The appointment of a longtime anti-Sanders troll to the Biden government is an impressively petty end zone dance by Democrats celebrating the crushing of their left flank
Honestly, between this article & Greenwald's latest piece about how the CIA used Saint Obama as the perfect face to sell endless war I'm starting to think it's all pretty hopeless here in our little red, white & blue trailer park/strip mall.
No matter who rises up in opposition to the corruption of our lovely leaders, they will be derailed or, like Trump, effectively impeded by imaginary scandals & intrigue.
It's pretty obvious that Trump only survived his 4 years of attack because he was such a belligerent mouthy asshole.
Any well meaning civil populist would have melted down much sooner.
The fact is there are think tanks continuously gaming every conceivable scenario that could possibly oppose corporate rule and endless war.
And they have a list of strategies to counter that opposition.
If one doesn't work they just move on to 2, then 3 & so on.
It's not that I wasn't aware of all of this I guess I just hoped the average American was smarter than that.
But watching Biden's installation as the only corporate approved candidate & then watching every neoliberal news agency spin racist, sell out, corporate whore Joe into Sir Lancelot I no longer believe this.
I used to think anyone with half a brain could see through this bullshit.
Sadly I don't believe many Americans have even half a brain anymore.
When Saint Obama unveiled his "Hope & Change" slogan I thought, "Geez, could you be any vaguer. It sounds like you're selling soda." Of course he was selling soda. The kind of soda produced by Raytheon & Dow. The kind of soda that eats out your innards & leaves you a hollow shell. Yet it worked. And it worked in a big way.
In my opinion we, as a nation, are comfy, apathetic & cowed.
What we really seem to want is a friendly face like Joe's to look at while we're being bent over the table.
What we really want is a nice polished leader who knows how to murder but makes the murders look humanitarian, freeing our consciences so we can nap & enjoy what we really like to think about which is sports & porn.
Like Greenwald said, they hated Trump, not for his lying because they're all habitual liars, they hated Trump because he was incapable of putting a friendly face on empire & he inadvertently told the truth about the American empire. 2 huge no-nos in 21st century America.
Spider, everything you suggest has been confirmed by the pandemic.
Gullible, compliant public who as a mass craves both panic porn and spiritual resurrection--no critical or independent thinking required (or tolerated).
Complicit, self-serving but equally stupid media, tripling down on the bleeding, leading Crisis of the Century! (see recent analysis that shows over 90% of pandemic reporting in the US as negative, compared to just over 50% in Europe)
Gleeful political establishment who tripped over each other attempting to claim the mantle of Savior of Humanity while serving us an endless stream of BS--which we eagerly lapped up in order to feel "safer".
We have been revealed as a nation of co-dependent idiots, addicted to the bundle of catastrophic threat and promised salvation.
So, we chatted before. Tell me what you think of this "conspiratard" theory.
The election of Trump was a fortuitous turn of events for the Democrats because, prior to his election, their left flank was getting uppity, demanding things like MFA & a UBI.
But Trump's election literally put the ball shriveling/sphincter clenching fear on many of them, quite effectively scaring them back into the warm comfy folds of Nancy Pelosi's loving arms.
If you're extra paranoid, you can also add the layer that has Trump manipulated into office expressly for that purpose.
Trump will literally be a gift that keeps on giving cautionary tale keeping many timid Democrats from straying off of the corporate Dem reservation for a long time.
The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be. It's not an easy thing to decide, what with all the mis-direction going on. Turn to the media for truth and enlightenment? Not a good source IMO.
My take: Trump galvanized a lot of people. He did it entirely on his own. Biden didn't galvanize anyone. Few voted for him, most voted against Trump and even then, Biden had to have the near total support of the corrupt and complicit media, the RINO never-Trumpers, the intelligence community and possible rampant election fraud to pull it off.
In a sense, Trump galvanized virtually the entire voting public into action. Was this planned or organic? If planned, I would have to give tremendous credit to the planners- they understood their quarry, their tool, their end goal and were able to keep it in sequence and hidden. Are they that good?
Maybe they are. I have my doubts. If one were to use Occam's razor, the simplest answer is that Trump is genuine. Many people saw that in him- and this is the critical part- in spite of a near universal effort by the media to discredit him. I think he threatened the establishment to the extent that the last 4 years was more or less one long coup attempt.
Matt does make the point in this essay that the Democrat establishment was pretty desperate to shut down Bernie's campaign and thoroughly discredit him. But as we see, they were able to do that fairly readily and Bernie caved and supported Hilary and now Biden. I can't see where they needed Trump in some capacity to put that internal squabble to bed.
One last thing. I don't think Trump's election in 2016 sent people into the arms of Nancy Pelosi. The media did that. You know, I keep on saying it- the legacy media played an instrumental role in Trump's political career. The fact that they made $ off him is not the point- any such amounts are paltry compared to the overall grift that was at risk in the system should Trump be given a fair chance at making the changes he was elected to make. The risk to the MIC budget alone was enough to scare many shitless. Add in many others sucking at the teat and you get a pretty formidable cast of people and institutions working against him.
But it all largely pivoted around who owns the media. I suspect that JFK was assassinated due to the media not being owned back then and they had to get rid of him the old fashioned way. With Trump, the assassins were CNN, MSNBC, NYT and a whole lot of blogs that had "never Trump" on their letterheads. And by no means do I exempt Fox. They were the original propaganda outlet and only supported Trump when he did their bidding (mostly MIC related). At any rate, confusion of the public is guaranteed if they are fed bullshit 24/7.
«The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be. It's not an easy thing to decide, what with all the mis-direction going on.»
But there is a way: D Trump has not appeared on the public scene from nothing in 2016, he has been a public and political figure for decades before that, with plenty of records as to his opinions and actions.
And his record has been consistent: a nationalist "one nation tory", with a good record of social progressiveness as to antiracism and pro-LGB, and a right-wing "populist" on economic issues (even if some "libertarian" leanings), a 50s style Republican. Someone in part like Perot or Buchanan.
I’m waiting for when the Dems (if they win, God help us) will create a new boogieman for the progressives to stay and vote for them again.
Now that I’ve walked away from being a progressive it’s painful to watch them stay in such an abusive relationship. If only they could see that they are being lied to... even by the progressive media. Sigh...
They already did that. They call it Q-anon and claim it influences a significant portion of the Republican electorate. Of course, most Republicans had never heard of it before Mike Pence was asked about it, and I genuinely believe he didn't know what it was at that point, either.
Thanks. You were a true progressive and unwilling to be lied to. I keep harping on the media and here's another one- there's nothing progressive about the media. They are owned 100% by the corporate PTB, the MIC, intelligence community etc. It's why they always- ALWAYS- throw the public under the bus. It amazes me how many people believe them.
You lost me at Trump being genuine and massive fraud. Trump isn't genuine about anything and there is no massive fraud. But I will give you that the media was highly manipulative. They did it for ratings in 2016 and it bit the Establishment Dems in the ass, which is hilarious. Then they pushed this nonsensical everyone is dying from covid to get the Orange one out. This administration is going to tank the US in lots of ways and there will be a red tsunami in the midterms without Orange Jesus there. The Dems got what they wanted but they aren't going to be in power very long. My bet is Dementia Joe is out in less than a year.
The media did it all for ratings? You gotta be kidding me. Nothing of the sort happened. The media is complicit all the way through. The were the blunt tool used by the big boys to beat the electorate over the head repeatedly- over and over and over again that Trump was racist, misogynist, xenophobic, ad nauseum. And a lot of you bought it- swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Matt included.
And then you fell for the decoy: "we only came after Trump for the ratings, yeah, that was all we were up to, promise!". Fer gawd's sakes, you fellas just fall off the turnip truck?
