The Derp State
I wondered what Draco Malfoy was doing yesterday asking Comey questions. Turns out that was Trey Gowdy being his regular Republican asshole self. Republicans like Gowdy are not elected to govern. they are elected to fuck shit up. Gowdy was doing his damnedest to fuck up those hearings yesterday. Muddy the waters. Give the wingnut press some molehills with which to build mountains of outrage among their empty headed subscribers and listeners. If you edited the Republican portions out of the hearings and listened to the Democratic and Republican sections separately, you’d never guess they were taking part in the same hearings…on the same day…on the same continent… during the same century.
When you think about it, Trump wasn’t elected to govern “The United States of America,” he was elected to fuck shit up in a country that only exists in the right-wing’s imagination. He is applying himself to that task with alacrity, and the results are splashing onto us here in reality. Steve Bannon, the most powerful man in Trump’s White House has a “disturbing history of bigotry, nihilism, and apocalyptic delusions” should not be allowed within 1,000 miles of power and yet, there he is. We are not Bannon’s fellow citizens. We are mere bystanders in the vicinity of the GOP’s mental breakdown trying to avoid random kicks and punches.
The fact that Democrats can’t compete with a party that openly stands for utter chaos and insanity goes to show how deeply damaged the Dem brand is. Americans have decided that they’d rather live in a burning house than have to listen to the Dem’s powerpoint presentation on why burning down your own house is bad for piping plovers. “Yes, the house is filling with smoke, but JEEZ those Dems and their soulless powerpoint presentations…OMG, BORING!”
So where does that leave us? Some Beurocrats like Comey have to advance the ball begrudgingly. I was wrong when I said that Comey wouldn’t make any news. Comey seems to have some dim memory of what the Government is supposed to do. Where was that MEMORY WHEN HE WAS SABOTAGING Hillary Clinton? Wouldn’t we all like to know? But that was 100 years ago. Now Comey is part of what Rush Limbaugh calls “The Deep State.” Rush and the legion of right-wing ventriloquist dummies, each with a hand in the back hole, operating the mouth function of the dummy one in front of it, say that Comey is now taking part in a coup.
Maybe he is. If having a puppet installed in the White House by Russia isn’t grounds for a coup, what is? And if the Democrats can’t get their shit together now… at long last, what choice does Comey have?
That reminds me. Now that the illegitimacy of this Presidency grows exponentially on almost a daily basis, what fig leaf will Carper and Coons find to advance the nomination of Gorsuch to an up-or-down vote? You know they’ll find one, you just don’t know what phony rationale they’ll use.
Carper’s Primary opponent must announce their candidacy the day after he votes for Drumps’ pick. C’mon, there has to be someone.
Trump is a symptom. The American people are the problem. Have you ever really listened to that aunt/uncle at Thanksgiving or that conservative co-worker/neighbor? I mean, really listen. They know nothing more than sound bites – sound bites that justify their emotions.
Ask them what exactly they wanted to “Lock her up!” for. Ask them to explain what happened in Benghazi – for fun, ask them why the Yemen mission was different and why that doesn’t upset them. Ask them to explain what the ACA does and compare it to the Republican plan. Ask them for the definition of socialism. Ask them the difference between Medicare and Medicaid – or the difference between Obamacare and the ACA. I could go on and on.
And once you ask these questions, listen to their responses. Sound bites and emotion – and if you corner them they’ll switch topics, call you names, or blame someone else. It’s why they look down on “intellectuals” and “ivy league colleges”. Why bother to read and learn when you can just feel it in your bones.
Exactly right. they almost would have preferred for Clinton to win the election so they could carry on feeling aggrieved.
Reality check for those who think things would be better if Hillary had won:
If Hillary had won, instead of running around like headless chickens, the GOP Congress would be unified against a Democratic President. There would already be investigations in Congress. Trump would be tweeting his outrage, the GOP would be challenging the election result in the courts, and Trump’s disgruntled Despicables would be marching in the streets.
Instead, we have an energized public, an embattled GOP Congress and president and incompetence at a level Moe Howard could only dream of — oh, and we’ve rid ourselves of the Clintons at the same time.
As bad as this is, I think the alternative would be even worse.
For you and me, maybe.
The horror being suffered by non-white men is very real and would not be happening under Clinton. The ability to look at “the long game” and think that a reaction or backlash to this Nazi administration will one day bring in an era of rainbows and sunshine is a very privileged one.
Agreed, Ben. How you view what’s going is based on who you are. Many people are being hurt right now. They don’t have time to wait.
I don’t believe in rainbows or sunshine. I’m saying that either way would have been a shitshow, and that people who think it would be rainbows and sunshine had she won are delusional.
Whether you’re interested in the long game or not, it’s there. Unlike most liberals, I don’t spend my time fretting about how bad life is for people worse off than me, and I spend no time parading my empathy around for show. And I have no patience for those who do. Waste your own time, not mine.
As for my privilege, I am of the generation that responds “Go fuck yourself” to requests to “check my privilege.” You are the people who helped elect Trump, because there is nobody so privileged as those who demand others check their own. We don’t live in a world in which people check their privilege. We live in one where people use their privileges to gain more privileges, and we aren’t going to create the one of your imagination — the one with rainbows and sunshine, apparently — by pretending otherwise.
@Pandora: Oh, goody. We get to see your empathy on parade.
Jesus Fucking Christ, but you’re insufferable.
I”M being hurt right now, you clueless clown. LOTS OF PEOPLE are being hurt right now.
YOU, though, have the time to pass your moral judgment on everyone. Talk about privileged.
“They don’t have time to wait.”
