Back in 2015 or 16 when Donnie started that Make America Great Again insanity, I thought: When do these awful people America was great. And I thought: The 1920s: The KKK in its prime, Wall Street speculators unleashed, racism and bigotry of course dominant, and so on and so forth. So, sure, that old time bigotry is a thing again. (Of course, since then, we've overshot the 1920s and are being taken back to the late 18th century, even to the Articles of Confederation days in part.)
And since first exposed to it in the 90s, I have ever been amazed how delusional right wing ignoramuses consider themselves as any sort of thinkers.
The above is no way to be taken as, like, self-congratulatory or anything. It's more just a reflection of my pathology or fucked uppedness.
As I said, I've been reading a history of the far right, and it's simultaneously amusing and distressing to see the author's assertion that classic nativism of the "furriners ruining our country" type disappeared permanently in the 1940s, in favor of "the threat from within". Now the conservatives have BOTH inside and outside subversion to crusade against. Wheee!
Example nigh-the-infinite why I mostly ignore opinions and punditry. Progress is always temporary so anyone who opines otherwise... Or, I should say, putting opinions before facts; I haven’t the time left to waste on that.
One thing I have noticed in my conversations with rightwingers is that they don't actually have a vision of what they want the country to look like in, say, 15 years. They just don't like the way it is *now* -- but all that gives them really is a desire to smash the present and its trends. So if they are simmering because gay marriage and abortion exist and you ask them to think forward to what the country *should* be like in 2037, or 2050, as in: what reality should we be aiming for? They look stunned. It is an unfair question. They know gay people will still exist in the future -- and they know a policy of "get back in the closet" is cruel and unnecessary. I think the ones I know, anyway, don't want a future that resembles the past so much as they just want magic to exist.
Caveat, the ones I know are not evangelical christian. So if you add that ingredient -- essentially, if you add a belief that magic IS all around us -- then maybe you get a very specific vision.
They make a helluva opposition party. I'd actually be fine with them in the bleachers yelling insults full-time if actual honest-to-God adults got to run the show. From each according to his abilities, you know.
"Sweet Armageddon launch pad in Israel" made me spit out my coffee.
When a guy with an AK-47 in a MAGA hat and a Q-Anon tee shirt stands over the lifeless body of AOC or Kamala Harris, Ross Douthat is going to say the shooter did it because Abbie Hoffman burned a draft card in 1968. There isn't any excess on the Right they won't claim is either happening in "self-defense" or was originally modeled/perpetrated by the Left,
No one with two brain cells to rub together will believe it, except the people who wanted the assassination to happen and are flailing around for a cover story to use as a blame-shifting justification.
I fear you tragically overestimate the number of Americans with two brain cells. More than half are operating on just a single brain cell, and all of its time is taken up with the truly important things like eating, breathing, shitting, and watching American Idol. Half of the remainder actually have two brain cells, but each cell is on opposite sides of the skull--one of those cells is devoted to eating &ect., while the other slowly dies from loneliness and boredom.
A ray of hope, but anti-majoritarianism may still win; if aided by the indifferent. I for one fear we will end up slightly less but still evil, like Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile. California will still make good wine and be a little more relaxed, the cities will have subversive cells of opposition, samizdats will circulate. But we will be under a GOP/Falangist thumb.
It is obscure, but it's the religiosity of the GQP that makes me think of the Falange across the Latin/Hispanic sphere, spreading to the USA. Hitler had a mixed relationship with religion, but a certain Church welcomed being given too much authority in Spain, Portugal, Chile, Argentina (Ireland, Quebec, etc.)
Going to be interesting to see if American fascism is going to lean into revived anti-Catholicism, or opts for an alliance with the Church, especially living in a city with a large Catholic population
Not so sure about this: these white supremacists/fascist-types hold onto their past like constipated turds. The Charleston church shooter had a photo with him holding a Rhodesian flag — that's a deep cut...
By not voting, they’re not voting the GOP out of power so as to get and protect all that stuff they like and want. Not voting is a de facto vote for the status quo.
If the majorities that want whatever actually voted in significant numbers, they’d have what they claim to want. Clearly, their desire for progressive things is very, very limited.
And the prime factoid: nearly every election for the last zillion decades has drawn fewer than 50% of eligible voters.
Divide it into three groups, vote-for-Republicans, vote-for-Democrats, and Don't-vote-at-all. What you're saying is that if I combine two of those groups together it's bigger than the third group by itself?
Somewhere on a Republican forum, some guy is arguing that the nonvoters, by refusing to turn out to depose the hated tyrant Biden and his DemonRat Representatives and Senators, are siding with The Enemy.
Except for every Presidential election this century (which was as far as I checked). Midterm elections, seem to run about 43% turnout since 1946. So it's more like half the time elections draw fewer than half of eligible voters. Also, the current status quo is Dems run things.
That MAGA-hat-wearing landscaping contractor has plenty o' brain cells when he's tryin' to get a better deal on fertilizer, it's just that everyone has an "off" switch in their head that shuts down the critical-thinking skills when the thinking starts to lead in an uncomfortable direction.
