On the South Lawn, President Trump claims his tweets are not racist. “Not at all,” he told me. “If somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave.” He didn’t respond when reporters noted the lawmakers are from the U.S.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 15, 2019
REPORTER: Does it concern you that many people saw your tweet as racist?
TRUMP: "It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me."
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 15, 2019
'Subtle, playful notes of racial iconoclasm. Bordering on naughty if this writer may be so bold.' https://t.co/544Y9fH8gb
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) July 15, 2019
Absolut Bigøt
— siddhartha mitter (@siddhmi) July 15, 2019
the racisms are fully loaded. battery life expected to last 17 hours https://t.co/tizn0MozfK
— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) July 14, 2019
Zero calorie reporting.
— Peter Zingg (@pzingg) July 15, 2019
Tired: The war of northern aggression
Wired: The war over racially tinged labor policy— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 15, 2019
LOL, everyone made fun of @nytimes for using "racially charged" too much in their copy so they switched to "racially infused" instead. https://t.co/53VnPUdGiH
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 15, 2019
Nope.
plato
SiubhanDuinne
The New York Times is garbage.
#InBeforeBaud!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Michael Steele refused to make birther jokes during Obama’s first term. Mitt Romney made at least one during the 2012 campaign
I just saw on Brian Williams’ show that Willard managed to stammer out that he agreed with Tim Scott, and a reporter’s leading question, that racist is “an appropriate characterization of those remarks”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s past Baud’s bedtime, too easy.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Past mine, too, which is why I went for easy.
Night, everyone.
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Wait…they actually let Tim Scott speak???
oldgold
This is interesting and unexpected.
Iowa’s first-term Senator, Joni “Castrating” Ernst, who is up for re-election in 2020, called Trump’s statements racist.
Never underestimate the power of soybeans in the Hawkeye State.
James E Powell
@Yutsano:
I’m an ignorant white guy from the suburbs, so if I”m out of line, tell me and I will make amends, but what is it with African American Republicans? Do they not hear what their party’s leaders, propagandists, and voters are saying every day?
Chetan Murthy
@James E Powell: Same as the problem with fucking D’felon D’vorce D’spousa, my man. Some fuckwits, you just can’t ask decency of. I’m sure they all figure it’s just a grift, and they don’t give a damn that it’s destroying our country. Come to think of it though, that’s precisely what Chris Cillizza thinks every day as he cashes his fat checks. Ditto Milo Yappingpapaya. And the list could go on and on.
Chetan Murthy
@James E Powell: And it ain’t like Tom Scott hasn’t known *forever*. I remember watching a TV report where Scott talked about all the many times he’s been accosted for … y’know, driving while black. Like …. at the entrance to the Senate Parking Garage (!!) It ain’t like he doesn’t know every goddamn bit of how awful it all is
But that sweet, sweet, sweet cash. Hard to resist.
cynthia ackerman
If these comments are “infused” with anything, they’re full of toxic, racist, authoritarian flop sweat.
Plato
Plato
Kent
@James E Powell:
Well, there are the professional TV Republicans that as Chetan says, are just total grifters. Then there are some, like friends I know, who are RINOs in their everyday life basically for career reasons. Work in a lot of business type jobs, especially in the south, and want to ever get ahead and get promotions? Let the white folks at least think you are a Republican. Same thing for attending Baptist Evangelical churches. I had a black co-worker at a school I taught at in TX and we’d joke about how many times per month he needed to attend the local white Baptist megachurch in order to earn the promotion to assistant principal. Really. That’s actually how things work, even in public service jobs like education if you are in small and medium sized southern city. White southerners love themselves some token black folk. But only the right kind of black folk.
A lot of folks have too much integrity to play those kinds of bullshit games. But sometimes you just want to get ahead. And it is the same damn game white folks play every single day and never get called on it.
NotMax
Where is today’s Joseph N. Welch?
Harbison
@Kent:
Yes, indeed, never has a white type person ever been criticized for placing grubby careerism ahead of one’s true beliefs.
Never, ever, ever. Not once.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent:
Yes, this is what I meant by adducing Chris Cillizza.