"The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be." That's not really important. What matters is if the spark of populism he ignited in the Republican party is snuffed out or allowed to smoke until the midterms. I think most Republican operatives want to walk the line between appealing to the people who bought Trump's populist rhetoric while disavowing him as a vulgarity who steered them off the moral high ground, even where the landscape is flat swampland as far as the eye can see. In truth, the typical Republican voter is a populist now.
We probably are talking a difference without a distinction, as my engineer Father would say.
Divisions will harden in the days ahead. Sides will be chosen and allies sought. Once the average Trump supporter ditches Fox news for good, as they already should have, clarity can occur.
Serious question regarding your last sentence. Who in right wing media, tv, radio, internet, social media, is a populist? That is where they get all of their information and unless there is a personality that would reinforce something populist, there is no populist right. It is culture and libertarian economics. Trump won on a populist agenda, but as soon as he got in office and ditched Bannon he was a typical Republican. 73 million people didn't vote for populism. They voted for a personality and against a perceived evil. Having been a former right winger that gobbled all that news and also important, American Christianity, I just don't see the majority of Republicans looking for populist economic items.
Actually I just listened to Jimmy Dore's interview with Glenn Greenwald & he outlines a similar scenario with the Democrats using fear of another Trump to justify all manner of "gatekeeping."
So I probably heard bits of that interview, forgot it, then re-remembered it as my own thought.
The internet is really difficult to communicate with. But folks here actually do a pretty good job of it. It's why I hang out here- agree or disagree, Matt attracts a more thoughtful bunch.
Oh and the Dems will do what they can to consolidate power- any excuse, any means. Control, baby!
Wasn't really invested in the "installation scenario."
Didn't actually mean the day of Trump's election as much his overall tenure in office. I should have been clearer.
But whether Trump was genuine or not, he will still make an excellent cautionary tale against weakening the party. Folk like Pelosi can say, "If you weaken us look what the Republicans will put in office. Just another Hitler like Trump."
Doesn't really matter whether he was another Hitler or not, many of the party faithful believe he was ol' Adolph in orange.
Although, would Sanders have caved as readily without the specter of Trump hanging over his head?
Then again, Sanders really didn't appear to have much fight left in him towards the end, so your probably right.
My theory is what happens after a day of drinking high test coffee while smoking a tad too much pot and then nightcapping it all with some Jack Daniels.
I actually woke up thinking "What the fuck did I type last night?"
Luckily it wasn't as deranged as it could have been.
It could be a cautionary tale, it could be they were scared shitless, it could be Trump was a massive threat to their status quo or it could be all three. But essentially nowhere in the DNC/deep state bubble are they at all concerned with the public. I simply see that Trump was a threat to their world and they meant to take him out. If they had to use the electorate to do it, fine, but that only makes the public useful idiots. In 1963 they didn't bother with that nicety- no electorate needed.
I won’t get into most of what you said (because I pretty much agree), but if a recent analysis of COVID reporting showed that 90% of US covid coverage is negative, versus 50% in Europe, I have to believe that that’s because the situation in the US is much more dire than that of Europe. They’re doing something about COVID in Europe. Here? Not so much.
How is the situation more "dire" in the US? Death rates in Spain, Italy, and the UK are higher, and with similar patterns and impacts. People there complain about the same questionable policies from government and issues with health care. Countries have gone through lock-down and open-up cycles.
How are they "doing something" that is substantially different? With respect, your bias might be showing.
I stand by the interpretations that Americans and American media are in a different category of stupid, and love to sell and wallow in panic porn.
To paraphrase every conspiracy guy I ever read, "Y'know people just need to wake up."
Maybe they really don't want to...
What was that Carlin line about the American Dream & snoozing?
The simple fact is if I repeated what I've typed on here since the Selection to 90% of the people I know they'd look at me like I was one of Alex Jones' interdimensional demon/aliens who just beamed in from the planet Quargziffle.
I have also come to that conclusion after having friends admit to me that they prefer only listening to left wing media because it’s what they WANT to hear. Willfully ignorant.
It truly does show us how powerful the evolutionary development of tribalism is. That people even knowing that their tribe is wrong will refuse to stand up for what is right. The horrors of collectivist thinking.
It boggles my mind. So glad I had teachers that taught me about the Holocaust.
Zat you, epierce? If so, I had you wrong. At any rate, thanks for the insight. My experiences were exactly the same. The worst was politics over friendships these last 4 years. People you thought you were at least somewhat tight with turned into raging assholes- lefties every one of them.
Let's say Joe was the best the Dems could come up with, hoping his 8 year proximity to Saint Obama's holy glamour & divine light would blind people to his steamer trunk full of flaws.
You're splitting hairs buddy. If you saw him in a mall & you didn't know him he'd look like any other old grandpa. Of course, that would last until he started following little girls around for a good hair fondle that is...
I told some HS students to look at Max Headroom and tell me what they thought and they were all like “OMG that’s Biden”, despite never having having seen Max before!
The answer to that is simple. We asked more and more of an entity that is unable to provide it. Even still, in the face of its failure, most of the country is still asking more of it.
Depends on how susceptible you are to believing a kiss will actually cure your boo boos. I'd say no but a large segment of America didn't seem to notice that Obama was continually sticking a shiv in their backs. So, I'd say that a smile & a glib demeanor goes a long way here in personality cult America.
It's a different story when old-fashioned liberal Dems like Al Franken and Garrison Keillor outlive their utility. They get the public #MeToo coup de grace--pour encourager les autres.
«our little red, white & blue trailer park/strip mall»
That's for the majority of "little people"; for significant minority it is McMansions in restricted communities, and for a small minority it is fantastic palaces in vast estates and private islands.
«It's pretty obvious that Trump only survived his 4 years of attack because he was such a belligerent mouthy asshole.»
That's a rather optimistic version, a blogger pointed out that as soon as he was elected and the "security" services started attacking him, he realized that his first priority was to stay alive, without fatal accidents for example because of a "isolated crazed loner" taking him out. So Trump started looking for a "roof", and first tried to get the armed forces, in particular I think the marines, to give him "protection", and then at the end put himself under Likud "protection".
«The fact is there are think tanks continuously gaming every conceivable scenario that could possibly oppose corporate rule and endless war.»
That's a smart point that many people don't get: the business and property rentiers are organized, forward looking, and have smart consultants on their side, for propaganda, strategy, political research, etc., and this gives them an advantage. Once upon a time the worker unions also had similar resources, but they have been much reduced.
«And they have a list of strategies to counter that opposition. If one doesn't work they just move on to 2, then 3 & so on.»
Fortunately all those expensive consultants often get those wrong, but as you say the business and property rentiers are persistent and try keep trying.
"Once upon a time the worker unions also had similar resources, but they have been much reduced."
From my experience in unions, labor history is not something that's taught so younger folk coming in didn't really understand how unions worked. Consequently they approached the union as something you buy, like drain cleaner. In other words, a member pays his dues & sits around & waits for the union to get him/her a raise. It doesn't work that way.
I can remember one union rep who called & asked if I'd be willing to do an informational picket in front of the facility.
I agreed, then I asked him if anyone else would be there. He said that loads of folk were on board. I laughed & asked him if he'd like to bet me a quarter that, on the day of the picket, we'd be the only 2 boobs standing there.
Sure enough, the day came & we were the only 2 boobs standing there.
I have to tell you, a two man picket looks fucking absurd. We looked like whiners who couldn't get with the program.
It took one or two more similar incidents of amazing human apathy for me to finally quit the union.
Hey, Buddy, leave porn out of it. It's probably doing more good for the world than any of the poisons that America manufactures, by virtue of keeping a lot of sperm from meeting eggs and increasing the overpopulation issue, unarguably the greatest unspoken cause of the ecological destruction of the planet.
