“The past is never dead; it’s not even past.” Via Tom Scocca’s twitter feed, a Dorothy Thompson Harper’s article from 1941:
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis…
Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class—no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.
The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him—or his wife—to dinner.
He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him—he despises, for instance, Mr. B—because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.
Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language—though they have never met him…
I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others…
Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a “deviationist.” When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist; when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton’s economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged…
dedc79
Trump fires chief information security officer, possibly freeing up spot for his son Barron?
schrodingers_cat
@dedc79: Putin
MD Rackham
Huh. I think I was at the same party last week.
joel hanes
The quoted piece explains the Nazis in the House and Senate.
It does not explain, or even mention, the far more numerous Nazi voters in every sports-bar and newspaper comment section in the nation — the ones who will enthusiastically vote for fascism if they get to feel as if they’re part of the uberclass, the Volk-minded.
rikyrah
I’m the wrong color, and I’m not going to be a slave catcher, so my fate is what it is…
VIVA LA RESISTANCE
efgoldman
@schrodingers_cat:
Pootie Kazootie fired the guy, or Pootie Kazootie’s the replacement, or both?
dedc79
Trump, Pence, Bannon, Flynn, Conway, Spicer, Priebus, McConnell, Ryan, King (NY and Iowa), Palin, Cotton, Sessions, Giuliani, Gingrich, Christie, Huckabee, Carson (if they’d let him in), Grassley, Chaffetz . . .
ETA: Cruz, Rubio (although he’d later claim he had no choice, and that he didn’t like it and would never do it again), Scott, Abbott, Kobach . . .
? Martin
Reposting from below:
More from the base.
So, every part of the country heard the part of Trumps message they wanted to hear, and discounted the parts they didn’t. Some will lose their employees, others their health insurance, others their basic rights.
LOL. As if Trump fucking cares, even if he could grasp it, which he can’t.
hilts
Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting post at the LA Review of Books about the Trump Hitler analogy
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/normalization-lesson-munich-post
MCA1
If this has been dated just a decade later I’d have put good money on the author having been at a party where she met a Mr. C named Richard Nixon. My god, even most of the specifics are down to the letter. Not all of them but enough to be eerie, and the psychological profile – it’s the exact archetype.
Brachiator
@dedc79:
Or that fat kid sitting on a bed in his mother’s basement somewhere. You know. The kid who really hacked the Democrats’ computers.
Michael Bersin
Speaking of…fearful republicans in Congress.
Some inventive constituents of Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r-the Chinese are spying on us through our toasters) in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District have noted that she doesn’t much do open public town halls anymore. Individuals are printing and distributed “missing” flyers in the district: “…Subject startles easily at the sight of concerned constituents…”
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): about those missing public town halls
Dumbspear O'Sparrow
Read the article. I remember reading it earlier a couple years ago. It has some interesting insights, but I don’t think insecurity is as important as Thompson suggests. I think there are plenty of insecure people who are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats who would never change. I would rather highlight a sense of privilege mixed with a sense of victimhood and resentment at lessers who don’t know their places. The kind of person who thinks that black racism against whites is a far bigger problem than vice-versa. That, to me, is the kind of person who would go Nazi in a heartbeat.
Diana
@? Martin: “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest….”
Amazing excerpt. Is the whole thing online anywhere for free?
japa21
9th Circuit to announce decision in next couple hours. Tweet storm to follow.
? Martin
@Diana: Link is there – NYTimes article. If you’ve hit your 10 reads, turn on private browsing or whatever pørn-protecting feature your web browser offers and it should let you in to read it.
hilts
A history of Ivanka Trump using her dad’s presidency for profit
h/t https://thinkprogress.org/shop-til-you-drop-all-your-ethics-a-history-of-ivanka-trump-using-her-dad-s-presidency-for-profit-91d2a18e9f54#.gr0aroh85
With the exception of Barron, the Trump family is a collection of kleptocratic, money grubbing, opportunistic, dishonest scum.
Pat B
@rikyrah: Oui!!!!
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator: This actually happened last week. If you’ll recall there was a brief flurry about a rumor that some senior Secret Service officers or managers were fired. That was somewhat off in its details – somebody was fired and escorted from the building, but it was Corey Louie, the CISO, an Obama hire.
