Removing every reference to the history and accomplishments of Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Asian people and women after centuries of suppression is antithetical to DEI hysteria. What they are saying is that unless you are a white male Christian, you "diverge" from the norm. Of course, they insist all those men got their jobs or positions of power through sheer merit. Just look at our new Secretary of Defense as an example of the new meritocracy. A raging unrepentant alcoholic who sexually abuses and uses women and who was fired from two leadership positions he had at non-profits. Now that's the guy I want leading the one of the largest organizations in the world! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/02/pete-hegseth-non-profit-allegations
A subheading to Bill Kristol's and Andrew Egger's column could be "and loves hating". Sadly, much of Trump's support comes from people who are more motivated by their animus toward anyone, or any thing, they deem as "other".
Yeah, agreed. I think we are going through a 'phase transition' between the bad old days of straight white prosperous Protestant Christian patriarchal dominance and the future when people of color and any number of formal and informal religious convictions, where women outnumber men, and the population is well balanced between young and old. This is already happening and by 2040, at least demographically, white men, and whites in general will be a minority population. This freaks them out and, sadly, when combined with massive offshoring of decent jobs, white men especially are confused, frightened and resentful, making them perfect tools for lying autocrats like Trump&Co. to manipulate. But the thing about phase transitions (like water boiling as it changes into a gas is that after the chaos comes a calm. I may not live to see it, but it will happen if we can only stave off disaster for a few more years.
Please change the heart emoji "liking" the post to a stick figure banging its bloody head against the wall. That feels more appropriate to appreciating the writing but what I feel reading about how f'cked up this regime is...and the ways they're taking the U.S. down piece by piece--which I'm pretty sure is their endgame.
Maga's hate the ideals in the constitution, that humans deserve liberty and freedom from tyranny. Maga's want tyranny - they ignorantly believe they will be OK and happy if the all powerful executive crushes immigrants, and women, and dark skinned people, and LGBTQ persons. Maga's need an enemy, however, so if the usual suspects are minimized or gone, then what?
Fpotus believe he deserves to get a Nobel Peace Prize for whatever he does in the Middle East, or Ukraine. He will cry and whine and rant and rave if he doesn't receive it. What a psychopathic immature baby he is. The US is a surreal, dysfunctional, nation now, thanks to him, MuskX’s power, Republicans, the Heritage Foundation, et al "think tanks", billionaire oligarchs, and cult worshippers of their orange god. Science fiction reality, misery for the 98% non-millionaires. We've got to fight back with all we can to stop this tyrannical coup.
"As part of a broader restructuring of the U.S. military’s combatant commands, an exercise driven by the desire to save costs and also to signal U.S. disengagement from Europe, the Trump administration is seriously considering no longer having an American general command NATO."
Do you really believe that this is even slightly about saving costs and not completely about disengaging from Europe? Isn't this move more likely about weakening Europe, to make it less likely that the US will step in if Putin starts to nibble at NATO members in Eastern Europe and the Baltic?
I don't think this is sanewashing on your part. I do think it speaks to a natural tendency to see a rational explanation for even the most inexplicable actions.
Trump has no policy except cruelty. Starving children, VOA losing funding, demeaning anyone who crosses him are just a way to make him look "strong". And Republicans do nothing.
You repeatedly wrote, "MAGA hates"; respectfully, I get the slogan but by animating MAGA, I think you make the movement seem more uniform and indomitable than perhaps it is. Both before and after the election it has become clear that Trump's support does not have one source; it comes from several overlapping subgroups having different ideologies, motives, and 'beefs.' Aside from anti-Dem voters and Trump's nationalist core and J6 fans, Trump's rally-goers loved his 'jokes,' his so-called authenticity and the gear. Others had no idea, really, what they were voting for, in part because the campaign was filled with lies and misinformation. We know where the Project 2025 crowd landed - in the Administration.
What if we all just dropped MAGA from our vocabulary and ghosted the "MAGA movement"? Instead, what if journalists placed greater emphasis on the destructiveness of specific actions and identified the officials who are doing and saying hateful things? It's not as catchy but it might move the country closer to holding some of the bad actors accountable.
The still-sentient parts of the press *are* placing a great deal of emphasis on specific actions and identifying the officials responsible. The problem is that all of it leads back to Trump. His office-holding lackeys and lickspittles do his bidding, or at least desperately seek his approval. Still, I get your point that labeling (or dismissing) people as “MAGA” makes them dig in more and calcifies positions. I propose “Trumpsuckers” as an alternative epithet. Who wants to be that?
