Over at Tablet, Park MacDougald has a piece called "The Democrats’ Insanity Defense." The gist is that Democrats do such unhinged stuff that people won't believe you if you just describe it truthfully.
MacDougald starts out with Kamala Harris's (now) famous statement in 2019 that she supports access to transgender surgery for prisoners. Fair enough. She really did say that, and now she's paying for it. I'm nauseated by Donald Trump's relentless anti-trans campaign, but the prisoner remark isn't something you could really expect him not to exploit.
But then MacDougald moves on to Harris's "disturbingly close relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran":
Like the Obama administration, of which it is a continuation, the Biden-Harris administration has attempted to realign the United States away from Israel and other traditional allies and toward a revisionist-Islamist bloc led by Iran but also including Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, and various Palestinian radical groups. This orientation is reflected at the level of policy—including nonenforcement of Iranian oil sanctions, flooding Hamas and Hezbollah with cash through
cutouts, and, since Oct. 7, the relentless undermining of Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies—as well as at the level of personnel.... The Iranian regime has repaid the Biden-Harris administration for its generosity, hacking the emails of Trump campaign employees and handing them off to a Democratic PAC, which published them last week.
These are all demonstrable matters of fact. Yet many Americans still have trouble accepting them, because the underlying predicate—that our country is purposefully allying with a terror-sponsoring, America-hating theocracy in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Where does this stuff come from? I get that some people are even more hawkishly supportive of Israel than Joe Biden, and I get that lots of conservatives didn't like Obama's deal to halt Iranian development of nuclear weapons. But this guy literally thinks that Obama, Biden, and Harris hate Israel and are "purposefully allying" themselves with Iran.
And then he's surprised that most non-MAGA folks have trouble accepting this. He blames the liberal media, when, of course, the real reason is that people have trouble accepting it because it's loony tunes. Biden and Harris have given Israel literally everything it wants despite a lot of resistance from the Democratic base, and have protected it from Iran on every occasion. But because they have the gall to work toward a ceasefire and occasionally suggest that Israel should maybe consider not starving Palestinian civilians, this means they're cozying up to the ayatollahs.
This is so demented I don't even have a word for it.
Here's a word for it: brainwashing. These people spend every day steeped in this nonsense until it becomes normalized. By the time they've spend years down in the rabbit hole, their bullshit detectors work in reverse. Then it becomes like a game of telephone, wherein they repeat these stories to each other, embellishing them along the way until they bear no resemblance to any known facts. I'm certain that almost any of your readers could describe hearing the most idiotic conspiracy theories from someone who is absolutely certain that it's true.
Have you heard the one about the kid's soccer team who all got the COVID vaccination, then a few days later they were practicing and they all dropped dead on the field? I swear I had someone telling me this yarn in complete earnest.
Park MacDougald does not "believe" the things he is saying. You give him far too much credit if you thing he is merely uninformed or delusional. These are carefully worked out lies, told with the intent of smearing Kamala Harris and the Democrats. By the way, the policy of providing gender-affirming surgery was originally adopted during the Trump administration
Yeah, I'm not sure he "believes" them either. In his heart of hearts, he probably knows they're untrue. He just doesn't care. He's all about will to power, baby - just like all conservatives.
Conservatives aren't "all about will to power". NAZI's are all about will to power. And Stalinists. And Pol Potists. And Putinists.
Among that list modern Republicans come closest to "Nazi's", because they believe in money for status purposes. The leftist goons are anti-rich guy.
Ah, another troll.
Park MacDougald does not "believe" the things he is saying. You give him far too much credit if you thing he is merely uninformed or delusional.
You may well be right—and in general I think Kevin assumes ignorance too frequently when gaslighting is the more likely explanation.
On the other hand, I do think our species has a pretty impressive capacity for self-brainwashing: parrot The Faith's wild-eyed absurdities long enough and often enough, and you may start to lose touch with reality. And, even if deep down inside a kernel of sanity remains (kind of like Gollum's faint memory of a kinder, gentler time before he was shunned and banished), the very depth of the place where a flicker of understanding still lives effectively means it's gone—it's no longer functioning or accessible. To put it another way, when you lie so constantly that dishonesty truly devours your soul, you no long remember what truth is. I believe their orange God-Emperor shows signs of this, too.
yeah, kevin does some version of this so often i'm hoping it's a rhetorical device, because it's obvious most prominent right-wingers don't believe all the crap they say, they are just lying. in his next post about e-verify and immigration he says he rightly stated of repubicans "The cynicism is sort of jaw dropping". i'm not sure why he doesn't apply the same logic here.
