DL Open Thread Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023

Republicans in Ohio are showing how little regard their party has for democracy, and by extension the public: As soon as the state’s electorate rejected their forced-birth agenda by a not-close 13-point margin, the GOP started laying plans to overturn the results. Here’s a little secret: They’ve always been this way, but they only show it when they lose. As long as they win, they have no problems with democracy.

This fuck-the-will-of-the-people attitude comes straight from the leader of the GOP cult. ABC got hold of video of then-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis telling Georgia prosecutors that a Trump flunky told her, “The boss is not going to leave.” From the ABC story:

Ellis specifically noted during the proffer session that the alleged comment from [Dan] Scavino, who worked for Donald Trump for decades at the Trump Organization before joining his first presidential bid, came in response to her apologizing over the lack of success with their election challenges in court, culminating with a Supreme Court loss that indicated their ability to challenge the election “was essentially over.”

“And he said to me, in a kind of excited tone, ‘Well, we don’t care, and we’re not going to leave.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said ‘Well, the boss’, meaning President Trump – and everyone understood ‘the boss,’ that’s what we all called him – he said, ‘The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.’ And I said to him, ‘Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, you realize?’ and he said, ‘We don’t care.’

Once cable TV turned national politics into entertainment, and the public approved by electing a reality show host, it was only natural that Congress would be overrun by people who think their job consists of mugging for the audience. So it’s no surprise that the Q-Anon Shaman (real name: Jacob Chansley, but he also goes by Yellowstone Wolf) wants to run for Congress as a Libertarian. Chansley was released from prison in May after serving more than a year for his role the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Libertarian Party was not reached for comment, so one can only assume their official position would be, as always, “Whatever.”

Eric Adams, the reactionary ex-cop who was elected mayor of New York, is apparently under federal investigation over campaign finances. In his case, he was bought and paid for by Turkey, the country, who apparently wanted him to overrule the fire department, which wouldn’t approve the country’s unsafe new embassy in the city. A cop on the take? Unprecedented!

Tired of superhero movies? Seems you’re not alone. The latest Marvel offering, “The Marvels,” which cost more than $200 million to make, pulled in only $47 million in the U.S. on its opening weekend, which has the suits talking about “genre fatigue.” Now they notice? Watch, they’re going to blame it on the fact that the film has three female leads.

Over in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu continues to ignore world opinion as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza continues its climb toward 20,000. You have to hand it to both sides in this conflict: They know just what to do to turn world opinion against them, and they take turns doing it.

The floor’s yours.