So they’re just evil cunts?
Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, …
3 Likes
Well … yes.
It would also be nice to reclaim the word ‘cunt’, which doesn’t deserve to be used as a term of opprobrium, but one battle at a time.
8 Likes
I know, they just chuck reality out the window. There is no attempt to make evidence-based decisions. Their worldview seems to be based on antiquated notions of psychology/behavioral economics/discipline (whatever you want to call attempts to understand human motivation) and even morality.
2 Likes
I don’t think this is a useful comparison. It may be bad for Trump in terms of mid-term elections (we’ll see), but that over 40% of Americans approve of what Trump is doing is truly horrifying.
Only 60% disapprove of abusing children to torture their parents. ONLY 60%. That is shocking. Half of Republicans like a federal policy of traumatizing children. They LIKE it!
7 Likes
The party of family values indeed. We’ve known for some time that they’re going to have to rewrite all their slogans and platforms.
1 Like
Yes. Because counter to “real america” claims and hand wringing about the white working class the average GOP voter and Trumps base are richer than the general populace. These are the voter who do care about appointments regulation etc. But they’ve got less taste for social conservative and amid the speculation boom Trump kicked off they’re vocally displeased and increasingly skittish on Trumps trade wars are good horse shit.
The MAGA, kill the blacks crowd doesn’t much understand it care about the red meat of government. Judicial appointments, the broader implications of tax and trade policy. They like the broad fuck you, we win pitch of it but don’t much give a shit or notice much more until it Negatively impacts them directly.
That’s why Paul Ryan “retires”. His “it’s all about the courts” pitch and everything is a tax cut for the rich policy proposals hold no weight with the MAGA set. And your establishment, trickle down guys have insufficient control to make his policy happen.
It’s a divide between Trump’s ideological base and the GOPs practical base.
Even as that’s going on. There are complaints that Trump isn’t nominating for the bulk of judicial seats, just as he does for executive appointments. He points at DNC obstruction. They point out there aren’t any candidates for those seats being obstructed.
Aside from the tax breaks it’s all executive action and much of its been back and forth as the courts knock it down. Legislatively they passed a nasty tax cut even their own caucus had trouble supporting.
In the meantime his administration has pushed less legislation than any modern presidency. Very little of it has passed. And the really big stuff has been a lot of inter-party in fighting over law no-one likes. The healthcare push coincided with some of Trump’s lowest approvals.
It’s not a successful administration. Not a lot accomplished. Even as they’re pulling of some heinous shit.
Only 27% approve. The rest are people who don’t care or minority disprove. It’s something like have of Republicans who approve. And just about no-one else.
Which is disturbing. But given how un-informed and partisan our population is kind of surprising. This sort of issue based polling there’s often a correlation between the results and surveys about people buying into bullshit or just not knowing a lick about the subject.
Vituperative Obama haters were using “feckless” for him back in his time. With Republicans, its not enough to disagree with policy, you have to discredit and demonize the policy maker. Which at that time was irrational: even if you disagreed with Obama, you could not argue he himself was a bad actor.
However, in our present situation, that’s exactly the situation: bad policy, bad actor. But our case is diluted from the POV of low-information voters who just see “more of the same.”
Well, yeah. This is what Republicans want. This is what the South wants. This is what Trump’s voters want. They want blood. They want White Supremacy, and they love a man who will let them kill millions of dark-skinned people.
I am not snarking or being satiric or ironic. This is exactly what they are. It is what two hundred years of slavery, Jim Crow, Chinese Exclusion Acts, the school-to-prison pipeline, the War on Drugs, Southern Strategy and teabagging have led us to. The Republicans are going to have their genocides, and they will revel in them.
The Democrats like spine, ball, feck, hap, and gorm and are “Centrists”, which means they are fine with things the way they are, or they are “Moderates”, which means they are Republicans but follow a respectful half-step behind the Greedy Old Pedophile Party. Vote for them, because they’re sane, but don’t expect much from them except a death by slow boiling instead of burning at the stake. “I’m not your guy” as President Obama said to the Progressives who voted for him. “Change will be incremental” according to ex-Senator Clinton.
Sadly, we have no Party of the Left. We don’t even have a Left the way any other developed country does. The Dems or Reps teamed up to destroy Labor, so the one countervailing force which has been able to prevent the rise of fascism is absent.
In short, there will be lots and lots of blood. And even if Donny Two Scoops and the Republicans are turfed out it will take lifetimes to undo the damage if it even can be corrected.
4 Likes
I just don’t think that’s a meaningful divide come election time. They’re both getting plenty of what they want here.
Trump has a chance to remake the Supreme Court for a generation. GOP voters look at RBG and lick their chops at replacing her and Kennedy with another dickfuck like Gorsuch (or, god forbid, worse).
Well, yeah, it’s executive action that the GOP base loves. Gutting the EPA and the CFPB and pulling out of Paris hasn’t been knocked back, nor the gutting of State, nor tax cuts. These are things that the base loves.
trump is obsessed w/ image. based on his past statements, I don’t believe anything he says and it’s reasonable, even probable, to think he’s having someone diddle w/ the polls.
2 Likes
“Kill the poor, not the unborn” – Factsheet Five, circa 1990
3 Likes
I really dont understand your position, which seems to be another version of “all parties are the same.”
Are they?
Would Hillary Clinton have implemented this “zero tolerance” policy? Did Barack Obama? (I’ll leave this as an exercise for the reader.)
1 Like
To quote german painter Max Liebermann “Ich kann nicht so viel fressen wie ich kotzen mochte.” - “I can´t eat as much as I want to vomit.”