I think we’re all still searching for the right formula.
Nickson, thanks for your reply. I certainly agree, it leads back to Trump and his inner circle (Musk, Miller etc).
To rephrase, the goal of ghosting MAGA would be to diminish its self-importance, calcification, and veneer of indomitability. (Just ghosting the term "MAGA" might help us get away from demonizing 30+% of the country.) Combined with the observation that MAGA is diverse, my hope is that factual and principled messaging to people across the political spectrum could possibly win some people over to our political side (which is to say, saving our country).
Will Selber's analysis of what is happening in Gaza is again unnecessarily kind to Israel.
First off, it's Israel that has violated the terms of the initial ceasefire. Hamas has abided by the original agreement. It's pretty sick that Netanyahu's excuse is that there isn't sufficient progress in the second stage of the ceasefire given that one of the violations of the agreement was that Israel wouldn't even initially send negotiators at all.
Second, how is Israel pressuring Hamas? By cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel to 2 million civilians. This isn't a guess, the official Israeli position is that this is necessary to pressure Hamas to release hostages outside of the ceasefire agreement. This is literally a war crime called "collective punishment."
Third, on Monday night, the IDF indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing over 410 civilians Why do I say there are all civilians? Because Israel isn't even claiming that the bombing campaign was targeting Hamas, and Israel only claimed to have killed two members of Hamas.
All of this is occurring with the explicit consent of Trump and with American weapons paid for with your tax dollars.
I continue to find it astonishing that Selber, JVL, and Mona Charen in particular find it impossible to say a critical word about Israel while it is openly committing war crimes.
I suspect I'll get at least one Israeli apologist denying that Israel has EVERY committed a war crime and denying that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza. This isn't a factually debatable point. If you don't like the state of international law, that's one thing, but it's not a debatable factual point that Israel is openly committing war crimes international law as it is currently written.
Yep! This comports with Trump's declaration that Netanyahu do whatever he wants to finish the job. Get ready for those seaside Trump hotels! I wonder how it's going for all the Gaza protesters who thought Harris was a bad choice and sided with Trump?
I'm afraid that's exactly right. When IDF troops opened fire on unarmed civilians waiting in line for food rations, we could clearly see what the agenda was. The subsequent bombing of the World Central Kitchen trucks and a drone strike that killed a restauranteur who was providing food to the needy made it perfectly clear that none of these attacks was a mistake or an accident. The name of the game is to starve them if you can't bomb them, and let them die of disease if starvation isn't doing the job fast enough. In Trump's own words, "just clean the whole place out."
So the insecure little orange pissant was kept waiting on hold for hours by his communist handler yesterday, while said handler ridiculed him to the audience he was entertaining at the time. Not to be deterred, the orange pissant held on like the suck-up he is, because he was several days late on his promise to end this silly little war in Ukraine that Biden started and which only he could end. Finally, his handler picked up the phone, and orange dug in and hammered his deal home. So convincing was he that an announcement that he had gotten his handler to agree to cease bombing energy targets. But orange was barely done blowing kisses and getting up off his knees ending the call, when Russian bombs struck a hospital and part of the power grid. Since his handler knows orange's obsession with all things golden and garish, he thought this might be a public reminder of who holds the upper hand, and that golden showers come in many forms.
MAGA hates American Greatness. Yes, that is pretty obvious by now. The Trump acolytes even consider his latest foray into peace-keeping to be a success. Putin kept Trump waiting for an hour before picking up the call from the President of the United States. That is some truculence. Then Putin does not agree to the 30 day ceasefire which Trump requests but accedes to a pause in the shelling of energy infrastructure. OK, great. Trump got his "ceasefire". Two hours later, Russian rockets blast into Ukrainian energy infrastructure. "The Art of the Deal" is not Trump's. Putin is the master.
Trump was always a compulsive liar and erratic, but now his talent for a quick recovery or rationalization has deteriorated with age. It exposes his ignorance about every topic. His only negotiating skill is to bully and threaten. He is now dealing with people who aren’t frightened, like Zelenskyy and reasonable judges. Trump had no response. He gets angrier. He calls people names. But he really has no plan, or any knowledge about what to do.
Also, Trump’s idol, Putin, is hanging him out to dry, even after all these years of being his puppy.
