Reports emerged over the weekend that Trump was briefly taken to the White House bunker on Friday due to protests in nearby Lafayette Park. The protests continued all weekend. Last night, the exterior lights were turned off at the White House. Can’t remember that ever happening before.* I think this guy nailed it:
This is a resignation. It should be taken as a resignation. If your country is in crisis, your cities are burning, your police forces are assaulting, murdering, and kidnapping people, and you turn the lights off and hide? You’re not the President. You’ve resigned your duties. pic.twitter.com/VGtIaOVdtO
— Paul Fischer (@tencents77) June 1, 2020
True in every sense but the technical one, which is unfortunately what counts. So, we’ll be slogging through this multi-faceted catastrophe for the next several months, essentially leaderless and except where hindered by a toxic orange internet troll, while Trump’s Republican enablers continue the smash-and-grab.
From The Post:
Never in the 1,227 days of Trump’s presidency has the nation seemed to cry out for leadership as it did Sunday, yet Trump made no attempt to provide it.
That was by design. Trump and some of his advisers calculated that he should not speak to the nation because he had nothing new to say and had no tangible policy or action to announce yet, according to a senior administration official. Evidently not feeling an urgent motivation Sunday to try to bring people together, he stayed silent.
The loudest mouth in the country wasn’t completely silent yesterday evening: Trump tweet-screamed “FAKE NEWS” and “LAW & ORDER.” But it seemed a bit pro forma, to be honest. He’s said nothing for hours, possibly because Kellyanne and Ivanka each have a hold on one tiny thumb.
Overnight, the #BunkerTrump hashtag was trending on Twitter. There’s nothing worse for a bully than to be revealed as a chickenshit, so the coward will probably amp up the tough guy talk today at some point. Political advisors are split on how Trump should respond, according to The Post:
Some on Trump’s reelection campaign team, as well as some White House staffers, have been pushing for the president to deliver an Oval Office address, and he could decide to do so later in the week. But aides first want him to embark on a listening tour of sorts to develop constructive ideas, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans.
Listening? Ideas? What a fucking joke. Trump is still smarting from the “bad reviews” he got for the disastrous Oval Office address on COVID-19, so it’ll be a challenge for Jared to make him sit still for 10 minutes and recite words off the teleprompter.
I can only think of two words that would be helpful right now: “I resign.”
He wouldn’t even need a goddamn teleprompter for that. Just quit and fucking go away and let us begin the work of de-Trumpification. It will be a multi-generational task.
*Duff the Baker confirmed my suspicions about the unprecedented nature of the White House’s lack of exterior lighting last night:
I have never seen this in my entire life. I lived in DC and worked at a restaurant two blocks from here and rode my bike by the White House every night at around 2am. The lights were always on. This absolutely sums up this administration. Nobody’s home. https://t.co/Uk2rhxE1Wj pic.twitter.com/ACjZtaaRPR
— Duff Goldman (@duffgoldman) June 1, 2020
What a wondrous time it must be for Team Blue political ad designers, with the symbolism pouring down like rain and all. Open thread.
germy
Hunter Gathers
Nothing but a bunch of Punk Bitches, the lot of them.
Betty Cracker
@germy: On brand.
Elizabelle
When Americans poured into the streets, to protest the death of a black man at the hands of police …
Donald Trump turned the lights off. The better to hide.
rikyrah
Deep tweet
mad citizen
I continue to predict he will resign before the election, and just for fun was tweeting at him last week that he will resign on or before Labor Day weekend. I thought it would be because he won’t be able to cope with a huge November loss, but these two crises making it plain as day he (and his party) have absolutely nothing to offer the nation should hasten the resignation.
This morning I dreamed I was living on the planet Jupiter.
“… When you think that you’ve lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more
rikyrah
@germy: I
And there is Joe Biden, out meeting with protesters
Betty Cracker
The Beast broke free of Ivanka and Kellyanne’s grip and is now tweeting nonsense about the Radical Left and Sleepy Joe blah blah blah. There was this jewel:
Uh huh.
NotMax
Blight House.
Barbara
The bitter irony is that whatever degree of fear that Trump feels will never get translated into empathy with people who are at might higher actual risk — of being harmed by extralegal violence or by COVID-19. They evidently expect us to empathize with his fear, without him ever empathizing with ours.
RandomMonster
Your posts are so good, Betty. This really is symbolic of the entire incompetent corrupt rudderless administration.
MattF
There’s also the… issue of Trump’s limited attention span. Alexandra Petri nailed that one a while ago. Trump isn’t paying sustained attention to anything. Because he can’t.
donnah
Trump will never resign. He never admits when he’s wrong and he will blame anyone and everyone else for all of his tragic failings.
We have to notice that no Republicans have spoken out strongly against Trump’s lack of leadership. Fatass Mitch weakly mentioned that wearing masks wasn’t a bad thing, but nothing about the protests and with the protests going on WORLDWIDE, no one’s stepped up from the Republican party to suggest that Trump is not acting like a president. He’s barely acting like a human being.
And to all of those idiots whining about Biden hiding out, he called the Floyd family before Trump did, spoke with them for half an hour and offered condolences and comfort. He also went out to talk to protesters and listened to what they had to say.
While Trump was hiding behind Secret Service agents.
Elizabelle
I don’t understand why Trump returned to DC on Saturday after the space launch in Florida. He was 140 miles from Mar a Lago.
What else did he and those around him expect? It’s amazing to me they were not expecting the protests they got. If they really wanted to tone it down: give the protesters an empty White House.
It’s not like Trump is up to any of the expected presidential duties, or has any empathy or insight into the situation embroiling the country.
Xenos
Maybe I am being pedantic here, but resignation is not quite the correct term.
Rather, I would use abdication. Our system of government abhors a vacuum, and here we have an empitness of leadership a the center. In this context congressional power can be aggressively expanded relative to the executive, and state powers can be aggressively expanded relative to the federal powers.
Just ignore SOB and watch him try to stop you. And make him try to reassert moral or leadership authority once he has so clearly given it up.
Dupe1970
@Elizabelle: Only thing I can think of is that Secret Service via Mar-a-lago as less secure.
OzarkHillbilly
No, he utterly fails at that too.
Elizabelle
@Xenos: going pedantic again:
he never asserted in the first place. Donald J. Trump is as wholly unqualified for the presidency today as he was when he first arrived in the Oval Office.
dimmsdale
It’s neither a resignation nor an abdication. This simply shows that all he’s ever been (even with all the handwaving, rage-tweeting, and the rest) is a PLACEHOLDER FOR VLADIMIR PUTIN.
