US Politics November 2017

i don't give a swift shit about weighing up the relative merits of pence and ryan, i want this piece of garbage gone

Gonna pass the Senate: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/29/senate-republicans-tax-plan-votes-267923?lo=ap_c1

Trump's simian behavior has real-world consequences beyond the legislative

Sure. So in balancing the different nightmares, it's likely they come out somewhere near equivalent.

(unless we get nuked next week)

Morbs…otm?

lol the tax plan was never in doubt

I'll declare it right now, there will be no backlash, nothing's mattered for 2 years now

― frogbs, Wednesday, November 29, 2017 9:04 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

And see, that is almost the purest distillation of what I fear will happen the longer he's allowed to occupy the big boy seat. How long will it take for people in general to start behaving in kind? If the president can just do and say whatever without ever suffering any consequences, why don't I give that a try?

What fucking incentive do we have to aspire to any higher ground when the POS running the country demonstrably gives zero shits about anything or anyone but himself?

it happens; a recent president normalized drone wars and on-demand surveillance

xp

I don't really get why anyone pays attention to Trump's tweets tbh, he's just trolling the opposition/riling up his fanbase. outside of the legal ramifications (which are all, generally speaking bad for him) seems like the wiser course of action is to ignore them.

the fallout from this will perhaps further weaken and distract teresa may a little bit, so there's that

checking out the account of the person who he retweeted, the britain first deputy leader, this morning she's been interviewed by CBS, BBC. probably more. so yeah, lots of publicity for this person/group that i had never heard of until i woke up today. mission accomplished for trump

the POS running the country demonstrably gives zero shits about anything or anyone but himself

enh that pretty neatly mirrors how american empire has felt about pursuing its interests for pretty much forever

the logical endpoint of exceptionalism

gonna leave this here (again)

http://coreyrobin.com/2017/02/15/stop-freaking-out-about-pence/

I don't really get why anyone pays attention to Trump's tweets tbh, he's just trolling the opposition/riling up his fanbase. outside of the legal ramifications (which are all, generally speaking bad for him) seems like the wiser course of action is to ignore them.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 29, 2017 10:09 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The problem being that every tweet you ignore is a tweet that's stoking the fires of who knows how many hate-fueled homunculi. At the very best, it normalizes the internet comments section as a legitimate form of discourse.

At WH, @PressSec defends Pres Trump retweets today of videos purporting Muslim violence saying "these are real threats we have to talk about." Whether the videos are real or not, Sanders says "the threats are real - no matter how you look at it." pic.twitter.com/K8JMqHctp5

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) November 29, 2017

WTF UGH

from the Robin link:

Second, it makes no sense to think Pence is super effective and powerful, on the one hand, yet has simply suffered the unfortunate happenstance of being stymied by Trump. If Pence were such a great politico, he would be making his mastery felt, in spite of Trump. Nothing suggests that he has. As far as we know, the guy is just a standard right winger with a granite face. He may be really good at what he does, but before we freak out about him, let’s have a better sense of his political potency and efficacy.

otm. Trump won because he's unique. Pence is a nothing. He may sign horrible legislation, but we expected it from Trump in January too.

yep, the only thing of substance I can even recall Pence TRYING to do recently was get McCain over the line on ACA repeal, and he failed miserably.

What fucking incentive do we have to aspire to any higher ground when the POS running the country demonstrably gives zero shits about anything or anyone but himself?

how many people do u think take their moral cues from the president of the united states? ime most ppl consider themselves better people than the president no matter who the president is at the time.

Mordy is correct here ime

tho I do think Trump's dgaf-ness will embolden future corrupt political candidates

yeah i mean bc of Trump it's been easy to forget how much people despise Mike Pence, and also how empty and dumb and dull and (quite fortunately!) uncharismatic he is.

How many awful people have become more comfortable about proudly expressing their awfulness over the past year? How many more do you think will follow within the next three? And do you honestly think that Trump's running commentary has no direct effect on that phenomenon?

remember that October article in The New Yorker? His own party thought he's a bag full of old cheese before he hooked up with Trump.

How many awful people have become more comfortable about proudly expressing their awfulness over the past year? How many more do you think will follow within the next three? And do you honestly think that Trump's running commentary has no direct effect on that phenomenon?

― Ripped Taylor (Old Lunch), 29. november 2017 17:41 (fifty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Roy Moore for instance seems to have taken his cue from Trump.

roy moore pursued those girls decades ago!

And again, suffering no consequences.

It's not as if Trump's bloviation is going to magically make people racist sexual predators. It's just going to embolden people who already tend toward shittiness by demonstrating that they can maybe get away with letting their id do the driving.

ppl may use trump's behavior as an excuse for their own but ime it will be negligible. ppl don't need a poorly behaving president to behave poorly themselves and presidents have done abominable things forever. i don't really buy the "normalization" meme at all.

i don't think too many people take their "moral cues" from trump, not directly at least. i think mordy is right that most people consider themselves better than trump and think his actions are beyond the pale. but that leaves another 100 million americans or so that don't think he's a unredeemable piece of shit. for those people, when he does things like he did this morning, he stretches the bounds of what is permissible behavior.

if you don't believe it, just listen to religious radio in a rural area in the midwest or south. things are getting really fucked up, and the feeling of decline is visceral

He has a whole new legions of fans among Britain First followers and others who think it's OK to murder politicians who are traitors to Britain and the white race.

The President of the USA is on our side! God Bless America and pass the ammunition, let's kill another female MP!

As a reminder, there have been terrorism cases where RTing extremist propaganda can be the basis for a material support investigation.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) November 29, 2017

roy moore pursued those girls decades ago!

― Mordy, 29. november 2017 17:46 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As was the case with Trump and his assaults. I was talking about the way they handled the allegations coming out.

i promise u donald trump did not invent denial

Cool. So if the only thing Roy Moore had ever done was deny the allegations, then that would be relevant

Refusing to step down, the attacks on the fake news media, the 'whattabout' and 'even if...' It has all been textbook Trump and different from how Todd Akin handled his scandal.

It's taken less than a year of Prez Trump for people to be all 'come on guys, let's chill, this is just business as usual for the Evil Amerikkkan Empire, just ignore the goof in the White House retweeting hate propaganda, same as it ever was'. It's pretty rad.

what would Woodrow Wilson have tweeted

how many people do u think take their moral cues from the president of the united states? ime most ppl consider themselves better people than the president no matter who the president is at the time.

i'm totally worse than obama, except for the bombing

your bombing was much better

what would Woodrow Wilson have tweeted

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 29, 2017 1

I shudder to think!

but Wilson and Nixon would've self-censored. Give Trump credit ("I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue") for knowing he doesn't have to.

that's true

Let's ask him!

The word always was that Lauer had girls on the side and God help anybody who talked.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) November 29, 2017

My mother was even doubling down on the Pochahantas comments, so I cannot wait to hear what she has to say about BF *dies*

It's just going to embolden people who already tend toward shittiness by demonstrating that they can maybe get away with letting their id do the driving.

― Ripped Taylor (Old Lunch), Wednesday, November 29, 2017 10:46 AM

The boldness and willingness to be shitty is definitely trickling down and infecting previously mild-mannered people. My mother broke my heart at Thanksgiving last week when she said all those NFL protestors should be thrown in jail. I mean, she's an 85-year-old white southerner, she was already a racist, but she's willing to preach it now.

Ugh, exactly that. Why hide your hateful feelings like you have something to be ashamed about when the president clearly supports you and people are holding rallies and proudly saying what you're thinking?