Next bump you hit, Faith will fall off the back and you can then ride on Faithlessly, after which you can pretty much approve any damn thing you feel like.
You’re not wrong. Chait is really just engaged in self-important wanking. Who is Chait referring to, which conservatives does he believe are still persuadable? Everyone from that side who is going to come over has already done so. Show me the conservative who will say, after reading Chait’s article, “I’ve been with Trump since 2016, but having read THIS, I know this guy feels my pain so I’m hopping aboard the Biden Express?” The only true persuadables at this point are people who are almost totally detached from politics, not anyone who self-identifies as conservative.
"The only true persuadables at this point are people who are almost totally detached from politics..."
Ah, the thing that drives me nuts every damn day. How to do this? I'm trying to sell you THIS car instead of THAT car when a car isn't what you want at all, and you're not actually clear on what this word "car" even means, and too disinterested to google it.
It's maddening, yes. And even looking ahead to the very grim future should the disaster of a Trump win happen, these same people will not be bothered as long as they can watch Netflix, have dinner at the Olive Garden on Fridays, and shop at Target. They won't notice unless or until storm troopers are on their own street. They either have no skin in the game, or at least don't believe they do. For now.
It's wild that somehow things have shaken out to exactly 50-50 among the partisans, so the fate of the country is in the hands of the least interested. It's like asking me to decide who should win the Super Bowl. It's only because of the kerfluffle with Taylor Swift that I even know Kansas City was playing, and I can't tell you who the other team was or who won. I may have known these things at some point, but my brain has simply rejected them, so great is my disinterest in football.
I am the same with football, and I think if we just transfer that disinterest to politics we have our answer regarding the politically disengaged: "Obama's 100 year old Veep wants a second term and he's running against the ex-President loudmouth from New York."
That's what gets me. 50-50. How? You've seen what Orange Shitgibbon does with one term, and you want that again?
I love my home state. I have never lived more than six miles from the Arkansas River. I was born in the Ozarks. But if they want to split the place up, fine. I'll move if they will.
I'd just as soon not spend my twilight years on the run after murdering so many. It would be a sadness. But I am not getting on the cattle cars without a fight.
But it's just party loyalty, isn't it? I'm a Republican, I vote for the Republican. Why would I vote for a Democrat, that's something Democrats do.
But then what still shocks me is that, having two major parties, the states should divide so evenly between them (about half Republican-controlled, about half controlled by Democrats) which then leads to EXTREMELY close Presidential elections ONLY because of the motherfucking Electoral College.
Although a subset of this group may have been given pause (to think? well maybe...) by the fact that they can no longer have dinner at Red Lobster on Fridays.
I have been reliably informed by the Adults In The Room that the way we reach these voters is to yell at them and browbeat them. That is simply how Sales works.
But let's be fair, since I think it's generally agreed that nobody has a fucking clue how to win these people over, and yelling at people can be fun, I can understand why someone might choose the "fun but ineffective" route when the alternative is "not so much fun, also ineffective."
Fair. Many of the same people who I see employing the Hectoring & Browbeating voter outreach strategy also compulsively engage with online trolls. It’s almost like they’re not as wise as they think they are.
I've said it here before: So many of my opinions have been revised after someone shamed me or guilted me or called me a moron. Not in the moment! But later I got to thinking, why'd that stranger go nuts on me? And then I re-see what I said. And then I modify it, sometimes. Hectoring and browbeating makes me reflective! If it works on me, it will work on everyone!
"As you know, I’m a reductive asshole and a lot of my humor comes from the least charitable, most derisive interpretation of conservatives."
A fully deserved and more than correct enough characterization.
"As far as the public political figures I write about, I only think there’s maybe a few millimeters more depth to them than my silly caricatures indicate."
Given that Job 1 for them is pandering and expanding ignorance, whatever depth they have beyond portrayed is insignificant and irrelevant. Which is to say nothing to worry about.
But Chait... At his core, I get a vibe of decency. But so what. My rule of thumb a/k/a one of my older old fart theories is that there are approximately no pundits worth shit. Speaking of pandering while offering no genuine insight, that's what they get the big bucks to do. So suffice to say Chait is no way an exception that rule. TBH, I know I have a few exceptions but the synapses aren't firing good yet so none come to mind...
I agree with your theory, and would add that at least shit has a useful function, which puts it at minimum a step above the vast majority of the punditocracy.
You are of course correct. Shit, when properly used, is far more value and social benefit than nearly any pundit. (Tip: if one finds a pundit insightful, it may be a reflection that one's under-informed and the pundit can not inform of more than that.)
At worse, shit enables the passing of toxins from the body.
When I compare a pundit to shit I am in fact libeling shit and I'm sorry for that.
I can half remember that moment 30 or 40 years ago when I looked up from the newspaper op ed page and said ,with suddenly realized wonder, " These people know fuck all !"
The minute they start to intone I'm Audi 5000.
With Chait, I rarely make it through the first couple of sentences.
