US Politics, December 2019: Profound procedural deficiencies

I thought he started at about the worst person ever and hasnow devolved to the same position.
THough I guess McConnell may be running him some competition.
BUt yeah it's the enablers I could do without.
Couldn't somebody just create a safe space, some little pocket universe somewhere where they could go off and be utterly deplorable without having a direct effect on the rest of the planet.

I mean the deck was certainly stacked against him ever developing any conscience or character, but a lifetime of sycophants responding with starry-eyed enthusiasm when he shits on their loafers has served only to transform him into a being composed of pure id.

So the republicans are basically on a repeat loop then?
Or is what they're saying today any different to what they've tried to say before.

NOt really watched hearings like this before so I'm new to this strike the last word thing. & not sure what it exactly refers to beyond Republicans wanting to talk even more BS and Dems trying to explain what should be obvious.

They've been on a repeat loop for 39 years

Holder going after Barr directly in the WaPo opinion pages. Seems kind of unprecedented (also meaningless outside of beltway punditry)

Couldn't somebody just create a safe space, some little pocket universe somewhere where they could go off and be utterly deplorable without having a direct effect on the rest of the planet.

That would be grand but unfortunately they clearly enjoy being able to affect the rest of the planet in monstrous ways. It's how they get their jollies.

Back in the Mesozoic era when I was a student of philosophy, there was a concept called the pleasure-monster: an evil sadistic being who got astronomical levels of happiness out of torturing innocent puppies, fluffy bunnies, precocious children, etc. If you like, you can imagine the pleasure-monster as simultaneously very deluded: he's actually on an otherwise uninhabited planet. He only IMAGINES that he's torturing innocent children, fluffy puppies, precocious bunnies, etc. Either way. You get the idea.

IIRC this was intended as a critique of consequentialism and, by extension, utilitarianism: if you're using "pleasure vs. pain" as a measure of moral worth, simply construct a thought experiment in which doing clearly horrible things creates tremendous levels of pleasure for someone, and see if the consequentialist still endorses consequences as the only measure of moral value.

In college it seemed a hyperbolic, potentially silly hypothetical.

Now? Not so much.

I've been thinking of the scenario where Trump loses the election and then... refuses to fade into the background, continues to serve as leader of the GOP (cuz who else do they have, really?), and then just runs again in 2024. The odds that he will just fade into the background and not be a huge media figure/shit-stirrer seem p low.

Otm. He'll be on Fox News as a consultant

I fear the Obi Wan scenario

holy shit -- Rep. Hank Johnson just went there in response to Rep. Gaetz poking at Hunter Biden's reported drug use: “I don't know what members, if any, have had problems with substance abuse, been busted in DUIs... If i did, I wouldn't raise it against anyone on this committee." pic.twitter.com/6kixChgvvF

— j.d. durkin (@jiveDurkey) December 12, 2019

Otm. He'll be on Fox News as a consultant

― master of nuggets (Neanderthal),

his family had plans to start trumpTV after he lost the 2016 election, but unfortunately for the universe, he "won". i assume after he's out of office he'll take the worst 1/10th of Fox and use that as his foundation for nu-TrumpTV

Whatever he does (if he lives so long) will be based on making carloads of money while doing the least actual work he can.

i assume trumpTV's will be the first major media outlet to feature a human face as a logo, so trump can literally be on tv all of the time on his favorite station

xp

honestly i think he would work very hard if it was trumptv. that seems like something he'd actually care about

lol @ the notion of Donald Trump being in any kind of functional state if by some miracle he survives another four years.

Which doesn't mean he wouldn't still run (and possibly win) as an inert, wheezing sack of festering flesh being wheeled from appearance to appearance in his gold-plated hospital bed, but still.

they're gonna build him a giant robot and stick him in the belly, krang-style
http://resources.nobleknight.com/Catalog/Images/900/900/0/1/0/WZKTMNTHC031.jpg

he may be all of those things in 4 years, but he'll be on tv. siri, i know i disabled you and you can't hear me through my typing, but set a reminder 4 years from now to revisit this set of posts and check-in on the status of trump's flesh

Okay KARL MALONE... calendar reminder set for four years to... CHECK IN ON FRESH RUMP

goddammit siri

I've simply run out of "fuck yous." But I guess I say that weekly.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-greta-thunberg-time-person-of-the-year-2019-a9243726.html?fbclid=IwAR0HD6G5uw-MaloifyPJ_Ay600sJmkhw2E3KQBPlR-eNIG5qpfgZEfDproc

truly he is the little bitchiest of little bitches

He's an utter coward, just like every bully that ever existed.

The odds that he will just fade into the background and not be a huge media figure/shit-stirrer seem p low.