That's nice. I don't actually care. And I'm sure you're wealthy enough to not care that I don't care. I did enjoy your "save the planet" justification for porn though. As if porn needs a socially redeeming pitch to yank folk into jerkin their gherkin. I suppose I could balance your green impulse by pointing out how kids are now sexualized at an early age by easy access to internet porn.
At least in the old days chronic pud pounders had to actually work to get their freak on.
It gave them adventures.
On any given night their journey to the seedy side of town could get them a copy of Bertha's Anal Squirts or a slit throat in an alley.
So glad I voted for Trump even though I voted for Bernie in the primaries. If the Dems cheated progressives, why would you EVER vote for them? Why would you EVER listen to the smears they say about Trump knowing they smeared Tulsi and Bernie?
Progressives who stayed and voted for Biden have Stockholm syndrome. It’s fine if you voted third party or didn’t vote at all. Good for you! You at least didn’t contribute to the party that cheated the progressives. But if you not only voted for Biden, but also shilled for him, you are absolutely a useful idiot.
Watching my fellow progressives, repeat the media propaganda about Trump and vote for Biden makes me feel both pity and disgust. Pity because they are buying the bullshit lies repeated by progressive leaders (why are they repeating this crap from the MSM?!) and disgust because they will still vote for a candidate who is absolutely worse than Trump on foreign policy, trade, jobs in America, and has videos of him creepily groping young girls. Gross!!!
Just go look up the “fine people” hoax. Go watch how the media edited the video of Trump. You’ll just take the word of the media, which you know to be a wing of the Dem establishment, about Trump? The same media that didn’t fact check Biden while he lied during the debate against Bernie about social security? You’d take their word KNOWING they lie about progressives and about almost everything?
So glad I’m not a progressive anymore. I refuse to stay in a voting block that grovels at the feet of the people who abuse them. Get out of the mental plantation. Stop voting Dem. #WalkAway
Tulsi and Bernie were collateral damage in the march to election. The ends justify the means. The "fine people" hoax edit might as well have been done by Leni Riefenstahl.
and the drink bleach hoax was right up there too. Problem with the media isn't really the media. It is the idiots who only believe CNN and MSNBC and their ilk and never get any fake news from the right. They only get their news from the left and they actually think it is real. Whereas many of us get the news from both sides and know that it is fake all around!
They only want the truth they WANT to believe. It is a reality I have come to accept.
It makes the Nazi propaganda all that more horrifying to me now. Instead of questioning the propaganda, the Germans WANTED to believe that everything would be solved by hating the Jews. They would not accept that there was no other way.
Imagine how bizarre our society is that part of it WANTS to believe that there are white supremacists everywhere and that our President is a white supremacist. When you say to them that he isn’t, they get angry instead of relieved.
Candace Owens in the documentary Uncle Tom says that the litmus test is for a black person to tell a liberal that they don’t feel oppressed. A reasonable response would be “I’m glad that you don’t feel that way.” But most get angry that she does not feel oppressed.
The soft bigotry of low expectations. The more insidious form of racial prejudice imo.
But don’t get so discouraged. There are many of us who have taken the red pill. I’ve seen it with #WalkAway and #Blexit.
Hopefully, those who are in our lives will one day seek the truth. I pray that it will happen, that God’s righteousness will shine through in the end.
Haha indeed. I’ve known it was ALL propaganda since the media praised the AUMF and Patriot Act. I also knew that our politicians were insane when all of Congress stood up and clapped at the AUMF passing. Not a peep from the media about how the AUMF was destroying the checks and balances in our government that gave power to the PEOPLE to declare war not one person. The media and Congress literally cheered for tyranny. 🤦♀️
If you voted for Trump and you want to make excuses for decades of abhorrent behavior -- going all the way back to his full page ad on the Central Park jogger rape, and up to and including his love for playing footsie with and retweeting White Nationalists (while offering, of course, a lackluster required condemnation to supply a fig leaf to people like you who are either cynical or naive enough to don it) - then you were never a progressive. It is one thing to, as Matt does, condemn the vulgar exploitation of legitimate social justice issues by people like the Clintons. It is another thing entirely to make excuses for - or worse, vote for - a POS like Trump. I guess the Proud Boys were also in on the hoax, because they sure believe Trump is encouraging them. I guess armed militias who show up at statehouses and plot to kill the sitting governor Trump scornfully refers to "that woman" are also "media hoaxes." He's very happy for their support. Perhaps the only honest words that ever came out of Hillary Clinton's mouth are the ones that helped cost her the 2016 election: Trump's supporters are largely deplorables. Congratulations on being one of them.
Congratulations on getting brainwashed by the media to dehumanize a large portion of American citizens. You have fallen in the trap that many of the Germans fell into when the Nazi party dehumanized the Jews.
I proudly declare I am a deplorable! Would you like to label me with a star? Am I to declare that I am a deplorable on my front window? Will you also agree that we need to be put on lists and “deprogrammed” like so many others have on the left?
Do you not see the repeat in history? Or are you that ignorant? I refuse to be part of a coalition that believes in listing people and considering them irredeemable because the media tells me.
I question authority, always have my whole life. If questioning authority and doing my own research has turned me into a deplorable, then again I proudly consider myself a deplorable.
I think what you’re repeating here is a form of voter suppression tactic used by both parties to discourage voters. I voted for Trump in CA in one of the most Dem districts in Los Angeles. I didn’t care. I voted for Trump because I wanted to and because it meant something to me.
Who knows... I believe they’ve been cheating CA forever when it comes to voting so maybe they changed my vote anyway but what mattered was that it mattered to me and the thousands of Trump supporters who went out to the Trump rallies in Beverly Hills.
Plus, I wanted to send a message to the Dems: “If you don’t change your ways here in Los Angeles, CA, more of us will start voting against you.” Can’t really make them realize that if you just vote because you’re a purple state. Plus, I always vote down ballot anyway. I know local and state votes are more important to my personal life than federal stuff anyway.
Telling people their votes don’t matter is a form of voter suppression. CA was once a red state. Based on your logic because CA is blue now, it can never turn red again. I don’t agree with that. Sorry. I still say it sounds like voter suppression.
Just because I don’t agree with your logic, it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it out with my own POV. Your inability to acknowledge other POVs is noted.
Dude... did you ever consider the possibility that we’re both right? Of course I understand how the electoral college works and thank God for it because we’re a republic. However, I still think telling voters that their votes don’t matter is still a form of voter suppression. Even if they live in a state that swings heavily to one side. I bet many people do not vote because they are told this. That’s why I say it’s a form of suppression.
It never occurred to you that I clearly understand how the electoral college worked. You just went off on a tirade about how much smarter you are than other people while making yourself just look like a fool.
You sound EXACTLY like how the left argues. You assume that I’m insulting your argument when I’m actually saying something completely different about it. What I’m saying is that you going around saying only swing states matter is voter suppression EVEN IF it’s factually correct.
So.... when did Democrats allow themselves to become the party of Hollywood, Wallstreet & Tech Bros? And why does pop culture still accuse Republicans as being the party of the rich? We are too big of a country to have just 2 parties. How many of us are unrepresented? I’m fairly moderate and could lean toward center republicans or center democrats but I’m fully onboard with universal health care as is almost everyone I know. But neither party represents me at all.
Jimmy Carter was a disaster, Bill Clinton was very good at exploiting the tired of losing and looking like idiots Dems. The disgusting greedy nature of the Clinton white house was astounding. Renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to drunken Hollywood types that bragged about jumping on the beds. Seriously. Then of course, when they left the Secret Service had to go to Chappaqua and retreive some Govt antiques they helped themselves to from the White House decor.
