Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

Doc Casino totally otm. Saying dumb reactionary bullshit is fine when you're a cartoon reality star but this dude is going to be president and that's seriously terrifying. Like hearing your dad say, "when I was your age I used to fuck broads like that all the time!!"

I guess legislation that has a reasonable chance of passage and ending on the president's desk for signature scares me more than our moron president sharing an opinion on Twitter.

apropos of nothing - how long before Alex Jones turns on Trump? Dude's whole schtick is built on being the opposition, I can't see him carrying water for an actual regime

I guess legislation that has a reasonable chance of passage and ending on the president's desk for signature scares me more than our moron president sharing an opinion on Twitter.

yup. keep yr eye on the ball here people, it's policy that matters most of all.

apropos of nothing - how long before Alex Jones turns on Trump? Dude's whole schtick is built on being the opposition, I can't see him carrying water for an actual regime

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:38 PM (thirty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are enough scapegoats for people like him to oppose

but they aren't in power

like, his whole bit is about secret conspiracies at the highest echelons of power - things "they don't want you to know" - that dynamic kinda doesn't work if you're tacitly supporting the most powerful person on the planet.

alex jones can just spend more time on things like planet x and the treasonous liberal opposition, who made a deal with the reptilians

did you guys post that chris hedges thing that someone posted on my facebook? i kept expecting to hear the star wars theme at the end of that. the rebels will be our hope!

long story short: the renegade sculptors will save us in the future.

― scott seward, Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:35 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I haven't read it, but I find Chris Hedges to be a complete waste of time. Depressive and demoralizing harpers mag bullshit.

And just as only a confirmed anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could go to China

was expecting exactly this line from exactly this newspaper but not before the inauguration :(

we need a caption contest. check, please!

https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15230707_10155332447897137_533184752526472410_n.jpg?oh=6703e3be2c6e27853b09841c506d418a&oe=58C0494C

"these are the buoys in the shipyard of flavortown"

hahaha

I'll repeat: they're not drinking wine, that's a bottle of sparkling water in the wine bucket. Ugh.

How much did he pay the photographer for that shot?

amuse-douche

p sure those are Romney's own balls on that plate

the abject public humiliation of really rich people is so much more bearable than any other style. look at sad ol' mitt romney, eating a really nice dinner at fancy restaurant in manhattan. then he's going to have to figure out how to accept some cabinet level position in a way that doesn't make him feel like such a hypocrite. poor guy, hope he comes through this ok.

I hope they both die in a fire

I do have to wonder what motivates him -- he's rich as shit, has been a governor, and is probably never again going to be positioned to be president no matter what, so what does he get out of this? Surely he could refuse and live out his horse-dancing days in peace?

it is a pretty incredible photo

Drinking water out of wine glasses looks fucken stupid

there's your friggin' banality of evil right there too. those schmucks are gonna end the world? doesn't seem fair really.

so what does he get out of this?

he gets to go farther than his father

it's Tic Tac time

Drinking water out of wine glasses looks fucken stupid

that's no ordinary water.

that's Kona Nigari Water, served neat

Idk I think the president-elect spouting off nakedly fascist ideas about how to deal with political dissidents and enemies is seriously concerning even if it's not ''legislation'' or ''policy.'' Insert argument about normalization here. I spent a year hoping we were shifting the window leftwards on what things can be said, discussed, bandied about as viable and familiar solutions - by dads in the street, by newscasters, by sitting politicians at whatever level. Now we look ahead to a fascist turn in all areas. It will take decades to even begin to undo the damage to common understanding of what is beyond the pale in a free society. High school debate topic: okay, y'all argue ''pro'' on sending people to Gitmo for criticizing the troops. Tonight on Crossfire: felony punishment for protestors who use profanity when discussing the president, good or bad idea? Placing BLM on the terrorist watch list: well-intentioned but overreaching, or necessary evil?

Like between this and the Muslim registry idea it's just.... fuck. Obviously much of this is not exactly new (see: Patriot Act, etc etc) but these words matter and are not just a distraction from the other terrifying things Trump is doing elsewhere.

i guess the diff is people kinda liked his dad(?)

who has a non-negative opinion on mitt romney other than "eh"

idk romney taking state means Giuliani or Bolton or petraeus don't get the job which is maybe the strongest public service he's done in his career.