The troubling thing is that nobody has been named to replace him, and the WH is not commenting in any way.
efgoldman
@Michael Bersin:
Keep it up / Keep it up / Keep it up / Keep it up / Keep it up / Keep it up / Keep it up / !!!
Since the Racist RWNJ assholes come out to vote anyway, this kind of well-publicized mocking and hassling will (I hope I hope I hope) keep our folks energized and get them to the goddamned polls next year, to dump some of these shitheads and make them work for a living.
EBT
@? Martin: It’s actually the point. He promised to hurt the big blue states for not voting for him and this is how he can do it while also getting red meat to the base.
MCA1
@ Martin: My god. The cluelessness behind this: “…he said that as a businessman, Mr. Trump would know that farmers had invested millions of dollars into produce that is growing right now, and that not being able to pick and sell those crops would represent huge losses for the state economy. ‘I’m confident that he can grasp the magnitude and the anxiety of what’s happening now.'” is truly breathtaking. What a fool.
patroclus
Most Republicans would be Nazis. Some would “say” that they weren’t and they might bemoan Kristallnacht as a bit of an overreach and criticize the carpet-chewing blackmail of the Anchluss and Munich, but they certainly wouldn’t do anything about it. If they were in the Reichstag, they’d vote for all of Hitler’s stuff and if they were business people, they’d cooperate and try to get in on all the war profits. They might criticize some of Hitler’s military tactics and blame it all on the Generals, but they’d go to the Nazi parties and mingle with the real Nazis. If you ever saw the Kenneth Branagh movie “Conspiracy,” they’d fit right in at Wannsee and the best of them would be just as ineffectual as Kritzinger.
Here at BJ, only Cole would have been a Nazi, but he would have switched sides midway through and allied with the GG of the day (Bonhoeffer?). The rest of us would spend most of our time infighting amongst ourselves and relentlessly criticizing the Social Democrats and the Communists for not doing the opposition right.:-)
efgoldman
@japa21:
Wow that was quick. My $$ says the stay stays.
Hal
@? Martin: So these workers are vital to this man’s industry and way of life as long as they are underpaid and have no actual rights as citizens? Got it.
efgoldman
@EBT:
Fucking idiots. Apparently he forgot (or nobody bothered to tell him, not that he’d care or remember) about whatever traitor state it was – GA or AL – that passed a “scare them Spanish speakin’ darkies away” law a couple of years ago, and then watched millions of dollars in crops rot in the fields.
efgoldman
@MCA1:
He doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t eat vegetables anyway.
? Martin
@Hal: Underpaid? I can’t speak for other states but migrant workers here in CA make at least minimum wage – usually a bit more. They also usually treated pretty well because the state is willing to overlook their immigration status so long as the employer generally meets state labor standards (which in CA are very high). That’s not to say it’s a great deal all-around, but they’re generally no worse off than any minimum wage worker in the state.
And FWIW, the farm owners here in CA are almost universally in favor of a path to citizenship. Their lives get overall easier if these workers can be legal in one way or another. Have newer workers on a work permit and after a certain number of years of steady employment make them citizens. A well trained farm worker will double or triple output of a new worker – its worth paying them more and giving them benefits and knowing they’ll come back next season.
hilts
@japa21:
Trump lives to tweet storm and to become a dictator. We’re stuck with a truly sick bastard for the next 4 years.
Hopefully, some new damaging revelation about Trump will be uncovered by an intrepid reporter or his infantile emotional instability will become too big a liability for Ryan and McConnell and we can get this asshole removed from office before his 4 year term ends.
Kat
@Diana:
Clear your cookies if you’ve already read your 10 free articles…
California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers
Also, too, there is a resistance:
Let the Leaking Begin” — Longtime NASA Watchdog Welcomes New Rogue-Agency Tweeters
Keith Cowing’s NASAWatch.com is a precursor to Twitter accounts like @RogueNASA, @Alt_CDC , and @AltHHS. They are all trying to do the same thing for their organizations: Protect them.
? Martin
Industry analysts are predicting that 200 mile EV prices will fall below conventional ICE cars by 2020. That’s going to flip the industry in places where the infrastructure is in place.
debbie
@? Martin:
Or just delete the nytimes cookies.
efgoldman
@Kat:
While at the same time, doing their main job, working for the people. It’s an extraordinarily difficult balancing act.
