#TBT: It’s been nine years to the day since former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin officially stepped down from office, shocking political analysts and the Republican establishment https://t.co/khoBdmoK8V pic.twitter.com/vxV50YusON
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 26, 2018
Let’s be honest — Palin, and her enablers, were the Kaposi’s sarcoma of political rot. If the GOP hadn’t already incurred a deathly infection playing games with the wrong ideologies, the whole Who-Can-Be-the-Loudest-Ignoramus fad would never have taken hold so violently…
The Summer’s Hottest Trend Is Owning the Libs https://t.co/htUfT3qfYY via @RollingStone
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 26, 2018
“Raise your hand if you’ve ever posted anything online to quote unquote own the libs,” President Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley recently asked a crowd of high schoolers. Most of the teens in the audience raised their hands, then exploded into uproarious applause. “I know that it’s fun and that it can feel good,” Haley continued, “But step back and think about what you’re accomplishing when you do this — are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading?”
It would be ironic for a Trump official to admonish the youth for inflammatory political tactics if irony hadn’t died in 2016. But with Haley’s utterance of the phrase IRL, the concept of “owning the libs” officially went mainstream…
To own the libs is to partake in the pettiest of culture wars. But moreover, to own the libs is to own yourself, no matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on. As comedian Patrick Monahan, an early adopter of the meme, tells Rolling Stone, owning the libs is “laughing as you post ‘Trump is still your President’ memes in Facebook threads while the bank forecloses on your farm. It comes down to a need for community and some kind of cultural ‘win’ [for the right] since they perceive culture to be against them at all times.”
The actual actions that yield successful lib-ownage vary.
“The funny thing about owning the libs is that it’s textbook performative virtue signaling, from people who say they hate that,” Monahan says…
To be fair, right-wing culture warriors made fools of themselves for the sole purpose of pissing off the left long before the rise of social media. After France declined to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, George W. Bush supporters protested the country by purchasing bottles of French wine and dumping them out in the streets of New York and tried to rebrand French fries as “freedom fries.”
As Wilson tells Rolling Stone, “This idea that conservative philosophy can be replaced with trolling is so fundamentally not conservative, and the fact that people on the right love it so much is because of their insecurities — the whole idea on the right is that, ‘Oh liberals are so much smarter than us, we have to tear ‘em down because they’re the scrawny pencil-necked geek redheads from Harvard.’” He blames Fox News and conservative talk radio, as well Sarah Palin’s vice presidential run, for making trolling the libs the chief ideology of the GOP. “They really hated it for a long time… [and] now we’ve reached the point where it is the singular part of Republican political culture.”…David Frum, an editor at the Atlantic and former George W. Bush speechwriter, tells Rolling Stone, “When people are losing politically, they retreat from politics and take refuge in cultural criticism.” Even though Republicans control two-thirds of state houses, the executive and the legislative branches, they still feel this underdoggian impulse to score culture war points.
“People on the left want to talk about Medicare-for-all and universal basic income and federal job guarantees,” Frum says. “They have a series of things they want to do with the state [and] big ideas that they want the public to think about. Conservatism really doesn’t have those right now.”…
Say it with me: REPUBS IN DISARRAY!
I’m not supposed to say that someone like this is ignorant. I’m supposed to engage with them as if what they said made any sense. I’m not supposed to be condescending to them, and I’m supposed to believe that they’re open to dialogue.
Yeah, no. https://t.co/UVpcXIgb57— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 26, 2018
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
owing the libs?
Mai Naem mobile
There’s a tweet out there with recent gubernatorial polls from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin with the Dems comfortably ahead so go ahead and own the libs.
Platonailedit
Talk about a string of oxymorons.
oatler.
Yet somehow, somewhere, someone is making money off this!
James E Powell
The whole “owning the libs” would be a joke if it weren’t for the fact that the press/media uses it as guide for their coverage of politics.
Another thing. I pretty much get all my political news right here. Front pagers and commenters are of such quality that you all select, break down, and explain the major stories in way that don’t cause me to fly into rages. But that means I don’t really know how much or what kind of coverage stories get.
The one I’m wondering about is Jim Jordan’s sex scandal. Seems like there are a lot of witnesses why say he knew about this and he’s lying now. He’s now running for Paul Ryan’s job. Do the press/media cover this story? Do the other Republicans not worry that it will be a potential disaster?
Major Major Major Major
“Palin, and her enablers, were the Kaposi’s sarcoma of political rot.”
