The Green Spot

Environmentalists refer to a problem with the basic mindset of people who don't get the concept of The Commons, and more particularly, The Tragedy Of The Commons - where people move to a place that has "plenty to go around" (land, resources, etc), and immediately start ruining it all for everybody by trying to monopolize whatever they can. When it's all used up - when it's depleted and brown - they move on, looking for the next Green Spot.

Considering Economics and Politics, there's never a shortage of Brown Spots - places where Plutocrats and their coin-operated politicians have turned the joint into a wasteland - little more than a system of lords and serfs.

(ed note: I wish there was another way to characterize the phenomenon, because I don't want to associate the "brown" in Brown Spots when I talk about environmental stuff, with the "brown" in Brown People when I talk about Econ and Politics)

So here we are again, faced with having to deal with some of our own shit coming back to haunt us (a hundred years of Gunboat Diplomacy, Shock Doctrine Economics, and Ollie North-style fuckery) all through Latin America.

We've helped to make it very difficult for brown people to survive in their own countries, so they're migrating to the Green Spot here in USAmerica Inc, and we're so freaked out that we're actually in process of turning this joint into the kind of Brown Spot that would be less attractive to them.

At the very least, we're doing everything we can think of to send the message that we're no different than the assholes they're risking their lives to escape. 

We're the bartender at some redneck dive at 2am. "Closin' time - you don't have to go home, but ya can't stay here." Then he turns on the light, and you make a mental note to get a tetanus booster, but that takes me off towards a slightly different rant.

The New Yorker:

Donald Trump, who’s been stumping for congressional Republicans, is now calling the November midterms the “election of the caravan,” and says that the Democrats support the “illegal immigration onslaught” because they “figure everybody coming in is going to vote Democrat.” For his Administration, the political rhetoric and the policy agenda are effectively indistinguishable. In the last several months, over the objections of regional experts and diplomatic staff, officials at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security have wound down a number of programs meant to provide legal relief to those seeking refuge in the U.S. This summer, Attorney General Jeff Sessions unilaterally redrew decades of jurisprudence to make it significantly more difficult for migrants fleeing gang violence and domestic abuse to seek asylum. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of migrants from Central America continue to stream north, fleeing conditions that the Trump Administration has dismissedas irrelevant.

For all the Administration’s avowals of toughness, none of its strategies has helped stem the flow. According to unpublished government data obtained by the Washington Post, Border Patrol has apprehended more than a hundred thousand migrant family members in the last year, which is about thirty thousand more arrests than the previous peak, in 2016. The rationale for the President’s harshest measures, from the indefinite detention of asylum seekers to the separation of families at the border, was that they would deter other migrants from making the trip. The government’s own data contradicts that, and so Trump’s enforcement policy is stuck in a feedback loop: he’s been defending actions that haven’t changed migration patterns, while simultaneously citing a “border crisis” as the reason to double down.


In the end - and we have news about it today - we'll do our usual bullshit "conservative" thing ('specially now that Cult45 is in charge) by announcing our intentions to punish those countries. 

We'll cut Foreign Aid. Because we're all about retribution, and the GOP likes nothing more than making people suffer.

We have a problem with immigration because people want to get away from the shit in their lives, but we refuse to do what needs done in order to make those people stronger in their own countries - so they have a real chance to make their own lives better wherever they are - so we don't have to sponsor them here.

(*) GOP politicians are always pushing to cut Foreign Aid
- for farmers, which means they have to resort to growing drug crops instead of food crops.
- for local schools, which means they fall further into the cycle of ignorance poverty and crime.
- for governments, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of terrorists.

Republicans are weak on Drugs
Republicans are weak on Crime
Republicans are weak on Terrorism

And it should be easier and easier now to see how weak Republicans are on Immigration.

(*) hat tip = The West Wing

What Up Widdat?

NSFW

This one came over the toobz today from a coupla different places.

