Literally a right and not a privilege. https://t.co/T7da47HllU
— ana marie cox (@anamariecox) November 5, 2018
This NYMag article got a certain amount of twitter pushback (look below the fold, at the end of this post, for a sample) last week:
12 young adults on why they probably won't vote this November https://t.co/DJlskLHl4p
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) October 30, 2018
Roxanne Gay had a excellent rebuttal:
I wrote about voter disillusionment and the importance of voting anyway: https://t.co/EGPcSpbWSL
— roxane gay (@rgay) October 30, 2018
… We are reaping what has been sown from voter disillusionment and we will continue doing so until enough people recognize what is truly at stake when they don’t vote. A representative democracy is flawed but it is the political system we must work within, at least for the time being. We have a responsibility to participate in this democracy, even when the politicians we vote for aren’t ideal or a perfect match. Voting isn’t dating. We are not promised perfect candidates. Voting requires pragmatism and critical thinking and empathy and now, more than ever, intelligent compromise…
Every single day there is a new, terrifying, preventable tragedy fomented by a president and an administration that uses hate and entitlement as political expedience. If you remain disillusioned or apathetic in this climate, you are complicit. You think your disillusionment is more important than the very real dangers marginalized people in this country live with.
Don’t delude yourself about this. Don’t shroud your political stance in disaffected righteousness. Open your eyes and see the direct line from the people in power to their emboldened acolytes. It is cynical to believe that when we vote we are making a choice between the lesser of two evils…
.
And then there’s *this* argument:
And I told him sure, but after a few weeks in mostly low-income neighborhoods around Dallas, I’ll never complain about people not voting again. Because that assumes people don’t vote out of laziness. Or apathy.
And that could not be more innacurate.
— Scafe for Beto (@erinscafe) November 5, 2018
I talked to a guy who said “hypothetically, if a person had a warrant for running a stop sign and not paying the ticket because it was too expensive, could that person still vote.” And I said “hypothetically, they shouldn’t arrest you.” He won’t risk it; he cares for his sisters.
— Scafe for Beto (@erinscafe) November 5, 2018
And if the people of Texas can spend days digging up paperwork and coming up with backup voting plans while promising to stand in that line no matter what the election officials try to tell them…you can take two minutes to make your plan this year too.
— Scafe for Beto (@erinscafe) November 5, 2018
(Rest of this excellent thread here.)
Here’s some of the pushback comments I mentioned at the top:
It's easy to get mad and call people like these young nonvoters lazy or selfish or dumb. This, instead, is a good thread on why nonvoting just doesn't work as a practical strategy to get parties to move in your direction. https://t.co/Yt8SlMXm8j
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) October 30, 2018
Totally agree yelling at them doesn’t help. We should do things they feel motivated to vote for. But it’s honestly galling at this point that people seemingly don’t care enough about others to help protect them.
— laura olin (@lauraolin) November 1, 2018
anyway, you don't have to be "informed about the issues" to vote, you just need an understanding of yourself as a political actor with interests you'd like to see furthered
— jamelle g-g-ghoulie ?? (@jbouie) October 30, 2018
For too many, especially on the nominal left, politics is as personal as your new tattoo. We haven't taught what solidarity means and we haven't taught people that the world doesn't revolve them. Voting is far from sufficient in political activism. But it is necessary.
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) October 30, 2018
Eight years ago Democrats passed legislation that helped 20 million Americans get access to health insurance. It’s called Obamacare. It’s received enormous press attention. Maybe it’s not the Democratic Party’s fault that this non-voter is unaware of it https://t.co/zhY58pbotl
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) October 31, 2018
I wish I thought such profiles would motivate young Gallants out there to not be Goofus, but I think all it will do is make everyone else more depressed.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 30, 2018
They had all that fire fighting experience….I wanted outsiders
— William Buecker (@wcbuecker) October 31, 2018
Steve in the ATL
I’ve been getting lots of texts from great D candidates such as Stacey Abrams and great non-candidates such as Kamala Harris, and then these came:
Why I do believe that Ms. Handel is very, very touchy about being called out for her actual votes on healthcare….