THAT’s his job. Cowering in the bunker, he’s doing his job as intended. Placeholder.
NotMax
Some small satisfaction in imagining the hamberders are cold and grease-congealed by the time they make it down there.
;)
eric
Just as with the pandemic, circumstances provided Trump with an opportunity to regain his footing. But, he didnt; and he didnt, because he cant. Worse, his instincts are to do the one thing that is the exact opposite of what he should do. Even if you do not give a speech, you can at least give the impression that you have a plan, or care (just a little bit). But, trump cannot do that. What Trump and his team fail to recognize, as well as the militarized police chief and union bosses, is that we watch a man get killed in clear violation of every police protocol imaginable, and his fellow officers did nothing. the image of the murderer with his knee on Floyd’s neck, while keeping his hand in his pocket, staring defiantly at the camera shook lots of people. The silence of authorities in the immediate aftermath further amplified the dehumanization of black americans in a way that resembled the overt racism of the pre-civil rights south. Silence is acceptance; acceptance is racism is the core of Trump’s team.
Frankensteinbeck
Does anybody know what’s with Twitter screaming about a blackout in DC? Ah, no, I found it. There was a power outage in part of Washington DC affecting about 39,000 people. Then the rumor mill concluded the city was aflame and this was an excuse to gun down protestors. Well, this is why I don’t trust Twitter news and go look elsewhere.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Maybe his Caps Lock is stuck.
Xenos
@Elizabelle: I can go for round after round of pedantry, but touche. (sorry, can’t get my accent aigu to work on this flipping keyboard)
Frankensteinbeck
@eric:
One of the major reasons Trump was elected, one of the major reasons the Republican voting base chose him over all the other options, was the promise that his administration would turn a blind eye to racist violence. He has fulfilled that promise entirely.
WereBear
@NotMax: LOL.
hueyplong
I’m pretty fucking pissed that this ultra cool and ultra powerful Antifa has never recruited me.
First the Deep State gave me the high hat. Now Antifa. No doubt the Extra New Black Panthers will also kick me to the curb. I’d attempt to enlist with FAKE NEWS, but Trump keeps telling me that they’re failing everywhere and therefore not hiring.
I guess we’re all destined for the Lincoln Project with the other pasty-faced losers.
WereBear
The ones who still have souls to shake.
VOR
The MAGAts on Twitter overnight we’re excited about the lights at the White House being turned off. They were saying it was to allow better use of night vision gear by snipers. Boy if those protesters climbed the fence, man would they get what’s coming. The MAGAts seemed excited by the prospect of shooting unarmed fellow citizens.
germy
A TrumpTweet from 2014:
rikyrah
germy
Can’t help but take it personally. As he should.
rikyrah
😠😠😠
Jeffro
Or a puppet, perhaps. I have heard that line a couple of times… ;)
Betty Cracker
@eric: Good point. You know the media would have a slobber-fest if Trump was capable of acting like a real president for even five minutes. Remember how they collectively shrieked like Bieber tweens when Trump ordered some people to bounce rubble on a Syrian airfield that time? But Trump is utterly incapable of taking advantage of that massive, unearned advantage.
rikyrah
rikyrah
Betty Cracker
@hueyplong:
Join us!
Jeffro
I like the Fischer tweet A LOT and as much as I want to see the Ill Douche lose in a historic landslide this November, the country doesn’t have to continue to suffer his abuse for five more months. He’s humiliated – clearly our worst president* ever – for the rest of his hopefully short life either way.
Would love to see our national snooze media ask GOP Senators their reaction to the WH lights being off, to Twitler fanning the flames from the bunker, how they feel about being dragged down the electoral drain like this, and if they think the president* should resign. Hell, I’d like to see the media ask trumpov himself that last question at his next “press conference”.
germy
No One of Consequence
@VOR: The lights would not be in front of the snipers… ???
MAGAts and their reasoning, who can make sense of it?
Peace, it’s not just for Hippies anymore…
– NOoC
Belafon
Someone suggested that part of the reason for this was so the snipers wouldn’t have to deal with the light. Which is still Trump hiding
eric
@VOR: they can always rationalize any of trump’s bad behavior away. I know it is a tired trope at this point, but if Obama had shut off the lights….OMG. Plus, you can see the power fantasies that drive Trump and his followers. What you can see, however, is that the volume of the trump defenders is lower now than it used to be. these people can defend it to themselves, but the folks on the margin see it as headscratching.
I am willing to bet that Trump and his team end up doing the pardons all wrong.
eric
@No One of Consequence: they always turn the lights off for snipers in the field wtf. So much for the daytime scenes in American Sniper. idiots.
germy
So back in 2014, trump tweeted a photo of the “dark” White House and criticized Obama for it.
hueyplong
@Betty Cracker: I’m in.
Amir Khalid
Donald Trump abdicated the President’s job as soon as he was elected to it. Remember how he blew off the transition briefings scheduled for him? Obama and Biden publicly pleaded with him to do his job and show up, and he just ignored them. But he loves the presidency’s power and privilege and spotlight; for him, they are what being POTUS means. He will be sorely bereft when Biden trounces his ample but sorry ass.
RandomMonster
@Jeffro: No puppet! You’re the puppet!
different-church-lady
@eric:
Caring is off-brand. The only character he knows how to play is the guy who doesn’t give a shit. It’s the only quality his base finds appealing.
Leto
I’m catching up on all the morning threads, so don’t know if this was posted already (“FBI Agent” is trending on Twitter right now):
FBI Agent of South Sudan heritage … being Racially Profiled … See What happened after his arrest & what they did after they found out who he his …
Other people have posted the next few mins after this particular clip cuts off under the “FBI Agent” tag, but this is a thing of grotesque beauty.
Cheryl Rofer
I’ve seen it mentioned that Trump was disappointed when nobody showed up to his rallying call for the MAGAs with guns to come defend him.
I thought it was noteworthy that NONE of them – not one, so far as I saw on news reports – showed up last night. Anywhere. They may be some of the ones sneaking around causing trouble – one was arrested in Louisville for setting fire to the town hall – but none are willing to show up for Steve Bannon’s race war.
Pity.
Luciamia
Maybe he got confused an d thought it was Halloween. Tell those trick-or-treaters to go home.
different-church-lady
@germy: Ah, so his aides no longer think this is fun.
Any moment now they’ll be telling him Jodl never made the attack.
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: Well, MAGAs appear to be human until they put on their hats. A sort of natural protective camouflage.
ETA: Also, open carry is very illegal in DC.