Seems to me, as hung up as we are on trying to run this joint down the middle, we oughta see just as many of these coming from "the other side", shouldn't we?

I mean, if we're stuck in this tribal struggle and both sides are firmly entrenched, locked in some kind of tit-for-tat exchange, we should see fire from the other side.

We hear Cult45 - kinda all the time - railing about violence coming from "the left" and what a hellscape America is becoming because the Dems have allowed rampaging bands of illegal immigrant MS13 monsters and blah blah blah.

Shouldn't there be plenty of video on that shit? The same as there's practically never a day goes by that we don't see some white jagoff raggin' on brown people?

I don't check Breitbart a lot, but I check. Same with Fox Nation and some others. What am I missing?

Today's Daddy State Lesson

Daddy State Awareness, rule 3:

Every prediction of dire consequences is a threat - either they're causing that dire consequence now so they can blame us for problems of their own doing, or they plan on causing it later in order to manipulate us into doing what they want now.

So let's see what they're up to, shall we?

Jeff Stein, WaPo:

Two U.S. Senators — Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) — are applying for federal money under a $12 billion bailout program set up by the White House to help farmers hurt by trade hostilities, spokespeople from their offices said.

Grassley pressed the Trump administration this spring to relieve farmers who have been pummeled by Chinese tariffs on their exports amid the wider trade war. Tester has also criticized the impact of the tariffs on farmers and called on the administration to help Montana ranchers.

The Agriculture Department confirmed last week it has already sent more than 7,800 bailout checks totaling over $25 million to farmers across the country. The assistance is intended to help farmers survive the trade war with China, which has dramatically widened in scope this month after the U.S. announced it would target another $200 billion in Chinese goods.

And then, a little classic double-speak:

“Sen. Grassley participates in farm programs for which he is legally eligible, including this program, like every other farmer,” said the spokesman, Michael Zona. “Grassley receives no special treatment and is always transparent about his participation. As a family farmer, Sen. Grassley brings firsthand knowledge and experience on behalf of agriculture and rural America to the policymaking tables in Washington.”

How many times have we heard some variation of this:

"The republic will stand...until the populace discover the ability to vote themselves benefits from the public treasury..." ?

Radical Libertarians (people who were once quaintly referred to as "conservatives") have been using that quote as a defensive weapon against us for a long time.

It's part of the overall strategy to delegitimize government at every level - and the very concept of democratic self-governance - to plant the notion that getting together, pooling our resources, and trying to do anything that's best for the most is the "evil of the collective".

They've been teaching huge segments of Americans to be afraid of each other, and to look to "their superiors" for marching orders.

Both Sides My Ass

Balance is definitely the name of the game, but Press Poodles blindly insisting that there's always a middle ground is part of the whole "Tribalism" problem they love to bitch about.

What's Your Logical Fallacy?

Remember, Poodles: When one guy says it's raining, it's not your job to go find another guy who says it isn't, and then just report that they have differing views on the weather - it's your job to go look out the fucking window and tell us what's actually going on.

2 + 2 = 4. It's not 3; it's not 5 - it's not green flapjacks on a fucking doghouse - and we're not going to "compromise" at 12½.

Eric Alterman, The Nation:

As President Trump and his Republican quislings continue to undermine our democracy, the punditocracy obsesses over another apparent threat to the nation: liberal intolerance. When New Yorkereditor David Remnick disinvited former Trump strategist Steve Bannon from his magazine’s annual festival, The Wall Street Journal ran an article bemoaning the “growing list of news organizations that have reversed their decision to engage with conservatives after a public outcry.” On The New York Times’ op-ed page, ex–Journal opinion editor Bret Stephens crossed into Crazytown when he concluded that “what this really means is that Remnick is no longer the editor of The New Yorker. Twitter is.” He added that the magazine was “on the road to [becoming a] left-wing version of Fox & Friends.”

