first time ever.
www.financialexpress.com/trending/war…— Thomas Long (@rayosunlong.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Maybe hating on dick bosses is the great unifier, the thing that brings all Americans together.
— Senator Tina Smith (@smith.senate.gov) February 23, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. (1/2)
— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Nervous Musk, Trump, Vance have all been outclassed in public arguments these last few days. Government failure, stock market crash, and dictatorial alliances are not popular. People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power. (2/2)
— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Remember, Feds, Elon doesn't have the authority to direct you to the Restroom.
He can't order you a fucking pizza.— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Marker: If there is a ‘fever breaking’ moment for Trump (recession, shocker special election result, etc) and it becomes clear that there isn’t going to be a thousand year trumpenreich, you’re going to see a scramble of belated efforts from places like SCOTUS to prove they are totally independent
— William B. Fuckley (@opinionhaver.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Me, angrily, to a leopard: I voted for cheap eggs, not measles!
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Trump before the election: “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down starting on day one” https://t.co/0PsqnBBzGb pic.twitter.com/DON3dnmndh
— FactPost (@factpostnews) February 21, 2025
$200 million dollars of waste. pic.twitter.com/LfOJtq69uZ
— Karly Kingsley (@karlykingsley) February 22, 2025
On The Road – Albatrossity – Winter birds 4
NotMax
Righteous rant.
Mr. Mack
Elon Musk was never on my radar until the Thailand cave rescue. I remember that he accused one of the rescuers of being a pedophile, and I thought it strange he would say that, seemed petty at the very least. When Bluesky launched and started gaining traction, he referred to it as “pedo-sky”. Seems to be his go to insult, and he is (surprise!) reckless about it.
Spanky
@Mr. Mack: Every accusation is a confession. Makes you wonder what he gets out of carrying a toddler around his neck.
sab
@Mr. Mack: I agree with Spanky. With Republicans every reaction is a confession.
The Thin Black Duke
What might actually get us through this shitstorm is white people feeling the pain. When push comes to shove, their blind loyalty to the GOP will go away once their checks start bouncing and their cars are repossessed. Let’s hear it for unenlightened self-interest.
NotMax
Turning to a more serious vein, FYI.
Surveillance maximus.
Marmot
@The Thin Black Duke: Heck, in bang-for-buck, low-info voters are the real swing constituency.
Phylllis
@The Thin Black Duke: Particularly when all that sweet, free daycare in the form of public school contracts.
New Deal democrat
The SCOTUS is a severely corrupted institution at this point, but Jay Willis is simply wrong, as several of his commenters promptly pointed out; e.g.,
The Court only has jurisdiction to opine on “cases and controversies” before them. Want the Court to opine? Bring a case.
In T—-p’s first term, when the Court ruled against him, typically Roberts would helpfully provide him with a road map for how to accomplish the same result within legal bounds. We’ll see what happens this time around.
prostratedragon
Watched the Bertolucci movie The Conformist last night. The movie ends in Rome on the day Mussolini fell. Two men are overheard chatting in the street. One, who is camped there, says he’ll be alright as long as there are plenty of cats around. The other boasts of having a connection to get eggs — omelettes, even.
The scene, and movie, end with this song; the visual is from earlier, and is a 3 minute summary:
“Come l’ombra [Like a Shadow]”
Ben Cisco
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s not much of an ethos, but it is one.
narya
@The Thin Black Duke: On one hand, you’re absolutely correct. On the same hand, though, they will still not achieve any enlightenment on the white supremacy/patriarchy that is at the heart of this mess and which they still basically support, as you and the Professor and others remind us. I honestly don’t know what it will take for white people to stop being assholes in that particular way. Sparrows, curtain rods, etc. That is, they WON’T stop being loyal to the GOP, just to this instance of it.
ETA typo correction
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: I agree with this, but specifically middle and upper class white people. Politicians don’t care about the pain of anyone who’s poor, including white people.
catclub
I find myself less upset by what they are doing to the federal government in comparison with Trump taking up positions in alliance with Putin versus Ukraine.
Trump’s first offer to Ukraine was: You will pay US $500B in reparations and we will give you nothing. No security guarantees.
Anonymous At Work
@New Deal democrat: Chief Justice “Balls and Strikes” Roberts could opine in the press that ignoring clear rulings undermines the judiciary and should be treated as a threat to judges everywhere, as a real threat, not a “we don’t like this opinion.”
He *is* smart enough to know that cowardly silence NOW will cost the Court, his legacy, and his masters later, especially if he doesn’t want a bunch of new colleagues and less office space as he makes room for additional Justices. Whether he has the ability to play the long-game over short-term quarterly profits, I dunno.
