This is usually when I point out that the great and good American people voted for this.
However, today's a good day to point out there are moral monsters within the Trump administration. Rubio certainly knows what the consequences of these USAID cuts will be. I'm pretty sure that someone like Vought knows, too. People are going to die, s…
This is usually when I point out that the great and good American people voted for this.
However, today's a good day to point out there are moral monsters within the Trump administration. Rubio certainly knows what the consequences of these USAID cuts will be. I'm pretty sure that someone like Vought knows, too. People are going to die, so we can reasonably conclude that Rubio and Vought want people to die.
I don't see how the United States ever recovers from this act of international arson. Whatever goodwill we had has been squandered in only one month.
And speaking of monsters, RFK Jr. is doing what we all knew he would, and never, ever forget that the senate GOP confirmed this man.
Rubio is a nothing more than a decorative garnish, at a dinner table serving a bunch of parasites, grifter, and fascists. Or what we call Trump’s “best and brightest”; his cabinet!..:)
I personally believe Trump chose Marco as SecState so that he could humiliate Marco on a daily basis. Every foreign diplomat knows Marco does not speak for the administration. If Marco does in fact assert a policy position in public, Trump will saw off the branch Marco is on just to watch him fall.
I have nothing but contempt for Trump, his party, and his voters, but I do admire his ability to sense and punish weakness.
Well said, and being the “decorative garnish,” is the worst of humiliations; SOS in name only. This may even be worse than being a RINO; in today’s MAGA…:)
We can't forget what Rubio, Vought, and RFK, Jr. have done, but what exactly can we do about it? I imagine there is a whole swath of Americans who believe the world would be better off without the suffering people in Third World countries. And. like the aforementioned, they call themselves Catholics and Christians.
Is this perhaps a capitalist style play of the scientists will now goto the drug companies and then it will be pay for a vaccine if you can afford it? Where are they in all this? I’d imagine they’d be making noise?
I honestly don't know, Susan. My intuitive sense is the Democrats will have to do things that aren't in their collective DNA, and that's get in the mud with these people. The first question that the Democrats should ask themselves every day is, "What's is the most efficient way to draw blood from the GOP?" And by efficient, I mean, "What sort of demagoguery can I do that will shift public opinion away from the GOP?" It's not enough to punch them repeatedly in the face as hard as you can. Any attack has to be calibrated to both maximize the amount of pain inflicted to the GOP while shifting public opinion towards the Democrats. So when a toddler dies of measles due to anti-vax propaganda, the Democrats should repeatedly and without mercy blame RFK Jr.. When AIDS-related deaths skyrocket in Africa, the Democrats should repeatedly and without mercy attack the "Christians" in the government who made it happen.
The key thing to remember is, there are no rules. The GOP has chosen this path, so that's where we have to engage them. When the GOP plays the victim, the response needs to be, "fuck you" followed by a punch in the face. When the media cries "foul", the response needs to be, "fuck you, you're complicit with the failure of our system of government."
Every movement has a pressure point, and the GOP for all their big dick swagger are thin skinned. Find their pressure point, and hit it hard.
The Dems still sit at the ruins of the chess table, sputtering "hey, that isn't a proper chess move," long after their opponents smashed the board to bits with a sledgehammer.
What should the Dems do? I agree with what writer Jonathan Rauch said in his recent piece for The Atlantic:
" . . . pursue a relentless, strategic, and thematic campaign branding Trump as America’s most corrupt president. Almost every development could provide fodder for such attacks, which would connect corruption not with generalities like the rule of law but with kitchen-table issues. Higher prices? Crony capitalism! Cuts to popular programs? Payoffs for Trump’s fat-cat clients! Tax cuts? A greedy raid on Social Security!
"The best objection to this approach (perhaps the only objection, at this point) is that the corruption charge won’t stick against Trump. After all, the public has been hearing about his corruption for years and has priced it in or just doesn’t care. Besides, the public believes that all politicians are corrupt anyway.