Burn in hell, Karen.
khead
The best response(s) to the “12 young adults who may not vote” can be found in the comments of this post at Splinter.
Corner Stone
Can we herd these fucking fucks into a pool of water that randomly flushes itself? I don’t really care where it ends up.
Platonailedit
Disaffected righteousness.
Word of the day.
Brachiator
As another commenter noted, the most recent episode of The Black Guy Who Tips podcast has a magnificent rejoinder to
all the “don’t want to vote” nonsense.
Here is a link.
http://www.theblackguywhotips.com/
Also, Trump is unhinged. Too bad no one will note that his rants are increasingly insane.
And his base just eats this shit up. I guess this is supposed to upset sane people, but it’s so over the top loopy that no one sane can take it seriously.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator: Bear in mind tag his base consists of fucking morons.
HeleninEire
Haven’t seen MSNBC in 2 years and I have 2 thoughts.
1. You all talk about how wordy Rachel is. Yes, but her words have meaning. I watched Nicole Wallace for the first time today. She got her show after I left. She is the personification of the phrase “uses 100 words when 10 will do.”
2. Watching Lawrence right now. Ezra Klein looks HOT. Never thought of him as hot.
oldgold
Good early news out of Iowa.
With tonight’s new early vote numbers, Dems at 116% of their final 2014 early vote total. GOP at 98% of their final 2014 early vote total.
Will probably pick up 2 House seats and the Governorship.
Adam L Silverman
The Dangerman
@Brachiator:
I look forward to visiting his grave site after consuming much fiber.
Adam L Silverman
@oldgold:
Lift with your knees, not with your back!
NotMax
@Helenin
EireNYCHelen at +3?
;)
Mary G
I have read the first tweet’s user for quite a while and was surprised to see that her name is Erin Scafe – I always thought she owned a café. She definitely put her money where her mouth is by going to Texas in neighborhoods where when the street lights are coming on, they tell her she needs to be somewhere else.
HeleninEire
@NotMax: YUP. Thank you for noticing. And caring.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
And stay hydrated?
Brachiator
@Steve in the ATL: I think that even some morons are starting to say, “Trump is nuts!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@HeleninEire:
Of course, he’s a Bruin.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Look, moron, it’s not going to be The Day After Tomorrow. It’s going to be a lot more gradual than that. This idiot is only 2 years older than me. I’m so ashamed. I didn’t think it was that possible to be so stupid.
Bnad
Here’s a soundbite for the disaffected voters. Voting isn’t about choosing an end state. It’s about choosing a direction.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
How was that convention? Did you knock their socks off with your speech?
Mai Naem mobile
The second most important target after Trumpov in 2020(if he’s still around) should be McConnell. Fucker needs to go down bad.
Also too, I’ve still been getting texts from some GOP outfit. I think its aimed at the person who used to have my phone 7 years ago. Also I’ve gotten GOP flyers for the previous resident of this house. We’ve lived here for over twenty years. And from what I remember the previous residents moved to California years ago.
oldgold
@Adam L Silverman:
I lifted this year with shoe-leather (after taking a 36 year hiatus) and liberally opening up the wallet.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Always!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
You need to get out more. //
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: …and frosty?
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: It was the regimental dinner for the Psychological Operations Regiment’s 100th anniversary. I also had a bunch of meetings. Everything went very well. Thanks for asking.
Kay
Such liars. It’s amazing they didn’t pick up that this would be a big issue when Collins spent weeks lying about it months ago. That was kind of a tip-off. Democrats certainly got it. “Collins is lying about it- means it’s important- let’s all run on it” :)
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I set the A/C in my hotel room to 54.
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Did people open champagne bottles with their sabers? That’s what they used to do at Russian Imperial regimental dinners.
