What turned out to be a very damaging decision was the insistence to only start counting the mailed-in ballots on the day of the election. As a consequence the illusion was created that Trump was winning. If the mailed-in results would have been released the moment the polls closed it would have been crystal clear Trump had lost.
Why do the D's keep running softball ads? Here is Mandela Barnes walking through the grocery store being an everyman talking about food prices. Here is Mandela Barnes making a peanut butter sandwich and being relatable as a nice ordinary guy who cares.
I wrote to the campaign last night asking this very question. Johnson has an endless well of highly attackable behavior, content and stupidity caught on video to draw from and they barely use it.
Johnson will be re-elected and it will be for one reason:
DEMOCRATS BROUGHT A FUCKING GALLON OF MILK TO A GUNFIGHT.
You know, if Trump truly believed the garbage he is spewing, he'd be chomping at the bit to testify and PROVE that he's right, and everyone else is wrong. The fact that he isn't is more proof that he doesn't believe his BS.
Trump and his followers (it is a cult) just keep repeating the lies in the (realized, to some extent) hope that they will be believed and become reality. I am so angry at my fellow Americans. Strength means lying and cheating and taking what you want even when you lost? F**k you. Enough. JVL had a brief piece today titled "What I want." Well, it's what I want too. Competence. Integrity. Honesty. Compromise dammit! This winner take all ethos is poison. Wake up everybody!
Great post. Recently I had one of my friends tell me that the whole Trump/GOP situation is a "God thing". It was really disappointing because it was the culmination of his reasoning for why he didn't think he needed to watch the 1/6 hearings.
Trump is the embodiment of the GOP cult that started long ago. He tells them what they want to hear...and they oblige by not bothering to listen to anything else that might not conform to their preconceived notions.
Thank you, Charlie, for highlighting Liz Cheney's warning. I thought her opening statement was one of the most powerful and moving moments of yesterday's hearing. Because so much of the Committee's presentation was new and compelling, Cheney's words have not gotten the attention they deserve. I hope we will hear a lot more from her between now and Nov. 2024.
The disgusting and sad thing is that more than 40% of the electorate would still vote for Trump and his obvious enablers and fellow travelers despite the preponderance of evidence--because they WANT that.
I am re-reading Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951). He points out things learned understood after the experience with the mass movements of the 30s/40s that we have forgotten or are choosing to ignore.
"Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and maintain the status quo. On the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring."
"No faith is important unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millennial component. So, too, an effective doctrine: was well as being a source of power, it must also claim to be a key to the book of the future."
"Those who would transform a nation or the world cannot do so by breeding and captaining discontent or by demonstrating the reasonableness and desirability of the intended changes or by coercing people into a new way of life. They must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope."
Talking about the technical aspects of governing or policy is not doing that... which is why the Democrats have a hard time. Hope worked for Obama, but that hope was essentially betrayed and only really resided in Obama, not in people like HC.
What gives MAGA an amount of strength is its alliance with evangelicalism. Democrats have no such alliance. One of the things that made Civil Rights work was its alliance with religion and its use of religious language, imagery and a sense of hope.
King's I have a Dream speech is a MASTERWORK of that. King's background as a preacher was crucial.
MAGA will ultimately fail (after doing a huge amount of damage (and even holding power) precisely because it offers no real hope or change. It will trash this country for generations in the process.
Because the Democrats sometimes talk about change but do not deliver, is a reason why they cannot build a permanent strong movement. Hope collapses in the face of the inertia and BS of government in our system.
Ironically, Eric Hoffer has been well regarded among conservatives -- or at least the old style of conservatives -- as someone who offered insight into why otherwise intelligent people could fall for Soviet or Maoist propaganda about a Workers' Paradise where perfect equality and harmony reigned, and why some of them made excuses for the most vicious repression if it was done by a "People's Republic" in the name of radical egalitarianism.