This is an excellent metaphor!
James E Powell
@Mai Naem mobile:
That was the first really good polling news I’ve seen this cycle. The last time I checked, Scott Walker was comfortably heading for re-election against all potential Democratic opponents. Now, he’s trailing by double digits.
Steve in the ATL
No one was shocked by palin’s resignation because no one outside of Alaska knew who the hell she was
efgoldman
Cleek’s Law and Davis X Machina’s corollary are always, always in effect.
@James E Powell:
The polls go up. the polls go down, nobody knows why
Bnut
Some jackoff Royals pitcher broke Aaron Judge’s wrist tonight. Al Central trash POS. I’m going to Boston next week for my anniversary present to see the Red Sox-Yankees and now I won’t see majestic dingers over the Monster.
Adam L Silverman
@Mai Naem mobile: Actually here’s a post on it:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/07/25/a-couple-of-important-data-points/
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: and that’s why @James E Powell is right to get his news here!
Cheryl Rofer
@James E Powell:
The story that he is running for Ryan’s job broke this morning. A great many people have pointed out the sex scandal and the parallel to Denny Hastert’s time as Speaker after his history as a wrestling coach with a sex scandal of his own. I haven’t seen news stories quoted. I get most of my info from Twitter and the links I find there.
ETA: Of course, there have been a number of other stories since then. At the moment, the return of remains from North Korea is big.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: Didn’t she run for something, on a major parti ticket and all?
Old Dan and Little Ann
I have one FB presence in my life whose sole purpose is to post things that own the Libs. It’s my window to the crazy.
Mike in NC
It cannot be said enough what a disaster of a governor Nikki Haley was in backwards South Carolina. But the MSM will give her a big buildup (first female president!)
Adam L Silverman
@James E Powell: It is being covered. The investigation is just getting started and the first of what will be many lawsuits was just filed. This one is just beginning for Jordan.
Adam L Silverman
Executive time tomorrow is gonna be lit!
Amir Khalid
“… underdoggian”? What are the editors drinking at Rolling Stone?
The Republican party has completely lost any sense of seriousness about the business of governing. So has its base, which remains a considerable, if shrinking, fraction of the electorate. I don’t think a Western democracy has gone this far in the wrong direction since the Third Reich. The Republicans need to be stopped before they succeed in their project of wrecking the world order.
West of the Rockies
Yeah, getting tired of the idea that we have to show wilfully ignorant, hateful people the respect they don’t show us…
Has a general narrative formed yet as to who leaked the Trump Tower story this evening (and to what aim)? Rachel and Lawrence were still tossing around theories last I checked in.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Tick tock.
@Mike in NC: I think Nikki Haley may be the only person who will come out of the Trump administration unscathed. She looks amazing and competent in comparison to the lying, corrupt traitors that make up the rest of the administration. I don’t know how that’s going to work, but I won’t at all be surprised if she runs for president in 2020.
The Dangerman
@Adam L Silverman:
Attorney Michael Avenatti says 3 other women claim they were paid by AMI, Trump,
Merkle’sAmerica’s Boner?dmsilev
@Yarrow: You’re assuming that one way or the other, Trump won’t be running in 2020? Hope you’re right.
Adam L Silverman
We have video!!!
Amir Khalid
@Yarrow:
The only competence I’ve seen Nikki Haley show as Ambassador to the UN has been in doing Trump’s darndest to divide and weaken it as an institution.
SFAW
No, asshole, the idea — which was around LONG before you became a never-Trumper (or whatever the fuck you are now) — is “those liberal elitists thinking they’re so much smarter than we Real ‘Muricans are. We’ll show ’em!” Which, in a sick way, was kind of amusing because (A) they “showed” the libs by becoming elitists themselves, looking down their noses at libs, and (B) they called the libs “elites,” not “elitists,” because their command of their native language was — how do I say it diplomatically? oh yeah — fucking lousy.
I have that album, by the late, great Classy Freddy Blassie, King of Men.
efgoldman
@Bnut:
The Nats are dangling Bryce Harper
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: He’s going to be running against Scalise. Scalise will make sure the story has legs.
burnspbesq
The district court opinion denying Trump’s motion to dismiss the Emoluments Clause action brought by the attorneys general of DC and Maryland is a thing of beauty. The takedown of the amicus brief filed by the Irish law professor is polite but devastating.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4618085/District-of-Columbia-and-Maryland-vs-Donald-J.pdf
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Seen Israel lately? Maybe heard of something called Brexit? Heard of a guy named Erdogan?