Matt McIrvin
I’m not convinced the economy will sink them, because I remember Reagan: the brutal recession of his first term went down the memory hole by ’84 because there was a recovery with relatively low inflation. Americans seem generally inclined to cut Republicans slack if things seem to be moving forward.
catclub
@Soprano2: Yes. Close down commercial air travel and the business/politician class will revolt.
prostratedragon
Dan Sinker on the seemingly powerful kkk of the 1920s, and one man’s fight against it as an example of how they were defeated then and can be once again.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Even universally liked Will Rogers wouldn’t venture there.
Jeffro
CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN – KEEP UP THE PRESSURE!!!
Karen S.
Over the weekend, I watched several clips of GOP Trump lackeys, a.k.a. members of Congress, holding town halls. One of the things that struck me most was how smarmy and smug the lackeys were in the face of getting booed and yelled at by their constituents. There was also the confidence they repeating lies about things like the VA paying “illegal aliens.” It was … something.
Jeffro
@NotMax: thank you!
Imma go have a smoke after that one (and I don’t even smoke anymore) ;)
The Thin Black Duke
@Matt McIrvin: This disaster is going to be worse than what happened during St. Ronnie’s first term, especially when none of the goons in this administration have the charisma to sell this bullshit. Despite the efforts of the spin doctors in the corporate media, the more the public sees Elmo Muskrat, the less they like him. Trump is thisclose to becoming a gibbering Weekend at Bernie’s stage prop, and even the fascist neo-Nazis in Germany didn’t like J.D. Vance.
prostratedragon
Eagles!!
@NotMax:
Heh, and with that he was done. A fairly racist Polish Catholic once told me not to worry, his people would gladly help against them.
Another Scott
As always with 47 and with bullies in general, they’ll keep taking until people and institutions stand up to them. Silence == Acquiescence (at minimum).
The House is back in session this week, with some votes scheduled for today.
Rep Don Beyer made the point that people have to speak up to their elected people and tell them NO. That’s the first step in the resistance.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
The Thin Black Duke
@prostratedragon: My Philadelphia Eagles did that in Trump’s 1st term as well. As much as I appreciate Patrick Mahommes, his wife is a hardcore Trumpster, so I’m glad we were spared that obnoxious photo-op.
WereBear
NY 22 rejoice! We have a Democrat in the seat for the first time in 50 years.
From web:
John W. Mannion (born July 8, 1968) is an American educator and politician who has served as the U.S. representative from New York’s 22nd congressional district since 2025. He previously served as a state senator from the 50th district between 2020 and 2024. Before entering politics, Mannion was a high school biology teacher.
Mannion was elected in 2020 to the New York State Senate, defeating Republican Angi Renna and became the first Democrat to hold the seat in more than 50 years. He then won the 2024 U.S. House election against incumbent Brandon Williams.
Washington DC Office
1516 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3701
Syracuse District Office
440 South Warren Street
Suite 706
Syracuse, NY 13202
Phone: (315) 233-4333
I will be calling him today.
LAC
@narya: GM! That is a good point. If we ever climb out of this hole, there needs to a significant realignment of thought that is not just about enough self interest to limp to the next election.
Jackie
@prostratedragon: Good for them! From your link:
I hope the FFOTUS breaks his teeth gnashing them so hard in fury!
Also… wonder if he’ll invite the Loser Chiefs – claiming they were robbed of their rightful 3-Peat! LOL
K-Mo
@The Thin Black Duke: You’re on it today.
My question is, if/when they loosen their grip on GOP obedience, what is the message we need to give them to bring them to blue? I can’t think of an improvement on “Build Back Better” but I lack creativity.
WereBear
Hit the machine and left a heartfelt message. Mentioned the leadership gap and how we are all watching… and sadly, waiting, so let’s stop allowing all this illegal stuff.
Legally speaking, I could arrest Musk as a citizen with standing, and he has done illegal things in front of the world.
Of course, if I was really to do it, I would have to infiltrate the whacko world of the very rich, and I’m not a member of the IMF enough to fake that one.
Then again… they are famously gullible. That blood test woman who didn’t even get a BA had them rolling barrels of money down mountains. Of course, it helps to be a psychopath, because that impresses the half-psychopaths among them.
There are even ethical psychopaths. I’m not harshing on anyone but the deliberately cruel.
chemiclord
@narya: Ya know, I’d take them rejecting this brand of the GOP for now.
There is merit to conservative positions. There can be merit to a genuine conservative thought that can help find the unseen cracks in progressive policy.
The problem I see is that these people will never be actually conservative. When Trumpism falls, they may go quiet for a little bit… but they’ll merely be lying in wait for the next hateful demagogue to tell them what they want to hear.