I will add though, that it doesn’t change how I feel about D’felon D’vorce D’spousa. No fire of any Hell is hot enough for him, and no eternity of torment is long enough. Ditto for Seema “vermin” Verma, Raj Shah, Ajit Pai, Nikki Haley, and any other South-Asian-Americans who signed up for this Nazi administration.
rk
I did an informal survey of my kids asking if they’d been told to go back to where they came from. Two oldest said many many times, daughter lot less than the son (who’s a bit of a loud mouth). My youngest son has never been told that, but was told to get dunkin donuts by a bunch of yahoos in a pick-up truck. I’ve been asked why did I come to this country if I believed in socialism. This was in response to me saying my health insurance sucks and I’d like to have medicare for all. My husband has been asked if he’s on welfare.
The question which really annoys all of us is “where are you really from?”. I’m a naturalized citizen and the kids were all born here.
Omnes Omnibus
@rk:
I know it is no one’s business what your ancestry is, and there also is no reason why you have to tell us where you currently living. That being said, the response of “Cleveland, but I really prefer not to discuss it” could be interesting.
Chetan Murthy
@rk:
I’m sorry this happened to you, and I have seen it happen (in so many words) to my mom as I literally sat next to her in a hospital room. She tells me it’s happened to her quite a few times. it’s why I would never live in an area that isn’t majority-minority: I very much doubt that any shitweasel would have the *nerve* to ask that question in SF or the Bay Area generally. Too many Hispanic and Asian folks.
I know for myself, that the anger I’d feel at being asked that question (lived in the US since age 4, naturalized age 17, NSF, NATO fellowships, worked on DOD-funded projects, etc, etc) would be difficult to contain. I would want to respond, very loudly, “What Fucking Business is it of Yours?”[1]
[1] Of course, there -is- a way to ask the question. I start with my own story, and then ask if it’s OK for me to ask, b/c their accent sounds like they might have been born overseas, etc. A native-born person could do this by discussing their heritage (solely Native Americans don’t have a knowable/discoverable foreign-ancestry heritage, after all) and, again, ask with an apology beforehand.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Ugh, I’m sorry, I neglected to note that sometimes our Black American fellow citizens have difficulty tracing their ancestry (for the obvious and horrendous reason), also. Ugh. I’m sorry for that.
Jay
And of course, a dirtbag reporter at The Squads Press Conference amplified it.
lahke
Totally OT, but need advice. Cat is pooping and peeing in the living room, or right by the front door, or on my hat when it fell on the floor. Vet says no physical ailment, the 3 (!) litter boxes for the 2 cats are clean, I have a dispenser of calming scent plugged in, and still she does it. I read Werebear’s book and am applying her lessons, but nothing is working and my house is being destroyed because not even Nature’s miracle gets rid of the smell and stains. HELP!!!
Kent
@Chetan Murthy:
Signing up to work in the Trump Administration is a whole order of magnitude different from letting the local Billy Rays and Jimbos at the insurance office or bank where you work think you might be a Republican because you have a kid in college and could really use that promotion.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Yesterday, a Northern Guard/Yellowvest Nazi “rally” of 6 wipple, protesting Trudeau in Calgary was shut down abruptly by one Metalhead, who ambled over to them and said:
“Why do you hate immigrants? You are all immigrants!”
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Oh very true, very true. I was (possibly incorrectly) reading @James E Powell‘s question as being about publicly Republican Black Americans, not about rank-and-file private individuals.
Honestly, for the latter, if they actually vote GrOPer in the voting booth, I can only imagine they’re mentally defective. I mean sure sure sure do whatever it takes in public, but FFS when nobody’s looking at least, you can do the right thing. And after all, it is a little-known fact that HALF (yes, HALF) the population has an IQ of less than 100!
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Damn! Really ? All it took was one guy speaking rationally? Man, you Canadians! Even your nutjobs are polite and emenable to reason! Amazing!
Jay
@lahke:
Orange cleaner kills the smells and stains. She may be “remarking” the spot.
Mothballs placed in a cloth bag in the area, ( so she can’t eat them) may also divert her from the spot.
MomSense
Watching the show Years and Years is not a good idea if you want to be able to sleep ever again. A drama depicting a dystopian near future is terrifying. It’s too late for me. I’m too invested in the horror and the characters to look away, but if you haven’t started watching it’s not too late to save yourselves.
