So Speaker Pelosi is doing the right thing, as Senate Republicans refused to do what they should have:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday that the House will form a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, one month after Senate Republicans blocked an effort to form an independent, bipartisan commission.
“This morning, with great solemnity and sadness, I’m announcing that the House will be establishing a select committee on the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Pelosi said at a morning news conference, describing the day of the attack as “one of the darkest days in our nation’s history.”
“It is imperative that we establish the truth of that day and ensure that an attack of that kind cannot happen and that we root out the causes of it all,” she added.
Mind you, Republicans want just this so they can scream partisanship, but who cares. This needs to be done, and even in our post-truth culture, facts still matter.
I spend a lot of time wondering how we got here, and everyone has their pet theory, and in fact, everyone’s theory is probably right to some extent. Just so many things had to go wrong. The self-immolation of respected institutions (the Catholic church comes to mind), the internet turning into a force of misinformation and manipulation, as well as so much else.
Little things you might not even think of play their roles. I heard two people at a diner talking about UFC, and I just thought to myself, “how the fuck did this happen.” Why did we decide that taking the worst people you knew from high school, putting them in a ring, and then cheering and rewarding the most violent one was a good idea. Then have their spokesman turn out to be the least talented actor from NewsRadio and subpar comedian. Who then will become monstrously popular and turn into the political pied piper for people with Punisher tattoos.
Like- HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN? How did we turn pickup trucks, once the tool of farmers and day laborers, turn into a status symbol and political statement? Christ, you can’t even get a good light pickup truck like the old S-10’s or Ford Rangers or those old toyota and nissan trucks that didn’t even have names but ran for fucking ever. They were every where when I was a kid. There were trucks like them every where with “farm use” spraypainted on the side over the bondo and chicken wire holding the gate in place. Now it’s fucking 80k monstrosities everywhere you go.
ehh whatever
Alison Rose
Permanent mood
raven
I wonder what my 66 Chevy would bring?
zhena gogolia
I had to google UFC, NewsRadio, and Joe Rogan to even begin to have any idea what you were talking about. I used to watch NewsRadio every week, but I have no recollection of this guy, only Phil Hartman, Dave Foley and Stephen Root.
Baud
Mustang Bobby
To paraphrase somebody, no one ever went broke by exploiting the greed, fear, and paranoia of the American public.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Pretty close to home. . .you’re ok, no?
Old School
Woah woah woah. Andy Dick was in the cast too.
Redshift
I just hope they go full Benghazi on it, taking as long as it requires to turn over every rock, and incidentally dragging it out until the midterms to show the GOP the error of their ways for not having accepted the commission proposal that would have wrapped up by the end of the year.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I resent the fuck out of the Herrenvolk in this benighted shithole of a country. They’ve created a monster of the political class that would pander to them.
Basically, they’re my stupider trailer trash cousins.
zhena gogolia
@Old School:
lol
rikyrah
@Redshift:
Amen
MattF
I expected Pelosi to do this. Now Pelosi should name Cheney to the committee.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@raven:
That style of truck was awesome looking. I see some restored versions tooling around every so often.
zhena gogolia
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Oh, I googled it. I love those. ETA: I see them here too sometimes. We have vintage car nights downtown, and you see all kinds of cool cars when they’re in town.
zhena gogolia
@MattF:
I have a feeling she’s thought of that.
Jharp
I’ve been wondering since January 7th just what in the fuck the insurrectionists hoped to accomplish.
Did they really think they were going to overturn the election?
And it was worth risking prison for?
My PHD psychologist friend says untreated mental illness
WaterGirl
Republicans would be screaming partisanship no matter what we do, or don’t do.
Parmenides
The long run end to manufacturing employment that kept a lot of small towns alive. Fox news. And unending racial panic of seeing a black guy become president. Hearing white people will be a minority in 50 years. Unending racial panic. What is the most white identity to them? Farmer. But these people have never worked on a farm and the last family farms were sold off to agribiz 40 years ago. But they make enough money to borrow 80,000 dollars for a truck because the houses where they live don’t cost anything. Also, unending racial panic.
sukabi
How did we get here? One small step at a time….started in earnest the minute the government apparatus was tuned to think of the citizens as consumers, from there it’s been pedal to the metal….
Elizabelle
@MattF:
Liz Cheney does have some free time on her hands. Because: Republicans voted for that.
Go Nancy Smash.
kindness
I read somewhere that the Cadillac trucks that come in 4WD don’t have lo gear. So much for using them to tow something heavy.
zhena gogolia
@Jharp: This morning I was thinking of Putin smugly referring to it, and of how much he contributed to its happening. I can just see him watching it on TV and snickering.
WaterGirl
@Jharp: They thought they would be successful, and there would be no consequences.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: my god, what have you done?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Yeah whenever I venture into “pickup truck” country these days I marvel at how the zeitgeist has changed. When I was a kid the proudest pickup truck owner was the guy with the oldest, most beat up truck that was still running fine. Signs of the truck having done actual work were badges of pride. Nowadays they’re all spit-polished overpowered $80K monstrosities with not a speck of dirt on them.
Cameron
@Jharp: Judging by the whiny 4-yr-old response a lot of them had when they got busted, they thought Trump made them invincible.
Van Buren
Nixing the Fairness Doctrine plays a role. Close to half the country just listens to propaganda, no wonder they are indoctrinated.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You would have loved the 32 Ford that I was driving next to this morning. Not stock but not wildly or ridiculously modified, it was a 32 Ford that had brakes and an engine that ran far better and wasn’t loud. Sort of like a lot of the cars that my boss has, not as old but modernized enough to be drivable.
narya
Three things:
1. a Republican effort to discredit and dismantle government (starting w/ Reagan), in favor of profit, and in favor of mythmaking around own-bootstraps, accompanied by privatizing prisons and education (profitizing essential government functions is a Bad Idea)
2. militarization of the police
3. Russian interference (esp. over the last 10-15 years) with the intent to sow chaos, especially through social media, and increase mis/disinformation
That’s not everything, but it does all work together.
