Wow, you were right. I remember Sarah Palin reading something about Palin and Birch Society literature in her office. Twenty years on, the fringe is triumphant.
I'm a white guy in Southwest Ohio. Anybody here will tell you that they hate black people because of their misbehavior. Nobody hates them just because they're black. Those days are over! Barack Obama, Michael Jackson and the NFL all prove that if black people work hard enough and don't misbehave they can be anything they want to in this country.
I gasped slightly reading this comment here. Maybe you're trying to take the piss, somehow, but the first thing that came into my head was a Public Enemy tune on Apocalypse '91 ("I Don't Wanna be Called Yo _____"). I'm a white guy, and I disagree
Yeah, was gonna say 'welcome to the club', then realized that "club" is definitionally smaller than the entirety of humanity, so not quite up to the task...
Let me rephrase- black unemployment this country is sometimes as much as twice as high as white unemployment. It's always significantly higher (although it is getting better - thank you Joe Biden!) Reasonable people like you and me could look at that and think systemic racism prevents the black community from having the same employment opportunities as whites. Cletus C. Cracker sees the numbers and says "'Em coloreds is lazy"
Roger Rotary Club says
" I'd hire those people but they're never qualified and besides, since we moved to the suburbs off the bus line they never even bother to apply for the jobs. "
Used to be both of these people knew that what they were saying was racist as fuck. They would always look around before they said anything to make sure they had the right kind of audience.
Then we had a black president and some wag, probably at NRO, said
" We have a black president. This just proves that no way is this a racist country."
This took off - John Robert's says " You don't need voter rights laws If there's no racism !" his buddy Sammy Alito says" You got that right Johnny -There's no need for affirmative action in a country without racism!"
Clarence Thomas says " I got a white wife!"
Cleet says " I knew they're twert no racism - em coloreds is just lazy!"
Roger just nods his head.
They both don't bother to look around anymore to see who might be listening when they spout their crazy racist shit.
We've been through multiple "no more racism" moments, though, like Oprah and Tiger Woods. "Well, they made it through the minefield we set up for Those People, and succeeded, so, yep, No More Racism!" If Charles Murray had just waited thirty years to publish The Bell Curve, he'd have his own show on Newsmax, instead of being largely forgotten.
A cruise ship goes down five miles from shore, and "Oops - no life boats!" but ONE long-distance swimmer made it to shore. "C'mon, what's the problem, THIS guy made it!"
Also, look at the examples: Gosh, all a Black person has to be is THE GREATEST GOLFER OF ALL TIME and they can succeed? Good to know!
Or in politics: Yes, just be one of the most charismatic public speakers in American political history and you too can be a Senator and maybe even President! Meanwhile, let's have a look at what's required for Average White Man to become a Senator: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ron Johnson (please.)
Yeah. Nobody's talkin' bout all the undeserving palefaces who legacied their way into the upperest crust, thereby snagging slots that coulda gone to deserving others, both pale and otherwise.
I dunno. How large is the contingent that wants to embrace the racism? I can just as easily imagine a Bannon- Scott encounter where Bannon says [ as Rick White below alludes to ] "You gotta go there. Where? You gotta gotta use the n-word. " Roy often points-out that they [the magas] really, really wanna do it. Having a Black candidate do it frees them up .
It's still there.I lived there in 77 and 78 and then again in between 92 and 94. Antioch closed and then reopened as a watered-down version of its old self is my understanding. The town seems well on its way to becoming another nice place for rich white people a movement, strangely enough, led by Dave Chappelle.
When I moved from there in 94 the choice was buying the house I was living in there in town or moving out to the place where I live now which had much more land. I took the land. Last year the house where I was living in Yellow Springs and thought to buy but didn't sold for 15 times what I was going to pay for it. The house I bought instead where I live now is worth about a third of that.
I go to Glen Helen a couple of times a month. I've been doing that for 55 years.
Thanks for the update. I saw some pics on Wikipedia and it looked awfully crowded and they called it part of metropolitan Dayton. Seriously!?! My husband and I had a cozy little apartment on East Limestone Street and I guess we were hippies. We ended up in Northwest Washington (not in the Seattle metropolitan area) in a little seaside town Anacortes that has suffered much the same fate as YS. We tried to buy a house there but ended up on land several miles away with a manufactured home which has served us very well. Extend my greetings to Glen Helen the next time you are there.
And of course the one thing missing from all this is any semblance of an agenda or a vision for our future. Bannon and his ilk, have few qualms about destroying all of our institutions with nothing to replace it with, except a dystopian future, run by authoritarian fascists, incompetent fools. Can anyone say kakistocracy?