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to rack out. Catch you all on the flip.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
good christ, trump brought that crazy traffic court judge from trumpTV up on the state at his 60 Minute Hate in Missouri. THey’re all in Cape Girardeau, home town of another serial-divorcing addlepated hate-monger with massive daddy issues.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: No. This was a very informal regimental dinner. They did it as business casual instead of black tie or black tie/formal ball.
Citizen_X
@Brachiator:
Cue the FBI guy from Silence of the Lambs: “He’s making a dress!”
[Out of, you know, human flesh.]
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, God, I had to look that up. How did I miss the fact that I’m from the same state as Limbaugh? Yuck.
cmorenc
My 21yo nephew, a resident of Illinois, is a prime example of intentional disengagement from voting, because in a nutshell, he thinks all politics is hopelessly corrupt and it’s not worthwhile for him to vote. I had a protracted infuriating discussion with him about this last summer on an otherwise fine walk along the beach during his visit to NC. – in part for the end position described, but also in part because his more detailed supporting reasoning for it, which he thought of as jaded worldly sophistication, was actually sophomorically shallow and immature. He was impenetrably smug about his reasoning, but I bit my tongue and managed to keep calm during the conversation in vain hope of getting through to him somehow, though I did intermittently have the urge to smack him in the face with a fish.
Amir Khalid
@Citizen_X:
It was trainee agent Clarice Starling who said, “He’s making a suit, a woman suit.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You just described three or four of the precious youths described in that NY Mag piece
Anne Laurie
@Citizen_X:
Or a ransom note.
Kay
Yeah, this person, I’m sorry but this demand for certainty just seems incredibly rigid and…not workable as a way to live:
Just take the big leap. We really can’t guarantee you won’t ever be wrong about anything. You wonder how they get out of bed.
Mnemosyne
@Citizen_X:
As Amir just pointed out, wow did you swing and miss that one.
@Amir Khalid:
Fun fact — in the symbolism of that movie, cats are on the side of good. Right before we see the victim get abducted, her cat is meowing out the window to warn her. Clarice discovers the half-finished dress that makes her realize what the killer is doing because she follows a friendly cat in there.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I take it there were no chafing dishes full of shit-on-a-shingle?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
“Let’s all agree to get together and do this again in 100 years.”
:)
Was it noticeable that Fort Bragg has been emptied? In total numbers, the most troops sent to the southwestern border have been deployed from there.
dmsilev
@cmorenc:
A fringe benefit of the beachfront walk is that at least there wouldn’t be any question about the freshness of the fish.
HumboldtBlue
There stands a very good chance that in many states the votes they cast will in some way be ruled out.
They’re not going to lose tomorrow, you know that don’t you?
The GOP is not losing the Senate and if they lose the House we’ll simply have two years of madness before the next presidential election and there will be absolutely nothing accomplished in any meaningful way to make this country better, just one more rage-inducing lie/event/slander on top of another.
Democrats lost the statehouses in the 90’s and try as they might, earnest as they may be, the deck is stacked.
Hell, in Georgia they aren’t even attempting to hide the perfidy.
They have the court they want and they have the voter suppression in place. It’s going to take 50 years to begin to undo what the GOP has managed to pollute in the past 30.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Cool. I remember you were excited about it last week.
Citizen_X
@Amir Khalid: You’re right; I had it in my mind that it was her boss telling her that.
LesGS
We raised our kids to *be* voters. I mean, it was even kinda silly but fun, really. We got excited about their finally being of age to register, and it was just a family thing to guide them through that (very easy) process. We took proud pictures at the poll when they cast their first ever vote. When they were at home, we would go through and discuss our sample ballots together. While the older one (29yo) votes in a different district now, the younger one (26yo) called *me* today to co-ordinate our trip to the polls tomorrow.
Now, the young adults in these interview are *adults* and completely responsible for their choices and opinions (as inane as I find them). But if they had been raised to personally identify as a Voter, maybe voting would just be something, as a responsible adult, they just *do*.
Growl.