Mandalay
@Chetan Murthy:
Nazzi Hayley’s only tweet for Monday:
That vile teflon-coated fraudster rose on a very, very belated conversion to opposing the Confederate Flag. She somehow got away with that, and she will get away with her silence on Trump because there’s safety in numbers … for now.
But she will get eviscerated on this if she ever runs for president. Her cowardice and hypocrisy will leave a stain that she won’t be able to wash away. I despise her more than Trump.
hitchhiker
Thing is, this is a game for trump.
He gets make a dark-skinned woman in a headscarf the face of the Democratic Party by being so outrageously evil that we have to defend her.
His fans slobber all over themselves with joy, which doesn’t matter because fuck them. The problem is all those people only half paying attention who are being primed day after day after goddamn day to hear “Democrat” and think “socialist?” or “America-hater?” or whatever it is in the same breath.
Because repeating this in the process of condemning it serves a purpose. It plants seeds for later when it will be a full-throated trashing of all our candidates, based on nothing. And that trashing will stick for some of the people, just like it did with HRC.
She was constantly referred to as having “no good answer on the emails” and being stuck with “troubling accusations” about the family foundation. Constantly. For more than a year.
This is another variation on that theme. Take whoever is easy to attack (either because they’re the leader of the party or because they’re black or young or gay or whatever) and set them the fuck up. I remember when Ted Kennedy was the punching bag, but then he died so they needed someone new. And it’s absolutely shameless. There were adult human beings walking around the Republican convention in 2004 with purple heart bandaids on their faces, meant to mock the service of John Kerry.
And that was right in the heart of the most passionate respect-the-troops era. Consistency, integrity, honesty, are not ever considered, much less respected.
Anyway, I’d like the conversation to be in the tone of, “Of course he’s a bigoted fool, but he does NOT sound anything like the Americans I know or the America I was raised to believe in.” Don’t even say his name, or mention his office. Just refer to him as a bigoted fool and talk about the country as a place of compassion and integrity.
James E Powell
@Chetan Murthy:
You read me correctly and I mean more than just publicly Republican, I mean elected officials or party officials.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
You might ask the same thing about Log Cabin Republicans, Hispanic Republicans, women Republcans. Some motives may be mixed or mercenary, but some people are true believers in GOP economic or political values.
It doesn’t make sense, but life is complicated.
Chetan Murthy
@James E Powell:
All morally iniquitous, willing to sacrifice decency, honor, their Republic, and all for thirty pieces of silver. All of them. I don’t exempt folks like Michael Steele, either: he was fine/fine/fine with it all, until it got “out of hand” by his lights. But until then, hey, he was -fine- with all the dogwhistles and racism.
Kent
@hitchhiker: Yes, I think public mockery is actually the best way to deal with Trump. Pelosi seems to have this down pat.
Aleta
@Jay: @Jay: my god. This from a traitor, criminal, liar, fraud and violent bully who fuels his existence with complaints.
sharl
Mel
@Omnes Omnibus: @Chetan Murthy:
One of my former students had a response that shut the “where do you really come from” nonsense down straight away.
Her response: “I came from a uterus. I’m guessing that you came from a similar place?”
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL. Thanks for that!
prostratedragon
The oxymoronic, or is it sarcastic:
Whipped to a fluffy meringue.
The all-too-apt:
Slowly braised in vermouth (wormwood) with a sprinkle of an appropriate vinegar (gall).
Aged in wood.
Chetan Murthy
@Mel: I always like the Indigo Girls’ line from “Shame on You”:
They say we be looking for illegal immigrants
can we check your car
I say you know it’s funny I think we were on the same boat
back in 1694
Jay
@Aleta:
And it’s a shout out to his “base”,
“Won’t someone rid me of this meddling Priest?”
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: Sometimes humor is all one has.
Suzanne
@Mel: My favorite response to that question was when I saw someone respond with the last place she had been. As in: “Where did you come from?” “I came here from Target. After this, I’m stopping off at Starbucks.”
Mandalay
@sharl:
I suspect this will become the Republican talking point on Trump’s tweets for the rest of the week.
Except, unlike Hume’s comment, they will concede nothing: “President Trump is absolutely not a racist. He is standing up for all Americans against…blah, blah, while Democrats support illegal blah, blah…“.