WereBear
@Mr. Mack: And every pederast he knows gets more paranoid and agrees with him more just in case?
mali muso
@prostratedragon: Thanks for this. Very helpful to remember our history.
The Thin Black Duke
@K-Mo: TBH, I’m not thinking that far ahead, I just want to be able to see us do the necessary course correction, make it to 2026 and steer the ship of state away from the oligarchs’ iceberg.
WereBear
@catclub: Private jets use the same safety system. Can other countries trust our system, or not, and no-fly us?
Jeffro
Speaking up boldly here: Frank Kendall, Biden’s Secretary of the Air Force, hitting all the right notes
America Has a Rogue President
WereBear
@prostratedragon: Huge scandals do seem to have a noticeable effect on the electorate.
But they shrugged off incredible true things about Trump by not believing it. Doesn’t work when they repo the truck.
That clears the mental sinuses.
LAC
@catclub: i am sorry, but what is happening at the federal government has impact with Ukraine as the underpinnings of the government are being corrupted and corroded. The resources of people and treasure are being stripped away with barely any push back by Congress.
JMG
@Matt McIrvin: The difference is in your own words, “low inflation.” The Volcker-Carter-Reagan recession was created in response to double-digit inflation and a decade or more of ever-higher prices. The end of that was very popular. It’s not that the recession itself was forgotten so much as it was a price the majority of voters were willing to pay for lower inflation.
eclare
@NotMax:
I’m from the south, I can’t listen that fast. When I watched MSNBC, there was a correspondent there, can’t remember her name, who always got me to yell at my tv, slow down!
Jeffro
@The Thin Black Duke: I think it’s hysterical that trumpov keeps circling back to “I like Brittany Mahomes much better than Taylor Swift”…
…donnie my man, you are such a loser! The slightest bit of flattery or support and you’re ALL IN. The slightest bit of rejection or criticsm and the critic lives in your head rent-free for decades.
But he’s this big strong MAGA manly man (eyeroll)
Kirk
@The Thin Black Duke: nothing gets people’s attention like discovering they have serious skin in the game. The closest is when they know they have skin in the game but realize it’s not the skin they thought it was.
That said the unwillingness to admit fault or error will lead some to their cardboard boxes even knowing that they too would have no curtain rod.
p.a.
Oh his legacy is already set. A seat right next to Taney.
New Deal democrat
YY Sima Qian and I had a brief discussion last week about evidence that the US economy was weaker last year than was thought at the time. That’s because pundits were focusing on things like the unemployment rate, when there was other data (e.g., housing prices) suggesting that especially younger people were under considerable economic stress.
We got more evidence of that last week. Without getting too much into the weeds, the monthly jobs report is an estimate based on a survey. But six months later, on a quarterly basis, an actual *census* of 95% of all employers is reported. And even later than that, the monthly reports get revised to be back fit with the census.
That Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages was released last week for Q3 of last year, and it suggested that the jobs market, which is presently estimated to have added about 125,000 jobs a month between June and September, may not have added any jobs at all – or at very least that in all of 2024 there were 1,000,000 less job gains than we originally thought.
Which, needless to say, probably played a role in the November elections.
If you are interested in all the boring details, here’s my full report:
bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/02/q3-2024-qcew-suggests-employment-was.html
CindyH
@narya: I don’t think white people will ever change in large amounts so they need to be outnumbered – will happen eventually
Dorothy A. Winsor
We had dinner with our son last night. He works for a defense contractor. So far, he’s heard no news about problems but who knows? The administration’s actions are so random, anything could happen. Son’s company also sells to foreign government, so if aid to them is cut, that will affect son’s job too. So far, nothing.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
p.a.
@CindyH: We’ve been hearing that for a while. Counties =/= congressional districts, but google “majority-minority counties in u s map”
Not really promising results. I tried to get cartographic results but the response was a mess.
Anonymous At Work
The kicker is that Elmo and his fascists have 100 more days. The designations to bring them into teh government only last so long, meaning a Democratic Congress can call them to testify and show off the records of what they did, when they did it, and why they did it. Sure, Elmo will front the bill for Contempt of Congress as his Unterleutnants refuse to testify but it’ll be a spectacle that keeps his face front and center after he learns how popular his actions are.
Matt McIrvin
@CindyH: Whiteness can definitionally expand so they’re never outnumbered. That’s what’s always happened before– the only permanently excluded groups are Black people, and in the western states, Native Americans.
Anonymous At Work
@p.a.: Right now, above Taney and in company with Charles Evan Hughes, the Chief Justice that used an abridged version of Adam Smith’s “On the Wealth of Nations” as his principle text. As well as a few post-Civil War ones that history has forgotten because their opinions were almost universally overturned.