Ah, but "agenda or a vision for our future" would probably start with "The government should..." and that's a liberal thing. Oh, sure, they'll make an exception for "Build a wall", but aside from that, finishing that sentence with anything other than "die in a cleansing fire" marks you as liberal.
Don’t forget Reagan’s famous nine words from the dictionary everyone should fear? “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help!”
The conservative movement credo, and the reason why these people cling to Trump. They’ve always hated the federal government and have been trying to destroy it for generations.
I’m not sure when the movement started; probably with the Civil Rights Movement, but it definitely grew militant after Rubey Ridge and Waco.
These people are flamethrowers, and have no clue how bad things can get. They’re fighting about $5 gas, when most countries pay far more without inflationary times.
At least in Nazi Germany it took a humiliating War loss, 35% unemployment, the German Mark devalued to worthlessness, and 2000% inflation, to turn the country into a dystopian, authoritarian, fascist country, led by a sociopath.
What’s are excuse? Very few are starving, and their are always options for those who are. The economy is booming, Unemployment is at 3.5%. Wages are increasing and the deficit is almost $550 billion less than when Biden became president.
Yet, we’re on the precipice of losing democracy over abortion and some cultural differences? Go figure...:)
If gas is $4.50 a gallon next November, we get fascism. If it's $3.50 a gallon we get to keep some limited democracy for a little while longer. Seems reasonable.
I think it started with FDR and the New Deal. They only really hate the federal government when it benefits "those people", who ever that is. Black Americans in particular, poor people in general, and assorted others as the definition of "white" changes.
Perhaps, but the New Deal benefitted all of the forgotten men. GI bill, home ownership with low rate loans, social security, etc. FDR’s policies brought us out of a depression and middle and rural America benefited greatly.
The original New Deal was specifically designed to exclude black people at the expense of white Southerners to get the White Southern Congressmen to vote for it. That was slowly rectified
The resentment has always been there. Forty years ago in farm country you’d see bumper stickers snarling “Don’t Cuss the Farmer With Your Mouth Full.” Were people actually demonizing farmers, the sturdy, virtuous yeomen of our Jeffersonian republic? Of course not, but there’s always aggrievement to be exploited, and the Republican Party turned itself into an aggrievement factory. Trump was just a better, cruder exploiter of it.
Why are we approaching fascist meltdown when we're cruising along better than almost anywhere else ever in history? My personal theory: Our mythology. We are all raised to believe in America we can do and be anything. Why, anybody could grow up to be president! So when we amount to something average instead., even if average is pretty decent, it feels like failure. With no one to blame but yourself. Some of us then reassess reality and adjust. But too many start to get crazy, looking for new ways to be important.
And the algorithms of the past decade-plus are all too happy to help in that magical quest.
I've been thinking about this in a much smaller context: The Jacksonville shooter. What experiences did he have with Black people that could lead him to want to kill them all? And my guess is there were none, Black people just existed as an abstraction - a hated abstraction - in his mind.
It's like right after the 2016 election when so many in the media thought "Well, people must be suffering from some extreme privation that they would vote for such an extreme candidate." But the truth is that most Trump 2016 voters were doing fine, better than most, but they were also filled with a powerful rage at the idea of Hillary Clinton being President.
This idea that extreme actions must be a thing we're "driven to" by extreme real-world circumstances is just wrong. Mere ideas, mere words on the internet, are enough to make some people want to kill and die. We live in our heads, and we can be driven insane by the ideas that reside there.
Shorter: We need to think less about Germany in the 30's and more about Rwanda in the 90's where people we moved to murder their neighbors through the power of talk radio.
Noting how many of the January 6th rioters showed up on private planes and chartered (by Ginni Thomas) buses. Noting how many police officers were represented among the rioters (led by Seattle, which still has a consent decree for violating Black people's civil rights).
I think a lot of right-wingers, especially white Trump followers, -love- the government. It's just that they may not know it or acknowledge it. They love clean air and water, safe food and drugs, airplanes that don't crash and products that do what they're supposed to. They love their social security checks and their Medicare and their COVID loans. They love the government that cracks down on BLM protesters, and arrests and incarcerates millions of black and brown people. They love the government that bans abortions and confiscates books from libraries they don't like and fires gay teachers. And most of all, they love the government when it denies the rights of pretty much anyone that they don't think deserves to have any rights.
