The election industrial complex needs fed. I'd rather they were up holding their mock debates than out wandering the streets. I have small animals and grandchildren I have to worry about and don't want their kind just milling about looking for trouble.
No, not quite there yet, the parasites inside of what comes out of the back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse? The deadly virus contained within the parasites inside of what comes out of the back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse?
I always picture it as 50 or 60 so-called" consultants" with no real loyalty to any particular party or set of beliefs hoovering up all the money and spending it on shitty ads and bullshit polls that do nothing to make the country any better and usually help the biggest asshole to win.
The mass media can't say no th hyping any and every idiocy they think will attract eyeballs. The silver lining with these debates is that they the wannabes to be as repellent as fPOTUS.
Problem, though, is what if something happens late in the process were 45 can't r-0run -- health or otherwise (hopes+prayers for the obvious one of course)?
Gotta be one of these equally unfit POS, no? So it's great that they're exposed as much as possible.
The old saying "politics is the art of the possible" applies to the candidates' state of mind as well: it's POSSIBLE Trump could die (or go to jail) and make them viable!
But most of them get in for name recognition. I'll never forgive modern goo-goo politics for foisting Andrew Yang on us.
I remember there was this tiny backstory on Lost (gag, retch) where Juliet knew her life was only possible if her partner died suddenly (he might have even said, "Looks like ur stuck with me until I die.") -- and immediately stepped off a curb & got whacked by a city bus going full speed.
This is how these candidates look at the future.
Naw, srsly -- this is all an elaborate con to funnel seven campaign donation streams into either the Moldy Tangelo's re-election or legal defense treasury. Think of these pukes as human NFTs...
Huh, y'know, I'm beginning to think maybe having the news media, and work with me here, might have been, you know, a Bad Thing.
Meanwhile I believe I saw a story yesterday about how for-profit hospitals actually have riskier outcomes, so, maybe, maaaaybe, this privatization stuff was a Bad Idea to begin with.
That thing about the hospitals was on the Spectrum News! They actually went into some depth about it, explaining that hospitals bought up by private equity fired experienced and higher-paid staff and replaced them with less-experienced and lower-paid staff. The story after that was about a pottery studio in Spring Green celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Excellent Newsletter Roy, I couldn’t agree more. And the phrase “Potemkin debates,” is classic, and on point.
This entire process is nothing more than a spectacle. It makes me pine for the good ole days when the “Young Guns” were the up and comers in the Repulsive Party; ironically, all three would get the comeuppance in due time! Ryan and McCarthy who?????
So let’s look at the the score card:
Vivek: the ultimate Tech-pro on steroids, appears to be auditioning for a Whitehouse internship; good luck with that.
Haley: while the press needs their flavor of the week, only the “dumb” money is actually placing a bet on her. She’s evolved from immigrant, to Governor, to UN Ambassador, to NewsMax, where she’ll be put out to pasture as its highly prized political consultant; disseminating right-wing talking points to an audience of.....what’s their audience 1,000? Good riddance.
Christie: Trump’s first legitimate endorsement in 2015. He’s the epitome of “Mr. Bridgegate goes to Washington.” Like Trump, just another narcissistic blowhard in search of an identity. Perhaps the Wizard of Oz could remake his reputation; or not!
DeSatan: Trump on crack. Thank god, he won’t be doing to America what he’s managed to do to Florida; truly infesting the state with swamp creatures; on offense to actual alligators. Good riddance!
And to the rest of the field of candidates: whoever you are; RIP!...:)
Yesterday I mentioned Trump’s Christmas Day screed, and said how alarming it was that tens of millions of people would read it and think “yep, he’s our guy.” And Trump’s lead against any and all other candidates for the nomination just drives home that alarm.
We know the GOP has gone full fascist so basically anyone they would nominate would further the same racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, and rampant capitalist corruption that Trump would and that GOP voters apparently want. So as Roy says, their voters want the alpha asshole, or more precisely they want the totally deranged motherfucker who won’t just repress the “enemy” but will rip the enemy apart with wild animals. They want bread and circuses. To me, that says something more terrifying about the GOP electorate than the fact they are “merely” fascists.
Not to mention it isn’t 2016, so you’d think more GOP voters would have caught on that when leopards have an insatiable appetite for faces, they often don’t ask to see your voter registration card before they bite.
They love I AM YOUR VENGEANCE, but I can't figure how Trump getting to be a dictator soothes the hurt of the brownish people who just moved in down the street having a nicer car than you.
It won't soothe the hurt completely, but they can get some relief by knowing the brownish people with the nice car have to spend more time looking over their shoulders than they ever will. Plus, fuck your feelings -- they'll assume the brownish people aren't happy with the election results. I honestly think pettiness matches malice with most of the MAGA types.
Petty and miserable as they are, you'd think it wouldn't take long for them to seethe over Trump living like a pasha while nothing ever gets better for them. But, oh, right, it's a cult.
It’s interesting how our elite discourse defines Populism as something vaguely noble, homespun, and down-to-earth when they do their endless Real American Safaris at Ohio diners; yet when any sort of labor- and economic-oriented Populism gets traction, it’s quickly scuttled by conflating it with nativism, racism, and xenophobia.
tl;dr: Everyman is *good* in patronizing stories of Flyover Country, *bad* when discussing real economic justice.
