I am surrounded by these people. We are all civil. I think the word gets around I take no shit and will vigorously embarass them with their ignorance. Nobody talks Trump shit around me at work..The in-laws don't fuck with me either.
Someone a few weeks ago was bitching in the break room about high grocery prices . Joe Biden gave all the black people buckets of free money, ( money, collected at virtual gunpoint from white people) and now they want to eat since they can afford it. Like Jesus ever said or did anything about feeding a bunch of poor people.
I just laughed and said stupid immigration policy caused massive labor shortages. " No migrants - no vegetables." I told them
On edit - No bacon either ! That probably would have hit home in a way " no vegetables " never could.
Remember that there are two completely different welfare systems There's the welfare that White people can apply for, which has meager and ever-diminishing benefits and demands constant proof of need or you get cut off.
And then there's the Super Secret Black People/Illegal Immigrant Welfare. No application needed--you're just automatically enrolled for life. You get
Free food
Free clothes
Free cars
Free housing
Free healthcare
Free appliances
Free phones
An average of $2000 a week cash walking-around money
Government-enforce preference for any job you might want.
It sucks very, very much to be poor in the U.S. and you only have to meet a few poor black people to know that they're not cakewalking on the sunny side of the street, sittin' on a rainbow, high on the crest of a thrill.
The men's room of the Henn Theater in Murphy NC (where I say GWTW, Straw Dogs, Deliverance, and way too much Disney) was painted blood red, with a single bare light bulb. stank of urine, and was decorated with appalling horror posters: for years over the urinal was one for "Scream and Scream Again" involving bubbling acid: the poster depicted a scantily clad young woman dropped headfirst, showing her skull. into such bubbles.
My horror of red painted rooms was ratified by a strange and threatening time years later, after a friend's band played, when we went to another musician/drug dealers place, for a most uncomfortable after party: it was painted all red, red furniture, gory horror posters.
Me and my friend bailed when a knife was pulled.
Not long after the dealer was shot to death in that room.
My redroom experience is meager, and only slightly more refined (correct term? You decide):
The Embarcadero Hyatt on the SF waterfront had a faux posh rotating rooftop restaurant. We went one time. The view when one exited the elevator was a pure red carpeted hallway – floor, walls, ceiling() – thru which one struggled before engaging with the room. The rotation was slow but noticeable. You'd get a view of the entire city, plus the bay, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin, etc while plowing thru the dinner. Anyway, as we were leaving, one guy from another group finally let loose with the pent-up house motion sickness he'd experienced (or maybe it was just the booze) and vomited all over the carpeted floor and walls. Epic spew. We just managed to get into the elevator before the last of it projected our direction...
As a Berkeley undergraduate half a century ago a woman I know—today a retired professional, a respectable suburban matron who would be appalled at my retailing this story (or even that I know about it)—and a friend used to dress up and hang out at the Hyatt Embarcadero during Christmas break, there to turn tricks for pin money a couple of years running.
Yeah, comments like that don't evoke "frothing horror" so much as the side-eye and shaking the head. They want us all to be that yelling liberal woman from the meme, and I hope it SO disappoints them when we aren't.
"Frothing horror" reminds me of an SJ Perelman bit from "Horsefeathers":
Wagstaff's Receptionist : Oh, Professor, the Dean of Science wants to know how soon you can see him. He says he's tired of cooling his heels out here.
Professor Wagstaff : Tell him I'm cooling a couple of heels in here.
[receptionist leaves and re-enters fifteen seconds later]
Wagstaff's Receptionist : The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!
Professor Wagstaff : Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for awhile.
You'd never get that line past a producer now, but I'm kind of amazed Sid managed it even in 1932, when a non-trivial percentage of the audience would have been educated in the 19th Century, and may have actually encountered the Old English version of wrath.
I truly feel sorry for young people today for many reasons, but one is they’ve never been an adult during any sort of “normal” time. I’m not waxing nostalgic for the bad old days, I’m just pointing out that while various people and institutions and political parties always sucked, there was a time when most of them acknowledged it was necessary to at least *pretend* not to suck. Hypocrisy being the tribute that vice pays to virtue and all that.
My sons are in their mid 20s, so they are Elder Zoomers, and over the holiday weekend we were talking about that Jordan Peterson clip where he quotes a speech by a James Bond villain as if it were historical fact. We all agreed he’s loopy, but I found myself trying to explain to them that even 12 to 15 years ago we would likely never have known a character like that existed. A culturally conservative psychologist who spouted nonsense as a self-styled life coach, wept at the drop of a hat, became addicted to anti-anxiety meds, travelled to Russia to be put into a coma for an experimental “cure,” lived on an all-meat diet because of some made-up food sensitivities, and dressed like the Joker would have been laughed out of his profession and have only a small cult following at best. If he made a big splash with some bizarre activity he might rate one line in a late-night talk show host’s monologue. He would not have become wealthy, have a huge platform, or have a couple of million young men following his “advice.”
Idiocracy, mendacity, easily disprovable bullshit all the way down. Conservatives were ALWAYS bad, but now just feels…different.
Conservatives have always been willing to believe bizarre stuff. From fluoridated water being a communist mind-control plot to Russia having planted nuclear weapons under every major American city, they could be convinced of the most outlandish things.
But what's different now is that conservatives are not just willing to believe bizarre stuff, they're actually EAGER to believe it and demand that their leaders feed them complete nonsense. Thus Q-ANON and all its adherents. The rock-bottom faith that there exists a "Deep State" that's controlled by [Soros/the Bilderbergs/the Clintons/alien lizard people]. The idea that conservative ideas like abortion bans lose at the ballot box NOT because those ideas are unpopular, but because a cabal of Venezuelan, Columbian, and Italians technologists are actually changing the votes.
True. And obviously the internet and social media now play a huge role in disseminating it. I think you've gotten to the crux of it by highlighting their eagerness -- they prefer the bullshit. Reality doesn't agree with their philosophy, so reality has to go.
Yes! I think "reality is inferior" is baked in. They pride themselves on living by principle, while we live by the grubby material program of handouts. The problem is, when you live by abstract notions arrived at through a priori reasoning, as they do in a very self-serving way, then any contradiction offered by the actual world of experience must be wrong. Pure reason can't be wrong! It's pure! Reality is the contaminant. So they can ignore or outright deny it. If they want to, they can even hurl total bullshit at us down here mired in it -- because who cares? NONE of reality is worth anything compared to the Abstract Principles That Predate Reality.
I'm recalling when Wisconsin, along with a bunch of other states, voted to ban gay marriage. What a gut-punch it was, but we didn't retreat into a fantasy world where Italian spy satellites conspired with our Nest home thermostats to fix the results, we just figured people were pretty damn bigoted and we need to get to work changing their minds. Which was accomplished, through years of hard work by LGBTQ folk to get their stories through the thick skulls of their fellow citizens.