Edmund Dantes
@germy: tweet is deleted
waspuppet
@Amir Khalid: I don’t think he ever really wanted to be president. He certainly didn’t want the actual job; he just wanted to spend four years telling people to make his tweets come true and preen around wearing his sort-of victory like a sad 73-year-old ex-quarterback still wearing his high school letter jacket and talking about the district championship game in ’64.
Never forget he said, on the record, that he thought being president would be easier than his previous — oh, let’s be generous and call it a “job.”
germy
@Leto:
Kay
Even the Trump cultists are unhappy:
Lisa still doesn’t get it. It’s not that he won’t. It’s that he can’t.
Guffaw. Big manly Trump is being “prevented” from speaking. It’s never his fault.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: Seevral comments in the thread pointing out that this vid is a year old and that there’s no evidence of his actually saying he’s FBI. I have to believe an actual FBI agent would have had that as the first words out of his mouth.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: I actually agree with David Reaboi (an “expert” I’ve never heard of.) The person preventing Trump from acting is Trump, and I agree he should no longer be at the White House.
germy
bill barr’s behavior vs. his predecessors. A thread:
different-church-lady
@waspuppet: He never thought of the presidency as a job. He thought of it as a prize he deserved.
Kay
It’s a joy to watch the cult members turn to Daddy and realize there’s nothing there but a big, loud mouth. Empty. He can’t pull anything out and rise to this because there’s nothing there.
Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic: maybe maybe not. But note they were going to arrest a black man on nothing. Hadn’t even checked his ID yet.
so whether he is fbi or not is irrelevant to what is going on in the video.
Redshift
The thing is, the unrest in DC is nowhere near what it is in several other cities, and he’s still pissing his pants in fear. I suspect it’s because it’s a lot of Black people in a majority Black city, and like many racists, he has an unreasonable fear of them.
I was unsurprised the MAGAts didn’t show up to protect him, they have the same pants-pissing fear.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, read through the comments. White people saying the video is fake, POC responding this is typical experience.
Assumes facts not in literal video evidence right before your eyes.
*Edit: also what Edmund Dantes said at 64.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Yes, exactly.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yep. I called it. They’re chickenshit cowards who run away when they’re not positive they have the upper hand. The ones infiltrating the protests were doing a “Let’s you and him fight” routine, which is about the most chickenshit bravado there is.
germy
Kay
It isn’t just Trump either- the whole low quality administration are AWOL. They don’t do jack shit as work in any given day. Nothing- no help on COVID, no help on the protests. The country was crippled going into this and not one of them can manage to offer any practical assistance of any kind.
Rock bottom hires never get better, they always get worse. Mediocre hires can be improved, but these people? Best to get rid of them in 90 days with a probationary period. They’ll never get better, only worse.
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, he’s something, because as soon as they saw his ID they took those cuffs right off.
Aleta
The Hill
oldster
Proposal:
every demonstration that meets a group of cops should begin by asking the cops to re-affirm their sworn oath of duty. These oaths probably differ by jurisdiction, but here’s an example from the Chief of Police’s association:
“On my honor, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character or the public trust.
I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution, my community, and the agency I serve.“
If the demonstrators ask the cops to swear to it, again, in public, then it might do something for the cops’ behavior.
If they refuse to swear to it, well, then they admit that they are acting as lawless vigilantes, not officers of the law.
schrodingers_cat
Whatever happened to Mattis after he was fired? Have we heard from the noblest of the noble generals who ever lived.
Redshift
@waspuppet: He’s repeatedly made it clear he thought he would be King of America, and was only interested in being worshipped and giving orders to everyone.
LarrytheRed
It’s the perfect image for Biden. It should appear on every campaign event and mailer.
germy
@Aleta:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/trumps-george-floyd-obama-protest-police-violence-kneeling.html
gene108
I am glad Trump is staying out of this. He’d throw more gasoline on the fire. He’s a hardcore racist, who’d probably want to give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Derek Chauvin for maintaining law and order.
He likes watching cops beat up black people. He’s repeatedly spoke positively or tweeted positively on this idea as recently as last week, in his twitter rant about “ominous weapons” and sending attack dogs after protestors at the White House.
He’s a sick, and twisted person, who lacks all normal human emotions.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: I know this shit happens all the time. Adding fictional elements to the video is counterproductive, IMO.
gene108
@Kay:
Considering, if Trump were to speak out, he would encourage law enforcement to bust heads, it’s probably for the best that he’s in an underground bunker, which hopefully limits his ability to start more riots.
Look at what he did, with regards to stay at home orders and wearing a mask in public, during a pandemic that’s not going away.
Roger Moore
The thing is, he has never done his job out of a sense of duty. He has only done his job when it gratified his ego, lined his pockets, or he was bullied into it by his handlers. The rest of the time, he pushed the work off on his subordinates. His refusal to do the job now is the way he’s always been; it’s just more obvious because the need is so great.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I answered a question you had for me in a thread several days ago. I wondered if you saw it.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: My *impression* is they were looking for an individual, and when they took out his ID, they saw it wasn’t that person.
gene108
@Redshift:
There are enough heavily armed people in this country that are just waiting for the signal to start a race war, who are also die hard Trump supporters that it’s for the best Trump isn’t instigating them, and is in hiding.
germy
@schrodingers_cat:
Off topic, but have you seen this book review?
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/06/11/british-pillage-of-india/
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: No, I didn’t. I was wondering about that.
Aleta
NBC
Barbara
@rikyrah: That guy was not young. He had a full head of salt and pepper hair.
We had three days of violence nearly 30 years ago after an altercation between a Black female police officer and a very drunk Hispanic man lunging at her with a knife, which led to him being shot. Apparently, even though pre-smart phones, there was a lot of evidence (based on arrest records) of people taking metro from the suburbs to “join in.” There are people who get off on doing or fomenting violence, whether for political or personal ends. But they aren’t usually pretty clearly over the age of 40. Someone is going to identify this guy. Enough of his face was visible.
germy
@Gin & Tonic: My impression was that he was involved in law enforcement himself in some capacity.
I didn’t know police were so easily convinced by a black man’s “ID”. These cops looked like they found themselves suddenly outranked. My impression is that they saw more than just a driver’s license. If it were a simple ID, they wouldn’t have tolerated him calling them stupid motherfuckers. They would have gotten him on resisting arrest or assaulting an officer or some other bullshit.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. showed his ID, proof that he owned his house, and police still kept the cuffs on.
