The Summer 2017 WHTM pledge drive is on! Donate generously to enable our continuing coverage of creepy treasonous Trump sons! Thanks!
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:
The ‘triangulation’ Dems are gonna try in order to win in 2018 is not summat I’m looking forward to. And why wouldn’t they? The gerrymandered hinterland (and the Senate is inherently gerrymandered, not just congressional districts) will support their favorite fascist and the enablers of his party thru literally anything. Fun…
@Wicked Witch of Whatever
I see what you mean about Trump/Eigenblick parallels, you might be better off with the fictional president; it was one particular passage that got me thinking along this line – at the beginning of one of the later chapters, there’s a paragraph that describes the erosion of freedom and growth of fascism under President Eigenblick, and it struck a chord. It might also have been some of the alt-right’s insistence on describing Trump as the ‘God-Emperor’, when Eigenblick actually had been an Emperor, at least in a previous life.
I’d quote the passage in full, but I’ve already BookCrossed my copy.
Honestly, hold onto that – my gut feeling is the midterms have already been bought and paid for, through either new suppression pushes or straight-up hacking the results again. It’s the simplest explanation as to why the GOP hasn’t been panicking over them.
@SFHC – you’ve articulated the feeling I’ve had. I will still vote, and still resist, but I have the sinking feeling it’s all an exercise in futility.
Oh, abso-bloody-lutely; forgone conclusion or not, I still plan on making it as difficult as possible for those infected cockbites. I might be the most cynical person here, but I’m also the most stubborn. =P
Besides, I remember all those “Elections” where the dictator in power “Won” 100% of the vote despite nobody actually voting for them. They rarely turn out well for the dictator.
I’d just like to remind people of what Trump is still thinking about:
From Twitter:
Donald J. Trump Verified account @realDonaldTrump 1 hour ago
Why aren’t the same standards placed on the Democrats. Look what Hillary Clinton may have gotten away with. Disgraceful!
Dude, you won the Presidency, it’s very unlikely Hillary will run again, and you’re still fixated on “Butter Emails”.
There’s a big risk of drawing too much from it but it fits the trend so far, two state legislature seats in Oklahoma whose districts went to Trump by 20% were won by Democrats last night.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 2 hours ago
The W.H. is functioning perfectly, focused on HealthCare, Tax Cuts/Reform & many other things. I have very little time for watching T.V.
Gee, I wonder which of these is the truth?
@Nerdy Birdie
Then IIRC Tannen essentially says that the socialization is so ingrained that it’s impossible to change it. Though the whole idea that men and women can’t read each other’s communication styles is bogus.
The specific claim in “miscommunication theory” is that the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by young and inexperienced men who only commit rape once (and that was an isolated “bad situation” involving alcohol or drugs and poor judgment). So you’re assuming that a typical case involves someone with a low chance of recidivism who made some bad choices but isn’t predatory, hence it’s easier to give him a slap on the wrist as his punishment. That’s also where you get the “rape prevention” programs that focus primarily on alcohol and drug use and how women can behave to reduce risk.
Administrators do think they need to police male behavior more closely. So campuses do use that as justification to create night escort services and to try to restrict people’s alcohol and drug use (and the “no means no” educational materials). It’s just that none of that behavioral policing is effective because it’s based on faulty premises at best.
It’s the variant game Two Lies and Another Lie.
wwth:
Isn’t that the feline equivalent of a mullet?
@Kat
Worst timeline is when POTUS claiming they don’t watch much TV is the most ridiculous of their claims.
Holy shit, that’s right! Damn, calling Don Jr. “Fredo” is actually an insult to Fredo Corleone (rest in peace). Luca Brasi might be a more apt comparison in terms of overall level of cunning (or lack thereof). But Luca at least had ruthlessness on his side….
I prefer to be hopeful in regards to the future of the world. Epistemic bubbles can only be preserved for so long, and as communication only expands, it will be harder and harder to remain cut off from the rest of the world. Reality has a nasty habit of biting those cloaking themselves in lies on the rear end, hard. Sure, in 2009, Bush dead-enders could pretend to be totally new to politics and call themselves the Tea Party, but now we can shove a smartphone in their face with their Twitter feed and say “Wait a minute, bucko, here’s what you were saying last week….”
We’re also more cognizant of Shock Doctrine tactics than we were only a few years ago. That Trump and his Republican Party are relying so much on sensory overload is the sign of an impending death spiral. They’ll try to delay that spiral as long as possible with gerrymandering and voter suppression and in the short term that might even keep them in power for a few years. But keep in mind, this is the first time they’ve actually been in the position to govern in nearly a decade. And four years is a long time to bumble from one clusterfuck to the next before even the cult members start to wonder why their air and water is so filthy and gramma can’t afford to live in a nursing home.