Alterman's point seems to be that the regime of "Liberal Intolerance" seems to be pretty inclusive, and that there are plenty of platforms and opportunities for the wingnuts to barf up their Daddy State bullshit, but that's a bit defensive, and ineffective - cuz, when you're explaining, you're losing

I think the point needs to be that nobody's obliged to tolerate that Daddy State bullshit.

And, of course, he kicker is that there's solid evidence that the real threat to free speech is coming from the "conservatives". 

This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows Daddy State Awareness Rule 1:

Every accusation is a confession

Listen Up, Rubes

(overheard on various platforms in various iterations)

You Trumpsters better pray that liberals never regain control of the White House and Congress again, because the pay-back is going to be fierce. 

--Planned Parenthood Clinics on every corner.

--We're gonna paint Air Force One pussy hat pink and fly over the Bible Belt every Sunday at low altitude, dropping birth control pills and morning after pills and condoms and atheist brochures and feminist literature from the cargo bays.

--We're going to tax those mega-churches so hard, Joel Osteen will have to work extra shifts at Chik-Fil-A to make mortgage payments on a 3rd rate doublewide.

--Speaking of Chik-Fil-A, we'll nationalize the whole chain, and give franchises to any LGBTQ who had to put up with your sick-as-fuck cult leaders torturing them with conversion therapy. And we'll have fun coming up with new menu items - "Try the all new McPence; an over-boiled unseasoned chicken breast that you eat in the closet with your mother."

--We'll take all of your guns, melt them down and build a giant steel pyramid featuring the faces of Hillary, Bernie, Pelosi and Soros in bas relief.

 --Every park in every city will be renamed for a civil rights leader or a union organizer or a champion of Social Security and Medicare.

--Every Confederate statue will be replaced with a memorial to BLM or Immigrants.

--Public schools will be renamed for the kids your asshole "president" and Attorney General stole from their parents.

--The White House, and all federal buildings, will be permanently lit with rainbow colors, and powered by American Union-Built solar panels.

--DumFux News facilities will be converted to Family and Refugee Shelters. Hannity's office in New York will become a nice big unisex bathroom, complete with changing tables and complimentary tampons.

And every time one of your idiot Rube Whisperers complains about any of this, we're adding an openly gay character to a Disney movie.

By the way - every bit of that would have to happen in order to make the bullshit Both Sides argument carry the credibility of a below-average Bigfoot sighting.

Jesus Fuck

Meet Joe Manchik, Green Party "candidate" for OH12

1,127 people voted for this idiot, in a race where the margin in favor of the Republican is about 1,750. 

And please - spare me the bullshit about "how bad the Dems must be to make people think they should vote Green..."

What I hear you saying is, "how fucking stoopid does a voter have to be to think Joe Manchik is a good choice?"

Your little protest votes for these idiotic boutique candidates running their idiotic vanity project campaigns are costing us dearly.

You're an adult. You can see the difference. You don't need spoon feeding. You can do some of the fucking work for yourself.

A Critique

It's about Thomas Friedman, but really it's about Thomas Friedman and David Brooks and Maggie Ball and Jennifer Rubin and Peggy Noonan and Mark Shields - all the "heavy hitters" who work very hard to avoid having to acknowledge they've been wrong about most things in the last 30 years...

... and the fairly simple fact they continue to put out a counterfeit product - while raking in large piles of cash - must give us pause, cuz holy fuck, it looks a whole lot like their real job is to keep us stuck in the middle by constantly pimping the Both Sides crapola. ie: if we can't identify the problem, we can't formulate a solution.

...and Michael Gerson (see: driftglass)

Today in Republican Detachment Disorder, the Washington Post has once again paid former George W. Bush chief speechwriter, senior Republican policy adviser and reliable Beltway Republican stalactite, Michael Gerson, to take up his quill and proclaim that his Republican Party just all of the sudden became a racist shitpile a couple of years ago.

