The fact that Trump was re-elected by popular vote AFTER we all saw 1/6 is what makes me despair for our future more than anything else. Sure, Merrick Garland and a lot of other cowards are responsible for the fact Trump could even run again, but it was the voters who decided last November.
The only thing that gives me a ray of hope is the theory -- and I haven't seen any hard data to back this up gathered in one place, if anyone else has please let me know -- that 8-9 million voters didn't switch to Trump four years later. What mostly happened was too many voters in Democratic strongholds stayed home. And here we are. In a bizarre inversion, I fear it will be first time as farce, second time as tragedy.
I think your election analysis may be correct yeah. That lets not magas off the hook, of course. His Magasty still has the votes of those whose parents failed to provide a proper fetchins up (and y'all know who I blame.)
Strange how nobody even attempts to make the connection between years of concerted effort to suppress likely Dem voters and low voter turnout. I guess that would be right up there with criticizing Israel.
I saw a report that the dropoff in Dem votes was mostly in safely blue states like California and New York. People got the message that your vote doesn't count if you don't live in one of the only seven states that matter, and they took it to heart. And yeah, Republicans still turned out in Texas and Florida, I can't explain EVERYTHING.
This morning, in Washington DC, it has been snowing for hours, and continues. By noon today it might be pretty difficult to walk around downtown, the mall, the 'seat of power'...if the weather on January 6, 2021 had been like this, travel would have been severely curtailed and, instead of that dark somber, dry day, we might have dodged the hellscape that I watched unfold there.
Today I will try to get down there again, tho bicycling will not be feasible, but the Red Line Metro train is all underground thru that part of town and appears to be running this morning. If I do make it, I plan to tell anyone who will listen that the United States of America failed its citizens in the last 4 years. We've failed for much longer than that, but the defense of democracy itself was utterly enfeebled, and the result is the insurrectionists won by default.
So today, weep for an America that might be a better place if today's weather had hit in the early morning of January 6, 2021.
Thanks boss. Update is there’s lots more acreage fenced off today (nearest I could get was Louisiana Av for all a yinz with maps). A few cops were in gruff agreement that it was a shame this weather did not happen 4 years ago. Many slippery spots on sidewalks and roads. 4-5 inches snow so far. But it is warmer downtown today than yesterday.
Got me a ‘Mission-style burrito to go. Will report back with Max Derision when I sample it.
Cannot find it but somewhere in his ponderings about the collapse of American society at LGM, Paul Campos noted it's all LOL nothing matters.
But one fact that matters is that facts, truths and sanity no longer matters is exactly the foundation of our exceptional establishment, fascism-supporting news media and has been for decades. Actually, promoting BS has been SOP forever, 'Nam and Watergate being anomalous exceptions.
So "we" "know" what happened J6 and what it all means and stuff. BFD. Seriously. It leads to what in this environment? Clearly not to any effort by the state to ensure the instigator is banned from office, huh?
Related fun fact:
"No person shall... hold any office... under the United States... who, having previously taken an oath... as an officer of the United States... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." (14th Amendment, §3.)
No doubt the libs and lefties will have a huge protest outside the Capitol in support of Trump's disqualification for office under the Constitution -- with the full support of all Congressional Democrats.
Now that we see how supportive the media and Dems are, now maybe we can left at RWNJ bleatings. After all, their bullshit carries at least as much weight as facts and apparently more.
Maybe I'll go again today, tho I'm more likely to go down there on the 20th, if only to document the motorcade violating the bike lane law (as it did 8 years ago).
The stupid ones really believe. Any of them with any sense saw what was obviously happening and choose to publicly disbelieve it for their own awful cynical ends.
You know what I love about this place, (in addition to the free parking and the Taco Bar on Tuesday nights) we go along talking about one thing before you know it we're talking about Brecht.
" I never really got to hang of bowling until I bought that big ball underwear. I don't think I had a long enough stride until I started wearing them. I was kind of restricted."
" Well, you know what Brecht says -"
I decided I can't pay much attention to politics for a while- I would hate to find out I'm capable of even more hate than I feel already.
