Did you watch the 1/6 hearings last night? I did, but thanks to lingering jet lag I dozed through bits and pieces of it. I think I mostly got the gist, but there were some things I probably missed.
Anyway, it seemed pretty effective, though as usual it's all but impossible for me to judge how it went over with ordinary people who aren't political junkies and didn't know all this stuff already. The biggest problem facing the hearings, I think, is that for an awful lot of people the evidence about Trump and 1/6 doesn't matter in the first place. They already believe that Trump tried to overturn the election results and they think that was a good thing. I mean, Democrats were the ones who originally tried to steal the election, right? So why shouldn't Trump fight them on the same level?
So we have (1) people who believe Trump tried to overturn the election and don't care, and (2) people who believe Trump tried to overturn the election and think it was an attempted coup. But I suppose there must still be some folks in the middle who don't realize what Trump did and would be outraged if they finally figured it out. That's the audience for these hearings.
Is it big enough to matter? Polling suggests that two-thirds of Republicans are in group (1) and pretty much all Democrats are in group (2). Independents split about half and half. A back-of-the-envelope guess, then, is that about a quarter of the electorate doesn't fully realize what Trump did and might be swayed if they found out.
Maybe. This is just the roughest kind of guess. I suppose we'll find out for sure after we see if the polls move much after a summer's worth of hearings.
Yeah. There needs to be a constant drumbeat of hearings eating up news cycle after news cycle so the Republicans don't succeed in stepping in and capturing attention with their latest bullshit panic about CRT or frightened SC justices or whatever.
Of course, for this to succeed requires the media to cover actual important news rather than follow Republicans around with a microphone, so who knows whether it will work.
This is useful.
Also if one gives up without trying then you can be sure to sway no one.
While effective hearings (and Mrs Cheney by accounts I read seems to be very effective indeed) give you some chance of some swaying.
Further to that, given the very narrow margins that either party has advantage in key Swing States, the question becomes not "does this move national polls" and averages, which I think have become broadly useless for discerning political advantage, but does it move segments of specific demographics in the key swing states. A relatively limited percentage movement amount Independents (in high voting propensity demographics) in those states in the right places transforms election results for you.
And of course trying to dominate the news space has utility in and of itself so long as one keeps an eye on diminishing returns and fatigue factors to a given domination play.
Agreed. The presentation has to be planned and implemented by someone with good media skills to keep it in the public eye. Luckily so far it appears it has been. And they have plenty of "compelling" (that is, revolting and infuriating) material to work with.
Even more narrowly, will it shift opinion a few percentage points in competitive congressional districts? For Senate, you need to shift opinion in a whole state; for the House, opinion only needs to shift in the relevant district.
Nate Silver, Galen Druke, & the rest of the usual gang of idiots at 538 are already calculating that the January 6, 2021, March on Washington showtrial will help Donald Trump & his surrogates at the polls.
Your innumerate resentment of 538 analysis and distortive comment is noted.
New to Monty's snark?
If you think Silver is all that, well, we've been over your own innumeracy before. More than once.
At some point, Nate realized polling (due to landline declines, & unwillingness to answer unknown numbers on mobiles, et. al.) is as broken as he is, so he moved to a vibes based model of prediction in politics & governance that is somehow worse than the days of Chris Matthews pining for Ronald Reagan & Tip O'Neill getting blotto.
I hardly look at 538 since they moved to the chin-stroking format. Not being a Facebook victim, I can’t comment there anyway.
Yeah, Silver was pretty good back in the day when he stuck to his own narrow lane. But since then he's decided he don't need no stinkin' domain expertise and it shows. Painfully, I'm afraid.
It is the way of the sabrmetrician: once a little bit of fame is had, one either becomes a Men's Rights Martyr like Jonah Keri or a Mansplainer like Nate Silver.
Imagine if more than two years out from the 2016 election, Republicans were asking themselves, "How many people still have uncertain opinions about Hillary and her emails?"