You know, you seem like a rowdy, street fighting kind of guy. If you want to hunt some of these people down and take a poke at them I'd certainly chip in for bail.
How is it possible this guy gets even worse? Progressives are the gaslighters and anecdote generalizers? At least try to find a credible critique of the left that is in the same galaxy as the “lethal immigrant” of the right. The only conservatives he’s possibly thinking of are already with us (
You need to remember that Chait is one of those centrists that hate the left way more than the right. Many just barely left of center centrists have this attitude ... at least going by LGM and Balloon Juice
I will let you all in on a secret I discovered back in my political consulting days. I worked almost exclusively with Republicans, and when you look at their policy preferences, these people are indeed monsters.
But the secret nobody knows about them is that nearly all of them are quite charming in person. They have to be or they get nowhere. Some have what you might call limited charisma, some are just really nice guys or gals, but all know how to glad-hand and not come across as the asshole who wants to send your 5-year-old daughter off to work in the textile mill.
(Notable exceptions to the charming-in-person rule: Marco Rubio, who is just fucking grating because he's soooooo dumb. Ron Desantis, who by all accounts is just an asshole in all situations and only has the governor's office because Florida's Democrats are absolutely hopeless. J.D. Vance, who, when not attached to Donald Trump's ass like an anal remora, is constantly busy telling everyone around him how he's really superior to them.)
I was just musing on how the Republicans are basically amoral capitalists. Capitalists have to be good at selling things, especially things we don't really need or that aren't good for us, like SUVS and ultraprocessed food. Hence the Rs are better at messaging than Ds and hence the distractions of scary immigrants and trans people. If the Rs came right out and said their intention is to put 5-year-olds to work in sweatshops, people wouldn't buy what they are selling. But slip the kids into the sweatshop while the parents are distracted by the fear of gay wedding cakes and you'll get re-elected to put immigrants in concentration camps.
I thought to myself back in ‘00 after the election of Bush the Lesser that modern conservativism in charge is like the sales department of some company has decided they don’t need HR, legal, accounting or operations departments. Just sell sell sell and customer satisfaction, workforce stability and legal attacks be damned, we’re special guys and a few gals who know how to git er done! So, yeah, they know how put on the fake charm, but you should hear what they say when they hit the links together.
You should hear what they say when you get to sit with them for an hour or two in private to discuss their campaign. I learned very quickly to never ever ask them to explain anything. Because once you start down that road, it inevitably leads to you asking what SHOULD be obvious questions that they can't answer.
Thus, I would ask a client "what do you want to run on? What issues do you want to highlight?" And whatever he or she said, I'd write it down and move on to the next part ("What's your budget?") Because they'd invariably spit out something stupid ("Uh, cut taxes, of course!") and if you tried to tease ANYTHING out of that, well, there would be crying ("Cut taxes? That's nice. Where does that money come from? 'Cause you still have to pay for all your existing commitments.")
IME, less true than it used to be, especially at the state level. Non-MAGA Republicans used to have a sort of Rotary Club appeal. These days they communicate almost exclusively in wingnut grievance patois.
He also worked on Republican campaigns in Washington.
eta: The governor he worked for thought Ted could have become Governor if he applied himself, but he like personally killing people rather than doing it at some remove
Well, they're politicians -- they gotta have charm! I think often of my Dad, who was very against escalating Vietnam, and was in Vietnam, when LBJ showed up and asked to meet him and some other officers for lunch. My dad said he went to his bunk and took a nap instead. As a kid, I couldn't believe he'd pass up a chance to meet a president. What he said was, "I knew if I met him in person, he was going to be charismatic and interesting, and I'd end up liking him, at least while we were in the room together. And I really didn't like him, and didn't want to."
"As you know, I’m a reductive asshole and a lot of my humor comes from the least charitable, most derisive interpretation of conservatives." Welcome to the club!
I've mentioned this before, but George Will permanently lost me when he decided that Tony LaRussa was the apotheosis of baseball managing (when at the time LaRussa had only one World Series ring, won during the Earthquake Series of 1989).
A rude thing I often say is that for your average mainstream media type, nothing tastes finer than reactionary ass. Chait simply proves the truth of this aphorism yet again. If I was on a talk show with someone like Chait, I'd ask him to turn his head away so I don't have to smell anal vapors, but there's absolutely no way in hell I'll ever be on one, is there?
One suspects Chait has never had those conversations with American pseudoconservatives. When you live and work amongst them, you know what we have in common and what we don’t. In common: physical skills are valuable and admired, so is showing up on time, doing the job you said you would, loving your children, the weather is often terrible but also fine. Not in common: women are equal to men, gays deserve the same rights and privileges as straights, abortion is health care, health care is a right not a privilege, voting should be easy, unions give workers a fighting chance against greedy bosses, America is a land of immigrants except for Native Americans, America is not and shouldn’t be a Christian nation. The reason it’s so much harder to talk with Republicans now than it was even in the ‘60s is that the gains made in those not in common areas are rejected by them and no evidence will convince them otherwise unless they become personally affected by the loss of those gains.