It today's exciting episode, Mr. Gerson -- whose business is words -- pretends that he does not understand what the word "exposes" means:

Trump exposes the hypocrisy of Christian Republicans

 From the dictionary:

ex·pose

verb, 3rd person present: exposes

make (something) visible, typically by uncovering it.

Mr. Gerson -- who has worn his Conservative evangelical Christian bona fides on his sleeve right next to his "Ride or Die Republican" credentials for his entire adult life -- really wants you to believe that Good Republicans like Michael Gerson had no fucking idea that Christian Republicans are, in fact, Christopath Republicans; a word I coined 13 years ago, back when Mr. Michael Gerson was being paid to put words in George W. Bush's mouth and thoughts into George W. Bush's head.

The point is - the point driftglass (et al) have been trying to get thru to us forever - these guys are wrong all the fucking time and our "liberal" media conglomerates keep them around anyway.

When Even George Will...

George Will is years past his freshness date, but just as a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, so Mr Will can still bring it on rare occasions.

On Lawrence O'Donnell's show last night:

Money quote: "... Mr Pence is surface all the way through."

Be mindful that Mr Will can trash 45* and his trained monkeys, but still miss the broader point that it's the GOP that's been putting these assholes up front for a solid 30 years.

The party built these monsters. The party owns that responsibility, and a guy like George Will bought 3 or 4 houses and took nice long vacations in Europe on the money he was paid to animate the monster.

So it gives us a Warm-n-Fuzzy to hear ol' George say those things about Cult45, but we've been here before. We had that same feeling when Will trashed Bush43 about 15 years ago.

He tries to make it sound like he's widening out his criticism by saying Pence has given in to  tribalism, but that word - "Tribal" - is great example of ducking the issue by using vague terms to invite the inference that it's a Both Sides problem, and therefor everything is equal and therefor we can go on pretending that it's not the GOP that's the fucking problem.

Read your driftglass

Today's Sweeping Generalization

Republicans are all crooked.

Sorry not sorry.

Patrick Marley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Dealing a setback to Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans, a judge ruled Thursday the governor must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature.

Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December.

His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama.
No, of course not all of them - just the ones who're in office now.

And the ones running for office.

And their donors.

And their Think Tanks

And their staffers.

And their voters.

Cuz y'know what? Seems like the decent folk have left the GOP. 

I think most Americans are fundamentally good people, so I think what's left of the GOP is whatever you get when you distill a political party down to its concentrated, extract form.

In this case, I think we can call it something like Essence of Asshole...

... or Eau DePlorable maybe.

As the Press Poodles keep insisting on being amazed at 45*'s popularity among Republicans, a couple of things may have popped up your brain.

1. Fewer Americans self-identify as Republican almost every day.

2. As the "GOP Cohort" shrinks, the percentages of that cohort who still support 45* almost have to hold steady or increase. Which means on the other side of that ledger, the "Not GOP Cohort" will increase, which accounts for a corresponding steadiness or decrease in percentages on that side.

I suck at math; and statistics flummox me to the point where I fear I'm about to have a stroke. So c'mon, guys.

Anyway, if we're going to talk about trends at all, then we have to consider the number of Shitty Things A Political Party Will Do To Stay In Power - and we get a pretty lopsided pie chart.

What we don't get is "Both Sides" and "Yeah but the Democrats".

About That TheoCon Thing

It's a long one, but you have to admit - the graphic's pretty good.

Michael Gerson, The Atlantic:

One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received.

Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and leadership. Trump’s past political stances (he once supported the right to partial-birth abortion), his character (he has bragged about sexually assaulting women), and even his language (he introduced the words pussy and shithole into presidential discourse) would more naturally lead religious conservatives toward exorcism than alliance. This is a man who has cruelly publicized his infidelities, made disturbing sexual comments about his elder daughter, and boasted about the size of his penis on the debate stage. His lawyer reportedly arranged a $130,000 payment to a porn star to dissuade her from disclosing an alleged affair. Yet religious conservatives who once blanched at PG-13 public standards now yawn at such NC-17 maneuvers. We are a long way from The Book of Virtues.
Remember though:

This is Michael Gerson - who helped create the monster.  