Ah yes, Insurrection Day. If you need a good dose of honest rage, I recommend today's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
I got to see the cartoon that got the Washington Post's political cartoonist fired. CEO's rendering obeisance to a giant Trump statue, including Bezos, which you know and I know was the problem with the cartoon. Saw a tiny version, but apparently the CEO's are named, all holding out big bags of cash. There was a tiny bit of color at the base of the statue, a figure prostrate before it. It turned out to be another "CEO", a certain Mouse of considerable fame.
This was a great cartoon, spot on. It is a shame we don't have a free country anymore - it deserved to be printed.
You are quite correct, and yes damn good on her. The editor said Bezos had nothing to do with it, journalistic freedom, blah, blah, blah, but that it was too repetitious. Funny how that rule doesn't apply to praising the Fuhrer.
That fucking shitstain editor actually said he spiked the cartoon because they’d already published some words about CEOs and Trump. Then he asked her to come back, as if he thought 1) she would believe him and 2) has as little self-respect as he has.
Was he one of the British imports from Murdoch's dying empire? That phone tapping scandal freed up a lot of "talent". I know some folks at the Post were imported by that jackass Bezos.
That's him. Will Lewis. Foreman of the phone-hacking factory that was the Torygraph and someone who went to work for Murdoch immediately afterwards. (He still owes Harry Sussex money.)
And there have now been several other cartoonists who have published their rendition of her cartoon in tribute to her. I applaud the kind of "resistance" that is simply giving the middle finger to the oligarch class and saying "I won't submit."
Maybe we're overestimating the influence of the Prestige Press generally? The Post and Times aren't read by people who are politically persuadable, they're read by people who are already engaged by politics which means they've already picked a team and will vote the same way til they die.
"Democracy Dies In Darkness (Terms And Restrictions Apply)."
Also we were in the midst of a horrible plague that the selfsame media has essentially written out of existence, even as it continues to kill people. Now, with both bird flu and norovirus ready to stalk the land. . . .
I remember signing up for my first WaPo subscription just days after the 2016 election. I was helping to support the "resistance" you see. God, I feel so ashamed of 2016 Steve, what a fool that guy was.
Stuart Carlson, former cartoonist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (back when they had them,) used to say the thing that would get a cartoon spiked wasn't "This will offend the powerful," or "This will offend the public." It was "We can't print that! I play golf with that guy!"
Thank heaven for The Guardian. I know British folk in general believe Americans have lost their so-called "minds", and as I recall Trump will be arrested if he sets foot in England. They ain't about to kiss that orange ass.
Bezos is just following Musk's template for Twitter, turning the Post into a propaganda rag, which is worth more than the pocket change he's going to lose in subscriptions and (possibly) advertising.
"Pull your heads out of Trump's ass," we said. That was the gist of it.
I'm torn, because I don't want everybody to suffer, but there's a possibility that Trump will fuck things up so spectacularly that a big region of ass-benighted citizens will break off and fall into the ocean of truth. It is frightening to think what it would take.
We have seen, here and there, how those changes occur. Most are catalyzed less by principle than by personal setbacks. We don't hear about most of them. We got the stories of former cabinet members, the Cheneys, and so on. To an overwhelming degree, Trump's spell was proof against sensibility and honor. The heads stayed proudly up his dirty ass, rhetorically twisting this way and that.
I don't dare hope for terrible costs to provoke a mass defection from MAGA, because we've seen how they are. They will bury their friends and family members before admitting that nationwide COVID vaccination was a good idea. This is just one example out of many. God help us, because we don't seem to be able to help ourselves.
The hope that these fucking people might see the light and realize they fucked up is what birthed a thousand "Let's check in with Trump voters and see how they're feeling now" articles, 2017-2021. Which means basically a thousand "Trump voters still support Trump" articles. So here's an idea: Let's NOT check in with Trump voters and see how they're feeling now. Or ever.
I think about this, too--when things deteriorate to the point where MAGA experiences it, will they notice? Trump, of course, will tell them whom to blame. And I think they'll believe him. One countervailing thing to at least mitigate that would be if the Dems TELL them it's bullshit. But they have to do it in words of one syllable, with passion, over and over, everywhere (i.e., how Repubs spread their lies). Pissed-off MAGAts will be more emotional than ever. You won't reach them just with facts.