HumboldtBlue
Then again, we still have family.
Here’s a proud family sharing a moment at an OCS graduation event.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
She colluded with Russia to get 100,000 in PA, MI and WI to vote for Jill Stein?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Apparently. That level of ignorant stupidity always catches me off guard.
Amir Khalid
@HumboldtBlue:
I don’t mean to discount the seriousness of the voter suppression efforts documented so far. But it seems to me that part of the fear among some Democrats of the Republican party’s capacity to rig elections in its own favour is irrational and alarmist.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It never ceases to amaze me how much these loons still obsess over Clinton. She’s never running for anything ever again.
Jay
@cmorenc: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Kay:
My method is not to debate/discuss/argue with the morons, but instead saddle them by pointing out that by not engaging in their civic duty, they are not “opting out”, but instead enabling the worst things the government does and having no credit for the best things the government does.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
A fish would be gentler than a steel bar. Might not be as effective.
HumboldtBlue
@Amir Khalid:
Donald Trump is president.
Three years ago that was thought an irrational and alarmist idea.
I mean, it’s not like they’ve been shy, hell, Kris Kobach is one of their stars.
ruemara
I just wrapped up a twitter convo about this. It’s infuriating to an extreme.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fish slapping.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Fall?
jl
Why couldn’t the magazine find six who didn’t feel like voting and six who were determined to vote?
Or, why not a story of twelve who would vote no matter what?
What crap.
I will always vote because I see it as a form of self-expression. If I ever have the misfortune of running into a GOP office holder or Trump himself, I can tell them that my sorry ass added one damn vote to the nearly three million more people who voted Dem rather than GOP for president in 2016. I can look at the last digit on the number in the column for good on the TV machine and say ‘that sucker is mine!’.
And, it goes down in history.
I don’t understand why more people don’t vote just for that satisfaction.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
I once had a nitwit open a champagne bottle at one of my New Year’s parties with my expensive Wüsthof santoku. Grr.
Aleta
@Kay: Possibly she has a kind of OCD (that my father was tortured by).
Fwiw: “Doubt is not based on insufficient knowledge to make decisions. It’s a behavioral trait.” In the context of OCD, he theorizes, doubt demonstrates a “lack of confidence in one’s own memory, attention and perception necessary to reach a decision.” (Gerald Nestadt, a psych. researcher at Johns Hopkins)
…
In a recent study published in Comprehensive Psychiatry, Nestadt and his colleagues report an investigation of 1,182 adults with OCD who were assessed to evaluate the relationship between doubt and OCD’s clinical features. “It’s the first investigation of the clinical significance of the doubt construct in OCD,” says Nestadt.
The findings, says Nestadt, suggest that doubt has important implications for understanding the nature of OCD. For one thing, the severity of doubt was distributed in the sample such that many cases were rated as severely burdened with doubt, whereas a sizeable proportion were rated as having no or little doubt. “This suggests that doubt may not be a core feature of all OCD cases, but rather a frequently occurring symptom of, or related to, the disorder,” says Nestadt.
The biggest surprise, he adds, was the finding that “the more doubtful you are, the more dysfunctional you are; 80 percent of the doubters were extremely dysfunctional.” Most likely, explains Nestadt, these symptoms emerge “from a neurocognitive vulnerability in the mental life of the individual, which has a basis in neurophysiology.”
(from the JH news site in 2017)
kind
Jay
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
They don’t. They barely remember her. It’s nothing more than a Tribal Chant to show membership in the tribe.
Amir Khalid
@HumboldtBlue:
My point is not that Republicans’ intentions are less than nefarious or their capability not cause for concern, but that they are not omnipotent and can be defeated by concerted effort, as seems about to happen (touch wood).
ruemara
@Amir Khalid: You’re lucky you’re very far away. Because it’s not irrational or alarmist at all. It is a very real thing that has been going on since Reconstruction. I ain’t mad at you. I’ve been hearing this from even the very progressive here in the states. I’m just tired of people not being aware of the prices that have been paid and are still being paid for black people asking for their right to vote. I’m including a link to a propublica story so if you’re interested, you’ll see how voter suppression has been brutal, pernicious and cost people everything.