"But driving a strategic, coordinated message against Trump’s corruption is exactly what the opposition has not done. Instead, it has reacted to whatever is in the day’s news. By responding to daily fire drills and running in circles, it has failed to drive any message at all.
"Also, it is not quite true that the public already knows Trump is corrupt and doesn’t care. Rather, because he seems so unfiltered, he benefits from a perception that he is authentic in a way that other politicians are not, and because he infuriates elites, he enjoys a reputation for being on the side of the common person. Breaking those perceptions can determine whether his approval rating is above 50 percent or below 40 percent, and politically speaking, that is all the difference in the world."
What I like about this is that it requires no getting in the mud, demagoguery, or rule-breaking because all of this is true. What it will require is skilled communicators like Pete B and AOC - not Schumer. The legacy media will not cry foul because it will make for reporting that will interest their audiences. Conflict! The audience loves conflict. But the Dems' side of it has to be "a strategic, coordinated message against Trump’s corruption" by a skilled communicator.
The goal is not to shift public opinion towards Democrats, but to reduce Trump's approval rating which is what JVL recommended recently. If his approval drops, then the GOP members of Congress will have an incentive - wanting their constituents reelect them - to counter him.
A parallel effort would be reaching those constituents directly to get the message across, using deep canvassing [see https://deepcanvass.org].
I disagree, Tim, because the voters are already responding to their Congresspeople about their dissatisfaction with what Musk is doing. It's affecting their kitchen tables.
And the voters who gave Trump his win, the swing voters in the swing states who are Independents and educated, suburban Republicans did not give Trump their vote because of his demagoguery. They voted for Biden in 2O2O when they'd had 4 years of it . They swung against the Dem candidate in 2O24 because they were voting against the Far Left infused Dem brand.
Sandy, the difference between you and I is you believe that voters are rational actors open to persuasion whereas I believe voters are amoral and stupid. When you view the 2024 election through a moral prism, the 49.8% who voted for Trump were willing to overlook that a) he mismanaged a pandemic to the tune of 700K excess deaths, b) attempted a violent overthrow of the government, c) was found civilly liable for sexual assault and d) was convicted on 34 felonies in New York State. Voting for Trump with that record is the biggest dereliction of civic duty of my lifetime. As for stupidity, did these swing voters honestly believe that once Trump was inaugurated, prices would come down? Trump made it quite clear on a regular basis during the campaign that should he win, he would use tariffs as an economic weapon of war. Did these swing voters not hear him, or did they not take him seriously? Trump's doing what he said he was going to do, and when these swing voters go to the grocery store and pay more for produce or go to Walmart to buy Chinese made goods that are suddenly more expensive, whose fault is that? When airfare is more expensive because the cost of building aircraft goes up due to Trump's tariffs, or the price of housing goes up due to tariffs on lumber, whose fault is that? Simple: it's the voters fault.
I do not trust people to use their reason or their better angels when it comes to politics and elections. And if it sounds like I'm angry, it's because I am. I've spent my entire adult life in service of the national defense only to watch these swing voting jackholes give the nuclear codes to a sundowning narcissistic sociopath. The life I've built for myself and my wife is at risk all because these people couldn't deal with short term economic disruption due to Trump's ineptitude.
Tim, the difference between you and me is in who you define as the voters. The 49.8% is not all MAGA. There’s not enough MAGA to get to that percentage. Agreed all of MAGA is amoral and stupid; except that I think their behavior and receptivity to Trump is based on their fear of the social change of the last 6O years which Trump exploits 24/7 and you do not. They think Trump will stop and reverse that change.
If the goal is to reduce Trump’s approval rating, the Trump voters most receptive to the corruption message will be the 1O% or so who voted for Biden in 2O2O and voted for Trump in 2O24.
Approval ratings are ephemeral, a transient in a long steady state of history. What really needs to happen is the GOP paying a long term price for their malevolence.
They truly emulate their "God" in that, who makes salvation (i.e. relief from eternal damnation and suffering) dependent upon believing in him contrary to all available evidence.
The policy results (increased deaths) seem to conflict with Elons beliefs we need to increase the birth rates. Will he now say the unspoken part out loud?