I know Chait is full of it because I have never once run into him at my suburban Applebees salad bar. Nor David Brooks for that matter. (I thought I once saw him consoling a friend who was having a panic attack at the sight of exotic deli meats, but I was mistaken.)
Maybe he's just pretending to be clueless to appeal to Haley voters. IIRC, Chait was the one who wrote a TNR piece 25 years or so ago about how the Oklahoma congressional delegation was bugfuck crazy. Surely he must have noticed the rest of the GOP is as well.
Speaking of clueless and reductive, I’m still waiting for Judis & Texeira’s “emerging Democratic majority” to magically materialize, springing full-grown like Athena from the head of Zeus because of Demographics.
The Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections so that might count for something. Their Senators represent like 55-60% (IIRC) of the total population and often the Dems win the total House vote. Sadly, total population vote counts for diddly squat at the country level
Don’t I know it. It barely counts for anything at the local level either. Yet I dutifully vote despite it being futile.
BTW, we had supper with a former football coach of yours, about 80 years old, and he expressed dissatisfaction with our only two choices for president. And yes, he’s obviously voting for Biden. But the Team D Defense Squad at LGM would yell at him anyway for being a stupid leftist child.
That coach was also my Algebra II teacher and he was excellent. Explained things well and was very funny. The year I had him (my sophomore year) he had a student teacher who tried to be like him, but she just did not have the humor to sustain that and it ended up just seeming forced. Friday during football season he generally did a breakdown of what to expect in that nights game.
Aren't you friends with one of his daughters? I remember a DeMolay vs. Jobs Daughters. Either your friend or her sister were in JD and she and I were the only people who could play. I played the first half for DeMolay and the second half for Job's Daughters. The game ended up a tie IIRC something that was pretty minor 45 years ago
I don’t know anything about JD, but we’re friends with Mr M and his twin daughters. BTW, he also has a degree from Cornell where he studied astronomy on a Fulbright. Not bad for a red state hick football coach and science teacher.
"If you told the average MAGA guy that you and he have much in common..." Agree, where I diverge is that most Republican voters aren't MAGA guys, they are regular people who are caught up in a social web where everyone votes Republican. In current terms, there are a few MAGA influencers and a whole lot of MAGA influenced. From what I see in the midst of them, we do have a lot in common with most of the influenced. Our corporate overlords are some combination of evil and incompetent, our benefits are getting whittled away, our healthcare sucks, we want our children to be happy, and so on. Essentially, what we have in common is ordinary life in these United States. What the influencers do is convince people that the things that affect their ordinary lives are not important. What's important is the manufactured outrage of the day. What passes for the left has pretty much devolved into the same strategy, albeit the outrage of the day they report is actually real. But for the most part, things that actually matter in the lives of us ordinary folk are not much discussed. If they were, particularly in the large swathes of the country where the Democrats don't make any effort to engage regular people, I think you'd find that there is a lot of common ground and there are people who would grow into becoming anti-MAGA influencers. If that common ground were tilled, watered, and cared for, the garden would be healthy and flourish. Things can change. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
Biden, Harris, and Dr. Jill have been to Wisconsin many times, and when they come, it's always about some simple, commonsense thing: A bridge that's being rebuilt because of the infrastructure bill, a daycare in Milwaukee that's getting funding from a new federal program, a new initiative to help Community College students. None of this gets any attention, of course. But it's true generally of Wisconsin Democratic candidates: Jobs, jobs, jobs, and oh, did I mention jobs?
On the Democratic side, candidates tend to talk about one or two issues pre-identified by focus groups and polls to be good issues for them (and when I say "one or two" I really mean "one" because that's seen as "message discipline.") And these issues are the things you're mentioning, the cost of living, jobs, child care, health care, education. That's about the whole list right there.
But for Team Republican, there's just no line between the ravings of the nuttiest crank on YouTube and what might come out of the mouth of a US Senator. It's "flood the zone with shit" and "throw EVERYTHING at the wall and see what sticks."
It's kind of amazing that two parties who have such completely different approaches to politics should end up almost exactly even, by every measure. It's almost like what the candidates actually say doesn't matter, because everyone's vote is pre-determined by identity politics.
I'm old enough to remember liberal's rueful acknowledgement of Republican "message discipline", "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line", Reagan's 11th Commandment, Gingrich's Letter to the Galaitians, I mean Power of Language memo. And so on. Sith Lord Trump has shown them the power of Chaos, while Democrats are still trying to copy the old Republican playbook in the hope that reality still matters.
The parties are "even" when you ignore the third of eligible voters who (still) can't be bothered. Otherwise that even split in most places relies on massive gerrymandering of Congressional districts. That "even" illusion is what Republicans are counting on for their fig leaf of legitimacy in the next coup attempt in Nov.