The common people are allowed to have feelings, never more than that. I saw this during the Iraq war, people who had thoughtful analysis of why we were at war, who it benefited, who it did NOT benefit were reduced by the media to "We're mad cuz war bad."
That's it - these chuds live in fear of having to "press 1 for English", so, they figure, let Them be scared for a change. Nevermind one is valid fear based on abuse of power, and the other's typical dumbfuck paranoia.
They can never be happy, so the goal is to make miserable the people they hate. Friday on the Majority Report, Digby reminded us that the MAGAs were furious back in 2016 *even after Trump won.* It wasn’t enough that their Dear Leader, the braying circus peanut with cotton candy hair, was president; they had to go around yelling “Trump! Trump!” on planes and in public spaces, being obnoxious to Own The Libs. They weren’t happy and can’t be happy, because they’ve got curdled lumps of grievance and resentment where their souls ought to be.
There are a large number of Americans who truly believe that the Creator of the Universe takes an intense interest in the outcome of high school football games. So why shouldn't Wrathful God intervene in the NFL to teach that hussy and her doubly-vaxxed boyfriend a lesson?
OK, "braying circus peanut" wins the day, lol. And yeah, I think there is a lot of truth to this as well. I mean, if we look back on our school days, the bullies were not HAPPY kids. So when you have few resources internally, at least you can make yourself feel better by making someone else feel worse.
I'm not convinced they want an alpha male, but I am convinced they want someone who talks like an alpha male, sending that starburst thrill up their leg when he publicly and loudly mocks and threatens the people they hate. It's why they love Trump but like DeSantis, because Trump always puts on a show, while DeSantis comes across like the school yard bully even his friends are afraid of. They want the goddam circus, fuck the bread, bread they have and can get anywhere, but the circus only comes to town once a year. There's a big chunk of the 27% who want some blood-soaked bread, they guys in a militia, have an arsenal in the basement and another one with some prepper food stashed at the cabin up at the lake. But they all want a Show.
As worthless as they’ve proven to be, polls show that if Trump is convicted of a criminal offense, enough Republicans say they won’t vote for him that Biden will win. Setting aside the fact that said Republican voters are probably lying in an attempt to prove they haven’t entirely deep/sixed their moral compass, the second tier party leaders (anyone not Trump) need a backup candidate. Of course, their plan will fail because the one thing we know about Trump is that he won’t back down. They’d have to assassinate him and none of them have the courage or means to do that (they’d try to blame Biden, of course, but someone involved would post their involvement on Xitter). Bottom line, any living Donald Trump - convicted, incarcerated, stroked out on a ventilator - will be their candidate with a 50% chance of winning.
This is yet another example of why it’s important for the opposition party to DO SOMETHING like investigating and impeaching, even if they’re not 100% sure it will solve the problem completely and for all time. Nothing is going to change the current awful trajectory of events if everyone hunkers down and makes themselves small, waiting for the trouble to evaporate and things to get back to “normal.”
Just imagine if Merrick Garland the Unready had gotten off his duff earlier after January 6, rather than waiting a year for Congress to solve the problem for him.
I would argue that one of the reasons it's somewhat plausible to some people that Trump's legal woes are all politically motivated is that HE GOT AWAY WITH SO MUCH SHIT FOR SO LONG. We are paying the price for whatever corruption and graft and such that allowed him to crime for 40+ years in NYC. So yes, doing something is a good idea.
He was obviously a piece of shit from the get. Why that is not blindingly obvious to pretty much everyone is an eternal puzzlement, at least to me, a guy from all the way across the country from NYC.
A Man on a White Horse is not gonna save us, never could, because the threat is not Trump. The threat is the institution of the Republican Party, which has enabled and protected Trump since he descended from Heaven on a golden staircase to Save America. They created and nurtured their voting base, which Trump has taken for his own with no visible struggle. No Man on a White Horse is taking down the Republican Party (though to be fair, Trump is on track to destroy it as a side-effect of destroying everything else). To quote Ma Joad in that phony ending of the film version of The Grapes Of Wrath, it's gonna take We The People, they can't stop us 'cause we're We The People. Like it or not, We The People are gonna get Our hands dirty before this is over. To quote Leo Bloom, who wanted everything he saw on television, "No way out, no way out, no way out".
Elaborate self-humiliation ritual is right. A reminder: this is the Very Serious political party that literally didn’t even produce a platform for the last election. (And no, “Whatever Trump Says” does not qualify as a platform.) Weirdly, this hollow, poo-flinging farce of a primary actually has more substance—in the way rice cakes have more substance than empty air.
Like when Rudy was standing on the courthouse steps after a $150 million verdict against him: "I was never given a chance to present ALL THE EVIDENCE of election fraud!" See, he's got so much evidence, but somehow, in THREE YEARS, he's never been given the chance to present it to us, but once he does, hoo boy, will we be red-faced!
Trump's brilliant health care plan, the one that will have us paying "a tiny fraction" of what Obamacare is costing, is somewhere in that manila folder with Rudy's evidence. In a banker's box. In the bathroom.