I have to admit that I had thought of Vance and Vought and their weird perverted interpretation of ordo amoris. Per Pope Francis, the point to not only focus on those that are close to you, but to extend your care and love to those outside your circle. Vought and the GOP want to extend their hate and disdain to those outside their circle.
When I look at Vance and Vought, I see a pair of men that have no gratitude for their good fortune. How else can one explain what they're doing? Apparently it's not enough for Vance to become wealthy. In order to scratch whatever itch he's dealing with, he has to sign onto the undoing of the world order that enabled him to become wealthy to begin with. Same with Vought. As for their "faith", it's a self serving fig leaf which they use to provide cover for committing by any objective measure acts of evil. When Tom Nichols did his Screwtape homage in these pages six years ago, Screwtape noted, "Convincing humans to do evil in the name of the Enemy is still one of our finest maneuvers, and you will find it highly enjoyable."
My hope is one day that those two will get what's coming to them, spiritually and morally.
It will also save “bigly” on legacy benefits. A really good plague that ends up Killing off 15% of the boomers and 15% of the poor will save hundreds of billions in SS, Medicare and Medicaid - or as Dooge will write, 15 TRILLION dollars! It will balance the budget & eliminate the need for taxation of the rich at all!
What soul, Suz? I believe our actions tell people who we are. Cassidy knows RFK Jr. is unfit for his position and voted to confirm him because he cares more about himself than anyone else. Cassidy doesn't give a shit about people dying. He cares about staying in office. He has no soul to lose.
I had to chuckle when Bear/Whale Head Man started coughing in the cabinet meeting yesterday. I could almost hear the Star Wars bar group assembled there ask themselves, "My God, what am I going to catch from this man?"
This is usually when I point out that the great and good American people voted for this.
However, today's a good day to point out there are moral monsters within the Trump administration. Rubio certainly knows what the consequences of these USAID cuts will be. I'm pretty sure that someone like Vought knows, too. People are going to die, so we can reasonably conclude that Rubio and Vought want people to die.
I don't see how the United States ever recovers from this act of international arson. Whatever goodwill we had has been squandered in only one month.
And speaking of monsters, RFK Jr. is doing what we all knew he would, and never, ever forget that the senate GOP confirmed this man.
Rubio is a nothing more than a decorative garnish, at a dinner table serving a bunch of parasites, grifter, and fascists. Or what we call Trump’s “best and brightest”; his cabinet!..:)
I personally believe Trump chose Marco as SecState so that he could humiliate Marco on a daily basis. Every foreign diplomat knows Marco does not speak for the administration. If Marco does in fact assert a policy position in public, Trump will saw off the branch Marco is on just to watch him fall.
I have nothing but contempt for Trump, his party, and his voters, but I do admire his ability to sense and punish weakness.
Well said, and being the “decorative garnish,” is the worst of humiliations; SOS in name only. This may even be worse than being a RINO; in today’s MAGA…:)
We can't forget what Rubio, Vought, and RFK, Jr. have done, but what exactly can we do about it? I imagine there is a whole swath of Americans who believe the world would be better off without the suffering people in Third World countries. And. like the aforementioned, they call themselves Catholics and Christians.
Is this perhaps a capitalist style play of the scientists will now goto the drug companies and then it will be pay for a vaccine if you can afford it? Where are they in all this? I’d imagine they’d be making noise?
I honestly don't know, Susan. My intuitive sense is the Democrats will have to do things that aren't in their collective DNA, and that's get in the mud with these people. The first question that the Democrats should ask themselves every day is, "What's is the most efficient way to draw blood from the GOP?" And by efficient, I mean, "What sort of demagoguery can I do that will shift public opinion away from the GOP?" It's not enough to punch them repeatedly in the face as hard as you can. Any attack has to be calibrated to both maximize the amount of pain inflicted to the GOP while shifting public opinion towards the Democrats. So when a toddler dies of measles due to anti-vax propaganda, the Democrats should repeatedly and without mercy blame RFK Jr.. When AIDS-related deaths skyrocket in Africa, the Democrats should repeatedly and without mercy attack the "Christians" in the government who made it happen.