Jackie
I’m very proud I convinced my daughter – newly moved to Florida – to vote! She added another +vote for Gillum and Nelson?????
HumboldtBlue
@Amir Khalid:
I do hope so.
But I simply have little confidence in the system.
Sister Golden Bear
As a friend of mine put:
Mike J
@oldgold:
This is not true. We are precisely one vote behind. Only you going out and voting the instant the polls open will save us. Nothing is wrapped up.
Amir Khalid
@ruemara:
I’m also not suggesting that voter suppression in America is not real, or has not done a great deal of harm to Americans thus victimised. I think it is important for Democrats not to falter out of fear or doubt.
danielx
@Sister Golden Bear:
They do tend to have 90% or higher participation….
Jay
@Sister Golden Bear:
Yup,
But the Glen (spit) Greenwald “leftier than thou’s” believe that a Facist Government will lead to a “pure left” revolution that will overthrow the Facists and usher in a leftie utopia.
They know about as much about history as economics.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I said elsewhere when that stupid article came up that I *absolutely guarantee* every one of those people manages to handle the moral culpability of, say, using a smartphone, or, I dunno, eating food, without paralyzing themselves into total inertia. But link it to voting and suddenly they’re all philosophers puzzling over the trolley problem. Just stop being an irritating little shit and do the smallest possible act of self-government, guys.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay: Greenwald isn’t even a left anything. He’s just a smug dick with a cockamamie mishmash of ideas.
Mary G
@HumboldtBlue: Sure, it’s going to be a long, hard job and Twitler will never be erased, but I am not as convinced as you that it’s going to be so bad.
Viva BrisVegas
@Jay:
Quite a few German communists in the 1930s said exactly the same thing.
Soon there were very few German communists.
Anyway, best of luck to you all on your road to recovery. It starts today.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Heartland values
Hitlesswonder
@Brachiator: I fondly recall the media taking Obama to task for not reaching across the aisle and having Mitch over for drinks. Here they are presented with someone who admits to actively trying to divide the country and not govern for the common good, and it’s just reported as the president being the president now. The voting public and the media have learned nothing from the past, and it’s all just entertainment for too many of them. If there were a better country I could move to that would have me, I would go.
HumboldtBlue
@Mary G:
It’s not that I’m convinced, it’s just the latest most reliable information points in that direction.
It’s not even my normal cynicism, I’m worried. Very worried.
eemom
@Aleta:
As a lifelong sufferer of OCD, can we please not drag it into a facile political discussion?
ellie
@Mai Naem mobile: I received a robocall from Ralph Reed yesterday. And I have been receiving nonstop calls from the republicans. I am so offended that they think I am a republican I can hardly stand it.
Dan B
Articles like this make me crazy. I have friends who voted for Bernie and love Jill Stein. It does not register with them that Mike and I are afraid for the future. We’re afraid for our LGBTQ friends and our friends who are brown or black or asian. We read about the angry rightward turn in Russia and Brazil. We read about the rise of far right groups around the world. Some friends say it’s a reaction to corporate corruption and we have to stop the Democrats because they are just as bad. And they don’t like “identity politics”.
But we have memories of Jim Crow and sodomy laws and a GOP who stalled research on AIDS. We have, and had, friends and family who were interred during WW II or who fled Europe after the war.
We’re afraid of what will happen to us and the people we care about if chaos descends from food shortages from an out of control climate. We’re already blamed for hurricanes by crazed televangelists. What happens to cracking down on corrupt corporations during increasingly dark times?
We’ve worked slowly for rights we thought might never come and for rights that have not yet. And these kids don’t have a clue!
Neldob
@Sister Golden Bear: I like that fascist bit.
