Believe it or not, I think that Beckstock was kind of a big deal. Wingers don’t usually show up for rallies in such large numbers and the whole thing could signal that the Holy Trinity of Beck/Palin/Koch could control the Republican party for the next few years.
I’ve had a good time surveying the VSP reaction. Marc Ambinder translated the lyrics of “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” into Halperinese, Chris Hitchens had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity, and Jesus-loving midwestern wheat farmer Charles Lane used the occasion to explain to Barack Obama how Real Murkins think.
The two most ecstatically (I think the word is appropriate here) pro-Beckstock reactions came from William Saletan and Ross Douthat. I’m not sure Beckism is completely rooted in racism, but neither do I think that it is a coincidence that Douthat and Saletan (self-link, sorry, I can’t find it all in one place anywhere else) have flirted with white supremacism more openly than any other serious people, with the possible exception of Pat Buchanan.
If you see race a social construct, it’s hard to sympathize with the xenophobic, tribalist fears that surely motivate many, if not most, Beckstockers. If you dabble in neo-white-supremacist theory, it’s much easier to see where they’re coming from.
freelancer
So does Beck.
Now, Will you go to lunch?! Will you GO. TO. LUNCH?!
Mark
It still amazes me that Ross Douthat is considered a “serious” person. In any other time in our history, he’d just be that creepy uncle that your parents tell you to stay away from.
slag
Same rodeo, different clowns. So what?
MattF
I’m unsure about Beck, and Beckstock– the question is how his turn to evangelism plays out. This is really not at all clear to me… at least partly (truth to tell) because the whole Jesus-thing is foreign territory for me. Time will tell, I suppose.
p.a.
If we whites weren’t oppressed, we’d all be Bill Gates. ‘Cause we’re all above average.
El Cid
The turnout was bigger, but was this so different than 9/12 “We Surround Them”?
Susan of Texas
This is kiss-ass as well.
beltane
If I were a white supremacist I would have wept after seeing that rally. The specimens of the so-called master race present at that event were not of the type that could convince anyone of their superiority. The same could also be said for Ross Douthat himself. Clearly, the Palin/Beck/Koch circus is in need of a better supporting cast.
licensed to kill time
I’m so verklempt that Beck is taken seriously by anybody I can’t speak. Talk amongst yourselves, go ahead. I’ll be fine, really. o_O
slag
@licensed to kill time: Dude, George W Bush was elected president (pretty much). Twice! How did that not jade you for life?
beltane
@p.a.: If we whites weren’t oppressed, we’d all be Paris Hilton. It’s the librul death tax to subsidize ACORN driving welfare queens that keeps whitey from living the life of luxury he deserves.
eemom
of course you think it’s a big deal. You live for emmessemm sideshows.
Paris
I prefer to think of it as a FoxFest since the main speakers were Fox employees. It was not a big deal. Some disgruntled oldsters got a free bus ride to D.C. I’ve been to Dead shows with that many people. Its some cultists having fun getting together as a cult and handing their cash to a televangelist. Not earth shaking.
DougJ
@eemom:
You promised you weren’t coming back in the hate mail you sent us. Get lost.
licensed to kill time
@slag: Frankly, I’ve been jaded for life since Nixon.
eemom
@DougJ:
I lied. Suck on it.
Short Bus Bully
Mark my words, Beck is moving to fit into the vacancy created by Ralph Reed, Billy Graham, and James Dobson exiting stage left.
He’s a revivalist now. I wonder when the southerners will figure out that he’s a Mormon…
Loneoak
I agree it’s probably inaccurate to say that “Beckism is completely rooted in racism”, except for the fact that all of American life ultimately passes through a racist prism. There’s no doubting that whatever state they want to ‘restore’ America to, it ain’t going to have black presidents, let alone non-white majority demographics.
Reading TNC over the past few years, what he has driven home for me is that white supremacy is ultimately about the poorest, least educated white having social privilege over the richest, most successful melanin-American. Despite wrapping ‘restoring honor’ in ostensibly non-racist concepts such as patriotism and charity, I find it impossible to read ‘honor’ outside of the context of white supremacy. Honor is an ambiguous social virtue that is a matter of one’s character, and thus more or less unearned. All honor really does for you is that you can demand that others recognize it and give you special status. If you want to ‘restore honor’ you have to do something that makes others see you as special again. What could that be in the case of the Beckinistas, or as Wonkette calls them “the most wretched and diabetic demographic of America?” They haven’t earned any recognition as a particularly virtuous bunch, so they have to claim the Civil Rights movement—one of America’s great moral victories—as their own, despite the fact that the few policies they support run entirely counter to the goals of MLK at his cohort. Likewise, the don’t have any facts to support their crazed view of the world (Obama raised everyone’s taxes, Obama wants sharia, etc.), so their ideology requires that they shout it loud and often until it gets enough fairy dust to be true.
So, again, what is the ‘honor’ to be ‘restored’? As far as I can tell, it is only white supremacy, the privilege of not having any brown people being better than you in any way.
Chad N Freude
@beltane: Wasn’t Paris H oppressed for cocaine possession recently?
cleek
remember when at least 500,000 marched on DC for women’s rights in 2004 and people wouldn’t stop talking about it?
me neither.
how about Oct 09’s the National Equity March for LGBT rights ? 200,000 marched in DC ? non-stop speculation about what it meant ? not ringing any bells?
200,000 for immigration reform, a mere 6 months ago ?
judging by the amount of press he’s getting, i guess Beck’s more important to our country.
DougJ
@eemom:
I think you mean “Suck. On. This.”
debbie
How can you say “Beckism” didn’t originate in racism, when he came out against Obama the very next day after the election? Obama hadn’t even done anything yet!
Granted, Beck’s been able to accumulate all kinds of additional reasons for raging on Obama since then, but on that first morning, he had no supporting evidence for his animosity. Beck’s hate had to come from somewhere. I say it was racism.
Clown Shoes
After watching the movie “A Face in the Crowd”, its pretty easy to see where this is headed.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Dear G-d, please don’t let Hitch die just yet. We still need him.