Adam L Silverman
@West of the Rockies: Rudy. Davis stated it didn’t come from him, Cohen, or Cohen’s other attorney. That means it could only come from the President’s side. This is the exact same play that Rudy pulled last Friday with the first tape, which blew up in his face when Davis released the actual tape on Monday.
Duane
First Sessions and now Haley are busy indoctrinating our youth. I expect to see the Trump Korp any day now.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Mattis if he can keep us out of another war.
Matt McIrvin
Just saw a double-switcheroo-flipback theory going around Facebook that Trump’s tweet about the Russians helping the Ds means his real plan is that the Russians are going to rig the midterm elections massively for the Democrats, so they can discredit the results afterward, get the Dems labeled the real Russian traitors and start a civil war. I guess these scenarios can get pretty baroque.
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
Giancarlo Stanton for Harper, both having sucky seasons? Seems fair unless it’s a rental (and I think Harper wants to be a Yankee).
ETA: Not to mention, only Yankees can afford his contract (rumors of 400M are out there).
Yarrow
@dmsilev: Yes. I do not think Trump will be in office nor running for president in 2020.
namekarB
At least five self described white supremacists are running as Republicans. But main stream media instead reports about Democrats being pulled too far to the left.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
That’s seen as a positive in the GOP.
Yarrow
@Amir Khalid: I’m not saying she’s doing good things. I’m only saying that in comparison to everyone else she looks the best. Mostly the media is ignoring her. She doesn’t have ethics scandals dogging her. That’s why I think she’ll end up coming out of this mess looking the best.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
As in trade-bait? I’d almost want the Mets to try for him, but they’d probably give up deGrom, Syndergaard, and a couple of their prospects (like O’Neil, maybe) because their negotiation skills make Shitgibbon look good.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: I think ‘underdoggian’ is a great word.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, him too. So two of them.
Amir Khalid
@Yarrow:
If Trump goes down before 2020, it will be in a scandal. In such circumstances, a high-profile Trumpista like Haley would find their credentials devalued by their association with him. They’ll have problems eating out in peace, let alone getting elected.
SFAW
@The Dangerman:
If they’re smart, they’ll offer Harper a 1.5 year contract — he seems to hit really well in odd-numbered years, kinda sucky in even-numbered years. Not sure why that would be, frankly.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Until they get new ownership, the Mets will continue to suck.
The Dangerman
@SFAW:
Rumor was they offered him up to the Dodgers for a King’s ransom. At that price level, he ain’t going nowhere.
Steeplejack
@Steve in the ATL:
Well, they did, because she ran for vice president the year before. It was in all the papers.
Yarrow
@Amir Khalid: In normal circumstances, yes. I have no idea how it will play out. We’ll see how it goes for her. As far as I can tell the media is pretty hands-off with her. Most of her press coverage is pretty good, like the above article.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: I know it has something to do with a layby on the M4 but I’m not sure what.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow:
@Amir Khalid: Haley also has the problem(for the GOP) of being female. A good chunk of the evangelicals don’t believe a woman should have dominion over a man.
M. Bouffant
Only nine yrs. ago today, Sarah Palin sorta went away …
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Fixed that for you.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
I know. I used to think Woody Johnson was the worst team owner in the NYC area, but the Wilpons make him look like Bob Kraft.
@The Dangerman:
I think that, at this stage, the Wilpons care more about their bank accounts than a winning team. I seem to recall that Fred Wilpon was one of Bernie Madoff’s victims, and he’s been trying to cheap-out ever since. They just traded Familia for two wombats, a janitor, and “international slot money.” I have no love for Familia, but he was worth more than that. But the sentiment of the locals seems to be that the money was the driver.
joel hanes
former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin officially stepped down from office
One and one half steps ahead of the Troopergate ethics scandal; just enough room to get away without being actually indicted, and with two other ethics matters queued up behind it, IIRC.
I was in Juneau last summer; it’s a small town. I can see why she responded so strongly to an opportunity to take her grifting to a new level in the contiguous 48.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ll concede Israel is an example of western democracy gone wrong, but it’s a much smaller and less influential nation than the US. Britain’s failure of democracy hasn’t been quite as bad as America’s, at least not yet; there I don’t think you see wilfully destructive governance being cheered on by (ETA: some of) the very people it is harming. And whether Turkey is a Western nation in the first place seems to be a still-unresolved question.
jl
I don’t understand. Mitt Romney had whole binders full of women and no one seemed to care.