Major Major Major Major
They could at least have the common courtesy to wear silly clothes and staple a campy narrative to it!
misterpuff
All the light trucks have been moved out to Iraq, Afganistan and all theatres of civil conflict, where they become light cavalry with a big honking machine gun bolted to the bed.
Little mobile terror devices.
Jharp
@WaterGirl:
I guess so.
Trump has been one helluva drug.
And now Trump plays golf and sups at his luxury resort whilst the MAGA heads sit in jail and nary a peep about Trump hanging them out to dry.
How long can that continue?
Elizabelle
Parmenides and sukabi got there first.
Unfettered consumerism. Allowing Fox News/Rush Limbaugh as a consumer choice, without recognizing its destructive potential. Late stage predatory capitalism, combined with dudebros espousing libertarianism, because they don’t see the threat, or feel they can surf that tiger just fine.
Jager
@raven:
A restored 60s stepside sells for 30k plus in SoCal. My lawn guys just got rid of their ancient Toyota pickup, 326k on it when it finally died in their arms. They replaced it with a 22-year old F 150 with over 190k on it.
featheredsprite
Apparently these people have no sense of history. Did they have any idea how much physical power is needed to overthrow a government?
Ruckus
@Jharp:
Not sure there’s actually a disease in the book but your friend is likely correct. It’s a mental defect brought on by the concept of white power, conservative politics, and a political process that rewards money rather than substance.
Lapassionara
I have a little Nissan pickup with a bench seat and standard transmission. The cloth on the ceiling of the cab is beginning to sag, but otherwise it works like a dream. Strong enough to haul a yard of mulch.
Old Man Shadow
One of the things that irritates me these days is that now whenever I see someone driving with an American flag on their car, my first assumption is “racist asshole”.
I really hate that those fuckers have coopted the flag.
artem1s
@Jharp:
They thought they would do exactly what they had been doing in Michigan, Ohio and other state house protests all damn year long. Only they finally caught the car and came frighteningly close to actually getting hold of some Lie-iberal to hang or burn at the stake. And they did in fact get to live out their tough guy wet dream fantasy against a bunch of DC cops. Don’t forget that these half-baked schemes have been going on for a while now – including one to kidnap a governor and put her on trial.
Honestly with the some of the more radical militias, this shit goes as far back as Oklahoma City and Timothy McVeigh.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What’s the shock over UFC John when it was your generation that was enthralled with WWC? How is Rogan any less, crude and in your face than say Hulk Hogan?
The thing I find amusing about UFC was it was part of a reform movement in martial arts to sort out the poser BS from what is useful, and there is a lot of crazy dangerous BS in martial arts. But the UFC turned into its’ own over the top BS to the point it’s being criticized as utterly useless for self defense.
dmsilev
@Old Man Shadow: I get the same way whenever I hear someone talk about “the heartland”. No, just because your ancestors immigrated here in the 1870s and moved to the midwest to become farmers doesn’t mean that you’re “more American” than someone like me whose ancestors immigrated here 20 years later and moved to a working-class neighborhood in a city.
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Hi Ruckus. While some of these folks might rise to the definition of “mental illness,” I think a lot of it is just plain rightwing radicalism, now on steroids with social media.
Radicalization. And it was accomplished purposefully.
Ruckus
@Jager:
Not bad if you have to spend 40K to buy a stock one and rebuild it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m so old I remember when people were telling Biden he should go on the Rogan podcast.
Then again I’m also so old that I can’t remember if that was Sirota-types or Cillizza-types. Probably both.
Spanky
Used to be, in this country, that intelligence and a broad knowledge of subjects was celebrated and something to aspire to. Nowadays “thought leaders” on the Right are proudly touting their ignorance, and or hawking snakeoil or advocating shoving lightbulbs up your ass.
Frankensteinbeck
@artem1s:
This. These people are fucking cosplayers. They overran the capitol because the capitol was so wildly underdefended that they felt like they were at no risk. Conservative social media is endless threads of their carefully planned fantasy rebellions and proclamations of how manly and dangerous they are, then 99.99% of them 99.99% of the time sit on their ass and do nothing. In this case, they had a fantasy of overrunning the capitol. It was handed to them on a silver platter. When their targets weren’t handed to them, they milled around and took gloating selfies. I think we’re going to find every step along the line the same kind of ‘I like to fantasize about this happening but I know it won’t’ actions that all came together a hair’s breadth shy of disaster.
And because they’re cowards and would never have done it if they faced any pushback, it baffled them that they faced consequences later. Extra points that they believed Trump was their champion in the war of white supremacy, and when they did get in trouble, they knew he would save them. He did not. I hear the harder white supremacists like the Proud Boys are pretty pissed about that, actually.
Spanky
Also, stolen valor.
These moochers don’t want to serve anybody, but they’ll happily buy tactical gear and guns and that big-ass truck and pretend like tbey’re manly.
Patricia Kayden
I love how McConnell is still running the Senate and calling the shots. Thanks Manchin and Sinema.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patricia Kayden:
If this were true, there would have been no COVID relief package and none of Biden’s appointees would have been approved. We are in a far, far better position than if McConnell owned the Senate.
Poe Larity
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If there’s no middle class, we’re all trailer trash now.
But we can all dream big in our Raptors.
Jeffro
again with the “we” shit
The Republicans got here because they continued to double double double down on their outrageous smears, lies, and apocalyptic language re: Democrats. They got to this point because it’s easy to demagogue and whip up the rubes than govern and/or actually make a positive difference in Americans’ lives. They got to this point because they were willing to sell out 110% to the Kochs and Mercers of this world, who are genuinely crazy people, as well as the religious nuts, who are also crazy.