Chad N Freude
@DougJ: Well that’s certainly titillating. Are you going to publish or summarized the hate mail? Have you already done it in another thread? I’m all agog.
arguingwithsignposts
Hasn’t the “sell by” date on pastywhiteragestockapalooza passed yet?
Chad N Freude
@Clown Shoes: Except nobody is going to flip the on-air switch.
jacy
@Short Bus Bully:
Seriously. Down here in the deep South, I was hoping for a Romney/Obama matchup in the presidential election, just so I could see how many white evangelicals would defenestrate themselves rather than vote for either of them.
eemom
@Chad N Freude:
oh noes! Then I’ll lost my WaPo gig.
Chad N Freude
@cleek:
Fixed.
DougJ
@Chad N Freude:
No, I would never publish a private email from a reader.
Chad N Freude
@eemom: If that’s a reference to my “summarized” typo, you’re mean. If not, never mind.
Chad N Freude
@DougJ: You’ll never be able to compete with Tucker Carlson.
Violet
Had Beck on for about 10-15 minutes while in the car this morning. He was talking about how people are trying to persecute him for his religion and how the Mormons–of ALL the religions in the US–are the ONLY religion that have ever been persecuted to the point where they had the US government after them and were run out of their homes.
He had five minutes or so of this kind of thing and it was like being in bizarro world. On the one hand, Beck and his followers want all Muslims persecuted. On the other hand, Beck is practically weeping with indignation at how people who follow his religion have been persecuted–right here in the US!–over the years. It was weird how unable he is to see what happened to his religion in what’s happening to Muslims now. And how he’s helping make it happen.
I think he’s smarting a bit from the pushback he’s been getting from various Evangelical Christians. I heard the head of the Southern Baptists being interviewed on NPR yesterday or the day before talking about how Mormons aren’t Christians (“they’re the fourth religion in the Judeo Christian tradition”). If it makes NPR, it’s definitely gone beyond conservative circles.
I also think he’s setting the stage for the legitimization of Romney, either on purpose or inadvertently. Teabag Xtian thinking: “If Beck is a Mormon, they maybe they’re not so bad. We’ll give Romney a second look.”
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude: Cancel that. It should have been Anderson Bow-tie.
Frank
How so? FoxNews advertised this circus for about six months. Heck, the rest of the media also advertised it for free. To not get more than 87,000 people is appalling.
Heck, your average anti-war rally without any free MSM advertising whatsoever easily surpassed the 87,000 mark back in 2003.
slag
@cleek: Yeah. But liberals get together for this kind of shit all the time. It’s only when we stay home that we get press. Which is just one of our many problems.
DougJ
@Chad N Freude:
Believe it or not, I have three or four truly awesome ones from fairly known people that I’ve had a hard time sitting on.
eemom
@Chad N Freude:
It wasn’t.
And I’m not mean. In fact, contrary to popular belief, I’m actually a pretty nice guy.
ETA: In full disclosure, I guess I should quote my husband’s response to that statement: “Until somebody pisses you off. Then you’re not nice anymore.”
morzer
Can’t we just call Douthat “Wolfgang Hamofdeus” officially now? He’s so obviously a menopausal werewolf, it really isn’t funny.
licensed to kill time
I thought Hitchens’ article was very good, and the title + subheader alone is worth it. He really can write like a dream when he’s not being batshit insane.
I cannot bring myself to click upon the other links yet. Perhaps never.
DougJ
@Frank:
It’s big for a wingnut rally. I’m not comparing it to immigration rallies and the like, which are of course much larger.
Wingers don’t like to show up for stuff like this, unless there’s a possibility of lynching someone.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Meanwhile, if you turn on your tee vee, a global warming denier is shooting up Discovery Channel building.
That’s one of Beck‘s stock and trade: saying Global warming is a hoax designed to create a one world government and new world order, which is line the pockets of Olbermann and Gore with the cash of hard working white folks.
beltane
@Loneoak: “Honor” is a word most often used in the context of the Sicilian Mafia (not what Beck had in mind), and the southern Confederacy where it was closely associated with the term “racial purity”. A southern white man’s honor was based upon his devotion to protecting the purity of white women from the threat of miscegenation. Dennis G. could explain it all better than I can, but I strongly suspect this is the angle Beck was going for.
beltane
@Mike Kay (Team America): Another week, another Beck follower commits a random act of violence. We’ve seen the rise of Glenn Beck, now I want to see the fall.
Chad N Freude
@Chad N Freude:@DougJ: It really is hard to sit on fairly known people.
slag
@eemom: Just so you know: When you have to go around telling people you’re a nice person, you’re probably not a nice person.
MikeJ
@Mike Kay (Team America)
I don’t live in Bethesda. How would I see it if I turned off my TV?
Edit: Dóh. Sorry, I’m an idiot.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Ironically, the Discovery Channel recently hired the grand duchess of denier-ism herself, Sarah Palin to do a 8 part “documentary” on Alaska for their mommie channel TLC (aka “Jon & Kate plus 8”).
Corner Stone
@DougJ: Ouch.
“What did the five fingers say to the face?”
El Cid
No wonder white conservative Patriots have to rally to defend America, what with the huge, massive, catastrophic increase in illegal immigration to this country.
Mike Kay (Team America)
MORE, irony, a global warming denier goes postal on a steaming 95 degree day.
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/graph/USMD0034#
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, another post title win, there DougJ
Loneoak
@Violet:
Actually, this is not hard to understand. Mormons have an explicitly American exceptionalist and racist theology. Jeebus came to Missouri before the Resurrection and converted the ‘white Indians,’ who were later murdered by the ‘red Indians.’ They identify Mormonism as an essential characteristic of Americanism and Americanism as an essential characteristic of Mormonism. Muzlins are outside of the fold, and therefore persecutable without regret—it looks contradictory from the outside, but it is fully coherent from the inside.