What makes right-wingers special, I think, is that they're so much more open and unashamed about living in an information bubble. All us liberals are supposed to cover our heads in shame when we recall that unfortunate Pauline Kael quote about "Nobody I know voted for Nixon", but the mirror image of that is now routinely used by Republican politicians and voters as an argument why Biden couldn't have possibly won (Where were all his boat parades, huh?")
One of Jordan Klepper's recent victims (and yes, I know these folks are selected for maximum embarrassment) said she was at Jan. 6, but "It was all peaceful, I didn't see any violence." When Klepper asked about all the videos of people assaulting the cops, her reply was, "Yeah, I saw that on TV, but I turned it off." She wasn't even bothering to argue the videos were fake, just that she "didn't see" any violence. That's what it looks like when a functioning brain is being deliberately starved of information.
Excellent points. The rabbit hole is deep and as Roy points out it was dug a long time ago, but what we are seeing now is people being very forthright about simply choosing not to see, hear, or believe anything that contradicts their preferred narrative.
It's the adult version of sticking their fingers in their ears while saying "la la la I can't HEAR you."
Yes re the fertilizer. When Trump was running I kept saying, if the idiots who voted for him had instead been confronted by him on a used car lot, and listened to his mendacious patter about that 2019 Chevy, they'd have smiled emptily, said they had to think about it, and exited the premises, congratulating themselves on not falling for an obvious liar.
Not sure about that; if they think (as MAGA types increasingly do) that everything and everyone but they and their buddies is crooked, they may opt to be fleeced by some entertaining flim-flam artist rather than by some gloomy Gus talking facts and figures.
The difference is that buying a car is serious business, while choosing who gets to manage the largest enterprise on planet earth is all for the lulz.
No Republican businessman who voted for Trump would hand his business over to Trump's management, not even for a week. But the federal government? Whatever, it's all a swamp anyway, couldn't be any worse, right?
LOL. If people paid as much attention to politics and the threat to democracy as they do to their favorite reality TV show, I think we'd be in a much better place. Alas, they do not.
"That is Earth. It is inhabited by a race of idiots!"
(True story: this is a panel from a Golden Age comic; it originally said "Pluto" but I edited it to say "Earth" and posted it to the SubGenius group on Mastodon. And then saw it in the wild on Twitter! The return of the prodigal snark!)
Yep. It’s all about cranking up the old Bell & Howell to show their most embarrassing and horrific home movies, saying the subject family isn’t them but the weird unAmerican neighbors. They think we don’t recognize them in the film, but town elders play along because it would be impolite to point out their obvious deflection, denial and.deception.
And then, when the inevitable assassination occurs, they employ the passion murderer’s desperate defense: “See what you made me do?!”
The below is not a threat, it is what I fear/think will happen:
I'm sorry to agree with you on the likely future. I think that if the Senate goes Republican, some lone nut will kill or disable Harris, the Senate will refuse to confirm a Vice President, and Trump will be made either President Pro Tempore of the Senate or the Speaker of the House, either brought into the body with a resignation and an accommodating governor or not bothering if the relevant body changes its rules. Then we all wait.
The Right is definitely letting its freak flag fly. And it's far worse than you can imagine. Right now, they're almost all talk, with a few of the more deranged ones taking direct action against the objects of hate. But my guess is that, should Republicans take control of the government, that within a decade we will begin seeing state-sponsored (or at least state-ignored) violence against minorities--with Black and Jews being the first to suffer and perhaps die at the hands of the Proud Boys and their ilk.
State-sponsored terrorism has been perpetrated against my people since 1619; by now we're at "fourth verse, same as the first".
We're trying to help you save our democracy. Some of us (not me) have ideas; we can do this if we try. History, as someone said long ago, is not destiny.
I grew up in farm country. Picture of town with 1500 people( 14 churches, one bank, one pharmacy, two gas stations and three feed stores)( about 100 black people - most of whom belonged to four extended families living in the same four blocks at the edge of town with no sewer, street lights or sidewalks). There were no Jewish people but plenty of antisemitism. All of those farmers operated on borrowed money and none of them had anything good to say about the banks. All run by a certain kind of people if jew know what I mean. It was just a thing that came up in casual conversation now and then. I knew a guy that borrowed a copy of the Turner Diaries from his dad and brought it to my college English class..The high school band director's son- five or six years younger than me, followed his dad into music education. His career was interrupted when he was caught trying to blow up the African-American Museum ata local black University.
There was a girl in college I dated a few times- we got along great. She held her own on those endless, endlessly boring conversations about black and white foreign films with subtitles.
She casually mentioned that Vatican control of the country didn't end when JFK was assassinated.
We didn't get married and live happily ever after with tall white children and a home in the suburbs.Turned out to be just another bullet for me to dodge.