It keeps the election in the "news." It's advertising for the books and teevee appearances these shitheels will be selling, and it makes the boss look powerful. Some of these people don't even mind the humiliation, or have locked their consciousness away from the facts on the ground. They aren't even presidential candidates; they are organizations of people siphoning and shifting money around with one weirdo at the top as their MacGuffin.
Exactly, if you've got money and you go to a campaign consultant and ask, "Be honest with me now, do you think I could be President?" the answer will ALWAYS be YES.
Us Californios with our 58 counties are endlessly amused by the midwest and eastern states with oh so many more dinky little hamlets masquerading as 'counties', so thanks for the Iowa reminder.
I think each and every one of them (OK, maybe not Chris Cristie) really does believe they can win, they're just that delusional, plus each one is surrounded by an army of hangers-on who don't want the gravy train to end: "You got this, boss! With your winning smile and my brilliant meme-making, we're goin' right to the top!" [cue Ros Russell singing "Everything's Comin' Up Roses"]
Plus, there's Ramaswamy, who comes from a world where a new meme or app can take the world by storm overnight, why not Vivek? Just a little tweaking of his UX, and he's sure to go viral, like norovirus on a cruise ship!
Ah, you've been watching MSNBC too? I wonder if anyone could explain how this is supposed to work: OK, Surging Nikki wins Iowa and New Hampshire and a ALL the other states, and then Donald Trump says, "Well played, madame! Please accept my hearty handshake of congratulations!" Of course he'd say it was all stolen (Just like he did after Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016) and tell all his voters to sit it out "Because it's all rigged" or maybe run as a third-party candidate just to keep the money coming in. (Why vote Green Party when you can vote Greed Party?) I like all of these scenarios, because they end with Biden reelected, but the simple truth is the Republican nomination is worthless to anyone but Trump, because he'll make sure it's worthless to anyone but Trump.
Another term for "Potemkin debates" might be "election theater." It's cheap programming for the networks, and they get to posture to the public (and themselves) that they're serving the public good. The Party gets to pretend to respect democracy while advertising itself on national tv. The candidates get to reap whatever ego gratification drove them into Republican politics in the first place (God knows it wasn't to make anyone's life better). And the audience--to the extent there is one--gets to watch the clowns bash each other with salamis, thus demonstrating how cool and manly Trump is for not being part of it. Everybody (except the country) wins!
Let's tip our hats to the honesty of sportscasters, they don't claim the team that's behind 18-3 in the 9th inning still has a chance to win just to keep the audience hanging on through the beer commercials.
Since I’ve read far too many political thrillers, I always imagine a shadowy cabal led by a cultured but ruthless mega-billionaire living in a Virginia country palace fronted by a big circular driveway, pulling the strings of a scheming WH insider, or a compromised senator, or an amoral CIA director or a disillusioned general, or a combination of the above.
For whatever reasons—which, just like we’re wondering why the pretence of this primary race, the convoluted plots of these books don’t always make clear—the present horror of Trump coming back as president and doubling down on his destruction of democracy somehow suits the aims of these ultra-powerful actors. A long game is always implied in these books. Maybe all these pretenders are a necessary distraction or Plan B.
Some of the usual plot elements already exist. A big shocking public event (Jan. 6), classified documents gone astray (check), a complicit media (of course), foreign involvement (hello, Vlad). All we need is a suitcase nuke or a bioweapon.
There are always variations in how the narrative plays out, but these stories almost always feature a lone hero, someone with impossible fighting skills whose friend or family members were killed in the early stages of the plot, and a plucky band of sidekicks, who see what no one else can see and decide on a course of righteous justice.
After a few action-packed set-piece battles, as the protagonist fights his or her way through each layer of the conspiracy, there’s a final face to face confrontation with the rich asshole at the very top, who dismisses our hero as a puny sentimentalist and begins a long unhinged rant about how everything has gone to shit so something needs to be done, which always includes the phrase, “Look around you!”, before he gets a bullet to the forehead.
Then the fever breaks. Peace and order are restored and all is made right in the nation’s politics. Which is why you only find these books listed under “Fiction”.
Second ex-wife of the scion of local grocery store chain, which has expanded mightily over the last 10 years on the Eastern Seaboard, famously (around here) gifted him with a turntable-type device on the floor of the garage at their vacation palace so he would never have to back out.
And why is Trump so far ahead? Years of trying to figure out what the fuck is going on in the brain-pan of the average American voter tells me you should never attribute to conscious thought that which can be explained by mere inertia. Trump is in the lead because he's the only guy everybody's voted for before (two, maybe even three times!) End of explanation. When someone has Corn Flakes for breakfast every morning, sure, it's possible they conducted some comprehensive taste-test of all available breakfast cereals, or may it's just that Corn Flakes is what mom put in front of them?
It's worth a pause to think about how unusual this is: A former President in a competitive primary. Usually it's a one-term President seeking a second term and the primary's not competitive (like with the Dems and Biden) or the former President has already served two terms and can't run again, or if it's a former President who lost his try at re-election, they've always had the decency to fade into the woodwork, because it's understood that the party's better off trying someone new. Why didn't Jimmy Carter run in 1984? Why didn't George W. Bush run in 1996? Not like the candidates their parties came up with were so great (Walter Mondale and Bob Dole?) but Carter and Bush weren't cursed with an insatiable desire for attention (and an insatiable need for money) and they really did care about seeing their party move on to someone who might win. Just another example of Trump's deeply abnormal behavior being accepted as normal.
