Sorry, way off topic but exquisite: Mexicans Were Smuggled In to Guard Border Wall https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/politics/border-wall-mexico.html
Watching President Trump’s conspiracy-mongering about his defeat in last month’s presidential election, I flashed back to something former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in 2018.
“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump Party,” Boehner said. “The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”
Or is it a dying political party?
✁
The wheezing death rattle for the GOP continued this past weekend.
Trump arrived in Georgia to campaign for two Senate Republicans facing runoff elections on Jan. 5, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
But his message twisted his knife into the Republicans.
After weeks of saying the presidential election was rigged in Georgia and elsewhere, Trump spent most of his rally ranting his baseless grievances and telling his fans not to accept his loss because Democrats “steal and rig and lie.”
So, why should Republicans vote in those races if they believe Trump’s claim that the presidential election was rigged?
That makes no sense unless he is trying to get the party to kill itself.
✁
Then there is a method to the madness.
Here’s the proof that Trump may be on to something.
Enough Republicans swallowed Trump’s bait to send him more than $170 million in the month after he led them to defeat.
That money went to an entity described on the Trump campaign website as the “Official Election Defense Fund.” But according to The Washington Post, “there is no such account.”
As one former Biden aide told The New York Times, this is “plain and simple grift.”
In fact, 75 percent of the money goes to a new Trump political action committee brashly labeled “Save America.” The paper reports the money will pay for things like Trump’s future “staff and travel.” The remaining 25 percent goes to the Republican National Committee.
;‘Ceptin’ the vast majority of registered Republicans and the vast majority of the GOP in Congress won’t acknowledge the election results, Stantisfernuthin’.
Over the next four years the Republican Party will be a roiling cauldron of derangement, always skating the line that separates the merely clownish from the dangerous and even violent. It’ll make the tea party years look sedate and restrained.
✁ The tea party movement emerged organically soon after President Barack Obama took office, but it was quickly channeled and elevated by elite Republican institutions, especially Fox News (which promoted it aggressively) and groups, such as the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, that provided guidance and support.
From the beginning, the tea party was unruly and potentially threatening to Republican officeholders, since it produced primary challenges from the right that ousted some established members of Congress.
The reaction of just about every Republican was to try to ride the tea party tiger without getting eaten. It sometimes forced them into politically problematic places — like the government shutdown of 2013 — but it also kept the base’s energy high and helped them win the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
How will that process play out this time? Every force on the right will push it in the direction of being crazier.
As extreme as the tea party was, it was nothing compared to the QAnon-inflected hysteria that now grips the GOP. Tea partyers believed that Obama was born in Kenya; significant parts of today’s Republican Party believe that Obama and other Democrats are Satan-worshiping, child-sex-trafficking pedophile cannibals.
While 2020 saw the party nominate a bunch of QAnon supporters — one of whom will be a member of the House — 2022 could see a wave of these nutballs elected to Congress.
Once they get there, they’ll pull the party not just further to the right but to places that will make the burn-it-all-down philosophy of the tea party seem like the height of responsible governance.
For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools.
For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals.
As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.
Under Trump, the Republican identity is defined not by a set of policy beliefs but by a paranoid mind-set.
He and his media allies simply ignore the rules of the epistemic regime and have set up a rival trolling regime.
The internet is an ideal medium for untested information to get around traditional gatekeepers, but it is an accelerant of the paranoia, not its source.
Distrust and precarity, caused by economic, cultural and spiritual threat, are the source.
What to do? You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief.
The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it.
And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.
Rebuilding trust is, obviously, the work of a generation.
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – John Adams: ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
So here’s my nightmare scenario of how DT claws a victory out of a sure defeat. As you’ve been aware, Trump has been quietly appointing loyalists to the lower ranks of the Defense and Justice departments. Some of these loyalists are unabashed QAnon followers on Twitter and elsewhere. Several prominent QAnon followers yesterday took out a full-page ad in the Washington Times calling on the president to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and re-do the elections under the control of the military. And the Arizona GOP just today asked whether Trumpists are ready to lay down their lives for the President. You can look this all up, it’s all verifiable and true.
So picture this. It’s late evening on Jan. 4, 2021, and the electoral college has voted to elect Joe Biden as President of the United States. All that’s left is for Congress to meet in a joint session and accept the votes, but Trump is not having it. After being pushed for weeks by Tea Party types to do something, the White House acts. Trump orders AG Barr to produce arrest warrants for all members of the House Democratic leadership and for a significant number of other House Democrats on suspicions of conspiracy to undermine the election. The AG balks. Trump summarily fires him, installing his handpicked loyalist as acting AG. This new AG immediately complies, drawing up warrants for 30 or 40 Democratic representatives.