FelonyGovt
@Betty Cracker: He definitely thinks he’s a commentator or observer rather than the person who’s supposed to take some action and lead.
schrodingers_cat
@germy: I hadn’t. Thanks I will check it out.
waspuppet
@Kay: There never has been. To the (small) extent he actually wanted to be president, it’s simply because it was a thing and he didn’t have it.
@different-church-lady: That’s how he thinks of everything, including women.
Of all my hot takes and semi-serious predictions, I’m doubling down on one of the two I’m totally serious about: Before he dies, he will say he never actually wanted to be president. Not in the sense of “confessing” anything, but more in the sense of a hi-drama pre-teen who screams “I didn’t ASK to be born you know!” before slamming his bedroom door. (There’s a small but non-zero chance he says this while he’s still in office.)
(For the record, my other serious prediction is that if he loses he won’t go to Biden’s inauguration. And you can scoff and say “That’s just symbolic” or “Better off without him really” but when it actually happens and you actually see it it’ll be bad.)
WaterGirl
I usually read the comments before I post, but I feel compelled to say that Trump has certainly abdicated his duties. LOSER.
Also, I REALLY hope that #bunkerbitch is catching on. I saw that last night and it’s perfect.
edit: And I see that #15 got there first with abdication.
germy
@waspuppet:
He’ll watch on TV and live-Tweet it. Insultingly.
debbie
Lovely dream, but no. Trump was just doing his best Dick Cheney impersonation.
Fair Economist
I don’t know if it’s linked to the White House lights out and the commentary about it indicating the President was dead (which I saw before I went to bed) but I dreamed about Trump dying last night. I don’t remember from what, but it was something ordinary like a heart attack, not karmic like COVID or a Ceausescu ending. It wasn’t a good dream, surprisingly, because I was worried about Pence winning the election because the media would pump him as having taken action on our various crises and blame Trump for everything wrong.
Lapassionara
Seventy-five years ago, the largest anti fascist organization in the world defeated two European countries ruled by fascists. Made up of the US armed forces, the British armed forces, and a collection of Free French forces, Free Polish forces, and other allied forces, these forces completely defeated both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s army. That the infantile person who claims to be president of the U.S. now asserts that people who are against fascism are terrorists is a sign of how far our country has gone off the rails.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: We have indeed heard from Saint Mattis. The WaPost gave him some real estate recently.
James Mattis: Let’s honor the fallen by protecting our fragile experiment in democracy
This op-ed is adapted from remarks prepared for a Memorial Day address in his hometown, Richland, Wash.
He name-checks George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. Period.
The top rated WaPost reader comments:
japa21
@gene108: I don’t know the truth of the situation, but I agree on one thing. There are enough verifiable instances that we don’t need the iffy type of ones as examples.
Once one the the iffy types gets shown to be false it will be used against all the valid ones.
WaterGirl
Trump turning the lights off at the White House reminds me of the time I forgot to buy Halloween candy so I turned all the lights off and went to the back of the house with the dogs.
PLEASE DON’T NOTICE MY HOUSE AND THAT I FORGOT TO BUY CANDY.
Matt McIrvin
@hueyplong: I’m still waiting for my George Soros check.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: After your initial petition to immigrate (I-130 or I-140) is received you get an appointment at the local USCIS to get fingerprinted and photographed. After that is done you can apply for a temporary EAD (Employment Authorization Document) and TP (Travel Permission < has to be 6 months outside the US).
But this is if you are applying for the green card and you are in the United States. The process outside the United States is handled by the State Dept and is different and called consular processing. Within the United States it is the USCIS (INS before 2001) which handles the change of status applications
Aziz, light!
Oh good grief.
Trump will not quit. His narcissism won’t allow it. Nor will his unindicted crimes.
People demonstrate peaceably, then militarized, thuggish cops overreact and attack, which drives people crazy. But every further day of property destruction delivers votes to Trump. In 1968, civic unrest got Nixon elected because he promised Law and Order.
The polls mean nothing and the election will be much closer than we hope.
dmsilev
@waspuppet:
That’s actually the norm. Obama didn’t go to Trump’s inaugural, Bush didn’t attend Obama’s, etc. The tradition is the outgoing President flies off while the new one is being sworn in.
Betty Cracker
@waspuppet: Both sound like reasonable predictions to me — totally on brand. Do you think Trump being a no-show at the inauguration if he loses (please FSM) will be bad because of the implications for a peaceful transfer of power? If so, I agree, but what REALLY worries me is the 2-1/2 months or so he’ll have in office between losing the election and leaving the White House. Imagine the destructive tantrum he’ll pitch with his stubby paws still on the levers of power…
Roger Moore
@gene108:
I strongly suspect the number of people who are willing to fight in a race war is much, much smaller than the number who are just waiting for someone else to do it. They have their guns because they’re worried about the race war coming to them, but they aren’t going to go looking for a fight.
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: That’s actually not true. The Obamas were most assuredly at Trump’s (purloined) inauguration. Sad day for all of us. I think the outgoing president always goes.
Rick Perlstein has a new book — Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 — and its cover is a stalwart Jimmy Carter riding in the limo with an ebullient Ronald Reagan on the way to the 1981 inauguration
(FWIW: Reagan’s second inauguration was held entirely indoors; no parade. 7 degree weather, with minus 25 with windchill. I remember feeling bad for the high school marching bands, who were probably bummed at missing their big event.)
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks. They applied after they got married and were living in the US, but then they left the US in November and have not been back. Initially they were expecting her interview to be in August, but obviously that schedule is out the window.
Betty Cracker
@Aziz, light!: Nixon wasn’t the incumbent in 1968. Kind of a tough sell to shriek “LAW & ORDER” into the ether when you’re the freaking incumbent!
That said, of course the election isn’t in the bag, and no, Trump almost certainly won’t quit. I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting otherwise.
hueyplong
Do we know if Brave Sir Donald has left the bunker yet?
Nicole
The only path I could see Trump taking to resignation is if it becomes very clear to him that he’s not going to win in November, in which case I could actually see him resign so that it’s not technically “him” who loses; it’s Pence. And then he can go on TV until the end of his miserable days claiming that if he’d still been on the top of the ticket, he’d have won. And the media will eat it up.
It’s all about avoiding shame for him.
dmsilev
@Elizabelle: I thought they flew off before it. Maybe my memory is playing games with me; wouldn’t be the first time…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Have left my somnambulant state and have jumped off the sidelines. I’m participating in arraignments of arrested protestors, and it is all a deliberate clusterfuck. Rather than designating multiple judges, we have one to process dozens of cases – a young woman who is married to a Blue Lives Matter loving cop, who enjoys the enthusiastic endorsements of the various local FOP lodges.