I wish I could believe that the 1/3 of voters who can't be bothered would vote for the Dems in huge numbers, but all the evidence shows they split pretty much like those who do vote.
This seems to be the one thing both parties agree on: Higher voter turnout would benefit the Democrats. Could be true, but I'm skeptical, because the last thing both parties agreed on was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
I actually originally had a button on this story to that effect, but I was trying to think of real policies Biden could reasonably offer those voters and Medicare 4 All is the only one I could think of -- because he's already doing a bunch else (like infrastructure) that really helps them but which has the redstate guys convinced he's a communist.
You're trying to get my young ass killed. No, no sir. I've been around these racist sacks of shit all my life, and I didn't learn to pass as a redneck back in the 60's to try to undo any of that. I like my house, I like my cats, and I don't want the Brownshirts to burn/kill them. Friend, I remember an old "Impeach Earl Warren" billboard (near Dardanelle in Yell County, fer real). No. You don't know what you're dealing with. The racism is built-in. It's in the ground. The blood-soaked ground.
You strike me as incredibly naive. Bless your heart.
Insert Ned Beatty speech from Network about "messing with elemental forces" here. Propaganda is necessary but far, far from sufficient, and as Pig noted can be hazardous to your health if you're the one carrying the clipboard.
Back in the 60’s the place I’m from voted about 70 percent Democrat and Democrats controlled just about all levels of state and local government. Now it’s the opposite, so I’d argue it’s naive to think things can’t change that radically.
To your other point, if the old can’t send the young off to die in their wars, what are the young even good for?
Well in this case they are correct. He DID seize the means of production! He's ALREADY 6 years in to his 5-year plan! And EVERYBODY's property has already been converted into public housing!
All of this. You (and I) live in a part of the country where Democrats struggle to recruit White people, because the Civil Rights Movement broke a lot of White people's brains.
Nope, different categories altogether. For example, people as diverse as Noam Chomsky, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey and Ted Cruz are real Americans, but they are far from being regular people.
My personal obsession is that it should be "Can't eat your cake and have it." Because that way gets the order right. Of course I can have some cake and then eat it, but once I eat my cake I ain't got it no more.
Deliverance would have been an even better movie with the Three Stooges in it.
Can I like this comment more than once?
I'm afraid not but your enthusiasm is noted
Soitenly!
Nuts you managed it before me.
Apologies, but my Faith does not allow me to approve this comment.
Next bump you hit, Faith will fall off the back and you can then ride on Faithlessly, after which you can pretty much approve any damn thing you feel like.
Ver derharget!
You beat me to it.
You’re not wrong. Chait is really just engaged in self-important wanking. Who is Chait referring to, which conservatives does he believe are still persuadable? Everyone from that side who is going to come over has already done so. Show me the conservative who will say, after reading Chait’s article, “I’ve been with Trump since 2016, but having read THIS, I know this guy feels my pain so I’m hopping aboard the Biden Express?” The only true persuadables at this point are people who are almost totally detached from politics, not anyone who self-identifies as conservative.
"The only true persuadables at this point are people who are almost totally detached from politics..."
Ah, the thing that drives me nuts every damn day. How to do this? I'm trying to sell you THIS car instead of THAT car when a car isn't what you want at all, and you're not actually clear on what this word "car" even means, and too disinterested to google it.
It's maddening, yes. And even looking ahead to the very grim future should the disaster of a Trump win happen, these same people will not be bothered as long as they can watch Netflix, have dinner at the Olive Garden on Fridays, and shop at Target. They won't notice unless or until storm troopers are on their own street. They either have no skin in the game, or at least don't believe they do. For now.
It's wild that somehow things have shaken out to exactly 50-50 among the partisans, so the fate of the country is in the hands of the least interested. It's like asking me to decide who should win the Super Bowl. It's only because of the kerfluffle with Taylor Swift that I even know Kansas City was playing, and I can't tell you who the other team was or who won. I may have known these things at some point, but my brain has simply rejected them, so great is my disinterest in football.
I am the same with football, and I think if we just transfer that disinterest to politics we have our answer regarding the politically disengaged: "Obama's 100 year old Veep wants a second term and he's running against the ex-President loudmouth from New York."
Well, when you put it THAT way...
That's what gets me. 50-50. How? You've seen what Orange Shitgibbon does with one term, and you want that again?
I love my home state. I have never lived more than six miles from the Arkansas River. I was born in the Ozarks. But if they want to split the place up, fine. I'll move if they will.
I'd just as soon not spend my twilight years on the run after murdering so many. It would be a sadness. But I am not getting on the cattle cars without a fight.
But it's just party loyalty, isn't it? I'm a Republican, I vote for the Republican. Why would I vote for a Democrat, that's something Democrats do.
But then what still shocks me is that, having two major parties, the states should divide so evenly between them (about half Republican-controlled, about half controlled by Democrats) which then leads to EXTREMELY close Presidential elections ONLY because of the motherfucking Electoral College.