I don't know anything about this person. But assuming this isn't just chum the rubes, it is more stupid than anything else.
This isn't obscure, technical stuff or stuff that doesn't get attention. Up-is-down reality denial isn't going to work when the entire world has been watching those missile-defense games. All he's doing is ensuring anyone who isn't already brainwashed takes away the message "Park MacDougald is either a batshit lunatic or a horrible liar".
Batshit lunatic is a feature for some group of people these days, not a bug.
People like to get riled up. Some more than others. They often live for it. It's as if their brain needs a rush of whatever chemical is released when they express outrage. (Catecholamine? Serotonin? Please, some biochemist help me out here...) Whatever it is, it's far stronger and more addictive than whatever chemical is released when reason is applied.
I know we are sick of polls, but for what it’s worth, the latest Marist has Harris up 2 in Pennsylvania, up 2 in Wisconsin, up 3 in Michigan. As usual, more indicative of trend than who is actually ahead.
There's something about these polls that didn't seem right and I finally realized what it was. Everywhere you look, polls show them within 1% in WI, MI, PA, NC and GA. This makes no sense. They are all purplish states, but they certainly aren't all the same shade of purple. One could arrange them in order of how Democratic they are:
WI > MI > PA > NC > GA
You might quibble about any pairing, but no one would seriously suggest that WI=GA. Yet that's what these polls seem to be saying. I'd expect somewhere around 3-4 percentage points difference between WI and GA. So a few of these states could be within 1%, but they can't all be that close.
This seems to be an indicator of the "herding" that is said to go on among polls in the late stages of the campaign. Given that the effect of demographic corrections employed by pollsters is much larger than the actual margins, I don't think these polls mean a damned thing.
In addition to the "herding" effect, I think there may also be something about how the polls are massaged in attempts to adjust for/give weights to propensities to vote.
OTOH, in 2020 the margin in Georgia was 0.3% and in Wisconsin it was 0.6%, so maybe they really are more similar shades of purple than expected.
but even if the actual vote split is very close to 50/50, real polling should be producing lots of randomized variance in their results beyond 1%.
Yes! Regardless of the degree of correlation in the true, unknown voting intentions, error should be uncorrelated, and should show as variations similar in magnitude to the margin of error.
Wisconsin and Georgia are not similar in voting patterns. The five counties that comprise Atlanta have about 50% of the state population. Georgia, but especially Atlanta, isn't going to be "white" by 2040. So while the state leans Republican, Biden won the state as it gets less and less "white". The whackjob's district is very carefully constructed to have the NW corner of the state and just enough of Marietta to give her a comfortable district, while still pulling enough votes out of the Atlanta metro area.
Harris can win Georgia if she gets enough votes in Atlanta, Columbus, Savannah, and Athens.
Not if the state legislature has a say.
(if only it was snark)
There has been a great southernification of the Midwest. I forget who coined that term.
The Republican party lets people be angry and hate people. Automation? Children leave to find "good" jobs? Population loss? Factories close? Well, blame "those" people--it's not your fault and certainly not he fault of your pandering billionaire or those who gutted profitable businesses for their short term gain.
You're ignoring that for the last decade MI and WI have been moving right (autoworkers and private sector union members are hard core maggots) and GA and NC have been moving left (chamber of commerce republicans and suburbanites are now part of the core of the democrats). PA has always been a 50/50 state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Lu2G0O3TA&t=88s
Harris didn't say she supported access to transgender surgery for prisoners, as if she thought such procedures were a good thing to be encouraged. That's the sloppy shorthand Republicans use to describe the Democratic position on abortion, implying Democrats are all eagerly encouraging women to go get rid of their babies.
What she did say, in a response to an ACLU questionnaire, was that she supported "policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained." In other words she's neither for nor against transgender surgery per se; she's in favor of leaving decisions about it to health care professionals who are obliged by law to provide medical care for people in prison.
I think this hits on the messaging issue that the Democrats often have - the actual answers are reasoned and nuanced. That makes them easier to distort and tougher to distill into a soundbite. A simple, dumb answer that is snappy and assured just plays better to a large chunk of the electorate.
as if she thought such procedures were a good thing to be encouraged.
Not even unhinged lunatics like this MacDougald normally claim Harris or other Democrats "encourage" transition surgeries. They think it shouldn't be allowed to prisoners—and certainly not paid for by taxpayers—full stop. They believe this either because they're troglodytes or they believe it's an effective political attack. Or both.