Jay
@FlipYrWhig:
Which describes pretty much all of the “leftier than thou’s”.
eemom
IMVHO, people need to stop drama queening about their anxiety and despair. STFU, go to bed, and vote tomorrow if you haven’t already. ?
Mike in DC
Re Mitch McConnell: It’s called the Voting Rights Act, not the Voting Privileges Act, you evil tortoise.
tobie
@Amir Khalid: We don’t think the Republicans necessarily have the competence to rig an election but the Russians do!
Jay
@Dan B:
Generally, they live privledged lives immune from the consequences for now, and know no history.
They don’t know or understand that Western Liberal Democracy was a 900 year long, hard slog of “slightly better”.
Hitlesswonder
@Hitlesswonder: And since I can’t edit I’ll just reply to myself…
Before anyone takes such despair to task, I’ll add that of course I’m voting tomorrow and I’ve been active and hopefully helpful in other ways as well. Since no place better than here will likely have me, I’ll have to do what I can here.
SWMBO
@Kay: All life is a leap of faith. Sometimes you land. Sometimes you splat. Jump anyway.
As a side note, my husband’s niece voted libertarian last time. Slowly, patiently I have woke her to the fact that things would have been much better for all of us under President Hillary Clinton. She couldn’t bring herself to vote for her because she didn’t trust her (Hillary). She’s living in deep red Arkansas and surrounded by rednecks. I introduced her to several people on Facebook and she’s found she’s not the only liberal there. I think if Hillary ran today, she would not only vote for her but campaign for her. It wasn’t that she was a disaffected voter, it’s just that her perception of how her vote matters changed. Sometimes just connecting people so they don’t feel isolated makes a world of difference. She has dumped a lot of Facebook friends that kept gaslighting her and trying to overwhelm her with their point of view. She now has friends that back her up and the empowerment has made all the difference in her.
hervevillechaislounge
@FlipYrWhig:
And Russian financing. Weird how Chelsea Manning became a lefty hero and Reality Winner has been consigned to the dustbin of history, right?
trollhattan
@ellie:
I’d have to burn my phone after a call from Ralph Reed. Condolences.
piratedan
I think the part that is so incredibly infuriating are all of these claims that the “Democrats don’t stand for anything” when possibly as many as three clicks on Google would completely put that idiocy to bed. I sit back and try and examine that and I understand why people feel that way, it still rolls back to the media narrative….. we go out and actively engage people, drive them to websites where positions and platforms and ideas are expressed, everyone appears to love those ideas. The thing is, people are so busy having the narratives set for them by every-fucking-mainstream-media platform and all you see are GOP talking heads or sympathetic leaners and frametrs on damn near every network and the narrative and framing are all about reactions to GOP actions, to GOP taking away or taking credit for shit that they didn’t do.
What sickens me is that we’re never given a platform to brush that shit back, to interrupt the asshats framing the discussion and speak the plain fucking truth to power regarding who believes in what and what direction we believe the country should be taking to even reach these dipshits who are too fucking lazy to even google a fucking website to find out what the Democratic Party even stands for instead of being fed endlessly the same GOP framing for every fucking issue.
gwangung
@Jay:
Hear from lots of them. They say they don’t want to support a corrupt system and so they’re waiting for a revolution. Without once realizing that, no, they DON’T want a revolution. They want the SAME system, they EXPECT it will stay the same, only with them on top.
Cranio-rectal inversion doesn’t begin to describe this.
ruemara
@Amir Khalid: Well, in that all I can say is black people haven’t faltered. It’s to be hoped that we will have more company in not faltering, at least for a while.
@Dan B: Aaaannnd fuck your friends saying that Dems are just as bad. 5k Puerto Ricans would say fuck you to them, but they’re dead. Fuck their privileged, smug, willfully ignorant selves. I’m just done reaching out them, just as I’m done with Trumpers.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
@Amir Khalid:
I think you guys are talking a bit at cross-purposes. I think Amir is saying that a fear of voter suppression should not prevent people from trying to vote tomorrow. Be prepared with voter protection phone numbers to call and know what to do if they try to refuse to give you a ballot, but don’t stay home because you’re convinced it’s hopeless to even try.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: I heard him. And I’m saying don’t belittle what’s going on. No one is saying stay at home, but it’s not something to be minimalized.