Us pre-internet folks (not assuming...so pretend a thought experiment) are like the people who lived before the first sound recording machinery. Our narrow or wide knowledge of music derived from listening to musicians (including ourselves) live in the real world, and/or reading sheet music. Likewise, prior to the net our knowledge (limited or vast) of individual human lives was dependent on corporate publishing and chance physical encounters. Now we cannot avoid knowing vast amounts of drek about vast numbers of otherwise unaccountable people.
Absolutely true. But now that these loons are being forced on our notice they are able to garner loads of followers. And I wonder, were we always this unserious as a people, and the internet just makes us aware of that fact? Maybe we were. We all live in our own self-created bubbles. Or are we genuinely getting worse? I don't know.
I only ask myself that question about a dozen times a day. I think in the early days of the internet, it was "People aren't really getting worse, it's just getting easier to see what's out there." But then, the worst of the worst developed huge followings and made a shitload of money in the process which encouraged others to become the worst of the worst too (Andrew Tate, anyone?) and now we are genuinely getting worse.
Just imagine what Elizabethan England would’ve been like if they’d had the internet and were subjected to paranoid propaganda and Jacobean revenge tragedies 24/7.
Also, it is a wonder that so many folx think that whatever idiot thing it is that they have to say ought by right to be disseminated high wide and thensome. And for free!
Hell – I pay a queen's ransom just to post here! Roy is getting rich I tell you RICH! offa me!
The human brain wasn’t evolved to take in a constant barrage of information. With social media, the internet, and TV you just don’t occasionally hear from your social circle, you hear constantly from people everywhere, and when some of them constantly provoke your Fight Or Flight response, it’s going to warp your brain.
And to continue the analogy, the messages are now aimed, not at an imagined general public with presumed standards, but at the "unaccountable" multitudes.
Though on the sound-recording end of the analogy, we got jazz, blues, country, rock etc.; on the Internet end we got... all this.
I remember that as late as maybe 20 years ago my implicit assumption was that the great majority of people were basically OK, and now I assume that everybody is a Milkshake Duck just waiting to be unmasked.
It's no fun to be starting a brand new listen to a podcast about movies or books or roleplaying or anything not explicitly political and be awaiting the horrible moment where you're like "Oh, god, NO" and hitting the stop button.
I have to say I've been pleasantly and consistently surprised in the past to NOT have that moment yet, but I'm always prepared for it, and that sucks.
As Atrios has pointed out on occasion, a generation of children has grown up with Donald Trump as President and being worshipped by millions of people—and this is just what their developing brains had to file away as “normal” in a functioning society. And that’s not even touching on the utterly corrupt Supreme Court, the GOP’s full descent into madness, or all the other garbage strewn across the landscape since the Gingrich era. Sure, there was never a pure, halcyon era, but at least we made a pretense of having standards and ideals. Now it’s like living in trash tv 24/7 and kids are still somehow supposed to grow up “normal.”
I don't understand why anyone with any sense goes along with the idea that Trump worship and conservative hate culture are "normal". Do you think it's normal? I don't and never have. It's a plague of mental illness.
I don’t think it’s normal, but then I didn’t grow up with a country that suffered through it, and had a political party enabling it. If you grew up seeing it and there were no consequences, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a “normal” (if horrible) way the world works.
Silly me. Of course it's the idea of a united American that is the real delusion. The murderous hatred of American conservatives is just human nature. They've tried to conform to American ideals but they've failed, over and over again, and now they're sick of failure and want their revenge. Again.
To be honest, I've grown very uncomfortable with accusations of mental illness from any side, as it's an easy out, it doesn't help the shitty attitude this country has towards mental health in general, but mainly because it makes me think of the Soviets, particularly when it comes from the right. Dissidents ended up in psych wards because they denied the "truth" of the Soviet brand of "scientific Marxism" and therefore were deranged and in need of "help". And I keep hearing similar things from people about trans folks and, frankly, it scares me. I just think it's better not to buy in to the trope in any serious way to avoid helping legitimize the idea of politics=insanity (and, yes, Kulturkampf bullshit has nada to do with "politics" but I can't think of a better word at the moment).
“they’ve never been an adult during any sort of ‘normal’ time.” —But isn’t “normal time” something of a moving target? I first began forming reliable long-term memories early in Eisenhower’s second term: The Fifties, long the gold standard of American normal from which every deviation has been loudly deplored by the Usual Suspects. In that vanished halcyon era women knew their place, the nigras weren’t uppity, and if a faggot set foot out of the closet he could expect to lose his job or even his life. I think it was Thomas Pynchon who once observed that the most pernicious thing about the fifties was how people became persuaded that they’d last forever.
They didn’t, of course. But at least in public discourse there were few who regarded the American postwar hegemony and its concomitant economic dominance as anything but the natural order. Offhand I can only think of Robert Heilbroner, who suggested in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 (1960) that the country’s catbird seat couldn’t last, as an “establishment” dissenter.
There are indeed elements of the fifties that I miss: social pressures inhibited many closet crazies from acting out, whereas now they are granted megaphones. The dominant culture inculcated a respect rather than a contempt for the life of the mind. Exhibit A, from LIFE magazine(!) circa 1955: “Today, while there remain fundamentalists of all faiths who regard Genesis as a literal document open to no interpretation, the main stream of thought in Western theology has embraced evolution as the scientific account of creation.” Yeah, no.
“Normal” wasn’t normal. But some abnormalities are downright pathological.
Perhaps y'all saw the bizarre exchange on the Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, where 6/1 indictee Jeffery Clark is attacking Burning Man (and Neil Kaytal, who's Hindu) for participating in a neo Pagan ritual.
I've seen plenty of a Conservative blovater attacking art stuff as "blasphemy" as if it were an actual crime, and not in the view of the beholder. It's almost a trope: anything that might stir people outside the Kinder, Küche, Kirche sentiment (and abusive sentimentality) of the Right must be...SATAN!
I will say Burning Man's debacle (on a playa lake bed with alkali mud) reminds me why I don't go camping any more, since I wrecked the Stretch van I could put a mattress in.
Maybe it will be salutary for some of the more Libertarian/anti government type to see what good some governance and public goods can be: because you will eventually need 'em.
And now that the Daddy Party® has become the Whiny Bitch Party®®® you bet they are relieved they do not need to man up and take care of stuff anymore. Their main failing is that they refuse to admit reality...
"Maybe it will be salutary for some of the more Libertarian/anti government type to see what good some governance and public goods can be: because you will eventually need 'em."
Oh, hope springs eternal, but I'm thinking it's more likely that the fact they didn't die even though they were exposed to three days of mud will convince them all the more strongly that they're destined for greatness when the collapse comes, and so they'll work even harder to make it come.
Alex Jones is really enthusiastic about this, but feeds it through a bizarre Christianity where Satan is from another dimension and the globalists want to feed the human population of Earth to Saturn, for reasons.
But, yeah, anything even vaguely transgressive HAS to be tied to Satan in their fevered imaginations, from the pisswhine over Target merchandise a couple months back, to Pizzagate and the origins of Qanon, and beyond. It's demons all the way down.