Crashman
@Mike Kay (Team America): Based on part of his manifesto that I just read, he’s definitely not a global warming denier. More like an eco-terrorist. Expect to hear a lot about radical left wing eco-crazies from Malkin and Beck in the next couple days.
Chad N Freude
@DougJ: BTW, I believe you. I’m surprised there aren’t many more than three or four.
eemom
@slag:
I think if you have to go around telling people you don’t even know that they’re not nice people, you’re not a nice person.
Linda Featheringill
@jacy:
defenestrate:
Ooooh! One of my favorite words!
Of course, most people today would try this from the ground floor. Might be fun to watch, though.
El Cid
The hostage-taker at the Discovery Channel may just be the opposite of a fanatical GW denier:
Turbulence
DougJ, if you care to engage in more discussion of Goldberg (now twice as much fun with the return of eemom!), this article might make good reading.
Loneoak
@eemom:
I’ve found every single person who identifies themselves as a mom in their internet handle completely insufferable. I care about your procreative status even less than I care about your banal political positions.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
yeah, I’ll bet you creamed your underoos over that one, didn’t you Cornie?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@El Cid:
it’s really no different than the American Nazi party marching down Broadway in 1937 or the Klan marching down Pennsylvania Ave in 1928.
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=uKt&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=klan%20pennsylvania%20ave&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=574
Actually, the difference is the Nazis and the Klan didn’t have an entire propaganda channel providing free advertising around the clock, 24/7.
Sly
And now Hitchens is just going to walk the Earth.
You know, like Caine in Kung Fu. Walk from place to place, meet people, get in adventures.
eemom
@Loneoak:
Yeah, and I care about the fact that you’re a solitary tree less than you care about my procreative status.
You are an unpleasant one, in any event.
rickstersherpa
I am with Bob Somerby in that we liberals get real stupid when we reach for the “race” card to explain everything. I am also with the “Thorstein Veblen on this when he writes the following:
“The key problem with Friedman’s thesis is that when the economy is doing poorly, anger toward the government in power rises. If the government in power is George W. Bush, then liberals gain support and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama get to make policy. If you’ve got a liberal government in power, then they will be discredited. And if the opposition is full of conservatives, then of course they will tend to push zenephobic policies…
Same thing happened during the Great Depression. In the US, the Great Depression destroyed the conservative movement for a generation — until war hero Ike Eisenhower led the ticket. In Germany, the Great Depression destroyed the left. Key factor was who was in power and that they did not respond effectively to the recession.
This administration has not responded effectively to the recession, and so now we’re seeing their enemies emboldened.” see http://www.economistsforfiringlarrysummers.com
This stuff has traction because lots of folks, who happen to be white, really feel they have been ‘effed over the last few years. Obama get elected with a promise to do better, but picks Geitner and Summers to be economic tag team who then advise him to do lots of dumb things that serves “the Finance Interest,” because they tell him if he saves the banks and reappoints Bernanke, then everything will go back the way it was before 2007, including house prices. Neithe really got that the Housing Bubble was a bubble. Further, the FED is dominated by right wing types who loathe Obama, hence Fisher and Hoeing and the guy in Minnesota want TO RAISE INTEREST RATES NOW, apparently to make sure Obama Presidency crashes and burns in a depression. You will be amazed how loosey goosey FED policy will get after President Palin takes the oath of office Jan 2013. The Saletans and Douthats of the world are just riding the world wind.
Crashman
@El Cid: In one paragraph, he demands Discovery find a solution to global warming and auto pollution, and then in the next he goes off about stopping “achor baby” filth.
Wooho! We got some crazy here!
Keith G
So many questions:
Will Beck collapse under the weight of his own vacuous rhetoric?
Will he be taken out by his conservative competitors (either political or religious)?
Will he actually energize enough of the “disenchanted” to make an electoral difference?
Will it be wise for the Dems to continue to not intelligently go after Beck?
It sure is interesting to watch this twisted social phenomenon unfold in real time – and more than a bit frustrating.
MattR
@El Cid: CNN is now reporting that authorities have told them that the hostage taker is in fact James Lee.
El Cid
@Crashman: I think a lot of people who shoot up workplaces or take building hostages because of their manifestos are crazy. I don’t want to go out on a limb and paint all the workplace-shooter-uppers and hostage-takers with a broad brush, though.
licensed to kill time
@El Cid:
Hahaha! Parasitic human infants. He thinks the planet would be better off without humans, it seems. He may have a point there, speaking solely from the planet’s point of view. Too bad for us humans.
So long, and thanks for all the fish! and oil! Sorry about what we did to you, Gaia…you’ll get over it.
Svensker
@rickstersherpa:
Gosh, that must be quite the blow.
Ailuridae
@rickstersherpa:
No offense but Bob Somerby isn’t the source I would ever go to for liberal bona fides on matters of race (or sexual identity). For whatever reason, and I have no interest in figuring it out especially as it is suck a small portion of his otherwise excellent work, Somerby has a whole lot of “unfairly put upon white guy” in his posts over the last decade.
Loneoak
@rickstersherpa:
@Ailuridae:
Not to mention that when an economist says ‘all of society is explained by economic factors’ you should probably consider other possibilities—they love to conflate correlation with causation. One aspect of my abiding love for Krugman is he never does this.
DougJ
@Ailuridae:
It’s the standard white ethnic northeastern woe-is-me crap that you hear from Chris Matthews, Peggy Noonan, Tim Russert, etc. It’s sad to see Somerby doing it since he made a career out of dicing Chris Matthews, Peggy Noonan, Tim Russert, etc.
He’s more like them than he thinks.
MattR
@Ailuridae: Agreed. As a white male, I try to remember this constantly.
DougJ
@Sly:
And without a job, residence, or legal tender, that’s what he’s gonna be – a fuckin’ bum!
Corner Stone
@eemom: Yes.
Anytime I see you clumsily stumble into a mess of stupid and get yo ass snatched I enjoy it.
Of course that’s pretty much every time you open your yap, but somehow it never stops being delightful.
