US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

i hope he pays $1 million to her favorite charity, God Please Exist So You Can Kill Us All, Seriously Fuck Everything

I think it was good she did the DNA test.

Now he's just going to start calling her 3% or some dumb new name. it's all too easy to predict.

― omar little, Monday, October 15, 2018 11:35 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding ding ding

The alt-right is going to eat this shit up

"and it shows you're an Indian"

democrats can’t win because they’re painted as the “nice” party* in a way that, conveniently enough, also happens to be feminized. being thoughtful about policies or bipartisanship isn’t a man bites dog situation. (chuck todd calling out HRC for being “too prepared” for her debate pretty much sums up the rhetorical mainstream’s attitude toward the dems. they’re nerds and wishy washy.) republicans are expected to be hypermasculine assholes only out for themselves, so when they vaguely perform cerebrality they get overpraised for it.

there’s a betty and veronica cartoon that i always think of when i think of how the press treats dems and republicans. the natural look is deemed to be in, and both girls go home to get themselves on trend. betty washes her face and puts on lip gloss; veronica spends hundreds of dollars on product. when they debut their looks the dudes praise veronica’s natural beauty while telling betty she’s a little overdone. that’s pretty much how things go and barring a wholesale housecleaning of pundits (a GREAT idea that is so not gonna happen) it’s not going to change.

* yes i know morbs, i’m talking about overall media rhetoric

i thought the dna test was a sad if necessary idea, although i also perceived it as a bulwark against slights from the left like that huffpo piece from a few weeks back.

anyway i’m proud to have warren as my senator.

xpost but also see what happened to Rubio etc. when they tried to be tough guys

yeah trump out-republicaned them all with his richie rich meets snidely whiplash meets mr. burns meets howdy doody act

He also inadvertently revealed (or reiterated) the extent to which religion in the US is merely tribal. He didn't need to hit that note to become the über-Republican.

The alt-right is going to eat this shit up

on the old right, Rush Catspaugh opened his show with "SHE IS WHITER THAN THE AVERAGE WHITE PERSON"

Warren should have kept the test result in her pocket and waited for the moment when it would be seen as a snappy riposte instead of a mildly pathetic one.

i don't see the benefit of the test, because it doesn't accomplish anything positive and it's just another example of the left jumping through hoops only to wind up in another trap of sorts. and i love Elizabeth Warren, everything i know about her stances and the reports from those who have met her IRL are very positive.

i feel like her saying that she doesn’t claim tribal membership was a direct response to that huffpo “i’m not voting for warren” piece. can’t wait to find out in 2023 that the author was being paid by mbs or something

democrats can’t win because they’re painted as the “nice” party* in a way that, conveniently enough, also happens to be feminized. being thoughtful about policies or bipartisanship isn’t a man bites dog situation. (chuck todd calling out HRC for being “too prepared” for her debate pretty much sums up the rhetorical mainstream’s attitude toward the dems. they’re nerds and wishy washy.) republicans are expected to be hypermasculine assholes only out for themselves, so when they vaguely perform cerebrality they get overpraised for it.

idk, democrats have gotten more people to vote for them in 6 out of the 7 last presidential elections, so the nice party pretty reliably gets more votes.

I don't think the hypermasculine assholeness appeals to 100% of americans, and the type of people it appeals to are more likely to vote republican regardless. so trump got them to the polls but a theoretical democratic equivalent doesn't really hype the dem base in the same way. I think it's fine to have some attack dogs on tv - a vp with more bite than tim kaine would have been nice last election - but I think turning elizabeth warren into one is probably more likely to turn off some of her own followers as it is to attract new followers. people like elizabeth warren for being elizabeth warren.

Missed the news. So she took a DNA test to prove she was some percentage Native American? That's stupid. That's no better than Obama producing his birth certificate. Won't satisfy the people who cared in the first place. She should have just said go fuck yourself and left it at that.