Brachiator
@hitchhiker:
Odd, this is exactly the kind of political snake oil that NBC contibutor Jonathan Allen is claiming. He says that Trump masterfully flipped the script and now has the Democrats embracing four wild eyed radicals, political extremists that real white Americans can never relate to.
I also just listened to a female pundit on CBS news radio make a similar claim.
Bullshit. The thing is that neither of these political hacks can flat out acknowledge that Trump is a racist or that the GOP is the sanctuary city for bigots.
Trump isn’t just singling out the squad, he is telling every naturalized citizen, and every person who is not white that they better STFU and passively accept what Dear Leader says, or their citizenship might be revoked.
Fuck that. Say his name. Call him out for the bigot that he is. Tell him that there will be a political reckoning and that he will be defeated, and then forgotten.
Link to Jonathan Allen article
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/how-trump-flipped-script-pelosi-squad-n1030041
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: The problem is, the humorous response only works when the questioner is actually just being clumsy, and gets that they should stop. But when someone is being aggressive and pushy, it fails. In the case I witnessed, the nurse (!) asked my mom repeatedly “no, where are you REALLY from?” And this, in a pre-op room filled with nurses and doctors of many different ethnicities (the doc got his degree in Bangalore, ffs). One of the other nurses tried to intercede/defuse, by talking about her Christmas holiday “back home” in the Philippines. There were a couple of black American nurses there, too.
So it’s not like this no-account piece-of-shit white-trash cracker-ass racist shitweasel didn’t have experience around people from all over the world. Which leads me to believe that she just didn’t give a damn.
It goes without saying that I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t me going under the knife, and unless my mom asked me to intercede, I wasn’t going to screw up her play. “Don’t open your mouth unless you know the shot”.
rk
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha, Ha, I’ve actually said something similar. Oregon actually. But all I got was “No, I mean where are you from originally, which country”?
My daughter has a friend whose parents are Armenian immigrants. She looks white, her parents speak with an accent. She’s never been asked where she’s from although both she and my daughter are first generation. A lot of times people asking these questions mean no harm. But the fact remains that a brown person is never assumed to be an American, is also never allowed to criticize America. Which is funny because white Americans loath the government. It’s one long bitch fest about high taxes, poor services and sovereign this and sovereign that and guns to fight govt tyranny. But God forbid anyone non white should criticize the almighty head of the govt.
Jay
Anne Laurie
@lahke: Well, cat’s doing her best to get her point across, if only you knew what that point was!
Only thing I can think of that you haven’t already covered… I’ve heard of cases where a cat started ‘marking’ by a door or window because there was something on the other side of that door (a stray cat / neighbor’s dog / workmen doing repairs in the next apartment) that struck them as threatening. ‘Cure’ for that, more or less, seemed to be keeping the cat away from the Portal of Warning… which can range from challenging to impossible. Knew one person who had to board the cat for a week (until the next-door repairs were done) — and it took the cat quite some time to recover from the ‘betrayal’ afterwards.
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator:
This needs to be shouted from every rampart. [Assuming she’s willing] Rep. Pressley’s heritage and family history[1] should be cited as proof that it’s got nothing to do with whether you were born here or not, nor how long your family has been here. It’s about racism, pure and simple, and it can happen to anybody who doesn’t look “right” to them.
[1] Assuming her family is descended from slaves, she’s got roots that go back at least 150 years, probably much longer. Fucker Shitlord’s roots go back how far? A couple of generatoins at most?
lahke
@Jay:
Thank you for the orange cleaner suggestion, I’ll try that. But she’s marking LOTS of spots, not just a few. I want to cry every day I come home.
Brachiator
@sharl:
There are some white pundits who always like to fall back on stupid as an excuse or explanation for racism. This will sometimes give an offender some wiggle room to offer a fake (sorry if I offended anyone) apology. But since Trump never backs down, this won’t work.
Hume also comes out with the “word so incendiary that it can never be used” defense.
But I do wonder where he got his “standard definition” from? The Bigots’ Guide to Everyday Usage of Racist Language?
Jay
Harvard needs a cleansing fire.