Southern Beale
BTW in case you folks haven’t heard about the hostage/gunman/explosives incident unfolding at Discovery Communicaitons HQ … guy is a nutter, I’m sure both right wing nutjobs and lefties will try to put a political label on him.
DougJ
@Southern Beale:
I’ll tell you one thing: no one better try to put a P. F. Chang’s in Silver Springs anytime soon.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@rickstersherpa:
C’mon. You’d think Somerby never heard of Willie Horton or Jesse Helms’ “white hands” ad. I mean, why all of the sudden do we hear about “anchor babies” when there wasn’t a peep said when shrub was in office.
Ailuridae
@DougJ:
You know when I finally realized that to be the case? Oddly it had nothing to do with his normal excellent political writing but in his once a year defense of the relevant merits of Big 11 football and his annual love letter to Tom Izzo. Those articles just stink of flyover country white resentment.
Somerby is likely in his mid 60s now and has, not unsurprisingly, taken to a form of tribal defense of who he views as “his people” being assaulted by Elites who are accurately describing those people as ignorant and racist. You saw the beginnings of this in in the Dem Primary campaign where he basically went near PUMA off the rails.
Just read the man for the last two years as it relates to any of the following topics and its pretty clear he has lost his fastball
-Any host of MSNBC
-Glenn Beck
-Sarah Palin
– His people – roughly the same white people as Jim Webb talks about (much more elegantly)
– the Park 51 community center opponents
eemom
@Corner Stone:
yer fallin off yer game, fella — the witty retorts are kind of constipated these days.
Southern Beale
Well, here are the Discovery hostage takers’ demands. Rabidly anti immigrant but also a rabid eco/environmental/anti-war/population control guy. Looks like one of ours. We’ll never hear the end of it.
Gird your keyboard, peeps.
PurpleGirl
It sounds like the guy has a true case of mental illness — you know, along the lines of the Unibomber. Needed care that he never got and is just smart enough to use language but makes strange connections. I don’t think this one is political so much as physical and neurological.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Glenn Beck who?
I was out of town this weekend, away from tee vees and da internets. There were a ton of people were out and about enjoying one of the last weekends of the summer.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, brought out beckstock. And when I look at the television ratings, they sucked. Only 8oo,ooo watched the COMBINED fixed news daytime coverage for saturday and sunday.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/31/cable-news-ratings-for-saturday-sunday-august-28-29-2010/61614
A measly 800,000. In comparison, about 6,000,000 people tuned in to watch the Red Sox play the Tampa Bay Rays.
I don’t think anyone, outside of news/political junkies, gave a shit about fuck face.
El Cid
@Southern Beale: Seems more of a Ted Kaczinski type, and although they tried it didn’t really seem to settle down as a ‘left’ guy. This time enough repetition and zeal might work.
slag
@eemom: Well, since I have made zero categorical statements regarding anyone’s niceness, then I’m safe. In this respect, at least.
But enough about me. Let’s talk about material implications.
Comrade Kevin
@DougJ: Actually, I think it should be this.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Ailuridae:
This is so funny, considering Somerby is a HARVARD grad, who didn’t serve in the working class/poor man’s war, Viet Nam, and roomed with Al Gore at dear ole harvard.
DougJ
@Ailuridae:
I think part of the problem is that he (again, like Matthews) just pops off about whatever topic, even if he knows his view are on the topic are nuts. Sometimes this is very entertaining (I like his crazy philosophy posts) but I think it’s always annoying when you know the topic better than he does.
ET
I live and work on the Hill and had to work the day of Beckstock and saw the zombies all over the neighborhood and walking down Pennsylvania Avenue and while I am sure there were non-whites in attendance, I sure as hell didn’t see any of them.
fasteddie9318
@PurpleGirl:
No way, PurpleGirl. His crazy ramblings included some anti-war thing and stuff about the environment, so he’s obviously been part of Obama’s Kitchen Cabinet along with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Zombie Hitler, Pancho Villa’s bandoleers, and the skull of Genghis Khan. Catch the Fox News primetime lineup tonight for more details.
Jonny Scrum-half
I’m not saying that race is irrelevant, or that it hasn’t been fastened on by many on the right (for example, Beck asserting that Obama hated White people), but isn’t politics the more likely cause of the Tea-Party rallies? Does anyone really think that Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. would be acting materially different if Hillary Clinton had become President, or if Bill Clinton had returned for a 3rd term?
In short, Obama’s race is a tool that the Tea-Party organizers can use against him with some people, but it’s not the reason that people are rallying against Obama.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Ailuridae:
This could explain it. If you go on the PUMAs blogs, there’s always an undercurrent of race (some still insist the President wasn’t born in Hawaii), and (“he only won because he’s black”). They never came to grips with the fact that Hillary lost because of her war vote and NAFTA.
fasteddie9318
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Well, that and she ran maybe the worst campaign I’ve ever seen.
Midnight Marauder
@Southern Beale:
The saddest part is that someone as crazy as this loon could easily win a primary on the Republican side.
@fasteddie9318:
Jerry Brown in California would like a word with you.
Linda Featheringill
@Southern Beale:
When immigrants come to the US they begin to consume resources at the same rate as the folks who were born here. So immigration into the US increases the number of high consumers on the planet.
If this guy is gung-ho about saving the planet, that fact might be what is driving his anti-immigration rant.
I read his list of demands. He might be crazy. And he is certainly expressing his frustration in a way that is not socially acceptable. But I don’t think he is entirely wrong. Discovery Channel has sold out to somebody, I don’t know who. And it is not the only channel that has.
My take is that he might be nuts but he isn’t so wrong. And this particular operation he is involved in probably won’t be very effective.
numbskull
@Short Bus Bully:
Believe me, once Southerners figure out how whitey-tighty most Mormons are, they will be A-OK with them. In fact, we will see screeds aplenty telling us how Southern Baptists ALWAYS loved them some Mormons and that anybody who says otherwise is just stirring up trouble. Just wait, it’ll happen.
wasabi gasp
If the Miss America Pageant was a showcase of jigglin’ ignorant slobs throwing back found corn chips from their belly rolls, I’d probably watch.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Jonny Scrum-half: I guess the question is would the rallies be as big if Clinton was president. I don’t think so.