This. I think perhaps the major change that needs to occur is in both the medium and frequency of Dem messaging. As others have said, we need our own Joe Rogan (yech) who can disguise politics as entertainment in the simplest possible terms. And then hammer it almost every fucking day.
Of course, this relies on the Dems being capable of forward thinking and being open to adapting to today's media environment. Since the average age of Dem leadership as well as that of their leading consultants hovers around 80, I'm not as hopeful as I'd like to be.
It also involves Dem leadership growing spines and taking the fight to MAGA. I'm even less hopeful of that.
I just finished Flaubert’s Salammbo. Early on there’s a part where the mercenaries are marching through North Africa and [spoiler alert] they come across a long row of crucified lions, dying and rotting in the sun.
The locals, it seems, take vengeance on any lion they can catch, their sadism justified by the idea that the other lions will think twice about causing trouble.
Which I guess is only relevant because it’s depressing, disgusting, and all too human.
My guess is that there are now about 8 million people who just reflexively vote against whichever party holds the White House because they're just generally pissed off (often with good reason) and can't be bothered to understand WHY things suck, so it's "Throw the bums out! Time for a change!" for them, every damn election. Trump benefited from these people in 2016, then was hurt by them in 2020 when he was the status-quo choice, then helped again in 2024, so short are the memories of these inattentive, confused people, the only voters who matter.
It's like the people I heard/read about who said they couldn't vote for Biden (or his substitute Harris) because "he did away with Roe!" Oyyy... Low information voters? More like *no* information voters. The people who start paying attention to the election roughly the day of the election.
I will always applaud a reminder of the core beliefs of our Republican party, but there's always an undercurrent of expectation, that Somebody is supposed to be Doing Something they're not, and that's why we're in So Much Trouble. Mueller, Garland, Old White Joe, the media, the Democrats, anybody but We The People, as Ma Joad called us. We The People chose Trump, or stayed home becsuse it was too much trouble and LOL nothing matters anyway. We The People are going to get the government we deserve, good and hard, like it or lump it. "We're all in this together" is supposed to be uplifting and inspirational, but its also a threat.
I’m afraid we’ve entered the post-Insurrection era where two competing versions will vie for the attention of future historians. I won’t be around to see if, in 2090, we get the the “fascists succeeded in wrecking the country but…” or “our country is a better place thanks to Trump.” You know, the “War to End Slavery” vs the “War for States Rights” competition playing out in textbooks across the land today.
Yeah I’ve pondered that too. Leaving indelible histories lying about to(it is to be hoped) be found some century ahead is one way to compete but doesn’t do much good for us here today, does it…?
We have a template for this, it's the early 1920's. White massacres of Black communities, Klan marches in the tens of thousands, mass hysteria about immigration (Italian Anarchists!) And we mostly just memory-holed all of it, in favor of stories about flappers and Capone. We can get started now on imagining what pop-culture phenomena will replace Donald Trump in the public memory: "Ah, yes, the 2020s, when Dua Lipa and eating Tide Pods gripped the public's imagination!"
How could I forget Prohibition? What does anyone think of that today, if they think of it at all? A powerful warning against the dangers of letting religious fanatics run your government? Nah, how 'bout them speakeasies, huh?
I had mentioned here before that I real "Whatever It Is I'm Against It" https://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/ every morning. He has stories from the NYT a hundred years ago to the day. Todays first story was about how the Liberal Party in Italy had split, after being thrown out of Mussolini's cabinet to make room for only fascists. Part of them wanted to continue to support him and some wanted to go into opposition.
Ahhh, FUCK, I fucking HATE it when I tap outside the text box and my entire rant vanishes.
Basically these assholes have made J6 into whatever the hell they WANT it to be at the moment. Clown Hall can go fuck itself with accusations about the "left's attempts to rewrite history" when their side has gutted history like a trout.
Dad and I watched Donnie's Insurrection Show in the morning and it was a lie filled hate fest: why no journalists haven't done a complete coverage of the bullshit and phony claims remains a puzzler.
And anyone with half a brain tied behind their back knew the far right/MAGAt would try something.