The Thin Black Duke
Too many people would rather “win” (the “owning the libs” mindset) than admit they’re wrong, the consequences be damned.
narya
@The Thin Black Duke: agreed!
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: Thanks for the update! I have been wondering about the quality of the US’ economic data since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Matt McIrvin
@JMG: Rhetorically and perceptually, what’s happened over the past few years is the same as 1970s stagflation even though in reality it is not remotely comparable. We don’t live in reality.
Glory b
@The Thin Black Duke: Lol, yep, I read somewhere that the JD Vance intervention might have cost them as much as 5 points.
That’s how toxic any association with the Trump administration has become in Europe.
Fair Economist
@Mr. Mack:
I am suddenly reminded of the astonishingly accurate aphorism “Every accusation from Republicans is a confession”.
Shalimar
@The Thin Black Duke: At the very least, once they lose their jobs and get their cars repossessed, they will have a hell of a lot harder time voting.
Spanky
And the grift goes on:
sab
@New Deal democrat: That is interesting. I overpaid for my house in 1999 because I loved the lot (creek in the back yard.) Houses in the neighborhood (without a creek) last year were selling for triple that price. There is no way that wage increases over those 25 years have come close to tripling.
Fair Economist
@The Thin Black Duke: Reagan didn’t cause nearly the short-term disaster Trump and Musk are causing. He attacked the government’s ability to do things he didn’t like, not its ability to do anything at all.
He had a lot more headroom with the federal debt, too.
suzanne
@LAC:
Agree.
One thing I have been thinking about a lot in recent months is differentiators. IMO, the differences between the parties is stark on the things I care about most. But the older I get, the less I detect others perceive that. If you talk with more normie Republicans, they absolutely think Republicans support civil rights. (And they don’t connect trans folks’ access to healthcare or pronouns to issues of civil rights at all.) And if you talk to most people age 50 and up, they absolutely think the GOP will vigorously protect their Social Security and Medicare.
It should go without saying that I think this is staggeringly dumb.
But I think we are in a situation that what we think of as differentiators….. are not functioning as such “in the public imagination”. That’s a hard thing.
Spanky
@sab: Shades of 2007.
satby
@The Thin Black Duke: You really should start FP posting again, pretty please. We need the constant infusion of reality. Gracias.
eclare
@The Thin Black Duke:
A certain LBJ quote comes to mind…wow was he right.
PS I really appreciate your commentary here.
The Thin Black Duke
Yes.
Europeans might have been inclined to give America the benefit of the doubt in 2016.
But in 2025, the global community saw that the reelection of Donald Trump is indisputable evidence that the United States is devolving into an authoritarian regime, so we’re no longer a reliable ally.
Americans don’t realize their irresponsible disengagement from political realities was a result of their unearned privileges. But reality is waiting, and its all out of bubble gum.
suzanne
@sab: Housing prices have roughly doubled in many places since 2020. It’s bad out there.
eclare
@sab:
I bought my modest house in 2005. Going by sales around me, prices have at least doubled since then. I guarantee the salary at the job that I had in 2005 has not doubled.
I am so grateful that I bought when I did.
satby
@LAC: I agree, and as an expansion on that thought we need for people to realize (again or for the first time) that public goods are in their self interest. Making other people’s lives better makes their own better too.
sab
Oh dear. Husband is going berserk on his weekly zoom klatch. He is trying to get a bunch of normies to think we are in political peril, and they are not having it.
CindyH
@p.a.: yeah – unfortunately “eventually” may be too late – I think the biggest problem is the right’s propaganda machine that was built up over decades and I don’t know how we break it
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: That also came after several not great years. It was seen as a necessary corrective, and by 1984 things were getting better. If it’s bad in 2026 that will help Democrats in the mid-terms.
Jackie
@CindyH:
Sooner than later – thanks to the obvious side effects of banning abortions. Oops!
LAC
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s not going to happen with Trump’s economic plans. Tax cuts only for the very wealthy produce little economic stimulus, while cuts to food stamps and Medicaid have brutally high multipliers. Plus tariffs and trade wars will accelerate inflation, plus the huge deficits he’s going to run are going to push up interest rates.
The new budget will start in October. There will be a brief Wile E Coyote moment this Christmas because the American obsession with Christmas shopping will keep thing going for a few months. Then the real mess will start in early 2026.
RedDirtGirl
Muskrat walking off a stage and leaving his 4-year old son behind
Shalimar
@chemiclord: There is also a genuine need to analyze organizations and laws after they are implemented to determine whether they are working as intended. Things do stay in place even when they prove unnecessary or unwieldy because the people implementing and benefiting from policies have a vested interest in their continuation and there is no one with a strong enough interest in protecting taxpayers from wasting money.