Are you an American midwestern male? All of these love football as much as life itself
American and midwestern, I must be gender-nonconforming.
Although a subset of this group may have been given pause (to think? well maybe...) by the fact that they can no longer have dinner at Red Lobster on Fridays.
Who was president when Red Lobster went under? Biden? No way can we vote for that destroyer of America.
Don't Tread On My Cheddar Cheese Biscuits!
Gadsden Happy Hour Purchase
I have been reliably informed by the Adults In The Room that the way we reach these voters is to yell at them and browbeat them. That is simply how Sales works.
But let's be fair, since I think it's generally agreed that nobody has a fucking clue how to win these people over, and yelling at people can be fun, I can understand why someone might choose the "fun but ineffective" route when the alternative is "not so much fun, also ineffective."
Fair. Many of the same people who I see employing the Hectoring & Browbeating voter outreach strategy also compulsively engage with online trolls. It’s almost like they’re not as wise as they think they are.
I've said it here before: So many of my opinions have been revised after someone shamed me or guilted me or called me a moron. Not in the moment! But later I got to thinking, why'd that stranger go nuts on me? And then I re-see what I said. And then I modify it, sometimes. Hectoring and browbeating makes me reflective! If it works on me, it will work on everyone!
I see you have read Lawyers, Guns and Money
That crowd is completely without self-awareness
I can't add much except I haven't willingly read anything by Chait in , oh, 15-20 years because he's always a GOP apologist.
I'm grateful for confirmation that it's a good decision.
"I want THIS car!"
"But that's not a car... that's a sack of sprouted, moldy potatoes!"
"But it IDENTIFIES as a car! Ha ha, GET IT? Dumb lib."
You have just soared to the apex of conservative comedy! Greg Gutfeld better watch his back!
All Hail The One Joke
"As you know, I’m a reductive asshole and a lot of my humor comes from the least charitable, most derisive interpretation of conservatives."
A fully deserved and more than correct enough characterization.
"As far as the public political figures I write about, I only think there’s maybe a few millimeters more depth to them than my silly caricatures indicate."
Given that Job 1 for them is pandering and expanding ignorance, whatever depth they have beyond portrayed is insignificant and irrelevant. Which is to say nothing to worry about.
But Chait... At his core, I get a vibe of decency. But so what. My rule of thumb a/k/a one of my older old fart theories is that there are approximately no pundits worth shit. Speaking of pandering while offering no genuine insight, that's what they get the big bucks to do. So suffice to say Chait is no way an exception that rule. TBH, I know I have a few exceptions but the synapses aren't firing good yet so none come to mind...
I agree with your theory, and would add that at least shit has a useful function, which puts it at minimum a step above the vast majority of the punditocracy.
You are of course correct. Shit, when properly used, is far more value and social benefit than nearly any pundit. (Tip: if one finds a pundit insightful, it may be a reflection that one's under-informed and the pundit can not inform of more than that.)
At worse, shit enables the passing of toxins from the body.
When I compare a pundit to shit I am in fact libeling shit and I'm sorry for that.
Pundits are often full of shit (to the bursting point, even), although this is a specific variety of shit that in fact serves no useful purpose.
Between us I think we have proved that when it comes to shit-talking, this place has no peers.
I can half remember that moment 30 or 40 years ago when I looked up from the newspaper op ed page and said ,with suddenly realized wonder, " These people know fuck all !"
The minute they start to intone I'm Audi 5000.
With Chait, I rarely make it through the first couple of sentences.
You know, you seem like a rowdy, street fighting kind of guy. If you want to hunt some of these people down and take a poke at them I'd certainly chip in for bail.
Bail, hell, I want to join in!
I had a similar moment back in the 80s when trudging through the syndicated drivel of Kathleen Parker and Mona Charen.
Honestly, I never really read any pundits but Mike Royko, who was at least funny
How is it possible this guy gets even worse? Progressives are the gaslighters and anecdote generalizers? At least try to find a credible critique of the left that is in the same galaxy as the “lethal immigrant” of the right. The only conservatives he’s possibly thinking of are already with us (
At least while Trump walks the back nine. They’re the Lincoln Lads et al. Who’s he talking about? Sununu and his spineless ilk?
You need to remember that Chait is one of those centrists that hate the left way more than the right. Many just barely left of center centrists have this attitude ... at least going by LGM and Balloon Juice
I will let you all in on a secret I discovered back in my political consulting days. I worked almost exclusively with Republicans, and when you look at their policy preferences, these people are indeed monsters.
But the secret nobody knows about them is that nearly all of them are quite charming in person. They have to be or they get nowhere. Some have what you might call limited charisma, some are just really nice guys or gals, but all know how to glad-hand and not come across as the asshole who wants to send your 5-year-old daughter off to work in the textile mill.
(Notable exceptions to the charming-in-person rule: Marco Rubio, who is just fucking grating because he's soooooo dumb. Ron Desantis, who by all accounts is just an asshole in all situations and only has the governor's office because Florida's Democrats are absolutely hopeless. J.D. Vance, who, when not attached to Donald Trump's ass like an anal remora, is constantly busy telling everyone around him how he's really superior to them.)