Not even beginning to touch the slimy rapist denying Paula Jones her civil rights in a lawsuit and having half of so called liberals rushing to portray it as insignificant for him cavort sexually in the oval office with a 20ish intern and then lie to a Federal Judge who ruled it was germaine to Jones establishing a "pattern" of behavior with less powerful women on the job.
The Clintons are a shit stain on American history.
Much like the Bush crime family that preceded them. The only answer is to do away with the entire concept of there being an elite among us. Why do we give power to these people to begin with ?
«Why do we give power to these people to begin with ?»
The "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" explains:
«"On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."»
Love Hitchhiker’s. So brilliant. I should read it again now that I’m a bit older. I read it about every 10 years. Read at 20, then again at 30. At 40, I will likely glean a lot more enjoyment than previous times. Thank you for this! ❤️
For all the credit that the Online "Left" likes to give the CIA for being master manipulators who control everything, the CIA has a demonstrably shitty record of even basic competence at the art of advertising. This is what happens when you hire your business buddies' jack-off sons.
I don't specifically know of the Bush "crime' family, I know Neil was involved with the S&L crisis and not prosecuted, maybe not guilty of anything but that seems doubtful given his role at the time and the scope of the grift.
Herbert Walker was a Director of the CIA, no? Having seen some of the intelligence spooks on a low level, I assume that means he was the most successful at being an asshole that could be identified at the time. Still, his WWII pilot gig was muy impressive.
How is that comparable to the shit stain Clintons?
You're going back to Grandpa Bush funding Nazi's?
repeat after me, "You dont have to suck the Clinton rapist knob clean. You choose to because you like to suck rapist dick if they tell you that you are smarter, cooler and better looking than republicans while you do it."
Skutch has some pretty amazing insights... honestly.
Still, in this I think they are just clinging to some whataboutism and trying to believe that the Clintons are somehow NOT part of the same globalist New World Order cunts.
They are, of course... these weasels know exactly what side of their bread is buttered.
It wasn't President Carter that was the disaster. It was that complacent, superannuated, pork-barrel Democratic Party Congressional supermajority that he had to contend with.
In the early years of his term, Jimmy, Frank Church, and Stansfield Turner got closer to busting up the permanent security state than any other post-1947 team of bureaucrats.
Then Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan due to notes he drunkenly scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin and that was it for Jimmy. You can take the nuclear submariner out of the Navy, but you can't take the Navy out of the nuclear submariner.
That's charisma. Successful politicians need it over any other quality. I always thought the dude was an obvious slimeball myself -- everything about him screamed "date rapist" -- but lots of people loved him. Date rapists gonna date rape, I guess.
it's the half the Dems making excuses and pushing to move on dot org and the other half of Dems letting them that sucks ass the most.
Bill the rapist Clinton didn't represent the party with his slime until they allowed the loud mouths to unapologetically say that Bill the rapist Clinton represented the party with his slime.
Not saying the 2 party system isn't awful. But look at what proportional representation looks like, say in Italy. Total joke. If you had 3+ parties you would make it even worse. You would probably never get to 270 electoral college votes, so the house would make the decision every time unless you changed the system. Good luck with that.
A ranked choice ballot system in all 50 states is a way of assuring both multiparty options and majoritarian victories in every national election, without the necessity for any wider structural reforms. I think that the most practical and effective way to do it in the American system would be to limit the number of ranked choices to a first and a second pick. I want the calculation of the results to be easily understandable. And also to obviate any possibility that the winning ticket might be the third choice of most of the voters.
This (sort of) encapsulates my view....which is our Constitution is wildly ineffectual at allowing anything intelligent to evolve. Factor in the idea of Originalism, where our SCOTUS appointees attempt to discern what the Founders...240 odd years ago... thought about things they had absolutely no inkling of, or even of the ability to imagine. Huxley had it exactly right when the wrote....“The early advocates of universal literacy and a free press… did not foresee… the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal…. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
THE PEOPLE ARE NOT GETTING WHAT THEY WANT?? OMG!! CRISIS! SCANDAL!! CORRUPTION!!
Because the people want...
Free, limitless healthcare.
Free education, which they will ignore anyway.
Free Money.
Systemic preference for <fill in my group>.
Strict regulation and suppression of <fill in thing I don't like>.
And finally...NO TAXES!
(I left out all the sexual stuff people would like the government to provide.)
I'm not sure a government with the power OR intent to "implement popular policies" would really be a good thing, unless one asserts it is better to be misgoverned by cats of a particular fatness as opposed to some other.
trump is also a neoliberal. the D-RNC are equally aggressive neoliberals. Neoliberalism is really just another term for Extreme Libertarianism. Look into Hayek. Buchanan. Friedman, "chicago school". All, Neoliberals.
With one exception, you're right about the alignment of neoliberal and libertarian economics, but the difference is that both sides of the political establishment are far more authoritarian. Bernie is easily positioned as a left libertarian.
As such, he can form alliances with social libertarians who are not so radical right economically. This is where the much maligned "horseshoe" theory actually works and makes sense. There is a centrist libertarian coalition to be had if progressives can peg Clinton neoliberals as the corporate fascists they are.
This should absolutely be the goal. That’s a big fight to pick though, and the culture war wedge was driven so deep during the Trump era that I have little confidence we’ll be able to get past the idea that people on both ends of the horseshoe are “crazy”.
Honestly, between this article & Greenwald's latest piece about how the CIA used Saint Obama as the perfect face to sell endless war I'm starting to think it's all pretty hopeless here in our little red, white & blue trailer park/strip mall.
No matter who rises up in opposition to the corruption of our lovely leaders, they will be derailed or, like Trump, effectively impeded by imaginary scandals & intrigue.
It's pretty obvious that Trump only survived his 4 years of attack because he was such a belligerent mouthy asshole.
Any well meaning civil populist would have melted down much sooner.
The fact is there are think tanks continuously gaming every conceivable scenario that could possibly oppose corporate rule and endless war.
And they have a list of strategies to counter that opposition.
If one doesn't work they just move on to 2, then 3 & so on.
It's not that I wasn't aware of all of this I guess I just hoped the average American was smarter than that.
But watching Biden's installation as the only corporate approved candidate & then watching every neoliberal news agency spin racist, sell out, corporate whore Joe into Sir Lancelot I no longer believe this.
I used to think anyone with half a brain could see through this bullshit.
Sadly I don't believe many Americans have even half a brain anymore.
When Saint Obama unveiled his "Hope & Change" slogan I thought, "Geez, could you be any vaguer. It sounds like you're selling soda." Of course he was selling soda. The kind of soda produced by Raytheon & Dow. The kind of soda that eats out your innards & leaves you a hollow shell. Yet it worked. And it worked in a big way.
In my opinion we, as a nation, are comfy, apathetic & cowed.
What we really seem to want is a friendly face like Joe's to look at while we're being bent over the table.
What we really want is a nice polished leader who knows how to murder but makes the murders look humanitarian, freeing our consciences so we can nap & enjoy what we really like to think about which is sports & porn.
Like Greenwald said, they hated Trump, not for his lying because they're all habitual liars, they hated Trump because he was incapable of putting a friendly face on empire & he inadvertently told the truth about the American empire. 2 huge no-nos in 21st century America.
Spider, everything you suggest has been confirmed by the pandemic.
Gullible, compliant public who as a mass craves both panic porn and spiritual resurrection--no critical or independent thinking required (or tolerated).
Complicit, self-serving but equally stupid media, tripling down on the bleeding, leading Crisis of the Century! (see recent analysis that shows over 90% of pandemic reporting in the US as negative, compared to just over 50% in Europe)
Gleeful political establishment who tripped over each other attempting to claim the mantle of Savior of Humanity while serving us an endless stream of BS--which we eagerly lapped up in order to feel "safer".