I don't know why we think toxic trash trump people would ever be swayed at this point to not be toxic trash people. Giving a shit about whether the alt-right eats up the DNA test shouldn't be on the radar. He waffled on paying the bet which is what I was interested in. I don't think she ever has to address the question of heritage again.

people like elizabeth warren for being elizabeth warren.

this is true. elizabeth warren rules. getting a dna test and then calling him out on his promise to give $1 million to charity (which he won't do, because he prefaced the entire dumb bet thing with "and we will say, i will give you a million dollars, to your favorite charity, paid for by trump, if you take the test", allowing him to say it wasn't a real bet. god fucking murder me, awake or in my dreams, fuck this life, seriously) is SO raven elizabeth warren. however, this incident is confirming that no, she should not run for president. no, elizabeth warren being elizabeth warren will not defeat trump. i wish it would. in a better world, it would. this is not this world. this world fucking blows. she is awesome and i know she will keep doing her thing, but if she's the nominee we are fucked

Did the DNA test prove that she has executive skills is what I want to know.

i'm mad that elizabeth warren's dna results belong to some doctor in boston, while mine belong to some shitty company named 23andme that will probably be hacked sometime in the next year or two

I hope she's the nominee, I think she contrasts well with trump, has less baggage than most dem senators and can run a class warfare style campaign in a way that clinton couldn't.

she would be a terrible candidate.

but she is an awesome senator.

OMG that PAINTING. Like Dogs Playing Poker but with Republican Preznits.

Lots of croakings of doom this morning!

Yep, the Sisters of Mercy thread has been active today.

The thing that concerns me is that someone told Warren this would be a show of strength, and she believed it. You don't respond to the other fellow's punches, you throw your own.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 15, 2018

also

It’s been done. pic.twitter.com/t7lsRK0y0o

— Manolo Sanchez (@NixonValet) October 15, 2018

a winning candidate would call Trump a motherfucker or something. DNA test seems like a dumb move rn but I also feel like Yerac is otm that now she won't ever have to address it ever again.

She never had to address it in the first place, is the thing. Once a bully knows he can get a reaction out of you, he's going to do whatever he can to solicit further reactions.

Does this pretty much imply that she's going to run? I'm wondering if she would have bothered otherwise.

Trump will just keep throwing out complete bullshit that no one should dignify a response (because that's what he does), but as soon as you dignify it with a response, you legitimize it as a thing that in some way matters or that deserves a response or that rational human beings should ever have to take a side on. Here's your stock response to any Trump utterance:

https://media1.tenor.com/images/4958034c587ac1a2ead0bbddd481b011/tenor.gif

she said she will take 'a hard look at running for president' which means she is 100% running

xpost Yeah, just like Obama settled it with the birth certificate. Avenatti might be a jackass, but he's right that no one can fight this particular bully with a flow chart or power point. They have to punch back and play dirty, just like Trump's favorite film, Bloodsport. Want to know how you react when someone throws sand in your eyes? Like this:
https://media.giphy.com/media/5xtDarrD3UV3Qk6N00E/giphy-downsized-large.gif

I've had sane people without dementia questioning the native american ancestry thing. The Obama birtherism was insane.

OL otm this whole thing is stupid

Warren will not be a good candidate vs. Trump

she won't be a good candidate because the US is full of racist, misogynist trolls.

Missing the point. Warren’s DNA test has nothing to do with counterattacking. It’s just the first dose of a vaccine against the Trump assault. The timing is good: it’s not officially part of a campaign, and provides a touchstone for her later responses on the heritage issue.

Also, who cares if she’s a good candidate against Trump? She’s a good candidate on the issues, on her record, and on the strength of her non-political work.

Who do the assembled wise men of the thread think would be a good candidate to run against the historically unpopular, won-in-a-fluke-and-is-about-to-lose-half-his-Congressional-support-system President Donald Trump?

bunch of x-posts in there obv

I think the goal is pretty much to get her into the spotlight and establish her as a frontrunner, which it basically has succeeded at doing

Yeah, Warren is totally capable, but I am starting to feel like we are just so completely regressive that people will find fault with any female candidate for the stupidest of reasons. Like not displaying good executive skills to her past underlings.

Gillibrand is great, but I don't know if it's her time.

Does she need to be menopausal?

Otm. Anyway, I once sold Elizabeth Warren business cards and I made a typo and she had me reorder them and was suitably but not excessively put out. I’ll personally vouch for her executive skills.

I think Harris or Gillibrand would both do better as women vs Trump, they dont have the schoolmarm vibe Warren does. She’s great in the Senate imo, but I dont see her turning out all the demos the Dems are gonna need to win.

Also, who cares if she’s a good candidate against Trump?

― rb (soda)

me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, Harris and Gillibrand are definitely hotter but not too hot to be offputting.

You think gillibrand is more charismaric than warren? That’s absurd. Harris I can kind of see, but I still think warren is the better candidate

getting really bad 2004 vibes lately. like Trump, Bush barely won* by a fluke, and he ran against a stodgy, awkward guy that was good on paper but a lousy candidate, and then Bush won for real. can't overestimate the advantage Trump has being an incumbent