All sorts of things could happen to remove Trump that would make the whole show relevant. With Trump gone, those vying for the nomination now would have at least some leg up compared to people who enter only after the event.
Trump could drop dead. At his age that's not amazingly unlikely.
He could lose interest. He could cross the line into word and deed so bizarre that even the faithful recoil. I mention these two under the same heading because he is, after all, quite demented. That's been clear since he blew his alibi over firing Comey talking to Lester Holt with the cameras rolling
He could cut a plea deal that gets him out of jail time in exchange for not running
SCOTUS could decide to take away his ability to run. If they want to do that all they need is the one shot at it that's already lined up for them in the form of the 14.3 thing.
I don't think anyone could give reliable odds on any of these possibilities, but I don't think that any of them are amazingly unlikely. I left out all the possibilities that actually are proven to be ridiculous, such as the idea that R party elders and insiders might combine to deny him the nomination.
Amend.14.3 easily sidestepped by 153 million write-in votes for Queensman! All lost in the mail! Election obviously stolen! Every single post office in America torched! Subsequently all Social Security checks pile up in a warehouse in Kentucky! Every citizen over 65 dies of starvation! Long national nightmare over!
You're on a sinking ship with a cornet in your hand, what can you do but play "Nearer my God to Thee?"
I feel another sturgeon crack coming on...
It's their party and they'll fraud if they want to
The election industrial complex needs fed. I'd rather they were up holding their mock debates than out wandering the streets. I have small animals and grandchildren I have to worry about and don't want their kind just milling about looking for trouble.
Bingo. But in particular I appreciate the respect you have for the big draft animals. No need to worry about them – they can take care of themselves.
Also too – there's (Russian oligarch?) money to be had! Time's a wastin'!
It's as if the Indianapolis 500 were one car and a bunch of Tennessee Walking Horses.
The name “Tennessee Walking Horse” conveys far more natural dignity and gravitas than any of the Republican candidates, especially the front-runner.
Hear hear
The back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse?
Getting warmer, what comes out of the back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse.
No, not quite there yet, the parasites inside of what comes out of the back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse? The deadly virus contained within the parasites inside of what comes out of the back end of a Tennessee Walking Horse?
Election industrial complex! Never heard of it. I miss the days when it was the League of Women voters and 200,000 volunteers.
Also, wouldn't that complex in actuality consist of the thousands of Republicans engaged in trying to *overturn* election results?
I always picture it as 50 or 60 so-called" consultants" with no real loyalty to any particular party or set of beliefs hoovering up all the money and spending it on shitty ads and bullshit polls that do nothing to make the country any better and usually help the biggest asshole to win.
Local network affiliates absolutely depend on election ads for survival.
Hearted but sad.
Personal Injury lawyers, now is the time for you to step up for the good of America.
The ones around here do their part.
"the biggest assholes, who do nothing to make the country better", why, that IS the GOP.
Errr... It's complex, ok?
Fun how conservatives take complex questions and claim they're simple, and take simple questions and make them complex.
Humans require housing? Children require food? Sick people require doctors? Well... it's not as simple as that...
The mass media can't say no th hyping any and every idiocy they think will attract eyeballs. The silver lining with these debates is that they the wannabes to be as repellent as fPOTUS.
Problem, though, is what if something happens late in the process were 45 can't r-0run -- health or otherwise (hopes+prayers for the obvious one of course)?
Gotta be one of these equally unfit POS, no? So it's great that they're exposed as much as possible.
The old saying "politics is the art of the possible" applies to the candidates' state of mind as well: it's POSSIBLE Trump could die (or go to jail) and make them viable!
But most of them get in for name recognition. I'll never forgive modern goo-goo politics for foisting Andrew Yang on us.
I remember there was this tiny backstory on Lost (gag, retch) where Juliet knew her life was only possible if her partner died suddenly (he might have even said, "Looks like ur stuck with me until I die.") -- and immediately stepped off a curb & got whacked by a city bus going full speed.
This is how these candidates look at the future.
Naw, srsly -- this is all an elaborate con to funnel seven campaign donation streams into either the Moldy Tangelo's re-election or legal defense treasury. Think of these pukes as human NFTs...
There's an entire Netflix series resting on the concept "human NFTs".
I think it's called "Black Mirror".
Except for the absolute dead solid fact that Queensman would run from his cell.
That leaves his gravesite, but I would not call that a done deal until I'd personally conducted the Scobie test.
Re: name recognition—these days Kristi Noem only exists to get on TV and Hoover up cash from the rubes.
It seems Yang is making a comeback.
Hard to make a comeback when you're a never-were.
Hearted for the setup, and Steve's response.
Huh, y'know, I'm beginning to think maybe having the news media, and work with me here, might have been, you know, a Bad Thing.
Meanwhile I believe I saw a story yesterday about how for-profit hospitals actually have riskier outcomes, so, maybe, maaaaybe, this privatization stuff was a Bad Idea to begin with.
That thing about the hospitals was on the Spectrum News! They actually went into some depth about it, explaining that hospitals bought up by private equity fired experienced and higher-paid staff and replaced them with less-experienced and lower-paid staff. The story after that was about a pottery studio in Spring Green celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Hearted for the second story.