I’ve always suspected that a lot of both these phenomena are, when you dig down far enough, motivated by race. “Friendship” is being used as code for “racial solidarity.” I’m white, you’re white, the blahs will kill us both when the ball drops, why can’t you get along with me??? And all the doom mongering is about making it look like that ball is/has dropped.
Well, it's like I keep saying - it's partially that they attribute their awful worldview to everyone else, as well as their adjustable belief system. They accuse the left of not believing what we're saying and just repeating talking points because that's what THEY'RE doing. (Though as I said the other day, I think repetition of awful concepts tends to bend you towards accepting those as "reality"; what I tell you three times is true)
Once you’ve abandoned truth, in support of your sole principle which is preservation of your power, it’s not surprising you would be as strategically and cynically mendacious as possible. This has been true of the GOP and especially the conservative movement for decades; but today’s REBID illustrates how it has exponentially consumed them. Trump was a match thrown onto the combustibles already there in the undergrowth. The behavior Roy describes is one of the ways this is manifested. Conflagrations ultimately burn themselves out. The question remains how much damage will result and whether we can rebuild.
I watched the first couple episodes of "Chernobyl" on the flight back from Vancouver, and I'm still thinking of those words from Legasov at the beginning in terms of conservatives. At some point they're going to have to deal with the cost of their lies, one way or another, because lies won't work in a time of crisis and we're going through multiple crises with more on the way.
I appreciate your labeling of the link: (No, I’m not kidding.) Because if you'd written something like (No, really – you should read it!) I might have.
And not to be pedantic (oh what the hell, whyforsoevernot?), Burning Man's roots are not in fact grassy (tho I see what you did there) – it's sandy all the way down to the original, on the beach in San Francisco...
I vaguely remember reading about a service offered to Burning Man aspirants: an expensive, curated experience: BM but with a refuge from undesirables, and less hassle.
Say what you will about the Deadheads, but I don't think anybody offered that sort of touring experience. If you wanted to tour in luxury (as I'm sure some did) then you had to make it happen yourself.
(It helped to know an experienced hippie able to get drugs on a moment's notice, etc.)
Everything is "pay for exclusive treatment" these days, as if there's a whole group of dumbshits out there with too much disposable income and a burning desire never to be even slightly inconvenienced.
“This is most easily seen in the way conservatives get in a huff when liberals don’t grant them the friendship they feel themselves owed, as seen in this 2021 column by Tim Graham of NewsBusters, the premise of which is that liberals are intolerant bullies for not being pals with people like Tim Graham.”
Sorry, I prefer not to be friends with a bunch of ignorant fascists! Is that soooo wrong??????? Additionally, have they considered they’re just not that “interesting?”
“And of course there's the weirdly common male conservative complaint that liberal women won't go out with them, as expressed in essays with titles like "Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump."”
Is this a “chicken and the egg” conundrum? I think not! Perhaps, Trump and his “grab them by the p.....remark and his overall misogyny, could be to blame. Or the fact, that most of the men complaining are misogynistic INCEL’s!!!!!
The complaint about women's refusal to date conservatives is just the polite man's version of the incel's outraged whine: as a male, I am entitled to have any woman I want.
I think their problem with BM is all the hot scantily clad young women dancing the night away in the desert. Think of the possibilities! This is Alan Dershowitz writ large -- BM is the big Vineyard party they're not invited to.
Exactly! Tho I wonder why they think they need an invite...
Let's face it – if they were actually conservative they'd ditch christofascism for a genuine old time religion like what you'd find 'round Çatalhöyük for instance...
That imbecile Jeffrey Clark, the guy from the DOJ, that tried to insert himself as AG during the insurrection, tried to disparage Neil Katyal, by calling his attendance at BM, heresy. Like BM is some sort of neo-pagan ritual.
The next town over can't find any Repubs to run for mayor. Of course, they blame the Democrats. “Republican candidates have unjustly been called racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and Nazis in addition to other vicious attacks on social media. It has become increasingly difficult to find Republican candidate who want to subject themselves to the personal character assassinations from the Democrat chairman and others.”
The Dane County board (Madison is in Dane County) used to be about half Republicans, occasionally they'd even have a majority. Now there's not a single one. Seemed like it was around 2016-2018 when the board went entirely over to the Democrats. Can't remember what was going on at the time that could have caused this.
"But if you’ve been around since the 1960s and paying attention, you’ll know what I mean."
FIFY.
As for the ebola crisis of 2014: If one was paying attention -- so few cases, so much hysteria from Republicans -- one couldn't understand what exactly the hysteria was about. The tell was the crisis dropping out of the establishment news within ~24 hours of the election held the day before.
Bonus fun fact: IIRC, the response by the foreign-born muslim's administration was to set up protocols in case of a pandemic. Which were trashed upon his successor's taking office.
As for dealing with conservatives: Be polite in the first instance and walk away if they start getting poorly behaved. Now, respect for them is a whole other issue. This -- https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/110989789650647995 -- is on them. So, you know, good manners and all that; no more than they deserve.
“As for the ebola crisis of 2014: If one was paying attention -- so few cases, so much hysteria from Republicans -- one couldn't understand what exactly the hysteria was about. The tell was the crisis dropping out of the establishment news within ~24 hours of the election held the day before.”
I was always amazed that the actual scientists and Doctors of the CDC and other such liberal front organizations were given the same credence (if rather less airtime) than those diseased experts D. tRump, C. Christie, and R. Guiliani (among so many others) calling for a total ban to Africa, and indeed all foreign travel.
I always think it was one more brick in the wall for Democratic Congressional hopes that year.
Hey, remember when they were mocking the US women's soccer team for losing? This is a party that's hemorrhaging votes from women, and I'm not saying a silly thing like this would be decisive in the 2024 election (or even that anyone will remember it by then) but a thing that Democratic politicians think obsessively: "Will this thing I'm about to say offend any particular voter demographic?" is a thought they simply refuse to think, out of principle.
For conservative men, the aimed-at archetype is Savvy Man, picture him in jeans wearing a white t-shirt with a pack of Lucky's rolled up in the sleeve, leaning against the fender of his cherry '57 Chevy, tossing his LOL's and LMFAO's at life's passing parade.
"I didn't go to this thing, which is turning out to be an extremely savvy call on my part", Savvy Man thinks as he heads to Twitter to boast of his savviness.
Having liberal friends legitimizes Trump etc. Some folks want a dignified, competent present, others want a narcissistic, boorish capo who says shit like "I am your retribution" against, well, the liberal friend. He tolerates nothing less than fawning submission or he goes APESHIT, which is not just OK but stellar. The "conservative" submits to Trump and, extending the hierarchy downward, merits the unconditional submission of the liberal friend. Being nice to the liberal friend is an act of grace, wholly undeserved; it demonstrates that the "conservative" is magnanimous.
