U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

I mean, why not?

Rahm Emanuel weighs bid for DNC chair

I guess it's time to stop thinkin' about tomorrow, because it'll be here all too fucking soon and it's written somewhere that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof".

America to Democrats: “We ARE going back”

Democrats to America: “What the fuck do you want from us?”

Rahm is dying to hoover up all the troops who get tossed out by SecDef Fox News

America to Democrats: “We ARE going back”

― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Friday, November 15, 2024 5:26 PM bookmarkflaglink

sadlol

Rahm is dying to hoover up all the troops who get tossed out by SecDef Fox News

The bankers have chosen a new Treasury Secretary https://t.co/pK6TcZRwv8

— Joe Colangelo (@Itsjoeco) November 14, 2024

pretty good joke, but it should be white smoke, shouldn't it?

https://i.imgur.com/eTd11YP.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/eTd11YP.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/rwF4J9M.jpeg

5 kinds of pills for the big guy?

Those are little glass ketchups and mayos.

Love forcing Mr. alt-health RFK Jr to eat McDonald's from the jump. You signed yourself up for obedience and humiliation.

oh! ok thx
xpost

I think the white jars are tarter sauce for the Filet-O-Fish he has there

https://defector.com/what-the-fuck-is-a-vaccine-skeptic?giftLink=118745b23578c04cb33e2e91c3ac8ced

^^^ excellent short piece, thanks.

he preferred what he learned from a 25-second TikTok video made by a spiral-eyed homeschool casualty who'll be hospitalized next month with an illness that hasn't sickened a human being since the Bronze Age

Pretty good turns of phrase here

the art of invective has flourished in the age of the internet

It’s worthy of David J Roth, the master of such invective

https://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/print/8/8/break/images/artworkimages/medium/3/david-lee-roth-eatem-and-smile-steve-zurick.jpg

From Wall Street Journal: But the visit also highlighted Biden’s unfinished agenda. Early in his administration, the White House promised to provide $500 million over five years for Brazil’s Amazon Fund, which seeks to protect millions of acres of forest. But the U.S. has only given $100 million, including $50 million announced Sunday.

Musk every bit the dork who knows how to use a computer so he can be in the club

#resistance

NEW

On MSNBC, @morningmika and @JoeNBC say that they went to Mar-a-Lago this weekend and met with President-elect Trump for the first time in seven years.

Mika says that despite “profound disagreements,” they agreed with Trump to restart communications. pic.twitter.com/7rZwQkleWJ

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 18, 2024

least surprising thing ever

I think I’m just beyond surprise now. Hell, Galactus could show up across the street from my house and it wouldn’t be a shock.

I can’t even hate watch those clowns anymore very sad

lol honestly

I thought this was a joke but it actually happened: Trump beat Harris among pretrial detainees in Chicago’s Cook County jail. It was a 96-point shift from 2020. A total blowout. https://t.co/IbZ3TLvH60

— Asad🗽🍎 (@AsadFromNYC) November 18, 2024

XP I feel like that's the temperature of the nation or something? Speaking strictly for myself here, but looking at my Facebook memories and seeing all the protest stuff I was posting 8 years ago (and
then also being reminded of what my friends--both irl & online--were doing at the time) vs. the slim amount of same that I see today, other than from the usual suspects--and that's basically what they do 24-7.

the "but he's a felon!!!" campaign winning again

yeah local news reported on the Cook County Jail precinct going for Trump. it's the one circled on this map.

https://i.imgur.com/YEyQ8VW.png

I think everyone is:
A. Still stunned
B. Eight years older
C. Maybe have to be a little careful because their careers have changed and it feels riskier
D. Possibly resigned and hopeless
E. Have abandoned social media or this corner of it
F. Some combination of the other options

Speaking for myself only, though, I’m trying to get my balance back and retrench a bit.

In 2016 there was a sense that Trump’s election was illegitimate, either because of Russia or voter suppression or not having won the popular vote, and that if we yelled enough someone was going to get rid of him for us. Now there’s obviously no hope of any of that.

yeah at this point in 2016 I was still holding out hope for faithless electors

The left of the party has been effectively neutered so there’s no insurgent feeling there, the centrists and donor class are happy to work with Trump on demonizing migrants and college students who protest genocide.

Not that it was ever going to happen but in an alternate reality where faithless electors did install Hillary or someone not Trump, that'd have been the end of democracy as we know it, a return to 19th century politics and back door deals, and one Republicans woulda quickly seized upon in future elections.

Of course lol in reality that more of them defected from Hillary

Otoh the last two centuries have maybe proven that we can't be trusted w voting

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

sad

I think some of them took the threat seriously but simply lacked courage and hoped it would just go away

I suspect more broadly there was a sense in 2016/2017 that people did not realise what they had voted for, and that it just needed to be pointed out to them explicitly and repeatedly.

This time, whether or not any particular Trump-voter was intending to endorse Trump's worst qualities by voting for him, it would be difficult to argue they weren't "on notice" of them.

Neither of the two possible explanations - being either that they liked those qualities, or that they considered them less important than the perceived failures of the Biden administration or democrats generally - seem like phenomena to which a 2016/2017 "Resistance" stance would be an effective response (at least before the second Trump administration turns into an absolute dumpster-fire, as the nominations portend).

I feel like a hakathon could work

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:09 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sad

― sparkling hebroic couplet (Hunt3r), Monday, November 18, 2024 7:14 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think some of them took the threat seriously but simply lacked courage and hoped it would just go away

― jaymc, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:21 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"I am going to take this hurricane seriously by hoping it goes away."
"I am taking my taxes seriously by hoping they go away."
"I am taking this cancer seriously by hoping it goes away."

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:09 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Interested in people's theories as to how this could have played out in a way that would not have caused social meltdown (unless we just mean "the prosecution should have started earlier").

The prosecution should’ve totally started earlier.

Unrest would’ve been inevitable, but in the long run…

They could have just banned teleprompters

On one hand, yeah, I think a lot of people after the 2020 election assumed that Trump at least was neutralized. I thought he would be too, because obviously he should have been, but I revised my thinking by late 2021 when I saw what was happening at state and local levels around me, the ongoing force of Trumpification.

But as for why people aren't visibly, vocally freaking out more, I think it's a combination of factors. A lot fewer people were shocked this time than in 2016, because no matter how much hope you put in the polls they were always close enough to signal that he could obviously win. We know more what to expect, too — and even though it's worse than what we faced in 2016, a lot of anxiety is about the unknown. When you feel like you have a handle on a looming threat, at least it's easier to think through and prepare for.

I don't think any of that means there won't be protests and activism against deportation or some of the other abuses to come. I think it means more that the groups that will be leading that are getting ready and not spending a lot of time spinning out on social media. I'm seeing things from immigrant advocacy groups to that effect. Likewise reproductive rights groups, who were already in full battle mode before the election anyway.

And then on top of that there's just a level of outrage exhaustion. I think it'll come back to some degree once he's actually president and doing/saying insane shit every day. OTOH there will also probably be a higher level of accommodation by some people — especially mainstream media people — based on the idea that "Well, this is what people voted for." Him winning the popular vote does to some degree diffuse the sense that he's an illegitimate leader.