Democrats just have no patience. If an issue or political argument doesn't produce immediate & dramatic change, it is derided as worthless.
It matters to get the facts into the public record, for posterity if nothing more.
Exactly, especially when something like this happens. An attack upon the U.S. Capitol by a mob. Do people honestly think there wouldn't be a Congressional investigation of such a thing? Get real!
Nope, the 25% who aren't sure are still tuned out and don't vote. I have heard these people state flatly they don't watch the news and they don't care who is in power. They don't think it makes a difference. Lots of proud non voters out there. I still think the hearings are important to build up the case and courage of the Democrats that they need to prosecute these crimes. Maybe it will move the DOJ enough to actually do something.
I thought I would be bored but I found it surprisingly captivating.
But I can't help feeling it's too long before November and even if it did have an impact it will invariably fade too quickly.
If Republicans were in charge of something similar of course . . . they would have scheduled it for September and dragged it out interminably through Election Day.
In fact, I felt stunned all over again.
My reaction was that every one of these peabrained monkeys should spend the rest of their useless lives in jail and I felt outrage they were being given such absurdly trivial sentences for such a crime.
I think the rationale for that may be that most of these guys are older and many would die in jail if given the sentences they deserve and they would then become martyrs, but the Justice Department is giving them just enough of a sentence to wreck their lives without martyring them. Imagine trying to look for a new job with this on your record.
One thing that came out that I didn't know was that John Eastman had written an earlier opinion stating that exactly this plot for overturning the election wouldn't work and was illegal, and then a month later he abruptly contradicts himself and he's totally on board with it.
What person is there who could have enjoined him to compromise himself in this way? I can only think of one person, our swingin'-est president ever, and that brings the whole conspiracy directly to him, and I would bet that's enough to charge him, that he wasn't just coasting on the mob, he was causing it.
If the employer is a Republican, which many of them are, such a record may well be a point in the applicant's favor.
Maybe, once in a while, but I think most employers will have to think about how it looks to customers and clients, do they want to be known as a lunatic by association?
Pretty sure I could move back home tomorrow & get a job at Gilles's Frozen Custard same day if I showed up to apply in a Let's Go Brandon tee-shirt.
I think you have to factor in that they weren't peabrained. They genuinely believed that the election was being stolen. DJT said it was, that was good enough for them. DJT summoned them to fight for America, and they showed up.
Whatever his other flaws may be (and there are so many) Trump has a truly uncanny ability to trigger rage. That rage either works for him or against him. For him, it's all attention. Even negative attention is attention.
"Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a mental health condition marked by unstable emotions, a distorted self-image and an overwhelming desire to be noticed. People with HPD often behave dramatically or inappropriately to get attention."
Trump appears to have a whole chapter of psych pathologies in his pocket, from malignant narcissism to borderline personality, to, now HPD. What a guy.
With the end of the January 6th meetings, now we learn that Chevron was hiding oil. What a surprise. Artificially high prices.
Very few will remember how OPEC, with the president*s apparent lack of protest, decided to restrict their oil output. Knowing that full tankers were literally parked around the world, in essence, storing oil, that by the time the excess was used, oil prices would eventually increase significantly.
A year of so later, people would notice the oil price increase but, likely, not connect it with OPEC's production reduction starting in May of 2020. The fact that another authoritarian oil production unit, the Russians, invaded Ukraine, causing another restriction in oil use simply made it worse.
What part Biden or the Democrats played in this is a mystery to me.
Sorry to forget that the pandemic likely resulted in grossly deflated oil use, further lengthening the time it took to go through the reserves (parked oil tankers, among other ways to store oil). Very few that I have talked with cannot seem to make the connection.