Trump now orders the military to prepare for the imposition of martial law on the federal District of Columbia. When the Secretary of Defense balks, Trump summarily fires him and replaces him with his handpicked successor. The warrants are served just before dawn on Jan. 5, and the representatives (including Pelosi, AOC and others) are taken into custody and held incommunicado. Federal troops descend upon Washington, D.C., and Trump announces the news of the arrests on national TV. There is widespread outrage, but protesters are immediately beaten and whisked off in unmarked vans.
Soldiers and other rank-and-file federal police are openly shouting “TRUMP 2020!” for news cameras, with no hesitation or reservation. Their mood is almost festive.
Meanwhile, over in the halls of Congress, the joint session gets underway as demanded by the Constitution’s timetable. Democrats are now in the minority in both chambers. As the decisions of the electors are announced in swing states and blue states alike, objections are lodged. Not surprisingly, these objections are sustained in both chambers along strict party line votes, until enough votes have been rejected to ensure that the majority will go to Donald Trump. Congress then officially recognizes Trump as the victor in the 2020 election.
Protests break out nationwide, but martial law is swiftly decreed and police and soldiers are shown brutally assaulting demonstrators, almost gleefully. The parallels with Belarus are noted by several commentators, but they are quickly arrested for “sedition” and “treason”. Meanwhile, the representatives are released from custody and return to Congress, immediately drawing up Articles of Impeachment against the President. Mitch McConnell laughs that demented laugh of his over this, and Trump is sworn in for his second term.
You can congratulate me on being right in the second week of January.
allen@home almost 4 years ago
Even people in his own party are getting tired of him acting like a a$s.
Cheapskate0 almost 4 years ago
He might be gone, but the conspiracy theories will go on and on and on…
(cdcoventry, above)
sergioandrade Premium Member almost 4 years ago
I’ve noticed a lot of his “friends” now admitting he lost, you know who’s the first to abandon a sinking ship.
henshaven Premium Member almost 4 years ago
I just enjoy not seeing his crazy a$$ on TV all the time anymore! Hope lives!
danielmkimmel almost 4 years ago
Just a reminder: those who demonized Hillary share the blame.
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Sorry, way off topic but exquisite: Mexicans Were Smuggled In to Guard Border Wall https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/us/politics/border-wall-mexico.html
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Watching President Trump’s conspiracy-mongering about his defeat in last month’s presidential election, I flashed back to something former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in 2018.
“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump Party,” Boehner said. “The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”
Or is it a dying political party?
✁
The wheezing death rattle for the GOP continued this past weekend.
Trump arrived in Georgia to campaign for two Senate Republicans facing runoff elections on Jan. 5, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
But his message twisted his knife into the Republicans.
After weeks of saying the presidential election was rigged in Georgia and elsewhere, Trump spent most of his rally ranting his baseless grievances and telling his fans not to accept his loss because Democrats “steal and rig and lie.”
So, why should Republicans vote in those races if they believe Trump’s claim that the presidential election was rigged?
That makes no sense unless he is trying to get the party to kill itself.
✁
Then there is a method to the madness.
Here’s the proof that Trump may be on to something.
Enough Republicans swallowed Trump’s bait to send him more than $170 million in the month after he led them to defeat.
That money went to an entity described on the Trump campaign website as the “Official Election Defense Fund.” But according to The Washington Post, “there is no such account.”
As one former Biden aide told The New York Times, this is “plain and simple grift.”
In fact, 75 percent of the money goes to a new Trump political action committee brashly labeled “Save America.” The paper reports the money will pay for things like Trump’s future “staff and travel.” The remaining 25 percent goes to the Republican National Committee.
~
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/528973-juan-williams-trump-is-feasting-on-a-dying-gop
rossevrymn almost 4 years ago
;‘Ceptin’ the vast majority of registered Republicans and the vast majority of the GOP in Congress won’t acknowledge the election results, Stantisfernuthin’.
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Over the next four years the Republican Party will be a roiling cauldron of derangement, always skating the line that separates the merely clownish from the dangerous and even violent. It’ll make the tea party years look sedate and restrained.
✁ The tea party movement emerged organically soon after President Barack Obama took office, but it was quickly channeled and elevated by elite Republican institutions, especially Fox News (which promoted it aggressively) and groups, such as the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, that provided guidance and support.
From the beginning, the tea party was unruly and potentially threatening to Republican officeholders, since it produced primary challenges from the right that ousted some established members of Congress.
The reaction of just about every Republican was to try to ride the tea party tiger without getting eaten. It sometimes forced them into politically problematic places — like the government shutdown of 2013 — but it also kept the base’s energy high and helped them win the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
How will that process play out this time? Every force on the right will push it in the direction of being crazier.
