Trumpers whine incessantly about their victimhood. But in the face of actual tragedy that affects people they don’t see as Real Americans or even human. They are using the horror in LA as an excuse to treat the residents and its leaders like garbage: (FYI, everything Watters says is a lie. Of course.) More from the Asshole in Chief-elect, who has been tweeting garbage like this all day long: The idea of secession is sounding better all the time.
Uncategorized
Fuck you Facebook. That was the first thought I had when I woke up this morning. Followed by: What ministry is Mark Zuckerberg volunteering to manage for the dictators of the world? All I could think of is how Orwell’s Ministry of Love is about hate. So what are we creating here? The Ministry of […]
I listened to James Carville Sunday morning on Jen Psaki’s show and read his Op-Ed in the NY Times. I got the impression from Psaki that his advice is being taken very seriously by Democrats. He believes that we need to stop caring about Donald Trump’s assault on reason and the Constitution and concentrate on kitchen table issues. He says that when people are suffering greatly nobody cares that he’s a corrupt criminal and an enemy of democracy so Democrats shouldn’t talk about it anymore. And he cautions that denouncing the other party and its voters is “no way to win an election.” (Donald Trump would like a word …) He says that Trump won on his economic message. Carville advised Democrats to focus on opposing Republican party economic policies but they also need to offer “wildly popular” economic policies that will appeal to people. He suggests issues such as the codification of Roe v. Wade, a higher minimum wage and support for H1B visas to “expedite entry for high-performing talent and for those who will bring business into our nation.” Obviously opposing the GOP economic message is vital.
Peter Baker in the NY Times: To hear President-elect Donald J. Trump tell it, he is about to take over a nation ravaged by crisis, a desolate hellscape of crime, chaos and economic hardship. “Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” he declared on social media last week. But by many traditional metrics, the America that Mr. Trump will inherit from President Biden when he takes the oath for a second time, two weeks from Monday, is actually in better shape than that bequeathed to any newly elected president since George W. Bush came into office in 2001. For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring stock markets finished their best two years in a quarter-century. Jobs are up, wages are rising and the economy is growing as fast as it did during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
The New Republic takes a look at where the MAGA base is these days. They point out that generally a base movement loses momentum when their party is out of power but that it never happened with the MAGA cult. (I think that’s because its cult leader stayed on as party leader and was still in the public eye.) Now they’re building a new army of foot soldiers: [D]efying the odds, the MAGA movement continued to flourish under Joe Biden. Now, with Trump returning to the White House, the far right grassroots is barreling into 2025 with plenty of momentum, while their leader both helps set their agenda while sustaining it by crowd-sourcing their conspiracies and lies for his own use. The far right is currently animated by several themes, many of them interrelated. For several years, demonizing “DEI” (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) frameworks—which focus on identities, racial and otherwise—was an obsession. But the far right has gradually replaced DEI with “woke,” a vaguer and broader idea which can refer to the vast majority of left-leaning positions and be applied to any number of hot button, culture war topics.
Prepare to be gaslit From Brian Stelter’s bold-heavy Reliable Sources newsletter this morning: Mark Zuckerberg just announced sweeping changes to the social internet, all in line with the desires of President Trump and Trump voters. Out with the fact-checkers that conservatives deride. In with more permissive rules for posting opinions that conservatives hold dear. The recent elections “feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in a video that was shared first with Fox News. That’s one of the reasons why Zuckerberg said big changes are coming to Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
The Billionaires Compete for Dear Leader’s Favor Yep: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making sweeping changes to the social internet, all in line with the desires of President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters. Out with the fact-checkers that conservatives deride. In with more permissive rules for posting conservative opinions. The recent elections “feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said in his announcement, justifying relaxed new content moderation rules on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. “Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,” Zuckerberg said, repeating a right-wing talking point used to undermine fact checking.
I confess: I was disappointed when the Justin Trudeau Liberals won the fall 2015 election. I was hoping for an orange break-through. So, it comes with some irony that I find myself defending the economic policy legacy of the Justin Trudeau Liberal government nine years hence. The acute drama that unfolded in December with the Finance Minister’s resignation ahead of [...]
He won Four years ago today I watched on television as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol during the joint session of Congress to stop the certification of the presidential election and I thought to myself, “it’s finally over. Trump can’t possibly come back after this.” Until then I had assumed that he would immediately start his comeback. It didn’t occur to me that he could survive inciting this violent assault, especially since he egged it on as it was happening: As we later saw on video, the crowd soon began chanting “hang Mike Pence!” Later in the evening Trump finally emerged and put out a video telling the rioters he understood why they were so upset about all the evil people who stole the election but they needed to go home now. He said he loved them and they were very special: Over the course of many hours we watched on TV as bizarre Trump supporters occupied the Senate floor and took possession of the dais, the Capitol was vandalized and trashed and rioters beat police over the head with American flags. It was the most shockingly surreal event I’ve ever observed in American politics.
At the time Republicans knew how bad it was: “A shrine to democracy for our country, and the world, was overrun by violent extremists seeking to overturn an election. We must hold those responsible to account.” Senator John Thune in Jan. 2021 Today: I don’t know how we can survive this level of delusion and mendacity.