Well, there's a ton of them down in Florida and Georgia who are gonna be lovin' them some guvmint when the relief checks arrive. But the checks will arrive too late, won't be big enough, I heard THOSE people got checks even though they don't deserve 'em like WE do, etc. They'll find something to be angry about, because anger is now their permanent state.
We do some talking here about right-wing politics as it relates to abusive-spouse behavior, and I think this is like that. Sure, they like getting a hot dinner served up when they get home but that bitch better not get it on the table late or there'll be hell to pay.
We don't need a vision for the future, because it's just the status quo - once we get rid of the troublemakers and their dangerous foreign philosophies. Everything's fine and perfect! We just need everyone in their proper place on the hierarchy, and all these "problems" will vanish.
Timothy Snyder refers to this in The Road To Unfreedom as "the politics of eternity"; our God-given system is eternally perfect and we must be ever vigilant against outsiders and alien concepts that will taint that perfection.
Excellent points though, I’m just not sure how doable it is with gerrymandered districts and a party that should be relegated to an insane asylum....:)
I'm saying that's the GOP plan - that's why they "have no policies", because policies don't need to be thought about. Everything's fine, everything's always been fine, everything always will be fine, as long as we remain pure and vigilant.
I agree, you’re preaching to the choir, except nothing is fine with them. The radical left agenda is destroying America. The economy is in the toilet, democrats are brain-washing our kids, gas is at $5, unemployment is 15%, 15’million jobs lost, crime is at a high.......grievance, grievance and complaining. That’s all these people know.
And they can even get their statistics and data straight.
You can't please people who are determined to be displeased. Like the jerk who sends the dish back to the kitchen because his steak isn't done to the EXACT degree of doneness that he asked for, it's a way to demonstrate your power over others, THEY have to please you, not the other way 'round.
Hey, you know who's to blame for climate change? AFRICA. That's right, 20% of the world's population, 3% of our carbon emissions, those damn Africans. And that's what Tim Scott said at the debate, because that's he's for, and why they'll keep him around a while longer.
It's amazing how the legacy of five-star cranks like Robert Welch, Lew Rockwell and Pat "Make America First Again" Buchannan has been mainlined to Bannon, Trump and MAGA. Just shows there has always been a big American audience for racist signalling. And now, like many of the Birchers before them, they don't even feel the need hide it. If you told me in 1988 that this is where we'd be as a country in 2023, I wouldn't have fucking belived it. (Had to repost this b/c of my atrocious spelling.)
I say this as a white person and therefore very possibly wrong, but I think Scott, like Obama, learned early in life that not getting and showing anger is the safest path for an ambitious Black man. Hence the hilarity of “Obama’s Anger Interpreter.” No doubt Scott’s would be similarly amusing along the lines of “These Ofays are dumb as shit whether they vote for me or not!”
Let me rephrase- black unemployment in this country is sometimes as much as twice as high as white unemployment. It's always significantly higher (although it is getting better - thank you Joe Biden!) Reasonable people like you and me could look at that and think systemic racism prevents the black community from having the same employment opportunities as whites. Cletus C. Cracker sees the numbers and says "'Em coloreds is lazy"
Roger Rotary Club says
" I'd hire those people but they're never qualified and besides, since we moved to the suburbs off the bus line they never even bother to apply for the jobs. "
Used to be both of these people knew that what they were saying was racist as fuck. They would always look around before they said anything to make sure they had the right kind of audience.
Then we had a black president and some wag, probably at NRO, said
" We have a black president. This just proves that no way is this a racist country."
This took off - John Robert's says " You don't need voter rights laws If there's no racism !" his buddy Samuel Alito says" You got that right Johnny -There's no need for affirmative action in a country without racism!"
Clarence Thomas says " I got a white wife!"
Cleet says " I knew they're twert no racism - em coloreds is just lazy!"
Roger just nods his head.
They both don't bother to look around anymore to see who might be listening when they spout their crazy racist shit.
If you wanted to write a New York Times handwringer about "Gosh, why are we so divided?" you'd do well to start with the moment you identified. When every Republican in the country went, "Look Ma, no racism!" and then the rest of us, horrified by birtherism and their hysterical response to a moderate Democrat, thought, "Man has this country got itself some racism!" The roots of the two competing realities we live in today.
Shorter: How America took a moment in which we could all be justifiably proud and turned it to complete shit. This fucking country... [deep sigh AND head-shake]
So much is about the ability to build generational wealth. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they got help from their parents, and faced no particular obstacles to going to school and getting a job. They didn’t plan for college for me and the siblings, but here’s the key part: when I turned 18, they didn’t need me to work to support the family. They had enough money of their own.
