That’s not fair. According to them, they’re succeding in a retrogradedly spectacular fashion! Believe me; I saw it on the intertubes somewhere!
I predicted that too!
I’ve come to the conclusion that some good may come of this; for this country’s right-wing, it may take watching watching their agenda played out- by a complete buffoon who couldn’t spin a plausible lie if he took a potion of glibness- to finally acknowledge the rot within, and dump the crazies.
You’re joking, right? The “Right Wing”, paleoconservative, Tea Party comtingent that has taken control of the GOP and demanded an end to “entitlement programs” and market regulation regardless of impact (never mind that protective tariffs and gratuitous spending on unneeded military hardware represents a vast entitlement for corporations and the wealthy) has more love for Trump and vice versa than Hepburn and Spencer; they’re eating up this baseless conspiranoia and jingoistic bombast like a child locked in a chocolatier. As much as some want to critique the coastwise liberal “bubble” that lead the Democratic party to ignore the plight of the Rust Belt and “Middle America” (and with good reason), the far right is living in a dome of their own construction under the manufactured belief that they are under siege by the barbarians wielding pikes of political correctness, forcible abortion, mandatory gender swapping, and the War On Christmas. Donald “The Dealmaker” Trump is their new savior (since Gingrich hasn’t been able to really help them and Ted Cruz is universally disliked by everyone except vampires) and they buy into his rhetoric that all of his failures are due to others interferenece and obstruction like those “so-called” judges blocking his travel ban that isn’t actually a ban even though that is exactly how he referred to it. Trump is untouchable to them; no lie too groundless, no conspiracy too vast, no appointment too conflicted, no executive order too unconstitutional to taint their champion. They love him as if he were their own man-child.
Stranger
The military budget should stay as it is, and the raise he wants to give it should instead go to the VA. But, of course, veterans needing help are losers.
The Trump fans in my Facebook circle are still pretty tickled. I’d like to believe that at some point they will go, “Oh shit, this is a disaster.” They won’t. As long as Trump is fucking immigrants and people on “welfare” (which is defined as “a government program that I’m not on”), they’re all for it. To paraphrase what Steinbeck probably didn’t say, these people are not an underclass. They’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires. And when Trump kicks off a stupid war, it won’t be their kids getting their arms and legs blown off, so they’ll put on the jersey and root root root for the home team and say how wonderful it is to finally have a President who respects the troops.
Rex Tillerson visits Asia, without press representation. This is apparently unprecedented. Even when such a dignitary doesn’t want a press mob, one “pool reporter” is assigned. No.
Tillerson was accompanied by Erin McPike, of the right-wing Independent Journal Review, but she wasn’t there for daily reporting — she’s preparing a “profile” of Tillerson. IJR, instead, ran a smear story on Citizen Obama’s trip to Hawaii, a story so full of lies even the IJR had to retract it.
Pffft…as long as Liberals/Democrats are complaining and bitching about this So-Called president, they’re all for it.
The extreme right is what I meant by “dump the crazies”. A society needs functioning, level-headed people on both sides who can carry on a reasonable conversation; America’s conservative leaders have, for the most part, lost their freakin’ minds. I don’t think the hardcore Trumpsters will change their minds, but maybe the people along the edges, the people who’ve kept some flicker of touch with reality, will recognize the disaster if its great enough.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. But I need to hold on to some hope. Otherwise I’ll just give into despair, and I’m already struggling with more depression and anxiety than usual this year.
Someone on a friends timeline said he’s trolling the dems and the media and i think that’s awesome. I responded with a quote from Jefferson and a question - why is a president “trolling” his own citizens a GOOD thing?
Unfortunately, “the crazies” are running the asylum, and I don’t just mean on the conservative side. When you have the neocons on one hand demonizing someone like Elizabeth Warren for being a “socialist” for demanding accountability by banking and corporate interests, and Bernie Bro wingdoodles on the other side critiquing her for being “in bed with” those same interests, neither side with any factual basis, the forgotten middle is abandoned regardless of how large of a voting block it might be.