Where I see trouble afoot is in the media realm. Corporatization of journalism has the habit of turning reporters into stenographers and wherever normalization is going to happen, it’s gonna happen there. Print media has been endangered for years and the cable channels long abdicated responsibility for informing their viewers (there’s a reason Jeffery Lord is on CNN). They have a financial incentive to throw up their hands and just say both sides are to blame for anything that goes wrong, and they say it all the time.
Subscribe to your local papers, folks. They’re the ones on the front lines and they need your money badly. Whatever you do, don’t get your news from Facebook. That’s ground zero for the erosion of confidence in media and I’m convinced that is where more attacks on our institutions will come.
@Gussie Jives:
In the novel it’s pointed out that Brasi was considerably smarter than he appeared, which is what made him so dangerous. I’d suggest Bonasera as a comparison instead.
To misquote Vito: “Trump’s a pig, he could never have outfought Clinton. But I didn’t know until today that it was Putin all along.”
I’m currently reading From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation by Gene Sharp. It should be required reading for people all over the world, even if you don’t live in a dictatorship or a backsliding democracy. (It’s also fairly short, less than 100 pages.)
Reading the section on the importance of strategic planning, I was reminded of the Civil Rights Movement and how incredibly well organized and planned it was (both short and long term). Rosa Parks wasn’t spontaneous. The choice to strike in certain industries wasn’t thoughtless. All those sit-ins involved preparation and training and planning before they took place.
It also makes me think about how its principles apply to other places and movements. It’s a good read.
Sorry for the double post. It’s actually just over 100 pages – and available online!:
http://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FDTD.pdf
That browser plugin is not seeing a picture of Trump. It’s encountering a blue quilt next to the word “Trump”, interpreting the username after the avatar as a caption, and assuming the image is of Trump, because it can’t actually see, and instead guesses based on surrounding context. In this case it guesses wrong, so you get a blue quilt turned into kittens.
This is actually what worries me MOST about the Democratic party. Any and all action that I HAVE seen, has not come from the party, it has come from outraged individuals banding together since the Dems apparently refuse to lead us. It’s been from organizations such as the ACLU and Planned Parenthood and the like.
But from the Democratic party? Barely anything, certainly nothing like leadership. They are squandering the energy and outrage of those who would be their supporters. I should be seeing a huge organizational push to promote local Dems in local elections, to raise funds for Democratic candidates all throughout the country, to see names being floated in preparation for the 2018 mid-terms. There should be a clear strategy that should include pushes to get out the vote at the grassroots level. They should be trying to coordinate.
But I’m not seeing that. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough, but they should be reaching out to all of us. All I see Dems doing so far is reacting and reacting to the bullshit going on in the WH.
And don’t try to sell me Bernie bullshit. He’s not a Democrat, he’s not particularly awesome, he’s already in the Senate and he’s too old for 2020. The focus should be all about local, state, and mid-term elections.
They are going to squander all the energy that we’ve brought to bear.
But But… what about Naked Raygun’s version?
Naked Raygun live
The Republicans in Vermont prefer having Bernie over a Democrat because his economic proposals won’t realistically pass, he’s received NRA endorsement before, and he’s occasionally not voted with Democrats (in two party first past the post, you often have to pick a side and stick to it). Almost nobody on the far left uses terms like “socialist” to describe their economic views anymore, and a Nordic welfare state model wouldn’t work in a very large and socioeconomically diverse country like the US. Maybe in one state, but not the whole country.
Clinton wouldn’t be my ideal choice either (mostly because she’s a little too centrist), but I decided early I would definitely vote straight Democrat if the Republican nominee was someone other than Bush or Kasich (or maybe if Rubio moved further to the center). In that “moderate Republican” case, I would vote or abstain from parts of the ballot more based on my personal opinions than what the Democrats support.
Ooglyboggles:
Allow me to translate it for you:
“I used to watch nine hours of TV a day, but I’m so busy now that I barely manage five or six!”
He’s not “watching” the TV, it’s just on while he’s “reading” is briefings.
Dude definitely watches a LOT of TV.
I’m an American, I *LOVE* my TV. But he’s at, what, 6+ hours per day? I work a lowly bookkeeping job full time and I manage maybe 2 hours of TV per day, most of that just Youtube highlights of the late-night shows and a Netflix/Amazon Prime movie/tv show if I’m in the middle of one.
I do binge the occasional TV series but not constantly.
Watching talk-show TV is my absolute LEAST liked type of show. I will turn it off because hearing people yell is not my thing, AT ALL. I won’t listen to talk radio either, or morning drive-time radio – too much talking.
I like quiet, obviously.
I don’t know how much my habits would change if I was in the news all the time – probably I would watch more? But I still have an aversion to talk shows so I dunno…
People who’ve known Trump for years say that TV is his “drug of choice.” He doesn’t drink, but his TV watching habits supposedly rise to the level of addiction. Judging from his Twitter feed, he seems to watch a lot of CNN for someone who hates the mainstream media so much.