Now, some of those same conservatives have fallen in with the MAGA movement, convincing themselves that they are truly on the side of "the people" against the sinister forces of corruption known as the Deep State -- corresponding to the "capitalist establishment" that leftist revolutionaries aimed to bring down. In fact, "establishment" and even "corporate" are now terms of opprobrium among the MAGA right -- even while they applaud Trump's corporate tax cuts as a great patriotic achievement. And the notion of a revolution against the "corrupt establishment" can be heard even among MAGA thought leaders. Perhaps they should reacquaint themselves with Hoffer.
Popular movements are popular movements and are not unique to a particular ideology or identity... but we often do not see what is right in front of our very eyes, when it applies to ourselves--or we see it and remain silent, because (some BS reason).
As a matter of course, I generally refrain from certain language when posting comments. However, on occasion, certain words are exactly what's called for to cut through to the heart of the matter in the presence of grown-ups. To wit:
Elon Musk is not a genius. He's not a visionary. I don't think, in reality, he's even all that smart. What Elon Musk is, at his very core, is a fucking asshole of the first order. And apparently a rather thin-skinned one. Worse, he's a sphincter possessing wealth of the first order, and the concomitant power and influence of same. And we are now privy to watching what happens when such a man with his head firmly planted between his butt cheeks sees a chance to profit rather than do something of service for a country friendly to our own and now under attack and fighting for its life.
Would Musk just be "following" that perhaps unwise "recommendation" if he thought he himself had something serious to lose if that were to be the fate of Ukraine? I expect if that were the case, he'd be among the loudest voices calling for our country to "do more".
In light of Musk's willingness to aid and abet many of the forces arrayed against liberal democracy and, in fact, our country itself, I see the distinction between him and the now perhaps most infamous and notorious rectum to walk upright on two legs during my lifetime fading fast, the biggest one of which seems simply to be the size of their bank accounts. Other than that, they pretty much smell the same. And unless or until we, as a society, find an effective way to tell people such as this to *fuck off* when their actions rooted in self-interest jeopardize the welfare of our society and country, to paraphrase a popular Country song from not long ago, there ain't gonna' be enough Charmin in the world to clean up their mess. Double quilted or not.
Perhaps I should apologize for all the scatological references. Not my intention to offend anyone. Sometimes you've just got to call 'em the way you smell 'em. And Elon, like Donald, stinks to high heaven.
Likewise, Eva. Sometimes the highfalutin stuff just doesn't seem to do the job. I just try to be careful how, when and where I use the less highfalutin stuff and try to guard against going overboard with it. :-D !!
Agree. A couple of the most effective verbal 'take downs' I ever heard were from a guy I knew a long time ago who could leave you feeling like you'd been called every F-bomb-related name in the book while never even uttering so much as a 'damn'. Like Eva says here, that requires *intelligence*, and I've often wished I were that damned *smart*. :-D
Well, thank you, TC. Appreciate it. Try to handle 'language' that way. Not always successful. I don't figure I need to prove to anyone that I know how to "cuss". (I do.) And as I noted to you recently, I'm not a prude about language. It's just that if I'm provoked into the outright 'cussing stage', where I can hurl megaton rated F-bombs and such pretty much with the best of 'em, all you're gonna' get is a lot of ugly heat and not much light, if any. And I have precious little enough of that to shed to begin with! ;-)
Sad part about the RonJon part is that not very many actually laughed and there were a few cheers. The reality is that he should have been laughed off the stage.
There’s a contest between Trump and his MAGA base for most despicable. Trump makes stuff up and lies. Does his base actually believe Trumps delusional conspiracy claims or are they following their Orange Jesus of sedition? And Merrick Garland has yet to indict allowing Trump to incite more sedition and violence.
I've been interacting with Fox viewers for 6 years and regarding what they believe...and based on my experience...it seems like the appropriate answer is all of the above.
I've interacted with the acolytes who think that Trump was the greatest POTUS ever...or the ones who say stuff like they don't like his tweets BUT....and then the worst ones who are obviously intelligent people but simply avoid the truth by staying on conservative media sites and have convinced themselves that the Left/Dems are always a worse choice. It's a real fait accompli situation for most of them...and they simply morph or ignore the facts in order to continue to support the GOP & Trump.