MCA1
Looks like we’ve found some Born Nazis: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/02/09/a-hitler-valentines-day-card-was-handed-out-on-campus-university-officials-want-to-know-why/?utm_term=.e80ff8c1b637
ThresherK
@Michael Bersin: In CT we have highway message signs, ordinarily for traffic, which are also used to broadcast Amber Alerts.
If MO has them, I’m not saying they should be hacked for a missing Congresswoman, but I’m not saying it shouldn’t.
debbie
@MCA1:
That farmer better get in line. Trump’s first gotta do something about the more than 10,000 layoffs in retail.
? Martin
@hilts: There’s a decent chance the 9th will determine that the PI is non-appealable, that the govt will need to wait and make their case at the appropriate time. In other words, they won’t give a ruling on the merits. The government could then take the appeal to USSC, who would probably back the 9th. That doesn’t actually resolve the issue at all, just kicks the can down the road a ways.
trollhattan
@? Martin:
These guys make me sick. Dumb fucks who have to ape every other Valley farmer and turn theri fields into almond orchards in the middle of a multi-year drought, then bitch when there’s not enough water to irrigate their multi-decade investments, now go and vote in the One Guy most likely to run off their labor force.
Nice bidnez plan you got there, assholes! Fuck them all* with their own rusty farm implements.
* Plenty of smart farmers who don’t follow the herd, generally east-siders, but they aren’t the ones out yelling at the teevee cameras.
Kat
@Gin & Tonic:
This article includes links to other sources of this news.
White House Cybersecurity Officer Abruptly Removed From Position
? Martin
@debbie: And the hospitality industry if we turn away 10s of thousands of guest visas.
Adam L Silverman
@MCA1: Yep:
It is important to recognize that it indicates 6,000 not 6,000,000. That is a staple of the race realist/racialist/white nationalist variant of Holocaust denial. That Jews did die during the Holocaust, but it wasn’t 6,000,000, only in the thousands, say 6,000, and largely from disease – not because they were purposefully executed. The Rage Furby was making this same point in a Reddit AMA a couple of weeks ago.
hilts
@? Martin:
Shorter California farmers: I am shocked- shocked- to find that gambling is going on in here!
To any Trump voter suddenly afflicted with buyer’s remorse, all I can say is 3 words: Go Fuck Yourself
HeleninEire
Back in the pub watching Irish step dancing. Last week I said this is American square dancing. Anne Laurie corrected me and said it’s the opposite. She is right. So anyway. This looks like boatloads of fun. Raise your hand if you want me to take classes in Irish step dancing.
danielx
@? Martin:
At this point I am not convinced he could locate his own asshole with both hands, a mirror and a flashlight, much less grasp anything other than what he’s having for dinner.
m0nty
Mr. L in that article is a fairly scathing stereotype. How much of organised labor in Trump’s America would go Nazi?
trollhattan
If you’d like to see the awesome destructive power of
the Death Starflowing water, check out the before/after pics of Oroville Dam spillway. For a sense of scale of California’s #2 dam, see here.debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
The second sentence in the headline is beyond belief:
Chip Daniels
Good God, I believe I have met these people.
danielx
@japa21:
From the sound of the court discussions, the judges are ready to stick a thumb in Trump’s eye on general principles.
Timurid
@Brachiator:
More seriously, 2018 and 2020 will probably be hacked from the White House basement. They won’t need plausibly deniable Russians anymore.
Miss Bianca
@patroclus:
Yeah. All the way to the gas chamber. Which is what a lot of the Social Democrats and Communists did, according to sources I read. I’d add “Sad!” but I think I’ve bummed myself out too much for my usual tasteless japery.
patroclus
I’m expecting a unanimous 9th Circuit panel decision upholding the stay and remanding the case back to the District Court for discovery on the merits.
jl
@? Martin: @hilts:
Merced is near one of my ancestral stomping grounds.
Poor gullible farmers. Reckless dumbshit stuff is coming at them so fast!. Gosh golly gee, who woulda thunk.
CA Central Valley was blue all the way from Sacramento down through Fresno, though. Most of them had some sense.