Racial resentment (see: the Southern Strategy) has always been the biggest tool in the GOP turn out kit.
Mnemosyne
@Jonny Scrum-half:
Here’s my question for you: do you think that the tea partiers would not be screaming about “anchor babies” and evil Muslims if one of the Clintons had won?
The difference between having a black president and a white president is that having a black president goads the tea partiers on just that bit more to where they fly right over the top. Bashing white Democrats has always been about labeling them as race traitors who want to take all of your stuff and give it to black and brown people. But with a black president heading the country, it’s impossible for them to hide that message behind phrases like “welfare queens,” so they’re just going full monty with what they were really saying all along about Clinton/Democrats wanting to take your stuff and give it to black and brown people.
Mnemosyne
@Midnight Marauder:
I think Jerry is getting his advice from the same losers who ran the No on 8 campaign.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@ET:
No latinos? No asians? No ….. gulp…. muslims?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Midnight Marauder: Jerry Brown in California would like a word with you.
Tweety said the other day that Meg Whitman would be a “giant killer” if she beat Jerry Brown. I’ve never lived in CA, but from what I remember of ’92, I’m surprised Brown got elected to statewide office again, and I don’t know if you can paint somebody with Meg’s self-financing as a David in any circumstances> I am more than a little surprised CAians are willing to fall for another “moderate” Republican after the AH-Nuhld disaster.
wasabi gasp
Just for the record, there was a black guy in attendance. Although, it’s unclear as to whether he was in custody or not.
Midnight Marauder
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You know, I don’t think it’s so much that people in California are willing to fall for another “moderate Republican”, as it is that Jerry Brown has done absolutely nothing to justify or impart why anyone should vote for him. And yes, it should be rather obvious, but you have to be out of your fucking mind to think you can go almost an entire campaign without any kind of media presence in a state like California, against an opponent as profligate with their money as Meg Whitman.
He isn’t doing a single fucking thing to validate why people should vote for him, meanwhile, Meg Whitman has already dropped $104 million to pull off one of the greatest con jobs in recent political history.
Linda Featheringill
@wasabi gasp:
The black guy in attendance:
Is this the guy that advertised on Craig’s List?
wasabi gasp
@Linda Featheringill: I do not know what you’re talking about, crazy lady.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Midnight Marauder: has Brown done any advertising?
Mnemosyne
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I’ve seen a few web ads for Brown, but he’s not saturating the radio and TV airwaves the way Whitman is. I can barely turn on a station without hearing another ad from her. I don’t think I’ve seen a single ad for Brown.
Tecumseh
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just heard my first Whitman ad with an actual policy idea and it basically came down to giving the UC System one billion dollars. Yay! Except the state’s broke and has no money to give to anyone. So how is she going to pay for it? By “reforming welfare in the state.” Since the idea is both ridiculous and a blatant attempt at bashing the poor, she’s pretty much a shoe in. Frankly I don’t care if she wins as being Governor is pretty useless in this state but if Fioirina somehow beats Boxer I’m packing up and leaving.
Nellcote
OT
DougJ, mediamaven, what do you think of the new NYT ombudsman? Here’s his new memo.
Nellcote
@Mnemosyne:
Saw an ad for Queen Meg on “Lie to Me” the other night. That made me LOL.
asiangrrlMN
@Mnemosyne: Agreed. Would these people be convalescing, er, protesting under a Hillary presidency? Hard to say. Yes, they hate all Dems, and yes, they probably would get their sexism-hate on, but nothing unites them like hating on the colored folk. It’s not all about race–but it takes up a significant portion of the hatred.
@slag: I have a corollary to this: If you go around telling people you aren’t a nice person, you usually are a nice person deep down inside.
@jacy: Defenestrate is one of my favorite words, too. Along with eviscerate, disembowel, and exsanguinate.
I am not afraid of Beck; I am afraid of the hatred he is harnessing. He may think he can control it, but he cannot.
TooManyJens
@Jonny Scrum-half:
No, but I do think that they wouldn’t be getting nearly as much traction with their accusations if Obama were white.
From Why some Americans believe Obama is a Muslim:
The mostly-white college students in the study were more likely to believe lies about Obama when they were reminded of a way in which he differs from them. (To be fair, this also happened with McCain when they were reminded of his age.)
If Obama were white, the right would still find some way to “other” him, as they do with all Democrats and liberals, but there are few more powerful tools for “othering” in U.S. society than tapping into racial anxiety.
Chad N Freude
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Brown has an opportunity for a pretty good campaign commercial:
Meg Whitman has spent $[insert gigantic number] to buy her election as Governor. Has she bought your vote?
Jonny Scrum-half
Mike Kay and Mnemosyne — I agree that the Tea Partiers are making use of Obama’s race, and in general his “otherness” (born in Kenya, Muslim, etc.), but that’s just because those are the leverage points that work best with Obama. Obviously, any rallies against a Clinton wouldn’t focus on race, because the Clintons aren’t Black. But they’d find some other BS leverage points, whatever they might be (lesbianism for Hillary, for example).
In other words, race is a tool used by the Tea Partiers against Obama, but it’s not the reason for their actions.
Nellcote
@Tecumseh:
“Money bomb” for Boxer today. Debate tonight on Cspan and local stations at 7.
Chad N Freude
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think there are any. He’s being cagey and waiting for just the right moment to release the kraken of his ad blitz. 11-dimensional chess and all that, don’tcha know.
Mark
@Midnight Marauder –
Whitman’s genius is that she’s somehow running against Arnie and the Republicans.
TooManyJens
@Jonny Scrum-half:
Right, but it just wouldn’t work nearly as well. Look at how rapidly the anti-gay movement is losing support.
Martin
I’m not sure racism is the right word, though race is a factor. I think it’s overall preservation of social standing, with participants unaware of the degree of white (straight, Christian, etc.) privilege that they currently enjoy but see themselves losing.