It reads as pretty critical, but (to me) it ends up being more of an Apologetic than a Critique.

ie: He tries to say otherwise near the end, but it gets to the usual attempt to blame it all on the product while ignoring the process (and the management of the process) that gave us that product. 

And as always always always, there's the standard passive voice bullshit: "We're all to blame for this horrible mess, so let's call it even and start fresh". 

No. There's one side of this where many many good people (Christian and otherwise) are turning away - because on the other side there's a buncha fuckin' maniacs called Republicans.

There are not "very fine people" on both sides of this shit.

Gotta get used to looking for the razor blade in these apples (hat tip = driftglass).

BTW: There's a sound cloud file embedded in the piece that makes it quite a bit easier.

What We're Looking For

We keep hearing the same old bullshit arguments about how horrible everybody thinks American Press Poodles are - and they are (or have been), but in very different ways.

Straight up criticism comes more vociferously from 'the right'; to the point now that we're all the way into Daddy State fantasy land projections of Fake News. 

But there's plenty of bitching from 'the left' as well - tho' for different reasons.

Conservatives point at the press and yell 'Liberal Bias' while every study for at least the last 25 has found the opposite.

Liberals mostly complain about False Equivalence and The Horse Race.

I come down pretty solidly in the 'liberal' camp these days because I think I detect a brand of rhetoric that's quite a bit less toxic coming from 'the left'.

Of course, there're loonies on the extremes of both ends of the spectrum, but by sheer volume and rate of incidence, 'the right' has way more crazies pimping the bullshit, and way more rubes lapping it up.

Suffice to say we get lots of trouble because we all tend to agree the American Press is kinda fucked up.  

Conservatives bitch about Fake News, and then the studies come out (refuting the bias), but that little tidbit can be safely ignored because the standard narrative is that everybody knows it's all fucked up, so the conservative audience will only hear, "See? Even the liberals agree there's bias in the Mainstream Media."

It works the same way for Congress. Nobody's particularly happy with Congress, but Dems are a lot more likely to think their reps need to be more progressive and push the Repubs harder etc etc etc. The polls come out and because the notion that "everybody thinks Congress is all fucked up" fits the GOP's framing of the issue, once again the Repubs can point and say, "See? The liberals think we're right too - better keep voting for the guys who know what the problem is blah blah blah."

Anyway - back to the point of how we're supposed to go about determining what is and what ain't, here's a golden oldie from FAIR:

How To Detect Bias In News Media

Media have tremendous power in setting cultural guidelines and in shaping political discourse. It is essential that news media, along with other institutions, are challenged to be fair and accurate. The first step in challenging biased news coverage is documenting bias. Here are some questions to ask yourself about newspaper, TV and radio news.

Who are the sources?

Be aware of the political perspective of the sources used in a story. Media over-rely on "official" (government, corporate and establishment think tank) sources. For instance, FAIR found that in 40 months of Nightline programming, the most frequent guests were Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Elliott Abrams and Jerry Falwell. Progressive and public interest voices were grossly underrepresented.

To portray issues fairly and accurately, media must broaden their spectrum of sources. Otherwise, they serve merely as megaphones for those in power

• Count the number of corporate and government sources versus the number of progressive, public interest, female and minority voices. Demand mass media expand their rolodexes; better yet, give them lists of progressive and public interest experts in the community.

Is there a lack of diversity?

What is the race and gender diversity at the news outlet you watch compared to the communities it serves? How many producers, editors or decision-makers at news outlets are women, people of color or openly gay or lesbian? In order to fairly represent different communities, news outlets should have members of those communities in decision-making positions.