The super shitty thing about the current situation is that while many of the Trump boosters venerate their Bond villainesque President as being some kind of reincarnation of Ronald Reagan, they besmirch the reputation of their patron saint to a degree that even makes me wince for the old Gipper. Reagan was certainly one of the leading figures in what has become neoconservatism and there was no love lost between him and the liberal arm of the Democratic party he abandoned to become a conservative Republican, but despite often bombastic rhetoric he understood the political and social need to compromise as much as criticize, to build relationships with both parties as well as the press and public interests at home and abroad, and at the end of the day, to make sure that critical elements of the government were functional. There was debate on what he considered “critical”; he certainly looked to dispense with the Department of Education, gut Labor and the EPA, and pursue other policies which can be argued as not being in the best long term interests of the nation, but he also acceded to the reality that not everyone agreed with him. He certainly never sought to turn his back on the world, criticize and alienate crucial allies, or literally demonize entire classes of people, nor to demand blanket prohibitions of immigration. In the end of the day, Reagan may or may not have been a good president (depending on your political bent and interpretation) but he was a decent human being who wanted what he sincerely believed was best for the nation. Trump is a sniveling, narricistic, wasterel cunt of a previously undetermined species of upright primate who seeks to be venerated above all things and will sell out to anyone who will give him validation.
I don’t know what to tell you about hope other than as Trump successively and utterly fails to live up to the critical promises of bringing back jobs, improving actual national security, and “Making America Great Again”, I think many of the sway voters are going to turn away from him, and hopefully away from the entire bag of cunts who elected to throw their weight behind him, leading the leadership of the GOP back down a more moderate, McCain-esque path of pragmatic conservatism that focuses more on making government efficient rather than just smaller, sheds some of the dead weight of bureaucracy while keeping the essential functions for social, economic, and environmental protections intact, and realizing that we need a sane and forward-looking energy policy that doesn’t rely on sucking kerogen out of shale or invading the Middle East periodically to disrupt OPEC. Given what we’ve seen to date of the Trump presidency, I can barely imagine him even making it through the remaining three years and ten months, but the alternatives might be even worse.
Regardless, the Trumpetters I’ve seen just can’t get enough of their exalted orangutan and his gibberish pronouncements vacillating between unqualified bombast and radical paranoia, and they aren’t interested in hearing about reality…but then, these are the same shitgibbons who want schools to teach Creationism along side, if not replacing the evidence of natural selection, and who still believe that the Trump Muslim [Don’t Call It A] Ban would have somehow prevented the September 11, 2001 attacks even though it doesn’t apply to visa holders from any of the nations from which those terrorists came.
Stranger
This is false equivalence.
To the extent that Sanders supporters have criticized Warren, it was mainly in the immediate aftermath of her decision to endorse Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. Whether you’re a Sanders or a Clinton supporter, i think that criticism was well within the bounds of reasonable political debate. Warren’s own politics are far closer to Sanders than to Clinton, and her policy positions would have been far better served in a Sanders administration than a Clinton one.
Despite being a Bernie supporter myself, i don’t think i ever criticized Warren for her choice. I disagreed with her decision, but i understood why she did it, and i still remain a big Warren fan, just like every other Sanders supporter that i know.
I’m not saying that no Bernie supporters have made unreasonable criticisms of Warren, but it’s simply false equivalence to suggest that those people have the same sort of influence on the left that the Warren haters have on the right. Right-wing hostility to Warren is deeply embedded in the mainstream of the Republican party; left-wing hostility to Warren comes from a very small fringe element among American liberals and Democrats.
I almost get the impression that Stranger doesn’t much care for Donald J Trump.
I do believe that among all the invective lies a tiny grain of respect.
Though I could be wrong.
I respect the chemistry. No, wait…that’s Walter White.