Lawyers aren’t allowed to visit their clients in jail, and many names didn’t make the docket for reasons, and the detainees are being kept in temporary fencing while awaiting their “due process”. This will take days, and it shouldn’t. Judge is blasé, and more worried about the maintenance of distancing between lawyers that she isn’t addressing the bullshit process that the jail has imposed to punish people awhile.
The chief public defender has a decent appellate staff that is perfectly capable of filing writs, but is so beholden to so many constituencies for funding that he won’t address it. The whole justice system is corrupted beyond repair and we lawyers are complicit.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: From what I understand they have stopped consular processing since the pandemic hit.
HumboldtBlue
5 years ago,
@BarackObama
proclaimed, in a way that nobody could question, that he was unafraid of what anybody thought about him supporting an historically oppressed group.
Jeffro
Never forget, that when he offered Kasich the VP spot, that came with the promise of Kasich being able to run both domestic *AND* foreign policy while trumpov simply ran around the country ‘making America great again’.
He should have just gotten himself a radio show and spared us all this abuse.
Gin & Tonic
@dmsilev: So who are the people in this photo?
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Right. So it doesn’t appear she’d be allowed into the US at this point.
West of the Cascades
When I think of bunkers and out-of-touch, mentally-unstable leaders who issue insane and often contradictory orders to their fawning subordinates, the movie “Downfall” comes to mind.
WaterGirl
@Aleta: The police fired into a crowd? With real bullets???
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: I am quite sure that would have been Michelle’s preference!
Felt so badly for the Obamas — and especially for Hillary Clinton — to have to sit through that buffoon’s “American Carnage” speech. Painful. (I did not watch, and never have.)
germy
He’s almost talking like he expects Biden to be the next president, and so he has gotten a head start on criticizing the Biden administration:
Elizabelle
@West of the Cascades: It’s free on Amazon Prime.
Boy, has it found its moment. (Great film. Saw it in the theatres. RIP Bruno Ganz.)
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Good luck, hope everything gets resolved soon.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aziz, light!: In my view, the election will be closer than we hope if Trump gets more than his own vote. That being said, unrest and violence do drive votes, but they generally don’t drive them to the incumbent.
No one should take Trump’s defeat for granted. At the same time, we shouldn’t live in fear that anything that happens could work out in his favor.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Aleta:
They shot indiscriminately into a crowd in response to a single round.
They killed a very sweet guy who runs a barbecue stand.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl:
Yes.
germy
I agree.
A Streeter
@dmsilev:
I thought they flew off before it.
They still haven’t flown off; the Obamas kept living in DC to allow their younger daughter to finish the high school she’d started.
Jeffro
Slightly OT but I see that Tom Cotton is calling for the 101st Airborne to be deployed in American cities against the mighty ‘Antifa’…commentors on that tweet are noting that between him, Hawley, Crenshaw, and Haley, we are still going to be up against one insaaaaane opposition party in 2024.
But, you know, one crisis at a time.
HumboldtBlue
different-church-lady
@dmsilev: Nixon was the only one who did that.
SiubhanDuinne
@dmsilev:
Say what now? Both Obamas, both Clintons, and at least one Bush (can’t remember about Laura) attended Trump’s inauguration. They were right there on the platform. There are pictures and everything. And Bush most certainly attended Obama’s first inauguration.
Jinchi
They turned out all the lights! Like they were under siege by snipers? This really shows the panic in the Trump administration. And to think he was cheering this on in Michigan, just a few weeks ago.
I’d laugh but I worry that one of Trump’s “young ones on the front line” might take him up on his threat to start shooting people.
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
Ooh ooh ooh! Source, please? Or, even better, video link?
Barbara
@Lapassionara: I have been reading a book called The Sun and Her Stars, which is about a woman named Sarah Viertel who decamped with her husband from a successful career in European theater, based in Berlin, in 1928, and spent the better part of the next 15 years trying to help other mostly German and Austrian refugees in the arts. She was one of the individuals in the film industry who organized social and financial support for some of the more notable people Varian Fry rescued (e.g., Heinrich Mann).
Anyhow, within 10 years, many of these people whose lives had been upended by Nazis had their lives upended again by HUAC and associated waves of paranoia. On the one hand, it’s easy to say that we had defeated Germany, now an ally, and so moved on to USSR, but it is still shocking how primed so many were — not only to forgive Nazis but to view pre-war anti-Nazi activism as pro-communist, and to forget all about fascism as a bad thing. The book has its limitations but it is a very succinct summary of American cultural currents both before and after WWII. Viertel herself ended up being exiled from the film industry over suspected pro-communist leanings even though all three of her sons enlisted for service in WWII and her brother and his family lost their lives in Ukrainian mass killings of Jews.
Jeffro
@germy: “Vote for me! I’ll keep the crazy, insulting tweets coming for four more years!”
You know Biden’s team is already working on that response. =)
Charluckles
Personally I don’t think Trump will resign, but it won’t surprise me if it happens. He’s a spoiled narcissist. Throwing a tantrum and then taking his ball and going home does not seem that far of a stretch for him. If you look at his past he does have a history of quitting, declaring victory and walking away to let others pick up the pieces.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
They’re charging people with Riot 1 for curfew violations (a felony), and issuing blanket “no firearms” orders.
Gin & Tonic
Angela Merkel says she won’t come to a G7 meeting in Washington; Britain says it is opposed to re-admitting Russia to the G7. Trump’s global leadership is going great.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: OOOoooo! Cotton’s also calling for
*do people waving the Confederate flag count, Tom?
What a psycho! But hey, he’s an American Senator so I guess we’d better take him seriously and have him on all the Sunday shows, right snooze media?
Jinchi
I don’t believe that any Trump aides would use the phrase “broader systemic issues”, never mind suggest that any problem is “not only about him”.
Not unless they were fired immediately after.
LeftCoastYankee
“Melania, turn off the lights, maybe they’ll think we’re not home.”
I hope the Secret Service has good mental health coverage in their insurance. Being around that much fucking hate and insanity isn’t healthy.
OGLiberal
@Betty Cracker: Well, it appears that Trump believes that if there are white supremacists involved it’s a direct reflection on him. Why would that be? Does he agree with white supremacists? Does he think/know that white supremacists support him? Why so invested in proving that there are no white supremacists involved?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro:
Posse comitatus anyone?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Trump is already a lame duck. Let’s make it official in November.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You’re doing the lord’s work, sir. Thank you.
@HumboldtBlue: “Human boat shoe” — that’s PERFECT!