They stood for nothing, and drew no bright lines on what was unacceptable (devolving all the way down to donald fucking trumpov as the leader of their party, which still blows my mind!) and so now here they are – “staffing for comms, not legislation”, babbling FoxBubble wacko-isms 24/7, and standing ready to overturn legitimate elections all across this country next time around. But it’s they, not “we”.
Anyway, someone needs to take the needle off of America’s constantly playing “Look Forward, Not Back” LP and wake. people. up. We’re already coming up on the 6 month anniversary of 1/6 and the ringleaders have paid ZERO price for beating up hundreds of Capitol cops, for nearly overthrowing our government, for nearly getting dozens of members of Congress executed on the Capitol steps. Hurry the fuck UP and make public examples out of Gosar, Brooks, and the rest.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
How do you forget Maura Tierney & Andy Dick.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
Joe Rogan got something like 60 million from Spotify to podcast his bullshit. Meanwhile the musicians who are forced to play along with streaming services like Spotify get nothing. It makes me so mad.
Tuesday afternoon this jerk (later found out from Massachusetts) got on the same commuter bus home. The driver had to tell him sternly to wear a mask. He got on the bus carrying a clear trash bag full of clothes. He moved after the first stop to a seat behind me and as he walked toward me he pulled his mask down so I said something. Then he sat behind me complaining to a wicked redneck about wearing masks. The redneck said he thought it was stupid but the bus is strict about it. The jerk said he hates wearing a mask because it makes him feel like this is a third world country. He then asked the redneck lots of questions about places to camp, shelters, food banks and services. From his conversation and his trash bag, I gathered the guy is homeless. But the masks are too third world for him.
James E Powell
@Patricia Kayden:
You forgot to thank the voters of Iowa, Maine, Montana, and North Carolina.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spanky: The anti-expert, anti-elite element has been here forever.
Cameron
@Old Man Shadow: I get to see a lot of stars-and-bars when I go into downtown Bradenton. Nothing being coopted there, nosirree.
James E Powell
Who do we want for chair of the select committee. I feel like it has to be someone with major cred in the Beltway press/media.
raven
@misterpuff: Technicals
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: But not elected to power.
narya
@James E Powell: Schiff?
Matt McIrvin
@Jharp:
Maybe they’re playing the long game. They were never going to overturn THAT election. They might manage it with the next one, or the one after that. This has, historically, been how the conservative movement works–what’s laughable bugfuck insanity in 1964 wins three back-to-back landslides in the 1980s.
raven
@Jager: I’ve got a longbed fleetside with a 350, 3 speed Saginaw, rebuilt bed (that is just a tad caddywumpus) redone seat and it runs like a bat out of hell.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
That’s why I said it wasn’t in the book.
But complete unacceptance of reality is an illness.
gene108
I blame Bush, Jr. and his desire to depose Saddam Hussein.
People were united like never before in my lifetime on 9/12/2001.
A few months later, in early 2002, instead of pouring resources into Afghanistan, or going after al-Qaeda, etc., Bush, Jr. started lying about the imminent threat Saddam posed.
Bush, Jr’s ostensible goal was to prevent Saddam from getting WMD’s. His October 2002 speech to Congress was basically a threat, let weapon’s inspectors in or we will invade. Saddam let inspectors in. Bush & Co. had won the day.
Then, in April 2003, even after Bush & Co. had inspectors looking wherever they wanted the inspectors to look George W. Bush decided to actually invade Iraq and depose Saddam. Bush is the only one on Earth who truly knows why he made that decision, and he’s not going to give an honest answer.
But there had been incredible amounts of demonizing of opposition in the run up to the Iraq, and during the early days of the war. I think that’s when the real polarization happened. There was no way to have any kind of debate about charging into Iraq. Bush & Co. took a nation angry over 9/11/01 and harnessed that anger to get popular support to attack Saddam, as well as political opposition.
Channeling the anger against political opposition really set the stage for how Republicans operate now. Channeling incoherent rage is how they won back the House in 2010, and how Trump did so well in 2016.
We’ve never been unified on anything since shortly after 9/11/01.
If Republicans can be hurt by or gain from a terrible tragic incident, as we’ve seen with the deadly insurrection on 1/6/2021, Fox News, OAN, NewsMax, et. al. will work to make it justifiable to Republican voters.
I think it all goes back to trying to Bush & Co. successfully selling the Iraq War to the American people, despite all reason and facts going against them. Republicans have been creating their own reality and having their voters exist in it ever since.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@zhena gogolia: I think he was the handyman (small role)
Citizen Alan
@Old School:
Dammit, you beat me to it!
Spanky
@Ruckus: Serious question: Are members of cults considered to be mentally ill because they are cult members?
ETA not addressed specifically to Ruckus.
Kay
Bravo. Let’s hear from the other side. LONG overdue.
phein62
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: When I worked towboats back in the ’70s, one pilot, when he bought a new truck, would bring it down to the levee, load it up with riprap, and then drive it over the humps on the canal road to break it in. Hated having a truck that anyone would be afraid to scratch.
Citizen Alan
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
“Dumb Fuck in a Big Truck” is what I think every time one of the bastards cuts me off. Or takes up a parking space and a half.
Suzanne
It comes from lots of mediocre straight white men realizing that no one looks up to them, no one envies them, and no one thinks they are good-looking or cool. And they cannot attract the kind of women or salary they think they deserve.
laura
@James E Powell: Candy Alexander says hey! What an underutilized actress she is.
Spanky
@Citizen Alan: Around here it’s 4 spaces.
Diagonally. For real.
LongHairedWeirdo
Re: trucks, I’ve heard it said that a truck (and maybe an SUV built on a truck frame) had entirely different sets of regulation. For example, I’m nearly certain (and would welcome a cited correction) that trucks don’t have the same category as cars in the CAFE standards, and thus, it’s easier to make a more powerful, more polluting truck. (Taking bets: do you think those artificial testes are supposedly a way to “own the libs”? If so, should we suggest sticking crayons up your nose will own the libs? If not – wow, some brains no work good.)