I think of the black soldiers coming home from WW2, and how their GI benefits were so difficult (and dangerous) to access, even if they were free to use them, which a lot of times they weren’t because their parents and grandparents and siblings *needed them to work* so they could eat and maybe not get evicted.
America is a Goldilocks country, just enough racism so Nikki Haley and Tim Scott can inspire with their stories of overcoming, never enough to require us to actually do anything. Scott is 57, so the prejudices that he briefly mentions overcoming aren't from the era of Jim Crow and Lester Maddox, they're from the era of Newt Gingrich. But if we still have Republicans in 2050, you can bet that Black ones will inspire with their stories of overcoming racial prejudice back in the bad old days of 2023. So glad we've put those behind us and we're all equal NOW.
I saw (well, heard) Vivek Reallysmarmy* on Vaush's YouTube yesterday, and, christ, if that creep even LOOKS like he's going to get the nomination, it'll be a struggle not to toss Joss in the car and book it for the Canadian border while I still can. His comments about "sense of purpose" and "unity" just scream "En Volk" in my head. I know everyone on the stage last week hated him and piled on, but that might just result in "controversial maverick" status. He scares the SHIT out of me.
*This is being racist, according to Vivek, because something something non-European name. The new iteration of "You hate Sarah Palin? Why do you hate women?"
A banger today, and so on the money it hurts to laugh. The, I don't know the proper word instead of "fear", maybe reluctance, avoidance of being called racist is the one hopeful sign I can glimpse out of our current mess. A proper white supremacist would relish being called a racist publicly, and frankly I'm surprised we don't see it more openly. But we don't, so far. There's a big lever there if we can get a hold if it.
I wrote this more than 11 years ago: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/06/08/1098463/-Doesn-t-Anyone-Remember-the-John-Birch-Society
Wow, you were right. I remember Sarah Palin reading something about Palin and Birch Society literature in her office. Twenty years on, the fringe is triumphant.
I never read the Mann-Orenstein book. Still worth reading? Or have events already overtaken it?
Worth it!
Or at least the WaPo article at the time
Well, I don't like Tim Scott.
That makes two of us.
Ah, see? Liberals are the REAL racists!
SCOTT: To show they’re not racist.
BANNON: To show that racism’s a joke.-
That's exactly right.
I'm a white guy in Southwest Ohio. Anybody here will tell you that they hate black people because of their misbehavior. Nobody hates them just because they're black. Those days are over! Barack Obama, Michael Jackson and the NFL all prove that if black people work hard enough and don't misbehave they can be anything they want to in this country.
That 'misbehave' could fill a stadium's worth of sidebar clauses.
"That 'misbehave' could fill a stadium's worth of sidebar clauses."
We've already been doing this; it's called "Division I College Football".
See? There's yer problem right there! Look at the Big 10 (sic) and the Big 12 (siccer)!!
We don't call 'em divisions no mo! Them's Multiplications!!
I gasped slightly reading this comment here. Maybe you're trying to take the piss, somehow, but the first thing that came into my head was a Public Enemy tune on Apocalypse '91 ("I Don't Wanna be Called Yo _____"). I'm a white guy, and I disagree
It's showing you a point of view that's common in Southwest Ohio, not endorsing it. Like one of those diner safaris.
Got it, thanks. American political stuff still somewhat mystifying to me
Us too bro...us too.
Yeah, was gonna say 'welcome to the club', then realized that "club" is definitionally smaller than the entirety of humanity, so not quite up to the task...
My "shorter" for that is "This fucking country..." Throw in a deep sigh at the end if you want.
slow headshake of disillusion...
I'd go back to the old housemate and his "What the fuck, dude?"
Let me rephrase- black unemployment this country is sometimes as much as twice as high as white unemployment. It's always significantly higher (although it is getting better - thank you Joe Biden!) Reasonable people like you and me could look at that and think systemic racism prevents the black community from having the same employment opportunities as whites. Cletus C. Cracker sees the numbers and says "'Em coloreds is lazy"
Roger Rotary Club says
" I'd hire those people but they're never qualified and besides, since we moved to the suburbs off the bus line they never even bother to apply for the jobs. "
Used to be both of these people knew that what they were saying was racist as fuck. They would always look around before they said anything to make sure they had the right kind of audience.
Then we had a black president and some wag, probably at NRO, said
" We have a black president. This just proves that no way is this a racist country."