Removing every reference to the history and accomplishments of Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Asian people and women after centuries of suppression is antithetical to DEI hysteria. What they are saying is that unless you are a white male Christian, you "diverge" from the norm. Of course, they insist all those men got their jobs or positions of power through sheer merit. Just look at our new Secretary of Defense as an example of the new meritocracy. A raging unrepentant alcoholic who sexually abuses and uses women and who was fired from two leadership positions he had at non-profits. Now that's the guy I want leading the one of the largest organizations in the world! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/02/pete-hegseth-non-profit-allegations
DT doesn't want to simply withdraw from NATO, he wants to destroy it altogether.
A subheading to Bill Kristol's and Andrew Egger's column could be "and loves hating". Sadly, much of Trump's support comes from people who are more motivated by their animus toward anyone, or any thing, they deem as "other".
Yeah, agreed. I think we are going through a 'phase transition' between the bad old days of straight white prosperous Protestant Christian patriarchal dominance and the future when people of color and any number of formal and informal religious convictions, where women outnumber men, and the population is well balanced between young and old. This is already happening and by 2040, at least demographically, white men, and whites in general will be a minority population. This freaks them out and, sadly, when combined with massive offshoring of decent jobs, white men especially are confused, frightened and resentful, making them perfect tools for lying autocrats like Trump&Co. to manipulate. But the thing about phase transitions (like water boiling as it changes into a gas is that after the chaos comes a calm. I may not live to see it, but it will happen if we can only stave off disaster for a few more years.
Please change the heart emoji "liking" the post to a stick figure banging its bloody head against the wall. That feels more appropriate to appreciating the writing but what I feel reading about how f'cked up this regime is...and the ways they're taking the U.S. down piece by piece--which I'm pretty sure is their endgame.
Maga's hate the ideals in the constitution, that humans deserve liberty and freedom from tyranny. Maga's want tyranny - they ignorantly believe they will be OK and happy if the all powerful executive crushes immigrants, and women, and dark skinned people, and LGBTQ persons. Maga's need an enemy, however, so if the usual suspects are minimized or gone, then what?
Fpotus believe he deserves to get a Nobel Peace Prize for whatever he does in the Middle East, or Ukraine. He will cry and whine and rant and rave if he doesn't receive it. What a psychopathic immature baby he is. The US is a surreal, dysfunctional, nation now, thanks to him, MuskX’s power, Republicans, the Heritage Foundation, et al "think tanks", billionaire oligarchs, and cult worshippers of their orange god. Science fiction reality, misery for the 98% non-millionaires. We've got to fight back with all we can to stop this tyrannical coup.
"As part of a broader restructuring of the U.S. military’s combatant commands, an exercise driven by the desire to save costs and also to signal U.S. disengagement from Europe, the Trump administration is seriously considering no longer having an American general command NATO."
Do you really believe that this is even slightly about saving costs and not completely about disengaging from Europe? Isn't this move more likely about weakening Europe, to make it less likely that the US will step in if Putin starts to nibble at NATO members in Eastern Europe and the Baltic?
I don't think this is sanewashing on your part. I do think it speaks to a natural tendency to see a rational explanation for even the most inexplicable actions.
Trump has no policy except cruelty. Starving children, VOA losing funding, demeaning anyone who crosses him are just a way to make him look "strong". And Republicans do nothing.
You repeatedly wrote, "MAGA hates"; respectfully, I get the slogan but by animating MAGA, I think you make the movement seem more uniform and indomitable than perhaps it is. Both before and after the election it has become clear that Trump's support does not have one source; it comes from several overlapping subgroups having different ideologies, motives, and 'beefs.' Aside from anti-Dem voters and Trump's nationalist core and J6 fans, Trump's rally-goers loved his 'jokes,' his so-called authenticity and the gear. Others had no idea, really, what they were voting for, in part because the campaign was filled with lies and misinformation. We know where the Project 2025 crowd landed - in the Administration.
What if we all just dropped MAGA from our vocabulary and ghosted the "MAGA movement"? Instead, what if journalists placed greater emphasis on the destructiveness of specific actions and identified the officials who are doing and saying hateful things? It's not as catchy but it might move the country closer to holding some of the bad actors accountable.
The still-sentient parts of the press *are* placing a great deal of emphasis on specific actions and identifying the officials responsible. The problem is that all of it leads back to Trump. His office-holding lackeys and lickspittles do his bidding, or at least desperately seek his approval. Still, I get your point that labeling (or dismissing) people as “MAGA” makes them dig in more and calcifies positions. I propose “Trumpsuckers” as an alternative epithet. Who wants to be that?
I think we’re all still searching for the right formula.
Nickson, thanks for your reply. I certainly agree, it leads back to Trump and his inner circle (Musk, Miller etc).