What happend to you, USA? You were the self proclaimed champion of freedom, democraty and human rights, the shining city on the hill. I´m German, over 70 years ago you Americans kicked our asses. It was justified and did send our nation on the right path, you dragged us away from a path of terror and war, genocide and fascist madness. You helped us to rebuild from the destruction and misery that we brought upon ourselves and others. You were a rolemodel and a friend.
But now YOU put children into concentration camps.
For fucks sake. Why are people not on the streets in millions, there is an outrage, but there should be more than outrage! People should be up in arms about this! I´m livid when I read this! This is monstrous! Those who are orderd to do this should disobey. People should storm Washington, storm the capitol, storm the White House, to stop those beasts that have taken over your country. Storm the camp, tear down the fences and save the children! Stop them, for the love of god! For the love of humanity! DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING!
They.
Are.
Putting.
CHILDREN.
In.
Fucking.
Concentration camps!
What else do you need?
This is barbaric and a shame for your nation, for every fucking last one of you.
I´m agnostic and I don´t believe in the afterlife, but at times like this I wished that there was a hell waiting for the Orange Bastard, his sycophantic stooges and all of those vile fascist tools who are still, after all of the crimes they commited, they lies they spreaded, the lifes they ruined, support him, even after they put children into concentration camps.
4 Likes
And then there’s this. You could not make it up. Is it some sort of US government performance art?
3 Likes
I think it goes hand in hand with that bit the other day about the “truth sandwich”. We don’t really report or discuss the factual state of things or events. Or at least don’t start there. We go from what Trump, or some one else, says about things and then debate.
Same deal here. We report the couple points he went up this week. But not the couple that he went down the week before. Or that he’s been circling 40 for months.
That’s important in itself. He hasn’t gained or lost much even amid constant bad news.
It’s like a confirmation bias machine.
Depending on which base. Gutting the EPA is connected to Pruit. Who is a non stop rich guy spends government money scandal. So one one hand de-regulation is red meat. But the rich guy Fucks America story doesn’t play well with all those “working class” voters who flipped. the trade war is red meat. But it’s gonna directly screw over a lot of farmers in swing states who flipped. And those in red states who’ve always been GOP voters won’t be pleased either.
The judiciary is probably the most concerning thing. Given its the one of the only things they’re on about that stands to live beyond Trump. But two things.
The GOP started packing the bench under Bush II Torture Bugaloo. And those appointees? They’ve been pretty consistently tossing trumps shit out.
And I don’t really think the GOP has sufficient control of their own caucus to get a clean Supreme Court nomination through with out significant problems. If they lose in November they sure as shit won’t. So 9 scalias for the next generation isn’t likely to come about. Meanwhile Kennedy was a conservative judge appointed by a conservative president. And look where he is now.
I think the big thing here is Trump and the GOP are causing damage. But they can’t get their shit together to do the worst of it. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned. Or their failure is assured.
But it does mean the sky isn’t falling. And we can put a stop to this.
Nobody is arguing that the sky is falling or that we cannot put a stop to this. That’s not what I’m saying. I am saying that I think it is more likely than not that Trump wins another term because his base and the traditional GOP base (which are only distinct in very narrow circumstances) has gotten a lot, if not all, of what they want from him and don’t hate liberals any less today than they did in 2016.
I don’t follow your argument at all about the GOP having sufficient control of its own caucus to get a “clean Supreme Court nomination” through. What was Gorsuch? If Ginsberg (and potentially Kennedy) is replaced with another Gorsuch, the Court will be taken in a significantly different direction for a generation.
2 Likes
Look at the amount of in-fighting over simple elements of their party platform. The health repealing Obama care. Even the tax bill which ultimately passed. Right now it’s happening with immigration.
The GOP is a position where it needs to negotiate with other republicans to get anything done. And it’s killed a number of the signature ideas that got them elected. Healthcare was 8 years of promises and threats of violent revolt. And they couldn’t whip enough votes to pass any of the multiple versions of their law. Within their own caucus. Immigration bills are doing the same thing. And Trump has said he won’t sign the compromise bill. A compromise bill that’s entirely internal to his own party.
Gorsuch was early. And yes it was successful in the end. But it wasn’t uncontroversial within the GOP. With several prominent congressmen complaining that garland didn’t even get hearings. And GOP Congressonal leaders had to pull some significant procedural weird to minimize Democratic protest or obstruction while minimizing the chance of abstentions on their own side.
And that was with clearer majorities in both houses. They’ve lost some votes since then. And any loss of seats in either house greatly complicates the whole thing.
For them to be able to nominate whoever they want and breeze to a confirmation as they claim. No compromise. A justice would have to retire in the next 6 months. Their full caucus would have to show up, And fall in line. Or they’d have to win over sufficient democrats.
I’m not sure they can get their shit that together at this point.
Any loss of seats in November greatly complicates that. Even if they don’t lose a majority in either house. Most of their big legislative stuff has come down to one or two votes in the Senate, and a handful in the House. It looks very much like they’ll be losing seats.
That’s what I mean by a “clean” confirmation. Right now I doubt they could get their shit together to seat anyone without significant embarrassment or delay. And starting next year it’s very likely they’ll have to compromise with democrats to get anyone on the court.
Both of which mean it’s pretty unlikely we’ll see another Gorsuch.
they’ve had it together enough to approve 39 federal judges so far with 6 in the last week of may. they’ve hurried through every trump nominee for the federal bench while they slow-walked most of obama’s nominees. by not even having hearings on merrick garland which paved the way for gorsuch 45 and the republicans have already shifted the supreme court from where it should have been. you are remarkably sanguine about prospects given how far behind we already are.
7 Likes
Decades from now I wonder how many of us will use the Good German defense?
3 Likes