Betty Cracker
@OGLiberal: Isn’t that interesting? Sort of like when he went on that “MAGA LOVES BLACK PEOPLE” rant this weekend, making it clear that “MAGA” and “BLACK PEOPLE” are two separate categories.
Lapassionara
@Barbara: That sounds like an interesting book. I think the US probably had lots of Nazi sympathizers before the war, as did Britain. They went dormant for a while, but re-emerged once the USSR became the evil enemy.
It’s a constant battle.
MattF
@Jeffro: Cotton is also aggressively blaming China for the pandemic. Trump-with-a-brain.
jl
‘By design’ I guess you can say that. If your troops are on the battlefield and the general is a raging cowardly lunatic on the sauce, and its better to keep him out of way cowering and stewing in a hole under his command tent, and you decide to drink himself to sleep, I guess you could say that was ‘by design’ too. Whatever got them through the night was by some sort of design.
But, it’s a new day. They got a design for that? I kind of doubt it.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:
Oh good line! BTW in a sea of despair that was the last week one bright spot was a Zoom call for local Dem activists on what we can do to take back the WH, senate, and retain the Congress. We had people from Sarah Gideon’s campaign and people helping to flip PA and NC blue talk to us.
jl
As for antifa versus boolah-boolah boys (or whatever they’re called) in Hawaiian shirts, versus white supremacists, involved in the looting, I’m not sure what to think.
Seems to be some straight up business first organized crime organizations of some sort doing seriously organized and logistically sophisticated looting in SF Bay Area. If that is the case, that also would be a sensitive topic for Trumpsters and Trump to address. Too close to home.
HumboldtBlue
Barack Obama
How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Thanks for your work.
Amir Khalid
@OGLiberal:
Trump is a white supremacist.
Ella in New Mexico
@germy:
To be honest, I’m sure a certain element of the level of violence we’re witnessing at these protests is the release of the background rage people are holding towards Trump.
“It” actually may be, albeit, unconsciously and in places not directly outside the White House, about him, and he knows it. So of course they try to soothe his ego.
PaulWartenberg
Even when the city was under direct threat of terror strikes back on Sept. 11 2001, I don’t recall ANY report of the White House lights getting turned off like that.
As though the protesters would think “Oh hey, trump’s not home, let’s all go away and wait to come back when he’s there.”
Christ, what a level of public cowardice to show at a time when we need leadership to calm the nation.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it. trump CANNOT WILL NOT calm the nation. he and his buddies – both Russian and Republican – need to keep this nation divided so they can profit from it. The last thing we need is any effort of “leadership” from him.
That is how terrifying our current crisis is.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-loses-it-on-tucker-carlson-over-george-floyd-protest-coverage-fuck-you?via=twitter_page
schrodingers_cat
@MattF: And less charisma than even the Orange One.
Citizen Alan
@Jeffro: Even better. The Nazi swine is running unopposed this year,
eponymous coward
If he wants to be in a bunker, I can think of something he can do there that has historical precedent.
Villago Delenda Est
Donald is a complete failure. He’s nothing more than a criminal, and not in the Hans Gruber sense, either.
The Lincoln Project has a new ad out that features the Dixie Swastika and calls it what it is: a flag of treason. Anyone who flies it, waves it around, sticks it on a pick’emup truck bumper, is a traitor and a racist. Period. End of discussion.
Laura Too
I am going on 6 days of no sleep so please excuse lack of eloquence. I am fully behind the protesters. I have no problem seeing the police station burn or Target and the pharmacies being looted. That they burned our local businesses is painful because our neighborhood needs them. I want it known far and wide that the domestic terrorist are here and in force. They are targeting our black owned businesses and taking advantage of the curfew. Last night they burned another black barbershop. Let that sink in. A black owned barbershop. The second one to be targeted. Not any other buildings around it. That is to send a message. During the day they are coming in and planting devices around the city so if they get caught they won’t have them on them and also so that someone else can come and grab them. This is organized. We as a city know we are on our own. They tell us to have our garden hoses ready and bathtubs filled to fight fires. There is a lot more to this and they are using legitimate outrage to further their ends. https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/businesses-burned-in-overnight-fire-in-north-minneapolis
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
Oh, Kay, I’m so glad you’re back. : )
trollhattan
@Jinchi:
TBF there were reports of IJN Zeros approaching the coast. You can’t be too careful.
Miss Bianca
@Laura Too: Oh, Lord. I am so sorry. Is there anything we can do for you? I have friends in Minneapolis and I feel so helpless.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeffro: I’d still like to know how this asshole avoided being Niedermayer’d when he was “leading” a platoon in Iraq. I’d love to have a beer with some of his NCOs and get the real skinny on this Nazi fuck.
patrick II
I have read comments here over time wondering why, with all of the criminal fascism being exercised by the fascist regimes, and by fascist regimes I mean Trump and the various state government and police departments and ICE, that are suppressing human and political rights, why have there been no protests in the street? There finally are. This is not a surprise, but an inevitability. No one could be treated this badly for this long without some sort of reaction.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Without question.
trollhattan
@germy:
Actual gibberish, I Can’t Tell what he’s Trying to Say. Also, why is he not also accusing Dems of wanting Open Borders? Has Miller gone into hiding? “Boss, boss, don’t forget the Mexicans!”
MisterForkbeard
@Aziz, light!: The thing you’re missing here is that Nixon wasn’t president in 1968 and could run on fixing the problem.
Trump has been promising Law and Order for years and got this. No one trusts him on this, and for good reason. On the other hand, Biden can legit promise law & order because this shit didn’t happen during his previous terms. And you can see that today: Biden is getting a lot of respect for his response, while Trump is sort of flailing around.
trnc
Criminy. He lives in the most protected private residence in the country, if not the world. I’ll be sure to mention this the next time some asshole calls us snowflakes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: Russia is what happens when organized crime takes over the apparatus of the state.
patrick II
According to the Virginia Pilot, there was a long march here at the Virginia Beach beachfront. It was going along peacefully, some small fires set in the street, a very few windows broke, but then the police decided to break it up with tear gas, one police car drove into the crowd, another pickup truck waving a large American flag drove towards the crowd. Chaos ensued.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore:
I strongly suspect you’re right.
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est: he’s a nasty little weasel, but he’s not worth it. That’s why.
I don’t worry about him nearly as much as some of the others mentioned (Hawley, Haley, Crenshaw, etc). They’re lying, deceptive vipers and for the most part they know how to *sound* like they’re not crazy/completely racist/Koch-bought.
Miss Bianca
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Damn, dude.
Thanks for the update.