Jay
@piratedan:
“What sickens me is that we’re never given a platform to brush that shit back,”
It’s not something you are ever “given”, unless you enact it in laws, with teeth, and enforcement.
Faux and Sinclair were built for the money around a demographic, then they used that influence to corrupt the ReThug party, for the money.
danielx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Some people (he says piously) might hope that Steve King spontaneously bursts into flames, unfortunately that’s even more unlikely than any such elopement. Four hundred pounds of manure in a two hundred pound bag…..
Aleta
@eemom: It wasn’t right for that person to be used in an article about people who’ve decided not to vote. I grew up with a parent tortured with that kind of doubt, and he was sick, not stupid or apathetic. It’s not a political discussion to me. I apologize for the effect of my comment.
terry chay
Instead of dwelling on the hopeless losers who will never vote, I really would prefer to concentrate on the positives like #GOPVotingBlue.
Brachiator
@Hitlesswonder:
RE: the media taking Obama to task for not reaching across the aisle to Republicans.
Yeah, this stuff can drive you crazy. Trump supporters forgive everything. And the media is often complicit.
Jeb Bush and others told a big elaborate lie that no Republicans were ever invited to the White House until Obama’s fifth year in office. Truth is, Republicans regularly insulted Obama, even when it came to social events.
From Politifact:
Republicans later attended other lunches and dinners. But insulting Obama seemed to be a badge of honor.
Links
https://www.politifact.com/iowa/statements/2015/nov/23/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-claims-obama-didnt-host-republican-senato/
piratedan
@terry chay: ty for reposting that Terry, it makes me think we really are looking at a blue wave despite all of the other tactics attempting to disenfranchise whoever the GOP can….
Dan B
@Jay: There are some who seem to know history but it’s never been directly personal. They do have neighbirs who are not white and not middle class but seem to be stuck in some concept loop that gets mucked up with purity and sees the struggles of minorities as “noble”. They don’t seem to grasp the feeling of never being secure that looms just behind the “noble struggle”.
sgrAstar
@oldgold:
Wow! Iowa! Way to go, decent Americans. ❤️
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Trump’s base will believe anything he says, even if it’s true.
Platonailedit
@terry chay:
That is comforting. At least some repubs are disgusted with their corrupt, cowardly and treasonous party.
Dan B
@SWMBO: Congrats times ten on raising your neice’s consciousness! I also know the feeling of living in Arkansas. I was there during Jim Crow. It does not seem to have improved much, except for air conditioning.
Dan B
@ruemara: I long ago stopped trying to reach them. When the excuse for the GOP govt’s abandonment of PR is: It will only get worse until we stop corporate takeover of Dems. I’m not wasting my breath. I saw the 60s go down in flames from circular firing squad intellectual fights and crazy idealism. It’s steering in the right direction not stomping on the gas while shouting victory.
TrissicSands
@Brachiator:
I think the most important job of the media now is to recognize that the problem in not that Trump in violating norms or that he’s crude. The problem is that Trump is a bona fide fascist. He’s no a comic book fascist or a hyperbolic fascist; he’s a fascist i the mold of Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini.
In his new book, How Fascism Works,” Jason Stanley, a Yale professor, lays out what fascism is.The book reads like a rehash of the last three years of Trump. Yesterday, a Washington Post commenter quoted a dictionary definition of fascism — no honest person could reasonably deny that Trump fits the definition and the definition fits Trump.
Most of us have criticized the MSM for failing to cal Trump’s lies what they are — lies. They have slowly allowed the word to be used occasionally, but at the Post they still clearly grope for euphemisms to describe Trump’s actions and behavior. Racism becomes racial animosity. Lying is prevaricating. If they can’t come right out and call Trump a liar or a racist, when there is zero reasonable (make that possible) doubt that he is both, they by the time they can be convinced to call him a fascist (and the GOP a fascist political party), there will be laws preventing them from doing so.