You know, I've been romanticizing the past recently. Must be reaching a certain age.
Thing is, I catch myself doing it and remind myself that it wasn't so rosy as my mind is making it out to be. I'm not sure why I can do that and so many others can't. I don't know if it is because I'm more rational / skeptical or because I've seen people doing it my whole life (just like everyone else has) and have learned to reject that thinking.
Or maybe it is a generational thing. Maybe those who are old enough to remember the 50's fondly didn't grow up with their parents and grandparents looking back through rose colored glasses at the teens and 30's.
No, I get what you mean. My point was that if a person grew up in the white 50's not only do you have all the nostalgia effects that everyone else would typically have, but your parents and grandparents probably didn't. So no rolling your eyes when they waxed poetic about the 30's to help provide some perspective. In fact, probably the reverse. All you got was real stories about how bad the 30's were. Fast forward to now, and no wonder so many think the 50's were so great and don't have the perspective to know that being nostalgic about the past is normal.
The issue of ignoring the bad of the 50's for others is sadly too common, but also likely too human. As I look back at the 70's and 80's my mind doesn't automatically go to how much worse they were than things today for women, minorities, LGBTQ, etc. I have to make a small effort to remind myself. My lament is that so many either can't or don't take that mental effort.
"The committee’s credibility has suffered without GOP cross-examination of the witnesses."
BULL FUCKING SHIT. Kevin McCarthy had *every* opportunity to install at least five GOP members on the committee, but threw a childish hissyfit-tantrum, grabbed his ball, and went home. And apparently Cheney and Kinzinger no longer count as "true" GOP in the eyes of the WSJ editorial-board, going by this?
We all know that GOP cross-examination would have included: grandstanding, obfuscation, delays, goalpost moving, and whataboutisms. A true ascertaining of the facts is the last thing the GOP wants.
Of course they would. But Josh is correct about Kevin's hissy fit. Some GOPers, even trump, have alluded to the cost of that misguided decision. But instead of treating him like Cheney, they unsurprisingly chose to elevate the lie that it is a PARTISAN witch hunt. Even now.
His temper tantrum did produce possibly the best congressional investigation in history, however.
They would have put on a typical sideshow that would have gotten all the media attention because, sadly, media wants the money clicks more than they want to serve democracy.
GAWD....yes...it would have been a circus. We would have been hearing about the gas prices, inflation, the border, etc. every single time one of them spoke.
2. They can have cross examination in court if they need it (as the many already charged with seditious conspiracy have already found out).
3. If he'd show up, I'd bet the committee would consider cross examination for the guy accused of plotting against the United States (though I'm not sure how much cross there is after taking the 5th hundreds of times).
Re: Musk. One person should not have this much power, no matter the motivation. If he were to try something comparable during a declared war, the Government would be in its rights to seize the relevant assets. I suppose this is not possible when one person has the resources to undermine an official foreign policy. An example of the danger of allowing such concentrated power to operate outside of orderly processes of consensus and joint action, which are essential to liberal democracies. This just demonstrates again a fundamental flaw in libertarian ideology a la Ayn Rand
RE: Fat Donnie's (latest,) perfidy.
No, the general electorate probably doesn't care, but HISTORY will-- and that's our consolation.
What turned out to be a very damaging decision was the insistence to only start counting the mailed-in ballots on the day of the election. As a consequence the illusion was created that Trump was winning. If the mailed-in results would have been released the moment the polls closed it would have been crystal clear Trump had lost.
Thank you Charlie.
Someone needs to do a deep dive into what the criteria are to be accepted into the Secret Service. Very important.
Why do the D's keep running softball ads? Here is Mandela Barnes walking through the grocery store being an everyman talking about food prices. Here is Mandela Barnes making a peanut butter sandwich and being relatable as a nice ordinary guy who cares.
I wrote to the campaign last night asking this very question. Johnson has an endless well of highly attackable behavior, content and stupidity caught on video to draw from and they barely use it.
