Apropos of nothing, but this was yesterday’s Far Side:
Protestors should blow duck calls at all his future rallies, if he holds any.
My best guess is he still holds them. He can’t live without attention and adulation. No way he gives that up.
But he re-brands them. Maybe to be general “Yay Me!” rallies or perhaps he claims they will nominally support others for the next election though he’ll just do his normal thing and ramble for 3 hours.
It’s left to be seen what turnout will be. He can’t book major arenas because he’s stiffed so many cities and venues that they want payment up front. Before he won re-election, he was already down to speaking at random facilities out in the sticks close to the nearest regional airport that could handle a jet. And even if he could, his popularity is so bad, there are better crowds at pie eating contests.
Speaking of schadenfreude, is there anyone here with a particularly strong constitution that is capable of watching Fox news for periods of longer than 60 seconds to see what their talking heads are saying about the election? What dominates the discussion? Denial? Finger pointing? Delusional deflection?
We might already have a blueprint for what they could be like; he made a big deal out of the country’s 250th anniversary, and then tried to make it all about him. He can find some other cause that he expects might bring a broad appeal, create rallies based around it, and then once again make them actually all about himself.
There are definitely more important things, but that one really pissed me off on a visceral level. Still does.
Even if there are more important things we deal with on a daily basis, that was an opportunity to celebrate what unites us and the ideals, even if we have often fallen short of them, we aspire toward at a highly symbolic milestone.
And that bastard took those aspirations and ideals and shat on them. And robbed the entire country of the opportunity to have at least one moment where we could stand together as one nation. And the lackeys, toadies, and cowards surrounding him did nothing to stop it. Actively abetted him, actually.
Same here. The shameless greasy bag of shit will coopt anything and everything he can to grab attention.
I’m hearing a claim that the White House had an election watch party catered with Cheesecake Factory food to mock Obama, but Trump never came downstairs and the party was super-sad.
The German Handelsblatt (probably paywalled) had a stab at that this morning. I found it funny. Excerps, translated as usual with DeepL(dot)com and corrected where it seemed appropiate:
To understand a Fox News programme broadcast the day after a Republican election defeat, the simplest way is to view it as a therapy session. One in which the therapists join the patients on the couch straight away.
The three presenters of ‘Fox & Friends’ – Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence B. Jones – are certainly not to be envied as they go on air the morning after the mid-term elections, at 6 am local time in New York City. ‘Fox & Friends’ is a kind of morning programme with a distinctly conservative slant, and its role is less to explain the world to viewers than to frame it ideologically. That is particularly difficult this Wednesday. After the mid-term elections, the outlook is bleak. You can see it in their faces.
[…]
It quickly becomes clear this morning that the presenters of Fox & Friends are not going to turn their backs on Trump. Whilst they do acknowledge that there is a ‘new balance of power’ in Washington and that ‘the Democrats are back in the driving seat’, they do not criticise Trump for the defeat for which all media outlets not loyal to him are holding him responsible today.
[…]
Right from the very first minutes, the presenters stoke fears about the Democratic MPs, who they claim are on the ‘far left’. Clips of the incoming Democratic and Muslim Senator Abdul El-Sayed are shown time and again. For Fox News viewers, simply showing them how he pronounces his full name is enough. This is accompanied by soundbites from other supposedly radical Democratic election winners, a group to which Fox News also counts the moderate Senator James Talarico from their beloved Texas.
They say the Democrats are wasting no time ‘going after President Trump’. So instead of making people’s lives easier and more affordable, they want revenge. At the same time, the journalists warn against the ‘far left’s’ wish list: state-funded healthcare for all, and the abolition of ICE. For Fox News viewers, these are horror stories; for others, however, the apt saying applies: ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time.’
[…]
At no point do the presenters criticise Trump. They are determined not to even hint that his time – or that of the Republicans – is up. Instead, they play soundbites in which Trump says that he could certainly work with the Democrats, but would otherwise use his veto if necessary. They attempt the daring manoeuvre of portraying Trump as a statesman committed to compromise, whilst the Democratic Party is being infiltrated by mad socialists with crazy – that is to say, unaffordable – wish lists.