We have been revealed as a nation of co-dependent idiots, addicted to the bundle of catastrophic threat and promised salvation.
Not a very flattering description of America.
But what would one expect when the media is paid so well to keep us confused, angry and crazy.
So, we chatted before. Tell me what you think of this "conspiratard" theory.
The election of Trump was a fortuitous turn of events for the Democrats because, prior to his election, their left flank was getting uppity, demanding things like MFA & a UBI.
But Trump's election literally put the ball shriveling/sphincter clenching fear on many of them, quite effectively scaring them back into the warm comfy folds of Nancy Pelosi's loving arms.
If you're extra paranoid, you can also add the layer that has Trump manipulated into office expressly for that purpose.
Trump will literally be a gift that keeps on giving cautionary tale keeping many timid Democrats from straying off of the corporate Dem reservation for a long time.
The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be. It's not an easy thing to decide, what with all the mis-direction going on. Turn to the media for truth and enlightenment? Not a good source IMO.
My take: Trump galvanized a lot of people. He did it entirely on his own. Biden didn't galvanize anyone. Few voted for him, most voted against Trump and even then, Biden had to have the near total support of the corrupt and complicit media, the RINO never-Trumpers, the intelligence community and possible rampant election fraud to pull it off.
In a sense, Trump galvanized virtually the entire voting public into action. Was this planned or organic? If planned, I would have to give tremendous credit to the planners- they understood their quarry, their tool, their end goal and were able to keep it in sequence and hidden. Are they that good?
Maybe they are. I have my doubts. If one were to use Occam's razor, the simplest answer is that Trump is genuine. Many people saw that in him- and this is the critical part- in spite of a near universal effort by the media to discredit him. I think he threatened the establishment to the extent that the last 4 years was more or less one long coup attempt.
Matt does make the point in this essay that the Democrat establishment was pretty desperate to shut down Bernie's campaign and thoroughly discredit him. But as we see, they were able to do that fairly readily and Bernie caved and supported Hilary and now Biden. I can't see where they needed Trump in some capacity to put that internal squabble to bed.
One last thing. I don't think Trump's election in 2016 sent people into the arms of Nancy Pelosi. The media did that. You know, I keep on saying it- the legacy media played an instrumental role in Trump's political career. The fact that they made $ off him is not the point- any such amounts are paltry compared to the overall grift that was at risk in the system should Trump be given a fair chance at making the changes he was elected to make. The risk to the MIC budget alone was enough to scare many shitless. Add in many others sucking at the teat and you get a pretty formidable cast of people and institutions working against him.
But it all largely pivoted around who owns the media. I suspect that JFK was assassinated due to the media not being owned back then and they had to get rid of him the old fashioned way. With Trump, the assassins were CNN, MSNBC, NYT and a whole lot of blogs that had "never Trump" on their letterheads. And by no means do I exempt Fox. They were the original propaganda outlet and only supported Trump when he did their bidding (mostly MIC related). At any rate, confusion of the public is guaranteed if they are fed bullshit 24/7.
«The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be. It's not an easy thing to decide, what with all the mis-direction going on.»
But there is a way: D Trump has not appeared on the public scene from nothing in 2016, he has been a public and political figure for decades before that, with plenty of records as to his opinions and actions.
And his record has been consistent: a nationalist "one nation tory", with a good record of social progressiveness as to antiracism and pro-LGB, and a right-wing "populist" on economic issues (even if some "libertarian" leanings), a 50s style Republican. Someone in part like Perot or Buchanan.
All things that the media either denied or distorted
Amazing points.
I’m waiting for when the Dems (if they win, God help us) will create a new boogieman for the progressives to stay and vote for them again.
Now that I’ve walked away from being a progressive it’s painful to watch them stay in such an abusive relationship. If only they could see that they are being lied to... even by the progressive media. Sigh...
They already did that. They call it Q-anon and claim it influences a significant portion of the Republican electorate. Of course, most Republicans had never heard of it before Mike Pence was asked about it, and I genuinely believe he didn't know what it was at that point, either.
Thanks. You were a true progressive and unwilling to be lied to. I keep harping on the media and here's another one- there's nothing progressive about the media. They are owned 100% by the corporate PTB, the MIC, intelligence community etc. It's why they always- ALWAYS- throw the public under the bus. It amazes me how many people believe them.
You lost me at Trump being genuine and massive fraud. Trump isn't genuine about anything and there is no massive fraud. But I will give you that the media was highly manipulative. They did it for ratings in 2016 and it bit the Establishment Dems in the ass, which is hilarious. Then they pushed this nonsensical everyone is dying from covid to get the Orange one out. This administration is going to tank the US in lots of ways and there will be a red tsunami in the midterms without Orange Jesus there. The Dems got what they wanted but they aren't going to be in power very long. My bet is Dementia Joe is out in less than a year.
The media did it all for ratings? You gotta be kidding me. Nothing of the sort happened. The media is complicit all the way through. The were the blunt tool used by the big boys to beat the electorate over the head repeatedly- over and over and over again that Trump was racist, misogynist, xenophobic, ad nauseum. And a lot of you bought it- swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Matt included.
And then you fell for the decoy: "we only came after Trump for the ratings, yeah, that was all we were up to, promise!". Fer gawd's sakes, you fellas just fall off the turnip truck?
I lost you because I'm moving forward and you are staying put, although I do like some of the scenery you are looking at
"The question turns on whether or not Trump was and is the genuine populist his supporters reckon him to be." That's not really important. What matters is if the spark of populism he ignited in the Republican party is snuffed out or allowed to smoke until the midterms. I think most Republican operatives want to walk the line between appealing to the people who bought Trump's populist rhetoric while disavowing him as a vulgarity who steered them off the moral high ground, even where the landscape is flat swampland as far as the eye can see. In truth, the typical Republican voter is a populist now.
We probably are talking a difference without a distinction, as my engineer Father would say.
Divisions will harden in the days ahead. Sides will be chosen and allies sought. Once the average Trump supporter ditches Fox news for good, as they already should have, clarity can occur.
Serious question regarding your last sentence. Who in right wing media, tv, radio, internet, social media, is a populist? That is where they get all of their information and unless there is a personality that would reinforce something populist, there is no populist right. It is culture and libertarian economics. Trump won on a populist agenda, but as soon as he got in office and ditched Bannon he was a typical Republican. 73 million people didn't vote for populism. They voted for a personality and against a perceived evil. Having been a former right winger that gobbled all that news and also important, American Christianity, I just don't see the majority of Republicans looking for populist economic items.
Actually I just listened to Jimmy Dore's interview with Glenn Greenwald & he outlines a similar scenario with the Democrats using fear of another Trump to justify all manner of "gatekeeping."
So I probably heard bits of that interview, forgot it, then re-remembered it as my own thought.
Sorry.
The internet is really difficult to communicate with. But folks here actually do a pretty good job of it. It's why I hang out here- agree or disagree, Matt attracts a more thoughtful bunch.
Oh and the Dems will do what they can to consolidate power- any excuse, any means. Control, baby!
I don't disagree with your assessment.
Wasn't really invested in the "installation scenario."
Didn't actually mean the day of Trump's election as much his overall tenure in office. I should have been clearer.
But whether Trump was genuine or not, he will still make an excellent cautionary tale against weakening the party. Folk like Pelosi can say, "If you weaken us look what the Republicans will put in office. Just another Hitler like Trump."
Doesn't really matter whether he was another Hitler or not, many of the party faithful believe he was ol' Adolph in orange.