How we got here is simple. The right wing media constantly promotes two messages:
Liberals are evil, and anything they like is wrong, evil, and likely an attempt at enslavement, and
Liberals all hate you – yeah, you! – because of whatever stupid, made up reason seems to make sense, but if you fling enough crap at a wall, some will stick, so others will try flinging that particular type of crap until it gets everywhere.
Hm. A bit of editorializing above, but I’ll stand by it.
You can’t hear someone rag on a person, or people, over and over, if you feel affection for that person, or those people. Still, if there’s someone who verbally masturbates a righty to an anger orgasm, orgasms can cover for a lot of flaws. Eventually, the little twinges of conscience subside, and you might not believe everything, but you *accept* anything. “Oh, I’m not saying Obama wasn’t born in the US; but I think it’s a *good question to ask* even though the answer is obviously, and trivially, “yes, he was born in Hawaii.” That is: a person is now able to listen to the most blatantly obvious slander, and just have a chuckle, because Obama is constantly being discussed in a negative way. (After all, Obama was considered a racist for saying that he wants a full, fair, investigation of a shooting. Oh, yeah, and the shooting victim was black, so Trayvon looked, in a singular, but highly meaningful, way, like a hypothetical son of Obama. “I want a full and fair investigation” is… not exactly what I think of when I think of racism. Remember, lots of them repeating the lie felt the same way.)
Finally, repeat a lie often enough, without reminding people you’re just being a trollish, shitposting, dickhead, and they start thinking you’re serious, and start repeating the lie, thinking it’s the truth, if they trust you – and they do, because you agree with other people they trust, on so many issues.
Since liberals are evil, and everything they say or do is wrong – well, there’s your Covid-19 response, anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-distancing, etc.. There’s your “enhanced interrogation found us bin Ladin, not some Obama intelligence operation!” There’s your “abuse of office, and obstruction of justice could *never* be viewed as impeachable offenses, except by *DEMONCRATS*.”
And since this has been how Republicans win power, for over 25 years now, it’s deep, deep in the culture. Anyone with any real wisdom sees the Republican Party really does need to be destroyed and rebuilt – but so many of the party insiders (like the oleaginous Cruz) have a sort of negative wisdom: “we don’t need to *do* good things; we just need good *press*!”
Martin
Get here? Shit, we never left. After 1860, they tried violence, then intimidation and used the law to stay in power. In the 60s we pushed back their legal tools, and they started to consolidate into one party, and where they didn’t have legal tools they had political ones, and now the political ones are breaking down.
The pickup trucks and all the rest is just signaling, sometimes to themselves, that they aren’t the villains here. The AR-15s signal the lengths they’re willing to go to – whether they have the nerve is another matter entirely.
The reason that it’s intensifying is that it needs to. Their numbers are waning. They’re struggling to even reach 50% nationally, and need Democrats to stay home to achieve that. The CRT nonsense is an effort to try and pull white democrats back to their side, but I doubt it’ll work. Time is running out and they’re losing. They’ll get more desperate. Once they lose this, they’ve lost everything – there’s no recovering cultural dominance, at least not nationally.
marcopolo
Has anyone mentioned monstrous and ever expanding wealth inequality yet? There’s a ton of money sloshing around at the very top that gets funneled in all kinds of ways into organizations/activities etc… that promotes division (keep the suckers fighting each other & they won’t notice us cleaning up) for the sole purpose of making it easier for the wealthy to hold onto (and increase) their wealth. Absolutely warps and distorts the very fabric of reality. Combine that with average folks are “just [a] simple farmers, people of the land, common clay of the new west, you know…morons.”
I was reading a couple folks discussing the collapse of local journalism. The gist to their thinking was the advent of cable news and the internet changed the dynamic of news being a product that was consumed & related to a geographic area (like a city) to one that is national/international. This means that in order to maintain audience news organizations are now doing coverage that is more based on an “ideological” bent because humans are dumb emotional animals who would rather read about something that happened in a place hundreds of miles away that resonates with them on that level than read/hear a story covering a local city council meeting or state legislative session which might actually inform them about their communities. The comic strip Pogo had it right, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
CaseyL
How far back do you want to go?
The Andrew Jacksonites, who believe government exists to reward family and cronies, and not to help ordinary Americans?
The Neo-Confederates upset that the South lost the Civil War?
The oligarchs upset that Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts?
The American Nazis upset that we fought Nazis in WWII?
They’ve always been around. They periodically take power and lay waste to what-we-could-have-been. I can think of many examples off the top of my head. Americans as a group have never been particularly smart or particularly good; too many of us are too easily taken in by charlatans and demagogues.
Trumpers aren’t new; they’ve always been with us.
They were the ones who thought committing genocide against Native Americans was an excellent policy; who thought chattel slavery was a good thing; who supported murdering union organizers; who cheered when Woodrow Wilson had the Bonus Army brutalized; who foreclosed on families during the Great Depression and created tens of thousands of internal refugees; who happily went along with Joe McCarthy in destroying institutions, lives, and livelihoods.
Every once in a while Good Americans get the upper hand on them. We were uncommonly lucky to have an almost uninterrupted spell of liberal legislative success through the 1960s and 70s. A lot of that was, I think, an aftereffect of WWII; not least of it, the GI Bill that allowed a lot of people to get good educations who otherwise would simply have “gone back to the farm.”
We’re in a bad place now. We’ve seen, up close and personal, just how lousy our fellow Americans can be, and how morally/ethically corrupt politicians can be. It feels so awful because it is “now,” and not something we read about in a history book.