2 solid marks.
Private equity and hospitals are a mismatch, to state the obvious.
As for the mass media being a bad thing, here’s NBC’s Ben Collins:
https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/12/the-cable-news-kayfabe-is-dead/
So regrettably the sarcasm is an understatement.
Thanks for the link.
Excellent Newsletter Roy, I couldn’t agree more. And the phrase “Potemkin debates,” is classic, and on point.
This entire process is nothing more than a spectacle. It makes me pine for the good ole days when the “Young Guns” were the up and comers in the Repulsive Party; ironically, all three would get the comeuppance in due time! Ryan and McCarthy who?????
So let’s look at the the score card:
Vivek: the ultimate Tech-pro on steroids, appears to be auditioning for a Whitehouse internship; good luck with that.
Haley: while the press needs their flavor of the week, only the “dumb” money is actually placing a bet on her. She’s evolved from immigrant, to Governor, to UN Ambassador, to NewsMax, where she’ll be put out to pasture as its highly prized political consultant; disseminating right-wing talking points to an audience of.....what’s their audience 1,000? Good riddance.
Christie: Trump’s first legitimate endorsement in 2015. He’s the epitome of “Mr. Bridgegate goes to Washington.” Like Trump, just another narcissistic blowhard in search of an identity. Perhaps the Wizard of Oz could remake his reputation; or not!
DeSatan: Trump on crack. Thank god, he won’t be doing to America what he’s managed to do to Florida; truly infesting the state with swamp creatures; on offense to actual alligators. Good riddance!
And to the rest of the field of candidates: whoever you are; RIP!...:)
You'll be laughing out of the other side of your mouth when Asa Hutchinson comes roaring back.
Looking forward to it...:)
1.5 marks for "Repulsive Party". If you upgrade to "Repulsagain Party" I'd grant the other 0.5.
Fair enough; definitely next time. Or we can just appropriate Nixon’s reelection campaign name: CREEP....:)
Perhaps, tho I'd have to ruminate long and hard (why, yes, yes I am ruminant – why do you ask?) whether I could award any marks because OOF.
Don’t ever speak to me of government red tape....:)
I have always been agog at the appropriateness of that acronym.
Me too. I never understood it; although, now it makes sense...:)
There are openings at CREIP, the Committee to Re-Indict the President, get in your application today!
Like Real America is going to tolerate a President named "Asa".
There once was a time for President Asa, sadly the 1910's are behind us.
Spades?
Yesterday I mentioned Trump’s Christmas Day screed, and said how alarming it was that tens of millions of people would read it and think “yep, he’s our guy.” And Trump’s lead against any and all other candidates for the nomination just drives home that alarm.
We know the GOP has gone full fascist so basically anyone they would nominate would further the same racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia, and rampant capitalist corruption that Trump would and that GOP voters apparently want. So as Roy says, their voters want the alpha asshole, or more precisely they want the totally deranged motherfucker who won’t just repress the “enemy” but will rip the enemy apart with wild animals. They want bread and circuses. To me, that says something more terrifying about the GOP electorate than the fact they are “merely” fascists.
Not to mention it isn’t 2016, so you’d think more GOP voters would have caught on that when leopards have an insatiable appetite for faces, they often don’t ask to see your voter registration card before they bite.
They love I AM YOUR VENGEANCE, but I can't figure how Trump getting to be a dictator soothes the hurt of the brownish people who just moved in down the street having a nicer car than you.
It won't soothe the hurt completely, but they can get some relief by knowing the brownish people with the nice car have to spend more time looking over their shoulders than they ever will. Plus, fuck your feelings -- they'll assume the brownish people aren't happy with the election results. I honestly think pettiness matches malice with most of the MAGA types.
Petty and miserable as they are, you'd think it wouldn't take long for them to seethe over Trump living like a pasha while nothing ever gets better for them. But, oh, right, it's a cult.
Yeah, who knows? Maybe it's some bastardization of the idea "a rising tide lifts all (white, GOP) boats.
Queensman's boat parade was not the shining hour it was hyped to be (tho the marine salvage folks had a bonanza).
He's not An Elite, he's a populist, a man of the people! And something something make all of us rich, too!
Besides, we saw him yell "YAH FIRED!" on the teevee so he's a Real Human Being.
It’s interesting how our elite discourse defines Populism as something vaguely noble, homespun, and down-to-earth when they do their endless Real American Safaris at Ohio diners; yet when any sort of labor- and economic-oriented Populism gets traction, it’s quickly scuttled by conflating it with nativism, racism, and xenophobia.
tl;dr: Everyman is *good* in patronizing stories of Flyover Country, *bad* when discussing real economic justice.
The common people are allowed to have feelings, never more than that. I saw this during the Iraq war, people who had thoughtful analysis of why we were at war, who it benefited, who it did NOT benefit were reduced by the media to "We're mad cuz war bad."
That's it - these chuds live in fear of having to "press 1 for English", so, they figure, let Them be scared for a change. Nevermind one is valid fear based on abuse of power, and the other's typical dumbfuck paranoia.