Trump can't do any of these things, at all. His followers, however, can magically tell when he's "joking" vs. when he should be taken literally.
He takes pleasure in mockery, but he's not good at it because he doesn't see people fully enough to really get the knife in. It's all simple-minded (Chris Christie is fat so he's off somewhere eating).
We say he's functionally illiterate, but it's much worse. Smart, creative people existed before writing (and they had better memories). He can seem sarcastic. And he uses alot of cliche phrases, some of which are figurative. Due to paredolia, people see a mind in all of this.
WaPo had a piece “a liberal and a conservative can agree on this one thing,” with Theissen the conservative and some unknown (to me) liberal. It was of the “we disagree about abortion but agree pregnant women need medical care, food and a place to live” ilk and said Congress should enact a bunch of Republican legislation. The comments were, as always, basically “fuck you, Theissen!” WaPo is going to need a less notorious con than Torture Boy if they want to see their liberal readers be friendlier.
Republicans are welcome to bring that "Free food, medical care and housing for pregnant women" bill to the floor of the House any time they want. They're probably just polishing up the exact wording of it, that must be the hold-up. Maybe trying to decide how many bedrooms each woman's free house should have.
Well, if Infowars is any indication, they said it AFTER saying it was "over for humanity".
Now, of course, it's "it was a bioweapon but not REALLY a bioweapon because the release was only to legitimize the rollout of the poison jab which has killed MILLIONS any day now".
And for garnering attention and clicks, nothing beats contrarianism. If the government is saying "Don't panic", then predict the end of the world. If they're saying it's really serious, switch to "engineered panic, not worse that the common cold."
It's assholes riding turtles all the way down. I'm not up on the Republican's time in the wilderness from FDR to Eisenhower, so I don't know how much conspiracy theory they embraced (beyond insisting Roosevelt was Jewish) but from the Birchers on, conspiracy was always in the mix as a response to being out of power. But as their grip tightend and more star systems slipped through their fingers, they embraced conspiracy while in power, and gaming the system as a necessity for maintaining power. I think somewhere in their bitter hearts they know this is not tenable and they want that public approval, that friendship, that blowjob from the barista, as yet another way to paper over the gap between the world they have created and reality. I keep calling them Ghost Dancers because the only explanation for their behavior is they are trying to will their reality into existence because they see no other option. To compromise is to be put in camps, their religion made illegal, their property, homes and wealth taken away, their children renamed and brainwashed into forgetting their culture and history. Like slavers fearing revolt by slaves, they fear being done to them what they would do if positions were reversed.
Well the ACTUAL American fascist coup conspiracy against Roosevelt was in planning stages and had picked out a front man. Stupidly, the conspirators chose Smedley Butler and the rest is history-ish. See 1935 report by the McCormack-Dickstein committee...
"Keeping and eye on this situation. Will bring reports as I get more."
I love it when two-bit "#Trump2024 Jesus Is KING!" wingnuts like "The Patriot Voice" say stuff like this. They fancy themselves as actual journalists uncovering deep truths when their "reporting" consists of Michael Flynn retweets and links to Laura Loomer "investigations."
"frothing horror" does have certain flair.
I am surrounded by these people. We are all civil. I think the word gets around I take no shit and will vigorously embarass them with their ignorance. Nobody talks Trump shit around me at work..The in-laws don't fuck with me either.
Someone a few weeks ago was bitching in the break room about high grocery prices . Joe Biden gave all the black people buckets of free money, ( money, collected at virtual gunpoint from white people) and now they want to eat since they can afford it. Like Jesus ever said or did anything about feeding a bunch of poor people.
I just laughed and said stupid immigration policy caused massive labor shortages. " No migrants - no vegetables." I told them
On edit - No bacon either ! That probably would have hit home in a way " no vegetables " never could.
Remember that there are two completely different welfare systems There's the welfare that White people can apply for, which has meager and ever-diminishing benefits and demands constant proof of need or you get cut off.
And then there's the Super Secret Black People/Illegal Immigrant Welfare. No application needed--you're just automatically enrolled for life. You get
Free food
Free clothes
Free cars
Free housing
Free healthcare
Free appliances
Free phones
An average of $2000 a week cash walking-around money
Government-enforce preference for any job you might want.
No child support payments.
Trumpers envy the hell out of that.
Yes! The Obamaphones!
Still waiting for mine, then. (The monthly bills/mortgage say otherwise.)
It sucks very, very much to be poor in the U.S. and you only have to meet a few poor black people to know that they're not cakewalking on the sunny side of the street, sittin' on a rainbow, high on the crest of a thrill.
Everything is Satisfactual!
I have oft times been high on the quest of a thrill. Since High School.
You forgot all the white women (I mean as part of the benefit, not something _for_ the white women).
Once you try Black, you'll never go back.
But once you try me . . . straight back to Black!
I was gonna say somethin' 'bout the red meat crisis...
WELL I GUESS WE'LL JUST HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT
*grabs machete and heads for the affluent side of town, in Minecraft*
Is that Open Pit Minecraft or Shafts 'n Tunnels?
I was going to say that Tim Graham’s liberal is like Tom Freidman’s cab driver, but maybe one of you coworkers told Graham about you!
"frothing horror" does have certain flair
Indeed. Horror can be bubbly!
Tho must say I've had some horrible bubbly...
"Indeed. Horror can be bubbly!"
The men's room of the Henn Theater in Murphy NC (where I say GWTW, Straw Dogs, Deliverance, and way too much Disney) was painted blood red, with a single bare light bulb. stank of urine, and was decorated with appalling horror posters: for years over the urinal was one for "Scream and Scream Again" involving bubbling acid: the poster depicted a scantily clad young woman dropped headfirst, showing her skull. into such bubbles.
My horror of red painted rooms was ratified by a strange and threatening time years later, after a friend's band played, when we went to another musician/drug dealers place, for a most uncomfortable after party: it was painted all red, red furniture, gory horror posters.
Me and my friend bailed when a knife was pulled.
Not long after the dealer was shot to death in that room.
My redroom experience is meager, and only slightly more refined (correct term? You decide):
The Embarcadero Hyatt on the SF waterfront had a faux posh rotating rooftop restaurant. We went one time. The view when one exited the elevator was a pure red carpeted hallway – floor, walls, ceiling() – thru which one struggled before engaging with the room. The rotation was slow but noticeable. You'd get a view of the entire city, plus the bay, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin, etc while plowing thru the dinner. Anyway, as we were leaving, one guy from another group finally let loose with the pent-up house motion sickness he'd experienced (or maybe it was just the booze) and vomited all over the carpeted floor and walls. Epic spew. We just managed to get into the elevator before the last of it projected our direction...
This needs to be put on Yelp.
Thing is, I'd never go back, because no conceivable return visit could ever live up to the original.