Republicans don’t even begin to serve that conservative function. Their reasons for wanting to get rid of things tend to be racist and selfish rather than practical. They also do it very inefficiently (firing every government employee in a job under a year, which are the people most likely to actually serve a current need since their jobs were advertised so recently).
Matt McIrvin
@Mr. Mack: I recall following the saga of Hyperloop and the reports of terrible and racist working conditions at Tesla and SpaceX, which were my first signs something was seriously wrong with that guy. I remember a guy on… some social media platform with a Bernie fan nym saying we needed to give him slack on labor issues because he was racing against time to save the Earth from climate disaster. This is a *great* example of why, nope, we should not do that ever.
Matt McIrvin
…oh, yeah, and The Boring Company. I remember trying in vain to wrap my mind around how The Boring Company’s scheme made any sense. That’s because it doesn’t. It’s like crypto trading.
Shalimar
@RedDirtGirl: If Elon would let the kid carry the backpack full of ketamine, this would never happen.
Nelle
@catclub: Since the US and Russia already agree to protect Ukraine’s boundaries (Budapest Memorandum, 1994), the promises of the US are an insult. I’m not sure why that Memorandum isn’t given more prominence. If I were the media or a politician, I would be hammering on that betrayal.
YY_Sima Qian
Glad to see MM back in this community in a fashion! Hopefully, eventually w/ comments reopened.
suzanne
@Shalimar:
This is a really important point. There are a lot of places where we’re probably over-regulated, or working with old systems and could find efficiencies (such as…. why do we have only one polling place at all? We have the technology now to go to any polling place and print a ballot customized to one’s address.).
But WTF, the GOP doesn’t care about actually improving anything. They just want to destroy things. They don’t want to build anything, to modernize anything.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@New Deal democrat:
More big arrows pointing in the desired direction?
Yikes, I’d forgotten about Roberts doing that the first time around.
Jackie
@YY_Sima Qian: Good for him! And JC! <thumbs up>
Eric S.
@rikyrah: Good morning
sixthdoctor
@Glory b: JD Vance, the man so repulsive he ruins the reputations of Nazis and furniture frottage.
Glory b
@Matt McIrvin: Yes. I’ll recommend another book, “How the Irish Became White.”
Hint, each group’s entry into Whiteness comes with their oppression of black people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The current mess with the Right is because the only way to expand teh White now is allow the Blacks into their club because Blacks are native English speakers.
Oh, the horror.
Thus the insane anti immigration policy, which is going to cause a declining population, shrinking GPD and then the national debt becomes unmanageable. So, the Conservatives want to solve that by banning abortions, but that won’t work (because c**k can be sucked, if need be) So, now they want to start kidnapping whites (see Canada) except that won’t work (the kind of beaver the Canadians will give them not the kind they want) Thus the betray Ukraine, to get those mail order Russian brides (except Trump screwed over the post office) and on it goes just to avoid admitting, blacks are Americans.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I would love to see a post from you about that!
Jackie
DOGE thwarted again – at least for now:
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nah, they’re working on pulling in more Hispanics to the “white” circle, to pit them against the others– that’s the growth area.
catclub
Good luck with that. I remember both the euphoria of the 2008 election and the 2010 election.
Gin & Tonic
@YY_Sima Qian: The manner of his re-appearance shows that his quitting was just a matter of thin skin. He got tired of having to read disagreement with his posts.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: tend to agree, but it’s a compromise that should work for most folks. I’m not a comment offender because I seldom read his posts, so for me it’s status quo ante
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: but I agree that the delusion that the demographic transition is caused by legal abortion, or even by chemical contraception, underlines a lot of futile horrors.
Nelle
@satby: Agree.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: There is a lot of angst on the part of right-wing men that white women are having fewer children, and lots of attempts to gaslight said white women into forgoing education and career in order to have more children.
The staggering abuse directed at Dr. Ally Louks was something to behold. (And then despair.)
John S.
@Gin & Tonic:
Cole doesn’t want another shit show. Not sure what that has to do with “thin skin”.
If you want to test your theory, I’m sure you can head over to MM’s new blog and comment there.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: oh, wow, I missed that entirely.
I can say definitively that her thesis topic has more practical relevance than mine.
bluefoot
@satby: I’m not convinced that any learning will stick. When I think back to 2020, everyone was pulling together and trying to slow the pandemic until it became apparent that people of color and and blue cities were disproportionately affected. Then it was all about opening up, removing mask mandates and forcing people to go back to work, “needing” to be able to get one’s hair done or whatever interactions fed the psychic wage of ordering others around and showing “lessers” their place.