Idk I think the president-elect spouting off nakedly fascist ideas about how to deal with political dissidents and enemies is seriously concerning even if it's not ''legislation'' or ''policy.'' Insert argument about normalization here. I spent a year hoping we were shifting the window leftwards on what things can be said, discussed, bandied about as viable and familiar solutions - by dads in the street, by newscasters, by sitting politicians at whatever level. Now we look ahead to a fascist turn in all areas. It will take decades to even begin to undo the damage to common understanding of what is beyond the pale in a free society. High school debate topic: okay, y'all argue ''pro'' on sending people to Gitmo for criticizing the troops. Tonight on Crossfire: felony punishment for protestors who use profanity when discussing the president, good or bad idea? Placing BLM on the terrorist watch list: well-intentioned but overreaching, or necessary evil?

Like between this and the Muslim registry idea it's just.... fuck. Obviously much of this is not exactly new (see: Patriot Act, etc etc) but these words matter and are not just a distraction from the other terrifying things Trump is doing elsewhere.

― walk back to the halftime long, billy lynn, billy lynn (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, November 30, 2016 1:03 PM (twenty-eight seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree w/ this

its.... so fucked up

High school debate topic: okay, y'all argue ''pro'' on sending people to Gitmo for criticizing the troops. Tonight on Crossfire: felony punishment for protestors who use profanity when discussing the president, good or bad idea? Placing BLM on the terrorist watch list: well-intentioned but overreaching, or necessary evil?

tbf these all seem p much in the rich tradition of American high school debate topics, going back as far one cares to look. I'm not saying that's a good thing, and this is def a step back in the national discourse, but it's not like there's some golden age where dissent was uniformly respected and the threat of the gov't killing you was remote.

xp

Japanese internment camps, COINTELPRO, previous Muslim registry - there's precedents for all that stuff. the discourse normalizing extreme and ridiculous "solutions" is bad, no doubt, but it's not unprecedented.

Xpost photo was referred to upthread as Lynchian, and it certainly is, and then I get back from lunch and open up my newsfeed to this horrifying pic of Giuliani, which looks like Robert Blake in Lost Highway.

http://s259.photobucket.com/user/yodelagogo/media/giuliani.png.html
https://media2.giphy.com/media/2zOEcqG4EuvF6/200_s.gif

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/giuliani_1.png

Having a president and his cronies wilfully spread confusion and paranoia via hundreds of thousands of viral "fake news" articles, however, is a new ripple in the history of American authoritarianism: it shows his naked disregard for the principles of constitutional governance.

that is a new one yeah

I'm sure Nixon would've done it if he could have

You don't need to whitewash American history to recognize that Trump's rise is a remarkably fucked up developmeng that threatens to undermine everything worth preserving in our society.

Yeah Nixon was a nefarious dirtbag. He at least felt the need to try to hide it though. Trump just makes up his own script and scorns any sort of accountability, Big Brother style

that's all true. I just don't feel compelled to spend a lot of time worrying about what he's tweeting or whatever. I don't want to be complicit in ceding power to the medium or his use of it. The sooner a skepticism about shit people see on twitter/facebook/etc. is adopted as a cultural norm the better imo. So I'll treat it as what it is: noise designed to distract.

xp

okay, that's better. thanks, internet.

https://scontent.fbed1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15253385_10210167664041750_6738994999794603389_n.jpg?oh=ecc50c6708913528a8f2202e2a0fea4f&oe=58AEF49D

https://i.imgur.com/RjNN4uu.jpg

mitt with the "i picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue" face

mitt's all like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think Trump is doing something under the table to Mitt, the kind of thing only stars can get away with

That lighting makes it look like they're eating little stacks of gold coins.

https://twitter.com/blakehounshell/status/803821372006875137

wow, incisive tweet

Get someone who can do both

I guess legislation that has a reasonable chance of passage and ending on the president's desk for signature scares me more than our moron president sharing an opinion on Twitter.

probably would happen with any ol' Republican president though