I think I can actually top that story:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/06/delta-diarrhea-flight-spain
As a Berkeley undergraduate half a century ago a woman I know—today a retired professional, a respectable suburban matron who would be appalled at my retailing this story (or even that I know about it)—and a friend used to dress up and hang out at the Hyatt Embarcadero during Christmas break, there to turn tricks for pin money a couple of years running.
Old home week!
Such, such were the joys
Those were the days, my friend.
"Frothing Horror" = Ben & Jerry's new Rick Santorum-inspired flavor
Hey, that's not chocolate!
“2 girls, 1 waffle cone.”
Now you're just "OOF!" trolling
If you can't earn a mark then go for the Oofs.
Isn't it great the "frothy mixture" is pretty much all that remains of the guy.
Can't wait for him to die so I can see how the obituary writers work it in.
“If he accomplished little else, Senator Santorum brought froth a million iterations of an internet meme.”
Yeah, comments like that don't evoke "frothing horror" so much as the side-eye and shaking the head. They want us all to be that yelling liberal woman from the meme, and I hope it SO disappoints them when we aren't.
Yes, that's true, but let's be fair to Tim Graham, maybe he really is that awful.
Tim Graham merely offering his hand in friendship might be enough to provoke normal humans into fits of projectile vomiting.
"Frothing horror" reminds me of an SJ Perelman bit from "Horsefeathers":
Wagstaff's Receptionist : Oh, Professor, the Dean of Science wants to know how soon you can see him. He says he's tired of cooling his heels out here.
Professor Wagstaff : Tell him I'm cooling a couple of heels in here.
[receptionist leaves and re-enters fifteen seconds later]
Wagstaff's Receptionist : The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!
Professor Wagstaff : Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for awhile.
You'd never get that line past a producer now, but I'm kind of amazed Sid managed it even in 1932, when a non-trivial percentage of the audience would have been educated in the 19th Century, and may have actually encountered the Old English version of wrath.
Pre-code.
I think I know what you mean, Roy.
I truly feel sorry for young people today for many reasons, but one is they’ve never been an adult during any sort of “normal” time. I’m not waxing nostalgic for the bad old days, I’m just pointing out that while various people and institutions and political parties always sucked, there was a time when most of them acknowledged it was necessary to at least *pretend* not to suck. Hypocrisy being the tribute that vice pays to virtue and all that.
My sons are in their mid 20s, so they are Elder Zoomers, and over the holiday weekend we were talking about that Jordan Peterson clip where he quotes a speech by a James Bond villain as if it were historical fact. We all agreed he’s loopy, but I found myself trying to explain to them that even 12 to 15 years ago we would likely never have known a character like that existed. A culturally conservative psychologist who spouted nonsense as a self-styled life coach, wept at the drop of a hat, became addicted to anti-anxiety meds, travelled to Russia to be put into a coma for an experimental “cure,” lived on an all-meat diet because of some made-up food sensitivities, and dressed like the Joker would have been laughed out of his profession and have only a small cult following at best. If he made a big splash with some bizarre activity he might rate one line in a late-night talk show host’s monologue. He would not have become wealthy, have a huge platform, or have a couple of million young men following his “advice.”
Idiocracy, mendacity, easily disprovable bullshit all the way down. Conservatives were ALWAYS bad, but now just feels…different.
Conservatives have always been willing to believe bizarre stuff. From fluoridated water being a communist mind-control plot to Russia having planted nuclear weapons under every major American city, they could be convinced of the most outlandish things.
But what's different now is that conservatives are not just willing to believe bizarre stuff, they're actually EAGER to believe it and demand that their leaders feed them complete nonsense. Thus Q-ANON and all its adherents. The rock-bottom faith that there exists a "Deep State" that's controlled by [Soros/the Bilderbergs/the Clintons/alien lizard people]. The idea that conservative ideas like abortion bans lose at the ballot box NOT because those ideas are unpopular, but because a cabal of Venezuelan, Columbian, and Italians technologists are actually changing the votes.
True. And obviously the internet and social media now play a huge role in disseminating it. I think you've gotten to the crux of it by highlighting their eagerness -- they prefer the bullshit. Reality doesn't agree with their philosophy, so reality has to go.
Yes! I think "reality is inferior" is baked in. They pride themselves on living by principle, while we live by the grubby material program of handouts. The problem is, when you live by abstract notions arrived at through a priori reasoning, as they do in a very self-serving way, then any contradiction offered by the actual world of experience must be wrong. Pure reason can't be wrong! It's pure! Reality is the contaminant. So they can ignore or outright deny it. If they want to, they can even hurl total bullshit at us down here mired in it -- because who cares? NONE of reality is worth anything compared to the Abstract Principles That Predate Reality.
Every one of their heads is a Platonic Solid.
See also The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality.
"We have evolution itself to thank for this magnificent illusion, as it maximizes evolutionary fitness by driving truth to extinction."
I'm recalling when Wisconsin, along with a bunch of other states, voted to ban gay marriage. What a gut-punch it was, but we didn't retreat into a fantasy world where Italian spy satellites conspired with our Nest home thermostats to fix the results, we just figured people were pretty damn bigoted and we need to get to work changing their minds. Which was accomplished, through years of hard work by LGBTQ folk to get their stories through the thick skulls of their fellow citizens.
I like our way better.
Is it hot in here or are the damn Italianos messin' with the thermo again?
A youthful Fabio says "Hot?"
Looked at the covers of any good books recently?
And is immediately hit in the face by a flying goose.
“Conservatives have always been willing to believe bizarre stuff.”
Like supply-side economics.
Makes QAnon seem rational.
Us pre-internet folks (not assuming...so pretend a thought experiment) are like the people who lived before the first sound recording machinery. Our narrow or wide knowledge of music derived from listening to musicians (including ourselves) live in the real world, and/or reading sheet music. Likewise, prior to the net our knowledge (limited or vast) of individual human lives was dependent on corporate publishing and chance physical encounters. Now we cannot avoid knowing vast amounts of drek about vast numbers of otherwise unaccountable people.
Absolutely true. But now that these loons are being forced on our notice they are able to garner loads of followers. And I wonder, were we always this unserious as a people, and the internet just makes us aware of that fact? Maybe we were. We all live in our own self-created bubbles. Or are we genuinely getting worse? I don't know.
I prescribe brooking no such fools.
Hell, I seldom even brook myself.
Aaah, go brook yourself.
No need to brook when you babble.
Having heart-taken of what you speakily
I hereby withdraw somewhat meekily
Tho I shall not brook
Promoting the crook
Otherwise I'll just carry on creakily
Also, wouldn't it be a cool oldtime radio chiller-thriller series?
"WTF – doesn't ANYBODY have anything worthwhile to say??!!"
"Listen to that strangely reality-adjacent gibberish! Don't tell me, it's.....The Babbler!"
Duh duh DUUUUNH...
[voiceover] "You hear what he says, but what does it mean? Listen closely pilgrim, and be baffled by [add low voice/echo] THE BABBLER"
[cue theme]
"Or are we genuinely getting worse?"