Wait for what? Nobody said anything about waiting. But my worries here go well beyond the human suffering Trump and the GOP are causing, because they will affect this country long after everyone living in it right now is dead.
You probably disagree, but I see suffering as inevitable, but the destruction of the country as a more pressing problem.
You’re also from the generation that squandered American exceptionalism, elected and comprises the psychopaths who run our country, and sneer at (among other things) participation trophies that YOU FUCKWITS invented. So you can say “go fuck yourself” when it is pointed out that you’re being white, but you’re still being white. Oh I remember, you’re trying to ‘train” people to deal with “the other side”. How noble of you.
You really don’t want to get into an intergenerational battle, given that your generation that has accomplished exactly nothing. But it does show the depth of your delusion that you think I would care about something as meaningless as what a “generation” of people has done. Or that you would attack someone based on such a nebulous “idea.”
PS: If you believe in American exceptionalism, you’re beyond help. The only thing exceptional about America is that we committed genocide against the people we found here and, being too lazy to work the land ourselves, committed another form of genocide against Africans to do the actual work of building the country. Most countries are based on just a single genocide.
@Ben: By the way, if you really don’t like being white, they make a pill for that.
You brought up your generation, not me. Don’t be a snowflake. When someone responds to something you said, don’t get upset if it isn’t an agreement.
People under 35 have their problems, but we also hold virtually no power. As that changes, pray we arent as psychotic as our parents.
Alex Pires could run against him. He ran independent last time but could probably be convinced to run as a democrat. He’s a liberal of sort
I want rainbows, sunshine, warm weather, chocolate covered pretzels, bike rides and tough type A yoga women around me and I’ll use my old white guy privilege to get it dammit!
I’m not upset. I’m demonstrating that your response was an emotional puddle of crocodile tears.
You’re using the word “snowflake” to smear me for disagreeing with you. Remember, you posted first. I disagreed with you first. Why would I have expected you to agree with me?
I would say the snowflakes are those who can’t engage unless the other person “checks his privilege,” which actually means “shut up because my life is worse than yours.” Or, in the case of you and Pandora, someone else’s life is worse than mine, and you have claimed moral superiority by reminding me of it.
So, once more, fuck you. Like most people who are “woke,” you’re still too drowsy to be called “awake.”
I’m going to go ahead and assume you are kidding.
And this
“Jesus Fucking Christ, but you’re insufferable.
I”M being hurt right now, you clueless clown. LOTS OF PEOPLE are being hurt right now.”
Wasnt an emotional response… ok.
OK, smartest guy in the room, explain how a Clinton presidency could possibly be worse than this one. You sound like a Bernie or buster.
I already did, Einstein. See above. I didn’t say it would be “worse,” so much as “just as bad in a different way.” And I’d rather play offense than defense. Your mileage may differ, but I’m not sorry to see the Clintons ushered off the stage. And I believe it’s fair to weigh the negative effects of a non-progressive Democrat on the progressive movement.
Pointing out that pandora is a wearying scold is not an emotional argument. It’s an emotional aside. I have long since grown tired of pandora’s moral preening (yours too, for that matter). That’s not the core of my argument. That’s just baying the obvious at the moon out of frustration.
For the last time, I’m not a fan of Bernie the candidate. I’m a fan of Bernie’s positions, which Hillary Clinton could have adopted once she vanquished him. Instead she tried to woo moderate Republicans, who spurned her.
It wasn’t my strategy that proved a loser. It was pandora and cassandra’s.
So touchy and defensive. So easily trolled and triggered.
I wonder, are all your radio-fit verbal “take-downs” helping?
You maintain this air of intellectual superiority, but you’re just as clueless as the rest of us on how to deal with this. You’re so sure the GOP will ride to your rescue.
I’m not counting on the GOP to ride to the rescue, mine or anyone’s. I’m telling you what to expect based on how people behave.
Whatever it aspires to, politics actually operates on pretty standard simian behavior patterns for determining positions of dominance. Machiavelli did such a good job of observing and decoding that behavior that his insights remain useful today.
If and when it becomes obvious to Republicans that Trump is hurting them, they will first run from him and, when that proves ineffective, they’ll throw him overboard. It happened to Nixon, and given the nature of how power relationships work, it would happen to anybody in such a political system as ours. (In a truly totalitarian state, Trump would simply have those pesky Freedom Caucus congressmen killed.)
There are many, many variables that could ensure Trump’s longevity — what if his and the GOP’s economic plans actually work, for example? He’d be re-elected without serious opposition. I think the probability of that is lower than impeachment, but I don’t think impeachment is the likeliest outcome, either.
I’m not trying to convey intellectual superiority. I realize it comes off that way, but I can’t control how others hear it, and I don’t have enough time left to tiptoe around.
What I’m trying to do is set aside emotions so we can deal with content. It might be illegitimate to try to set those emotions aside — after all, without emotions, all sorts of horrors can be made to sound reasonable — but I think it’s the only way to get a clear view of the situation.
This all began because I made an observation, built off Pandora’s accurate observation: Things would be just as bad under Hillary, because the assholes who voted for Trump because they hate liberals would be marching in the streets and Congress would be assaulting her legitimacy and investigating her endlessly.
Pandora is right: The American people are the problem, and they would be no matter which candidate won in November, Bernie included.
THAT is actually a pretty reasonable argument.
I will, however, continue to disagree that this would be”as bad” under Clinton. There’s just no way…. Sure, her grid-locked presidency would end after 4 years and a rethug would get elected. Would it be Bannon’s next sith-apprentice who is actually smart and can stay away from twitter? Maybe. Would it be someone more like Romney who can play the part of a non-racist, while keeping our racist institutions going? Probably.