Dad, to be sure, was dying at 94: christmas had been a terrible strain: but seeing the riot started his immediate decline.He rolled over and said: "this will kill this country": and cried.. he gave up. The first stoke was less than six weeks later...
The MAGA brother who argued with Dad tRump was just joking about "injecting disinfectant and very powerful light" at Christmas that year was arguing after the damn funeral the rioters "were guided by Antifa and the FBI."
Oh I sure saw it, and most people that might comment on this article probably did too.
However one of my acquintances didn't know that Donald tried to lynch Pence and was glad that I informed them of it. This was after this recent 2024 election. They aren't the only one who didn't know that, either.
The idea that "we all saw what happened" is not true, but many who write about politics nowdays can't seem to imagine it. Interesting...
"Four" years ago today though
Whoops right, thanks!
The fact that Trump was re-elected by popular vote AFTER we all saw 1/6 is what makes me despair for our future more than anything else. Sure, Merrick Garland and a lot of other cowards are responsible for the fact Trump could even run again, but it was the voters who decided last November.
The only thing that gives me a ray of hope is the theory -- and I haven't seen any hard data to back this up gathered in one place, if anyone else has please let me know -- that 8-9 million voters didn't switch to Trump four years later. What mostly happened was too many voters in Democratic strongholds stayed home. And here we are. In a bizarre inversion, I fear it will be first time as farce, second time as tragedy.
I think your election analysis may be correct yeah. That lets not magas off the hook, of course. His Magasty still has the votes of those whose parents failed to provide a proper fetchins up (and y'all know who I blame.)
Strange how nobody even attempts to make the connection between years of concerted effort to suppress likely Dem voters and low voter turnout. I guess that would be right up there with criticizing Israel.
I saw a report that the dropoff in Dem votes was mostly in safely blue states like California and New York. People got the message that your vote doesn't count if you don't live in one of the only seven states that matter, and they took it to heart. And yeah, Republicans still turned out in Texas and Florida, I can't explain EVERYTHING.
Reps in those states can’t do the math?
WHY NOT ISN'T THAT YOUR JOB (lol)
I believe it also happened in Milwaukee and other large blue cities in swing states.
Weather, reportedly:
This morning, in Washington DC, it has been snowing for hours, and continues. By noon today it might be pretty difficult to walk around downtown, the mall, the 'seat of power'...if the weather on January 6, 2021 had been like this, travel would have been severely curtailed and, instead of that dark somber, dry day, we might have dodged the hellscape that I watched unfold there.
Today I will try to get down there again, tho bicycling will not be feasible, but the Red Line Metro train is all underground thru that part of town and appears to be running this morning. If I do make it, I plan to tell anyone who will listen that the United States of America failed its citizens in the last 4 years. We've failed for much longer than that, but the defense of democracy itself was utterly enfeebled, and the result is the insurrectionists won by default.
So today, weep for an America that might be a better place if today's weather had hit in the early morning of January 6, 2021.
Thank you for your service
Thanks boss. Update is there’s lots more acreage fenced off today (nearest I could get was Louisiana Av for all a yinz with maps). A few cops were in gruff agreement that it was a shame this weather did not happen 4 years ago. Many slippery spots on sidewalks and roads. 4-5 inches snow so far. But it is warmer downtown today than yesterday.
Got me a ‘Mission-style burrito to go. Will report back with Max Derision when I sample it.
Why does God hate us?
Cannot find it but somewhere in his ponderings about the collapse of American society at LGM, Paul Campos noted it's all LOL nothing matters.
But one fact that matters is that facts, truths and sanity no longer matters is exactly the foundation of our exceptional establishment, fascism-supporting news media and has been for decades. Actually, promoting BS has been SOP forever, 'Nam and Watergate being anomalous exceptions.
So "we" "know" what happened J6 and what it all means and stuff. BFD. Seriously. It leads to what in this environment? Clearly not to any effort by the state to ensure the instigator is banned from office, huh?
Related fun fact:
"No person shall... hold any office... under the United States... who, having previously taken an oath... as an officer of the United States... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." (14th Amendment, §3.)
No doubt the libs and lefties will have a huge protest outside the Capitol in support of Trump's disqualification for office under the Constitution -- with the full support of all Congressional Democrats.
