That's right, feel the hate flow through you, feel the power of the Dark Side...
Just kidding,. They really do want to kill democracy and most of us after all, that has to count for something. The trick is to use that anger to build something, that will hopefully destroy them.
Well, they're just working stiffs trying to make a buck off Nazis. It's not like they want to kill us all. That's what the Nazis are for. So, Quislings?
“Seek a quick fix or a shortcut that would save liberals the trouble of winning.” Oh man, talk about every accusation a confession! This one should be framed. Coming from the same conservatives who continue to bring you ever herculean effort imaginable to disenfranchise what people they can, and make voting as laborious and time-consuming as possible for the people they can’t, this accusation is jaw-dropping. So of course the NYT fell for it. I guess Christopher Rufo was too busy with Christmas plans to write something, so they commissioned Moyn instead.
And as if the ridiculous argument liberals are trying to disenfranchise people wasn’t enough, Moyn adds in a healthy helping of “Look what you’re trying to make us do. Don’t make us angry, you know you don’t like us when we’re angry.” Talk about empty threats -- bitch, we don’t like you NOW.
I think "fall for it" is simply not right. Given what they've been publishing for the last sever decades, it is time to admit that they ain't fallin' for anything. They are out and out fascist enablers, if not actual fascists themselves.
The rhetoric is not out of like with tradional partisan whining presenting itself as a plea for "fairness". The problem is their leader has abandoned any pretense of fairness and following the rule of law in general, and his base and his Party are publicly all-in with him (there is an anemic Never-Trump Resistance that is largely ineffectual, though Republicans brought that suit in Colorado and the one in Georgia). In this environment, Moyn's argument is simple rank hypocrisy.
Isn't this now a standard (and tired) trope in superhero and crime-bustin' movies? The villain, finally caught, appeals to the hero's sense of fairness, rule-of-law, etc. Followed either by villain pulling one last trick to escape when the hero hesitates, or with the hero blowing the villain away. See Lethal Weapon 2 for an example: "Diplomatic immunity!" cries the South African drug-smuggler, "Pow!" goes Mel Gibson's gun.
See The Untouchables on the courthouse rooftop when Kev Costner/Elliot Ness wavers then, goaded, pushes Billy Drago/Frank Nitti -boom- right off. “He’s in the car.”
Hmmm... lessee... which political party has a program that's so unpopular that they're reaching a point where winning through democratic means is impossible? Would that also be the one that's desperately looking for undemocratic means to win?
Hillary Clinton. “Sorry actual crimes were committed against you and your campaign, but we can’t do anything about that because it would blow our whole self-image.”
Excellent essay, Roy, but even Cratchit got Christmas off, so go drink some eggnog (and rue that it isn’t from Purity which is the absolute best I’ve ever tasted, with or without the rum) and forget about us.
Understandable confusion, our ChristoFascist Speaker of the House is working hard to replace the Constitution with the Bible. "You say Commandment, I say Amendment, let's call the whole thing off."
Those lying assholes. They say that like there hasn't been a concerted movement to remove Joe Biden. Or Obama. Or Bill Clinton. The one to remove Jimmy Carter was successful, defeating the closest thing to a decent human being to serve as POTUS during the 20th Century.
Meanwhile Junior Bush is considered some kind of senior statesman and his war criminal daddy is equally revered. And don't even get me started on that drooling imbecile Reagan and the way that SOB is worshipped as a god by inbred hillbillies.
May Santa take a giant dump down their chimneys. Bah, humbug.
I hope the son of a bitch WAS miserable. His bullshit policies allowed a lot of my friends in the 80s and 90s to die of AIDS and THEIR deaths, in their 20s and 30s, were certainly more to be mourned than that piece of shit's.
I don't know if it ever occurs to these assholes that if they'd choose a President who DIDN'T try to use US military aid to extort a bogus investigation of their opponents, or DIDN'T use a violent mob in an attempt to negate the results of an election, we'd have a much harder time with our EVIL schemes.
That Colorado decision (which will have no actual effect because the stay will be continuing past the deadline for printing the ballots)! It’s bring people over the political spectrum!
