Fellow Travelers

I worry a little sometimes about how "the looney lefties" line up with a lot of what I'm lined up with politically - not because they're bad people and I hate making common cause with a buncha hippies, but because I'm not all in; I go out of my way not to be in lockstep with anybody; I just don't believe the "way they believe" - whatever the hell any of that means at any given moment.

Anyhoo

That said, there is something to the bit about how "you will know them by their fellows".  You are not your friends, but there are reasons people gather together and one of the big ones is that they reflect at least some of each other's values.

So when you're talking about a Donald Trump, you can't ignore the simple fact that real live White Nationalist fuckwads are lining up behind him, itching for a nice fat slice of that power pie.  We can know a little something about him by the people he attracts to his cause. 

“We have a wonderful OPPORTUNITY here folks, that may never come again, at the RIGHT time,” he stated. “Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that ‘our views’ are NOT so ‘unpopular’ as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!”

The dead give-away is when somebody's making a political statement and refers to any other American as "the enemy".  There are limits, guys.  And we've been past those limits before.  And going past those limits has always meant unjustly bad things for righteously decent people. Just sayin' - don't be like those assholes over there.

So they're all the same? It doesn't matter? You're just picking one corporatized automaton over another? Bullshit.

But in the end - seriously - who would you rather hang out with?  Which of these fellows would you rather be known by?

Today's Tweeted GIF

.@HuffPostComedy

Debate Triple Jump #TrumpOlympics pic.twitter.com/9Pb5lU5dwc

— Mr. Jameson Neat (@MrJamesonNeat) August 2, 2016

Trae Crowder

What We Miss

I have to admit that I get a little too sucked in. There's a tendency to yell and point at all the shitty things we don't like about the other guy's candidate while practically ignoring what "our" candidate wants to do.  So we end up making a choice based on what we don't like about the brand on the outside of the box instead of making an informed decision based on what we know about the content inside the box. 

We can't just go on voting against everything and everybody because that only gets us pretty much to where we are now - half of us are so "against it" that we don't vote at all.  

We have to be able to vote for something. 

One smallish case in point - here's a bit from Hillary's speech in Philly (via Alternet):

We have to heal the divides in our country. Not just on guns. But on race. Immigration. And more. And that starts with listening, listening to each other. Trying, as best we can, to walk in each other’s shoes.

So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable.

I don't agree with the part of that article that tends towards cynicism. (Appearances to the contrary, I'm a skeptically pragmatic idealist - it's just that I can't always resist being a bit cynical, cuz holy crap dude, have you even seen what goes on up in here sometimes?)  

But anyway, my point is that I'll vote for Hillary partly because she's standing up and saying there's this real problem and we need to figure out something we can do about it. Which is in fact very different from Trump, who literally just makes shit up, tells us he's seen videos that don't exist, and has nothing to say about anything that might help us form some kind of reasonable policy.

Really, I'm not just against Trump, feeling I have nowhere else to go and I guess I'll hafta hang with Hillary.  I've said something close to that in the past, but I'm a little smarter now - because I've been trying to do my homework.  

So no, I'll go along with Hillary until or unless she bails on it - just like I try to do with all of 'em - hoping for the best while understanding I won't get everything I want, no matter who the candidate is or what issue I'm on about right now.

Stumble forward.

Today's Quote

Clint Eastwood says 'When I was growing up, we didn't call it racism.' Emmett Till unavailable for comment.

--John Fugelsang

Today's Pix

(Click a pic to big it up)

Compare And Contrast

Steely-eyed and focused vs twitchy and panicked

Steady as a rock and jumpy, erratic man pic.twitter.com/OxHzmWPXYu

— Matt Ortega (@MattOrtega) August 4, 2016

And btw - those Secret Service guys just jump into it no matter what.  How straight-up amazingly awesome do you have to be to know your guy is a complete douche nozzle like Donald Trump, and still put yourself between him and trouble?   

Trump vs Trump

Inside Peek

Recently unearthed training video for Donald Trump's campaign staffers:

hat tip = driftglass

Today's GIF

Breaking News: In spite of mounting pressure from GOP officials, the Trump campaign will not revamp the basic message at this time.  They believe in their candidate and their candidate's message, and their candidate's unique ability to articulate that message. 

We take you now to live coverage of Mr Trump's latest pronouncements:

image via Mock Paper Scissors

Meanwhile, at GOP Headquarters:

Just kidding - there are no black people working at GOP Headquarters. Let's not get silly.

An Armed Society

Here's one of the favorite bromides of the American Ammosexual: 

"An armed society is a polite society"

I think maybe we're looking at large portions of the populace feeling intimidated into keeping silent; being reluctant to speak out because they're afraid some asshole with a gun might do something stoopidly shitty - and mistaking that forced reticence for courtesy.

Those two things are not the same.

And also too - the fact that Americans are heavily armed (and short-tempered) may be a contributing factor in our ever-increasing tendency to offload some of our societal responsibilities onto the cops.

Why would I knock on my neighbors' door to ask him to keep his dog quiet, when I'm afraid he'll shoot my ass?  Am I being polite - or is it something else?

Just wanna point some of that shit out.

Propaganda Works

Cool story, bro.  

But wait - that's not Jacksonville, that's Cleveland.  And oh gosh, that's the victory parade for the Cavaliers when they beat the Warriors for the NBA championship a coupla months ago.

Oops.

Dang - Breitbart lied to us?  Another illusion shattered.

Today's GIF

We take you now to live coverage as our intrepid cadre of Press Poodles continue to strive gallantly to make Donald Trump seem like a viable candidate.

Today's Tweets

Meet another Gold Star family with some personal perspective on Donald Trump:https://t.co/z2eJfg9dv0

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 1, 2016

Crying baby ejected from Trump rally issues statement pic.twitter.com/NydOC41skZ

— Ash Warner (@AlsBoy) August 2, 2016

Today's Political Leverage

Lotsa people have been wondering what's up with Paul Ryan.  Why does he blast Trump for saying stoopidly shitty things while still supporting the nominee?  

Ryan said Trump's criticism of Judge Curiel was "the textbook definition of a racist comment".

Ryan kept quiet when Trump went after Khizr Khan, and was rewarded by  Trump coming out in support of Ryan's primary challenger.

Now, Ryan's in a tight spot because he's trying hard to take his Party-Uber-Alles duties seriously, but at this point, he's trying to stand up for Party Unity in a GOP that split badly several years ago, and is in the process of splintering into smaller and smaller factions, heading rapidly for the Logical Extreme of becoming 20 million Parties Of One - which in a bit of sweet irony, is exactly what Ayn Rand's philosophy requires.  Unity means there has to be a bit of sublimation of the individual in order to work in concert with as many others as possible (ie: making a collective effort, which is absolute anathema to The Randian Way).

So it comes down to "damned if ya do and damned if ya don't", and that's how Trump always plays it. Everybody's fucked but him, which is a pretty good way to sum up the GOP Platform over the last 30 years, and also a plain-spoken interpretation of Ayn Rand's outlook, which means Trump is doing nothing but beating Ryan et al at their own game, which (hoping now) points up why you don't build a healthy society on the beliefs of a bitterly aggrieved former bourgeois fantasy hack whose life turned out to be exactly the kind of contradiction she railed against for 50 years.

So how 'bout it, Mr Speaker - will you tough it out and be the rugged individual St Ayn requires you to be? Or are you going to wuss out and ask somebody for a little help; a little teamwork; a little collective action?

You helped build that shit house - stop bitchin' about the stink and do something about it.