But we did succeed in electing Joe Biden, and he has brought in an impressive array of talent that is doing great work – not as fast as we’d like, but pretty damn fast by any reasonable standard.
Ken
Didn’t I see recently that Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the US? The man behind the vaccine microchip is growing the potatoes for McDonald’s french fries.
Citizen Alan
@James E Powell: Andy Dick is repulsive, but what did Maura Tierney do?
Antonius
My lawn, they are on it.
Ruckus
@gene108:
Wanna bet there was a money issue or family issue somewhere in the not too distant past in the Bush family for the concept of the Iraq war? It was too personal. And without substance, as you pointed out. Because of 9/11 it was easy to cover up and blast through any substantive discussion that might have happened. And how the world has changed, from a point of terrorism to a point of a war of whatever someone wants to make it about.
raven
@Citizen Alan: That’s why I had mine painted flat black. I always want to use it as a truck, not a show ride.
BruceFromOhio
Reaganomics, firing the PATCO workers, Moral Majority, Newt Gingrich, killing the Fairness Doctrine, ending the assault weapons ban, Citizens United, Shelby County, gutting the VRA, untamed bullshit spewing out of social media, Russian bots, demise of small towns, manufacturing, ACORN, it’s a really long list.
Betty’s post below this one is an excellent sample of the combined effect in a very specific application.
satby
@CaseyL: Well said.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spanky: Andrew Jackson….
LongHairedWeirdo
@marcopolo: I’ll tell you, it’s not so much that some families have wealth, and it’s become a bit of a dynasty. The big problem, the *real* problem isn’t exactly wealth “inequality” – it’s that since the Reagan years, people have been reducing *spending* but not cutting *costs*, and taking the spending reduction as profit.
What do I mean by that? Well, instead of a delivery service hiring drivers, they hire contractors. The delivery *cost* hasn’t changed – it’s been shifted to the contractor, and the contractor will eat more of the cost. That isn’t just bad for the contractor; it’s bad for everyone the contractor would have bought things from.
Every time you hear “privatization”, you’re probably hearing “greedy investors licking their chops, knowing some of the workers will take it up the proverbial tailpipe, but ooh, just *look* at those juicy investment returns….”
That goes double for modern charter schools, though there may have been some good ones that good people tried to run.
West of the Rockies
I’m just amazed at how easily and with zero shame conservatives lie…
You pooped in the punch bowl. (Said Pelosi.)
No I didn’t. (Said the GOP.)
We have film.
It was someone dressed as me.
We have witnesses.
They’re lying.
We have DNA.
DNA is fake science!
Ad nauseam…
Central Planning
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Their idea of off-roading is cutting a turn a little tight and clipping the curb.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: He went to Law School.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jharp: You see, in their minds, once TFG is reinstated as President, he’ll pardon them all.
Repatriated
@Jharp:
In short, yes they did.
The rabble thought so because they didn’t understand how the process works. Sort of an insurrectionist “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” perspective.
The more organized cadres might have believed that they could create “facts on the ground”, likely through targeted executions, that would have the desired result. However, without the cover of an ongoing battle with Antifa and BLM, they couldn’t cloak themselves in the plausible deniability (that would only have needed to last a day or two) needed for the appearance of semi-legitimacy. Long odds before the fact, impossible without an outside riot/battle with counterprotesters to provide cover. They may not have realized this, though.
The politicos who green-lit it? Some were swimming in the Flavor-Aid, some were ok with trying it anyhow, and a few, like Barr, nope-ed out.
I have no idea whether Trump expected it to work, or even happen.
LeftCoastYankee
There was this Italian cat named Columbus who set sail for India on some Spanish ships. He got a little lost. It was all downhill from there….
Uncle Cosmo
Your middle-school American History teacher’s head just ‘sploded.
(It was, of course, Hoobert Heever…)
VOR
@misterpuff: A few years ago a small business, a plumber I think, sold his used pickup truck to a wholesaler. The thing somehow wound up being used by ISIS, I think, and wound up on a picture with his logo and phone number still on the sides of the vehicle. http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/14/us/terror-truck-lawsuit/index.html
CaseyL
@Uncle Cosmo:
OMG, you’re right! And all these years, I thought it was Wilson. Sonuvabitch.
Sorry for the ‘splody head.
Ruckus
@Spanky:
It depends on what the cult is about and believes. But often yes.
I know people in Scientology. Not all of them are obviously ill but some are. If nothing else they lack reasonable cognitive skills. There is a reason that it used to be called snake oil.
Selling something of no value whatsoever. Not everyone will be suckered in, but many will. John mentioned the Catholic Church in his post, made it sound recent that it has failed. It’s not. It failed long before anyone alive was born, it’s just taken a while for it to be obvious. As a non member of the Catholic Church, who attended freshman year HS at a Catholic owned and run technical HS, I can tell you I saw it rather clearly 60 yrs ago. And not just the school but the local cardinal was in on it. The fact that most of the students had been raised Catholic, most of them didn’t see it at all. I’d bet some of them do now.
The point of the above is that a true democracy runs against the structure of the world that we inherit from our forefathers. Making everyone equal in the eyes of power is not something that is fully believed, even in this country. If you doubt that last sentence, ask yourself why do many think that being black makes you less than human. It of course doesn’t, the difference in skin color is one chemical that all humans have in differing levels. That’s it. That’s the substance of the differences. Every other issue that anyone can state is different among people of the same skin color. And skin color is different among black people as well as non black people. We are all fucking human. Period. Full Stop. The differences are all illusions of bullshit. It doesn’t matter what language we speak, where we were born, the color of our skin, the shape of our noses, the straightness of our hair, we are all human. All what 9 billion of us. But some of us seem to like to believe bullshit. Like a system that somehow puts their completely stupid bullshit above other humans completely stupid bullshit. Believing that is what is insane.