Although, would Sanders have caved as readily without the specter of Trump hanging over his head?
Then again, Sanders really didn't appear to have much fight left in him towards the end, so your probably right.
My theory is what happens after a day of drinking high test coffee while smoking a tad too much pot and then nightcapping it all with some Jack Daniels.
I actually woke up thinking "What the fuck did I type last night?"
Luckily it wasn't as deranged as it could have been.
It could be a cautionary tale, it could be they were scared shitless, it could be Trump was a massive threat to their status quo or it could be all three. But essentially nowhere in the DNC/deep state bubble are they at all concerned with the public. I simply see that Trump was a threat to their world and they meant to take him out. If they had to use the electorate to do it, fine, but that only makes the public useful idiots. In 1963 they didn't bother with that nicety- no electorate needed.
I won’t get into most of what you said (because I pretty much agree), but if a recent analysis of COVID reporting showed that 90% of US covid coverage is negative, versus 50% in Europe, I have to believe that that’s because the situation in the US is much more dire than that of Europe. They’re doing something about COVID in Europe. Here? Not so much.
How is the situation more "dire" in the US? Death rates in Spain, Italy, and the UK are higher, and with similar patterns and impacts. People there complain about the same questionable policies from government and issues with health care. Countries have gone through lock-down and open-up cycles.
How are they "doing something" that is substantially different? With respect, your bias might be showing.
I stand by the interpretations that Americans and American media are in a different category of stupid, and love to sell and wallow in panic porn.
It's either the Fourth or Fifth Great Awakening, depending upon how one chooses to classify Great Awakenings.
To paraphrase every conspiracy guy I ever read, "Y'know people just need to wake up."
Maybe they really don't want to...
What was that Carlin line about the American Dream & snoozing?
The simple fact is if I repeated what I've typed on here since the Selection to 90% of the people I know they'd look at me like I was one of Alex Jones' interdimensional demon/aliens who just beamed in from the planet Quargziffle.
I have also come to that conclusion after having friends admit to me that they prefer only listening to left wing media because it’s what they WANT to hear. Willfully ignorant.
Wow...
It truly does show us how powerful the evolutionary development of tribalism is. That people even knowing that their tribe is wrong will refuse to stand up for what is right. The horrors of collectivist thinking.
It boggles my mind. So glad I had teachers that taught me about the Holocaust.
Zat you, epierce? If so, I had you wrong. At any rate, thanks for the insight. My experiences were exactly the same. The worst was politics over friendships these last 4 years. People you thought you were at least somewhat tight with turned into raging assholes- lefties every one of them.
Old Joe will finger you in the hallway and his sycophants will tell you you're one of the lucky ones. You could have ended up like Corn Pop.
People want a kinder, gentler machine gun hand. Keep on rocking in the free world.
"a friendly face like Joe's to look at"
Joe looks like The Joker in Ray-Bans with a spray tan.
Let's say Joe was the best the Dems could come up with, hoping his 8 year proximity to Saint Obama's holy glamour & divine light would blind people to his steamer trunk full of flaws.
And it did.
You're splitting hairs buddy. If you saw him in a mall & you didn't know him he'd look like any other old grandpa. Of course, that would last until he started following little girls around for a good hair fondle that is...
Nah, most grandpas I know didn’t get facelifts.
Ok he'd look like any other grandpa who is delusional enough to think he's still attractive to 12 year....oops...I mean 22 year old women.
Sorry but I've met some weirdly groomed grandpas in my life.
Or hairplugs.
Nice!
That is extraordinarily creepy
Max Headroom come to life. New face of the Matrix.
I told some HS students to look at Max Headroom and tell me what they thought and they were all like “OMG that’s Biden”, despite never having having seen Max before!
C-c-c-c-coke!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzxHDqUz8Sk
His hair is that of an 80 year old, which he is, which is insane that they were able to push him through the nomination process.
Push him through... as in, "rig the whole game so he couldn't lose"?
Yes, insane, but not unrealistic.
Not sure who wins the hair department. Joe vs Donald? That goes to overtime for sure.
Great take. But if you add the real possibility of massive election fraud, the American voter may actually be in agreement with you.
Your description of our political system sounds a lot like Oceania in 1984. How the hell did we get here!?
I'd also add that America is incredibly adept at manufacturing nifty diversions for its citizens.
And when they fail there's always porn.
Do other countries have actually porn titles named/inspired by their presidents/politicians!?!?
The answer to that is simple. We asked more and more of an entity that is unable to provide it. Even still, in the face of its failure, most of the country is still asking more of it.
“ What we really seem to want is a friendly face like Joe's to look at while we're being bent over the table.”
Does this mean it won’t hurt?
Depends on how susceptible you are to believing a kiss will actually cure your boo boos. I'd say no but a large segment of America didn't seem to notice that Obama was continually sticking a shiv in their backs. So, I'd say that a smile & a glib demeanor goes a long way here in personality cult America.
Ask Tara Reade.
"It's OK when it's OUR rapist. "Same deal with Billy C. Blind eyes conveniently turned.
It's a different story when old-fashioned liberal Dems like Al Franken and Garrison Keillor outlive their utility. They get the public #MeToo coup de grace--pour encourager les autres.
Well, if your hair is being sniffed, that might take some of the sting out of it.
"Hey! That tickles! OWWWW!!!!!! MY ASSSSSS!!!!!!!"
"It's pretty obvious that Trump only survived his 4 years of attack because he was such a belligerent mouthy asshole."
Lot of truth in that observation.
Absolutely what I believe and why I don’t care about his characterization by the media but by the policies he’s implemented.
First president in my life that didn’t start a new war even though the media desperately wanted him to when they fawned over him bombing Syria.
«our little red, white & blue trailer park/strip mall»
That's for the majority of "little people"; for significant minority it is McMansions in restricted communities, and for a small minority it is fantastic palaces in vast estates and private islands.
«It's pretty obvious that Trump only survived his 4 years of attack because he was such a belligerent mouthy asshole.»
That's a rather optimistic version, a blogger pointed out that as soon as he was elected and the "security" services started attacking him, he realized that his first priority was to stay alive, without fatal accidents for example because of a "isolated crazed loner" taking him out. So Trump started looking for a "roof", and first tried to get the armed forces, in particular I think the marines, to give him "protection", and then at the end put himself under Likud "protection".
«The fact is there are think tanks continuously gaming every conceivable scenario that could possibly oppose corporate rule and endless war.»
That's a smart point that many people don't get: the business and property rentiers are organized, forward looking, and have smart consultants on their side, for propaganda, strategy, political research, etc., and this gives them an advantage. Once upon a time the worker unions also had similar resources, but they have been much reduced.
«And they have a list of strategies to counter that opposition. If one doesn't work they just move on to 2, then 3 & so on.»
Fortunately all those expensive consultants often get those wrong, but as you say the business and property rentiers are persistent and try keep trying.
"Once upon a time the worker unions also had similar resources, but they have been much reduced."
From my experience in unions, labor history is not something that's taught so younger folk coming in didn't really understand how unions worked. Consequently they approached the union as something you buy, like drain cleaner. In other words, a member pays his dues & sits around & waits for the union to get him/her a raise. It doesn't work that way.
I can remember one union rep who called & asked if I'd be willing to do an informational picket in front of the facility.
I agreed, then I asked him if anyone else would be there. He said that loads of folk were on board. I laughed & asked him if he'd like to bet me a quarter that, on the day of the picket, we'd be the only 2 boobs standing there.
Sure enough, the day came & we were the only 2 boobs standing there.
I have to tell you, a two man picket looks fucking absurd. We looked like whiners who couldn't get with the program.
It took one or two more similar incidents of amazing human apathy for me to finally quit the union.