Calling it racism seems counterproductive, however, since I don’t think many of them believe that whites are inherently superior. They just seem to feel that minorities are now getting privileges that they are not, which is bullshit, but that doesn’t make it racism.
Nellcote
@Jonny Scrum-half:
Isn’t that a little like saying “states rights” and not slavery was the cause for the war of southern aggression?
Linda Featheringill
@wasabi gasp:
A few threads down, somebody linked to a Wonkette article about ads on Craig’s List personal section for people who wanted to hook up while in DC for the rally.
Maybe you had to be there.
Never mind.
maus
@asiangrrlMN:
Fuck yes they would. They’ve been militarized by the cozy relationship between their politicians and the pandering they receive every day from the media. The blackness and “muslim” heritage gives a focus, but if it wasn’t him, it’d be Hillary. They’d swiftboat something and get it perpetuated regardless.
Chad N Freude
@Martin: Theirs are special privileges, ours are our rights. QED
asiangrrlMN
@Jonny Scrum-half: I disagree. Racism is at the root of a lot of the teabaggin’ action–not a tool. There would not be protests this insane if the president was not black.
@maus: I really don’t think the protests would be this large or this vicious under a non-black president.
@Martin: What do you think racism is? It’s not all about hoods and burning crosses (though we’re there, too). It’s about thinking those people are getting undeserved perks and privileges they didn’t earn–unlike us who have clearly earned it. Look, I am not arguing your main point about calling people racists being helpful or not, but it is racism that fuels these protests.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Jonny Scrum-half: I agree that they would use different tactics for Hillary and they would go just as hard after Hillary, but where I disagree is the results. Race baiting is more potent then any other kind of slime, and therefore the anti-Hillary industry would have fewer consumers.
There would be protest for Hillary, but not at this level. Put it this way, would the protests of President Hillary Clinton be larger or smaller if she was black.
Midnight Marauder
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I have seen exactly one Jerry Brown commercial on television, as of today. And that one example happened maybe a month ago.
He is, for all intents and purposes, an invisible candidate in this election.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Midnight Marauder: Is Brown not advertising because he has no money, or does the spiritual father of Russ Feingold think he’s proving some kind of point?
@Chad N Freude:
I like that one!
Ailuridae
@DougJ:
I find a lot of his philosophy posts especially the “nobody can understand Wittgenstein or anybody within the philosophy of language” camp to be as embarrassing as a lot of the rest of him.
He was a fine librarian of the press’ abnegation of duty in the 2000 election and afterwards. And don’t get me wrong, that is/was important but the rest of his schtick isn’t very good and he’s really really wrong about a lot of stuff.
burnspbesq
If no one has said it yet, great title.
Remember:
Always. Be. Closing.
The Glen Saletan leads are for closers. You don’t get them.
Linda Featheringill
wasabi gasp:
http://wonkette.com/417805/did-you-restore-honor-have-secret-gay-sex-at-beckapalooza
Midnight Marauder
@Mark:
Whitman’s genius is running against an opponent who appears completely uninterested in actually winning this election. She couldn’t get away with most of the nonsense she has if there was a real oppositional presence confronting her.
But I have to say that she has done an impressive job of shaping a “moderate” image for herself with that $104 million she’s dropped thus far. She has invested in some top-notch, high quality bullshit.
Chad N Freude
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I shoulda been a campaign consultant. I guess I missed my calling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
On topic (I got distracted by the comments, as per usual): I don’t know much about Saletan or his background, but I would be surprised if he fit into the same Professional Ethnic (alas, Irish) type as Tweety, Punkinhead and the Dolphin Lady. I’ve only just started looking at Slate again in the last week, but my recollection is that Saletan and Weisberg always prided themselves on a dumbed-down Kinsleyan contrarianism. Matt Yglesias admitted recently that one of the reasons he supported the Iraq invasion was– besides his trusting in VSPs and Liberal Hawks like Packer (and Berman? Can’t remember the gomer who dragged Josh Marshall along with him)–was that it struck him as a very bold and independenty thing for a twenty-one year old Hahrvarhd student with impeccable North Eastern Liberal credentials to do. That’s the vibe I get from Saletan, and he ain’t twenty-one.
asiangrrlMN
@Mike Kay (Team America): Argh. You said it much better than I did. Wot Team America said!
Mnemosyne
@Jonny Scrum-half:
The rallies wouldn’t focus on Hillary Clinton being one of Them. They would focus on Hillary Clinton not being willing to protect you from Them. But I agree that there would be fewer teabaggers participating, because it’s harder to get them up off their couches to hate a white woman than a black man. Hmm. I wonder why that could be. Racism, perhaps?
If your belief is that the ravening hordes of black and brown people are coming to take all of your stuff, the detail of whether the president is going to personally head the hordes to take it or is just going to stand by and let them do it is immaterial because the belief is itself racist.
Teabagger rhetoric is based in racism. What, you thought that when they talk about “sockalism” they’re actually referring to the work of Marx and Engels and not to their deep-seated belief that the government is going to take all of their stuff and give it to black and brown people?
Ailuridae
As s@Martin:
I’ll ask this delicately as I like your comments but:
Calling it racism seems counterproductive, however, since I don’t think many of them believe that whites are inherently superior. They just seem to feel that minorities are now getting privileges that they are not, which is bullshit, but that doesn’t make it racism.
I grew up around a prevailing sentiment that working class whites were getting screwed by government favoritism towards Blacks and, to a lesser extent, Latinos. Now I don’t argue from anecdote but I can say with a pretty high incidence that the people espousing that view were indeed racist but not in any virulently bigoted sense. They “just thought” that black people were consistently outperformed by white people despite having equal opportunity. But that does imply that blacks are racially inferior right?
wasabi gasp
@Linda Featheringill: Thank you for the link. Whenever I see a protruding bulge from now on, I’ll be reminded of your generosity.
Linda Featheringill
@wasabi gasp:
LOL. You’re welcome.