In other words, curtain rods, sparrows, etc
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I read a book 30 years ago that posited that Asians would be the next group assimilated into “whiteness”, but they aren’t a big enough group to make a real difference, while Hispanics/Latinos are.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: The abuse this woman got was heartbreaking. Just this endless string of attacks, telling her that she was a waste to humanity and she should have stayed home and have children, that her research topic was woke and stupid, on and on and on.
Soprano2
@bluefoot: I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when I read the first article about who was being most affected by Covid, because I knew how conservatives would react. I wasn’t wrong.
Gin & Tonic
@John S.: I very seldom (if ever) commented on his posts, and wasn’t part of the “shitshow” the last day or two. I just call them as I see them.
bluefoot
@Soprano2: What really broke my heart was that it wasn’t just conservatives. Both more generally and anecdotally in my personal interactions it was….sobering to see.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
More on federal employment and the black middle class:
nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-federal-job-cuts-trump-musk-dei-middle-class-rcna191704?utm_source=fir…
For years, the USPS was held up as an example of a blue collar job that provided an entrance ramp for black folks and the middle class. That’s expanded vis a vis the overall Federal work force be it white or blue collar.
So, another reason to beat on the Feds!
JFC.
trollhattan
Hearing copious interviews with German voters, officials and politicians, one takeaway is Vance’s “let Nazi bygones be bygones” speech get a LOT more attention than it did here, and for all the opposite reasons he presumably had in delivering it. Except AfD, who more or less found it just ducky. The incoming chancellor, Merz, is not Nazi-curious fortunately and sounds unwilling to let Trump bully either Germany nor the EU/NATO WRT Putin or Ukraine. With Macron over here to kiss the ring, curious how the two will connect immediately after. Franco-German stand v. Russia is critical.
It is disturbing to hear analysts describe the former East Germany as “turning blue” in the way the US Confederacy is now wholly Republican. They’ve got trouble ahead if that sticks. “Hey, we lived under authoriarians before and it was just ausgezeichnet! Call them Orban-curious.
p.a.
I’m NOT saying women (and their partners) should do this in response to what I’m about to say, but conservaturd paradox alert!: if they’re soooo hep on upping the white population, why do they design an economy where one partner (in their ideology the male of course) doesn’t have the economic power and rights to earn a sufficient living by himself for as many little fascitines as they can produce? Do they think ALL white men can own auto dealerships?
ArchTeryx
@Karen S.: So basically, less a town hall and much more of an in-your-face “You’re not the boss of ME!”
They think they can literally do anything to their constituents and not pay any price because of negative partisanship. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?
Professor Bigfoot
@Glory b: Exactly this.
There’s a REASON why we have the stereotypes of the “beefy Irish beat cop” and the “wily Italian detective.”
American police culture was born in antebellum slave patrols and is carried on in police union halls today; and only a blind man could argue that anti-Blackness isn’t a core characteristic of American policing (though I’m sure I’ll get pushback on that, too).
I’ll also note that the two “white” ethnicities MOST hostile to Black people in America today are Irish and Italian.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I hope some press outlet is trying to do an analysis of the people who have been fired by DOGE. I don’t think any of us would be surprised at its demographic breakdown. I think that’s one of the reasons for what they’re doing.
The Thin Black Duke
@suzanne: Parkrose opened up my mind to a POV regarding children that I never thought of before.
John S.
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m the same way. Just saying, I don’t agree with your theory, but since he has comments open at his new place, it will be put to the test.
John S.
@Professor Bigfoot:
And what do you base that analysis on?
p.a.
I am NOT a Germany-knower, but I believe this movement is a change in degree, not in kind. Since reunification, the former East G has been the Confederacy, in terms of immigration/race at least, since day 1.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: “New” Irish, Italian, and Eastern European people who think of themselves of having made it into whiteness are especially dumb.
The “older” white people have stereotypes of Irish as drunks and brawlers, Italians as Mafiosi and trashy guidos, and Eastern Europeans as stupid, when they aren’t trying to get their women as mail-order brides.
There’s a reason the people behind JD Vance want to redefine whiteness more narrowly.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: There was a crossover point sometime in mid-2020, where the COVID deaths started being more Republicans than Democrats, because the disease was hitting rural and exurban areas and they were refusing to adapt to it. But by then the social mold for the reaction was set. And when the vaccines appeared and they went all in on antivax it got worse.
suzanne
@The Thin Black Duke: Thx for the link. I am not able to watch that right now, but I will once I get somewhere quiet.
Gin & Tonic
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My daughter is a schoolteacher in Prince George’s County, MD, which has a very large population of middle-class Black folks, many of them Fed or Fed-adjacent, with that employment being key to their homeownership. We’ll see how this shakes out.
Karen S.
@ArchTeryx: I hope we do.
p.a.
@suzanne: ALL targeted minorities over time (the list has varied as some magically become “white”) have been view as both stupid/lazy/uneducatable while at the same time being wiley (criminally and otherwise) and threateningly ambitious.