Chetan Murthy
@rk:
My heart breaks for your children. I’m guessing you didn’t grow up around these racists fuckwits, but your children are, and they’re (unwittingly) internalizing this racism. It took me 40 years to get over the racism (against my own kind, as well as others) I learned in small-town Texas. My entire adult life.
tokyokie
@Brachiator:
Such people are like the Sonderkommandos, except they haven’t been forced into their actions under threat of death. They think that they’ve reached accommodation with Republicans who find them useful, but the GOP will dispose of when such usefulness has been exhausted.
MisterForkbeard
@lahke: We had that problem. My cat (17 years old now, bless her) has always done this a little but got worse over the last couple years. Our solution was just to buy a ton of puppy pee pads from CostCo and put them out in litter box pans in 3-5 places throughout the house.
She still pees on something else occasionally, but we go a few weeks at a time between peeings, and it’s usually because we forgot to change some of the pads overnight.
Anne Laurie
@lahke:
Can the cat be confined — say, to the bathroom — whenever you’re not home?
Jay
@lahke:
We got Casey a special pad when she started being incontinent.
It has an up side, which let’s urine through, an absobent layer, a waterproof “down side”, and is machine washable. It’s 4’x4’ but they make bigger ones. That may limit the damage.
Mel
@Chetan Murthy:
Thank you for your comment. It’s an important reminder that sometimes, we can educate someone by talking things out.
I’m so sorry that your Mom had that experience in the hospital. It’s hard enough to deal with that kind of careless or unthinking racism on the best of days, but when a person is already feeling ill or in a vulnerable situation, sometimes it can feel like it’s got the power to break a person’s spirit.
Last year, I had a medical assistant refer to me as “the lady with that awful foreigner disease” when she thought she had put me on hold. (I have an autoimmune condition that’s common in the Middle East and Near East, part of my heritage in my Mom’s family).
That led to an interesting conversation when she picked the phone back up! I asked her which she thought was so awful: anyone she perceived as “foreign”, or having a chronic illness, because if it was the first, either she and I were immediately going to have a serious talk about the situation, or I could file a complaint with hospital human resources and she could have the conversation with them instead. Things were a pretty dicey for the first five minutes of the conversation, but it actually ended reasonably well, at least as well as can be expected.
Brachiator
BTW. Yeah, “racially infused” is about the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while.
Right up there with the old NPR euphemisms for torture. Good times.
Controlled Drowning? Damn.
The Fucking New York Times should be ashamed of themselves.
wasabi gasp
Stewing in my own juices, regularly racially baste.
Chetan Murthy
@Mel:
I can imagine doing that here in California. In Texas (where I grew up)? Ha! Ha Ha Ha. Not a chance. First, I’m sure nothing good would come of it, and second, I wouldn’t want the crackers getting angry at me.
Which is why I left Texas, and only go back when I must (for my Mom). Hopefully we can convince her to decamp also. At the very least, around the 2020 elections, ffs.
, SWMBO
@Mel: I would say, “ I came out of a uterus. From the sound of it, you were close. Did you fall out of an asshole?” But I’m a bitch.
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@Brachiator:
Is this like “honor among thieves” or “kindly rapist”? Sheeite, as if you can “control” the rate at which somebody drowns. Idiots. Idiots.
rk
@Chetan Murthy:
I actually faced a lot of racism growing up. I spent a part of my childhood in England, and I was called “paki” on almost a daily basis, both from white and black kids. England was a viciously racist place. It took me a long time to get over it and England is still a place I never want to go to.
My kids have faced racism, but we are near philly and for the most part people are o.k. Luckily for us, our school system is very very proactive against bullying and racism. I think what’s been eye opening for all of us has been the after effects of Trump’s election. I didn’t know so many white people held racist views.
SWMBO
In moderation? Can someone free the sarcastic remark I posted?
Jay
Mel
@Chetan Murthy: I grew up in the very rural lower low Midwest / upper South, so… yeah. I hear you about Texas!!
Still in the Midwest, but an urban area, not rural.
Chetan Murthy
@rk: Oh, interesting. Your feelings about England seem similar to mine about Texas [I’d be OK with a tactical nuclear strike after we offloaded all the decent people, but I recognize that the fallout could spread ….] And yeah, your wording fits well. A sibling went to college on the Main Line, and I visited a few times. Saw some pretty awful racism towards South Asians there. 30yr ago, but hey, everything old is new again with Shitler.