@Barbara: Oh, I want that book! With any hope, our library courier service will be up and running again soon, so I can order it through interlibrary loan.
artem1s
given who we are talking about I wouldn’t have bet there were any circumstances that would lead to the Orange Plague resigning. But now that he has failed Wall Street’s directives to get the country back open again, I’m rethinking that position. It’s looking more and more like and endgame for even and EC win. And I do think he would quit rather than be embarrassed by an epic loss.
trnc
I assume turning off the lights in Trump Tower was standard practice every Halloween.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
In this atmosphere of deliberate fuckery when the police feel free to fire indiscriminately into a crowd, killing a beloved barbecue guy, also consider a system that provides the illusion of due process.
Consider Kentucky’s 2020 Teacher of the Year, locked up this weekend. A decent man, he taught all 3 of my kids.
They can’t find his file. His lawyer is here, advocating release, the judge says “we were reviewing that one”, but he doesn’t have paperwork here or in jail.
He’s getting amazing amounts of due process. So very deliberate.
And to note – this judge is going through Pretrial reporting data harder and longer than did the judge who signed that bullshit warrant that got Brionna Taylor killed.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool FC’s senior squad takes a knee for George Floyd.
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est: What I’m seeing now is attribution to BoJo’s official spokesperson – the UK will veto any attempt to return Russia to the G7.
sdhays
@A Streeter: As I recall, they did go for a long, well-deserved vacation in Hawaii, though.
MattF
Trump is berating state officials.
HumboldtBlue
Art Acevedo, Houston Chief of Police “DONT FOLLOW THAT BULLSHIT”
scribbler
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That’s awful, and so depressing to hear. Thank you for being there, to do what you can. And thank you for keeping us informed.
HumboldtBlue
scribbler
@Laura Too: My heart goes out to you and all of your neighbors living through this nightmare. It’s so important to get these truths out there – thank you!
Seanly
One of the anti-Trump Republicans, Rick Wilson, tweeted that if Trump were to give a speech, we’d get Donnie Mumbles where Trump reads it in his flat monotone.
I tried embedding the tweet, but I’m terrible at linking stuff, but it was my first thought.
And the media isn’t even talking about how the president is failing to lead right now. Nor are they talking about the police riots going on.
trnc
IMHO, I don’t think damaging and looting private businesses is okay, regardless of my own feeling about any specific corporation. I think it’s misguided AND I think it gives the usual yahoos a reason to dismiss the actual reasons for the protest. I think the looting especially was more due to people taking advantage of the chaos rather than making it a part of the protest. I don’t even condone burning police department buildings, even though that may be more directly related to the protests. As bad as some cops are, there are also good cops who will be less able to carry out their legitimate duties if they don’t have a police station.
On top of all that, have any civilian employees been hurt or killed as a result of the building damage or looting? If we say it’s OK to burn a Target, some people will take that as a tacit approval to hurt Target employees.
I don’t want to belittle the situation your neighborhood faces from damage of local business, but once a protest turns into a mob willing to do damage, it’s hard to get them to agree to boudaries of any kind.
edit: I understand what you’re saying about the organized factions taking advantage of the legitimate protest.
Laura Too
@Miss Bianca: Thank you, that is sweet. when I can catch my breath over all of this I would like to do an On The Road post if it will be accepted. Everyone can see the disaster porn on TV but I want to show the real neighborhood. The pop up food pantries because there are no grocery stores now, the people with brooms and buckets cleaning up in a toxic stew of chemicals, the rainbow of colors who are trying to create change through love. There are a couple of fund raisers I can link to that are legit, I know the people running them and trust that they will distribute to those who deserve it.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: I can’t count the times that I have said “Why are we not rioting in the streets?”
Mike in NC
The neo-Confederate senator from Arkansas — Tom Cotton — who’s the likely Republican presidential candidate in 2024, has called for sending in the military to quash the protesters. The GOP is dropping all pretense of not being a fascist organization.
yellowdog
@Redshift: DC isn’t majority Black anymore, only 40%, vs. about 70% in the 70s. Combination of a lot more Hispanics and gentrifying young people.
Kay
@MattF:
Of course he is. It’s the only work he does. Yesterday he was demanding to speak to the manager of the United States.
Liberals like the state officials who criticize him, like the mayor of DC does, but I prefer the state officials who treat him like an annoying, irrelevant 6th grader. I think that’s more insulting.
Gin & Tonic
@Seanly: Your comment editing window has to be in Text mode, not Visual, for the embed to work.
trnc
@trnc:
@Laura Too: Tried to edit my comment, but too late. I understand what you’re saying about the organized factions taking advantage of the legitimate protest.
Ruckus
@donnah:
This.
But maybe we should offer him a bankruptcy filing. He has failed at this the same way he’s failed at everything else, let him solve it the same way. The details of which are that he’s no longer president and for that he gets something something, rambling on for 20 pages with big words he’d never understand and in the fine print he’s banned from ever being in or speaking in public again but he gets a luxury apt in a federal facility in CO.
Laura Too
Great, now 45 wants governors to hump the legs of protesters. Look like “jerks” if they don’t “dominate” the protesters? WTAF??????
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in NC: Didn’t he go to Harvard Law? Did he get an F in Constitution or something?
Kay
@HumboldtBlue:
This is so smart. Obama did the same thing after Bush went AWOL on the financial crash. Bush just disappeared. The only person we saw was Hank Paulson. Obama stepped right in.
Bush, at least, had the excuse of being termed out.
Barbara
@Lapassionara: The book discusses the extensive pro-Nazi activities that occurred in the Los Angeles area during the 1930s.
Barbara
@Mike in NC: I don’t think Tom Cotton ever had a pretense to begin with.
Ruckus
@germy:
Well he is the leader of the all racism, all the time party, so, yeah.
Kay
Most governors are more popular than President Trump and the Trump Administration. They’re nearly all more competent. I would suggest they not take advice from the hackish, corrupt low quality hires in that administration. Stand up to him, or better yet, ignore him. He and his employees don’t work very hard. Give it three days and they’ll be on to something else.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Yep. He did win? an election after all, didn’t he……
Jinchi
Antifa?
He drove a tanker truck at high speed into a crowd of about 1,000 marchers on an otherwise empty highway. The video is pretty shocking (Youtube so watch out for Trump ads). Luckily the crowd could see him coming and scattered out of the way, otherwise he could have killed dozens.
WaterGirl
@Laura Too: We’ll do a special guest post whenever you put that together. I believe Elizabelle is also putting together a before-and-after post on Richmond, Virginia, which will also be a guest post.