Martin
@Parmenides: The family farms weren’t sold to agribiz. They still own them and tenant them out to people who are basically sharecroppers. They collect ¼-⅓ of the crop proceeds, pocket the federal subsidies, and continue to have their land appreciate in value.
So, they’re local land barons, their tenants do the work and pay for the truck, they get money from the feds, and they spend their time on the city counsel making sure they and their fellow barons stay in power. Some of them find themselves in Congress.
Omnes Omnibus
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: There are still places where this is the case. Mainly places where trucks are working vehicles.
There is a group of well off people who have decided that pretending to be good salt of the earth working class made good is the lifestyle of choice. They specifically reject anything that reeks of high brow, fancy learning. But they still want to advertise wealth, so it’s trucks not Volvos. And the Redneck Riviera condo not skiing at Stowe.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Pardon them? TFG will declare Democrats to be enemies of the state, therefore validating their actions as heroes.
At least, that’s what they’re aiming for.
West of the Rockies
@Ruckus:
I, too, grew up Catholic, but started doubting by no less than 5th grade…. So went my young mind: “So God is all-powerful and all knowing… he made man how he wished and knew how they’d turn out–after all, he made them–and is then SO PISSED about how they turned out that he drowned them all in a flood, including children and babies?
It all unraveled from there…
James E Powell
@Citizen Alan:
She starred in the TV show that we are talking about.
Also too, notwithstanding anything he’s done since then, Andy Dick was funny on that show.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@zhena gogolia: joe rogan has managed to outdo andy dick for being absolutely fuckedup.
how is that possible?
JoyceH
@Jharp:
Yes. A lot of them, particularly the QAnon people, really thought that. After all, this was The Storm! As had been FORETOLD! They expected the military to show up – on their side! Trump said he was going with them! So yes, they expected to win.
Why do you think they’re built a gallows? For a symbol? You can whip up a noose a lot easier if all you want is a symbol. You build a gallows because you intend to use it. They expected to be hanging Democrats by nightfall. (As had been FORETOLD!) Why do you think they made all those cheery, gloating selfies and videos? Because they were sure they were going to win.
James E Powell
America had a really good thing going in the aftermath of WWII. Then the supreme court & the federal government decided that African Americans were entitled to participate in it and benefit from it the same as whites. The majority of white Americans responded with, fuck it, if we have to share it with those people, then we don’t want it and we don’t want anyone to have it.
We are still in that phase.
ronno2018
I am not sure about current CAFE standards but small trucks and station wagon’s were treated in a manner in terms of fuel economy that made them hard to build.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/10/how-cafe-killed-compact-trucks-and-station-wagons/
“In 2006, CAFE altered the formula for its 2011 fuel economy targets, by calculating a vehicle’s “footprint”, which is the vehicle’s wheelbase multiplied by its wheel track. The footprint is expressed in square feet, and calculating this value is probably the most transparent part of the regulations. Fuel economy targets are a function of a vehicle’s footprint; the smaller the footprint, the tougher the standards are. “
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: thanks to aj daulerio, i had to see hulk’s wanger.
no joe rogan sextape… yet.
Mallard Filmore
@Old Man Shadow:
I used to think “noisy patriot”. Now I think “traitor”.
Ruckus
@marcopolo:
I’ve mentioned it repeatedly. It is the basis of conservatism and always has been – money, having and keeping more of it. Scrooge McDuck was fashioned around this concept and was created in 1947. But the concept was not new then, not in any way.
Wealth inequality will never go away. It didn’t under communism, that purported to be about wealth inequality screwing up everyone’s life. But there were and are wealthy people in any civilization, no matter it’s structure. It’s the difference in wealth that is most harmful, when someone like Jeff Bezos is worth lots of billions and a large percentage of people can only retire as paupers or close to it, there is a huge problem. When someone like SFB can amass even millions, let alone billions with the thinking ability of a rotten cantaloupe, there is something quite wrong with the picture on your TV.
Baud
@Uncle Cosmo:
We could use a man like him again.
gene108
@artem1s:
The 1990’s militias were rebranded 1970’s and 1980’s militant white supremacists. after the Feds started cracking down on the supremacist groups.
WhatsMyNym
@VOR:
That’s a lesson for everyone – don’t leave any sign of previous ownership, or data/paperwork on something you are getting rid of. It will always come back and haunt you. Even if you are giving it to a friend or relative.
brantl
@Old School: Still.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Boy the way Pat Benatar played,
Songs that made the MTV parade,
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days,
And you know where you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men,
Mister we could use a man like Ronnie Reagan again,
Didn’t need no welfare states
Everybody pulled his weight,
Gee our old Pinto ran great,
Those were the days
brantl
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: And short beds, that aren’t worth a shit for carrying much of anything.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Martin: That is, in fact, a perfect example of “reducing spending (by the owner) but not costs (let some other poor sucker pay them!)”
@West of the Rockies: One of the big points for me is, if God is in any way “good”, the idea of eternal torment is simply not possible. Could I imagine a “good” person wanting to see a person suffer appropriate punishment for crimes? Sure. But how could eternal torment be appropriate for *anything*? Maybe Hitler should suffer through 40 million lifetimes of torment – hell, make it 4 *billion* lifetimes – but compared to eternity, that’s nothing. Two the the power of googleplex ((10^100)^100) is 0% of infinity, measured in years or lifetimes.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
I had already read the bible twice by the time I got to HS. I was already a non believer in religion. I had to read it a second time to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I wasn’t. And not one person has been able to change that in many decades.
In theory it is a place to put something that one has to have when knowledge of what’s what is so thin. But while there is still a much larger amount of stuff that we don’t know about than we do, I think it’s possible to have a reasonable take on life. Of course that goes against history and storytelling, so that’s a tough sell. And to be able to believe it you have to reject a lot of the “known” from that history and storytelling. And that’s a lot of stuff.