How many of the experts these news outlets cite are women and people of color? FAIR's 40-month survey of Nightline found its U.S. guests to be 92 percent white and 89 percent male. A similar survey of PBS's NewsHour found its guestlist was 90 percent white and 87 percent male.

• Demand that the media you consume reflect the diversity of the public they serve. Call or write media outlets every time you see an all-male or all-white panel of experts discussing issues that affect women and people of color.

From whose point of view is the news reported?

Political coverage often focuses on how issues affect politicians or corporate executives rather than those directly affected by the issue. For example, many stories on parental notification of abortion emphasized the "tough choice" confronting male politicians while quoting no women under 18--those with the most at stake in the debate. Economics coverage usually looks at how events impact stockholders rather than workers or consumers.

• Demand that those affected by the issue have a voice in coverage.

Are there double standards?

Do media hold some people to one standard while using a different standard for other groups? Youth of color who commit crimes are referred to as "superpredators," whereas adult criminals who commit white-collar crimes are often portrayed as having been tragically been led astray. Think tanks partly funded by unions are often identified as "labor-backed" while think tanks heavily funded by business interests are usually not identified as "corporate-backed."

• Expose the double standard by coming up with a parallel example or citing similar stories that were covered differently.

Do stereotypes skew coverage?

Does coverage of the drug crisis focus almost exclusively on African Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of drug users are white? Does coverage of women on welfare focus overwhelmingly on African-American women, despite the fact that the majority of welfare recipients are not black? Are lesbians portrayed as "man-hating" and gay men portrayed as "sexual predators" (even though a child is 100 times more likely to be molested by a family member than by an unrelated gay adult—Denver Post, 9/28/92)?

• Educate journalists about misconceptions involved in stereotypes, and about how stereotypes characterize individuals unfairly.

What are the unchallenged assumptions?

Often the most important message of a story is not explicitly stated. For instance, in coverage of women on welfare, the age at which a woman had her first child will often be reported—the implication being that the woman's sexual "promiscuity," rather than institutional economic factors, are responsible for her plight.

Coverage of rape trials will often focus on a woman's sexual history as though it calls her credibility into question. After the arrest of William Kennedy Smith, a New York Times article (4/17/91) dredged up a host of irrelevant personal details about his accuser, including the facts that she had skipped classes in the 9th grade, had received several speeding tickets and-when on a date-had talked to other men.

Is the language loaded?

When media adopt loaded terminology, they help shape public opinion. For instance, media often use the right-wing buzzword "racial preference" to refer to affirmative action programs. Polls show that this decision makes a huge difference in how the issue is perceived: A 1992 Louis Harris poll, for example, found that 70 percent said they favored "affirmative action" while only 46 percent favored "racial preference programs."

• Challenge the assumption directly. Often bringing assumptions to the surface will demonstrate their absurdity. Most reporters, for example, will not say directly that a woman deserved to be raped because of what she was wearing.
• Demonstrate how the language chosen gives people an inaccurate impression of the issue, program or community.

Is there a lack of context?

Coverage of so-called "reverse discrimination" usually fails to focus on any of the institutional factors which gives power to prejudice—such as larger issues of economic inequality and institutional racism. Coverage of hate speech against gays and lesbians often fails to mention increases in gay-bashing and how the two might be related.

• Provide the context. Communicate to the journalist, or write a letter to the editor that includes the relevant information.

Do the headlines and stories match?

Usually headlines are not written by the reporter. Since many people just skim headlines, misleading headlines have a significant impact. A classic case: In a New York Times article on the June 1988 U.S.-Soviet summit in Moscow, Margaret Thatcher was quoted as saying of Reagan, "Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears." The Times headline: "Thatcher Salute to the Reagan Years."

• Call or write the newspaper and point out the contradiction.

Are stories on important issues featured prominently?