Jews seen by the same people at the same time as cheating money-grubbing capitalists and collectivist communists. 🙄
LAC
@satby: i can walk on by as well. I do not like manipulation or a lack of accountability . But as long as his fans are happy, I am good.
John S.
@suzanne:
I understand everyone has personal anecdata about any number of topics, but claiming that Irish and Italians are the “most hostile” to black people is pretty bombastic without even a shred of empirical evidence to back it up.
LAC
@catclub: Yep, i am not optimistic.
suzanne
@p.a.: I have shared here before that I was lived with my grandparents for years when I was a child/adolescent, and my grandfather (mother’s side) made sure to tell me often and vehemently how poorly he regarded Italians. I am Italian on my father’s side.
These bigotries are not dead and gone, either. They’re nonsensical, but that almost makes them last longer.
trollhattan
@p.a.:
Our German exchange student, then 17 was unaware of even the terms Ossi and Wessi, so long ago had reunification happened. Her parent’s generation of course lived through the fall of the wall and subsequent hurdles combining two nations into one. It would surprise me if a foundational separation lingers for another two or three generations, at least without a lot of outside influence if you get my drift.
In conclusion, somebody, anybody arrest Steve Bannon and toss him back in the nearest prison, then his fellow travelers. Fake tough guys are still fake.
The Thin Black Duke
@Gin & Tonic: My partial pension and Blue Cross/Blue Shield is due to my 7-year- stint in the TSA. As a college dropout, it was an important onramp to an federal opportunity that wouldn’t have been available to me otherwise.
I guess that’s one reason why the “black people don’t want to work” bullshit imprinted in the circuitry of white racists bothers me so much. Yeah, it’s anecdotal, but most of the brothers and sisters I’ve known in my life, want a job, and went they get one, they work damned hard. Harder than Elon (“I’m gonna tweet a thousand times a day”) Musk.
satby
@suzanne: yeah, this is correct: “The “older” white people have stereotypes of Irish as drunks and brawlers, Italians as Mafiosi and trashy guidos..”
In my lifetime I was subjected to occasional, but certainly not nearly the dangerous hostility, bigotry for being Irish from older WASPs. We ” ruined the neighborhood, we were white n****rs, we had millions of kids, why do you people all sing (?what?)” etc. It was weird enough to just blow off, and of course not at all what black Americans faced, but it should have taught my ethnic group better humility rather that caused some (Hannity, O’Reilly) to become bigger bigots than the WASPs.
Glory b
@John S.: Our lived experience.
satby
@The Thin Black Duke: I remember my black friends and coworkers who would be up at 4 am to take two buses across town to get to our jobs at 8 am. They worked their asses off just getting to work.
satby
@Glory b: agree, as one of the mentioned ethnics.
p.a.
America, as a melting pot, practices the English empire’s racial/ethnic/religious divide-and-conquer colonialism at home to keep the “right” people in power, admittedly with some adjustments. “Yes, even you, someday, might be white!” The exceptions have been noted. Sadly, it works.
Barbarai
@satby: 100% agree, as another member of those mentioned ethnics who grew up in a town that was about 60% of those ethnics.
Elizabelle
@The Thin Black Duke: Truth.
So much rebuilding to do, once we get the government back from the destroyers and usurpers.
John S.
@Glory b:
Many antisemites claim that Jews are greedy based on “lived experience”. Hell, you can even find Jews who would agree with that assessment.
I guess that makes it true in your book.
LAC
@Glory b: yeah, that inconvenience. I lived in the Bronx in the 70’s, so …yeah. But i will confer with bureau of stats to get those figures right away…/s
Ruckus
People are starting to realize that there is no truth here beyond the desire for personal wealth and power.
And among the people being discussed there NEVER HAS BEEN.
To these people the only truth is their bank accounts.
Everything and everyone else is a roadblock to them being rich.
columbusqueen
@John S.: I grew up with a large number of Irish & Italian kids who fathers were Columbus cops. They were all racist as fuck.
suzanne
@John S.: I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered Irish or Italians being *more* racist than, say, Germans or Scots-Irish or English people. Seems pretty evenly distributed to me.
I will note that I encountered a fair amount of white supremacism in high school — like openly wearing swastikas and the like — and that cohort was just lower-class white people, not “ethnic” whites. But I bet it depends on where you live: the western part of the country doesn’t have the same kind of historically white ethnic neighborhoods that the eastern part of the country does. And it’s got more of the “sovereign citizen” types, who tend to be “older” white people who have been in one place for generations.
suzanne
@John S.: Want to hear some crazy shit? My grandfather who hated Italians…. he was of English, German, and Jewish descent.