The key thing to remember is, there are no rules. The GOP has chosen this path, so that's where we have to engage them. When the GOP plays the victim, the response needs to be, "fuck you" followed by a punch in the face. When the media cries "foul", the response needs to be, "fuck you, you're complicit with the failure of our system of government."
Every movement has a pressure point, and the GOP for all their big dick swagger are thin skinned. Find their pressure point, and hit it hard.
The Dems still sit at the ruins of the chess table, sputtering "hey, that isn't a proper chess move," long after their opponents smashed the board to bits with a sledgehammer.
What should the Dems do? I agree with what writer Jonathan Rauch said in his recent piece for The Atlantic:
" . . . pursue a relentless, strategic, and thematic campaign branding Trump as America’s most corrupt president. Almost every development could provide fodder for such attacks, which would connect corruption not with generalities like the rule of law but with kitchen-table issues. Higher prices? Crony capitalism! Cuts to popular programs? Payoffs for Trump’s fat-cat clients! Tax cuts? A greedy raid on Social Security!
"The best objection to this approach (perhaps the only objection, at this point) is that the corruption charge won’t stick against Trump. After all, the public has been hearing about his corruption for years and has priced it in or just doesn’t care. Besides, the public believes that all politicians are corrupt anyway.
"But driving a strategic, coordinated message against Trump’s corruption is exactly what the opposition has not done. Instead, it has reacted to whatever is in the day’s news. By responding to daily fire drills and running in circles, it has failed to drive any message at all.
"Also, it is not quite true that the public already knows Trump is corrupt and doesn’t care. Rather, because he seems so unfiltered, he benefits from a perception that he is authentic in a way that other politicians are not, and because he infuriates elites, he enjoys a reputation for being on the side of the common person. Breaking those perceptions can determine whether his approval rating is above 50 percent or below 40 percent, and politically speaking, that is all the difference in the world."
What I like about this is that it requires no getting in the mud, demagoguery, or rule-breaking because all of this is true. What it will require is skilled communicators like Pete B and AOC - not Schumer. The legacy media will not cry foul because it will make for reporting that will interest their audiences. Conflict! The audience loves conflict. But the Dems' side of it has to be "a strategic, coordinated message against Trump’s corruption" by a skilled communicator.
The goal is not to shift public opinion towards Democrats, but to reduce Trump's approval rating which is what JVL recommended recently. If his approval drops, then the GOP members of Congress will have an incentive - wanting their constituents reelect them - to counter him.
A parallel effort would be reaching those constituents directly to get the message across, using deep canvassing [see https://deepcanvass.org].
Sandy, the voters aren't going to respond to Rauch's approach. What the 2024 election showed is voters react to demagoguery.
I disagree, Tim, because the voters are already responding to their Congresspeople about their dissatisfaction with what Musk is doing. It's affecting their kitchen tables.
And the voters who gave Trump his win, the swing voters in the swing states who are Independents and educated, suburban Republicans did not give Trump their vote because of his demagoguery. They voted for Biden in 2O2O when they'd had 4 years of it . They swung against the Dem candidate in 2O24 because they were voting against the Far Left infused Dem brand.
Sandy, the difference between you and I is you believe that voters are rational actors open to persuasion whereas I believe voters are amoral and stupid. When you view the 2024 election through a moral prism, the 49.8% who voted for Trump were willing to overlook that a) he mismanaged a pandemic to the tune of 700K excess deaths, b) attempted a violent overthrow of the government, c) was found civilly liable for sexual assault and d) was convicted on 34 felonies in New York State. Voting for Trump with that record is the biggest dereliction of civic duty of my lifetime. As for stupidity, did these swing voters honestly believe that once Trump was inaugurated, prices would come down? Trump made it quite clear on a regular basis during the campaign that should he win, he would use tariffs as an economic weapon of war. Did these swing voters not hear him, or did they not take him seriously? Trump's doing what he said he was going to do, and when these swing voters go to the grocery store and pay more for produce or go to Walmart to buy Chinese made goods that are suddenly more expensive, whose fault is that? When airfare is more expensive because the cost of building aircraft goes up due to Trump's tariffs, or the price of housing goes up due to tariffs on lumber, whose fault is that? Simple: it's the voters fault.