I was just musing on how the Republicans are basically amoral capitalists. Capitalists have to be good at selling things, especially things we don't really need or that aren't good for us, like SUVS and ultraprocessed food. Hence the Rs are better at messaging than Ds and hence the distractions of scary immigrants and trans people. If the Rs came right out and said their intention is to put 5-year-olds to work in sweatshops, people wouldn't buy what they are selling. But slip the kids into the sweatshop while the parents are distracted by the fear of gay wedding cakes and you'll get re-elected to put immigrants in concentration camps.
"Amoral capitalists". Department of Redundant Redunancies on line 1.....
That's Department of Redundacies Department.
And the Natural Guard.
I thought to myself back in ‘00 after the election of Bush the Lesser that modern conservativism in charge is like the sales department of some company has decided they don’t need HR, legal, accounting or operations departments. Just sell sell sell and customer satisfaction, workforce stability and legal attacks be damned, we’re special guys and a few gals who know how to git er done! So, yeah, they know how put on the fake charm, but you should hear what they say when they hit the links together.
(Who knew that ten years later Silicon Valley would take that approach and run with it?)
You should hear what they say when you get to sit with them for an hour or two in private to discuss their campaign. I learned very quickly to never ever ask them to explain anything. Because once you start down that road, it inevitably leads to you asking what SHOULD be obvious questions that they can't answer.
Thus, I would ask a client "what do you want to run on? What issues do you want to highlight?" And whatever he or she said, I'd write it down and move on to the next part ("What's your budget?") Because they'd invariably spit out something stupid ("Uh, cut taxes, of course!") and if you tried to tease ANYTHING out of that, well, there would be crying ("Cut taxes? That's nice. Where does that money come from? 'Cause you still have to pay for all your existing commitments.")
Name checks out.
IME, less true than it used to be, especially at the state level. Non-MAGA Republicans used to have a sort of Rotary Club appeal. These days they communicate almost exclusively in wingnut grievance patois.
Hrm, I understand that Ted Bundy was also quite charming in person.
He also worked on Republican campaigns in Washington.
eta: The governor he worked for thought Ted could have become Governor if he applied himself, but he like personally killing people rather than doing it at some remove
Well, they're politicians -- they gotta have charm! I think often of my Dad, who was very against escalating Vietnam, and was in Vietnam, when LBJ showed up and asked to meet him and some other officers for lunch. My dad said he went to his bunk and took a nap instead. As a kid, I couldn't believe he'd pass up a chance to meet a president. What he said was, "I knew if I met him in person, he was going to be charismatic and interesting, and I'd end up liking him, at least while we were in the room together. And I really didn't like him, and didn't want to."
"As you know, I’m a reductive asshole and a lot of my humor comes from the least charitable, most derisive interpretation of conservatives." Welcome to the club!
A George Will baseball column had me shaking my head and saying “fuck these people.”
I don’t remember how many years ago.
You’re not wrong amigo.
I've mentioned this before, but George Will permanently lost me when he decided that Tony LaRussa was the apotheosis of baseball managing (when at the time LaRussa had only one World Series ring, won during the Earthquake Series of 1989).
I did quite like Tony LaRussa Baseball 2, the computer game
A rude thing I often say is that for your average mainstream media type, nothing tastes finer than reactionary ass. Chait simply proves the truth of this aphorism yet again. If I was on a talk show with someone like Chait, I'd ask him to turn his head away so I don't have to smell anal vapors, but there's absolutely no way in hell I'll ever be on one, is there?
Well now wait a minute -- can you say it with a winning smile?
I am now trying to imagine Deliverance as played by the Three Stooges.
Ngggnyaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa!
"Can you nyuk-nyuk-nyuk like a pig?"
“Soitenly!”
With the best of them. Because I am the ham what am.
Yep, I took the bait. You knew I would.
"The first time someone show you who they are, believe them." Maya Angelou
One suspects Chait has never had those conversations with American pseudoconservatives. When you live and work amongst them, you know what we have in common and what we don’t. In common: physical skills are valuable and admired, so is showing up on time, doing the job you said you would, loving your children, the weather is often terrible but also fine. Not in common: women are equal to men, gays deserve the same rights and privileges as straights, abortion is health care, health care is a right not a privilege, voting should be easy, unions give workers a fighting chance against greedy bosses, America is a land of immigrants except for Native Americans, America is not and shouldn’t be a Christian nation. The reason it’s so much harder to talk with Republicans now than it was even in the ‘60s is that the gains made in those not in common areas are rejected by them and no evidence will convince them otherwise unless they become personally affected by the loss of those gains.
Chait spends all his time watching "Father Knows Best" reruns.