RWNJs opposite of course. Libs oppose because they’re brave enough to endorse it. Lefties because they’re at a point where decades of losses with no sign of any sort of victory has given them something like cognitive decline. (That last is like their support for fascist Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine because the latter is actually led by Nazis or something.)
But they’re all aligned saying that fPOTUS is in fact above and shouldn’t be held accountable.
I would say #NotAllLefties because there are folks out there with a more nuanced vision of the Ukraine invasion, but that doesn't mean I don't cringe every time it's asserted that NATO and America forced Russia to invade.
It’s like the Xians. Of course the entire religion isn’t on the level of the evangelicals and baptists, but those are Xian groups or denominations that our elected officials serve -- like Dobbs was for them, and obviously not for the more liberal denominations.
As for the comrades, again it’s the prominent ones that get the attention.
It’s all the old the exceptions don’t matter or something.
This guy Moyn is simply weird. In this Times piece he says liberals (rather than conservative Fukayama who literally wrote the book) were proclaiming the "End of History"
[dismayed gasps before hush falls upon the assembly]
eBoogalu2, if so deployed via less than anonymity (OFFS! UNANIMITY!) on Queensman's behalf, would not attempt to breach the Capitol again – Il Corto di Tutti Corti would be the locale next time.
See "Black robed regiment" for all the latest news about christo-fascisti and their ahistorical (eh? hysterical?) bushwah. They were prominent on the Jan6 day, both in the insurrection and along the margins exhorting the alleged lord with their bused-in rubes from Rubeville. They are regular guests at whatever show gets ginned up on the Mall these days.
“it is not obvious how many would accept a Supreme Court decision that erased Mr. Trump’s name from every ballot in the land…”
Myself, I think it's totally fucking obvious their response would be truck bombs parked in front of every Federal courthouse in the country. Subtle, these folks are not.
“Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment has conservatives (and milquetoasts like Jonathan Chait) in a froth — and also in a dilemma.”
Roy, definitely one of your best. And I noticed the conservatives pining for a 9-0 decision as well (unity). Although, I didn’t come to the same conclusions, you did. I just shrugged it off as wishful thinking by a bunch of deranged bobble heads. Nicely done.
That said, I do take issue with one part of your newsletter. Last week, you suggested I was the incarnate of Jonathan Chait! Seriously? You think of me as milquetoast? I am truly feeble minded in your opinion?....:)
Anyway, I wish you all the best during this joyous holiday season....peace out!...:)
Sure, I'd much prefer to kick his ass but good in a free n' fair election (do we still have those? How quaint!) Better for the country that Trump and Trumpism be soundly rejected by the voters, the people who should really matter.
But what can I say? He did what he did, and the law is what it is. I didn't bring the damn suit (as others have noted, Republicans did) and I'm not staying up nights anxiously tracking its progress through the courts. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Ol' Joe Biden isn't either, he knows Trump will be the Republican nominee, and will be on the ballot, and will need to be defeated by 7 million or so votes just to overcome that gift of the motherfucking founders called the motherfucking Electoral College.
Gosh, thanks, you wig-wearin' slave-rapin' assholes. Interesting that not a single one of the hundred or so democracies that came into existence after 1789 borrowed your One Weird Trick to fuck up elections.
Help me out here, Mr. Moyn: OK, liberal justices should join with the bought-by-billionaires caucus and overturn the Colorado decision. What should they write in the opinion? (I mean, you are a law prof, right?) That Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection*? That he did, but there should be Donald-Trump-sized hole in the 14th amendment? Maybe something like "The law applies equally to all, excepting anyone with 40-point lead in the Iowa Caucus"?
*It's worth noting that the Colorado decision was 4-3, but there was no disagreement among the seven justices that Trump had committed insurrection. But knock yourself, out Mr. Yale Law, tell me how he didn't.
I supposed the answer is that conservative justices are so used to starting with the conclusion they want to reach and then working backwards to find the bullshit justification for it, that they just assume all judges work the same way.