Look at where stories appear. Newspaper articles on the most widely read pages (the front pages and the editorial pages) and lead stories on television and radio will have the greatest influence on public opinion.

• When you see a story on government officials engaged in activities that violate the Constitution on page A29, call the newspaper and object. Let the paper know how important you feel an issue is and demand that important stories get prominent coverage.

Today's Bit O' Satire

The fucked-up-edness really kicked into high gear when we (ie: conservatives) became convinced that the whole thing should be demystified because all you really needed was some common sense and a regular guy's outlook.

Jonathan Pie

"I went to the best doctor's on the planet, and the cancer came back - twice.  And now it's back again. This time I think I'll hire a plumber instead."

driftglass Explains

Our Lonely War On Pronouns Has A New General

As you probably know, we here at the DGBG Productions (driftglass blog, The Professional Left Podcast, etc.) have been waging a long, lonely war against the promiscuous use "we", "us", "The American people", "The Congress", "Washington D.C." and any other language deployed by the media and by Republican politicians in the service of pretending that somehow everyone and all institutions are collectively and equally culpable for explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition.

Or that, conversely, the energetic and resolution opposition to explicitly Republican cowardice, Republican barbarity, Republican racism and Republican sedition is something that "we" are all in together. That, for example. stripping tens of millions of Americans of their health care in order to pay for tax cuts for plutocrats with something up with which "the American people" would not put.

No, no and no.

Because other than geographically, there is no such critter as "the American people".

And also too, "...but the Democrats didn't stop 'em..." is a close relative of Both-Siderism.

The sheriff who gets killed by the mob when he tries to defend his prisoner is not to blame for the lynching that follows.

Breakin' It Down

I'm not in full agreement with Blue Gal, but damn if she ain't real close.

At the very least, this is a good look at what might be called a Chicken-Or-The-Egg thing.  

Is the GOP like this because of Trump, or is Trump the obvious manifestation of what the GOP has been for at least the last coupla generations?



Blue Gal at Crooks & Liars:

It isn't Trumpism. It's the Republican Party. And it has been for far longer than Donald Trump has been running for President. 

The video above is from a year ago (July 2015). Alisyn Camerota asks a focus group of Trump and leaning toward Trump voters why they like him. Those of you who have watched any of these "average Trump voter" interviews know their trademarks:

"He speaks his mind, and says what I am already thinking."

"Illegal immigration is the number one issue on my mind."

"He'll make America great again."

The reason the news media interviewed these particular people is, they are registered Republican Primary voters.

They didn't just register to vote this year or fall off a truck into the Republican Party. They voted for Bush, twice. They voted for McCain/Palin. They voted for Romney. And they're tired of losing and being embarrassed by their votes, so embarrassed that they fell for a "Tea Party" rebranding just so they would not have to associate themselves with Bush.

And then the establishment had the nerve to suggest they vote for Bush's brother.

Donald Trump lies about a lot of things, but he is not lying when he says he received more Republican Primary votes than any other candidate in US history. That statistic is skewed by how many Republicans voted "Not Trump," but the fact that the race boiled down to Trump versus not-Trump is not helpful to the "Trumpism" argument. Republican voters selected Trump as their candidate, in state after state after state. 

The beltway news media is terrified that the Republican Party will be forever tarnished by this Trump candidacy. Why? Because Trump-as-Republican busts open their "both sides" myth, that "both sides" of the political spectrum are equally bad, equally wrong and right, equally to be blamed for the "mess" in Washington.
- and the money quote - 

Both-siderism protects the Beltway's need for an election horserace, as well as a "view from nowhere" in which the media is outside the race altogether and just an "observer" of "the process." But both-siderism picks a side: the side that is willing to lie repeatedly to win elections and policy points.

ProLeft Podcast

I just noticed driftglass and Blue Gal are available on YouTube.

"...where were you when the lights went out?"