I was surprised to learn that before Trump gave his speech at the ellipse urging his supporters to march on the Capitol, the Proud Boys had already gone to the Capitol that morning and were actively assessing ways to breach the little security there was. So the Proud Boys were already on board before Trump made his incendiary remarks. Thus, this was not a case of a crowd that got carried away and got out of hand. This was orchestrated by Trump, by Bannon, by Jones, by the Proud Boys, by Michael Flynn, et al.
They were, in fact, standing back n' standing by.
I wonder if Quique Terrio & El Jefe Maximo were cooking this up for a few months BEFORE the election.
And agreed upon "It will be wild!" as the signal for launching the insurrection?:-)
They tried to license "Loco en el Coco" from Cypress Hill to soundtrack the event, but B-Real said, "Vayanse al Diablo, pinches gringos".
"They already believe that Trump tried to overturn the election results and they think that was a good thing. I mean, Democrats were the ones who originally tried to steal the election, right? So why shouldn't Trump fight them on the same level?"
Yeah. They deserve a country all their own.
Imagine these idiots trying to organize their own currency.
First they insist on the gold standard. Then they realize they have no gold. Then, OK, how about silver? No silver, either. So, what then? What is money, anyway? Bitcoin! If you can just make it up you can just make up Bitcoin, can't you? So, how do you get Bitcoin? You have to buy it. With, --money. That won't work, they still don't have any. So they have to --make-- their own Bitcoin? OK, then, uh --it's done with computers, right, so is there a program for this? Thousands of helpful idiots appear and then leave with whatever money they did have.
Which will be about the time they start using prisoners as forced labor, because why not, and talking about legalizing slavery, but then, fearing bad optics, which they resent, because what business is it of yours? they are forced to compromise with necessity and start manufacturing meth and cheap guns in huge quantities which they try to smuggle into whatever parts of the US are still there, and, facing pushback on this, finally decide they have been backed into a corner and war is the only option, because they are the real victims here.
" .... and, facing pushback on this, finally decide they have been backed into a corner and war is the only option, because they are the real victims here."
That would be Trump (mummyfied?) following the Putin model.
As George Orwell observed something like a century ago, there's nothing like a good war to make people forget all their other problems and rally around the flag.
Basically, the US under a post-De Santis hodgepodge of rival warlords will look like Somalia or Afghanistan, 1985-1996.
It's significant, I think, that Trump Republicans are desperately pretending the hearings are, or ought to be, about nothing except the riot at the Capitol. They keep braying the same shopworn lies about Nancy Pelosi refusing to call in the National Guard and why hasn't the committee interviewed some Epps guy?
This suggests to me that they believe lots of Americans don't realize Trump tried to stage a coup, starting mid-2020, and they fear the consequences of the broader narrative becoming more generally known.
Agreed. And the trolls are out in force on the "Comment" sections of the Washington Post, to name but one. "Whaddabout baby formula? Waddabout inflation? Waddabout Ukraine?" etc etc. With all the "waddaboutism", they could be reporters for the NYT!
(Okay, that was cruel.)
The KKKlay Travis Nation of the last holdouts in El Rushbo's listening audience are just following their betacuck leader KKKlay.
Upset Special: Orange County Republiqan Kevin Drum didn't call Nancy Pelosi's January 6th witchhunt a nothingburger.
He left that to the like-minded David Brooks.
It's not gonna take.
FFS, even if you don't think what went on was an impeachable offense, at the very least you should harbor some sense that what went on was, um, mildly improper?
But they don't. My 91 year old father, who can't drive, is 1,000 percent more worked up about gas and inflation destroying us all because of Biden's spending. He wouldn't even talk about what happened on 1/6.
To them it's just more partisan grandstanding by the D's.
I hope it takes but I obviously have my doubts.
It's beyond ironic, into despicable, how many Republican Senators who gave stirring speeches about how awful and impeachable Trump's actions on Jan 6 were who are now claiming it was a nothingburger. Just a three-hour tour! By peaceful tourists!
Of course, these guys also voted to acquit, citing a debunked argument that "only people in office can be impeached." So they were never actually on the right side of the law or of history by then.