Johnson will be re-elected and it will be for one reason:
DEMOCRATS BROUGHT A FUCKING GALLON OF MILK TO A GUNFIGHT.
You know, if Trump truly believed the garbage he is spewing, he'd be chomping at the bit to testify and PROVE that he's right, and everyone else is wrong. The fact that he isn't is more proof that he doesn't believe his BS.
LOL...that's such a good point.
I liken it to the snake oil salesman who balks at the notion of taking their potion to a chemistry lab to see what's really in it.
Trump and his followers (it is a cult) just keep repeating the lies in the (realized, to some extent) hope that they will be believed and become reality. I am so angry at my fellow Americans. Strength means lying and cheating and taking what you want even when you lost? F**k you. Enough. JVL had a brief piece today titled "What I want." Well, it's what I want too. Competence. Integrity. Honesty. Compromise dammit! This winner take all ethos is poison. Wake up everybody!
Love you, Charlie. I needed to rant today.
Great post. Recently I had one of my friends tell me that the whole Trump/GOP situation is a "God thing". It was really disappointing because it was the culmination of his reasoning for why he didn't think he needed to watch the 1/6 hearings.
Trump is the embodiment of the GOP cult that started long ago. He tells them what they want to hear...and they oblige by not bothering to listen to anything else that might not conform to their preconceived notions.
Can’t reconcile their “God thing” with the God/Christ I know.
Thank you, Charlie, for highlighting Liz Cheney's warning. I thought her opening statement was one of the most powerful and moving moments of yesterday's hearing. Because so much of the Committee's presentation was new and compelling, Cheney's words have not gotten the attention they deserve. I hope we will hear a lot more from her between now and Nov. 2024.
Elon Musk is not worthy of the time and space he occupies
The disgusting and sad thing is that more than 40% of the electorate would still vote for Trump and his obvious enablers and fellow travelers despite the preponderance of evidence--because they WANT that.
I am re-reading Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951). He points out things learned understood after the experience with the mass movements of the 30s/40s that we have forgotten or are choosing to ignore.
"Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and maintain the status quo. On the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring."
"No faith is important unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millennial component. So, too, an effective doctrine: was well as being a source of power, it must also claim to be a key to the book of the future."
"Those who would transform a nation or the world cannot do so by breeding and captaining discontent or by demonstrating the reasonableness and desirability of the intended changes or by coercing people into a new way of life. They must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope."
Talking about the technical aspects of governing or policy is not doing that... which is why the Democrats have a hard time. Hope worked for Obama, but that hope was essentially betrayed and only really resided in Obama, not in people like HC.
What gives MAGA an amount of strength is its alliance with evangelicalism. Democrats have no such alliance. One of the things that made Civil Rights work was its alliance with religion and its use of religious language, imagery and a sense of hope.
King's I have a Dream speech is a MASTERWORK of that. King's background as a preacher was crucial.
MAGA will ultimately fail (after doing a huge amount of damage (and even holding power) precisely because it offers no real hope or change. It will trash this country for generations in the process.
Because the Democrats sometimes talk about change but do not deliver, is a reason why they cannot build a permanent strong movement. Hope collapses in the face of the inertia and BS of government in our system.
There simply aren't enough true believers.
Ironically, Eric Hoffer has been well regarded among conservatives -- or at least the old style of conservatives -- as someone who offered insight into why otherwise intelligent people could fall for Soviet or Maoist propaganda about a Workers' Paradise where perfect equality and harmony reigned, and why some of them made excuses for the most vicious repression if it was done by a "People's Republic" in the name of radical egalitarianism.
Now, some of those same conservatives have fallen in with the MAGA movement, convincing themselves that they are truly on the side of "the people" against the sinister forces of corruption known as the Deep State -- corresponding to the "capitalist establishment" that leftist revolutionaries aimed to bring down. In fact, "establishment" and even "corporate" are now terms of opprobrium among the MAGA right -- even while they applaud Trump's corporate tax cuts as a great patriotic achievement. And the notion of a revolution against the "corrupt establishment" can be heard even among MAGA thought leaders. Perhaps they should reacquaint themselves with Hoffer.