The problem that the Post and Times both have is they are still wedded to the idea that we have a two party system and both parties are largely playing by the same rules. Therefore, whenever they discuss something that is wrong with one party, they have to point out that the other party does it too. think it is entirely fair to point out, as Krugman does that Democrats are not saints. In response to those who claim that they are all crooks, I say, “Sure, Democrats commit parking violations and the occasional misdemeanor. Republicans are armed robbers, rapists, and murderers. But what is most important is to acknowledge that they are fascists in the fullest sense of the word.
Raven Onthill
@ruemara: “Well, in that all I can say is black people haven’t faltered. It’s to be hoped that we will have more company in not faltering, at least for a while.” When I was canvassing, it was always the blacks who were ready to vote. The whites, some of them were even wrong about whether or not they’d gotten their ballot. But the black people were informed.
seaboogie
Maybe like me you voted early or by mail – or you’re headed to the polls tomorrow. If you’ve done everything you can manage, you may have canvassed or sent postcards or texts. I hope you may be taking a friend or driving someone to vote tomorrow. If you are still stressing while you wait for the returns, there is one more thing you can do: send pizza to any long lines of voters via polls.pizza.com. Their twitter handle is @pizzatothepolls. Imma donate a pie for the cause!
seaboogie
@seaboogie: I bought a pizza for democracy!
Adria McDowell
How many of those “not gonna voters” are white, middle class folks?
Yeah, exactly.
Rod from The Black Guy Who Tips podcast had it absolutely correct. You need to go out and vote for the people who can’t. Otherwise, I will spare them no sympathy when they have to reap what they have sown, and they will eventually. I have no time for their pissy tears.
opiejeanne
@ellie: You know our postcard project, writing them to registered Democrats to urge them to vote blue, etc?
I got one from a Republican this week. I had no idea they were writing them too.
I don’t know why she thinks I’m a Republican. We don’t register party preference in Washington.
JR
@khead: Nick Martin is definitely one of the worst!
JR
Also, isn’t this basically just the youth version of a cletus safari?
Jack the Second
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve read trashy fantasy novels with better philosophical underpinnings.
Raven Onthill
@opiejeanne: the parties can’t tell done we don’t register as Democrats or Republicans. They have to guess!
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman: Celsius or Kelvin? Thermodynamicists demand an accounting!
Uncle Cosmo
@zhena gogolia: Adam no doubt electrified the crowd so profoundly, they opened the bottles with their saber saws…
Uncle Cosmo
@HumbugBlew: This driveling whine is beneath contempt. If that’s how you really feel, maybe you should contemplate whether the CHON-&-trace-elements currently tied up in your sad sack of flesh ought not go to organisms that would make more productive use of them – say, anything above pond scum or a Rethuglican (but I repeat myself).
Boris
Yet again, Tbogg’s words apply:
Every year in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land all of the sprites and elves and woodland creatures gather together to pick the Rainbow Sunshine Queen. Everyone is there: the Lollipop Guild, the Star-Twinkle Toddlers, the Sparkly Unicorns, the Cookie Baking Apple-cheeked Grandmothers, the Fluffy Bunny Bund, the Rumbly-Tumbly Pupperoos, the Snowflake Princesses, the Baby Duckies All-In-A-Row, the Laughing Babies, and the Dykes on Bikes. They have a big picnic with cupcakes and gumdrops and pudding pops, stopping only to cast their votes by throwing Magic Wishing Rocks into the Well of Laughter, Comity, and Good Intentions. Afterward they spend the rest of the night dancing and singing and waving glow sticks until dawn when they tumble sleepy-eyed into beds made of the purest and whitest goose down where they dream of angels and clouds of spun sugar.
You don’t live there.
Grow the fuck up.