By the time you get to Bakersfield, though, things had gone south.
debbie
No Tweets yet defending Kellyanne. She’s even lost Chafetz. Is she about to walk the plank?
debbie
@efgoldman:
You’re thinking of Alabama. I have relatives there and it didn’t work out so well.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Well you don’t want your university President, Vice President, Assistant Vice President, Provost, Vice Provost, Assistant Vice Provost, Deputy Provost, Assistant Deputy Provost, Dean of Academic Affairs, Vice Dean of Academic Affairs, Assistant Vice Dean of Academic Affairs, Dean of Students, Vice Dean of Students, Assistant Vice Dean of Students, Director of Academic Affairs, Deputy Director of Academic Affairs, Assistant Deputy Director of Academic Affairs, Director of Student Affairs, Deputy Director of Student Affairs, Assistant Deputy Director of Student Affairs, Director of Counseling, Deputy Director of Counseling, Assistant Deputy Director of Counseling, and the one tenured professor left because they spent all the money for a proper faculty on all those administrators and the football coaching staff to jump to conclusions now would you?
Hungry Joe
@? Martin: The 2017 Chevy Bolt is almost there — gets up to 240 miles on a charge. It’s still a little pricey (high $30Ks), but when you factor in its equivalent of 106 mpg and lower maintenance costs it’s somewhat less than that, in the long run.
We just leased a Chevy Volt to go with our Nissan Leaf, so we’re almost entirely electric-driven. LOVE those cars. If we ever want to take a long car trip we’ll rent an ICE vehicle. It won’t happen often, and it’s not quite as expensive as it sounds because you’re not putting all those miles on your own car or taking rubber off your tires.
dmsilev
@debbie: Wrong time of day. He generally tweets late at night or first thing in the morning.
raven
Ruling against Trump!
Hungry Joe
@Miss Bianca: Tasteless japery is never out of order.
Miss Bianca
@? Martin: Meanwhile, in other California agriculture headlines…file this under “WHOCOULDAKNODE?” As in “Whocouldaknode that if you actaully pay people a living wage, you might attract more workers?”
So many money quotes, but I liked this one: “At the end of last year, the farm was short 50 workers needed to help peel, package and roast garlic. Within two weeks of upping wages in January, applications flooded in. Now the company has a wait-list 150 people long.
“I knew it would help a little bit, but I had no idea that it would solve our labor problem,” Christopher said.” (my emphasis)
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I don’t know, I think a fair amount of us would become partisans and fight for the resistance. A lot of people say that those who use Greek nyms are likely to become bigly informants and collaborators. Buhleeve me!
patroclus
Trump goes down!
Jeffro
@Michael Bersin: that’s awesome! They’re screwed if they show and screwed if they don’t
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I probably already know the answer, but I have to ask if that list was just off the top of your head? ;)
msdc
So let’s see, Mr. C(ruz) is a self-loathing snob who everybody hates, and young D(onald) is a spoiled sociopath with multiple wives.
Who is Dorothy Thompson and how did she gain the ability to predict the future?
hilts
Federal appeals court maintains suspension of Trump’s immigration order
h/t https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/federal-appeals-court-maintains-suspension-of-trumps-immigration-order/2017/02/09/e8526e70-ed47-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html?utm_term=.a4fa35142ceb
Millard Filmore
@? Martin:
Now there is a way to punch California for being blue.
jl
@debbie: one thing that is beyond my understanding, is what makes for a big political ethics scandal. The Trump play on Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka’s clothing line was so silly stupid and pointless, with so little chance of doing anything other than making Trump look like a fool (and that market is about saturated). As I typed yesterday, it is along the same line as Truman threatening the punch the face of some music critic who didn’t like he way his daughter sang.
Even Trump’s hapless bellowing press secty and his whatever she is weird screechy lady repeating it was laughable.
There are other Trump ethics scandals that are more important by orders of magnitude. Maybe that is why Chaffetz is joining in the stink about this particular dumb Trump stunt. Gives him some breathing room to ignore far more important ones.
patroclus
@Adam L Silverman: LOL! Actually, I think I’d be an early victim – gay guys didn’t last long.
mai naem mobile
The Appwall CT just ruled against El Lumpo Dolto 45. He’s going to have a twitter meltdown tonight.
Adam L Silverman
@Hungry Joe: Yep. I’ve got a hybrid that does 400-450 per 8.5 gallons depending on city, and traffic conditions, or highway. My understanding, the last time I spoke with the folks at the dealership is they expect the next generation of this hybrid to increase the mileage between 1/4 and 1/2. By the time that becomes obsolete, we’ll have reached the electric vehicle tipping point threshold.