Now that we see how supportive the media and Dems are, now maybe we can left at RWNJ bleatings. After all, their bullshit carries at least as much weight as facts and apparently more.
Saaay, that IS a Fun Fact!
Maybe I'll go again today, tho I'm more likely to go down there on the 20th, if only to document the motorcade violating the bike lane law (as it did 8 years ago).
REVOLUTION NOW!!!
The Spoked Wheels Must Revolve!
Not just ONE revolution, but MANY per minute!
I saw 'bold outright' as...well, you know who...
and thought "Holy Cow! Bolt hits the Big Time!"
The stupid ones really believe. Any of them with any sense saw what was obviously happening and choose to publicly disbelieve it for their own awful cynical ends.
You know what I love about this place, (in addition to the free parking and the Taco Bar on Tuesday nights) we go along talking about one thing before you know it we're talking about Brecht.
" I never really got to hang of bowling until I bought that big ball underwear. I don't think I had a long enough stride until I started wearing them. I was kind of restricted."
" Well, you know what Brecht says -"
I decided I can't pay much attention to politics for a while- I would hate to find out I'm capable of even more hate than I feel already.
I'm going to imagine there's a symposium of Brecht scholars where they meet over coffee, bacon and eggs and it's called Brecht Fest.
In New Orleans in February
https://www.brechtfest.com
Ah yes, Insurrection Day. If you need a good dose of honest rage, I recommend today's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
I got to see the cartoon that got the Washington Post's political cartoonist fired. CEO's rendering obeisance to a giant Trump statue, including Bezos, which you know and I know was the problem with the cartoon. Saw a tiny version, but apparently the CEO's are named, all holding out big bags of cash. There was a tiny bit of color at the base of the statue, a figure prostrate before it. It turned out to be another "CEO", a certain Mouse of considerable fame.
This was a great cartoon, spot on. It is a shame we don't have a free country anymore - it deserved to be printed.
I believe the cartoonist quit, not fired, after the cartoon was quashed by management. Good for her.
You are quite correct, and yes damn good on her. The editor said Bezos had nothing to do with it, journalistic freedom, blah, blah, blah, but that it was too repetitious. Funny how that rule doesn't apply to praising the Fuhrer.
That fucking shitstain editor actually said he spiked the cartoon because they’d already published some words about CEOs and Trump. Then he asked her to come back, as if he thought 1) she would believe him and 2) has as little self-respect as he has.
Was he one of the British imports from Murdoch's dying empire? That phone tapping scandal freed up a lot of "talent". I know some folks at the Post were imported by that jackass Bezos.
That's him. Will Lewis. Foreman of the phone-hacking factory that was the Torygraph and someone who went to work for Murdoch immediately afterwards. (He still owes Harry Sussex money.)
And there have now been several other cartoonists who have published their rendition of her cartoon in tribute to her. I applaud the kind of "resistance" that is simply giving the middle finger to the oligarch class and saying "I won't submit."
Sadly, my complete lack of artistic talent means the world will be deprived of a cartoon of the WaPo editor licking Tubby's asshole.
There's AI for that, ya know. Unless AI is censored from doing that, which is possible.
Possible? Should have said all but certain:
https://flic.kr/p/2qDYYdm
That is just perfect.
Case in point: https://www.trouw.nl/cartoons/tjeerd-royaards~bcb45712/
You could reprise Stick Figure Cinema
Unfortunately, cartoonists publishing cartoons will have the same effect as Nancy Pelosi's zingers. Absolutely nada.
Maybe we're overestimating the influence of the Prestige Press generally? The Post and Times aren't read by people who are politically persuadable, they're read by people who are already engaged by politics which means they've already picked a team and will vote the same way til they die.
Almost all the news that makes it on social media started in the Prestige Press
True.
"Democracy Dies In Darkness (Terms And Restrictions Apply)."
Also we were in the midst of a horrible plague that the selfsame media has essentially written out of existence, even as it continues to kill people. Now, with both bird flu and norovirus ready to stalk the land. . . .
Right on, brother!
