Aug. 10 Open Thread: It’s Racists All the Way Down
When Jason330 wrote the other day that Ken Simpler must be a racist simply because he’s a Republican, I probably wasn’t the only reader who winced. But Jason isn’t the only one who has put two and two together. Laura Ingraham brought it out into plain view earlier this week when she went on a panicky rant about immigration changing the country’s demographics. Digby points out that Ingraham’s xenophobia is all the GOP has left to run on. If the rant sounded familiar, that’s because it’s almost word-for-word the same kind of anti-immigrant spewing in the 1920s that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump himself underscored this reality this morning by again attacking NFL players for kneeling for the national anthem, claiming falsely that most don’t even know why they’re doing it. He’s obviously going back to that well because it’s proven an effective distraction from his real problems before.
Chauncey DeVega considers Trump’s attack on LeBron James and Don Lemon in light of James Baldwin’s articulation of America’s racism, demonstrating that Trump’s fear and loathing have roots deep in the white man’s insecurities.
Then there are the people who are just fine with American racism — Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, for example, who thinks Alex Jones deserves to use his platform despite being a vile sack of whatever’s worse than shit. Dorsey claims Jones does not violate the platform’s standards. Then again, he won’t pull Trump’s account, either, and Trump violates those standards routinely. Let’s face facts: Without its audience of mouth-breathers, Twitter collapses.
With the midterms approaching, Mother Jones looks at the re-election prospects for the Trumpiest members of the House. Spoiler alert: Only a few appear to be in trouble.
I keep reading stories about how the federal courts can’t be counted upon to stand up to Trump, but I also keep reading stories about the federal courts overturning capricious decisions made by him or his cabinet. Yesterday an appeals court overturned ex-EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s order that kept Dow’s Lorsban on the agriculture market despite its known dangers; it was banned from consumer use back in 2000.
A new cache of memos details the torture techniques the U.S. used on a suspect in the USS Cole bombing. Interrogators asked him if he knew so-and-so; if he said no, they slammed him against a wall. When they decided they weren’t getting anywhere that way, they waterboarded him.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/10/1787262/-New-memos-detail-torture-overseen-by-Gina-Haspel-before-she-became-CIA-director
“We tortured some folks.” —Barack Obama 1 August 2014
https://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/20180809074959-kerri-harris-is-hoping-to-unseat-a-4-time-incumbent-congressman-in-delaware/
I’m simply amazed by the coverge Kerri has been getting. It is happening.
Kerri’s interview was solid. Kerri strikes me as a strait forward person. How refreshing.
My neighbor is politically astute but not connected to the internet in any way. She had never heard of Kerri. Need for name recognition in Claymont and Brandywine Hundred. Has Kerri reached out through First Unitarian Church on Halstead Rd?
I agree. A woman came into work yesterday wearing an Alexandria Ocasio-Lopez shirt. I asked her if she was supporting Kerri. She said ‘I hope to’, but then added that she hadn’t seen her, and it seemed like she spent all her time in Dover.
She flat-out needs more visibility up here.
I remember way back yesterday when the complaint was the campaign was Wilmington centric. “Seems” like years ago.
@REV: Wilmington and the suburbs are two different worlds. I ask everybody I meet if they’re voting for her. The only one who had heard of her is an acquaintance who works at Harvest Market, who is a definite Harris vote.
Anecdotally, the older Democrats I know who do know about her intend to vote for her. There are lots of primaries on the Democratic ballot, but that’s not enough to bring a higher-than-usual number of people out on a Thursday(!). Still, I think it’s promising that people who used to vote for Carper out of habit are dissatisfied with him.
When people say they don’t “know” her or haven’t “seen” her I don’t even know what that means. I can’t even engage with this anymore.
She did a Town Hall in Newark last night and is scheduled to appear on a candidate panel in Hockessin.
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/11/kerri-harris-tom-carper-debate/
She’s been on radio, network TV, cable TV and in the newspaper (and of course all over the internet).
I understand wanting a personal visit, but did El Som’s colleague “meet” AOC? When did she get her shirt? How was she made aware? Did AOC canvass Arden when I wasn’t looking?
I’m out. This is dumb.
It means that people who don’t pay attention to politics don’t know that Tom Carper has a credible challenger, and that I think there’s a receptive audience out there dissatisfied with Carper who might get off the couch if they knew he was being challenged. Keep in mind that no more than 10% of the electorate could tell you the day of the primary, but more people than that will show up to vote. Those lightly committed people are up for grabs, or would be had Kerri had the money for yard signs and mailers. Those archaic tools serve one purpose — making sure that the voting booth isn’t the first place you see the name Kerri Harris. Even the mailers you throw away will have the name in big enough letters that you’ll see it as you toss it.
I think Carper’s internals show the same thing, which is why he’s spending a bit of that $1 million-plus he’s got sitting around. He won’t need it for the general.
She’s not my colleague. She was a customer. When I saw her shirt, I asked her about Kerri. She’s interested in her, but hasn’t seen her anywhere.
She’s an engaged voter. I know it’s only anecdotal, but if she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of her, imagine what the vast majority of casual (at best) voters know about her.
The national pub, such as it is, hasn’t yet filtered down to the local level. If, however, she truly has 500 volunteers as claimed, she should have loads of visibility in the next couple of weeks.
I want Kerri to defeat Carper. She ought to hit hard his being beholden to Big Pharma and his other corporate donors. Name names and amounts and what being in their pocket means to the average citizen, how it translates into working class paying more, stockholders, CEOs making obscenely more. Corporate Carper’s voting record on Dodd-Frank… what’s the potential for screwing the working class with that. Carpet is not too big to fail.
Colleague. Customer. Irrelevant. She knows enough to wear a shirt supporting a heretofore unknown socialist baretender candidate in a NY House district. But she hasn’t “seen” Kerri. And she would like to vote for her, but…
Ridiculous. I’ll never buy any of this. If you think this is reasonable we’re all fucking doomed.
By the way, I ain’t mad. I know you guys want the best. I know your politics are good and you are engaged.
But you let people off the hook. Excuses. Excuses. I put some responsibly on the constituent. This passive shit is really going to harm a lot of people. Don’t fucking excuse it so easily.
After they’ve talked to me they’ve heard of her, so there’s that. A lot of these people — and we’re talking maybe 15 or 20 — are the kind of people who don’t vote in primaries and still might not.
Like it or not, Delawareans fully expect to meet candidates for statewide office. Go to, say, the Arden Fair and you’ll run a gauntlet of handshakers and hobnobbers running for office. Multiply that by every such event up and down the state.
Yard sign for Carper towards southeast end of Silverside Road. Couldn’t agree more with Alby@1:16 p.m.
I am delighted with the new reply function.