Giving reasons for your assertions is a sign of a weak argument. A well-formulated assertion will stand on its own as self-evident to any reasonable person, so asking for reasoning is ipso-facto admitting defeat in the marketplace of ideas, Q.E.D. Mr. Unreasonable.
It's not at all surprising, amidst of all the blather about liberal motives, liberal attacks on democracy (!), scary rightwing backlash, etc., that the issue which gets short shrift or is ignored altogether is simple: did he do it? If addressed at all it's usually fudged as "Well, it's contested, so, who knows?" It's as if Trump really did shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and the main concern was that arresting him would appear too political and have consequences for our democracy. I don't expect the Supreme Court to uphold the decision, and I'm not even sure if it's a good idea just because of all this knee-jerk running on about it. But you'd think they'd spend a wee bit more time on the fact that the reason the 14th Amendment fits is because Trump is guilty as hell.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that people shouldn't be found guilty of something without a fair trial. Did Trump have a fair trial in this case? Well, he didn't have the whole shebang like you'd have in a criminal case, with the right to a jury, the highest "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, etc. But he did have *some* process, a hearing was held, evidence was presented, he had a chance to defend himself, although he chose not to. And civil trials do have a lower standard, which is understandable since the consequences aren't jail time. Reminds me of a previous Supreme Court case on whether Guantanamo prisoners had been denied due process, and I think it was Scalia who said "Due process doesn't have to mean the full procedure of a criminal trial, as long as the government has *some* process." Just a shame that Scalia isn't around to explain that to his colleagues now.
It should be noted that the Colorado case was brought by Republican candidates for President, not Democrats
Also, Merry Christmas all you REBIDders. I am out until Wednesday
Merry Holidays to you too, but this post is in clear violation of Murc's Law.
Pffft, facts just make things more complex.
And are stupid things, as one former President (excuse me, THE GREATEST PRESIDENT) once said.
I'd like to punch that Moyn character in the dick. That's about where I am anymore. Not exactly erudite, I know , but honest and sincere.
Thanks for the extra effort!
Merry Christmas!
That's right, feel the hate flow through you, feel the power of the Dark Side...
Just kidding,. They really do want to kill democracy and most of us after all, that has to count for something. The trick is to use that anger to build something, that will hopefully destroy them.
Can we feel the same about substack-mongers monetizing nazis?
Signed, Confused
Well, they're just working stiffs trying to make a buck off Nazis. It's not like they want to kill us all. That's what the Nazis are for. So, Quislings?
"Oh, you'd like to buy some rope? Yeah, I'd be happy to sell you some."
I prefer to administer a kick to the balls - more direct and to the point.
whynotboth.gif
“Seek a quick fix or a shortcut that would save liberals the trouble of winning.” Oh man, talk about every accusation a confession! This one should be framed. Coming from the same conservatives who continue to bring you ever herculean effort imaginable to disenfranchise what people they can, and make voting as laborious and time-consuming as possible for the people they can’t, this accusation is jaw-dropping. So of course the NYT fell for it. I guess Christopher Rufo was too busy with Christmas plans to write something, so they commissioned Moyn instead.
And as if the ridiculous argument liberals are trying to disenfranchise people wasn’t enough, Moyn adds in a healthy helping of “Look what you’re trying to make us do. Don’t make us angry, you know you don’t like us when we’re angry.” Talk about empty threats -- bitch, we don’t like you NOW.
I think "fall for it" is simply not right. Given what they've been publishing for the last sever decades, it is time to admit that they ain't fallin' for anything. They are out and out fascist enablers, if not actual fascists themselves.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic. Both sides, don't you know.
But so provocative! So contrarian! Many clicks were clicked! - NYT Inc.
The rhetoric is not out of like with tradional partisan whining presenting itself as a plea for "fairness". The problem is their leader has abandoned any pretense of fairness and following the rule of law in general, and his base and his Party are publicly all-in with him (there is an anemic Never-Trump Resistance that is largely ineffectual, though Republicans brought that suit in Colorado and the one in Georgia). In this environment, Moyn's argument is simple rank hypocrisy.