Re: Trump’s election, yeah, it was a shocker, eh? I un-friended three people, and two others basically un-friended themselves when they realized how unwilling I was to hear even one iota of any sort of GrOPer rhetoric — Trumpers all, to be sure. Realizing that people whom I regarded as really close friends, could do this, was shocking. I mean, I got that they were Republicans and all, but I didn’t realize they were willing to vote for such a racist, and expect me to view it as “just politics”.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, and if it’s even possible, but ….. well, after growing up in NYC, Delaware, (mostly) TX, and then living as an adult in NYC and BOS, living in California has been revelatory. I know it’s expensive, but …. the feeling of being around so many people of so many different ethnicities is priceless. Some days I count the number of visibly different ethnicities in the subway car as a sort of catechism. And even the white people here are from all over — I hear all sorts of European languages all the time. I know not everything is wonderful here: Oskar Grant was murdered here. Stephon Clark was murdered here. And I’m sure I could think of other names. But it’s better than in the rest of America. Today I took my Mom to Japantown for Ramen, and the street signs were in English and Japanese. I made a joke (in Texas accent) about “I don’t recognize muh countree no more!” ha! Signs in the subway in a gazillion languages.
Every day I see groups of young people of all races, doing what they do — hanging out, playing canoodling, whatever. Interracial gay couples holding hands on the street, caressing each other the street like it ain’t no thang — like a Doisneau portrait. I feel that they’re inventing a new way to be American: to be -Californian-. And it’s enormously …. wonderful to see.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: I have seen more success with the humorous approach when others are around because the person normally feels some residual embarrassment. I saw someone once, in response to an offensive aside, respond, “I don’t get it, can you explain it to me?”. The dude backed off immediately. Yes, you are right….this approach requires some level of awareness on the part of the asker. But IME, most of these people know that what they’re saying isn’t right and really want to avoid public shame.
Jay
rk
@Chetan Murthy:
That’s what I love about America. Despite all this Trump nonsense, I love how accepting it is in so many ways. Especially the young people. They really don’t seem to see color. My kids best friends are Jewish, African Americans, Asians and white. Some of the white kids have racist grandparents (which mortifies the poor kids).
I broke off with my best friend of thirty years because she voted for Trump. An rich immigrant hating Indian immigrant. She herself used all sorts of connections to get a visa to get to this country, then overstayed her visa. She fired her cleaning lady, when the cleaning lady told he that she was not legal. The hypocrisy and cruelty is astounding! I can never be friends with such a person.
JWR
Earlier tonight I wrote to my local CBS affiliate complaining about their use of the phrase “racially charged” to describe Trump’s behavior and reminding them that reporting the truth is not a partisan game so please stop with the cute little word games.
hervevillechaizelounge
@hitchhiker:
You nailed it; the RW noise machine will use “the squad” to paint all Democrats, even Joe Fuckin’ Manchin, as rabid socialists who want to abolish private insurance.
Bonus bullshit: when blue dogs push back against socialism they’ll get shit from the Bern-outs—and eventually the story will become, “Why won’t that bitch Nancy Pelosi stop congressional business and defend AOC from Tim Ryan’s mean tweets?”
I know this is not going to be a popular opinion but I hope AOC and Ilhan are primaried in the next election. They’re hurting the party. They care more about twitter clap-backs than helping other Democrats, and right now—as imperfect as they may be—the Democrats are the only thing standing between this country and fascism.
Ayanna Pressley has to be furious they dragged her into this shit.
ola azul
@hervevillechaizelounge:
Primary away, don’t care. They’ll either survive or not. Sorta the point of elections, right?
What never ceases to astonish me is how Dems are so eager to disown their own cuz they’re “hurting the party”. Hurting it with whom, exactly?
The game as it’s been played for the entirety of my lifetime is that it’s Dems’ job, apparently, to “find common cause” with, and let’s be frank, cuz why not, with imbeciles, racists and scoundrels. In the Washington wisdom, this shows you ain’t unreasonable. Cuz you’re willing to “work with” the other side. On non-negotiable issues where you forsake your principles in the bullshit interests of bipartisan comity.
In which you get rolled.
And the Overton Window shifts ever rightward.