If anyone on the front lines wants to do a guest post, let us know.
Laura Too
@Kay: Governor Walz is doing a good job and knows the laws. He was in the guard for 24 years and was a teacher. He is great at breaking it down, sometimes over and over. I’m guessing he listened politely, thought “WTAF” and went on about his planning for the day that he was already doing.
WaterGirl
@trnc: I used the wayback machine and snuck your edit in for you.
Jinchi
It’d be nice if audio leaked of these calls with the governors.
Laura Too
@WaterGirl: Thanks, I would love to. I have poured heart and soul in to the neighborhood for 21 years. It isn’t perfect but we are working on it. Anyone interested can google Angela Connely for a lesson in how to get shit done. She was told to wait her turn to run until the incumbent retired. Nope, and she got an army behind her and took the election. I was privileged to work for her. Her election night party was awesome. So yeah, these are the stories I want told.
Uncle Cosmo
@Lapassionara: “Seventy-five years ago, the largest anti fascist organization in the world defeated two European countries ruled by fascists. Made up of the US armed forces, the British armed forces, and a collection of Free French forces, Free Polish forces, and other allied forces
FTFY. Maybe it strikes you as pedantic, but IMHO waaaaaaay too many Murkins are under the misapprehension that our guys beat Hitler all by themselves, when in fact the Western Allies could never even have gotten across the Channel were it not for the Red hordes tying up several million German troops in the East.
Our countrymen need to acknowledge – if necessary, by having the fact repeatedly and relentlessly shoved into their smug faces – that the Red Army won the war in Europe. Not any of the other forces arrayed against Hitler. This is just a fact. And they might have won it without a single allied soldier landing in France. The primary contribution of the Western Allies to Hitler’s defeat was the stream of trucks, jeeps, & other supplies shipped to the Soviets via Lend-Lease – which they more than paid for in blood. (NB They didn’t need weaponry – they were quite capable of making massive amounts of excellent weapons in the factories they’d literally wrenched up from their western lands, sent east just in front of the advancing enemy, and rebuilt from ground up in the Urals.)
/rant
Laura Too
@Jinchi: Russian op? I was going to go with friends but I would have to bike and I knew if shit went down I don’t have the lung capacity to get out fast. I was right, they were teargassed and had to flee. They teargassed to get everyone to flee. They knew it was a tanker, they weren’t sure if it was going to blow up. We had seen the helicopters go with the water-but that’s been pretty common because of the car fires so did’t pay that much attention.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
Yes it is entirely possible and plausible that shitforbrains could die at any time, but I doubt he will. That’s the easy way out and while it doesn’t require him to do anything but stop breathing, it’s not in his nature. He always does anything and everything wrong, he always makes it worse for everyone else as he’s getting away. And it would be best for the country, and that is just not the shitforbrains way. Unless he could declare bankruptcy and walk away thinking he won, he won’t die and he won’t quit. And for all his faults, he knows he can’t do that, and he knows, once again, that he hasn’t won.
And mike dense would not be any better at this than shitforbrains.
Just Chuck
@trnc: A good (perhaps not the right word) part of me wants to see the police stations burn like matchsticks until the motherfuckers figure out that they’re accountable to the people. But the logical part of me knows that this tactic doesn’t actually do any good.
I have a good friend who’s a police officer, and he’s the mellowest, kindest, quiet-tempered person I know. But he knows where the rage is coming from, and agrees with me when I tell him that there’s a reason no one says”Fuck the Fire Department”.
Subsole
@germy: Is it actually possible these spongebrained poltroons genuinely have no idea that 55% of their fellow USians loathe them?
Like, they are such deliberately vile people I had to assume they knew.
They spent four years hurting us and laughing about it and they’re SURPRISED at the volume of venom?
Yeshua Hussein bar Abba, be a fence.
germy
@Jinchi:
audio:
Just Chuck
@Subsole: Dude, these are the people who’ve decided to appropriate the word “deplorable” for themselves. They not only don’t care about the disdain they’re held in, they welcome it.
Subsole
@Betty Cracker: Y’know the thing that pisses me off-
Actually, wait. Lemme back up.
One of the myriad indignities that has drifted up from this bottomless well of insults to God, nature, man and Euclidean reality to momentarily gall me no end before sinking back into the muck to be replaced by another facet of this man’s fractal assholery is that he never has an original thought. Ever.
Brian Kilmeade shits in his mouth, he chews it like cud, then spits it out onto his twitter feed.
Always. He always references some dumbfuck FNC race-pimp.
Like, seriously. We better fuckin’ multi-drone Rupert for this shit.
And his bitch wife.
And his bastard whelps.
Ugh.
How are y’all?
Subsole
@Just Chuck:
Yeah. Fair point. Shit’s just a bit much today.
Draco7
Something I haven’t seen come up in the comments: as some of you are aware, RW/neo-Nazi/white supremacist organizations have been recommending that their members join the police force(s) where possible. Minneapolis police have never not been racist and violent*, but there is a possibility that the murder of George Floyd was intended to be a trigger incident coordinated with one or more of these organizations.
What you see is an officer deliberately committing a murder knowing that it was being recorded on video. The officer could bet on no prosecution/conviction, but also accept disciplinary actions “for the cause”. The one thing I note is that the instigators within the protests were ready to roll on a short timeline. My experience from the protests during the Viet Nam section of the Endless War is that there were always embedded LEO provocateurs, but they were typically at the planned demonstrations as opposed to spontaneous.
*longtime former resident of Minneapolis’ Longfellow neighborhood, now in exurbs.
Matt McIrvin
@Just Chuck: Trump himself doesn’t welcome it; that’s the weird thing. He does what he does, damages and insults people willy-nilly, and he still takes it as a personal injury and outrage that anyone out there might not like him. He can’t connect cause and effect.
Taobhan
Donald Trump increasingly reminds me King Louis XVI of France in early January 1793.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
For all we see right now, some people don’t really know that this goes back a long time. Yes shitforbrains was a registered democrat for a few years, but he was raised by a slumlord father, in his image. He’s been a massive racist for a long time. And it isn’t coming home to roost, it’s always been there – the Central Park 5?
Ruckus
@Draco7:
There are a few of us here who think the same thing, even without the training or experience. It’s happened too fast, and too organized to not be part of at least a rudimentary plan. And with their magic leader filling the top spot, I believe that they think this is the/an ideal time to start a race war.
PJ
@Barbara: I remember the Mt. Pleasant riot.
planetjanet
@dmsilev: So why is Bush in this picture?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1356406/mediaviewer/rm875308032