I only ask myself that question about a dozen times a day. I think in the early days of the internet, it was "People aren't really getting worse, it's just getting easier to see what's out there." But then, the worst of the worst developed huge followings and made a shitload of money in the process which encouraged others to become the worst of the worst too (Andrew Tate, anyone?) and now we are genuinely getting worse.
I fear that is the correct answer.
We are learning what the Coin Of The Realm is in the Attention Economy, and we don't like it.
This. Tweet "Be kind to one another" and get some likes. Tweet "Did the Jews give my dog heart worms" and go viral.
Dog far more likely to go viral than you. It is the internet, after all.
Bloodhound libel? The Schnauzers of Zion?
Just imagine what Elizabethan England would’ve been like if they’d had the internet and were subjected to paranoid propaganda and Jacobean revenge tragedies 24/7.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Well the worst are full of SOMETHING.
And I, I took the plane less shitted in
And that has made all the difference
In making the transfer in O'hare.
Also, it is a wonder that so many folx think that whatever idiot thing it is that they have to say ought by right to be disseminated high wide and thensome. And for free!
Hell – I pay a queen's ransom just to post here! Roy is getting rich I tell you RICH! offa me!
You and I should both be glad he doesn't charge per-comment.
It ain't the quantity it's the quality!
The human brain wasn’t evolved to take in a constant barrage of information. With social media, the internet, and TV you just don’t occasionally hear from your social circle, you hear constantly from people everywhere, and when some of them constantly provoke your Fight Or Flight response, it’s going to warp your brain.
And to continue the analogy, the messages are now aimed, not at an imagined general public with presumed standards, but at the "unaccountable" multitudes.
Though on the sound-recording end of the analogy, we got jazz, blues, country, rock etc.; on the Internet end we got... all this.
For 'unaccountable', read 'no 'count'
I remember that as late as maybe 20 years ago my implicit assumption was that the great majority of people were basically OK, and now I assume that everybody is a Milkshake Duck just waiting to be unmasked.
Except for you good people, of course.
It's no fun to be starting a brand new listen to a podcast about movies or books or roleplaying or anything not explicitly political and be awaiting the horrible moment where you're like "Oh, god, NO" and hitting the stop button.
I have to say I've been pleasantly and consistently surprised in the past to NOT have that moment yet, but I'm always prepared for it, and that sucks.
I think the complete erasure of trust -- in people, institutions, everything -- is the lasting gift of Trumpism.
Truster
Trustee
Anti-Trust
all that's left is Miss Trust of 2024...
But America's legal system is at the door with a dozen roses, trying to win me back.
Test, test...
And I, I took the plane less shitted in
And that has made all the difference
In making the transfer in O'hare.
As Atrios has pointed out on occasion, a generation of children has grown up with Donald Trump as President and being worshipped by millions of people—and this is just what their developing brains had to file away as “normal” in a functioning society. And that’s not even touching on the utterly corrupt Supreme Court, the GOP’s full descent into madness, or all the other garbage strewn across the landscape since the Gingrich era. Sure, there was never a pure, halcyon era, but at least we made a pretense of having standards and ideals. Now it’s like living in trash tv 24/7 and kids are still somehow supposed to grow up “normal.”
Nah, my kids grew up with mom and dad yelling at the TV, starting with Shrub.
Luxury! In “Synchronicity II” the kids grew up with far worse!
I don't understand why anyone with any sense goes along with the idea that Trump worship and conservative hate culture are "normal". Do you think it's normal? I don't and never have. It's a plague of mental illness.
I don’t think it’s normal, but then I didn’t grow up with a country that suffered through it, and had a political party enabling it. If you grew up seeing it and there were no consequences, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a “normal” (if horrible) way the world works.
Silly me. Of course it's the idea of a united American that is the real delusion. The murderous hatred of American conservatives is just human nature. They've tried to conform to American ideals but they've failed, over and over again, and now they're sick of failure and want their revenge. Again.
To be honest, I've grown very uncomfortable with accusations of mental illness from any side, as it's an easy out, it doesn't help the shitty attitude this country has towards mental health in general, but mainly because it makes me think of the Soviets, particularly when it comes from the right. Dissidents ended up in psych wards because they denied the "truth" of the Soviet brand of "scientific Marxism" and therefore were deranged and in need of "help". And I keep hearing similar things from people about trans folks and, frankly, it scares me. I just think it's better not to buy in to the trope in any serious way to avoid helping legitimize the idea of politics=insanity (and, yes, Kulturkampf bullshit has nada to do with "politics" but I can't think of a better word at the moment).
Fair enough, but withhold the ability to pity the Queens Man for his utter inability to simulate caring for anyone but himself.
And oh BOY do his fanboygirls hate pity!
“they’ve never been an adult during any sort of ‘normal’ time.” —But isn’t “normal time” something of a moving target? I first began forming reliable long-term memories early in Eisenhower’s second term: The Fifties, long the gold standard of American normal from which every deviation has been loudly deplored by the Usual Suspects. In that vanished halcyon era women knew their place, the nigras weren’t uppity, and if a faggot set foot out of the closet he could expect to lose his job or even his life. I think it was Thomas Pynchon who once observed that the most pernicious thing about the fifties was how people became persuaded that they’d last forever.
They didn’t, of course. But at least in public discourse there were few who regarded the American postwar hegemony and its concomitant economic dominance as anything but the natural order. Offhand I can only think of Robert Heilbroner, who suggested in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 (1960) that the country’s catbird seat couldn’t last, as an “establishment” dissenter.
There are indeed elements of the fifties that I miss: social pressures inhibited many closet crazies from acting out, whereas now they are granted megaphones. The dominant culture inculcated a respect rather than a contempt for the life of the mind. Exhibit A, from LIFE magazine(!) circa 1955: “Today, while there remain fundamentalists of all faiths who regard Genesis as a literal document open to no interpretation, the main stream of thought in Western theology has embraced evolution as the scientific account of creation.” Yeah, no.
“Normal” wasn’t normal. But some abnormalities are downright pathological.
Perhaps y'all saw the bizarre exchange on the Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, where 6/1 indictee Jeffery Clark is attacking Burning Man (and Neil Kaytal, who's Hindu) for participating in a neo Pagan ritual.
I've seen plenty of a Conservative blovater attacking art stuff as "blasphemy" as if it were an actual crime, and not in the view of the beholder. It's almost a trope: anything that might stir people outside the Kinder, Küche, Kirche sentiment (and abusive sentimentality) of the Right must be...SATAN!
I will say Burning Man's debacle (on a playa lake bed with alkali mud) reminds me why I don't go camping any more, since I wrecked the Stretch van I could put a mattress in.
Maybe it will be salutary for some of the more Libertarian/anti government type to see what good some governance and public goods can be: because you will eventually need 'em.
Hearted for the stretch van.
And now that the Daddy Party® has become the Whiny Bitch Party®®® you bet they are relieved they do not need to man up and take care of stuff anymore. Their main failing is that they refuse to admit reality...