They can never be happy, so the goal is to make miserable the people they hate. Friday on the Majority Report, Digby reminded us that the MAGAs were furious back in 2016 *even after Trump won.* It wasn’t enough that their Dear Leader, the braying circus peanut with cotton candy hair, was president; they had to go around yelling “Trump! Trump!” on planes and in public spaces, being obnoxious to Own The Libs. They weren’t happy and can’t be happy, because they’ve got curdled lumps of grievance and resentment where their souls ought to be.
O Come, All Ye Rageful
Angry And Triumphant 🎶
To wit: today over on Xwitter, the MAGAs are enraged because Taylor Swift's wokeness has caused her boyfriend's football team to lose some games.
[sportscaster, hand to earpiece] “I am reliably informed that this is indeed how the world works.”
There are a large number of Americans who truly believe that the Creator of the Universe takes an intense interest in the outcome of high school football games. So why shouldn't Wrathful God intervene in the NFL to teach that hussy and her doubly-vaxxed boyfriend a lesson?
No wonder he's runnin' all around bein' wrathful:
Queensman's got a batch o'the Formula – a bathfull!
SteveB's calculatin' how much 'cause he's mathful.
OK, "braying circus peanut" wins the day, lol. And yeah, I think there is a lot of truth to this as well. I mean, if we look back on our school days, the bullies were not HAPPY kids. So when you have few resources internally, at least you can make yourself feel better by making someone else feel worse.
You've met my mom?
[hug from afar]
Have an oof on me.
Adding here that the missus had a mum who was A Piece
Of Work. I'll just say no one misses her now she's gone.
We won't even mention what they have where their brains used to be.
"Objection. Posits brains not in evidence."
Where's Leni when we need her?!
I'm not convinced they want an alpha male, but I am convinced they want someone who talks like an alpha male, sending that starburst thrill up their leg when he publicly and loudly mocks and threatens the people they hate. It's why they love Trump but like DeSantis, because Trump always puts on a show, while DeSantis comes across like the school yard bully even his friends are afraid of. They want the goddam circus, fuck the bread, bread they have and can get anywhere, but the circus only comes to town once a year. There's a big chunk of the 27% who want some blood-soaked bread, they guys in a militia, have an arsenal in the basement and another one with some prepper food stashed at the cabin up at the lake. But they all want a Show.
And Racist. Do not forget the Racist.
As worthless as they’ve proven to be, polls show that if Trump is convicted of a criminal offense, enough Republicans say they won’t vote for him that Biden will win. Setting aside the fact that said Republican voters are probably lying in an attempt to prove they haven’t entirely deep/sixed their moral compass, the second tier party leaders (anyone not Trump) need a backup candidate. Of course, their plan will fail because the one thing we know about Trump is that he won’t back down. They’d have to assassinate him and none of them have the courage or means to do that (they’d try to blame Biden, of course, but someone involved would post their involvement on Xitter). Bottom line, any living Donald Trump - convicted, incarcerated, stroked out on a ventilator - will be their candidate with a 50% chance of winning.
"Setting aside the fact that said Republican voters are probably lying..." if it were anyone else I'd stop reading there!
I do agree none of them has the guts to pull off an assassination but I love the idea of Ramaswamy trying to get AI to do it for him.
"Let's get AI – he'll kill anything!"
Just throw him in a Tesla on autopilot, let the computer do the dirty work.
This is yet another example of why it’s important for the opposition party to DO SOMETHING like investigating and impeaching, even if they’re not 100% sure it will solve the problem completely and for all time. Nothing is going to change the current awful trajectory of events if everyone hunkers down and makes themselves small, waiting for the trouble to evaporate and things to get back to “normal.”
Just imagine if Merrick Garland the Unready had gotten off his duff earlier after January 6, rather than waiting a year for Congress to solve the problem for him.
I would argue that one of the reasons it's somewhat plausible to some people that Trump's legal woes are all politically motivated is that HE GOT AWAY WITH SO MUCH SHIT FOR SO LONG. We are paying the price for whatever corruption and graft and such that allowed him to crime for 40+ years in NYC. So yes, doing something is a good idea.
Roy Cohn for the win!
Also, nobody listened to everyone from NYC who warned them that Trump was a piece of shit.
He was obviously a piece of shit from the get. Why that is not blindingly obvious to pretty much everyone is an eternal puzzlement, at least to me, a guy from all the way across the country from NYC.
Oh, you silly progressives, always with your "Let's do something." I say we give nothing another twenty years, see how that works.
I got nuthin'
How many Friedman Units is that?
Forty! Sounds almost Biblical!
In the meantime we can punch left and hector our own voters. That’s a *kind* of activism.
A Man on a White Horse is not gonna save us, never could, because the threat is not Trump. The threat is the institution of the Republican Party, which has enabled and protected Trump since he descended from Heaven on a golden staircase to Save America. They created and nurtured their voting base, which Trump has taken for his own with no visible struggle. No Man on a White Horse is taking down the Republican Party (though to be fair, Trump is on track to destroy it as a side-effect of destroying everything else). To quote Ma Joad in that phony ending of the film version of The Grapes Of Wrath, it's gonna take We The People, they can't stop us 'cause we're We The People. Like it or not, We The People are gonna get Our hands dirty before this is over. To quote Leo Bloom, who wanted everything he saw on television, "No way out, no way out, no way out".