HeleninEire
@raven: HOLY FUCK. THANKS FOR THE NEWS.
Taylor
Bannon.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Two questions:
1). Who the HELL would think that giving – or receiving – a Hitler valentine was in any way attractive? I mean, I figured there was a *reason* that a local punk band back in my salad days called “The Very Idea of Fucking Hitler” was enough to get a universal gag reflex going.
2). Who is “Rage Furby”? I mean, I love the moniker, but can’t think of who exactly qualifies.
Kat
@efgoldman:
You win!
We all win.
raven
@HeleninEire:Appeals Court Deals New Blow to Donald Trump’s Travel Ban Targeting Muslims
jl
@Taylor: Easier to count the people in Trump circle that does not describe, including Donny himself.
debbie
@jl:
Well, Nixon did all kinds of evil, but it was his stupid lying that did him in.
raven
@Miss Bianca: Yer Nazi’s
Miss Bianca
@HeleninEire: Do it! And then post a YouTube video of your “Riverdance” audition!
hilts
@debbie:
Don’t get my hopes up too high!
I’d love to see that pathological liar Kellyanne Conway have to resign in disgrace. If she does have to go, who’ll take over the task of changing Trump’s diaper.
With the federal appeals court ruling against Trump, he’s surely shitting his pants big league.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: It was, but its pretty damn close to reality in most places.
Emerald
I’m going with the first-time-tragedy-second-time-farce theory.
I still think he’s outta there in six months.
‘Course, they said that about Hitler too.
HeleninEire
@raven: And thanks for the link. OMG YAY
dmsilev
(capsule summary, via the NYT)
jl
@debbie: If laughable nonsense re Nordstrom does serious damage to Donny, I’ll take it even if I don’t understand it. If Congress panics over the midterms and decides to dump Donny, would be poetic justice for them to do it over something comparable to Bill Clinton’s irrelevant fibs about a blow job.
jl
@dmsilev: Entertainment Tonight!
Gravenstone
@? Martin: You’d think all those farmers never heard about what happened in Georgia a handful of years ago when they cracked down on undocumented workers. Food rotting in the fields, As ye reap, so shall ye sow (or not)
Fool me once, won’t get fooled again?
Millard Filmore
@trollhattan:
Almond trees need less water than most other crops.
Adam L Silverman
@patroclus: Glad you took that in the joking manner it was intended.
More seriously, as I’ve told several others here, recognizing I have no idea where you live, we have your back. Some things will not be allowed to repeat – even if things get ugly for a bit.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s OK – White House information security is being run out of the server farm at Alfa Bank…
TriassicSands
@hilts:
I guess the “Boss” is going have to do some firing. Article XV of the US Trump Imaginary Constitution gives the president the power to fire any judge or justice who “crosses the line.” (The line being whatever it is that Trump wants.)
We could be headed for another epic twittercane with accompanying tweetnadoes.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: ooh, yer wicked! ; )
I’m still trying to figure out if I would have had the nerve or the cultural/actual capital to flee the country, or stay and fight. (or at least spit in some Nazi macher’s soup before serving it to him).
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Regardless, it’s very impressive. My supervisor’s supervisor has memorized pi to the 100th decimal place. You guys and your memories are scary awesome!
trollhattan
@Millard Filmore:
One gallon per almond, plus you can’t fallow them in a drought like row crops. SAD!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: Isn’t the correct reply “Bomber Harris was right.”?
Miss Bianca
@msdc: Dorothy Thompson, journalist who profiled Hitler and was one of the first to really grok what he represented, from what I can tell.
I also had this idea that she was Sinclair Lewis’s wife, but I could be wrong about that.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: 18-21 year old conservative college student.
As for your second question, this guy:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/46818_Chuck_C._Johnson_Says_He%E2%80%99s_Advising_the_Trump_Administration_on_Nominees_-_and_He%E2%80%99s_a_Holocaust_Denier
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/users/2015/05/chuck_c_johnson_suspended_from_twitter_why.html
And by this guy I don’t mean Charles Johnson who owns/operates LGF, rather a young man with the same name. When you see the picture you’ll understand why he’s referred to as the Rage Furby.
