Enough With The Cutesy Titles, People Are Dead: US Politics January 2021 pt 2

As for the class status of the Capitol insurrectionists; it seems to me that this particular strain of greivance politics cuts across class lines, and in the crowd were well-heeled suburbanites and working-class people Kevin Williamson would consider hopeless yokels, and that neither of these groups represented a "well in any big crowd of course there are a few" afterthought, they were both really there!

xpost There's cognitive dissonance and then there's maintaining a comfortable upper-to-middle class existence while actively attempting to destroy the facets of society that allow you to maintain that particular existence. It's a state of mind that I'm completely incapable of wrapping my head around.

Re: that Williamson piece— once again, and sorry to repeat myself, but it is simply *dangerous* to relegate QAnon, Trumpers, and etc. to the realm of "Cletus"-esque hillbillies, because for the most part, they're not.

― The return of our beloved potatoes (the table is the table), Thursday, January 21, 2021 10:45 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yep, they are rich white suburbans

― Überschadenfreude (sleeve), Thursday, January 21, 2021 10:47 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Why can't they be rich white hillbillies? You can take the hillbilly out of the hill, etc.

Existential boredom is a helluva drug.

xp

the entire concept of hillbillies is not helpful in any way

Apologies, and certainly agree that they were not rural working class whites.

JETHRO IS Q!

Barndomaniacs

i think the takeaway is that militant white supremacy is appealing to just about any white (and also not technically white!) person you can imagine across the class spectrum. as far as kevin williamson goes, rich or "respectable" conservative culture has to find a balance between keeping a toe in the white supremacy club and bashing poor people when it suits them. a game of strategic whack-a-mole. nro is the worst and i really wish people would stop talking about them or linking to them as if they should be responded to in any way.

but part of it is the "they have money and advanced degrees" pass that gets you into any conversation in america no matter how reprehensible your opinions.

replace "advanced" with "ivy league"

The Muslim ban is no more and I am grateful. Most people who haven’t been personally impacted might not get the significance and think of it as only “symbolic” but for us it’s significant. https://t.co/OXQGNnmCkq

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 21, 2021

Rep. Greene has not introduced her promised Articles of Impeachment yet. According to a GOP source in her district, Greene "thought it would be a lot easier than it is." https://t.co/k0Bk8cjpGn

— Charles Bethea (@charlesbethea) January 21, 2021

ahahahahaha

"I thought our desks had Impeach buttons"

now there's the news I want

any new executive orders?

These Qongresspeople are going to get chewed to pieces trying to galaxy brain their way through procedural minutiae.

not surprising, he's just gonna spend years whining about everyone being unfair to Trump

No one is above the law, but if Trump is targeted for destruction for reasons that look like revenge rather than justice, I'll be taking that VERY personally. I don't think I am alone in that opinion. Actions have consequences.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 21, 2021

yes, Scott, everything is about you and your shitty comic

Such a tedious child of a man.

"Actions have consequences"

Yes, ransacking the Capitol has consequences.

Who does Marjorie mean by "The Big Guy"? Boss Hogg? George "The Animal" Steele?

Ric Flair

I just found out that George "The Animal" Steele had a graduate degree in physical fitness education.

ahahahahah

I have no problem with REAL crimes being prosecuted so long as all of our citizens are treated similarly.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 21, 2021

xp and was an ILX poster!

I thought he had some kind of other degree.

Hmm, not sure now: After earning a bachelor of science degree from Michigan State University and a master's degree from Central Michigan University,[9] Myers became a teacher, amateur wrestling coach, and football coach at Madison High School in Madison Heights, Michigan.

Oh hey, I made a joke post about him once this is the thread where you impersonate other ilxors

Hey, that trick worked pretty well.

So is the idea of getting rid of the filibuster to hopefully lock into place new rules and laws that won't or can't easily be immediately reversed if the Dems lose the senate? Because isn't that what will happen, kind of like with the White House and executive orders?

Don't think Dems are worried about that if they have the Presidential veto, but the moment they don't....

my understanding is that there's a fairly narrow set of things that can be done by EO, and yes, they'll get reversed on day 1 of the next republican presidency. a lot of fiscal/budget stuff can be done with 50+1 by "reconciliation", but anything else requires 60 to break a filibuster, and that includes immigration reform.

basically they either need to convince 10(!) republican senators to vote with them on immigration reform, or get rid of the filibuster.

Let’s literally fuck around with getting rid of the fillibuster and see what happens it will probably be dope /nots

filibuster rules were invented by the senate and can be reinvented by the senate.

we should expect that if and when the GOP gets back in power, they will abuse the system as much as they can, and they will justify it all on vengeance against what the democrats did. that was one reason that the "nuclear option" was avoided for so long - the fear of provoking the GOP into a neverending ragestorm of "vengeance". somewhere in the last 4 years, it has become very, very, very clear that they are already in that ragestorm of vengeance, and that they no longer possess functional consciences. the nuclear option became the only option, thanks to them

Closing tiiiime

at this point we might as well do it but lord let's try and hold onto at least one chamber of Congress for the next decade

*pessimism alert*

i expect the GOP to take back house and senate in 2022

whether they destroy the filibuster or not

so might as well use it and try to save the country imo

house yes, senate no

actually, do i believe that? maybe i believe that democrats will retain house (due to totally manual, abacus-era district redrawing based on census) while the senate will swing back to good old mcconnell

xp lol, i came to the opposite conclusion, and now i'm lonely

Nonsense, there's two of you now.

one
has produced
two

Hits keep coming:

As one of his first orders of business, President Biden asks for and receives the resignation of Michael Pack as head of the Voice of America. Pack had effectively turned the VoA into a propaganda arm of the Trump administration.

honestly getting the loyalists out of positions they're not qualified for and de-politicizing national security roles is one of the big anxiety relievers for me

yep, plz keep those news bits coming, thanks

McConnell is threatening to filibuster the Organizing Resolution which allows Democrats to assume the committee Chair positions. It’s an absolutely unprecedented, wacky, counterproductive request. We won the Senate. We get the gavels.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 21, 2021

This is what comes from skipping a step.

Step 1: Win the presidency
Step 2: Keep the House
Step 3: Win the Senate
Step 4: Assassinate Mitch McConnell

Obstruction is a helluva drug

Glad to see that much of our democracy still depends on the whims of one fucking man. Great system America.