Elaborate self-humiliation ritual is right. A reminder: this is the Very Serious political party that literally didn’t even produce a platform for the last election. (And no, “Whatever Trump Says” does not qualify as a platform.) Weirdly, this hollow, poo-flinging farce of a primary actually has more substance—in the way rice cakes have more substance than empty air.
No platform? Are you forgetting the Great New Healthcare Plan they were perpetually on the verge of telling us about?
Like when Rudy was standing on the courthouse steps after a $150 million verdict against him: "I was never given a chance to present ALL THE EVIDENCE of election fraud!" See, he's got so much evidence, but somehow, in THREE YEARS, he's never been given the chance to present it to us, but once he does, hoo boy, will we be red-faced!
Trump's brilliant health care plan, the one that will have us paying "a tiny fraction" of what Obamacare is costing, is somewhere in that manila folder with Rudy's evidence. In a banker's box. In the bathroom.
Just one degree away from the leopard.
Kinda like they've had two years to reveal THE UNCONTESTABLE TRUTH OF EVIL hidden on Hunter's fucking computer, and couldn't even fake proper outrage.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. Yeah, it's always out there, you never bring it in here.
You saw the dick pix, ain't that enough?
Someone stuck the health care folder in that binder of intel about Russian election interference.
That's a good point, and just makes the crappy policies they endorse in a public forum more alarming.
Health Care on the Verge sounds suspiciously like Southern Culture on the Skids.
You may need healthcare if you Walk Like a Camel.
Sorry – don't have the toes for it.
prancercize.com
Nope, nope, nope. I looked that up (and down) once before which was one more than necessary.
The last TWO elections.
It keeps the election in the "news." It's advertising for the books and teevee appearances these shitheels will be selling, and it makes the boss look powerful. Some of these people don't even mind the humiliation, or have locked their consciousness away from the facts on the ground. They aren't even presidential candidates; they are organizations of people siphoning and shifting money around with one weirdo at the top as their MacGuffin.
Exactly, if you've got money and you go to a campaign consultant and ask, "Be honest with me now, do you think I could be President?" the answer will ALWAYS be YES.
You misspelled "Ye$$$$$$"
Are we totally sure they aren't... *getting something* from the humiliation?
The chance to visit all 99 counties in Iowa?
I'm only interested in ONE county, just to look at the bridges and check if Meryl Streep is still in that farmhouse.
Us Californios with our 58 counties are endlessly amused by the midwest and eastern states with oh so many more dinky little hamlets masquerading as 'counties', so thanks for the Iowa reminder.
An area of land sufficient to be ruled over by a Count. OK, maybe Count Chocula, but still a count.
I think each and every one of them (OK, maybe not Chris Cristie) really does believe they can win, they're just that delusional, plus each one is surrounded by an army of hangers-on who don't want the gravy train to end: "You got this, boss! With your winning smile and my brilliant meme-making, we're goin' right to the top!" [cue Ros Russell singing "Everything's Comin' Up Roses"]
Plus, there's Ramaswamy, who comes from a world where a new meme or app can take the world by storm overnight, why not Vivek? Just a little tweaking of his UX, and he's sure to go viral, like norovirus on a cruise ship!
As long as they have Broadway shows on the boat, I'm there!
Hard to enjoy Le Miz when your head's between your knees over a bucket.
I think I'll take your word for it, if only because testing the theory sounds rather too involved for a Wednesday morning.
1. Get one bucket...
2. Buffet choice: Shrimp salad
And just one thin mint for dessert.
"going viral", more like going fungoid with him. He's not a cabbage in a human suit, he's black mold from someone's basement.
You misspelled "Ramasmarmy" -- or was that "Ramasalami"? "Ramaswampy"?
Nikki is SURGING!!!
Ah, you've been watching MSNBC too? I wonder if anyone could explain how this is supposed to work: OK, Surging Nikki wins Iowa and New Hampshire and a ALL the other states, and then Donald Trump says, "Well played, madame! Please accept my hearty handshake of congratulations!" Of course he'd say it was all stolen (Just like he did after Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016) and tell all his voters to sit it out "Because it's all rigged" or maybe run as a third-party candidate just to keep the money coming in. (Why vote Green Party when you can vote Greed Party?) I like all of these scenarios, because they end with Biden reelected, but the simple truth is the Republican nomination is worthless to anyone but Trump, because he'll make sure it's worthless to anyone but Trump.
Sing HO! for Nikki! Nikki is SURGIN'!
She'll surge right up til she sleeps with the sturgeon!
Ewwwww. I think they have medications for that now.
Another term for "Potemkin debates" might be "election theater." It's cheap programming for the networks, and they get to posture to the public (and themselves) that they're serving the public good. The Party gets to pretend to respect democracy while advertising itself on national tv. The candidates get to reap whatever ego gratification drove them into Republican politics in the first place (God knows it wasn't to make anyone's life better). And the audience--to the extent there is one--gets to watch the clowns bash each other with salamis, thus demonstrating how cool and manly Trump is for not being part of it. Everybody (except the country) wins!
Let's tip our hats to the honesty of sportscasters, they don't claim the team that's behind 18-3 in the 9th inning still has a chance to win just to keep the audience hanging on through the beer commercials.
And the NFL will leave a blowout and switch coverage to "a more competitive" game.