Isn't this now a standard (and tired) trope in superhero and crime-bustin' movies? The villain, finally caught, appeals to the hero's sense of fairness, rule-of-law, etc. Followed either by villain pulling one last trick to escape when the hero hesitates, or with the hero blowing the villain away. See Lethal Weapon 2 for an example: "Diplomatic immunity!" cries the South African drug-smuggler, "Pow!" goes Mel Gibson's gun.
It was Danny Glover's gun but your point stands.
Indeed, this is central to my point.
"He's been de-kaffi-nated."
Another excellent non-traditional Christmas movie!
See The Untouchables on the courthouse rooftop when Kev Costner/Elliot Ness wavers then, goaded, pushes Billy Drago/Frank Nitti -boom- right off. “He’s in the car.”
“Seek a quick fix or a shortcut that would save liberals the trouble of winning.”
Replace "liberals" with "conservatives" and you have the recipe for January 6th.
Hmmm... lessee... which political party has a program that's so unpopular that they're reaching a point where winning through democratic means is impossible? Would that also be the one that's desperately looking for undemocratic means to win?
“It was handed down 8-0 [in U.S. v. Nixon], with one recusal. In our moment, the Supreme Court must do the same.”
So we’re Nixon, and Donald Trump is the United States of America. Good thing this guy’s a liberal who didn’t want Trump elected!
I appreciate the effort to follow this tortured analogy. Now I can't help but wonder who's playing McGovern in this mook's Alternate Universe.
Hillary Clinton. “Sorry actual crimes were committed against you and your campaign, but we can’t do anything about that because it would blow our whole self-image.”
Nah, already blown (or blows – I can't keep up).
"If Russian interference is inevitable, just lie back and enjoy it"
Don Knotts?
Don Knotts is always the correct answer.
Mr B: "OK class, who can tell me the square root of negative 1?"
Coolest Kid in Class®: "Don Knotts?"
Mr B: [sigh]
"Damn kids have discovered the Don Knotts loophole!"
Excellent essay, Roy, but even Cratchit got Christmas off, so go drink some eggnog (and rue that it isn’t from Purity which is the absolute best I’ve ever tasted, with or without the rum) and forget about us.
Not while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe!
Roy won't rue the day!
"Speak, memory!" I said. And it replied "Shut up, sit down, and drink this!"
“‘Hail, Muse!’ Etcetera.”
[chugs carton of egg nog]
"O tempora, o mores!"
"Oh, you're drunk"
"Oh, you're right!"
Clear violation of the 4th Commandment, you should all be in church, and not typing your secular thoughts into the Godless internet!
Why should they be in church just 'cause they refused to let a cop search their...
Oh.
Commandment.
Never mind.
Understandable confusion, our ChristoFascist Speaker of the House is working hard to replace the Constitution with the Bible. "You say Commandment, I say Amendment, let's call the whole thing off."
Last one out turns off the (en)light(enment).
[The ghosts of the Puritans rise up in anime form to visit their wrath upon anyone celebrating Christmas.]
Also, I think you're supposed to paint over all the chrome on your car with black paint. Excuse me, FLAT black paint.
Sassy Cow eggnog. Wisconsin's finest, it's like guaranteed cardiovascular disease in a glass.
There's an ice cream shop in Madison whose slogan is: "You want healthy? Eat carrots." We do love our butterfat.
Now you have me wondering if Ernest P. Worrell did a Purity commercial for said eggnog.
"Concerted . . . movement to remove"
Those lying assholes. They say that like there hasn't been a concerted movement to remove Joe Biden. Or Obama. Or Bill Clinton. The one to remove Jimmy Carter was successful, defeating the closest thing to a decent human being to serve as POTUS during the 20th Century.
Meanwhile Junior Bush is considered some kind of senior statesman and his war criminal daddy is equally revered. And don't even get me started on that drooling imbecile Reagan and the way that SOB is worshipped as a god by inbred hillbillies.
May Santa take a giant dump down their chimneys. Bah, humbug.
Ronald Reagan had a miserable death.
Did he though? He had the best health care/hospice care in the world. We should all be as fortunate. Merry Christmas.
Does any of that matter if you’re miserable?