West of the Rockies
@JoyceH:
Has not Q been radio-silent for months now? I wonder what the Morlocks make of that…
brantl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I come from a traditional martial art, and even old, and out of shape, I could kick most of those martial arts mongrels into the middle of next week.
brantl
@laura: Khandi Alexander
Just Chuck
@LongHairedWeirdo: Honestly, I used to debate theological questions like these, but realized that they’re pretty much like arguing which dance one should use to make the rains come, which ceremonial dagger to use to ensure victory in battle, or how many braids to put in the mane of one’s pet unicorn. Viewed out of the context of the ceremony and tradition one was brought up in, questions about the nature of God are just as goofy and meaningless as those.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL:
That wasn’t Wilson, Hoover.
Peale
@brantl: That sounds like a cocktail of cognac, cream and creme de Jolly Rancher.
Miss Bianca
@Spanky:
Honestly, I’m not sure that’s ever been the case in American history. With the possible exception of the Revolutionary leaders.
brantl
Dick Cheney, and daddy Bush didn’t take Saddam out. That’s all it took. Dick Cheney is a malignant little troll, and so is his daughter. Same As It Ever Was.
NotMax
@Mallard Filmore
“One of the great attractions of patriotism – it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”
– Aldous Huxley
.
Peale
@Miss Bianca: They were in that stage of the enlightenment that was enamored with the common sense of the common clay as opposed to the artifice of the courtiers. They were definitely on the “we’re common clay” part of the equation. Until they won. Then they fancied themselves the new aristocracy and ruined themselves trying to take on the trappings that they could ill afford. Hence they pretty much all died with debts galore. Pretending that your ancestors were from the great houses of Europe was more of a gilded age thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were never under any illusions that they were anything but aristocrats. And Hancock, Adams, etc., were of the same upper middle class that was seeking power in England and the same that would be the leaders of the revolution to come in France. Common clay, my ass.
Uncle Cosmo
@CaseyL: Direct your apologies to your former instructor, Mr Dumpty – the yolk was on him. ;^p
dnfree
@Cameron: you just made me think of something. Didn’t some of the native Americans fighting the US Army have a belief that some mysterious force would keep them safe and give them victory? Maybe that’s similar to what the Capitol invaders felt?
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Old LaSalle still running great, Arch? ;^p
Cameron
@dnfree: Ghost Dancers? Maybe the Q-shaman guy is the 2021 version.
Kathleen
@CaseyL: I know thread is dead but I have to say your comment was brilliant. I think you covered it all!
jackmac
Allowing Rupert Murdoch to become an American citizen has to be right up there.
Parmenides
@Martin: Then they became the agrobiz. I’ve been around farms a little and it is hard to make it on a medium sized farm of 25,000 acres. If their raking it in they have huge farms.
leeleeFL
@Cameron: No, they thought he would pardon them, that it would all go away, regardless of how it turned out. He said he had their backs, and then…..crickets.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Parmenides: Good list, but you forgot the misogyny. One of Limbaugh’s greatest hits was calling any woman who dare stand up for herself a feminazi.
Soprano2
We have a 1987 S-10 long bed pickup. We use it to haul wood and cans for the recycler. It’s black, and has a door and bed from a red pickup. Several people have tried to buy it from us, so there’s demand. They probably don’t make much off a vehicle like that, which is why they don’t make them anymore. We’ll have it until it dies.
Wapiti
@Suzanne: I was think something like this, and mediocre is a good term. More polite. It used to be that mediocre white men could find a job, though they might have to move west. Bosses can hire anybody these days.
And that’s just not fair. /mediocre white man
Suzanne
@Wapiti: Mediocre straight white dudes have lost their birthright, which was an elevated place in society. More money, more power, more status, more esteem, more stuff, relative to their peers. They are ANGRY about that.
The American Conservative literally ran a piece this week complaining about how they don’t get to see sitcoms starring fat dudes with hot wives anymore.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
They don’t have the return of a silverado or an f150 but they didn’t sell at a loss. They just didn’t sell enough to get the kind of return they wanted. So you might be right that over all it wasn’t profitable (enough). OTOH I worked with 2 people that drive S-10s every day. Both of them are towards the end of the production era that ended in 2004. one is an 03 and the other is about 3 or 4 yrs older.
The person that owns the 03 also owns a 1983 full size Chevy pickup that has 385K miles on it. I don’t think it has the original engine but it still works OK, not that I’d want to drive it far, but I did drive it 2 weeks ago for about 10 miles and it was still working fine, if a little bit loose in all the joints. Or also in places that aren’t supposed to be joints……
Quiltingfool
May be a dead thread, but hey! Another Trae Crowder (The Liberal Redneck) car chat. Today the topic is Fox vs. Military.
https://twitter.com/traecrowder/status/1408158544981942275?s=20
leeleeFL
@Mallard Filmore: Shithead, asshole, traitor! There’s more, but this is good.
evodevo
@brantl:
Yes..this…Ole Uncle Dick and the rest of the signers of the PNAC are/were imperialists. They saw Saddam as an easy target, and the billions to be made from taking over Iraqi oil fields and/or selling the oil field equipment that would be necessary to rehab them, were just the ticket, and it would make a good buffer against Iran…. It really never occurred to them that the sectarian divisions in Iraqi society would be a problem, or that there wouldn’t be enough corrupt/easily manipulated Iraqis to overcome it…(See: Ahmed Chalabi) And here we are today….
Ruckus
@evodevo:
They are conservatives.
They want to conserve the past.
The only part of the future they want only goes in reverse.
Also they can’t imagine the future or look forward with their heads firmly planted where the sun don’t shine and you have to wipe after use.
leeleeFL
@Suzanne: The salt of the earth types have fallen for” at least I’m not a N—–“since before the Civil War. The North should have executed or banished most all of the Rebels and given the plantations to the Emancipated Slaves. Now, we are left with nuking them from space, damnit!
burnspbesq
Speaking of trucks, I continue to believe that the F-150 Lightning is going to fail massively with retail buyers. It doesn’t make noise and it doesn’t pollute, which are the essential elements of the political statement that those of the toxic-masculinity persuasion need to make by owning a big-ass truck.