Heidi For The Win!
Deep cut, Bern
Nah. Just old enough to remember Daryle Lamonica...
throwing to Warren Wells
That was the AFL
Since I’ve read far too many political thrillers, I always imagine a shadowy cabal led by a cultured but ruthless mega-billionaire living in a Virginia country palace fronted by a big circular driveway, pulling the strings of a scheming WH insider, or a compromised senator, or an amoral CIA director or a disillusioned general, or a combination of the above.
For whatever reasons—which, just like we’re wondering why the pretence of this primary race, the convoluted plots of these books don’t always make clear—the present horror of Trump coming back as president and doubling down on his destruction of democracy somehow suits the aims of these ultra-powerful actors. A long game is always implied in these books. Maybe all these pretenders are a necessary distraction or Plan B.
Some of the usual plot elements already exist. A big shocking public event (Jan. 6), classified documents gone astray (check), a complicit media (of course), foreign involvement (hello, Vlad). All we need is a suitcase nuke or a bioweapon.
There are always variations in how the narrative plays out, but these stories almost always feature a lone hero, someone with impossible fighting skills whose friend or family members were killed in the early stages of the plot, and a plucky band of sidekicks, who see what no one else can see and decide on a course of righteous justice.
After a few action-packed set-piece battles, as the protagonist fights his or her way through each layer of the conspiracy, there’s a final face to face confrontation with the rich asshole at the very top, who dismisses our hero as a puny sentimentalist and begins a long unhinged rant about how everything has gone to shit so something needs to be done, which always includes the phrase, “Look around you!”, before he gets a bullet to the forehead.
Then the fever breaks. Peace and order are restored and all is made right in the nation’s politics. Which is why you only find these books listed under “Fiction”.
John Lithgow as Harlan Crow in the movie.
Because they couldn't get Kevin Spacey?
No one needs the kind of trouble Spacey can bring to a production.
If they're gonna keep hiring key grips, what else am I s'posed to do?!
Now where's my best boy?!
"fronted by a big circular driveway" gasp!
The reddest of flags.
The Rich Never Reverse
Second ex-wife of the scion of local grocery store chain, which has expanded mightily over the last 10 years on the Eastern Seaboard, famously (around here) gifted him with a turntable-type device on the floor of the garage at their vacation palace so he would never have to back out.
I have actually parked in such a garage, under a condo building in San Francisco.
Park car A onto turntable B.
Exit car.
Turn table B (Literally, lean hard onto left rear fender C and spin car A til aimed correctly.)
Drive car into slot D.
To exit, reverse directions, and search for a less convoluted condo to buy.
And a fountain!
No lair is complete without a secret tunnel, that can be flooded by instantaneously draining the fountain when the secret is discovered.
And why is Trump so far ahead? Years of trying to figure out what the fuck is going on in the brain-pan of the average American voter tells me you should never attribute to conscious thought that which can be explained by mere inertia. Trump is in the lead because he's the only guy everybody's voted for before (two, maybe even three times!) End of explanation. When someone has Corn Flakes for breakfast every morning, sure, it's possible they conducted some comprehensive taste-test of all available breakfast cereals, or may it's just that Corn Flakes is what mom put in front of them?
It's worth a pause to think about how unusual this is: A former President in a competitive primary. Usually it's a one-term President seeking a second term and the primary's not competitive (like with the Dems and Biden) or the former President has already served two terms and can't run again, or if it's a former President who lost his try at re-election, they've always had the decency to fade into the woodwork, because it's understood that the party's better off trying someone new. Why didn't Jimmy Carter run in 1984? Why didn't George W. Bush run in 1996? Not like the candidates their parties came up with were so great (Walter Mondale and Bob Dole?) but Carter and Bush weren't cursed with an insatiable desire for attention (and an insatiable need for money) and they really did care about seeing their party move on to someone who might win. Just another example of Trump's deeply abnormal behavior being accepted as normal.
Don't forget Grover Cleveland
Was that the last time this happened? How'd he do?
All sorts of things could happen to remove Trump that would make the whole show relevant. With Trump gone, those vying for the nomination now would have at least some leg up compared to people who enter only after the event.
Trump could drop dead. At his age that's not amazingly unlikely.
He could lose interest. He could cross the line into word and deed so bizarre that even the faithful recoil. I mention these two under the same heading because he is, after all, quite demented. That's been clear since he blew his alibi over firing Comey talking to Lester Holt with the cameras rolling
He could cut a plea deal that gets him out of jail time in exchange for not running
SCOTUS could decide to take away his ability to run. If they want to do that all they need is the one shot at it that's already lined up for them in the form of the 14.3 thing.
I don't think anyone could give reliable odds on any of these possibilities, but I don't think that any of them are amazingly unlikely. I left out all the possibilities that actually are proven to be ridiculous, such as the idea that R party elders and insiders might combine to deny him the nomination.
Amend.14.3 easily sidestepped by 153 million write-in votes for Queensman! All lost in the mail! Election obviously stolen! Every single post office in America torched! Subsequently all Social Security checks pile up in a warehouse in Kentucky! Every citizen over 65 dies of starvation! Long national nightmare over!
I wouldn't discount the effects of fearing for their lives.
No version of"It's a Good Life" has _so_far_ featured a candidates' debate….