"They already believe that Trump tried to overturn the election results and they think that was a good thing."
I actually don't think that is true. I think Trumpers believe that Trump was trying to overcome a stolen election. So in their minds Trump wasn't try to overturn the election - he was just trying to take office since he actually won.
Most Republicans have simply taken a leap of faith based on Trump's Big Lie, and a lack of real fraud evidence won't change their minds. It's an extreme and scary case of people believing only what they want to believe.
Narcissists are master liars. They will say anything to help their egos and to get them attention. All else is secondary. They operate in a different domain than normal people to whom lying is morally uncomfortable. But to a narcissist like Trump, lying is right as rain if it makes him feel alive and important. Being able to lie, when it feels so right, gives narcissists a unique advantage over normal people. I mean, he couldn't simply be lying, could he? No way his supporters say. Thus, Trump is very dangerous.
I think your diagnosis is correct. By sharp contrast, over at the Daily Howler (which I've been inflicting upon myself lately), Bob Somerby seems to think that the poor old man (that former guy) could be "mentally ill" and deserve our pity and aid, not this public prosecution/persecution.
Nonsense. Lying and excessive self-regard are big pluses in the real estate/developer industry, particularly if you're a conman. These are tfg's tools and techniques. He's "crazy" -- like a fox.
Why can't both be true? Think Al Capone and syphillis.
That Fucking Guy also has the drip.
"I think Trumpers believe that Trump was trying to overcome a stolen election. "
That is foxshit. If the Trumpist were stupid enough to believe that the election was stolen, the north american continent would have tilt over and sink into the ocean from the weight of stupidity.
They know it is a lie, like other Trump's lies, but are dishoesnt and think that they are good lies.
Sometimes I don't even understand what it is you want out of politics. Most of the time you appear stuck in a level of cynicism so deep that you throw up your hands and go on about the meaninglessness of what anyone is doing.
It's my theory that Mr Drum is just teasing us with his laser pointer, knowing what it takes to make us run around and pounce.
🐈
There is one person who I hope is paying attention: Merrick Garland. What I want out of these hearings is that the evidence for a coup is so comprehensive and so repugnant that he will finally---FINALLY---have no choice but to indict Trump on criminal charges. Because if, after all the evidence is laid out before him on a plate, he doesn't step up and slap handcuffs on Trump and all of his weaselly co-conspirators then the Dems and the country will have no defense and no excuses for the next time when the coup really does succeed and democracy is flushed down the toilet.
I read that the Justice Department has asked to see all the evidence that the JanSix committee has collected. I think they're on the case -- but they want it to be ironclad, airtight, and with as many charges as possible locked in and solid.
Because if tfg somehow gets away with it, due to an inadequate case, not only will he be free to do it again, but so will the entire Republican Party. And they will, don't doubt it.
I found it very moving. Liz Cheney was especially convincing. For one, the whole story was laid out as one piece without interruption.
Second, I hadn't heard some of the information and it was more powerful to have it all linked together. It was made clear that this wasn't a random mob gone awry. This was a planned attack from the start.
Finally, it was important that this was from a Congressional committee, not some obscure blogger or "investigator".
It was impressive to hear so many Republicans testify that Trump was told that he lost the election. Especially AG Barr and his daughter testifying to that added a lot of credence.
While I normally oppose the death penalty, political leaders are often executed. Usually summarily and without trial. Sometimes they even have the decency to commit suicide (Hitler) before they can be tortured and their bodies mutilated (Qaddafi, Mussolini etc).
It’s the way of the world. It’s not for me to argue with it. Sometimes it’s necessary.
I feel like it’s time now.
My first problem is burnout. My second problem is, this distracts from today's problems, thus solving nothing.
