The Trumpocalypse gives Dems an edge in the Senate and maybe, just maybe, a shot at the House. So cough up a buck if you’ve got one.
Open Thread: Righteous Anger
I wasn't *emotionally* invested in Hillary until I found out she cold-cocked a dude for fucking with baby rabbits. pic.twitter.com/sP7Vi8jP3O
— Ahm Scary (@Ahm76) October 6, 2016
(Srsly)
As racism and sexism came to be considered impolite, a lot of Republican voters decided politeness itself was a problem.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 8, 2016
For decades, gays take the brunt of your "family values" shit and then you support this rapacious, mentally unstable cretin for president.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 8, 2016
PERKINS: "My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values" https://t.co/NMhGoZBazQ
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) October 7, 2016
“Issues like my ability to milk the angry rubes who can’t understand why beating up women / people of color / gays / their kids is no longer considered acceptable. C.R.E.A.M. for Jeebus!”
I cannot stress strongly enough that the man who runs **the Values Voter Summit** said this on Friday. https://t.co/yqwgmZ5ZDM
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 8, 2016
Evangelical leaders on Trump's comments: "locker room banter" https://t.co/xaU3q0lTao
— Betsy Woodruff (@woodruffbets) October 8, 2016
Please remember this next time some unctuous journalist talks about the political sacrament in this country that is "people of faith." https://t.co/WplMPwOWdA
— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) October 8, 2016
I usually assume they only pretend not to know better, but times like this I have to think maybe they are this fucked up https://t.co/HCrdS3tQhJ
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) October 7, 2016
Note from a hardcore religious-not-evangelical conservative Republican…
For those of you too young to remember, this is why Reaganites kept their distance from the evangelical nutbag wing of the party in the 80s.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 8, 2016
Or at least had the good sense to preserve the hypocrisy of ‘plausible deniability’.
at some point, those who've spent years demonizing President Obama have to face the fact that he's been a sterling exemplar of family values
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 8, 2016
No Takebacks!
Jim Newell has the news that John Thune is asking Trump to quit and calls it a turning point.
Thune is up for election this year. While it’s true that a Thune victory is pretty close to a sure thing, it’s not sealed. Thune faces underfunded, but qualified, opposition from Jay Williams. The two have two debates in the next week, and one more during the last week of the month. South Dakota is a tiny state (smaller than most Congressional districts). A lot of those voters are bible bangers. If Jay Williams is able to wrap Trump around Thune’s neck, Thune could be in a little bit of trouble.
If the reason Thune is calling for Trump to quit is because he’s running scared, what kind of insurance is this? He supported Trump through all of his other lies, racism, sexism, etc. Is Trump’s brag about his ability to sexually abuse any woman the bridge too far? Perhaps Thune is banking on some other terrible news dropping. Or he’s putting down a marker to be a somewhat reasonable Republican in the 2020 Presidential race.
Or maybe I’m overthinking this. If you’ve stood by Trump until October 8 and you’re up for election, all of your options are shitty. Death by firing squad or death by hanging is still death. Which one you choose is essentially a coin flip.
I Made This For You
To the surprise of no one who has been watching these frauds for the last two decades as I have, many evangelicals are sticking with Trump, and David Brody is spinning himself into knots, lashing out at teh liberals, and what not:
Joseph Smith is not amused
The first person to withdraw his Trump endorsement after last night was Jon Huntsman. That was basically instantaneous, and perhaps not a huge surprise if you know Huntsman. Today we have Mike Lee, Gary Herbert and Jason Chaffetz. Utah, Utah Utah. Mitt Romney never considered supporting Trump for an instant.
Anyone want to guess what these people have in common? Those old LDS TV ads were not joking. Nice matters a lot to Mormons. Trump is done in Utah. He should also worry quite a lot about other states with substantial Mormon communities, like Arizona and Nevada. He is probably ok in Idaho though. So there’s that.
Chat about whatever.
Hit Them While They’re Down
They’re denouncing, they’re appalled, and they’re uninviting him from their rallies. But their endorsement stands. With a month to go, your money can still make a difference in winning the Senate and the House. Give our winnable candidates some money to run a few ads about how much their opponent despises Trump, but still endorses him.
Certainly has been an interesting 24 hours!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2016
The unforgivable curses, a short guide
Some folks on Twitter and elsewhere have tried to defend Donald Trump, or at least minimize last night’s impact, by saying we already had all this on tape. He called Mexicans rapists. He called Rosie O’Donnell a pig. He said racist things about a judge, Miss Universe and a thousand other people. But the rest of the world has gone nuts about this? What is up with that?
To me the answer is pretty simple. There are curses that everyone more or less tolerates. Schmuck. Asshole. Turd face. Horse fucker. Even calling someone a murderer, rapist or son of a motherless goat won’t automatically get you shunned by society as long as you stay on the right side of slander and libel laws. But then there is a whole other category of insults. You know the ones. Fag is maybe the only one I can safely print, even just to discuss it. The rest you know by their first letters alone. C-. N-. Unless you are Tyrion Lannister then your reputation will not survive saying those. Something about those words makes them stand out from anything else you can say to someone.
I think an important clue is to look at what happens to a terrible ethnicity-based insult when the ethnicity goes mainstream. At one time being Irish or Italian had real consequences in America. Back in the day a vulgar term for Irish had weight. Those vulgar terms were a way to put someone in their place. It said you have privileges that they don’t. You can shut them out or hurt them. Can you imagine someone getting turned away from an apartment today because they are Irish? Of course not. That has a lot to do with why barely anyone even remembers the old insults. There is no threat there. The Jewish insults still have some weight. In related news, Twitter tells me that there are thousands of people out there who still have a weirdly singular hatred for Jews. Maybe millions. Meanwhile the twentieth century provides an indelible reminder that no amount of assimilation should make Jews feel entirely safe from threats. Saying the K-word today does not have anywhere near the impact of when I grew up (the local ritzy golf club started letting in Jews beyond its token one-family limit when I was in high school, in the early 90s). Nonetheless if you say the k- word today it will mean something, to me and to your reputation.
That is the one thing our short list of unforgivables has in common. They all imply a threat. Black people can still be turned away from a mortgage. In many places a white person can still expect the overwhelming benefit of the doubt if he shoots a black man in the street, where a black man would be convicted before any detective opens the case. A woman can be assaulted or raped at any time, and too often the justice system just heaps on the shame and abuse. I thought I was sufficiently jaded about rape and ‘justice’, until I found about the disgraceful state of rape kits nationwide. These are easy convictions. In many cases the perps are already in custody. In many, many cases catching the perp quickly would have saved three, ten or more women from being assaulted later.
Donald Trump did not ‘insult’ women or make ‘vulgar’ statements about women. He talked about making threats and then acting on them. He bragged that they had no defense against his assaults, and no recourse afterwards. Imagine that Trump called a black man the n- word and then beat him with a cane. Aside from being an anachronism in this age, would it be so different?
Donald Trump committed unforgiveable acts in his life. In 2005 he bragged about it. People may not get that explicitly, but fundamentally they get it. You cannot uncross this line.