This took off - John Robert's says " You don't need voter rights laws If there's no racism !" his buddy Sammy Alito says" You got that right Johnny -There's no need for affirmative action in a country without racism!"
Clarence Thomas says " I got a white wife!"
Cleet says " I knew they're twert no racism - em coloreds is just lazy!"
Roger just nods his head.
They both don't bother to look around anymore to see who might be listening when they spout their crazy racist shit.
Get this. Hope you get my misunderstanding/not getting your original comment
You’re good. As soon as you said “taking the piss”, I knew you weren’t from Ohio.
Hearting this tho I have no reason why you know, nor what it means exactly...Iguess I appreciate the local knowledge.
Otherwise known as the Lee Atwater Gambit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#%22Southern_strategy%22
We've been through multiple "no more racism" moments, though, like Oprah and Tiger Woods. "Well, they made it through the minefield we set up for Those People, and succeeded, so, yep, No More Racism!" If Charles Murray had just waited thirty years to publish The Bell Curve, he'd have his own show on Newsmax, instead of being largely forgotten.
A cruise ship goes down five miles from shore, and "Oops - no life boats!" but ONE long-distance swimmer made it to shore. "C'mon, what's the problem, THIS guy made it!"
I never thought of it that way.
So we're all good now?
Also, look at the examples: Gosh, all a Black person has to be is THE GREATEST GOLFER OF ALL TIME and they can succeed? Good to know!
Or in politics: Yes, just be one of the most charismatic public speakers in American political history and you too can be a Senator and maybe even President! Meanwhile, let's have a look at what's required for Average White Man to become a Senator: Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Ron Johnson (please.)
So noted: https://www.amazon.com/Mediocre-Dangerous-Legacy-White-America/dp/1580059511
Yeah. Nobody's talkin' bout all the undeserving palefaces who legacied their way into the upperest crust, thereby snagging slots that coulda gone to deserving others, both pale and otherwise.
I dunno. How large is the contingent that wants to embrace the racism? I can just as easily imagine a Bannon- Scott encounter where Bannon says [ as Rick White below alludes to ] "You gotta go there. Where? You gotta gotta use the n-word. " Roy often points-out that they [the magas] really, really wanna do it. Having a Black candidate do it frees them up .
You're beginning to worry me WM. I went to college in far out, liberal, radical Yellow Springs in the late 60s. It's still there, right?
It's still there.I lived there in 77 and 78 and then again in between 92 and 94. Antioch closed and then reopened as a watered-down version of its old self is my understanding. The town seems well on its way to becoming another nice place for rich white people a movement, strangely enough, led by Dave Chappelle.
When I moved from there in 94 the choice was buying the house I was living in there in town or moving out to the place where I live now which had much more land. I took the land. Last year the house where I was living in Yellow Springs and thought to buy but didn't sold for 15 times what I was going to pay for it. The house I bought instead where I live now is worth about a third of that.
I go to Glen Helen a couple of times a month. I've been doing that for 55 years.
Thanks for the update. I saw some pics on Wikipedia and it looked awfully crowded and they called it part of metropolitan Dayton. Seriously!?! My husband and I had a cozy little apartment on East Limestone Street and I guess we were hippies. We ended up in Northwest Washington (not in the Seattle metropolitan area) in a little seaside town Anacortes that has suffered much the same fate as YS. We tried to buy a house there but ended up on land several miles away with a manufactured home which has served us very well. Extend my greetings to Glen Helen the next time you are there.
They need to follow Fats Waller's advice. Do you know that Fats' grandson plays in the NFL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIqTX6SSRY
What I say!
Sad, but true! This is the current state of affairs we live, and the reason this nation is on the decline....:)
I blame the parents. Specifically, Fred and Mary Trump.
Hearted for taking up my cudgel...or is that my wont...
Crap.
Carry on, whatever...
And of course the one thing missing from all this is any semblance of an agenda or a vision for our future. Bannon and his ilk, have few qualms about destroying all of our institutions with nothing to replace it with, except a dystopian future, run by authoritarian fascists, incompetent fools. Can anyone say kakistocracy?
Ah, but "agenda or a vision for our future" would probably start with "The government should..." and that's a liberal thing. Oh, sure, they'll make an exception for "Build a wall", but aside from that, finishing that sentence with anything other than "die in a cleansing fire" marks you as liberal.
Don’t forget Reagan’s famous nine words from the dictionary everyone should fear? “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help!”
The conservative movement credo, and the reason why these people cling to Trump. They’ve always hated the federal government and have been trying to destroy it for generations.