TriassicSands
@Emerald:
How do think he’ll exit? By just quitting because it isn’t any fun and he thought he was going to be able to order everyone around while enriching himself and his family? Or through action by Republicans in the House and Senate?
I can imagine him being gone, but I can’t figure out which of the options is more likely. You?
mai naem mobile
@hilts: shitting Bigly not big league.
MCA1
@jl: I’d find it more poetic if it were Democrats who got to impeach over something as irrelevant as what the meaning of is is, but I’d take the other if it meant it happened sooner. More likely to be for Russia connections and straight up treason or similar, though.
Nothing will happen on the initial Nordstrom tweet, as it seems the P and VP are exempt from the ethics restrictions on this sort of thing. Others, including Conway, are not, which is why Chaffetz and Cummings felt at liberty to take her to task on this. I don’t know – some (stupid, irrational) part of me holds out hope for Chaffetz, as awful as he was to Clinton.
Adam L Silverman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Most likely.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: OMG!! (with regard to the second)
With regard to the first…wow, tastes have changed.Back in my my college days, even the Young Republicans would have shrunk from outing themselves as Hitler Youth.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: I think you have to take into account and understand the demographic and attitudinal changes among undergraduates.
Roger Moore
I thought the conclusion to the article was most interesting:
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: In other words, “face it, MB, you’re getting old”? ; )
Now excuse me, I have to go yell at some HitlerJugende to get off my lawn…
Tokyokie
It’s not as sophisticated a game as the one the author plays, but I used to imagine which Republicans would look most comfortable in a Gestapo uniform. My winner was Newt Gingrich. Trump, however, would never wear one because he’s gotten too thick around the waist. But I can easily imagine him in a South American fascist dictator’s medal-festooned, gold braid- and epaulet-adorned uniform. Hell, I bet Ivanka could design one for him.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: That wasn’t what I was implying. Rather how college students approach college isn’t even the same as it was when I was an undergrad from 88 to 92. Moreover, campus life and dynamics, in and out of the classroom, have gone through revolutionary changes that in some case outpace their larger societal counterparts in the US. As a result the folks you knew as the conservative kids or the College Republicans would be considered moderate by the ones today. When you see O’Keefe and the people he works with or the Rage Furby or that young woman pushing the extreme anti-reproductive choice stuff (something Rose) or even the more acceptable ones that have done well like McCardle what you’re seeing is revanchists. Young people that are mentally and spiritually decrepit while at the same time emotionally stunted and immature. Unable to deal with any nuance and believing that any attempt to be thoughtful or polite or cordial or civil is somehow a personal affront that must be fought with every fiber of their being.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I wonder if times and the depths to which humans spend on introspection have changed a lot since 1941 when the article was written.
The Trump offspring would be Nazis, but I can’t imagine an interior monologue in any of the kids beyond, “Damn, I rock this suit! I’m hungry. Where’s the damn waitstaff? Someone’s either gonna blow me or get shit-canned. Damn, I rock this suit….”
TriassicSands
I only heard part of the appeals court hearing the other day. From what I heard, Judge Clifton (a Bush appointee) seemed the most hostile to the state of Washington’s case. But he joined the other two for a unanimous decision. I can’t help but wonder if Trump’s going after judges and the courts might have swayed Judge Clifton. It could be that since he knew he was going to “lose” he joined the other two to show the most powerful face of the judiciary to Trump. Or what I took to be hostile was really just him being an aggressive questioner, which would be a good thing.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I was teasing, but trust you to give me a thoughtful (if rather depressing) response! And yes…what you say strikes me as true on both the right *and* the left ends of the youth political belief spectrum. Good Lord, I really *must* be getting old…
MCA1
@Tokyokie: “gotten too thick around the waist” Didn’t stop Goring.
I like your game, by the way. Cruz, Rubio and Christie would step right up for fittings, I bet, among today’s crop.
efgoldman
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
They have a couple dozen TRS-80s lined up on folding tables.
efgoldman
@TriassicSands:
His boss, Bannonazi, will refuse to accept the resignation.
oldster
Damn. I’ve never heard of Dorothy Thompson before, but that essay is *good*.
As well as scary, of course.
Big Picture Pathologist
@Adam L Silverman:
Which make/model?
laura
@trollhattan: the Union I work fork represents water operators at the Orroville dam. Back when Arnold was der Gov, a steel door blew out under the dam and sucked concrete, tools and everthing not well bolted down into a tunnel. Two operators were seriously injured included multiple complex fractures and we’re very lucky to survive.