I had a relatives in Wisconsin that owned a gun shop. Somehow or another they came up with a bazooka in a case of ammunition. Every fall they would tow a car up to the Great North Woods , invite a bunch of friends up and blow the car up after much drinking. They were John Birchers and didn't try and hide it. Funnest people to go visit ever.
Didja see that loooong article in the Times about the WisDems? I guess I agree with the premise that national Dems starved state parties of money and that helped Republicans take a big lead in control of state legislatures, but somehow "lack of resources" doesn't seem like a sufficient explanation for how rural Wisconsin has turned.
I think rural people are just fucked up. I don't know that abandoning them to their ignorance is an especially bad idea. I could be convinced the money would be better spent elsewhere.
My hometown was quite a bit bigger than your. We had one Jewish family and two black families. We had many native families. The anti-Native sentiment really dominated the racism that I knew about. A little before I moved there, one of the older black guys in town was murdered though. I honestly have no real idea why, but it was probably racism-related
Yes, I'm aware that my colleague and dear friend asserted that So-and-So is an N-word loving child rapist serial killer grandma snuffer horse thief, but that is his opinion, and by God, isn't the right to one's own opinion what our Great Nation is all about?
The "independent thinking" and "outside the norm" just kill me. I've seen douchebags do the "why is everyone is offended by my bigoted views when they're just controversial opinions?" scam for decades now, but I see it, too, has gone mainstream. I've learned to cringe when I see the phrase "independent thinker" because I KNOW there's some garbage on the way.
I had never heard that Jim Baker “fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway” quote before.
Now, lessee, how many times have I heard about "Cling to their guns" and "deplorables", um... carry the two... approximately eleventy gazillion times, yes.
Another terrific piece. I'd say it was Times-worthy but then look at the company you'd be in.
To be fair, in the sea of sheer bigotry described here, at least Nast's cartoon had a point, even if his Swiftian illustration was extreme to say the least. At the same time, a similar cartoon in a modern style in the 1990's with the same subtitle, "The Priests and the Children," might have been even more justified, while still being, um, over-the-top.
The much-missed Pat Oliphant did a few riffs on that theme in the years before he retired—“The annual running of the altar boys at St. Pædophilia’s,” for example.
Ha, I remember! Oliophant was best when he was intemperate -- like when he had the pock-marked Noriega trying to get the attention of his friend "Seenyor Boosh!"
I've been reading "Before the Storm" by Rick Pearlstein and there are lots of parallels between Birchers and Qanon. At that point though Goldwater and other candidates had to deny any connection and couldn't admit even association with Birch Society members. That seems to be getting less and less true in the current era. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump went full-on Q if he runs in 2024.
I'm wondering how we got into a situation where whether we have a democracy or not is being decided by the good people of Arizona. The same state that worshipped Barry Goldwater? Couldn't we have picked a different venue?
I checked, and the last time Arizona was represented by two Democratic Senators (before the current two) was 1953. The last 3 Democrats to win Arizona in a Presidential race are Joe Biden, Bill Clinton (only in 1996) and Harry Truman.
I guess next we'll see "Impeach John Roberts" billboards when he writes a concurring opinion in the case that strikes down affirmative action, instead of fully joining Alito's "it's not in the Constituton" majority opinion.
The question that keeps coming up in my mind is: why are these delusional dipsticks so successful? What kind of dysfunctional country lets such deranged people have any say in public affairs?
I think that "both siderism" is no longer an appropriate description of these guys. They are now (and may have always been) at the best fascist enablers. Most I suspect are simply out and out fascists. They know what these assholes are and they at best don't care, although I think they really like them and enjoy their own sadism in the way they treat anyone to the left of Louis XIV.
The only point of "bothsiderism" was to enable fascism. It's the way that polite, media-conscious folks who need access to good drugs, good museums, and good food express their dismal internal worlds.
Sort of like a "Libertarian," no? Or what fin-de-siècle "Eugenics Soceties" were to the KKK.
Aw, Jeebus, don't get me started on the "above the right-left paradigm" Libertarians. Gosh, for such ascended political philosophy, it sounds AWFULLY LIKE bog-standard right wing gobbledygook with a thin veneer of liberalism.
I could believe their routine except I'm connected with reality. Regardless of where they differ from the Right, their programme, if carried-out, would bring us back to 1895 and otherwise strongly increase the power of those who already have most power, making them reactionary and conservative in effect.
Sadly, the social progress after 1960 didn’t eliminate the hate, only buried it and now, like a horde of zombies rising out of the dirt, it’s back and it’s hungry, ready to feed on what’s left of American democracy.
I hadn't realized how much simple fear of embarrassment was restraining people. What Donald Trump taught them is that embarrassment is a choice, one can simply choose not to be embarrassed, and there's nothing anybody can do about that.
"Simple fear of embarrassment" reminds me of their whiny, self-pitying ascribing of authority to liberals, e.g., "...we're not allowed to say fag any more." There is a good essay to be written on the theme "Shamelessness Is Their Super-power," although what they can obtain from that power is a good question. Solidarity with their fellow orcs? Sure. Political power? We'll see.