[…]
Whilst Trump is almost absent from the daytime schedule – except when a soundbite is needed to serve as proof of his alleged willingness to cooperate – this changes in the evening. This time slot on Fox News is set aside to send people to bed with the right messages. It is the time for the channel’s leading figures, whose names the programmes bear.
The focus is on the opening monologues, which last several minutes.
Laura Ingraham kicks things off, once again opening with supposedly radical soundbites from El-Sayed and co. She then plays a soundbite from the murdered Charlie Kirk: ‘We’ll keep fighting.’ Here, someone is trying to rouse their disheartened viewers. ‘True champions learn from failure,’ she says, ‘Conservatives are down, but they are not out.’
She, too, is siding with Trump. She says the economic figures are good. The tariffs have led to investment that would not otherwise have happened, but food and energy are still too expensive. She believes this is also down to the war with Iran, which Trump, however, had to wage on principle. For her, the election does not mean that people suddenly find the Democrats appealing; they simply wanted to send the Republicans a message that the cost of living is still too high for them. “They actually voted for ‘America First’.”
[…]
Sean Hannity, Fox News’ most loyal Trump fanboy, goes on to predict: People will soon regret their vote because the radicals amongst the Democrats – the socialists and communists – will go too far. As far as he’s concerned, Trump just needs to end the war with Iran. Then things will start looking up. The Republicans, however, need to give people a realistic idea of when things will get better for them. So here too: everything’s on the right track, just wait and see.
Whether they should go to bed feeling more worried or more confident is something very few people are likely to know after this day of ‘TV therapy’. Neither the therapists nor the patients.
Peter Doocy reported it during FOX’s, um, victory coverage.
The food sat untouched and everyone left early.
Read all about it.
I have another bit of Schadenfreude for you all.
Republicans are freaking out a bit because Alito and Thomas, who are the two most extreme right wing members of the bench, they are in their 70s. The clock is ticking on them both, and Republicans have a very narrow window where if they want to replace them and have the numbers to get it done, it has to be soon.
But neither one has any interest. They have both made it clear they aren’t going anywhere. Part of it is because it would be blatantly partisan, something that SCOTUS actually seems to care about despite how awful they’ve been in recent years, but mostly because neither one wants to give up the power they have.
So, with their longevity in doubt, Republicans see their chance to continue to maintain a long-term supermajority slipping away. The court is currently 6-3 in favor of the right. and if something happens to those two while Democrats have the reins, that could flip over to 5-4 in favor of the left. Boo-hoo.
I used to check it regularly but haven’t really done so in the last month. Since Wednesday, I’ve tuned in five or six times, at different times of the day, and every time it’s the replay of Melania’s brokering the ceasefire in Oleshky(link goes to CNN and shouldn’t be paywalled).
Not sure what their general health is, but they could easily stick around for another 10 years.
That certainly isn’t going to happen during a Trump presidency. Yes, the senate has to approve the nominee, but Trump ain’t gonna nominate Thorogood Marshal Jr.
He won’t even nominate George Thorogood Marshall Jr, the bastard.
That’s 'cause he drink alone. With nobody else.
All true, but say one of them croaked in '27 or '28. Clearly that would be too close to the next presidential election to even think about a replacement.
If we’ve learned anything from the last decade, it’s that they will literally pull the IOKWARDI card.
They pushed Barrett through in October of 2020, literally a week ahead of the election. But slow rolled Garland’s nomination 4 years earlier claiming it should wait for the election, which is how we got Gorsuch.
I’d enjoy the Schadenfreude of seeing them try to nominate another Federalist Society douchebag and not getting that out of committee or getting a straight or nearly straight party line no vote on the Senate floor. Winning the Senate with a solid majority (good riddance Sinema and Manchin once again! and FU Fetterman) was a major step, if only for that.
Too cleverly subtle; trump wouldn’t have the wit to understand the insult. I myself prefer the good old fashioned, unsubtle call-out ‘PEDOPHILE PROTECTOR’ or the recent gem ‘STICK THAT BALLROOM UP YOUR FAT ASS!’.