... she supported "policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender
For the record Harris's stance is correct on the merits. A civilized society doesn't deny human beings medically necessary care simply because they've been convicted of a crime. Unfortunately, the right thing to do from a policy standpoint is unpopular with a lot of Americans—I'd guess a majority. Similar to where we were with, say, same sex marriage in twenty years ago.
"Not even unhinged lunatics like this MacDougald normally claim Harris or other Democrats "encourage" transition surgeries. " You're completely out of touch with reality. It is now fundamental to mainstream republican existence that the democrat establishment is trying to brainwash all children to demand that surgery.
That's pretty much my impression based on reading countless blog posts and comments on MAGA websites.
What Dr Brando said, but it doesn’t matter. There are only something like 2 federal prisoners ever who sought out gender transition surgery. But just like there are only a couple dozen trans athletes competing at the state or national level in a sport under a gender designation different from the one they were born with, this is a Shiny Object that the media must give 24/7 attention to, at least until November 6th after which it will join the Caravans Of Brown People and other former Shiny Objects that have become tarnished with age.
What Harris said afterwards:
“I will follow the law,” And it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed." before that MFer decided to throw away the rule of law. "You’re probably familiar with now. It’s a public report that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system.”
This was published yesterday by the Claremont Institute. Roger Kimball, the author, is regarded as a conservative intellectual.
The insanity has infected the right at every level.
Same shit, different day.
This reads like typical "Democrats are going to turn us into a communist country" attacks that have been going on for 100+ years at this point.
But did the people making the claim use words like "otiose"? No they did not!
Republicans are very good at projection.
he's talking about the gop, right?
Pure projecting.
Ahem, he used otiose in a sentence. He must be an intellectual.
"Otiose" appears to be the very definition of "otiose." Weird, huh?
Weird? I think it perfectly encapsulates Roger Kimball, perhaps it should be his nickname.
Indeed. [strokes chin] Most indeedidly.
I have never called Roger a modestly fatuous person.
he's talking about the gop, right? this kimball dude is really a hoot.
“Perhaps people who are busy gushing over the Obama cult today might do well to stop and think about what it would mean for their granddaughters to live under sharia law.”
- Thomas Sowell
I am uncertain how Sharia law permits transgender surgery in prisons. What's the word from the mullahs running our legal system?
Wait. Thomas Sowell? I thought he'd died.
To be fair, that comment is from like 2008, 2009, or 2010.
I’m surprised trump isn’t all over this. Evil Muslim illegal let into US by the incompetent Biden harris administration shoots Jew near synagogue. Terrorists!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/us/chicago-terrorism-hate-crime-synagogue-hnk/index.html
“This is so demented I don't even have a word for it.”
I do. The word is “war”.
Nobody feed the troll.
Also you replied to yourself 45 min later?Are you that bored living in your mom’s basement? Or was there a shift change at the Russian troll farm?
There isn’t a single conservative pundit with a unique perspective. Their best strategy is to reverse progressive talking points to provoke outrage from people who are largely ignorant about the finer details of hot button issues.
Well, I sort of admire David French.
But he is very shrill; his voice full of contempt and scold for liberals.
I think it the calculated spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down sometimes.
It is not demented. It is two: Manichaeanism and opportunism. The first is infantile, the second merely dishonest, and the combination is succinctly diagnostic of modern politics. Why do I not say "of conservatism"? They had it first, to be sure; but these things are contagious and that is why they have to be prevented. If prevention fails, no good options remain.
It’s a good thing that crime is down. Well, except for when it isn’t.
At least two people were killed in a mass shooting in downtown Orlando, Fla., which was hosting a Halloween celebration Friday morning. Gunfire erupted outside The Block, a nightlife area consisting of seven separate clubs, as hundreds of revelers were in attendance, many dressed for a cash-prize costume contest.
It was worse before so this is a win!
Off topic, but thanks for your concern, troll. Mom’s waiting upstairs with another cookie for her special little grown adult boy still living in her basement.
Yes, crime and incidents like this were more common when Trump was president. And ten times worse when crime peaked shortly after GHWBush was president.
Florida has a weak gun-law culture, so of course they experience more gun crime.
Texas leads the nation, though. Weakest gun laws, most gun violence.
Repeat a lie often enough and people start to believe it. The rhetoric of republicans today from women’s rights, to religious belief, voter’s rights, citizenship, to vaccines, to violence against political opponents do not bode well for the future of a democracy
Democrats do such unhinged stuff that people won't believe you if you just describe it truthfully . . .
Conservatives, for decades, have been able to exploit this 'I'm rubber and you're glue' rhetorical trope because they can get away with it, because they can be certain that none of their idiot audience will have heard it before.
Any argument you make to or about them will be repeated, within days, back at you as if from the mirror universe.