I hope the son of a bitch WAS miserable. His bullshit policies allowed a lot of my friends in the 80s and 90s to die of AIDS and THEIR deaths, in their 20s and 30s, were certainly more to be mourned than that piece of shit's.
If I remember correctly he died from the complications of dementia. He lost a bit of himself day by day.
Not as horrible as the death that he forced others to go through, certainly, but miserable.
I don't know if it ever occurs to these assholes that if they'd choose a President who DIDN'T try to use US military aid to extort a bogus investigation of their opponents, or DIDN'T use a violent mob in an attempt to negate the results of an election, we'd have a much harder time with our EVIL schemes.
Although, I agree with all of it; Dubya was a bigger war criminal than his dad. Well said...:)
That Colorado decision (which will have no actual effect because the stay will be continuing past the deadline for printing the ballots)! It’s bring people over the political spectrum!
RWNJs opposite of course. Libs oppose because they’re brave enough to endorse it. Lefties because they’re at a point where decades of losses with no sign of any sort of victory has given them something like cognitive decline. (That last is like their support for fascist Putin’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine because the latter is actually led by Nazis or something.)
But they’re all aligned saying that fPOTUS is in fact above and shouldn’t be held accountable.
Great times...
Happy holidays y’all!
I would say #NotAllLefties because there are folks out there with a more nuanced vision of the Ukraine invasion, but that doesn't mean I don't cringe every time it's asserted that NATO and America forced Russia to invade.
Not really that hard to distinguish between Matt Taibbi and the rest of us.
😂
It’s like the Xians. Of course the entire religion isn’t on the level of the evangelicals and baptists, but those are Xian groups or denominations that our elected officials serve -- like Dobbs was for them, and obviously not for the more liberal denominations.
As for the comrades, again it’s the prominent ones that get the attention.
It’s all the old the exceptions don’t matter or something.
Have a merry one, P.
Remember Murc's Law! It applies to Russia, too.
Should be Murc's INTERNATIONAL Law
Thanks for giving me someone new to despise, Roy! Merry Christmas to you and yours.
This guy Moyn is simply weird. In this Times piece he says liberals (rather than conservative Fukayama who literally wrote the book) were proclaiming the "End of History"
I rise to take issue with Roy.
[dismayed gasps before hush falls upon the assembly]
eBoogalu2, if so deployed via less than anonymity (OFFS! UNANIMITY!) on Queensman's behalf, would not attempt to breach the Capitol again – Il Corto di Tutti Corti would be the locale next time.
So there's that.
Also, too: Regarding "Black robed masters"
See "Black robed regiment" for all the latest news about christo-fascisti and their ahistorical (eh? hysterical?) bushwah. They were prominent on the Jan6 day, both in the insurrection and along the margins exhorting the alleged lord with their bused-in rubes from Rubeville. They are regular guests at whatever show gets ginned up on the Mall these days.
The cross & the flag, as ever.
“it is not obvious how many would accept a Supreme Court decision that erased Mr. Trump’s name from every ballot in the land…”
Myself, I think it's totally fucking obvious their response would be truck bombs parked in front of every Federal courthouse in the country. Subtle, these folks are not.
My alma mater needs a mea culpa. ‘Course Moyn’s in the law school which another universe. I miss Ron Dworkin.
“Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment has conservatives (and milquetoasts like Jonathan Chait) in a froth — and also in a dilemma.”
Roy, definitely one of your best. And I noticed the conservatives pining for a 9-0 decision as well (unity). Although, I didn’t come to the same conclusions, you did. I just shrugged it off as wishful thinking by a bunch of deranged bobble heads. Nicely done.
That said, I do take issue with one part of your newsletter. Last week, you suggested I was the incarnate of Jonathan Chait! Seriously? You think of me as milquetoast? I am truly feeble minded in your opinion?....:)
Anyway, I wish you all the best during this joyous holiday season....peace out!...:)
Well, he's not *always* a milquetoast. Also I admit I was rash in comparing you to him even in jest
I’m joking. Normally I’d say, “I resemble that remark, but milquetoast?” Not even close....:)
And may all your dilemmas be frothy!
What dilemmas are you referring to?