To rephrase, the goal of ghosting MAGA would be to diminish its self-importance, calcification, and veneer of indomitability. (Just ghosting the term "MAGA" might help us get away from demonizing 30+% of the country.) Combined with the observation that MAGA is diverse, my hope is that factual and principled messaging to people across the political spectrum could possibly win some people over to our political side (which is to say, saving our country).
Will Selber's analysis of what is happening in Gaza is again unnecessarily kind to Israel.
First off, it's Israel that has violated the terms of the initial ceasefire. Hamas has abided by the original agreement. It's pretty sick that Netanyahu's excuse is that there isn't sufficient progress in the second stage of the ceasefire given that one of the violations of the agreement was that Israel wouldn't even initially send negotiators at all.
Second, how is Israel pressuring Hamas? By cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel to 2 million civilians. This isn't a guess, the official Israeli position is that this is necessary to pressure Hamas to release hostages outside of the ceasefire agreement. This is literally a war crime called "collective punishment."
Third, on Monday night, the IDF indiscriminately bombed Gaza, killing over 410 civilians Why do I say there are all civilians? Because Israel isn't even claiming that the bombing campaign was targeting Hamas, and Israel only claimed to have killed two members of Hamas.
All of this is occurring with the explicit consent of Trump and with American weapons paid for with your tax dollars.
I continue to find it astonishing that Selber, JVL, and Mona Charen in particular find it impossible to say a critical word about Israel while it is openly committing war crimes.
I suspect I'll get at least one Israeli apologist denying that Israel has EVERY committed a war crime and denying that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza. This isn't a factually debatable point. If you don't like the state of international law, that's one thing, but it's not a debatable factual point that Israel is openly committing war crimes international law as it is currently written.
What we're looking at is the Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem
Yep! This comports with Trump's declaration that Netanyahu do whatever he wants to finish the job. Get ready for those seaside Trump hotels! I wonder how it's going for all the Gaza protesters who thought Harris was a bad choice and sided with Trump?
I'm afraid that's exactly right. When IDF troops opened fire on unarmed civilians waiting in line for food rations, we could clearly see what the agenda was. The subsequent bombing of the World Central Kitchen trucks and a drone strike that killed a restauranteur who was providing food to the needy made it perfectly clear that none of these attacks was a mistake or an accident. The name of the game is to starve them if you can't bomb them, and let them die of disease if starvation isn't doing the job fast enough. In Trump's own words, "just clean the whole place out."
If I was required to write Trump's epitaph it would be: "He knew to correctly use 'couldn't care less' and not 'could care less.'
So funny - I had the same thought! A broken clock...
So the insecure little orange pissant was kept waiting on hold for hours by his communist handler yesterday, while said handler ridiculed him to the audience he was entertaining at the time. Not to be deterred, the orange pissant held on like the suck-up he is, because he was several days late on his promise to end this silly little war in Ukraine that Biden started and which only he could end. Finally, his handler picked up the phone, and orange dug in and hammered his deal home. So convincing was he that an announcement that he had gotten his handler to agree to cease bombing energy targets. But orange was barely done blowing kisses and getting up off his knees ending the call, when Russian bombs struck a hospital and part of the power grid. Since his handler knows orange's obsession with all things golden and garish, he thought this might be a public reminder of who holds the upper hand, and that golden showers come in many forms.
MAGA hates American Greatness. Yes, that is pretty obvious by now. The Trump acolytes even consider his latest foray into peace-keeping to be a success. Putin kept Trump waiting for an hour before picking up the call from the President of the United States. That is some truculence. Then Putin does not agree to the 30 day ceasefire which Trump requests but accedes to a pause in the shelling of energy infrastructure. OK, great. Trump got his "ceasefire". Two hours later, Russian rockets blast into Ukrainian energy infrastructure. "The Art of the Deal" is not Trump's. Putin is the master.
RE: Canada, I understand that South Park had a joke about invading Canada. I never watched the show. I sure don't like living in an episode now.
About that last little Cheap Shot: We've been applying Trump Derangement Syndrome to the wrong people all along. It's just another MAGA projection.
Trump was always a compulsive liar and erratic, but now his talent for a quick recovery or rationalization has deteriorated with age. It exposes his ignorance about every topic. His only negotiating skill is to bully and threaten. He is now dealing with people who aren’t frightened, like Zelenskyy and reasonable judges. Trump had no response. He gets angrier. He calls people names. But he really has no plan, or any knowledge about what to do.
Also, Trump’s idol, Putin, is hanging him out to dry, even after all these years of being his puppy.
Republicans hate DEMOCRACY all over the world!