The Professional Left

Go leave 'em a tip

Today's Both Sides

Max Greenwood, The Hill:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) will not support GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's special election, even after President Trump stood by him on Tuesday.

Officials with the RNC and the NRSC, the party's Senate campaign arm, told The Associated Press they have no intention of reconsidering their decision to pull support for Moore, who has been accused of pursuing sexual and romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s.

The two GOP committees severed ties with the candidate earlier this month, ending their financial and field support for his campaign. Dozens of Republican officials have called on Moore in recent days to withdraw his Senate bid.

Think about it for just a short minute: Al Franken gets slagged and the Dems are on him like he's moldy bread. But Trumpublicans had to have a meeting to decide where they stood on Pedophilia.


What was the holdup?

I remember when "conservatives" were saying a Democrat couldn't order pizza without running it by a focus group.

Yeah - and again: Trumpulicans had to huddle up and be told that pedophilia is something they should probably not support.

PEDOPHILIA...

...for fuck's sake.

Today's Both Sides Bullshit

These two things are not the same.

On the subject of "sometimes there's only one side": That's a nice-sounding slogan, but when I drill into it, I see False Equivalence again.

So yes, there are two sides. One side is the decent human being side. The other side is the unrepentant unremitting unreasonable asshole side.

Both sides vote. One side votes (mostly) for Republicans.

And we should be talking about all the times we heard politicians of a certain stripe spending breath and energy yammering on about how we can't appease these rotten guys - Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Radovan Karadzic, Manuel Noriega - that if we don't shut them down (by force if needed), they'll be emboldened; they'll go further; and we'll pay a much higher price trying to stop them later.

Where the fuck are you this time, Republicans?  Oh right, I almost forgot - they are you and you are them. There's not a dime's worth of difference between you and the knuckle-draggers you've been courting for 40 years with all that coded language. That's the GOP now. That's who you are, and I guess I should try not to be surprised by any of this.

Stop cowering, get back up on your hind legs and help us do something about it.

Try Not To Forget

In all the political brouhaha, especially the Blue Team vs Red Team tribal bullshit, and even more especially the Both-Sides bullshit, there's something that needs to be kept in mind here:

Rage from the right end of the political spectrum gave us the KKK, Atlas Shrugged and Dick Nixon.

Rage from the left gave us Molly Ivins, Social Security and the Weekend.

Today's driftglass

driftglass:

Hey, Matt. I have an idea!

You're from Texas. And the Dixie Chicks are from Texas. So why don't you hop in your spiffy "Country Over Party" pickup truck, hie your tender sensibilities over to their place and have them share with you what life was like for them -- and for Liberals generally -- during the glorious reign of your former boss.

That George Will Piece

George Will, taking down 45*, in Salt Lake Tribune:

What is most alarming (and mortifying to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated) is not that Trump has entered his eighth decade unscathed by even elementary knowledge about the nation's history. As this column has said before, the problem isn't that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.

I mean, c'mon, it's George Will. Even though his relevancy went out the window along with his credibility back when he decided to hang in there with the home team and took to doing a little cheerleading for Bush43's idiotic tax cuts and Iraq etc, the guy can still turn a phrase:

His fathomless lack of interest in America's path to the present and his limitless gullibility leave him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.

The thing here, George - the thing that has to be repeated and remembered and repeated again until guys like you find the balls to step up and say it - you helped create the environment that produced "President" Donald Trump. And you're still part of the media machinery that goes on pimping the Both Sides bullshit; refusing to acknowledge that one side of our political system has gone completely off the fucking rails - and the suits in the executive suite are doing all that pimping because manufacturing melodrama is what brings in the ad revenue.

We have a fucked up Reality TV POTUS because we've allowed ourselves to be made into a fucked up nation of Reality TV junkies, who've been taught to ignore the line between News and Entertainment - and the line between Ideology and Partisanship - and the line between Real and Fake - and the line between Right and Wrong.

There is no honor in this shit anymore.