You would think that for Jeffrey Clark, now would be the time to STFU. But such is the state of conservative thought.
Ha ha! That Neal Katyal, what an idiot, he's probably going to priso... Um, never mind.
The conservative thought is "The time to STFU is NEVER! If someone suggests it, I'm being cancelled!".
"Maybe it will be salutary for some of the more Libertarian/anti government type to see what good some governance and public goods can be: because you will eventually need 'em."
Oh, hope springs eternal, but I'm thinking it's more likely that the fact they didn't die even though they were exposed to three days of mud will convince them all the more strongly that they're destined for greatness when the collapse comes, and so they'll work even harder to make it come.
Don't hate the playa
2 marks!
Oooh, well done!
Alex Jones is really enthusiastic about this, but feeds it through a bizarre Christianity where Satan is from another dimension and the globalists want to feed the human population of Earth to Saturn, for reasons.
But, yeah, anything even vaguely transgressive HAS to be tied to Satan in their fevered imaginations, from the pisswhine over Target merchandise a couple months back, to Pizzagate and the origins of Qanon, and beyond. It's demons all the way down.
When you are Doing God's Will anything you do is Right and Good. "Auto-da-fe? OK!"
I’ve always suspected that a lot of both these phenomena are, when you dig down far enough, motivated by race. “Friendship” is being used as code for “racial solidarity.” I’m white, you’re white, the blahs will kill us both when the ball drops, why can’t you get along with me??? And all the doom mongering is about making it look like that ball is/has dropped.
They attribute thoughts/fears to others that they have themselves.
100%
Well, it's like I keep saying - it's partially that they attribute their awful worldview to everyone else, as well as their adjustable belief system. They accuse the left of not believing what we're saying and just repeating talking points because that's what THEY'RE doing. (Though as I said the other day, I think repetition of awful concepts tends to bend you towards accepting those as "reality"; what I tell you three times is true)
"I'm white, you're white, let's kill the blahs together."
Fixed
How dare I reject such an appealing offer of friendship!
I hear the Stones – thanks!*
Sarcastic emoji...
Once you’ve abandoned truth, in support of your sole principle which is preservation of your power, it’s not surprising you would be as strategically and cynically mendacious as possible. This has been true of the GOP and especially the conservative movement for decades; but today’s REBID illustrates how it has exponentially consumed them. Trump was a match thrown onto the combustibles already there in the undergrowth. The behavior Roy describes is one of the ways this is manifested. Conflagrations ultimately burn themselves out. The question remains how much damage will result and whether we can rebuild.
I watched the first couple episodes of "Chernobyl" on the flight back from Vancouver, and I'm still thinking of those words from Legasov at the beginning in terms of conservatives. At some point they're going to have to deal with the cost of their lies, one way or another, because lies won't work in a time of crisis and we're going through multiple crises with more on the way.
I appreciate your labeling of the link: (No, I’m not kidding.) Because if you'd written something like (No, really – you should read it!) I might have.
And not to be pedantic (oh what the hell, whyforsoevernot?), Burning Man's roots are not in fact grassy (tho I see what you did there) – it's sandy all the way down to the original, on the beach in San Francisco...
? "Let's move our festival to where there's lots of sand and none of that annoying water"
Sand that turns into mud whenever it gets wet.
With three-eyed shrimp!
There you go with your size-ism again! Thought Police! Detest this man!!
I vaguely remember reading about a service offered to Burning Man aspirants: an expensive, curated experience: BM but with a refuge from undesirables, and less hassle.
Say what you will about the Deadheads, but I don't think anybody offered that sort of touring experience. If you wanted to tour in luxury (as I'm sure some did) then you had to make it happen yourself.
(It helped to know an experienced hippie able to get drugs on a moment's notice, etc.)
Everything is "pay for exclusive treatment" these days, as if there's a whole group of dumbshits out there with too much disposable income and a burning desire never to be even slightly inconvenienced.
"Wanted: Hippie. Experience required."
A successful applicant will be able to disappear for ten minutes and return with a sheet of good acid
• 6 degrees of separation from employer required.
• Knowledge of California Criminal Code useful but not essential.
• Gender-neutral but sex a plus!
“This is most easily seen in the way conservatives get in a huff when liberals don’t grant them the friendship they feel themselves owed, as seen in this 2021 column by Tim Graham of NewsBusters, the premise of which is that liberals are intolerant bullies for not being pals with people like Tim Graham.”
Sorry, I prefer not to be friends with a bunch of ignorant fascists! Is that soooo wrong??????? Additionally, have they considered they’re just not that “interesting?”
“And of course there's the weirdly common male conservative complaint that liberal women won't go out with them, as expressed in essays with titles like "Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump."”
Is this a “chicken and the egg” conundrum? I think not! Perhaps, Trump and his “grab them by the p.....remark and his overall misogyny, could be to blame. Or the fact, that most of the men complaining are misogynistic INCEL’s!!!!!
I leave it at that....:)
The complaint about women's refusal to date conservatives is just the polite man's version of the incel's outraged whine: as a male, I am entitled to have any woman I want.
They remind me of the adage when a women breaks up with them: “it’s not you, it’s me! However, in this case, it’s definitely YOU!.....:)
It's not you, I just need to regain my ability to live with myself.
I think their problem with BM is all the hot scantily clad young women dancing the night away in the desert. Think of the possibilities! This is Alan Dershowitz writ large -- BM is the big Vineyard party they're not invited to.
Exactly! Tho I wonder why they think they need an invite...
Let's face it – if they were actually conservative they'd ditch christofascism for a genuine old time religion like what you'd find 'round Çatalhöyük for instance...
That imbecile Jeffrey Clark, the guy from the DOJ, that tried to insert himself as AG during the insurrection, tried to disparage Neil Katyal, by calling his attendance at BM, heresy. Like BM is some sort of neo-pagan ritual.
These religious fanatics know no shame...:)
Yeah. Clue-deprived.
The whole shebang is staged on land managed by BLMNPSCW (Bureau of Loggers, Miners, NeoPagan Scantily-Clad Women)
The next town over can't find any Repubs to run for mayor. Of course, they blame the Democrats. “Republican candidates have unjustly been called racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes and Nazis in addition to other vicious attacks on social media. It has become increasingly difficult to find Republican candidate who want to subject themselves to the personal character assassinations from the Democrat chairman and others.”
The Dane County board (Madison is in Dane County) used to be about half Republicans, occasionally they'd even have a majority. Now there's not a single one. Seemed like it was around 2016-2018 when the board went entirely over to the Democrats. Can't remember what was going on at the time that could have caused this.
The tiniest violin ---> .
Playing just for the GOP
Feature, not bug:
Skip the Campaign, go straight to Champagne!
"But if you’ve been around since the 1960s and paying attention, you’ll know what I mean."
FIFY.