Politics is funny that way.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Red Bull may be the best owner in the New York area.
If you subscribe to the idea that the best team in town should play in the best facility, then MetLife should be the home of the Becton Regional Wildcats.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: “Britain’s failure of democracy hasn’t been quite as bad as America’s, at least not yet”
The government is stockpiling food rather than admitting that maybe self-immolation over a narrow, Russia-influenced, non binding referendum result is a bad idea.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Let us not forget, she is also a person of colour and was not born a Christian.
BlueDWarrior
@Major Major Major Major: we have a lot of people in developed nations that would gladly live in a full fascist dictatorship if it meant the undesirables were sent to the camps
And honestly, I think that’s a permanent feature of humanity, but the porpotions float from era to era
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Is that where you went to school? Or did you just pick them because they’re in Rutherford?
jl
@joel hanes:
” I was in Juneau last summer; it’s a small town. ”
For a real Alaskan, towns of any size are a necessary evil. And for a Sarah Palin type if Alaskan, money, power and attention is the real big city.
IIRC, Juneau got the state capitol and Fairbanks got the university and bunch of federal scientific reasearch stations mainly out of regional rivalries, so Anchorage (the closest big city outside of Alaska, as the real Alaskans say) didn’t run anything Juneau is an absurd place for a state capitol. Also, IIRC, the state passed legislation to move the capitol to a sensible place, a townlet named Willow about 20 miles north of Anchorage, but across the sound . But then they decided to yank the funds, or maybe funding was defeated in a state referendum.
I think before the funding was killed, the city limits were expanded, and an architect dew up some fancy plans. So, now its a pretty big city, area wise, but nothing in it, but some farms with greenhouses growing tomatoes and similar veggies.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Women in binders, kinky.
Amir Khalid
@Major Major Major Major:
The Tories are stupid, their current leader especially so. But I guess that for whatever reason I’m a bit less pessimistic about them than about America.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I didn’t know you and Mitt had similar kinks. Figures, for a conservative strait-laced nice young Mormon boy from Simi Valley.
Mnemosyne
When I run into the occasional wingnut on Facebook and they try to claim that their stupid claims were just “owning the libs” and they didn’t really believe what they were saying, my response is, “Yeah, right. You’ve said nothing but stupid shit and now you’re trying to claim that you made yourself look stupid in public on purpose? Sorry, that’s just further proof that you’re as stupid as I thought you were.”
YetAnotherJay formerly (Jay S)
@Adam L Silverman:
How would that work? The quote claims that Cohen has said this. Would the reporters be credulous enough to buy that from the President’s team? I suppose they could claim a threat from Cohen’s team, but really wouldn’t they get confirmation from some other source? I thought this was being confirmed from multiple reporters. Not all of them could buy in to Rudy’s schtick could they?
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: Israel is not a democracy.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
This is my question: why isn’t the EU trying to give Britian a pass if the referendum was influenced by a foreign nation’s intelligence and espionage agency ie Russia? I know that the Tories themselves don’t want it but have EU leaders tried talking them out of it?
M. Bouffant
@Matt McIrvin: I saw something not too long ago suggesting that Russia might do just that in the mid-terms, to show they could, & to increase gridlock & polarization w/ at least one chamber in Democratic control.
Calouste
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The UK has been a pain in the ass towards the EU for a long time. They’re not exactly sorry to see them go.
Another lurker
@SFAW: The Mets also do a lot of business with Amway. Every game I worked at Citi Field, I always threw up a little in my mouth when I spotted an Amway Van in Press Parking. There is an Amway advertising on the ads behind home plate and in right-center outfield.
Jesus F’N Christ Fred! You got burned by Madoff and you immediately enter into a partnership with grifting scum like Amway.
Well, I’m not a baseball fan, I follow the Mets.
joel hanes
@jl:
regional rivalries
I read John McPhee’s _Coming_Into_The_Country_, which covered a lot of that.
Dated now, but still a great book.
But if you haven’t read any McPhee yet, don’t start with that;
start with _The_Control_Of_Nature_
Joey Maloney
@Calouste: Sure it is, as long as you don’t count all the people living in its borders that are undemocratically excluded!