[chuckle, chuckle]
Midnight Marauder
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Essentially, Brown’s campaign decided long, long ago that they were just going to horde as much money as possible to come out swinging in the Fall. They basically conceded the first 2/3 of the campaign to Whitman, with the belief that they could weather her multi-million dollar assault for months on end and still be in a competitive position come October. This short article from July gives a nice insight into what’s been happening:
And in case you wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth:
Any day now, I am eagerly expecting that (in)famous Jerry Brown “No, No. Wait Until The Fall And Then We’ll Be In Position To Attack” media blitz to kick in.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
I will give you this much: the people who hold these beliefs may genuinely not understand that it’s racist to think that the government is trying to take all of their stuff and give it to black and brown people. They may think that, as long as they’re not wearing a white hood and burning crosses on someone’s lawn, they’re not really racist.
They’re wrong, but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe it.
freelancer
@wasabi gasp:
Oh my god. I never thought I’d see “but I have tons of black friends!” in picture form. Yes, in fact you guys DO look racist based on the meta of the image.
geg6
@DougJ:
I will always love you for this particular comment. Passionately.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A big element is the herd mentality that exists in very conservative town like D.C.
Tweety, et al. bathe in the Village climate, which for the last 30 years has been overwhelming republican.
jacy
@asiangrrlMN:
I like to teach my kids the macabre word of the week, kind of like Edward Gorey’s “Nursery Frieze.”
Last week it was “oubliette,” which, for those who care, is a dungeon built into the ground where the only ingress or egress is through a hole in the top. I’m sure this will come in handy for them someday, although I’m not quite sure how.
asiangrrlMN
@jacy: That’s a great word, too. I like the way you think, and Edward Gorey would be very proud. I’m assuming that guillotine and garroting were two of the first words you taught them. And, of course, the classic, asphyxiation.
Martin
@asiangrrlMN: But I think it’s a lot broader than race. I think it’s attitudes toward the poor, toward other religions, toward gays, etc. I think a lot of the attitude about HCR was that they’d have to settle for less in order for someone else to have any – regardless of who that someone else was – could even be another WASP. Their general sense of privilege is being eroded, and they’re lashing out – some on race, some on other things. Bundling all that up as ‘racism’ is inaccurate and just gives them a valid defense. I’d rather not give them a valid defense here, is all.
Chad N Freude
@jacy: Wow. I always thought that Oubliette was the name of a cute French coquette.
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: He’s the back-of-the bus token.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@fasteddie9318:
Worse than McCain’s general election campaign? Worse than Alan Keyes in Obama’s senate win? Worse than the person who was supposed to win the primary for that, and got busted for corruption as it got going?
I like Obama a lot. However, he also benefits from an uncanny ability to match up against the weakest conceivable opponent every single time he asks for your vote. It’s unfuckingbelievable. More than any other reason, it’s why I think Sarah Palin will be the 2012 GOP nominee; they couldn’t possibly nominate anyone any weaker, to run against Obama, which means she’s the one.
It makes me think I’d rather have a candidate who’s lucky than good.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Chad N Freude:
Don’t learn your vocabulary from strippers.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@asiangrrlMN:
Oh, yeah? Well fuck you. I’m the meanest person you’ll ever find.
TooManyJens
@Midnight Marauder: Oh god, it’s the Silky Sullivan of political campaigns.
burnspbesq
@Chad N Freude:
Oubliette = forgettable coquette.
“Nous avons eu le sexe une fois, mais j’ai oublié votre nom”
DougJ
@Nellcote:
Good for him, Scott Brown supporter that he is.
asiangrrlMN
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): Heh. That made me laugh.
Tax Analyst
@Loneoak:
Good point. If you look back to the Old pre-and-post Civil War South you can see an almost fetishistic relationship with the word “honor”. All the phony-assed “Colonels” who either hadn’t even been military officers or had only gotten the posts through cronyism haughtily drawling and drooling at anyone who dared to look at them sideways and getting all puffed up about someone besmirching their so-called “honor” somehow. Shit, most of these colonels had more in common with a Kentucky Fried Chicken drumstick than any sort of brave or brilliant military officer. Yeah, all that “Suh, are you questchaning (sic) mah ‘onah?” was mostly just carefully leveraged demands for elevated treatment from cowardly bullies who knew they had the enforcement powers of their social and judicial apparatus covering their back.
Or, er…shorter version – what you said.
DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think Saletan is Irish. I’ve never detected any sarcasm in any of his writings and he has that dumb, sober tone that I associate with WASPs, Germans, etc.
DougJ
@Ailuridae:
It may be even more embarrassing than a lot of the rest, but it entertains me, possibly because of this.
ruemara
@MattR:
That is pretty damn funny.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJ:
The deuce you say.
Cat Lady
@DougJ:
Well, supporting Senator Nitwit is one strike against him, but a lot of otherwise acceptable people (in my rapidly shrinking meatspace world) did too, also, alas. However, that notwithstanding, he wins an internet by not allowing the NYT to describe the non-mosque not at ground zero as the Ground Zero Mosque. He’s also against the word hipster, for all you hipsters, who shall henceforth be known as Fauxhemians.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DougJ: That’s exactly what I mean. He’s not from that “I’m still a blue collar kid who carries a spiritual lunch pail” emotional/delusional tribe of Tweety, Russert and Noonan. He (pseudo-) intellectualizes sympathy for Becker-heads to show he may be a liberal, but a “thoughtful, independent” liberal. In truth I couldn’t make it past the headline of this particular article, but that’s the sort of pose I remember from the days (pre-2004) when I read Slate regularly.
Svensker
@DougJ:
You mean like Cole, that well-known symbol of sobriety?