The loss of a sense of shame is a huge part of it. When you think about it, shame is most effective at curbing behavior when it is applied individually or to a small group. Once you have strength in numbers, the equation changes. Shame one person? Easy. Shame a dozen people? Doable with a good argument. Shame millions of people who have been given permission by a powerful man to act out any way they choose? Good luck with that.
Yes, except shame goes in 2 directions, as it were. I can shame X, but whether he/she feels abashed/remorseful/etc. is another matter. We can shame MAGA nation til the cows come h., but they're impervious to it. As is a single MAGA orc.
I think embarrassment is when we're caught doing something we think OTHERS think we shouldn't, and we care about that. Shame is when we catch ourselves doing something we think we shouldn't, and we care about THAT. These people either have no inner shame app (as it were), or they do, but it's overridden by their individual resentment and self-pity, and the validation of the group (as you say).
"I think embarrassment is when we're caught doing something we think OTHERS think we shouldn't, and we care about that. Shame is when we catch ourselves doing something we think we shouldn't..." Crucial distinction! I think about my own slowness to shame, as it were -- largely in reaction to having both shame and embarrassment pushed on me in my youth.
I suspect many of these guys suffered some embarrassment as the social changes of the past few decades made their presumptions unpopular, and MAGA is their bellowing belated Fuck You.
The one time I can recall feeling real shame, it rose up in me as though ignited by a flamethrower. I had recently left my marriage, but stayed in town to be close to the kids. I had taken my daughter to soccer practice, at a gigantic field around the stadium at Lehigh University. There must have been 20 games (for kids) going on across these acres. There I stood, surrounded by these (apparently) happy families, with their lawn chairs and their dogs and their coolers, and I suddeny felt this hot flush, like a serious fever. I felt that I didn't deserve to be among these nice, normal people. Eventually it subsided, but hoo boy.
I don’t have a FTFNYT scrip so I can’t see (luckily?) what Douchehat is saying “the left” did that compares to Jan. 6 or the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi. I’m sure Ol’ Neckbeard satisfied the totebaggers that all is normal and that it’s just the swing of the pendulum, doncha know, we should reach across the aisle and meet them halfway (never mind that they’ve drawn the halfway line at their own feet). And then he called for more God and White Jesus in public life.
This is a problem. A few weeks ago, a trusted friend of mine referred to a Douthat column as "insightful" and "worthwhile", and I said that in general I didn't like him. But then I felt obligated to explain why, so I did it, I logged on to TNYT link at my local library, and I tried to read it. And failed to make any sense of it. I'm going to have to try harder because of my friend. I can't just say He Sucks, I have to say something insightful and worthwhile.
I think we tend to associate "Angry" with "irrational" and "Calm" with "Rational." People like Douthat thrive on that. No matter the problem, whether it's climate change or the threat of fascism or black folks being murdered by the cops or people mass-dying of Covid, they never lose their patina of placid reasonableness, and they count on their audience to confuse that with rationality. "Now, now, stop being so irrational, let's just calm down and look at this reasonably, shall we?" But to look at certain things and not be outraged and angry is monstrous, even if its monstrousness presented with bland exterior.
A few confessions...
Back in 2015 or 16 when Donnie started that Make America Great Again insanity, I thought: When do these awful people America was great. And I thought: The 1920s: The KKK in its prime, Wall Street speculators unleashed, racism and bigotry of course dominant, and so on and so forth. So, sure, that old time bigotry is a thing again. (Of course, since then, we've overshot the 1920s and are being taken back to the late 18th century, even to the Articles of Confederation days in part.)
And since first exposed to it in the 90s, I have ever been amazed how delusional right wing ignoramuses consider themselves as any sort of thinkers.
The above is no way to be taken as, like, self-congratulatory or anything. It's more just a reflection of my pathology or fucked uppedness.
So today's post, sure, of course.
The other thing about the 1920s was Prohibition: America's demonstration of its hypocrisy to the world.
As I said, I've been reading a history of the far right, and it's simultaneously amusing and distressing to see the author's assertion that classic nativism of the "furriners ruining our country" type disappeared permanently in the 1940s, in favor of "the threat from within". Now the conservatives have BOTH inside and outside subversion to crusade against. Wheee!
Example nigh-the-infinite why I mostly ignore opinions and punditry. Progress is always temporary so anyone who opines otherwise... Or, I should say, putting opinions before facts; I haven’t the time left to waste on that.
If you ignore Big Booze, there’s still Prohibition. Just for everything except booze and illegally/irresponsibly prescribed opioids.
One thing I have noticed in my conversations with rightwingers is that they don't actually have a vision of what they want the country to look like in, say, 15 years. They just don't like the way it is *now* -- but all that gives them really is a desire to smash the present and its trends. So if they are simmering because gay marriage and abortion exist and you ask them to think forward to what the country *should* be like in 2037, or 2050, as in: what reality should we be aiming for? They look stunned. It is an unfair question. They know gay people will still exist in the future -- and they know a policy of "get back in the closet" is cruel and unnecessary. I think the ones I know, anyway, don't want a future that resembles the past so much as they just want magic to exist.