I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I don’t think I will be.
Another Scott
@LongHairedWeirdo: Good points.
I would add the explosion of leasing that started around the 1970s. (Seemingly) Just about every large company was selling their plants and equipment and then leasing them back. Undoubtedly, the high interest rates at the time (and the deductability of interest expenses) helped pushed corporate America in that direction. They were probably also hoping to take a page of IBM’s and Xerox’s playbook – don’t sell the computers/copiers – lease them. It’s like “Rent to Own” furniture – it costs vastly more over time, but the monthly payments are small. Plus, you effectively lock-in the customer for years.
As Dean Baker often reminds us – we have the economic system we do because of the choices our representatives make. We can change the system to be fairer and more equitable – there’s no law of nature that says the top 1% should get almost all of the economy’s benefits for decades on end…
On JC’s topic – I agree with others that it’s been going on for a long time, and those elements of US society have always been there. It’s much, much easier for them to find each other and act together now than in the past. My hope and expectation is that 1/6 was a high-water-mark for them for a few decades at least.
But we can never get complacent and let our guard down. All progress is temporary without sufficient support.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Wasn’t Washington the richest man in the country at the time? His wife’s fortune plus all the land he owned in Ohio and elsewhere.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
It will sell enough to make it worthwhile to build and as gas and diesel get more expensive they will sell to the market that doesn’t jack them up and put on loud exhaust. Those are the lost market folks. I know people who drive them without jacking them up, no big wheels and tires, no loud exhaust. Those who do are the ones you notice but there are a lot of the others around, at least where I live now. I worked with a guy who has a loud one to drive back and forth to work and another completely outfitted for off road racing, not even 4 wheel drive. Most of the ones jacked, stacked and loud never see dirt unless it falls out of the sky. A 12 in lift and 33in tires makes it look offroady but the center of gravity is way too high to be stable. So drive off road? Get it dirty? What are you insane?
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: I think that is correct.
Feckless
Yes useless Nancy Pelosi doing something now that would have been useful 5 months ago f*** her. She’s as much to blame as Trump
Geminid
@leeleeFL: If Grant had executed twenty-five thousand Confederate soldiers at Appomatox (and he never, ever would would have done this), the troops confronting Sherman in North Carolina, and those to the south and west, would have dispersed and then murdered every last Black man and boy they could find while on their way home. U.S. cavalry would have eventually have hunted down the confederates, but they would be too late. The lives of 25,000 white soldiers would be traded for the lives of 250,000 Black men, and those plantations would have been inhabited by women only.
But like I say, Grant would never have done this, and neither would Sherman have. It would be more realistic to speculate about what a longer lasting and thorough reconstruction would have accomplished. In particular, what if the Confederate states had no say in the 1876 national election? Or the 1880 election? With willing Black enlistees, the U.S. Army could have maintained effective military control of the south for decades if required.
Panurge
I spend a lot of time wondering how we got here,…
We WERE BROUGHT here, mostly, by an unrelenting, comprehensive, full-court-press propaganda campaign on the part of the So-Called Liberal Media, including (maybe especially) Madison Avenue, lasting literally four and a half decades, maybe more. People talk about advertising’s ability to shape consumer appetites, but it seems they rarely address its ability to shape the culture itself in the way that movies, TV, and books can, maybe even more so. And the advertising industry, apparently, is very conservative in their overall outlook.
Somebody with money and power WANTED UFC to be a thing.
…and everyone has their pet theory, and in fact, everyone’s theory is probably right to some extent.
My pet theory is that this is really about repealing the ’60s. Thought experiment: What if everyone in this country was white? Would we still have McCarthyite conservatism? Yes, of course. You put up a straw man and encourage your constituency to knock it down. It could be anybody. It could even be white guys if they’re not sufficiently compliant. That’s what the ’60s were all about, and the more you repeal the ’60s, the more you make the conservative movement’s job easier. It’s all about selling ways of being, as well as a team-sports heuristic where people adopt “the politics for people like me” instead of thinking about what’s best for the country.
Now for my little nit-pick/personal issue: If reactionary forces (and the panicked progressive forces inadvertently enabling them) hadn’t re-instituted the Haircut You DFH as the default for males soon after Reagan became President, we might not be here. (I say this even though I know there were some long-haired guys in the group storming the Capitol on 1/6; the cultural issues are kind of complex and somewhat contradictory, but if you think of politics as coalitions against as well as team sports things will become clearer.) It’s not for nothing that conservatism has this obsession about Real Manhood and what’s appropriately masculine. The whole conversation we’ve been having about “masculinity” over the past quarter-century is designed to produce a conservative resolution, or at least to cater to one.
If I could only solve one problem with the culture of politics in this country, it would be banishing the sense that there’s such a thing as REAL MAN’S POLITICS. Plainly conservatives believe (and want other men to believe) that they’re engaging in Real Man’s Politics. Get rid of that and watch so many other problems get resolved.
Panurge
@Feckless:
Why is it useless now, drive-by? Boy, with liberals like these…
Kirk Spencer
Way late, but wanted to respond to this
@Jharp:
In simple, they expected to win. They had two indelible myths supporting them. First, the 3% myth – what years ago i was calling the Gideon principle. The belief that a handful of truly true believers will overwhelm their foes. This intersected with the myth that liberals can’t fight. Not won’t, can’t. In their myth liberals don’t own guns and never serve in the military.
This didn’t change their minds, by the way. Which is why I expect a similar try in the next handful of years.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Forget it, Mr. In Glendale CA. We’re talking about people who blame Obama for not preventing 9/11.