"Jonathan Chait in a froth — and also in a dilemma."
Just thinking how economical it would be to combine the two.
Sure, I'd much prefer to kick his ass but good in a free n' fair election (do we still have those? How quaint!) Better for the country that Trump and Trumpism be soundly rejected by the voters, the people who should really matter.
But what can I say? He did what he did, and the law is what it is. I didn't bring the damn suit (as others have noted, Republicans did) and I'm not staying up nights anxiously tracking its progress through the courts. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Ol' Joe Biden isn't either, he knows Trump will be the Republican nominee, and will be on the ballot, and will need to be defeated by 7 million or so votes just to overcome that gift of the motherfucking founders called the motherfucking Electoral College.
RE: "free n' fair"
Already lost twice by hefty* margins:
2016 ~9 million votes lower than his combined opponents**
2020 ~8 million votes lower than his combined opponents
*Try New Hefty Margins – for all your thickly margined needs!
**I know, I know – I don't interpret 'em – I only report 'em
Gosh, thanks, you wig-wearin' slave-rapin' assholes. Interesting that not a single one of the hundred or so democracies that came into existence after 1789 borrowed your One Weird Trick to fuck up elections.
Elect Oral (Roberts) College is a little too skeevy even for me.
Help me out here, Mr. Moyn: OK, liberal justices should join with the bought-by-billionaires caucus and overturn the Colorado decision. What should they write in the opinion? (I mean, you are a law prof, right?) That Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection*? That he did, but there should be Donald-Trump-sized hole in the 14th amendment? Maybe something like "The law applies equally to all, excepting anyone with 40-point lead in the Iowa Caucus"?
*It's worth noting that the Colorado decision was 4-3, but there was no disagreement among the seven justices that Trump had committed insurrection. But knock yourself, out Mr. Yale Law, tell me how he didn't.
I supposed the answer is that conservative justices are so used to starting with the conclusion they want to reach and then working backwards to find the bullshit justification for it, that they just assume all judges work the same way.
Motivated reasoning is a *kind* of epistemology.
I'm just wonderin' why it is that thinking about insurance gives ANYBODY an erection...
What's that?
Never mind.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our own Emily Litella.
Giving reasons for your assertions is a sign of a weak argument. A well-formulated assertion will stand on its own as self-evident to any reasonable person, so asking for reasoning is ipso-facto admitting defeat in the marketplace of ideas, Q.E.D. Mr. Unreasonable.
Agreed, giving reasons is a total beta cuck move.
We need to shut down the goddamn Ivy League until we figure out what the hell is going on.
Republicans: "What's this? Actual CONSEQUENCES for criminal behavior?"
Me: https://youtu.be/kYdQuuLzg2A?t=50
I'm reminded of someone asking "Do they give Nobel Prizes for _attempted_ chemistry?"
It's not at all surprising, amidst of all the blather about liberal motives, liberal attacks on democracy (!), scary rightwing backlash, etc., that the issue which gets short shrift or is ignored altogether is simple: did he do it? If addressed at all it's usually fudged as "Well, it's contested, so, who knows?" It's as if Trump really did shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and the main concern was that arresting him would appear too political and have consequences for our democracy. I don't expect the Supreme Court to uphold the decision, and I'm not even sure if it's a good idea just because of all this knee-jerk running on about it. But you'd think they'd spend a wee bit more time on the fact that the reason the 14th Amendment fits is because Trump is guilty as hell.
Merry, happy, to all.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that people shouldn't be found guilty of something without a fair trial. Did Trump have a fair trial in this case? Well, he didn't have the whole shebang like you'd have in a criminal case, with the right to a jury, the highest "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, etc. But he did have *some* process, a hearing was held, evidence was presented, he had a chance to defend himself, although he chose not to. And civil trials do have a lower standard, which is understandable since the consequences aren't jail time. Reminds me of a previous Supreme Court case on whether Guantanamo prisoners had been denied due process, and I think it was Scalia who said "Due process doesn't have to mean the full procedure of a criminal trial, as long as the government has *some* process." Just a shame that Scalia isn't around to explain that to his colleagues now.