Popular movements are popular movements and are not unique to a particular ideology or identity... but we often do not see what is right in front of our very eyes, when it applies to ourselves--or we see it and remain silent, because (some BS reason).
I'm shocked didn't say something horribly bigoted aa a compliment
RE: Cheap Shots / Fuck off
As a matter of course, I generally refrain from certain language when posting comments. However, on occasion, certain words are exactly what's called for to cut through to the heart of the matter in the presence of grown-ups. To wit:
Elon Musk is not a genius. He's not a visionary. I don't think, in reality, he's even all that smart. What Elon Musk is, at his very core, is a fucking asshole of the first order. And apparently a rather thin-skinned one. Worse, he's a sphincter possessing wealth of the first order, and the concomitant power and influence of same. And we are now privy to watching what happens when such a man with his head firmly planted between his butt cheeks sees a chance to profit rather than do something of service for a country friendly to our own and now under attack and fighting for its life.
Would Musk just be "following" that perhaps unwise "recommendation" if he thought he himself had something serious to lose if that were to be the fate of Ukraine? I expect if that were the case, he'd be among the loudest voices calling for our country to "do more".
In light of Musk's willingness to aid and abet many of the forces arrayed against liberal democracy and, in fact, our country itself, I see the distinction between him and the now perhaps most infamous and notorious rectum to walk upright on two legs during my lifetime fading fast, the biggest one of which seems simply to be the size of their bank accounts. Other than that, they pretty much smell the same. And unless or until we, as a society, find an effective way to tell people such as this to *fuck off* when their actions rooted in self-interest jeopardize the welfare of our society and country, to paraphrase a popular Country song from not long ago, there ain't gonna' be enough Charmin in the world to clean up their mess. Double quilted or not.
Perhaps I should apologize for all the scatological references. Not my intention to offend anyone. Sometimes you've just got to call 'em the way you smell 'em. And Elon, like Donald, stinks to high heaven.
My language has gotten a lot coarser thanks to Trump and his ilk. I find myself thinking words I'd managed to avoid in 70 years!
Likewise, Eva. Sometimes the highfalutin stuff just doesn't seem to do the job. I just try to be careful how, when and where I use the less highfalutin stuff and try to guard against going overboard with it. :-D !!
Profanity, properly utilized, is a powerful tool. It is a tool that many waste.
"I see the distinction between him and the now perhaps most infamous and notorious rectum to walk upright on two legs"
Nice.
Thanks, R.
And not one "bad" word in the lot! :-)
Sometimes, the most effective profanity is the evoked profanity, implied but not spoken/written.
In truth, you do not have to use bad words to be profane.
Agree. A couple of the most effective verbal 'take downs' I ever heard were from a guy I knew a long time ago who could leave you feeling like you'd been called every F-bomb-related name in the book while never even uttering so much as a 'damn'. Like Eva says here, that requires *intelligence*, and I've often wished I were that damned *smart*. :-D
But that requires intelligence. Shakespeare was a master of it.
Well, thank you, TC. Appreciate it. Try to handle 'language' that way. Not always successful. I don't figure I need to prove to anyone that I know how to "cuss". (I do.) And as I noted to you recently, I'm not a prude about language. It's just that if I'm provoked into the outright 'cussing stage', where I can hurl megaton rated F-bombs and such pretty much with the best of 'em, all you're gonna' get is a lot of ugly heat and not much light, if any. And I have precious little enough of that to shed to begin with! ;-)
Sad part about the RonJon part is that not very many actually laughed and there were a few cheers. The reality is that he should have been laughed off the stage.
Ditto Trump.
There’s a contest between Trump and his MAGA base for most despicable. Trump makes stuff up and lies. Does his base actually believe Trumps delusional conspiracy claims or are they following their Orange Jesus of sedition? And Merrick Garland has yet to indict allowing Trump to incite more sedition and violence.
I've been interacting with Fox viewers for 6 years and regarding what they believe...and based on my experience...it seems like the appropriate answer is all of the above.