I know Chait is full of it because I have never once run into him at my suburban Applebees salad bar. Nor David Brooks for that matter. (I thought I once saw him consoling a friend who was having a panic attack at the sight of exotic deli meats, but I was mistaken.)
You won’t find Bobo at the salad bar. That’s him in the corner booth chowing down on a cheeseburger and fries, and morosely nursing his sixth scotch.
“And to think, I had to pay $2,000 for this barrel of Glenivet! That’s Biden’s America for you. Harrumph!”
And to think he coulda got some teeth fer that 2 grand...
Whoo-hoo. Bern did a BURN. Well played!
I'm HOT!
[wandering back toward the lemonade/shade]
"As you know, I’m a reductive asshole and a lot of my humor comes from the least charitable, most derisive interpretation of conservatives."
Come sit by me!
Maybe he's just pretending to be clueless to appeal to Haley voters. IIRC, Chait was the one who wrote a TNR piece 25 years or so ago about how the Oklahoma congressional delegation was bugfuck crazy. Surely he must have noticed the rest of the GOP is as well.
Speaking of clueless and reductive, I’m still waiting for Judis & Texeira’s “emerging Democratic majority” to magically materialize, springing full-grown like Athena from the head of Zeus because of Demographics.
Except for the icky Greek stuff, I endorse this wishfulism.
Demos din't git the memos!
Wait ‘til you hear where Dionysus sprang from!
TMI.
Whenever anyone is asserted to have sprang from something, I imagine the operation of a large trebuchet, and think "Carry on, carry on..."
Zeus sho nuff felt that one! Yeeee-ouch!
The Dems have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections so that might count for something. Their Senators represent like 55-60% (IIRC) of the total population and often the Dems win the total House vote. Sadly, total population vote counts for diddly squat at the country level
Don’t I know it. It barely counts for anything at the local level either. Yet I dutifully vote despite it being futile.
BTW, we had supper with a former football coach of yours, about 80 years old, and he expressed dissatisfaction with our only two choices for president. And yes, he’s obviously voting for Biden. But the Team D Defense Squad at LGM would yell at him anyway for being a stupid leftist child.
That coach was also my Algebra II teacher and he was excellent. Explained things well and was very funny. The year I had him (my sophomore year) he had a student teacher who tried to be like him, but she just did not have the humor to sustain that and it ended up just seeming forced. Friday during football season he generally did a breakdown of what to expect in that nights game.
Aren't you friends with one of his daughters? I remember a DeMolay vs. Jobs Daughters. Either your friend or her sister were in JD and she and I were the only people who could play. I played the first half for DeMolay and the second half for Job's Daughters. The game ended up a tie IIRC something that was pretty minor 45 years ago
I don’t know anything about JD, but we’re friends with Mr M and his twin daughters. BTW, he also has a degree from Cornell where he studied astronomy on a Fulbright. Not bad for a red state hick football coach and science teacher.
He was a math teacher when I went to school
"If you told the average MAGA guy that you and he have much in common..." Agree, where I diverge is that most Republican voters aren't MAGA guys, they are regular people who are caught up in a social web where everyone votes Republican. In current terms, there are a few MAGA influencers and a whole lot of MAGA influenced. From what I see in the midst of them, we do have a lot in common with most of the influenced. Our corporate overlords are some combination of evil and incompetent, our benefits are getting whittled away, our healthcare sucks, we want our children to be happy, and so on. Essentially, what we have in common is ordinary life in these United States. What the influencers do is convince people that the things that affect their ordinary lives are not important. What's important is the manufactured outrage of the day. What passes for the left has pretty much devolved into the same strategy, albeit the outrage of the day they report is actually real. But for the most part, things that actually matter in the lives of us ordinary folk are not much discussed. If they were, particularly in the large swathes of the country where the Democrats don't make any effort to engage regular people, I think you'd find that there is a lot of common ground and there are people who would grow into becoming anti-MAGA influencers. If that common ground were tilled, watered, and cared for, the garden would be healthy and flourish. Things can change. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
Welcome, Chauncey!
Glad it wasn't just me.
Beat me to it.
Biden, Harris, and Dr. Jill have been to Wisconsin many times, and when they come, it's always about some simple, commonsense thing: A bridge that's being rebuilt because of the infrastructure bill, a daycare in Milwaukee that's getting funding from a new federal program, a new initiative to help Community College students. None of this gets any attention, of course. But it's true generally of Wisconsin Democratic candidates: Jobs, jobs, jobs, and oh, did I mention jobs?
On the Democratic side, candidates tend to talk about one or two issues pre-identified by focus groups and polls to be good issues for them (and when I say "one or two" I really mean "one" because that's seen as "message discipline.") And these issues are the things you're mentioning, the cost of living, jobs, child care, health care, education. That's about the whole list right there.
But for Team Republican, there's just no line between the ravings of the nuttiest crank on YouTube and what might come out of the mouth of a US Senator. It's "flood the zone with shit" and "throw EVERYTHING at the wall and see what sticks."