I do not trust people to use their reason or their better angels when it comes to politics and elections. And if it sounds like I'm angry, it's because I am. I've spent my entire adult life in service of the national defense only to watch these swing voting jackholes give the nuclear codes to a sundowning narcissistic sociopath. The life I've built for myself and my wife is at risk all because these people couldn't deal with short term economic disruption due to Trump's ineptitude.
Tim, the difference between you and me is in who you define as the voters. The 49.8% is not all MAGA. There’s not enough MAGA to get to that percentage. Agreed all of MAGA is amoral and stupid; except that I think their behavior and receptivity to Trump is based on their fear of the social change of the last 6O years which Trump exploits 24/7 and you do not. They think Trump will stop and reverse that change.
If the goal is to reduce Trump’s approval rating, the Trump voters most receptive to the corruption message will be the 1O% or so who voted for Biden in 2O2O and voted for Trump in 2O24.
Forget about MAGA.
Approval ratings are ephemeral, a transient in a long steady state of history. What really needs to happen is the GOP paying a long term price for their malevolence.
They sure weren’t for Biden. They crashed after the Afghanistan pullout and never recovered.
At any rate, I guess JVL is wrong?
Yeah, and they'll continue to lose.
There's no hate like Christian love!
They truly emulate their "God" in that, who makes salvation (i.e. relief from eternal damnation and suffering) dependent upon believing in him contrary to all available evidence.
The policy results (increased deaths) seem to conflict with Elons beliefs we need to increase the birth rates. Will he now say the unspoken part out loud?
Elon doesn't have any beliefs. He has desires. And his biggest is to become the world's first trillionaire.
And have all of us pay for him to go to mars.
I prefer the sun.
I think it is safe to say that Rubio and Vought don't care.
Vought is on the record that he wants the federal work force to be traumatized. Why limit this to them, but extend it to the entire country.
And then the entire world.
I have to admit that I had thought of Vance and Vought and their weird perverted interpretation of ordo amoris. Per Pope Francis, the point to not only focus on those that are close to you, but to extend your care and love to those outside your circle. Vought and the GOP want to extend their hate and disdain to those outside their circle.
When I look at Vance and Vought, I see a pair of men that have no gratitude for their good fortune. How else can one explain what they're doing? Apparently it's not enough for Vance to become wealthy. In order to scratch whatever itch he's dealing with, he has to sign onto the undoing of the world order that enabled him to become wealthy to begin with. Same with Vought. As for their "faith", it's a self serving fig leaf which they use to provide cover for committing by any objective measure acts of evil. When Tom Nichols did his Screwtape homage in these pages six years ago, Screwtape noted, "Convincing humans to do evil in the name of the Enemy is still one of our finest maneuvers, and you will find it highly enjoyable."
My hope is one day that those two will get what's coming to them, spiritually and morally.
Yes.
Cruelty and death are the point.
It will also save “bigly” on legacy benefits. A really good plague that ends up Killing off 15% of the boomers and 15% of the poor will save hundreds of billions in SS, Medicare and Medicaid - or as Dooge will write, 15 TRILLION dollars! It will balance the budget & eliminate the need for taxation of the rich at all!
After the pandemic response, do you have any doubt that the GOP is a death cult?
Bill CAssidy sold his soul to confirm RFK.. every death is on him
What soul, Suz? I believe our actions tell people who we are. Cassidy knows RFK Jr. is unfit for his position and voted to confirm him because he cares more about himself than anyone else. Cassidy doesn't give a shit about people dying. He cares about staying in office. He has no soul to lose.
I had to chuckle when Bear/Whale Head Man started coughing in the cabinet meeting yesterday. I could almost hear the Star Wars bar group assembled there ask themselves, "My God, what am I going to catch from this man?"