I’m not sure when the movement started; probably with the Civil Rights Movement, but it definitely grew militant after Rubey Ridge and Waco.
These people are flamethrowers, and have no clue how bad things can get. They’re fighting about $5 gas, when most countries pay far more without inflationary times.
At least in Nazi Germany it took a humiliating War loss, 35% unemployment, the German Mark devalued to worthlessness, and 2000% inflation, to turn the country into a dystopian, authoritarian, fascist country, led by a sociopath.
What’s are excuse? Very few are starving, and their are always options for those who are. The economy is booming, Unemployment is at 3.5%. Wages are increasing and the deficit is almost $550 billion less than when Biden became president.
Yet, we’re on the precipice of losing democracy over abortion and some cultural differences? Go figure...:)
If gas is $4.50 a gallon next November, we get fascism. If it's $3.50 a gallon we get to keep some limited democracy for a little while longer. Seems reasonable.
Reasonable is a relative word these days, which includes alternative meanings...:)
When all ya got is 3 bucks then that fourth quart is but a distant dream.
For lack of a quart the nation was lost...
So true, and truly disturbing...:)
I think it started with FDR and the New Deal. They only really hate the federal government when it benefits "those people", who ever that is. Black Americans in particular, poor people in general, and assorted others as the definition of "white" changes.
Perhaps, but the New Deal benefitted all of the forgotten men. GI bill, home ownership with low rate loans, social security, etc. FDR’s policies brought us out of a depression and middle and rural America benefited greatly.
The original New Deal was specifically designed to exclude black people at the expense of white Southerners to get the White Southern Congressmen to vote for it. That was slowly rectified
The resentment has always been there. Forty years ago in farm country you’d see bumper stickers snarling “Don’t Cuss the Farmer With Your Mouth Full.” Were people actually demonizing farmers, the sturdy, virtuous yeomen of our Jeffersonian republic? Of course not, but there’s always aggrievement to be exploited, and the Republican Party turned itself into an aggrievement factory. Trump was just a better, cruder exploiter of it.
I *still* see "I Farm and I Vote" bumper stickers down here. The driver is inevitably a White man in a big, pristine pickup truck.
Of course in SD our Dems response was vote for us we're pro-business moderates
"Ha ha! 'Here to help', god, I love that. It's so true, government can't do ANYTHING right!
"Now where were we? Oh, yeah, increasing Pentagon spending, funding the police, and reinstating the death penalty."
Why are we approaching fascist meltdown when we're cruising along better than almost anywhere else ever in history? My personal theory: Our mythology. We are all raised to believe in America we can do and be anything. Why, anybody could grow up to be president! So when we amount to something average instead., even if average is pretty decent, it feels like failure. With no one to blame but yourself. Some of us then reassess reality and adjust. But too many start to get crazy, looking for new ways to be important.
And the algorithms of the past decade-plus are all too happy to help in that magical quest.
I've been thinking about this in a much smaller context: The Jacksonville shooter. What experiences did he have with Black people that could lead him to want to kill them all? And my guess is there were none, Black people just existed as an abstraction - a hated abstraction - in his mind.
It's like right after the 2016 election when so many in the media thought "Well, people must be suffering from some extreme privation that they would vote for such an extreme candidate." But the truth is that most Trump 2016 voters were doing fine, better than most, but they were also filled with a powerful rage at the idea of Hillary Clinton being President.
This idea that extreme actions must be a thing we're "driven to" by extreme real-world circumstances is just wrong. Mere ideas, mere words on the internet, are enough to make some people want to kill and die. We live in our heads, and we can be driven insane by the ideas that reside there.
Shorter: We need to think less about Germany in the 30's and more about Rwanda in the 90's where people we moved to murder their neighbors through the power of talk radio.
Noting how many of the January 6th rioters showed up on private planes and chartered (by Ginni Thomas) buses. Noting how many police officers were represented among the rioters (led by Seattle, which still has a consent decree for violating Black people's civil rights).
I think a lot of right-wingers, especially white Trump followers, -love- the government. It's just that they may not know it or acknowledge it. They love clean air and water, safe food and drugs, airplanes that don't crash and products that do what they're supposed to. They love their social security checks and their Medicare and their COVID loans. They love the government that cracks down on BLM protesters, and arrests and incarcerates millions of black and brown people. They love the government that bans abortions and confiscates books from libraries they don't like and fires gay teachers. And most of all, they love the government when it denies the rights of pretty much anyone that they don't think deserves to have any rights.