It's kind of amazing that two parties who have such completely different approaches to politics should end up almost exactly even, by every measure. It's almost like what the candidates actually say doesn't matter, because everyone's vote is pre-determined by identity politics.
I'm old enough to remember liberal's rueful acknowledgement of Republican "message discipline", "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line", Reagan's 11th Commandment, Gingrich's Letter to the Galaitians, I mean Power of Language memo. And so on. Sith Lord Trump has shown them the power of Chaos, while Democrats are still trying to copy the old Republican playbook in the hope that reality still matters.
The parties are "even" when you ignore the third of eligible voters who (still) can't be bothered. Otherwise that even split in most places relies on massive gerrymandering of Congressional districts. That "even" illusion is what Republicans are counting on for their fig leaf of legitimacy in the next coup attempt in Nov.
I wish I could believe that the 1/3 of voters who can't be bothered would vote for the Dems in huge numbers, but all the evidence shows they split pretty much like those who do vote.
This seems to be the one thing both parties agree on: Higher voter turnout would benefit the Democrats. Could be true, but I'm skeptical, because the last thing both parties agreed on was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
I actually originally had a button on this story to that effect, but I was trying to think of real policies Biden could reasonably offer those voters and Medicare 4 All is the only one I could think of -- because he's already doing a bunch else (like infrastructure) that really helps them but which has the redstate guys convinced he's a communist.
My point is more that what is needed is more effective propaganda. And ultimately it has to come from people within the social group.
You're trying to get my young ass killed. No, no sir. I've been around these racist sacks of shit all my life, and I didn't learn to pass as a redneck back in the 60's to try to undo any of that. I like my house, I like my cats, and I don't want the Brownshirts to burn/kill them. Friend, I remember an old "Impeach Earl Warren" billboard (near Dardanelle in Yell County, fer real). No. You don't know what you're dealing with. The racism is built-in. It's in the ground. The blood-soaked ground.
You strike me as incredibly naive. Bless your heart.
Insert Ned Beatty speech from Network about "messing with elemental forces" here. Propaganda is necessary but far, far from sufficient, and as Pig noted can be hazardous to your health if you're the one carrying the clipboard.
Back in the 60’s the place I’m from voted about 70 percent Democrat and Democrats controlled just about all levels of state and local government. Now it’s the opposite, so I’d argue it’s naive to think things can’t change that radically.
To your other point, if the old can’t send the young off to die in their wars, what are the young even good for?
But you are accepted at the black, barbecue places so that could get you killed as a race traitor
Well in this case they are correct. He DID seize the means of production! He's ALREADY 6 years in to his 5-year plan! And EVERYBODY's property has already been converted into public housing!
Why, my Kulaks are half-liquidated already!
It's hard to acknowledge real work on systemic problems when you're convicted there ARE no systemic problems.
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦
Help me out here. These “regular people,” are these anything like the “real Americans” I keep hearing about? Asking for a coastal elite.
I know the America they speak of. A (temporarily) breakaway part called the Confederate States of America. They wanna party like it's 1861.
All of this. You (and I) live in a part of the country where Democrats struggle to recruit White people, because the Civil Rights Movement broke a lot of White people's brains.
Nope, different categories altogether. For example, people as diverse as Noam Chomsky, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey and Ted Cruz are real Americans, but they are far from being regular people.
I know many conservative guys. We often agree on what the general problem is, but differ greatly in the solution
Does Dumbass realize 'Gaslight' is a classic movie? Based on a British play? Geez Louise.
Sadly, the overuse of "gaslight" to mean merely "Someone is telling me something that isn't true" is a bipartisan phenomenon.
Sadly, Yes.
Rabid partisans of all stripes have even started using it to mean “telling me something I don’t want to hear.”
All righty then. Those folks will be dining on fishheads, and they WILL NOT like what happens next.....
Luca Brasi dines on the fishes.
*rimshot*
I was just guessing, I assumed "May you dine on fishheads!" is some kind of old Sicilian curse.
https://youtu.be/0Qguo6Y0IQ0?si=fjSRO17rwgvILcHL
Oh, I knew what it was going to be before I even clicked.
Sometimes going for the obvious ones is the right way.
Not to mention the change in meaning of "that begs the question."
I feel like the term "gaslight" has kind of morphed into "You're telling me something I don't like."
Language evolves, but it shouldn't take on meanings that are wildly in opposition to the original, I guess.
(I see SnarkiNorski is saying the same thing just below.)
My personal obsession is that it should be "Can't eat your cake and have it." Because that way gets the order right. Of course I can have some cake and then eat it, but once I eat my cake I ain't got it no more.
Never let logic get in the way of a turn of phrase, right? (I guess what i mean is actually "a cliché." Maybe?)
p.s. That last bit you had there is New Math, isn't it?
"Steve has one piece of cake. Then he eats it. How much cake ain't he got no more?"
Correct answer: None. He ain't got none no more.
You speak-a my language!
I always thought that was can't eat your Kate and Edith too