ORANGE MAN BAD - yes I get it. Yes I agree. No I didn't vote for him, and I won't vote for him in the future. I don't like how this witchhunt has gone, either - and just because there's a bona fide witch to hunt doesn't justify an actual witch hunt. I turned away from the 1/6 commission the moment Pelosi appointed nevertrumper Republicans so she could call this "bipartisan". It's sort of like saying skim milk is "real milk".
But whatever. I expect the Rs and Ds to behave shittily, especially when they are trying to score points against each other. So yeah, ORANGE MAN BAD - but I'm not going to waste my time on prime-time made-for-tv propaganda either.
What I would rather focus on is inflation, and increasing interest rates, and Putin's war, and the coming famine, and skyrocketing gas prices, conservative overreach on abortion, and we still have no balanced budget and an ever-increasing national debt - meaning our kids will pay for our greed. Pointing fingers at what "the other guys" are doing wrong doesn't change the fact that America is being screwed by Democrats in power. Even pointing out that Republicans who previously had power were also screwing us over doesn't change the basic fact that we're still being screwed over.
I have no desire to watch this political theater when there are so many real-world problems to deal with. If there's something actionable against Trump, then forward that to the Department of Justice and be done with it. Until then, this is all just a waste of time. It's not like this can make my "no" vote regarding Trump be any worse than it already is.
First, it's not all about you. I'm glad you have the sense to not vote for Trump, but apparently you don't understand anything more than that so I'll lay it out for you:
1) Trump lost the election in November 2020
2) He had already been laying the groundwork for calling fraud IF HE LOST as far back as one of his debates with Hillary Clinton. .
3) Every effort to show significant voter fraud lost in court and was shown to be evidence free. Over and over again by multiple people and organizations, even as recently as a few months ago when the AP systematically examined all the charges of voter fraud and determined there was almost none. *
4) Trump had this explained to him over and over again by people around him including William Barr who he had asked to look into it. So, if he chose not to believe it it was simply an act of self delusion. Or perhaps in his heart he knew he lost but he thought he could bully, manipulate the seams in our system and stir up crazy violent people to help him win anyway.
5) Trump began exploring ways to change the results after the fact in ways never before tried or even considered.
6) If he had succeeded he would have helped destroy our democracy. Moreover, he has not gone quietly back to his gold plated hole but is actively trying to affect ongoing elections and indeed may run again.
7) If you think this is trivial, far less important than say the price of gasoline (right now - want to take any bets on whether it's this high a year from now ?), then I suggest you go to Ukraine and ask them how they feel about the Russian form of "democratic" government and whether that matters.
8) With few exceptions one of our major parties has acquiesced to the Trump cult
and so they too need to pay for this in the public arena which is exactly why they want fools like you to mouth the same platitudes about political theatre and the
"real" problems facing us You gave yourself away with your comments about balanced budgets by the way. Sheesh.
My asterisk next to point 3 was to note that the Jan. 6 team should highlight all the ways we know that Trump lost . Mention the court rulings and all the subsequent evaluations and reviews. Rinse and repeat until every mole has been whacked back down in its hole.
Until the Department of Justice gets involved, YES this is trivial. We all know what Trump did; rehashing it serves no purpose other than to take away the spotlight from the real issues of the day. We need criminal charges instead of political theater.
And you should be ashamed of yourself for not being concerned about a balanced budget. I guess as long as this nation somehow holds together while you yet live, it's all okay, amiright? The truth is, we didn't inherit this nation from our parents, but rather we borrow it from our children. The same goes for the environment.
Balanced budget is just a hobby horse for those who prefer we go back to the Articles of Confederation or a means to thwart the parts of the government they hate. Anybody who bleats about a balance budget betrays their ignorance about how government spending works and how government works in general.
Yes. For just a single example, we boomers paid a surplus into the Social Security Trust Fund to cover the larger payouts for our future retirements. That trust fund is held in the form of Treasury bonds, i.e. the Treasury borrowed it. The US has never defaulted on its debt obligations; there is no safer asset.