Caveat, the ones I know are not evangelical christian. So if you add that ingredient -- essentially, if you add a belief that magic IS all around us -- then maybe you get a very specific vision.
True freedom requires maximum restraints because reasons.
But, you know, fine people.
You've hit on something with the magic. We all want magic. Everything works great and doesn't cost me anything.
They make a helluva opposition party. I'd actually be fine with them in the bleachers yelling insults full-time if actual honest-to-God adults got to run the show. From each according to his abilities, you know.
"Sweet Armageddon launch pad in Israel" made me spit out my coffee.
When a guy with an AK-47 in a MAGA hat and a Q-Anon tee shirt stands over the lifeless body of AOC or Kamala Harris, Ross Douthat is going to say the shooter did it because Abbie Hoffman burned a draft card in 1968. There isn't any excess on the Right they won't claim is either happening in "self-defense" or was originally modeled/perpetrated by the Left,
No one with two brain cells to rub together will believe it, except the people who wanted the assassination to happen and are flailing around for a cover story to use as a blame-shifting justification.
I fear you tragically overestimate the number of Americans with two brain cells. More than half are operating on just a single brain cell, and all of its time is taken up with the truly important things like eating, breathing, shitting, and watching American Idol. Half of the remainder actually have two brain cells, but each cell is on opposite sides of the skull--one of those cells is devoted to eating &ect., while the other slowly dies from loneliness and boredom.
We outnumber them. Never forget that.
A ray of hope, but anti-majoritarianism may still win; if aided by the indifferent. I for one fear we will end up slightly less but still evil, like Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile. California will still make good wine and be a little more relaxed, the cities will have subversive cells of opposition, samizdats will circulate. But we will be under a GOP/Falangist thumb.
Let's call them Falangists instead of fascists! They'll never know what the hell we're referring to!
It is obscure, but it's the religiosity of the GQP that makes me think of the Falange across the Latin/Hispanic sphere, spreading to the USA. Hitler had a mixed relationship with religion, but a certain Church welcomed being given too much authority in Spain, Portugal, Chile, Argentina (Ireland, Quebec, etc.)
Lateran Accords II: Jump Start Auto Da Fe Boogaloo
Going to be interesting to see if American fascism is going to lean into revived anti-Catholicism, or opts for an alliance with the Church, especially living in a city with a large Catholic population
Joe the Plumber has a gagasket for that falange.
Hey, Not-Joe the Not-Plumber, been blissfully not thinking about that schmuck for a long time
I dunno, sounds kind of dirty.
Decades ago I waved a sign at a Carlos Montoya concert asking him about his Falange career. Was not received well...
Not so sure about this: these white supremacists/fascist-types hold onto their past like constipated turds. The Charleston church shooter had a photo with him holding a Rhodesian flag — that's a deep cut...
He fancied himself a hero in some rhode movie...
If you count those who don’t bother to vote withGOP actual voters, we don’t outnumber anyone.
Wait, how come they get the nonvoters?
By not voting, they’re not voting the GOP out of power so as to get and protect all that stuff they like and want. Not voting is a de facto vote for the status quo.
If the majorities that want whatever actually voted in significant numbers, they’d have what they claim to want. Clearly, their desire for progressive things is very, very limited.
And the prime factoid: nearly every election for the last zillion decades has drawn fewer than 50% of eligible voters.
Divide it into three groups, vote-for-Republicans, vote-for-Democrats, and Don't-vote-at-all. What you're saying is that if I combine two of those groups together it's bigger than the third group by itself?
Somewhere on a Republican forum, some guy is arguing that the nonvoters, by refusing to turn out to depose the hated tyrant Biden and his DemonRat Representatives and Senators, are siding with The Enemy.
Except for every Presidential election this century (which was as far as I checked). Midterm elections, seem to run about 43% turnout since 1946. So it's more like half the time elections draw fewer than half of eligible voters. Also, the current status quo is Dems run things.
That MAGA-hat-wearing landscaping contractor has plenty o' brain cells when he's tryin' to get a better deal on fertilizer, it's just that everyone has an "off" switch in their head that shuts down the critical-thinking skills when the thinking starts to lead in an uncomfortable direction.
What makes right-wingers special, I think, is that they're so much more open and unashamed about living in an information bubble. All us liberals are supposed to cover our heads in shame when we recall that unfortunate Pauline Kael quote about "Nobody I know voted for Nixon", but the mirror image of that is now routinely used by Republican politicians and voters as an argument why Biden couldn't have possibly won (Where were all his boat parades, huh?")
One of Jordan Klepper's recent victims (and yes, I know these folks are selected for maximum embarrassment) said she was at Jan. 6, but "It was all peaceful, I didn't see any violence." When Klepper asked about all the videos of people assaulting the cops, her reply was, "Yeah, I saw that on TV, but I turned it off." She wasn't even bothering to argue the videos were fake, just that she "didn't see" any violence. That's what it looks like when a functioning brain is being deliberately starved of information.