Me, I appreciate not the rookie errors but the drawing of a hard line.
ymmv
Chetan Murthy
@ola azul:
What rookie errors? *grin* AOC called ’em as she saw ’em, and as we all did. There’s no compromising with people who wanna torture small children. None at all. I don’t remember any fucking GrOPers objecting to Steve King when he was talkin’ about cantaloupe calves and such. He had to go a damn sight further to get even the lukewarm slapping-around he’s gotten recently. And that’ll stop if he retains his seat in 2020, I’ll bet.
And it doesn’t matter -what- the Dems propose, on -whatever- subject. It’ll be “death panels” no matter what, “open borders” no matter what, “crime waves” no matter what.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: And something else: before Nancy SMASH was bitching to Dowd about the Squad not backing her on the funding for concentration camps, she had been bitching about the Senate sandbagging her — by not resisting Yertle’s Senate bill (so that if the Senate bill hadn’t had such a big margin, she could have forced Yertle to conference and improved the bill). Yeah, she really can’t have it both ways: on the one hand, the Senate forced her hand on Yertle’s bill, and on the other, gosh, the Squad betrayed her by not voting for it.
And another thing: she’s my rep. But I’m getting pretty goddamn fed up with “no investigations, man, he’ll impeach himself, maaan”. Pretty damn fed up.
From where I sit, I don’t see the Squad as having made much in the way of errors, and Pelosi is starting to sound like not the right woman for the job. And that goes double for that coward Richard Neal at Ways & Means.
Sloane Ranger
I noticed that CNN were calling it racist last night and Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo seemed personally outraged. They were sarcastically describing GOP politicians who were privately criticising the Dump’s words as racist but refusing to go on the record as “profiles in courage”. And Anderson Cooper, who’s normally very polite, made no attempt to hide his disdain for some Thug pundit who attempted to defend Dump’s words as totally not racist. Of course, he knows he’s on the list of Not Real Americans (TM). Will it last beyond this news cycle? I hope so.
What I would really like to see is a journalist pointing out to one of these Dump defenders that he has been very critical of the US under Obama and even Bush II and then asking if he should have left if he hated America so much.
Of course when the right criticises their country, they are being totally patriotic and trying to make things better. When criticism comes from the left, however, it is just unpatriotic whingeing intended to demean said nation!
Sloane Ranger
@rk: I can only apologise for what you went through at the hands of my fellow countrymen. All I can say is that, while not perfect, things have improved considerably since then. I’m white and I used to hear that particular racist word from fellow whites all the time but I haven’t heard it used for years.
JPL
@Sloane Ranger: . Will it last beyond this news cycle? I hope so.
It will last as long as trump wants it to last. He’s always ready to do something else in order to change coverage.
Chyron HR
Remember, this man’s campaign slogan was “America Sucks”.
Chyron HR
@ola azul:
Okay, sweetie, but here in the real world it’s Bernie Sanders (and his Socialist Squad) who are arguing that imbeciles, racists and scoundrels are actually the poor downtrodden proletariat yearning for revolution, and claiming Democrats are failyuhs because we don’t appeal to them.
plato
@hervevillechaizelounge:
That ship has sailed. Weren’t these ‘rookies’ elected despite such ‘painting’ by the totus thug and his minions and the 3rd rate media for past 3 years? I think gone are the days when the dems cowered before the rethugs’ way of smearing them. These women have won against all odds and without ‘establishment’ support and they will do do again.
ola azul
@Chyron HR:
Okay, sweetie, but here in the real world you can hope to negotiate the terms of your unconditional surrender. And then have the Charlie Brown football yanked away by Lucy at the last moment. That’s the insidery savvy play. Go with that. It’s worked so well, for so long.
HeartlandLiberal
Probably too late for many to see this, but reading the twitter thread me of the old usenet usegroups ultimate insult text. Many of you youngs out there are probably scratching your rear end saying “what?”, what was usenet. That’s how old I am and how long I have been in this Internet game, ground floor text newsgroup old.
Anyway, you can read the archived definitive version of this long, perfect insult, by googling “The insult file version 6.13.”
I am not sure I can get away with inserting link in comments, so just ask your friend google. You will thank me later for turning you on to this bit of early Internet history.
FWIW, I would be interested to know if John Cole remembers this. But then, I think he was driving a tank during this period.
CindyH
@lahke: sounds like a chance to call Jackson Galaxy (My Cat From Hell) – don’t be put off by the title – most of the cats are sweeties and he truly loves them all.