Balancing the federal budget is a bad idea: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/5-reasons-why-the-house-balanced-budget-amendment-is-a-bad-idea
We inherited tremendous assets from prior generations; not just vast amounts of physical infrastructure, but knowledge that makes the economy run more efficiently, makes businesses more productive, and gives us more nice things with every succeeding generation, not to mention improvements in health care, a cleaner environment, safer workplaces and transportation systems, and more. Borrowing to build out infrastructure, to support research, education, a healthy workforce - all these pay back much more than their cost.
I have a slightly different take on Trump's position. This is just guesswork, but I think it's valid.
Trump seriously believes he won the election. All the people saying there's no evidence, well they just didn't find the evidence. The reason he's so sure of this is because he's convinced he's so wonderful that he can't imagine why people would vote against him.
Notice Trump's frequent claim that it's "statistically impossible" for him to have lost. How can he say this? Well, look at all those huge crowds at the Trump rallies. He figures they couldn't be other than a representative sampling of the population. And that everyone loves him except a few consciously evil types.
I hope it's clear how ridiculous that all is. But I'm guessing that's what Trump really thinks.
Speaking of propaganda, your embrace of right wing talking points is noted.
These are right wing talking points? I don't pay much attention to them over this issue, either. Interesting how that matches up with my personal conclusions.
Listen, I feel bad for you if you're a millennial who grew up riding to school or soccer practice in the mid-to-late 90s with mom or dad in the minivan with El Rushbo permanently on the radio, but that's no reason for your trustfund Fauxcobin act to rely so heavily on dismissing the Democrat Party & insisting that John F. Kennedy, a conservative, was the last Real Democrat.
Why, yes, yes they are right wing talking points. Maybe that should tell you something about the validity of your personal conconclusions as well as the quality of the reasoning that got you there. An incidentally, could you explain why, precisely, one should not hunt for witches when -- as you yourself said -- there are demonstrably witches out and about making mischief?
"just because there's a bona fide witch to hunt doesn't justify an actual witch hunt"
If you have a real witch casting evil spells on the country, then a finding out what the which has been doing, and widely exposing it, seems awfully important. If Trump was committing crimes, like seditious conspiracy or treason, you say downplay it? He tried to overturn a presidential election.
"I turned away from the 1/6 commission the moment Pelosi appointed nevertrumper Republicans so she could call this "bipartisan"."
That's only because there are so few Republicans who would not just inject propaganda into the process. Bipartisan investigations are supposed to be about seeking the truth. Supporting Trump makes a Republican a type of extremist. Of course she had to appoint nevertrump Republicans. All the rest have lost their moral compasses.
A witch hunt is not justice. A witch hunt ignores Rule of Law. If there's something actionable in all this, then it should be turned over to the Department of Justice.
And yes, I know Republicans have sold their souls - and not just over Trump. So have Democrats. None of them have moral compasses. Pelosi cherry-picking whoever she wants is just as bad as Republicans obstructing the commission.
The Progressive Case for believing William Barr's summary of the Mueller Report.
Special to the Hill by Matt & Liz Bruenig
A witch hunt 'ignores the Rule of Law' you say? Pray tell just how they do that, with specific examples of this happening? The ones I know about were done up all legal proper.
You may not realize that there's a whole lot of government that's constantly doing stuff like the things you're griping about. Nobody ever sees it, unless it stops working. Just because the 24hr news media is somehow incapable of covering more than a single story in a day doesn't mean nothing else is going on.
Kevin, I think there are a lot of things you don't realize. There are lots of voters who go out and vote in presidential elections because they keep hearing that it's their "civic duty" -- but they have no idea why they should pick one candidate over another, so they just go by the most recent impressions they got. I was one of them until I was about 40. There is also that thing that was expressed well by Merlin in the film Excalibur: "Remember this day. For it is the doom of men that they forget." Lots of voters only think about whatever is the latest media obsession, whether it's gas prices, or some scandal (her emails), or some statement that was ordained a "gaffe." So what it current is really, really important. And finally, there are a lot of wishy washy Democrats who think that midterm voting is "lame" because "nothing ever changes."