Well, there's a ton of them down in Florida and Georgia who are gonna be lovin' them some guvmint when the relief checks arrive. But the checks will arrive too late, won't be big enough, I heard THOSE people got checks even though they don't deserve 'em like WE do, etc. They'll find something to be angry about, because anger is now their permanent state.
We do some talking here about right-wing politics as it relates to abusive-spouse behavior, and I think this is like that. Sure, they like getting a hot dinner served up when they get home but that bitch better not get it on the table late or there'll be hell to pay.
"a dystopian future, run by authoritarian fascists, incompetent fools" -- THAT'S the vision.
It also looks like a future run by real estate developers.
The whole world a slum with islands of opulence seems to be the goal.
Sure, but think how much easier slumming will be!
Millions of MAGAs who are sure they'll be INSIDE the gates.
Could be, but remember we can martial a shit-ton more Border Guard Bills to keep 'em inside!
We don't need a vision for the future, because it's just the status quo - once we get rid of the troublemakers and their dangerous foreign philosophies. Everything's fine and perfect! We just need everyone in their proper place on the hierarchy, and all these "problems" will vanish.
Timothy Snyder refers to this in The Road To Unfreedom as "the politics of eternity"; our God-given system is eternally perfect and we must be ever vigilant against outsiders and alien concepts that will taint that perfection.
Fair enough, but good luck with that.
Excellent points though, I’m just not sure how doable it is with gerrymandered districts and a party that should be relegated to an insane asylum....:)
I'm saying that's the GOP plan - that's why they "have no policies", because policies don't need to be thought about. Everything's fine, everything's always been fine, everything always will be fine, as long as we remain pure and vigilant.
I agree, you’re preaching to the choir, except nothing is fine with them. The radical left agenda is destroying America. The economy is in the toilet, democrats are brain-washing our kids, gas is at $5, unemployment is 15%, 15’million jobs lost, crime is at a high.......grievance, grievance and complaining. That’s all these people know.
And they can even get their statistics and data straight.
You can't please people who are determined to be displeased. Like the jerk who sends the dish back to the kitchen because his steak isn't done to the EXACT degree of doneness that he asked for, it's a way to demonstrate your power over others, THEY have to please you, not the other way 'round.
America, they demand to speak to your Manager.
I'm feeling an affinity for the bump it/scum pit gambit. Close to my zone, at least.
But...
"prep school student gone to seed"
Say what you will about Bannon's vast greed
Or his parents' mistake when they went forth to breed (yeah, I blame them)
Ignore his misruling
Just focus on schooling
He's just a prep school student gone to seed
Book learnin'
A prep school student gone to seed
Law spurnin'
A prep school student gone to seed
Convicted
A prep school student gone to seed
Inflicted
A prep school student gone to seed
Give yourself 2 marks!
"Taken" is only a single vowel away from "token."
I just noticed that I'm only a single vowel away from "born". Must be my signal to hatch.
Or maybe time to start the conflagration...
Or to let the cows out...
I left that one lyin' there, figurin' somebody'd pick it up.
If anyone can figure a way to work the "i" then it'll be a straight flush!
We must think of the unbern.
And also Meredith Baxter Birney, although Wikipedia tells me it's just Meredith Baxter since the divorce.
Thinking good thoughts about Birney feels just a little bit too bro-y, no?
Tho I confess I still have my 'Feel The Bern' button.
Why did I think of her too? What’s wrong with us?
Because it's the most melodious name we've ever seen on TV credits? Just rolls off the tongue and right into your cerebral cortex, to stay.
Back in the day, Meredith Baxter Birney was a beautiful woman
born is one word away from born again
Yikes!
If I gotta climb up inside some forlorn* woman's lady bits just to get shot back out again I'll take a hard pass.
*word of the day
Hey, you know who's to blame for climate change? AFRICA. That's right, 20% of the world's population, 3% of our carbon emissions, those damn Africans. And that's what Tim Scott said at the debate, because that's he's for, and why they'll keep him around a while longer.
It's amazing how the legacy of five-star cranks like Robert Welch, Lew Rockwell and Pat "Make America First Again" Buchannan has been mainlined to Bannon, Trump and MAGA. Just shows there has always been a big American audience for racist signalling. And now, like many of the Birchers before them, they don't even feel the need hide it. If you told me in 1988 that this is where we'd be as a country in 2023, I wouldn't have fucking belived it. (Had to repost this b/c of my atrocious spelling.)
Fret not about spelling. I misspell for effect! Hasn't stped mi frum grtinz mu poynr akruzz...