Excellent points. The rabbit hole is deep and as Roy points out it was dug a long time ago, but what we are seeing now is people being very forthright about simply choosing not to see, hear, or believe anything that contradicts their preferred narrative.
It's the adult version of sticking their fingers in their ears while saying "la la la I can't HEAR you."
Yes re the fertilizer. When Trump was running I kept saying, if the idiots who voted for him had instead been confronted by him on a used car lot, and listened to his mendacious patter about that 2019 Chevy, they'd have smiled emptily, said they had to think about it, and exited the premises, congratulating themselves on not falling for an obvious liar.
Not sure about that; if they think (as MAGA types increasingly do) that everything and everyone but they and their buddies is crooked, they may opt to be fleeced by some entertaining flim-flam artist rather than by some gloomy Gus talking facts and figures.
The difference is that buying a car is serious business, while choosing who gets to manage the largest enterprise on planet earth is all for the lulz.
No Republican businessman who voted for Trump would hand his business over to Trump's management, not even for a week. But the federal government? Whatever, it's all a swamp anyway, couldn't be any worse, right?
The genius of self-proclaimed thinkers...
LOL. If people paid as much attention to politics and the threat to democracy as they do to their favorite reality TV show, I think we'd be in a much better place. Alas, they do not.
As it says in my Twitter banner:
"What planet is this, Your Excellency?"
"That is Earth. It is inhabited by a race of idiots!"
(True story: this is a panel from a Golden Age comic; it originally said "Pluto" but I edited it to say "Earth" and posted it to the SubGenius group on Mastodon. And then saw it in the wild on Twitter! The return of the prodigal snark!)
Thank you for your service
Merely one of the many services I provide
Carry on, Pops.
Yep. It’s all about cranking up the old Bell & Howell to show their most embarrassing and horrific home movies, saying the subject family isn’t them but the weird unAmerican neighbors. They think we don’t recognize them in the film, but town elders play along because it would be impolite to point out their obvious deflection, denial and.deception.
And then, when the inevitable assassination occurs, they employ the passion murderer’s desperate defense: “See what you made me do?!”
The below is not a threat, it is what I fear/think will happen:
I'm sorry to agree with you on the likely future. I think that if the Senate goes Republican, some lone nut will kill or disable Harris, the Senate will refuse to confirm a Vice President, and Trump will be made either President Pro Tempore of the Senate or the Speaker of the House, either brought into the body with a resignation and an accommodating governor or not bothering if the relevant body changes its rules. Then we all wait.
The Right is definitely letting its freak flag fly. And it's far worse than you can imagine. Right now, they're almost all talk, with a few of the more deranged ones taking direct action against the objects of hate. But my guess is that, should Republicans take control of the government, that within a decade we will begin seeing state-sponsored (or at least state-ignored) violence against minorities--with Black and Jews being the first to suffer and perhaps die at the hands of the Proud Boys and their ilk.
I agree and I think it will be WELL within a decade. The permission structure is built and ready to go.
State-sponsored terrorism has been perpetrated against my people since 1619; by now we're at "fourth verse, same as the first".
We're trying to help you save our democracy. Some of us (not me) have ideas; we can do this if we try. History, as someone said long ago, is not destiny.
I grew up in farm country. Picture of town with 1500 people( 14 churches, one bank, one pharmacy, two gas stations and three feed stores)( about 100 black people - most of whom belonged to four extended families living in the same four blocks at the edge of town with no sewer, street lights or sidewalks). There were no Jewish people but plenty of antisemitism. All of those farmers operated on borrowed money and none of them had anything good to say about the banks. All run by a certain kind of people if jew know what I mean. It was just a thing that came up in casual conversation now and then. I knew a guy that borrowed a copy of the Turner Diaries from his dad and brought it to my college English class..The high school band director's son- five or six years younger than me, followed his dad into music education. His career was interrupted when he was caught trying to blow up the African-American Museum ata local black University.
There was a girl in college I dated a few times- we got along great. She held her own on those endless, endlessly boring conversations about black and white foreign films with subtitles.
She casually mentioned that Vatican control of the country didn't end when JFK was assassinated.
We didn't get married and live happily ever after with tall white children and a home in the suburbs.Turned out to be just another bullet for me to dodge.
I had a relatives in Wisconsin that owned a gun shop. Somehow or another they came up with a bazooka in a case of ammunition. Every fall they would tow a car up to the Great North Woods , invite a bunch of friends up and blow the car up after much drinking. They were John Birchers and didn't try and hide it. Funnest people to go visit ever.
"Them Reds did it-
Them Hardcore ones."
https://youtu.be/tCcnJ5kbFMg
Now all this shit is on Facebook with the vacation pics, school lunch menus. and Clone of a Cinnabon recipes.
Great column. I know when I see General Jack at the top of the page I'm in for a treat.