I couldn’t give two shits for Trump or the bird nest on his head, even if you throw in Ivanka, Melania, and the oft-neglected Tiffany into the deal. The thing is, Trump has been a laughing stock since his earliest days as a public figure. The defunct Spy Magazine has been ridiculing him for his absurd statements and poor business acumen for decades beyond just Graydon Carter’s infamous “short-fingered vulgarian” comment. Trump was almost certainly the inspiration for the casino-owning alt-future Biff Tannen. That Trump has been able to overcome that satire and achieve the presidency despite being a legendary ass clown of a businessman speaks to some heretofore unexpressed desperation on the part of many Americans about a nation and a future they no longer feel to be a part of or represented by. And as easy as it is to just label Trump voters as a class as bigots and idiots, there is the case to be made that even if they are less than accepting of egalitarian progress, they deserve and require a degree of representation and respect by virtue of being citizens of this nation. (I refer to essentially decent people living in decaying Rust Belt and coal mining towns who really just want assurance of some kind of future, not avowed racist fuckholes of the Ku Klux Klan or alt-right worshipers of Steve Bannon-espoused conspiranoia.) Politics on both sides can’t just neglect the “middle third” because they aren’t on the economically more productive coasts, because these are the people who keep us fed and suffer neglect at the hands of exploitative corporations who move operations as suits them, leaving a void of jobs and pollution behind them.
As for the “false equivalency” of highlighting radicals on the left, there are plenty who enjoy the same “Pull the temple down,” mentality as Trump voters. The entire idea that we’re going to “break up the banks” or wholesale clearcutting of industries that are not being held accountable is a cure worse than the disease. Like it or not, our national prosperity depends on the efficiency and emplaced systems of those large banks, and they need to be held accountable without just clearcutting. The attacks on Warren for not being radical enough and demanding she step away were every bit as ridiculous as Trump boosters shouting, “Lock her up!”, particularly given Warren’s efficacy, reputation, and appeal as a reasoned voice among the shouting.
But the real danger to Warren isn’t from these admittedly marginal extremists (which, as you note, have little actual influence on the Democratic party machinery, obviously) but on the inertia of the DNC itself which tends to reward donors and big fundraisers like Tim Kaine over viable and functionally preferable candidates. Warren is an obvious choice, if not for president than as a very public face who has an almost unquestionable integrity in public service (in contrast to Clinton). Will the DNC leadership actually boost her, or will they bury her because she threatens some of the traditional funding sources? Time will tell.
Stranger
But “plenty” is such a nothing word.
First, while “plenty” of Sanders voters wanted to shake up the system, his campaign did not have the same “pull the temple down” attitude as the Trump campaign. Its emphasis was rather different, and it focused also on strengthening rather than dismantling public services and government protections. Also, the very fact that Sanders didn’t even win his own party’s nomination, let alone the general election, makes pretty clear that the radical contingent on the left has far less power and influence in politics than the radical contingent on the right.
I tend to agree with this, but it serves as further evidence that your comparison of left-wing and right-wing radicalism was misguided. The true threat to Warren is not from the radical left; it’s from the establishment liberals and Democrats.
Indeed. How can you expect buffoons to notice what a buffoon the Buffoon-in-Chief is? But I’m hoping enough nonbuffoons who stayed home last November will get out to the polls and counter them.
Yes, the extremist “Bernie Bros” (as a friend refers to them) were less influential and wanted different things than Trump boosters. But their demands (e.g. breaking up the banks) were just as unrealistic and potentially destructive, and their blanket rejection of anyone but Bernie was not helpful in showing the Democratic leadership the error of its ways in relentlessly promoting Clinton despite some obvious deficiencies. The same is true for Jill Stein voters who bought into her claims of using a “quantitative easing” plan to eliminate student debt, and whatever the fuck it was that Gary Johnson was offering.
We all live in this country–which includes in-the-whole student loan hostages, oil tycoons, laid off manufacturing workers, wealth East coast liberals, undocumented immigrants, teachers, bankers, ignorant bigots, enlightened yoga instructors, and Mark Cuban’s ego–and we need to figure out a way to represent the interests and will of the aggregate instead of just giving the spotlight to small groups of radicals alternately screaming to the left and the right. Bernie not working out? (And no, Bernie Sanders was never going to win the national vote, regardless of how enthused his supporters were, even against Donald Trump.) Then accept it and endorse a viable candidate rather than just screaming invective. You may have been rational in your allegiance but many Sanders boosters weren’t to a point of figurative self-immolation, and now we have President Donald Trump, three words that go together about as well as “Broccoli Ice Cream” or “Yellow Fever Delight”.
Stranger
I’m trying to make a point, but I have a really bad head cold and I have a -5 INT penalty at the moment. So maybe I’ll try again later when I’m feeling better and try to get my point across more clearly. Because I don’t seem to be communicating well.