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By David Futrelle
A little musical open thread to discuss the amazing news! No Trump fans, trolls, or Don Jr sockpuppets allowed.
You might have to turn up the volume on this one:
@Diego,
As @PoM can attest to above, I’m unrealistically optimistic. I cling because I’m also friends with his wife, and I’m watching their relationship fall apart at the seams. I’m pretty sure she’s struggling with post-partum depression, and he … well, he changes diapers, etc, so I won’t grumble about that. But he does grumble about how she’s not cleaning the house or cooking dinner, which is really new for him.
I can practically see the MRA alt-right nonsense cooking into him as they both get increasingly angry and sullen and bitter. I could just up and walk, but I can’t do that to her.
About the Trumpster, I agree with Iseult – with luck the 2018 elections will rattle the Republicans and perhaps allow actual Impeachment to start. As PoM said, there’s nothing but a lack of political will preventing it now. That won’t change until the Republicans aren’t in control of everything.
I wait for 2018 with utter dread, though. Ugh.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Fredo’s casinos didn’t go bankrupt…
(line stolen from Rodger Sherman on twitter)
Ahahahaha.
Haha.
Ha. Hahaha. Ha.
Snerk.
*wipes tears*
and beyond
dreemr:
He knew. Look at the timing:
3 June: Goldstone contacts Fredo offering the dirt on Hillary.
7 June: Trump gives a speech where he says: “I am going to give a major speech on… probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative, and very very interesting.”
9 June: the meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya.
As far as I can remember, Trump never dropped that Monday bombshell he promised (because the meeting didn’t deliver?) So, after calling Hillary crooked so many times, he hints that he has major new revelations in preparation… four days after the initial contact, and two days before the meeting. Coincidence?
I think the least damaging interpretation you can put on that is that Jr told him that information was coming, but not the source, and Trump didn’t question that. I’m not convinced.
Not possible. Oh, the evidence will come out, and they may well even remove the blighted louse from the white house, but it will NEVER convince his supporters. They’re like fundamentalist xians, if the evidence shows them to be wrong, then it’s the EVIDENCE that’s wrong.
His supporters are 30 million bigots who like him for his bigotry and a 32 million member exhibition of Synchronized Denial….
I sincerely wonder what the country will look like a few decades down the line. I don’t think this disaster can be rolled back or repaired.
@Moggie – on Twitter I had a very good (but long) timeline from @SethAbramson that really shows the timing and sheer proximity of Drumpf to all of this.
Additionally, Keith Olbermann has marked how Drumpf immediately tweeted for the very first time about Hillary’s “33,000” e-mails the same day as this meeting.
Also, Drumpf hasn’t bothered to say anything himself publicly about this whole brouhaha, except the following through a spokesperson:
Yikes, “dad”. Compare that to how he goes to bat for Ivanka himself.
A “high-quality person”? What…is that even…is he for real? That’s the best he could (or would) do?
This is sort of on topic because it involves a self confessed Trump supporter.
There’s a woman over here called Gina Miller. She brought the court case arguing the government could only trigger Article 50 (notice to leave the EU) after a vote in parliament.
Some posh aristocrat bloke posted on Facebook saying he’d pay money for someone to run her over. He also made some racist comments about her.
Anyway, he’s just been convicted under our malicious communications law and the magistrate has said she’ll be sending him to prison.
More here for anyone interested…
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/aristocrat-facing-jail-over-racist-facebook-threat-to-antibrexit-campaigner-gina-miller-a3585586.html
I am struck by that photo David used looking so much like Patrick Bateman.
I took the “high-quality” comment as Trump making it all about himself.
“I only produce high quality sons!”
@PeeVee I think it is Patrick Bateman’s eyes (and blood spatter) ‘shopped onto the photo of Drumpfie Jr.
And yes, I realize that was his intent, but still. *Shudders*
Good shopping.
ETA: yeah, dreemr, I got that, lol.
@PeeVee – I’m sorry. I am terrible and waaay too concrete about rhetorical questions/statements. I always seem to take them seriously.
Fox News doing their part as state propaganda for the Trump campaign. Cut the mention of the Russian government from their coverage of the emails
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/07/11/Foxs-chief-intelligence-correspondent-edited-out-mention-of-Russian-government-when-quotin/217211
dreemr:
The first thing that sprang to my mind was Luigi Vercotti:
https://youtu.be/nhV856sXf3w?t=41
*Trump Administration
but I guess campaign is accurate too since that’s the capacity the people involved were working in.
The tide is turning. Conservative voices are shifting to admit collusion happened, and surviving pro-trumpers are retreating to the idea that sure, collusion happened, but it’s not illegal.
What happens now politically is not clear. I’d guess that the President throws Don Jr. and maybe Manafort under the bus.
At the moment I am just waiting to see SFHC’s memes D:
Also yes to what Cleon has said. There is certainly a large, solid core of people who are too factional and too prideful to ever admit that Trump did something wrong. I suspect many of them are the people that are written about here, too! But there have been a visible number of people peeling away from supporting 45, and that seems to be continuing.
The big question is how big that unshakeable core is, and whether it’s big enough to keep the Republicans in by the 2018 election. Given that the Republicans have gerrymandered incredibly hard to their advantage, that’s a real possibility. It is a sad one :C but the question’s still up in the air as to how big that core is and what it’ll take to peel everyone else off from it.
(Just looked at the favorability rating polls over time. They’re sort of leveling out right now :s eesh. Humans.)
Very old article, but relevant to online threats and chan culture. Ted Kaczynski sent a letter to the New York Times claiming that a bomb threat he made against an airline was a “prank.”
http://newsok.com/article/2506957
I just don’t know what to expect in 2018.
I know what I hope for: I hope for a mass voting-out of Republicans, and a mass voting-in of Democrats. And I hope they will represent us.
But I can’t put my faith in any polls or feelings anymore. I was so dumbstruck by the results of the 2016 election that I no longer feel at all confident that anything is going to go the way it’s supposed to/I want it to.
The polls didn’t do especially badly in 2016 they were just off in a direction that changed the outcome, unlike in 2012 where they were off by about as much but that just underestimated Obama’s win.
One aspect of terrorism is punishing the people you consider your enemies. Another is to be able to make threats that cause general anxiety and change how people behave. Calling it a “prank” or “trolling” normalizes the behavior and isolates the victims.
@JoeB – well, that doesn’t make me feel much better. My point is, I was so fucking sure that Hillary would win, it never entered my mind that Drumpf would take it. I am probably still in deep denial over it. It has shaken my entire worldview.