"Democracy Dies In Darkness (because it is dark where we have our heads inserted)"
I remember signing up for my first WaPo subscription just days after the 2016 election. I was helping to support the "resistance" you see. God, I feel so ashamed of 2016 Steve, what a fool that guy was.
Stuart Carlson, former cartoonist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (back when they had them,) used to say the thing that would get a cartoon spiked wasn't "This will offend the powerful," or "This will offend the public." It was "We can't print that! I play golf with that guy!"
Now that is some insight right there. Bwahahahahaha.
The Post dies, in the pages of other, better newspapers:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jan/06/washington-post-layoffs
Thank heaven for The Guardian. I know British folk in general believe Americans have lost their so-called "minds", and as I recall Trump will be arrested if he sets foot in England. They ain't about to kiss that orange ass.
Bezos is just following Musk's template for Twitter, turning the Post into a propaganda rag, which is worth more than the pocket change he's going to lose in subscriptions and (possibly) advertising.
"I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!" says Walter P. Thatcher, contemptuously.
What the heck is going on with your Supreme Court down there in Our Kansas?
"Pull your heads out of Trump's ass," we said. That was the gist of it.
I'm torn, because I don't want everybody to suffer, but there's a possibility that Trump will fuck things up so spectacularly that a big region of ass-benighted citizens will break off and fall into the ocean of truth. It is frightening to think what it would take.
We have seen, here and there, how those changes occur. Most are catalyzed less by principle than by personal setbacks. We don't hear about most of them. We got the stories of former cabinet members, the Cheneys, and so on. To an overwhelming degree, Trump's spell was proof against sensibility and honor. The heads stayed proudly up his dirty ass, rhetorically twisting this way and that.
I don't dare hope for terrible costs to provoke a mass defection from MAGA, because we've seen how they are. They will bury their friends and family members before admitting that nationwide COVID vaccination was a good idea. This is just one example out of many. God help us, because we don't seem to be able to help ourselves.
The hope that these fucking people might see the light and realize they fucked up is what birthed a thousand "Let's check in with Trump voters and see how they're feeling now" articles, 2017-2021. Which means basically a thousand "Trump voters still support Trump" articles. So here's an idea: Let's NOT check in with Trump voters and see how they're feeling now. Or ever.
I’m not gonna check in. We’ll either see stuff or we won’t
I think about this, too--when things deteriorate to the point where MAGA experiences it, will they notice? Trump, of course, will tell them whom to blame. And I think they'll believe him. One countervailing thing to at least mitigate that would be if the Dems TELL them it's bullshit. But they have to do it in words of one syllable, with passion, over and over, everywhere (i.e., how Repubs spread their lies). Pissed-off MAGAts will be more emotional than ever. You won't reach them just with facts.
This. I think perhaps the major change that needs to occur is in both the medium and frequency of Dem messaging. As others have said, we need our own Joe Rogan (yech) who can disguise politics as entertainment in the simplest possible terms. And then hammer it almost every fucking day.
Of course, this relies on the Dems being capable of forward thinking and being open to adapting to today's media environment. Since the average age of Dem leadership as well as that of their leading consultants hovers around 80, I'm not as hopeful as I'd like to be.
It also involves Dem leadership growing spines and taking the fight to MAGA. I'm even less hopeful of that.
History teaches us that scapegoating can just metastasize as problems compound. Very scary.
I am in the strange position of hoping that the next four years go passably well. But if they do, people may beg for the end of the republic.
What would “passably well” mean, though? A good economy but Handmaid’s Tale?…
After SS and Medicare are slashed and Granny's meds are too expensive, boy oh boy trans people are gonna have to PAY.
I just finished Flaubert’s Salammbo. Early on there’s a part where the mercenaries are marching through North Africa and [spoiler alert] they come across a long row of crucified lions, dying and rotting in the sun.
The locals, it seems, take vengeance on any lion they can catch, their sadism justified by the idea that the other lions will think twice about causing trouble.
Which I guess is only relevant because it’s depressing, disgusting, and all too human.
Next time I see some guy claiming to be tough and badass, I'm gonna ask, "Yeah? How many lions you crucified?"