Virtually nothing that youever say will genuinely be heard by the baboon colony and trying to engage them is worthless.
They want to hear what they already believe. They have no interest in hearing anything else. Their intellectual curiosity is near or completely non-existent. Much Like Trump. It's why they support him. He is just like them.
So I ventured into conservomedia sphere, just sticking my toe in at The American Conservative, and got this, the conclusion to a piece by Tom Klingenstein:
"Republicans have long failed to realize that they are in a war. Now they should. If someone says they want to destroy you, then you know you are in a war—it’s pretty obvious. It’s time for Republicans to get on a war footing. They must fight like our democracy depends on it. The destructive left is sure that the former President Donald Trump is a threat to democracy—or at least they say so, and they act as if they believe it. We know this is nonsense. The Lozenski video shows us clearly where the real threat to our democracy lies. "
So much fucking insanity here. Bat shit crazy. For instance:
"Republicans have long failed to realize that they are in a war. Now they should. If someone says they want to destroy you, then you know you are in a war—it’s pretty obvious." because of something something critical race theory and Walz's friend and director of education (Minnesota got it'self some good schools, my friends).
The there's this: "Now they should."
Yup. Let's construct the full idea in a single sentence: Republicans should now recognize they are at war. Apparently, they don't, but that's simply implied. This construction is the foundation for wink wink I was just joking punch lines.
Next we get this sparkling gem: "If someone says they want to destroy you, then you know you are in a war—it’s pretty obvious. It’s time for Republicans to get on a war footing." So Democrats want to destroy Republicans [because of something something critical race theory] It's time, now, to arm up. [As if they haven't been arming up for some time now, with last I checked, 20% of the gun owners owning 80% of the weapons, enough for two for every American. Yup, it is now time to go purchase some more guns, to arm up because those Democrats are out there already making war on us [without guns].
"he destructive left is sure that the former President Donald Trump is a threat to democracy—or at least they say so, and they act as if they believe it. We know this is nonsense. The Lozenski video shows us clearly where the real threat to our democracy lies. "
Now, I haven't gone and looked up this video yet; I certainly like to verify it whatever whatever critical race theory, because I have no idea what a conservative means by that then turnip soup. But I have no freakin' idea what 'critical race theory' is, it's not something I see American liberal culture to be founded upon, whereas civil decency is.
So as a liberal, I don't understand the code whenever I see that or DEI. I understand that these terms are signifiers because some of them may interact with liberal jerks, I have to interact with liberal jerks, and I can sometimes behave like a liberal jerk.
But I don't see a Democratic Party ready to pick arms and force something down anybody's throat, and I strongly object to being misrepresented by conservatives this way. This feels the language of the bully.
I fucking hate bullies.
Please forgive the emotional dump from a liberal old lady who's around to vote for Kamala Harris; who thinks she's the very best President we could have right now to help lead us to a slightly better timeline. I tires of this one. It feels like a re-run. And wink wink, just joking but, we've cancelled the show once, we'll do it again.
They say in his video that he advocates overthrowing our government if it is inherently racist. So therefore that's the goal of Harris and Walz. I'm sure any context is completely ignored. I haven't seen the entire video but judging by the amount of right wing sites that came up in my Google search I trust that this is another case of context free propaganda and demonization. That's all the right has now.
Of course they're just lying about the video.
Why wouldn't they?
Lozenski tells you that the first tenet of critical race theory is that the US is irrevocable racist and must be deconstructed.
The part they are leaving out is that he also says that is why we don't teach critical race theory in school.
Grifters gotta grift.
I find that dubious.
The trans prisoner this is bullshit, because it's never happened. None of the medical care supplied to interned immigrants is long-term, and hence, would never meet the clinical standards to provide surgery.
It's just as bonkers as the school conspiracy theory Trump invented.
Kevin is actually WRONG here.
The 2019 Kamala Harris quote is not that she supported transgender SURGERY for prisoners, but rather, transgender health care (i.e. hormones). Which is, in fact what the law says and the same law that the Trump Administration complied with in Federal prisons during his administration.
If you watch the ads, Harris doesn't say surgery. The ads just distort her actual words to imply that is what she said.
Basically no prisoners are getting actual transgender surgery in any prison anywhere. The total number is just 2 or 3 nationwide.
This is what I thought, too; thank you for clarifying it.
Most people who receive transgender medical care do not get surgery.
They do get prescriptions for HRT, and having those prescriptions cut off can cause some problems.
Trump’s Horrific Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein Revealed in New Audio,
https://newrepublic.com/post/187789/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-friendship-audio