It cannot be overstated how fragile our infrastructure is and how long it’s been known and how fucking unwilling the Republican party is at both state and federal level to spend any money to repair, replace or even basic maintenance on our roads, bridges, dams, waterwayas, airports and so on and so on.
Emerald
@TriassicSands:
25th Amendment. Impeachment is too messy. The Rs are gonna start running from him eventually and they’d rather have Pence anyway.
Adam L Silverman
@Big Picture Pathologist: Lexus CT200h. I get between 45 and 50 mpg in the city and 41 to 45 on the highway (depends on how much uphill is going on).
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Well said. That’s “Lila Rose” (TBH remember reading that’s a pseudonym), who worked with O’Keefe until ‘his methods started to disturb her’ (again, from memory, he tried to date-rape her or her friend). I think of these Young-Yet-Sclerofied right-wingers as axolotls — evolutionary dead ends, trapped by the sealed environments in which they were raised, interesting only as pets to more powerful figures with exotic tastes.
Vhh
@efgoldman: Alabama, 2011. While farmers did suffer and complain, what really did the law in was the arrests and cuffings of two important highly paid non- American-citizen executives of Honda and Mercedes (or BMW, forget) who did not have all their IDs while driving to their regular jobs at two big auto plants that are big players in Alabama’s economy.Much bowing and scraping from state officials, and enforcement stopped. And law was repealed eventually. Goobers were reminded of their place.
Vhh
@MCA1: Chaffetz is as rat.Jewish by birth, converted to Mormonism. Campaigned for Dukakis, converted to Reagan Repub. If Trump looks to go down, Chaffetz will jump.
J R in WV
@hilts:
Actually, I suspect Tiffany is a nice person, bright, did well in school, keep her distance from her dad. Stays on the west coast, about as far from her father as she can get and stay in the USA.
@laura:
You are so right. Our infrastructure, and I don’t just mean roads and bridges – water plants, sewer systems, gas distribution systems, electrical grids. Railroads, both cargo and passenger, airports… I heard that Trump wants to “privitize” Air Traffic Control systems, airport hardware, runways… we had a huge landslide at the local airport, a “constructed fill” that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, after a long wet rainy spell it collapsed, blocking a creek and the only road into a subdivision.
No one was killed, but the overrun area of that runway was GONE.
Everything is about to collapse into rubble, because no one wants to raise the funds to keep things maintained. Hell, in Europe kids go to schools built 500 years ago, that are like new inside. Here a school built 40 years ago is a deathtrap, with ceilings collapsing, water that’s poisoned, no heat in the winter and no A/C in the summer.
The Republican way of life!
Tehanu
@hilts:
I just found out that Trump’s older sister (by about 9 years) is a retired Federal judge, a Republican of course, originally appointed by Reagan and then elevated to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals by Bill Clinton. She appears to have been pretty well thought of while she was in office — except by Ted Cruz, who accused her of being a lefty extremist abortion-lover because of some fairly anodyne opinion upholding a precedent at some point — and she keeps her mouth shut, pretty much, so I suppose nobody has tried to get her take on all this. In any case, she seems not to be a grifter like The Donald.
sharl
From 35 years ago, Who Makes the Nazis, by English post-punk band The Fall.
workworkwork
@Hungry Joe: I’d love to get an electric or even a hybrid – the problem is that we need something that is wheelchair-accessible. That limits us to Toyota, Ford, Chrysler and Honda.
We used to have Kia (33mpg). I loved that car.
burritoboy
“Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.”
Sorry, but that’s just an attempt to put the great American middle at ease. We all know Bill from City College – the guy who made it out of a slum because of the New Deal and then spent the rest of his life hating first Commies, then Civil Rights agitators, then hippies, then feminists and on and on ……. Sure, he did the right thing when he was young and FDR pointed everybody in the right direction, but most of the rest of his life was spent being the heart of the rage-gasm.
I don’t know what the Blue Book is, but it’s hard to tell if the gentle philosopher is truly gentle, or raging under the placid demeanor.
Bill
@HeleninEire: My tired eyes read this as ‘Fish Step Dancing’. Which was. for a moment, almost too wonderful.