My guess is that there are now about 8 million people who just reflexively vote against whichever party holds the White House because they're just generally pissed off (often with good reason) and can't be bothered to understand WHY things suck, so it's "Throw the bums out! Time for a change!" for them, every damn election. Trump benefited from these people in 2016, then was hurt by them in 2020 when he was the status-quo choice, then helped again in 2024, so short are the memories of these inattentive, confused people, the only voters who matter.
It's like the people I heard/read about who said they couldn't vote for Biden (or his substitute Harris) because "he did away with Roe!" Oyyy... Low information voters? More like *no* information voters. The people who start paying attention to the election roughly the day of the election.
I will always applaud a reminder of the core beliefs of our Republican party, but there's always an undercurrent of expectation, that Somebody is supposed to be Doing Something they're not, and that's why we're in So Much Trouble. Mueller, Garland, Old White Joe, the media, the Democrats, anybody but We The People, as Ma Joad called us. We The People chose Trump, or stayed home becsuse it was too much trouble and LOL nothing matters anyway. We The People are going to get the government we deserve, good and hard, like it or lump it. "We're all in this together" is supposed to be uplifting and inspirational, but its also a threat.
At least we're not Commie. That counts for something, doesn't it?
I’m afraid we’ve entered the post-Insurrection era where two competing versions will vie for the attention of future historians. I won’t be around to see if, in 2090, we get the the “fascists succeeded in wrecking the country but…” or “our country is a better place thanks to Trump.” You know, the “War to End Slavery” vs the “War for States Rights” competition playing out in textbooks across the land today.
Yeah I’ve pondered that too. Leaving indelible histories lying about to(it is to be hoped) be found some century ahead is one way to compete but doesn’t do much good for us here today, does it…?
We have a template for this, it's the early 1920's. White massacres of Black communities, Klan marches in the tens of thousands, mass hysteria about immigration (Italian Anarchists!) And we mostly just memory-holed all of it, in favor of stories about flappers and Capone. We can get started now on imagining what pop-culture phenomena will replace Donald Trump in the public memory: "Ah, yes, the 2020s, when Dua Lipa and eating Tide Pods gripped the public's imagination!"
How could I forget Prohibition? What does anyone think of that today, if they think of it at all? A powerful warning against the dangers of letting religious fanatics run your government? Nah, how 'bout them speakeasies, huh?
Tide Pods are the goldfish of our era
I had mentioned here before that I real "Whatever It Is I'm Against It" https://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/ every morning. He has stories from the NYT a hundred years ago to the day. Todays first story was about how the Liberal Party in Italy had split, after being thrown out of Mussolini's cabinet to make room for only fascists. Part of them wanted to continue to support him and some wanted to go into opposition.
Is there nothing new under the sun?
Well, on June 10th he'll be able to report the assassination of Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti by Mussolini's Blackshirts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Matteotti
That's old news. Already reported, it's last (100) year.
that just means no editorial comics about it
I am getting hives reading this.
Ahhh, FUCK, I fucking HATE it when I tap outside the text box and my entire rant vanishes.
Basically these assholes have made J6 into whatever the hell they WANT it to be at the moment. Clown Hall can go fuck itself with accusations about the "left's attempts to rewrite history" when their side has gutted history like a trout.
Dad and I watched Donnie's Insurrection Show in the morning and it was a lie filled hate fest: why no journalists haven't done a complete coverage of the bullshit and phony claims remains a puzzler.
And anyone with half a brain tied behind their back knew the far right/MAGAt would try something.
Dad, to be sure, was dying at 94: christmas had been a terrible strain: but seeing the riot started his immediate decline.He rolled over and said: "this will kill this country": and cried.. he gave up. The first stoke was less than six weeks later...
The MAGA brother who argued with Dad tRump was just joking about "injecting disinfectant and very powerful light" at Christmas that year was arguing after the damn funeral the rioters "were guided by Antifa and the FBI."
We don't speak much.
Oh I sure saw it, and most people that might comment on this article probably did too.
However one of my acquintances didn't know that Donald tried to lynch Pence and was glad that I informed them of it. This was after this recent 2024 election. They aren't the only one who didn't know that, either.
The idea that "we all saw what happened" is not true, but many who write about politics nowdays can't seem to imagine it. Interesting...