NickM
I had this weird feeling today and realized it was optimism. Does anyone else feel like finally something is shifting? Not peak wingnut but the accumulation of incidents – separated families, North Korea, NATO and Canada dust ups, Tariffs, Cohen, Mueller, Pruitt, Kavanaugh not launching well, how weak Trump looked with Putin, and then the botched walk backs – that are overwhelming their ability to respond and are making clear to every non cultist that Trump is a criminal clown? I’m doing door knocking this weekend, I’m donating my widow’s nite every week- I’m not taking it for granted – but does anyone feel like the momentum to bring this abomination down is starting to build?
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
At this point there are over a hundred athletes swearing that they were molested by the late [suicide] sports staff doctor who the head coach knew sexually molested wrestlers training with the team and on the team. If the head coach knew, how did his assistant not know?
Part of the issue is that (much younger) high school wrestlers with promise were invited to train at the facility and were see by the perverted late [suicide] doctor.
I think Gym Jordan is sinking and will lose his election this fall. Ne’er to be seen again in politics, ever.
J R in WV
@joel hanes:
I have a whole shelf of John McPhee books, in one set which took so long to research and write he released volumes as he completed them so as to make a living with segments of them rather than waiting 12 years to complete the whole work. The geological history of North America, drifting around with geologists studying oil and gas, other working with uranium, others taking up remining old gold and silver mines.
He also wrote about food and farms, trapping and exploring… a great author!!
Jay
@NickM:
Yup, I’m LMFAO that the EU’s Junker Kim il Jong-ed The Mango Hued Shitgibbon and the Deplorables with a big bag of nothing.
JGabriel
@Amir Khalid:
Rolling Stone? Not drinking, smoking – they’re still toking off a stash of stale weed Jann Wenner bought wholesale in 1978.
Yutsano
@Bnut: Waitaminute…YOU’RE ALIVE???
joel hanes
@J R in WV:
Agreed. I have all but two of his books.
The geology set is my favorite, but I have a high tolerance for specialist’s jargon, and a good grasp of the geologic time scale.
Citizen Alan
@Steeplejack:
People forget that she didn’t quit her job to run for vice president, she quit her job after losing so that she would have more time for grifting.
Matt McIrvin
@M. Bouffant: They’ll probably be trying to do all kinds of crazy shit, but the specific scenario sounded a bit too much like a fictional supervillain plot that required everything to go just right to deliver the plot twist in Act III. (It also pretty much assumed that the Russians have the ability to arbitrarily alter vote totals in every state, which they don’t. The ones where they might are generally states controlled by shitty Republican regimes that would be unlikely to be complicit in their own demolition. And the more major forms of fuckery available are mostly vote-suppression schemes, which are already in full force and obviously benefit Republicans–no way are the massive registration purges going on in several states working to help the blue wave.)
different-church-lady
@Bnut:
You will. It’s just that it will be Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez hitting them. :-p
trnc
When I feel like wandering into “liberal tears, ha ha ha” comment sections, I’ve been responding, “Drink up, because they’re costing you thousands of dollars while you support taking federal subsidies from your municipalities, roads, etc and handing it to billionaires who already pay no taxes.”
gratuitous
@Bnut: Awwww, bummer; don’t crowd the plate. Kansas City is the last American League team to win back-to-back pennants; what have the Yankees done in the last decade?
BC in Illinois
@Adam L Silverman:
So Jim Jordan will be running against Scalise for (I presume) Minority Leader.
Without even adding in much detail about scandals and White Citizens’ groups, do the R’s in congress really want one of those two to be the face of the Republicans in Congress for the final year or two of the Trump administration?
I think that — after what I expect/hope for/work for in the midterm elections — that the R’s might do well to have another “Autopsy.” It won’t do any good, but it would be better than putting Jordan or Scalise in front of the cameras on a daily basis. That would be deadly. [Requiring a third Autopsy.]
Chip Daniels
@Matt McIrvin:
I think Trump’s Razor comes into playhere:
Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Becton is the high school for East Rutherford and Carlstadt. Rutherford has its own schools.
I went to Ridgewood.
burnspbesq
@joel hanes:
McPhee’s profile of Bill Bradley, “A Sense of Where You Are,” remains the best book ever written about basketball.
chuckInAustin
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I keep a few obnoxious friends around from high school, but I block them so I don’t see the crap all the time.
Once a week, usually Sunday evening I go ‘visit the crazy’ to see what’s going on. They rarely dissappoint.