❤️❤️❤️
(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)
So there....
LOL
Hey, Buddy, leave porn out of it. It's probably doing more good for the world than any of the poisons that America manufactures, by virtue of keeping a lot of sperm from meeting eggs and increasing the overpopulation issue, unarguably the greatest unspoken cause of the ecological destruction of the planet.
Also: It's porn. It's really great.
I'm assuming you're a one handed typist?
I founded Pornhub.
That's nice. I don't actually care. And I'm sure you're wealthy enough to not care that I don't care. I did enjoy your "save the planet" justification for porn though. As if porn needs a socially redeeming pitch to yank folk into jerkin their gherkin. I suppose I could balance your green impulse by pointing out how kids are now sexualized at an early age by easy access to internet porn.
At least in the old days chronic pud pounders had to actually work to get their freak on.
It gave them adventures.
On any given night their journey to the seedy side of town could get them a copy of Bertha's Anal Squirts or a slit throat in an alley.
Life was such a gamble then.
Now everyone is soft and whiny.
Good point about ass lownery as psychic armor for Trump.
Well done.
The bad guys have quite the arsenal. Let's hope it hold the seeds of its own destruction.
So glad I voted for Trump even though I voted for Bernie in the primaries. If the Dems cheated progressives, why would you EVER vote for them? Why would you EVER listen to the smears they say about Trump knowing they smeared Tulsi and Bernie?
Progressives who stayed and voted for Biden have Stockholm syndrome. It’s fine if you voted third party or didn’t vote at all. Good for you! You at least didn’t contribute to the party that cheated the progressives. But if you not only voted for Biden, but also shilled for him, you are absolutely a useful idiot.
Watching my fellow progressives, repeat the media propaganda about Trump and vote for Biden makes me feel both pity and disgust. Pity because they are buying the bullshit lies repeated by progressive leaders (why are they repeating this crap from the MSM?!) and disgust because they will still vote for a candidate who is absolutely worse than Trump on foreign policy, trade, jobs in America, and has videos of him creepily groping young girls. Gross!!!
Just go look up the “fine people” hoax. Go watch how the media edited the video of Trump. You’ll just take the word of the media, which you know to be a wing of the Dem establishment, about Trump? The same media that didn’t fact check Biden while he lied during the debate against Bernie about social security? You’d take their word KNOWING they lie about progressives and about almost everything?
So glad I’m not a progressive anymore. I refuse to stay in a voting block that grovels at the feet of the people who abuse them. Get out of the mental plantation. Stop voting Dem. #WalkAway
Tulsi and Bernie were collateral damage in the march to election. The ends justify the means. The "fine people" hoax edit might as well have been done by Leni Riefenstahl.
and the drink bleach hoax was right up there too. Problem with the media isn't really the media. It is the idiots who only believe CNN and MSNBC and their ilk and never get any fake news from the right. They only get their news from the left and they actually think it is real. Whereas many of us get the news from both sides and know that it is fake all around!
Truth! But you literally cannot convince people of this very obvious fact. I have tried so many times. No one really wants to take the red pill.
They only want the truth they WANT to believe. It is a reality I have come to accept.
It makes the Nazi propaganda all that more horrifying to me now. Instead of questioning the propaganda, the Germans WANTED to believe that everything would be solved by hating the Jews. They would not accept that there was no other way.
Imagine how bizarre our society is that part of it WANTS to believe that there are white supremacists everywhere and that our President is a white supremacist. When you say to them that he isn’t, they get angry instead of relieved.
Candace Owens in the documentary Uncle Tom says that the litmus test is for a black person to tell a liberal that they don’t feel oppressed. A reasonable response would be “I’m glad that you don’t feel that way.” But most get angry that she does not feel oppressed.
The soft bigotry of low expectations. The more insidious form of racial prejudice imo.
But don’t get so discouraged. There are many of us who have taken the red pill. I’ve seen it with #WalkAway and #Blexit.
Hopefully, those who are in our lives will one day seek the truth. I pray that it will happen, that God’s righteousness will shine through in the end.
Haha indeed. I’ve known it was ALL propaganda since the media praised the AUMF and Patriot Act. I also knew that our politicians were insane when all of Congress stood up and clapped at the AUMF passing. Not a peep from the media about how the AUMF was destroying the checks and balances in our government that gave power to the PEOPLE to declare war not one person. The media and Congress literally cheered for tyranny. 🤦♀️
Outstanding, not a word out of place. Here's to hoping Matt reads the comments and gets some ideas for future articles.
If you voted for Trump and you want to make excuses for decades of abhorrent behavior -- going all the way back to his full page ad on the Central Park jogger rape, and up to and including his love for playing footsie with and retweeting White Nationalists (while offering, of course, a lackluster required condemnation to supply a fig leaf to people like you who are either cynical or naive enough to don it) - then you were never a progressive. It is one thing to, as Matt does, condemn the vulgar exploitation of legitimate social justice issues by people like the Clintons. It is another thing entirely to make excuses for - or worse, vote for - a POS like Trump. I guess the Proud Boys were also in on the hoax, because they sure believe Trump is encouraging them. I guess armed militias who show up at statehouses and plot to kill the sitting governor Trump scornfully refers to "that woman" are also "media hoaxes." He's very happy for their support. Perhaps the only honest words that ever came out of Hillary Clinton's mouth are the ones that helped cost her the 2016 election: Trump's supporters are largely deplorables. Congratulations on being one of them.
Congratulations on getting brainwashed by the media to dehumanize a large portion of American citizens. You have fallen in the trap that many of the Germans fell into when the Nazi party dehumanized the Jews.
I proudly declare I am a deplorable! Would you like to label me with a star? Am I to declare that I am a deplorable on my front window? Will you also agree that we need to be put on lists and “deprogrammed” like so many others have on the left?
Do you not see the repeat in history? Or are you that ignorant? I refuse to be part of a coalition that believes in listing people and considering them irredeemable because the media tells me.
I question authority, always have my whole life. If questioning authority and doing my own research has turned me into a deplorable, then again I proudly consider myself a deplorable.
I think what you’re repeating here is a form of voter suppression tactic used by both parties to discourage voters. I voted for Trump in CA in one of the most Dem districts in Los Angeles. I didn’t care. I voted for Trump because I wanted to and because it meant something to me.
Who knows... I believe they’ve been cheating CA forever when it comes to voting so maybe they changed my vote anyway but what mattered was that it mattered to me and the thousands of Trump supporters who went out to the Trump rallies in Beverly Hills.
Plus, I wanted to send a message to the Dems: “If you don’t change your ways here in Los Angeles, CA, more of us will start voting against you.” Can’t really make them realize that if you just vote because you’re a purple state. Plus, I always vote down ballot anyway. I know local and state votes are more important to my personal life than federal stuff anyway.
Telling people their votes don’t matter is a form of voter suppression. CA was once a red state. Based on your logic because CA is blue now, it can never turn red again. I don’t agree with that. Sorry. I still say it sounds like voter suppression.
Just because I don’t agree with your logic, it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought it out with my own POV. Your inability to acknowledge other POVs is noted.
Dude... did you ever consider the possibility that we’re both right? Of course I understand how the electoral college works and thank God for it because we’re a republic. However, I still think telling voters that their votes don’t matter is still a form of voter suppression. Even if they live in a state that swings heavily to one side. I bet many people do not vote because they are told this. That’s why I say it’s a form of suppression.
It never occurred to you that I clearly understand how the electoral college worked. You just went off on a tirade about how much smarter you are than other people while making yourself just look like a fool.
You sound EXACTLY like how the left argues. You assume that I’m insulting your argument when I’m actually saying something completely different about it. What I’m saying is that you going around saying only swing states matter is voter suppression EVEN IF it’s factually correct.