As for the ebola crisis of 2014: If one was paying attention -- so few cases, so much hysteria from Republicans -- one couldn't understand what exactly the hysteria was about. The tell was the crisis dropping out of the establishment news within ~24 hours of the election held the day before.
Bonus fun fact: IIRC, the response by the foreign-born muslim's administration was to set up protocols in case of a pandemic. Which were trashed upon his successor's taking office.
As for dealing with conservatives: Be polite in the first instance and walk away if they start getting poorly behaved. Now, respect for them is a whole other issue. This -- https://kolektiva.social/@HeavenlyPossum/110989789650647995 -- is on them. So, you know, good manners and all that; no more than they deserve.
“As for the ebola crisis of 2014: If one was paying attention -- so few cases, so much hysteria from Republicans -- one couldn't understand what exactly the hysteria was about. The tell was the crisis dropping out of the establishment news within ~24 hours of the election held the day before.”
I was always amazed that the actual scientists and Doctors of the CDC and other such liberal front organizations were given the same credence (if rather less airtime) than those diseased experts D. tRump, C. Christie, and R. Guiliani (among so many others) calling for a total ban to Africa, and indeed all foreign travel.
I always think it was one more brick in the wall for Democratic Congressional hopes that year.
Hey, remember when they were mocking the US women's soccer team for losing? This is a party that's hemorrhaging votes from women, and I'm not saying a silly thing like this would be decisive in the 2024 election (or even that anyone will remember it by then) but a thing that Democratic politicians think obsessively: "Will this thing I'm about to say offend any particular voter demographic?" is a thought they simply refuse to think, out of principle.
For conservative men, the aimed-at archetype is Savvy Man, picture him in jeans wearing a white t-shirt with a pack of Lucky's rolled up in the sleeve, leaning against the fender of his cherry '57 Chevy, tossing his LOL's and LMFAO's at life's passing parade.
"I didn't go to this thing, which is turning out to be an extremely savvy call on my part", Savvy Man thinks as he heads to Twitter to boast of his savviness.
Savvy Man always gets a GREAT deal on everything he buys, he got Jerry Lundergard to throw in that Tru-Coat for FREE!
...and then he gets the urgent text from his physician to call right back about that lung x-ray...
Dammit, paying extra for those original-asbestos brake linings just to own the libs might not have been savvy after all.
Oof. Close to the bone is all I'm sayin'...
Having liberal friends legitimizes Trump etc. Some folks want a dignified, competent present, others want a narcissistic, boorish capo who says shit like "I am your retribution" against, well, the liberal friend. He tolerates nothing less than fawning submission or he goes APESHIT, which is not just OK but stellar. The "conservative" submits to Trump and, extending the hierarchy downward, merits the unconditional submission of the liberal friend. Being nice to the liberal friend is an act of grace, wholly undeserved; it demonstrates that the "conservative" is magnanimous.
perhaps we should use this angle then: I am not worthy of your magnanimous gesture of friendship. yeah, that'll work!
That's a good idea ... if you could avoid seeming sarcastic. A smooth operator could pull it off.
yeah, that's not my strong hold, that not-seeming-sarcastic. hard to set aside the habits of a lifetime of dealing with conservative 'thought'.
Dammit! Eye-rolled again!
As we learned from the Piranha Brothers, sarcasm is a dangerous weapon when it falls into the wrong hands!
all the tricks: dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire
Trump can't do any of these things, at all. His followers, however, can magically tell when he's "joking" vs. when he should be taken literally.
He takes pleasure in mockery, but he's not good at it because he doesn't see people fully enough to really get the knife in. It's all simple-minded (Chris Christie is fat so he's off somewhere eating).
We say he's functionally illiterate, but it's much worse. Smart, creative people existed before writing (and they had better memories). He can seem sarcastic. And he uses alot of cliche phrases, some of which are figurative. Due to paredolia, people see a mind in all of this.
It ALL goes back to hierarchy.
I believe the term for the GQP version is lowrarchy.
Liararchy
WaPo had a piece “a liberal and a conservative can agree on this one thing,” with Theissen the conservative and some unknown (to me) liberal. It was of the “we disagree about abortion but agree pregnant women need medical care, food and a place to live” ilk and said Congress should enact a bunch of Republican legislation. The comments were, as always, basically “fuck you, Theissen!” WaPo is going to need a less notorious con than Torture Boy if they want to see their liberal readers be friendlier.
Republicans are welcome to bring that "Free food, medical care and housing for pregnant women" bill to the floor of the House any time they want. They're probably just polishing up the exact wording of it, that must be the hold-up. Maybe trying to decide how many bedrooms each woman's free house should have.
So these are the same people who said COVID was no big deal?
Well, if Infowars is any indication, they said it AFTER saying it was "over for humanity".
Now, of course, it's "it was a bioweapon but not REALLY a bioweapon because the release was only to legitimize the rollout of the poison jab which has killed MILLIONS any day now".
Deadly Chinese-engineered bioweapon and also no worse than the common cold, ya crybabies. Any questions?
And for garnering attention and clicks, nothing beats contrarianism. If the government is saying "Don't panic", then predict the end of the world. If they're saying it's really serious, switch to "engineered panic, not worse that the common cold."
Nobody clicks on the Round Earth YouTube channel.
It's assholes riding turtles all the way down. I'm not up on the Republican's time in the wilderness from FDR to Eisenhower, so I don't know how much conspiracy theory they embraced (beyond insisting Roosevelt was Jewish) but from the Birchers on, conspiracy was always in the mix as a response to being out of power. But as their grip tightend and more star systems slipped through their fingers, they embraced conspiracy while in power, and gaming the system as a necessity for maintaining power. I think somewhere in their bitter hearts they know this is not tenable and they want that public approval, that friendship, that blowjob from the barista, as yet another way to paper over the gap between the world they have created and reality. I keep calling them Ghost Dancers because the only explanation for their behavior is they are trying to will their reality into existence because they see no other option. To compromise is to be put in camps, their religion made illegal, their property, homes and wealth taken away, their children renamed and brainwashed into forgetting their culture and history. Like slavers fearing revolt by slaves, they fear being done to them what they would do if positions were reversed.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls it "the bunker phase." I think she means that in a hopeful way.
Or perhaps bunker as in Archie.
Well the ACTUAL American fascist coup conspiracy against Roosevelt was in planning stages and had picked out a front man. Stupidly, the conspirators chose Smedley Butler and the rest is history-ish. See 1935 report by the McCormack-Dickstein committee...
"Keeping and eye on this situation. Will bring reports as I get more."
I love it when two-bit "#Trump2024 Jesus Is KING!" wingnuts like "The Patriot Voice" say stuff like this. They fancy themselves as actual journalists uncovering deep truths when their "reporting" consists of Michael Flynn retweets and links to Laura Loomer "investigations."
I think the term back in the Iraq war days was "Keyboard Commando."
I still think Queens Man invoking Immortan Joe is genius.
"I am your RETRIBUTION!"
And his minions race around wasting the precious essence without a care...