I've interacted with the acolytes who think that Trump was the greatest POTUS ever...or the ones who say stuff like they don't like his tweets BUT....and then the worst ones who are obviously intelligent people but simply avoid the truth by staying on conservative media sites and have convinced themselves that the Left/Dems are always a worse choice. It's a real fait accompli situation for most of them...and they simply morph or ignore the facts in order to continue to support the GOP & Trump.
You know, I've been romanticizing the past recently. Must be reaching a certain age.
Thing is, I catch myself doing it and remind myself that it wasn't so rosy as my mind is making it out to be. I'm not sure why I can do that and so many others can't. I don't know if it is because I'm more rational / skeptical or because I've seen people doing it my whole life (just like everyone else has) and have learned to reject that thinking.
Or maybe it is a generational thing. Maybe those who are old enough to remember the 50's fondly didn't grow up with their parents and grandparents looking back through rose colored glasses at the teens and 30's.
Toddlers can scramble your brains but they are the hope for tomorrow.
Sorry about the personal experience, but I'm not sure if you are trying to make a larger point on nostalgia or not.
And please don't take that wrong, there's no snark or sarcasm there.
No, I get what you mean. My point was that if a person grew up in the white 50's not only do you have all the nostalgia effects that everyone else would typically have, but your parents and grandparents probably didn't. So no rolling your eyes when they waxed poetic about the 30's to help provide some perspective. In fact, probably the reverse. All you got was real stories about how bad the 30's were. Fast forward to now, and no wonder so many think the 50's were so great and don't have the perspective to know that being nostalgic about the past is normal.
The issue of ignoring the bad of the 50's for others is sadly too common, but also likely too human. As I look back at the 70's and 80's my mind doesn't automatically go to how much worse they were than things today for women, minorities, LGBTQ, etc. I have to make a small effort to remind myself. My lament is that so many either can't or don't take that mental effort.
From the WSJ-editorial Charlie linked to:
"The committee’s credibility has suffered without GOP cross-examination of the witnesses."
BULL FUCKING SHIT. Kevin McCarthy had *every* opportunity to install at least five GOP members on the committee, but threw a childish hissyfit-tantrum, grabbed his ball, and went home. And apparently Cheney and Kinzinger no longer count as "true" GOP in the eyes of the WSJ editorial-board, going by this?
We all know that GOP cross-examination would have included: grandstanding, obfuscation, delays, goalpost moving, and whataboutisms. A true ascertaining of the facts is the last thing the GOP wants.
Of course they would. But Josh is correct about Kevin's hissy fit. Some GOPers, even trump, have alluded to the cost of that misguided decision. But instead of treating him like Cheney, they unsurprisingly chose to elevate the lie that it is a PARTISAN witch hunt. Even now.
His temper tantrum did produce possibly the best congressional investigation in history, however.
They would have put on a typical sideshow that would have gotten all the media attention because, sadly, media wants the money clicks more than they want to serve democracy.
You just put a bad visual in my head - gym gordon waving his shirt sleeves around and yelling over people.
And his pits are sweaty. 🤢
There is waaaay too much time before 5:00 for me to think about that image. :)
GAWD....yes...it would have been a circus. We would have been hearing about the gas prices, inflation, the border, etc. every single time one of them spoke.
It's just really disgusting.
1. Don't refuse to participate.
2. They can have cross examination in court if they need it (as the many already charged with seditious conspiracy have already found out).
3. If he'd show up, I'd bet the committee would consider cross examination for the guy accused of plotting against the United States (though I'm not sure how much cross there is after taking the 5th hundreds of times).
Re: Musk. One person should not have this much power, no matter the motivation. If he were to try something comparable during a declared war, the Government would be in its rights to seize the relevant assets. I suppose this is not possible when one person has the resources to undermine an official foreign policy. An example of the danger of allowing such concentrated power to operate outside of orderly processes of consensus and joint action, which are essential to liberal democracies. This just demonstrates again a fundamental flaw in libertarian ideology a la Ayn Rand