You are an arrogant pos.
So.... when did Democrats allow themselves to become the party of Hollywood, Wallstreet & Tech Bros? And why does pop culture still accuse Republicans as being the party of the rich? We are too big of a country to have just 2 parties. How many of us are unrepresented? I’m fairly moderate and could lean toward center republicans or center democrats but I’m fully onboard with universal health care as is almost everyone I know. But neither party represents me at all.
Jimmy Carter was a disaster, Bill Clinton was very good at exploiting the tired of losing and looking like idiots Dems. The disgusting greedy nature of the Clinton white house was astounding. Renting out the Lincoln Bedroom to drunken Hollywood types that bragged about jumping on the beds. Seriously. Then of course, when they left the Secret Service had to go to Chappaqua and retreive some Govt antiques they helped themselves to from the White House decor.
Not even beginning to touch the slimy rapist denying Paula Jones her civil rights in a lawsuit and having half of so called liberals rushing to portray it as insignificant for him cavort sexually in the oval office with a 20ish intern and then lie to a Federal Judge who ruled it was germaine to Jones establishing a "pattern" of behavior with less powerful women on the job.
The Clintons are a shit stain on American history.
Much like the Bush crime family that preceded them. The only answer is to do away with the entire concept of there being an elite among us. Why do we give power to these people to begin with ?
«Why do we give power to these people to begin with ?»
The "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" explains:
«"On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."»
Love Hitchhiker’s. So brilliant. I should read it again now that I’m a bit older. I read it about every 10 years. Read at 20, then again at 30. At 40, I will likely glean a lot more enjoyment than previous times. Thank you for this! ❤️
Oh come on... They're all part of the NWO neolib scam to gobble up the entire planet.
ALL of them.
"New World Order" sold about as well as New Coke so it got rebranded as "The Great Reset." Everybody likes resetting, right?
We should rename Great Reset to "Blue Screen of Death"
For all the credit that the Online "Left" likes to give the CIA for being master manipulators who control everything, the CIA has a demonstrably shitty record of even basic competence at the art of advertising. This is what happens when you hire your business buddies' jack-off sons.
"Graphic design is my passion"
New coke is better than old coke. Because it's new.
I don't specifically know of the Bush "crime' family, I know Neil was involved with the S&L crisis and not prosecuted, maybe not guilty of anything but that seems doubtful given his role at the time and the scope of the grift.
Herbert Walker was a Director of the CIA, no? Having seen some of the intelligence spooks on a low level, I assume that means he was the most successful at being an asshole that could be identified at the time. Still, his WWII pilot gig was muy impressive.
Look up Preston Bush(grandpa). He got his bank shut down for funding the Nazi's.
How is that comparable to the shit stain Clintons?
You're going back to Grandpa Bush funding Nazi's?
repeat after me, "You dont have to suck the Clinton rapist knob clean. You choose to because you like to suck rapist dick if they tell you that you are smarter, cooler and better looking than republicans while you do it."
Skutch has some pretty amazing insights... honestly.
Still, in this I think they are just clinging to some whataboutism and trying to believe that the Clintons are somehow NOT part of the same globalist New World Order cunts.
They are, of course... these weasels know exactly what side of their bread is buttered.
Union Banking Corp. 1942 A web well-woven, with Dutch bank, ties to directors at BBH,
Prescott Bush
How quickly America forgets the real fake news; WMDs to justify the Iraq war.
Oops, thanks.
It wasn't President Carter that was the disaster. It was that complacent, superannuated, pork-barrel Democratic Party Congressional supermajority that he had to contend with.
In the early years of his term, Jimmy, Frank Church, and Stansfield Turner got closer to busting up the permanent security state than any other post-1947 team of bureaucrats.
Then Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan due to notes he drunkenly scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin and that was it for Jimmy. You can take the nuclear submariner out of the Navy, but you can't take the Navy out of the nuclear submariner.
Brzezinski is a stain that will never wipe off.
Very well stated. Clinton could have pulled it on live TV and he would have had half the country saying how great it was...
That's charisma. Successful politicians need it over any other quality. I always thought the dude was an obvious slimeball myself -- everything about him screamed "date rapist" -- but lots of people loved him. Date rapists gonna date rape, I guess.
it's the half the Dems making excuses and pushing to move on dot org and the other half of Dems letting them that sucks ass the most.
Bill the rapist Clinton didn't represent the party with his slime until they allowed the loud mouths to unapologetically say that Bill the rapist Clinton represented the party with his slime.
Unrepresented? According to a solid peer-reviewed Princeton study 99+% us the electorate is entirely unrepresented when popular policy is compared to what is actually enacted. The problem is, the majority of people THINK the one-party duopoly represents them. The poor fools simply don't know any better. https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Good one, Charles. I bookmarked and shared that link constantly. from the pdf:
“the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero,
statistically non-significant impact, upon public policy.” Princeton – 2014
“Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”
Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page - Pg.575
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Thanks so much for sharing this. Been looking for that link for going on 5 years now.
Not saying the 2 party system isn't awful. But look at what proportional representation looks like, say in Italy. Total joke. If you had 3+ parties you would make it even worse. You would probably never get to 270 electoral college votes, so the house would make the decision every time unless you changed the system. Good luck with that.
A ranked choice ballot system in all 50 states is a way of assuring both multiparty options and majoritarian victories in every national election, without the necessity for any wider structural reforms. I think that the most practical and effective way to do it in the American system would be to limit the number of ranked choices to a first and a second pick. I want the calculation of the results to be easily understandable. And also to obviate any possibility that the winning ticket might be the third choice of most of the voters.
This (sort of) encapsulates my view....which is our Constitution is wildly ineffectual at allowing anything intelligent to evolve. Factor in the idea of Originalism, where our SCOTUS appointees attempt to discern what the Founders...240 odd years ago... thought about things they had absolutely no inkling of, or even of the ability to imagine. Huxley had it exactly right when the wrote....“The early advocates of universal literacy and a free press… did not foresee… the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal…. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
that’s a great article. thnx.
I know I'm deadthreading but I don't care.
THE PEOPLE ARE NOT GETTING WHAT THEY WANT?? OMG!! CRISIS! SCANDAL!! CORRUPTION!!
Because the people want...
Free, limitless healthcare.
Free education, which they will ignore anyway.
Free Money.
Systemic preference for <fill in my group>.
Strict regulation and suppression of <fill in thing I don't like>.
And finally...NO TAXES!
(I left out all the sexual stuff people would like the government to provide.)
I'm not sure a government with the power OR intent to "implement popular policies" would really be a good thing, unless one asserts it is better to be misgoverned by cats of a particular fatness as opposed to some other.
A slide back into Clinton-era neoliberalism just ensures a 2022 House flip and likely a 2024 presidency lost.
trump is also a neoliberal. the D-RNC are equally aggressive neoliberals. Neoliberalism is really just another term for Extreme Libertarianism. Look into Hayek. Buchanan. Friedman, "chicago school". All, Neoliberals.
With one exception, you're right about the alignment of neoliberal and libertarian economics, but the difference is that both sides of the political establishment are far more authoritarian. Bernie is easily positioned as a left libertarian.
As such, he can form alliances with social libertarians who are not so radical right economically. This is where the much maligned "horseshoe" theory actually works and makes sense. There is a centrist libertarian coalition to be had if progressives can peg Clinton neoliberals as the corporate fascists they are.
Wanting big government is NOT libertarian.
This should absolutely be the goal. That’s a big fight to pick though, and the culture war wedge was driven so deep during the Trump era that I have little confidence we’ll be able to get past the idea that people on both ends of the horseshoe are “crazy”.