Those are just some examples of why this could really matter.
They already believe that Trump tried to overturn the election results and they think that was a good thing. I mean, Democrats were the ones who originally tried to steal the election, right?
For many of them, I seriously doubt an attempt by Democrats to seal the election is even necessary. In other words, many of them know perfectly well in their heart of hearts Biden won fair and square, but they just don't care. Defeating Dems and owning the libs is all that matters. Full stop. This should be accomplished by any means necessary.
As long as they get to be ruled by lib-owning white supremacists, most MAGA people would be perfectly content flushing our democratic norms down the toilet.
Also, I bet the hearings don't change the vote of more than one Republican in thousand, and probably not much more than one swing voter in a hundred.
One should note that these hearings aren't to get the hardcore wackos to our side. Instead they are to scare the causal voter to wake up and make sure to vote to ensure the wackos don't take over. Also to make sure history records what they did.
Instead they are to scare the causal voter to wake up and make sure to vote to ensure the wackos don't take over.
Indeed: hence the final sentence of my original comment. By "swing voter" I meant "low information voter" or "persuadable vote" or, to use your phrase "casual voter."
By all accounts they're a rare breed these days, likely not accounting for more than about 15% of the electorate. I'm not optimistic the hearings will break through to many of them. But I'm prepared (and I'd be delighted) to be proven wrong.
I suspect -- but cannot prove -- that the rather arid terminology 'low information voter' is a euphemism for 'I vote the way I see people around me vote.' But none of the hired gunslingers will ever say that part out loud.
"In other words, many of them know perfectly well in their heart of hearts Biden won fair and square, but they just don't care. "
That is too generuous. They know it is a lie, but they dishonest enoough that it doesn't matter to them, and they think it is a good like tostick too.
Thet is the main problem with Trump and Trumpism: honesty doesn't count anymore.
I think a very large number of them actually believe Trump. It’s actually scarier. They are so blind (and stupid) that they do not believe the truth.
As I wrote in a different comment, I don't believe that they are that stupid, because they won't be able to function in real life if they were. But they are dishonest.
I used to think as you do, but I think I was wrong. They are living on the same planet as you and I, but in different worlds.
I think both varieties exist. SomeTrumpists have been genuinely brainwashed into believing Biden stole the election. There seems no doubt about that. And some Trumpists know perfectly well it's a lie. And there are probably plenty of gradations in between (as in: right-wingers who are always paranoid about Democratic "cheating" and don't care one way or another whether this particular stolen election narrative is true, or not).
Hell, most fauxgressive leftists would be OK with an American Trumptarian Despocy if the feds ensured lib-ownership as a guiding principal.
Just wait til the Jacobin endorses the Ron de Santis-Tulsi Gabbard GQP/Green-Brown Unity ticket in 2024 over Senile Joe-Willie Brown's Slampiece.
Very well done though, which matters. The pretty blond police officer surely gave Fox fits.
It led to the strangest bones ever engorged.
And here I was expecting Drum to make a very Brooksian, this is going to be a big meh, post. So, here's to being pleasantly surprised.
I have no idea how this will effect the electorate, but I certainly *hope* that it makes a positive difference.
Kevin prolly returned from France with a coupla bottles of wine & got a little lightheaded from it before writing this post.
The bottom line when it comes to elective politics is that the average voter isn't very intelligent, and half the population is below average.
H.L. Mencken: "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Dave French just had an Atlantic piece saying that a sizable chunk of republicans are silo'd by gop media but have NEVER heard about the bad stuff. They only hear about dem perfidy.
In this Ohio diner, the QANON Shaman is a shirtless Hunter Biden hitting the rock & sending forth his Ukrainian crisis actor staff to capture & torture Mike Pence.