I say this as a white person and therefore very possibly wrong, but I think Scott, like Obama, learned early in life that not getting and showing anger is the safest path for an ambitious Black man. Hence the hilarity of “Obama’s Anger Interpreter.” No doubt Scott’s would be similarly amusing along the lines of “These Ofays are dumb as shit whether they vote for me or not!”
Tim Scott: View From the Sunken Place
Let me rephrase- black unemployment in this country is sometimes as much as twice as high as white unemployment. It's always significantly higher (although it is getting better - thank you Joe Biden!) Reasonable people like you and me could look at that and think systemic racism prevents the black community from having the same employment opportunities as whites. Cletus C. Cracker sees the numbers and says "'Em coloreds is lazy"
Roger Rotary Club says
" I'd hire those people but they're never qualified and besides, since we moved to the suburbs off the bus line they never even bother to apply for the jobs. "
Used to be both of these people knew that what they were saying was racist as fuck. They would always look around before they said anything to make sure they had the right kind of audience.
Then we had a black president and some wag, probably at NRO, said
" We have a black president. This just proves that no way is this a racist country."
This took off - John Robert's says " You don't need voter rights laws If there's no racism !" his buddy Samuel Alito says" You got that right Johnny -There's no need for affirmative action in a country without racism!"
Clarence Thomas says " I got a white wife!"
Cleet says " I knew they're twert no racism - em coloreds is just lazy!"
Roger just nods his head.
They both don't bother to look around anymore to see who might be listening when they spout their crazy racist shit.
If you wanted to write a New York Times handwringer about "Gosh, why are we so divided?" you'd do well to start with the moment you identified. When every Republican in the country went, "Look Ma, no racism!" and then the rest of us, horrified by birtherism and their hysterical response to a moderate Democrat, thought, "Man has this country got itself some racism!" The roots of the two competing realities we live in today.
Shorter: How America took a moment in which we could all be justifiably proud and turned it to complete shit. This fucking country... [deep sigh AND head-shake]
Oof for the sigh 'n shake combo.
You want fries with that?
So much is about the ability to build generational wealth. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they got help from their parents, and faced no particular obstacles to going to school and getting a job. They didn’t plan for college for me and the siblings, but here’s the key part: when I turned 18, they didn’t need me to work to support the family. They had enough money of their own.
I think of the black soldiers coming home from WW2, and how their GI benefits were so difficult (and dangerous) to access, even if they were free to use them, which a lot of times they weren’t because their parents and grandparents and siblings *needed them to work* so they could eat and maybe not get evicted.
Bingo.
Also, just after WW2, the segregationist rioted and started their own 3rd Party because blacks were allowed to fully serve in the military
Oh, you can't be sure that's racism, maybe they just wanted the Nazis to win?
Kind of glad you're on our side.
America is a Goldilocks country, just enough racism so Nikki Haley and Tim Scott can inspire with their stories of overcoming, never enough to require us to actually do anything. Scott is 57, so the prejudices that he briefly mentions overcoming aren't from the era of Jim Crow and Lester Maddox, they're from the era of Newt Gingrich. But if we still have Republicans in 2050, you can bet that Black ones will inspire with their stories of overcoming racial prejudice back in the bad old days of 2023. So glad we've put those behind us and we're all equal NOW.
Hoo boy, Roy. Stirring the pot, as usual, and this one is a banger!
The Senator forgot "sagging pants".
I saw (well, heard) Vivek Reallysmarmy* on Vaush's YouTube yesterday, and, christ, if that creep even LOOKS like he's going to get the nomination, it'll be a struggle not to toss Joss in the car and book it for the Canadian border while I still can. His comments about "sense of purpose" and "unity" just scream "En Volk" in my head. I know everyone on the stage last week hated him and piled on, but that might just result in "controversial maverick" status. He scares the SHIT out of me.
*This is being racist, according to Vivek, because something something non-European name. The new iteration of "You hate Sarah Palin? Why do you hate women?"
You'll notice he's off the wagon
When his pants commence to saggin'
But Citizen Smarmy is a hoot and a wink/nod to the SAAAAEEEYY NO MMMOAHH! crowd. When madness seeps in, madmen creeps in...
A banger today, and so on the money it hurts to laugh. The, I don't know the proper word instead of "fear", maybe reluctance, avoidance of being called racist is the one hopeful sign I can glimpse out of our current mess. A proper white supremacist would relish being called a racist publicly, and frankly I'm surprised we don't see it more openly. But we don't, so far. There's a big lever there if we can get a hold if it.