Fox won’t take his calls but the Trump News Network sure will

xpost I wish I believed that but I really don't believe that. He's been a demonstrable loser for decades and has remained pretty successful at shoving himself down everyone's throat nonetheless.

and he will likely get the Dubya treatment by the RW media machine if he loses

the difference is the GOP audience turned on Dubya *before* he lost, and there's no signs of that now. If Fox's audience wants more Trump, more Trump is what they will get.

It's possible to be more visible than George W. Bush but still relegated to the 6:51 nightly news segment.

Dubya also got us into a war that as early as 2005 was collapsing in popularity. By the time the midterms happened, even the GOP knew a Democrat was gonna trounce whomever it nominated.

a Democratic president. I have vivid memories of every hardcore Republican I know shaking their heads inconsolably that Bush had led to another Clinton in the White House.

Xps

I would put money on the Trump News Network a. Existing b. Taking a huge chunk of the Fox audience who have been scandalized by Chris Wallace’s heresies

Like all trump products he’s barely gonna be involved in the details. He’s someone who puts his name on absolutely anything and right wing political news is a much better fit than steaks and ties. I suspect we’re not gonna be done with him until he’s dead or possibly in prison.

I honestly don't think he has many years of life left, he looks like shit. We'll be done with him one way or another.

he definitely seems to have experienced substantial cognitive decline even in the last three years. if he wins reelection I have a hard time imagining he'd even be able to make public appearances by the end of that term.

the impeachment polls are maddeningly inconsistent. most show a plurality supporting impeachment and/or impeachment and removal, but the crosstabs showing the breakdown by political affiliation seem to be very inconsistent on Independents. some have them with a plurality not supporting, many have them with a plurality supporting.

still, these are way better numbers than we'd get if the American people "didn't support impeachment". so they can fundraise all they want off of this. it's not like they didn't already have financial advantages that the Dem candidate won't to begin with.

xpost Donald John Trump has locked himself in the bathroom today. It was initially believed to be intentional, as a cry for help, but he seems to have forgotten that the door locks from the inside. He is begging his aides to let him out. They all went to lunch an hour ago.

the idea of him disappearing while alive is such a fantasy imo - no comparison with GWB. trump's whole steez is stoking the grievance/victim identity that's critical to RW politics and losing an election would only HELP that esp as he will be happy to peddle destabilizing conspiracy theories insisting that he really won and his successor is illegitimate, and his supporters will be happy to share them. i mean this shit writes itself.

he’s an engine fueled by pure rage, I’m not sure I’d make any predictions there.

but as far as the Fox News thing goes, the future Fox / TNN schism is something we can kinda see coming from here I think. As his presidency ends and those seeds start getting planted it would make sense for Fox to start turning on him pretty violently just in the interest of self-preservation. I don’t think we really know at this point if the base truly loves him or Fox more.

(XPs)

also Twitter only existed for like two years of Dubya's presidency and had only started to become a big thing

Dubya also interested solely in showing up his dad - once he got re-elected and killed Saddam he was pretty much ready to retire. Trump is different, as he is a bottomless pit of neediness.

I'm convinced that Trump would literally wither away to nothing if people stopped paying attention to him. Do you imagine that he could possibly exist at this point without hearing people say his name on TV every single day?

hmm, maybe if that happens, he'll disappear.

it's gonna be pretty funny if he loses in 2020 and then immediately starts fundraising for 2024 and just keeps the millions of dollars his idiot cultists would no doubt donate to him.

Gah Steve Chabot.
Do these people have souls.
Or just history degrees.

what is this fucking bullshit Nancy

There were some indications that Democrats gave ground on the wall, moving from the zero-funding position they took in their original version of the bill.

Following a Wednesday meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Lowey acknowledged that they may lose some votes on the left.

I mean I'll hold my breath til we see the details next week but

standard operating pelosi

Shit's been so bugfuck, I'd actually forgot about The Wall.

not really. the gov't shutdown earlier this year over this issue, and Trump caved.

xps

“Space Force is actually OUR idea” is some incredible Dem messaging https://t.co/D54jHErqU6

— John Carl Baker (@johncarlbaker) December 11, 2019

see also

https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-gave-trump-everything-he-wants-738-billion-defense-bill-2019-12

https://www.rollcall.com/news/democrats-got-completely-rolled-in-ndaa-talks-critics-say

My friend @RepRoKhanna is right: it is Orwellian for Congress to hand over billions of dollars worth of weapons and bombs to a president waging a horrific, unconstitutional war in Yemen—and call that progressive. pic.twitter.com/6SUmUUhv3q

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 11, 2019

The Pentagon’s budget has been too large for too long. I cannot support a defense bill that’s a $738 billion Christmas present to giant defense contractors & undermines our values and security.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 11, 2019