Tax Analyst
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Actually, I think Brown is going to be OK, all things considered. Check it out, Whitman has spent over $104 million so far to almost $0 from Brown. OK, so then she must be deciminating, defenestrating and limb-by-limb destroying Jerry Brown by now, right? Not exactly. The most recent polls show Whitman and Brown running just about dead-even. Yes, Whitman will continue with her advertising barrage (and then some) right up to election day, but at this point is she really convincing any additional voters to vote for her? I don’t think so. I think her negative shots at Brown are going to start losing their impact on potential voters. I mean who hasn’t seen more than a lifetime’s worth of them. Meanwhile, hard as she might try I just don’t think nasty old Meg comes across as very likeable or human. Her campaign strategists have done their damndest to hide her particularly obnoxious brand of arrogant petulance, but it just kind of seeps out of her like some sort of B.O. of the soul.
Yeah, Brown’s “hold-back” strategy might not work, but I think it’s more solid than blowing big $$ in the middle of August running the dismal but necessary negative ad shots. What is the alternative? Spend himself into a box with the election almost 9 weeks away? Outside of political junkies and blog nerds just who the fuck is paying attention right now? So Whitman’s got the 27% group – is anyone surprised, and she’s going to get a fair number of votes from people who detest Democratic Party candidates and particularly someone like Jerry Brown. But I think Jerry is looking at this as though its going to come down to “who’s least ugly and least detestable”. That’s really his type of race. It’s certainly not going to come down to “who’s prettier?” or “who’s the most likeable?”. I mean, it’s not like anyone would want to sit around and have a drink with either of them. It’s probably going to be closer than I’d like, but I’m seeing Brown by maybe a couple of points at the wire. I just think if $104 million and counting has only pulled Whitman to about even so far that we may be getting close to “peak Meg” pretty soon. There’s only so many warts that even that much money can air-brush out.
The major caveat is that Democrats must get to the polls this year.
Chad N Freude
@Tax Analyst:
I’m a Democrat, and I plan to sit it out because Brown refuses to bring about world peace, end poverty, and give me a pony.
DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Dumbed down Kinsleyism is about right, but he’s also got a touch of pure simpleton, a la Conor Friedersdorf.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: Who’s a good little firebagger? You are.
{chucks Chad N Freude under the chin}
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: Goo. Fe-ohs good. Giggle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: Now I feel dirty.
HyperIon
@beltane wrote:
Yeah, and they let black folks give speeches, too.
eemom
@DougJ
I see you’ve take my advice and added a layer of subtlety to mask potentially libelous accusations. Smart move.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, I don’t get my chin chucked very often these days, just showing my appreciation.
fasteddie9318
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
There was never a point at which McCain was the prohibitive favorite to win that election once the primaries had ended. Alan Keyes was DOA no matter what he’d done, and Ryan’s pulling out because his messy divorce made it impossible for him to win is a different animal than somebody who just runs a stupid campaign.
HRC was the anointed and distant front-runner in that primary race pretty much from the day after Election Day 2004, yet through a combination of arrogance and bad planning managed to cough up a sure win to a guy who was four years removed from the Chicago state senate. There have arguably been bigger campaign fuck ups in modern times, maybe Pappy Bush in 92 for example, but her campaign was pretty goddamn bad.
morzer
@eemom:
Are you guys still flirting? Man, this is worse than sitting through the Ring Cycle for the sexy time.
Chad N Freude
@morzer: It’s sex of one and half a dozin’ of the other.
morzer
@Chad N Freude:
One bedraggled Valkyrie and no Ride….
Ailuridae
@fasteddie9318:
JMN is talking about Blair Hull here in the primary reference not Jack Ryan or Alan Keyes.
fasteddie9318
@Ailuridae:
Oh, right, Hull. I forgot about that dude. He got chased out over reports that he beat up his ex-wife, no? That’s still a different thing than the candidate who just flat out runs a bad campaign. HRC didn’t lose because some scandalous details emerged about her at the last minute, she lost because her campaign didn’t know how to win a caucus and was completely unprepared to come out of Super Tuesday still in a tight race. Arrogance and stupidity.
Chad N Freude
@morzer: Looks like a punning cultural reference, but I don’t know what it is.
Mnemosyne
@fasteddie9318:
Much more lurid — he got chased out because he used to take his ex-wife to sex clubs and try to convince her to have sex with strangers while he watched, which was not something she was into (to say the least).
The infamous phrase he (reportedly) said to her when he literally tricked her into going into one and she burst into tears was, “It’s not a turn-on when you cry.”
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
No, that was Jack Ryan. He’s a R and the women in question was Jeri Ryan, the actress. Hull’s issues (he’s a D – again we are talking primary) were domestic violence related and largely unsubstantiated besides being mentioned in the divorce proceedings (that is not to imply I don’t believe his ex-wife).
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
Sorry, I lost the thread — I thought we were still talking about Ryan.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: It doesn’t matter. Just keep talking about Jeri Ryan and everything else will work itself out.
eemom
@morzer:
nah, you’re confusing me with with “geg6.” She lusts for Dougie, and wants to bear his child, cuz he told me to get lost. Not sure why she dislikes me so much, but evidently she thinks I voted for Barry Goldwater when I was 6 years old, or something.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Hi Cornie! Wanna play?
Bella Q
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell, now *I* feel dirty, and I just read the exchange.
Church Lady
@Mike Kay (Team America): Considering the fact that Beckapalooza wasn’t broadcast on Fox, your linking to their weekend numbers doesn’t mean jack shit. It was on C-Span and live streamed on the internet. Maybe you should check C-Span’s numbers and compare them to their usual Saturday numbers to get an indication of how many might have tuned in.
Between your idiocy in declaring the Discovery Channel hostage taker a Right Wing Beck follower and erroneously believing that Backapalooza was broadcast on Fox on Saturday, you’re really on a roll today. I wonder what additional dumbass bullshit you can come up with?
Church Lady
@Tecumseh: Your neighbors are probably wondering if that’s a promise.
Anne Laurie
@Church Lady: So, give us the inside scoop: Does the NSA officially support Fiorina, or just Glenn ‘Elmer Gantry’ Beck?
Medicine Man
@asiangrrlMN:
He may not even care if he can control it or not.
Church Lady
@Anne Laurie: WTF is the NSA? Other than National Security Agency, I don’t have any idea what acronym you’re referring too. Please explain.