I think people tend to hate the groups just “one up” or “one down” from them on the big hierarchy the most. It’s a way of policing that boundary.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: I went on a Eurailpass tour of Western Europe (with an old buddy who has since emigrated to Scotland) right after German reunification. I remember having some revealing conversations on trains: West Germans talking about the Ossis with classic “they don’t want to work” stereotypes, also this one dude who was really into Rudolf Steiner’s theosophy and freaked my traveling companion out.
John S.
@suzanne:
Look, I’ve got tons of personal anecdote about people that I have interacted with over the course of my life. That doesn’t give me the right to assert the claim that my experiences are somehow reflective of an entire group of people.
If there were anything even remotely substantive to back such claims, I would want to see them. For instance, we might have started with the Irish and Italians in America during the late 19th century fighting for the same jobs as black folks. That’s historical fact. But did those tensions carry forward 100+ years? I don’t know the answer to that, but at least it would have been interesting to explore.
In my book, there’s simply no justification for making sweeping generalizations about any group of people with little more than anecdotal evidence. That never ends well, and frankly I am shocked that anyone who considers themselves a liberal would condone such a thing.
ETA: And the usual yukking it up by people acting like this is somehow a known truth that should not be challenged is just absurd.
Jeffg166
@Professor Bigfoot:
Over the last 26 years I have lived in this house I have had four separate attempts by drunk white young men try to get into my house because they were so drunk and had no idea where they were staying.
The first time is happen 20 something years ago the cops came and told the 28 year old white male drunk he couldn’t hold his liquor and to take a cab home.
I went to the police station to file a complaint. The guy was drunk and disorderly plus trying to break in. I told the woman working the front desk if he had been black they would have been body bagging him.
K-Mo
@John S.: You’re right. This discourse is disgusting and vile. Moderators asleep at the wheel, or something worse? IDK and IDC.
Peace out.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@suzanne: Yeah, here in N CA where I grew up, the ethnic enclaves I was most familiar with were Chinatowns, and the Latino part of towns. Oh, and Fisherman’s Wharf had Italians. Everything else, as far as I could tell, was various whites, and then the historically black sections of towns. Of course I grew up in a very white area of the Peninsula.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@John S.:
And yet, it goes on here all the time to the point that what gets stated as some inferred fact is simply a caricature coming from a point-of-view that’s as heavily judgemental as what gets derided coming from the right.
Gvg
@satby: I don’t think those ethnic groups are that big in the US anymore. Most people are mixed. I have Irish in me, but it’s about 6 generations back with other bits since. My name is Irish so we stay aware sort of, but we haven’t lived in Irish areas in generations. That means a lot of people who can say they are Irish American aren’t very homogeneous. I think Italians are probably like that too. Some areas still have Italian areas, but most never did.
I grew up in the south and there is a big population here that is racist against blacks. Some areas worse than others. The white come from different ethnic backgrounds but a lot of them pick it up when here even if they are new and didn’t start with it. Of course a lot also observe and think then choose to be better.
And black acquaintances have expressed different opinions. Some of them think Boston is worse than the South. I wonder though if it was just that they were used to how racism worked here, but it was different there? Topic was years ago, and I was new to thinking about it so I didn’t ask enough questions.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
A lot of white people are no more on the side of the gop than you are.
I am in no way saying that this situation is not a problem, just that not all white people support shitforbrains or his puppet master. Not in any way shape or form. I’d bet that many of us are completely pissed off.
Ruckus
@columbusqueen:
I lived in the Columbus area for 10 years. 95-05.
I can’t say all were racist as fuck but I’d bet the majority were. But then a lot of cops are, everywhere.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’m not close to the palest white person I’ve known but I am pale. I have Italian and likely UK biological history. But I was NOT brought up as a racist person. I was taught at home to respect all races and creeds. To respect humanity. That has served me well over the decades. Now I’ve met humans from all walks of life and have to say, the concept that skin color makes any individual a better or worse person does not ring true. That does NOT mean that all humans are worth the oxygen, many are not. And the most that aren’t are from the largest segment in their area. I’ve related this story once before, I was once shot at walking back from town in Charleston, SC while in the USN. I don’t know if the shot was to scare me or was just a miss. But it was very close. I set the world’s record for a one mile run. And without that adrenaline I wouldn’t have come close to that time. This was over 50 yrs ago and to the best of my knowledge the neighborhood the shot came from was the same skin color I am. My point is that while my color can protect me somewhat, humans can be shit anywhere for any reason. Racism escalates that a lot.
oldgold
The Short-Fingered Vulgarian is notorious for his lack of decency and decorum. Each day seems worse and worser.
Late last night, with his posting of “Trump Gaza,” he may have arrived at a new bottom.