As extreme as the tea party was, it was nothing compared to the QAnon-inflected hysteria that now grips the GOP. Tea partyers believed that Obama was born in Kenya; significant parts of today’s Republican Party believe that Obama and other Democrats are Satan-worshiping, child-sex-trafficking pedophile cannibals.
While 2020 saw the party nominate a bunch of QAnon supporters — one of whom will be a member of the House — 2022 could see a wave of these nutballs elected to Congress.
Once they get there, they’ll pull the party not just further to the right but to places that will make the burn-it-all-down philosophy of the tea party seem like the height of responsible governance.
~
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/03/whats-future-gop-youre-looking-it-its-bonkers/
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools.
For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals.
As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.
Under Trump, the Republican identity is defined not by a set of policy beliefs but by a paranoid mind-set.
He and his media allies simply ignore the rules of the epistemic regime and have set up a rival trolling regime.
The internet is an ideal medium for untested information to get around traditional gatekeepers, but it is an accelerant of the paranoia, not its source.
Distrust and precarity, caused by economic, cultural and spiritual threat, are the source.
What to do? You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief.
The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it.
And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.
Rebuilding trust is, obviously, the work of a generation.
~
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opinion/republican-disinformation.html
Michael G. almost 4 years ago
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” – John Adams: ‘Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,’ December 1770
Bruce1253 almost 4 years ago
Trump will be leaving for an island getaway, Rikers Island in NYC.
jkdominick Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Bye Scott, you used to be interesting.
Kip W almost 4 years ago
All you snowflakes better report back to the icebox. It’s still too hot for you!
MAGA Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Can’t wait for Biden to to be thrown in jail with Obummer!
librarian4hire almost 4 years ago
Place this under the heading of “Sucks to be you, loser.”
Supreme Court rejects Pennsylvania Republicans’ attempt to block Biden victory
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/politics/supreme-court-pennsylvania-trump-biden/index.html
SCOTUS’ decision was one sentence. “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
There were no dissents.
InquireWithin almost 4 years ago
So here’s my nightmare scenario of how DT claws a victory out of a sure defeat. As you’ve been aware, Trump has been quietly appointing loyalists to the lower ranks of the Defense and Justice departments. Some of these loyalists are unabashed QAnon followers on Twitter and elsewhere. Several prominent QAnon followers yesterday took out a full-page ad in the Washington Times calling on the president to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and re-do the elections under the control of the military. And the Arizona GOP just today asked whether Trumpists are ready to lay down their lives for the President. You can look this all up, it’s all verifiable and true.
So picture this. It’s late evening on Jan. 4, 2021, and the electoral college has voted to elect Joe Biden as President of the United States. All that’s left is for Congress to meet in a joint session and accept the votes, but Trump is not having it. After being pushed for weeks by Tea Party types to do something, the White House acts. Trump orders AG Barr to produce arrest warrants for all members of the House Democratic leadership and for a significant number of other House Democrats on suspicions of conspiracy to undermine the election. The AG balks. Trump summarily fires him, installing his handpicked loyalist as acting AG. This new AG immediately complies, drawing up warrants for 30 or 40 Democratic representatives.
Trump now orders the military to prepare for the imposition of martial law on the federal District of Columbia. When the Secretary of Defense balks, Trump summarily fires him and replaces him with his handpicked successor. The warrants are served just before dawn on Jan. 5, and the representatives (including Pelosi, AOC and others) are taken into custody and held incommunicado. Federal troops descend upon Washington, D.C., and Trump announces the news of the arrests on national TV. There is widespread outrage, but protesters are immediately beaten and whisked off in unmarked vans.
InquireWithin almost 4 years ago
Soldiers and other rank-and-file federal police are openly shouting “TRUMP 2020!” for news cameras, with no hesitation or reservation. Their mood is almost festive.
Meanwhile, over in the halls of Congress, the joint session gets underway as demanded by the Constitution’s timetable. Democrats are now in the minority in both chambers. As the decisions of the electors are announced in swing states and blue states alike, objections are lodged. Not surprisingly, these objections are sustained in both chambers along strict party line votes, until enough votes have been rejected to ensure that the majority will go to Donald Trump. Congress then officially recognizes Trump as the victor in the 2020 election.
Protests break out nationwide, but martial law is swiftly decreed and police and soldiers are shown brutally assaulting demonstrators, almost gleefully. The parallels with Belarus are noted by several commentators, but they are quickly arrested for “sedition” and “treason”. Meanwhile, the representatives are released from custody and return to Congress, immediately drawing up Articles of Impeachment against the President. Mitch McConnell laughs that demented laugh of his over this, and Trump is sworn in for his second term.
You can congratulate me on being right in the second week of January.