Didja see that loooong article in the Times about the WisDems? I guess I agree with the premise that national Dems starved state parties of money and that helped Republicans take a big lead in control of state legislatures, but somehow "lack of resources" doesn't seem like a sufficient explanation for how rural Wisconsin has turned.
I think rural people are just fucked up. I don't know that abandoning them to their ignorance is an especially bad idea. I could be convinced the money would be better spent elsewhere.
"rural people are just fucked up"
Um... newsletter, please?
Hearted for dodging the dame.
My hometown was quite a bit bigger than your. We had one Jewish family and two black families. We had many native families. The anti-Native sentiment really dominated the racism that I knew about. A little before I moved there, one of the older black guys in town was murdered though. I honestly have no real idea why, but it was probably racism-related
They do sound like fun. You reminded me of I Shall Be Free #10 -- "I wouldn't do it for all the farms in Cuba!"
Fee, fie, fo, fum, Cassius Clay here I come !
Yes, I'm aware that my colleague and dear friend asserted that So-and-So is an N-word loving child rapist serial killer grandma snuffer horse thief, but that is his opinion, and by God, isn't the right to one's own opinion what our Great Nation is all about?
"I mean, it's not like he said something really outrageous, like that property taxes should go up so we could fix the toilets."
The "independent thinking" and "outside the norm" just kill me. I've seen douchebags do the "why is everyone is offended by my bigoted views when they're just controversial opinions?" scam for decades now, but I see it, too, has gone mainstream. I've learned to cringe when I see the phrase "independent thinker" because I KNOW there's some garbage on the way.
One man's shithead is another man's iconoclast?
"Independent thinker" always means Libertarian. Which I call "Republitarian". The political version of "I do my own (half-ass, pro-fascist) research."
I refuse to read the Douthat column, but it sounds like he is trafficking (once again) in "Why did you make me hit you?"
Saw the headline and sparks flew from my scroll wheel as the name "Russ Douthat" disappeared over the horizon of my browser window.
I had never heard that Jim Baker “fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway” quote before.
Now, lessee, how many times have I heard about "Cling to their guns" and "deplorables", um... carry the two... approximately eleventy gazillion times, yes.
Another terrific piece. I'd say it was Times-worthy but then look at the company you'd be in.
To be fair, in the sea of sheer bigotry described here, at least Nast's cartoon had a point, even if his Swiftian illustration was extreme to say the least. At the same time, a similar cartoon in a modern style in the 1990's with the same subtitle, "The Priests and the Children," might have been even more justified, while still being, um, over-the-top.
The much-missed Pat Oliphant did a few riffs on that theme in the years before he retired—“The annual running of the altar boys at St. Pædophilia’s,” for example.
Ha, I remember! Oliophant was best when he was intemperate -- like when he had the pock-marked Noriega trying to get the attention of his friend "Seenyor Boosh!"
"I'd say it was Times-worthy but then look at the company you'd be in." willing to run the risk!
Like a marquee elite athlete you might lift everyone’s game there. Or you might sink to their level. It’s Schrodinger’s Roy!
I've been reading "Before the Storm" by Rick Pearlstein and there are lots of parallels between Birchers and Qanon. At that point though Goldwater and other candidates had to deny any connection and couldn't admit even association with Birch Society members. That seems to be getting less and less true in the current era. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump went full-on Q if he runs in 2024.
I'm wondering how we got into a situation where whether we have a democracy or not is being decided by the good people of Arizona. The same state that worshipped Barry Goldwater? Couldn't we have picked a different venue?
I checked, and the last time Arizona was represented by two Democratic Senators (before the current two) was 1953. The last 3 Democrats to win Arizona in a Presidential race are Joe Biden, Bill Clinton (only in 1996) and Harry Truman.
I guess next we'll see "Impeach John Roberts" billboards when he writes a concurring opinion in the case that strikes down affirmative action, instead of fully joining Alito's "it's not in the Constituton" majority opinion.
Well sure. 10 Commandments was enough fer God an' the Fucking Founding Fathers – all 'em since then is Devil worship!
And a tip o' the hat to ol' Robert Anton Wilson. Wonder what he'd have to say about QAnon.
Oh, I figure Bob would have more than a few words on the subject. Most of them four letter.
The question that keeps coming up in my mind is: why are these delusional dipsticks so successful? What kind of dysfunctional country lets such deranged people have any say in public affairs?
I think that "both siderism" is no longer an appropriate description of these guys. They are now (and may have always been) at the best fascist enablers. Most I suspect are simply out and out fascists. They know what these assholes are and they at best don't care, although I think they really like them and enjoy their own sadism in the way they treat anyone to the left of Louis XIV.
The only point of "bothsiderism" was to enable fascism. It's the way that polite, media-conscious folks who need access to good drugs, good museums, and good food express their dismal internal worlds.
Sort of like a "Libertarian," no? Or what fin-de-siècle "Eugenics Soceties" were to the KKK.
Aw, Jeebus, don't get me started on the "above the right-left paradigm" Libertarians. Gosh, for such ascended political philosophy, it sounds AWFULLY LIKE bog-standard right wing gobbledygook with a thin veneer of liberalism.
More a thick puspile of failure to think it throughism. Bog standard, either way.
I could believe their routine except I'm connected with reality. Regardless of where they differ from the Right, their programme, if carried-out, would bring us back to 1895 and otherwise strongly increase the power of those who already have most power, making them reactionary and conservative in effect.
Sadly, the social progress after 1960 didn’t eliminate the hate, only buried it and now, like a horde of zombies rising out of the dirt, it’s back and it’s hungry, ready to feed on what’s left of American democracy.
I hadn't realized how much simple fear of embarrassment was restraining people. What Donald Trump taught them is that embarrassment is a choice, one can simply choose not to be embarrassed, and there's nothing anybody can do about that.
"Simple fear of embarrassment" reminds me of their whiny, self-pitying ascribing of authority to liberals, e.g., "...we're not allowed to say fag any more." There is a good essay to be written on the theme "Shamelessness Is Their Super-power," although what they can obtain from that power is a good question. Solidarity with their fellow orcs? Sure. Political power? We'll see.
The loss of a sense of shame is a huge part of it. When you think about it, shame is most effective at curbing behavior when it is applied individually or to a small group. Once you have strength in numbers, the equation changes. Shame one person? Easy. Shame a dozen people? Doable with a good argument. Shame millions of people who have been given permission by a powerful man to act out any way they choose? Good luck with that.
Yes, except shame goes in 2 directions, as it were. I can shame X, but whether he/she feels abashed/remorseful/etc. is another matter. We can shame MAGA nation til the cows come h., but they're impervious to it. As is a single MAGA orc.
I think embarrassment is when we're caught doing something we think OTHERS think we shouldn't, and we care about that. Shame is when we catch ourselves doing something we think we shouldn't, and we care about THAT. These people either have no inner shame app (as it were), or they do, but it's overridden by their individual resentment and self-pity, and the validation of the group (as you say).
"I think embarrassment is when we're caught doing something we think OTHERS think we shouldn't, and we care about that. Shame is when we catch ourselves doing something we think we shouldn't..." Crucial distinction! I think about my own slowness to shame, as it were -- largely in reaction to having both shame and embarrassment pushed on me in my youth.
I suspect many of these guys suffered some embarrassment as the social changes of the past few decades made their presumptions unpopular, and MAGA is their bellowing belated Fuck You.
Also quite true. One of these guys recently said "The bird is freed" LOL
The one time I can recall feeling real shame, it rose up in me as though ignited by a flamethrower. I had recently left my marriage, but stayed in town to be close to the kids. I had taken my daughter to soccer practice, at a gigantic field around the stadium at Lehigh University. There must have been 20 games (for kids) going on across these acres. There I stood, surrounded by these (apparently) happy families, with their lawn chairs and their dogs and their coolers, and I suddeny felt this hot flush, like a serious fever. I felt that I didn't deserve to be among these nice, normal people. Eventually it subsided, but hoo boy.
Well, I was raised Catholic, so the shame signal was always on.
I don’t have a FTFNYT scrip so I can’t see (luckily?) what Douchehat is saying “the left” did that compares to Jan. 6 or the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi. I’m sure Ol’ Neckbeard satisfied the totebaggers that all is normal and that it’s just the swing of the pendulum, doncha know, we should reach across the aisle and meet them halfway (never mind that they’ve drawn the halfway line at their own feet). And then he called for more God and White Jesus in public life.
That's ridiculous, this is not at all what Douthat would say. It's about a thousand words too short, for one thing.
This is a problem. A few weeks ago, a trusted friend of mine referred to a Douthat column as "insightful" and "worthwhile", and I said that in general I didn't like him. But then I felt obligated to explain why, so I did it, I logged on to TNYT link at my local library, and I tried to read it. And failed to make any sense of it. I'm going to have to try harder because of my friend. I can't just say He Sucks, I have to say something insightful and worthwhile.
I think we tend to associate "Angry" with "irrational" and "Calm" with "Rational." People like Douthat thrive on that. No matter the problem, whether it's climate change or the threat of fascism or black folks being murdered by the cops or people mass-dying of Covid, they never lose their patina of placid reasonableness, and they count on their audience to confuse that with rationality. "Now, now, stop being so irrational, let's just calm down and look at this reasonably, shall we?" But to look at certain things and not be outraged and angry is monstrous, even if its monstrousness presented with bland exterior.
The banality of evil, one might say.
He often lets his right wing ideology trump the facts, so he often blames the excesses of the right on the left
SB, you should be grateful I abridged it for you! Some people, harrumph!
"given the times we live in, piquant"
Y'all spelt pecan wrong...even Cousin Cephal knows 'at.
2 marks anyway.
(My best friend--sadly no longer with us--pronounced it "po-cohn", because he was from Baton Rouge.)