I’m delighted to hear this morning that Democrats are finally ready to torch their powder now that it’s too fucking late. The idea that you’re going to be able to peel away one Republican Senator who will vote in the interests of ALL Americans and not just their wealthy donors is quaint and endearing. Yes, yes, let’s appeal to the better angels of their natures, these people who just gave away $1.5 TRILLION in tax cuts to their wealthy donors.
I don’t know if anyone noticed but in the last week, with Anthony Kennedy still on the court, we’ve gotten rulings that it’s more than Ok to discriminate against Muslims. Oh, sure, it looks like a national security issue but we all know this will only embolden Fox News watchers to keep an extra special eye on anyone who dares living while Muslim. I have to now watch out for people I know to make sure they’re not harassed. Why should any of us have to do that? Why must we live in a country that makes that necessary??
But it’s more than that.
The court also made it easier to disenfranchise voters. It made it harder for unions to bargain on behalf of labor.
In short, this was already an activist court before Kennedy announced his retirement. I’ve heard that Neil Gorsuch keeps in touch with the Trump White House. Indeed, Kennedy seemed to signal that something sketchy is going on at the court this week. He’s not so much resigning as giving up. And yet, he didn’t HAVE to join the other conservative justices. He chose to do it. I’ve never been a fan of Kennedy. He treasured his swing power too much. It inflated his ego. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he let go of any principle so easily.
But if anyone out there thinks that Republicans are going to voluntarily do what is good for the American people and not their own party above everything, they should check out what happened in Pennsylvania when our state Supreme Court ordered the congressional district maps be redrawn. They Republicans threatened to impeach the judges. Why? Because apparently, they believe that a permanent Republican majority is their right.
It’s natural law, the divine right of kings. That’s the way the GOP, its donors and president operate. They are determined to never, ever let any majority of Americans dislodge them.
So, this ploy to get Mitch McConnell to abide by his own rules is going to fail. I’m just saying it right now. Even Collins and Murkowski will go along with an anti choice nominee if it means Republicans forever. Oh, sure they would. You know it deep in your bones. They’ll rationalize and say it should be up to the states to keep abortion legal and as long as its legal in California and New York, that will work for them. We’ll just go back to the days of the early 70s when pregnant women had to scrape together money to fly to the Empire State. They might even quote the notorious RBG about it when she said that maybe abortion law needed more momentum before Roe v Wade.
So, don’t expect that to work, people.
The Democrats did not put up enough of a fuss when Gorsuch was nominated. The media has slavishly covered the aggrieved white male Trump voter for two years now, ignoring everyone else. It still has learned nothing about how it was used. The people they are ignoring now are the majority of voters. It must be a great time to be an intrepid journalist but this is a very bad time to be a regular American.
In my humble opinion, which is routinely ignored, because, what am I but a blogger, this nomination must be treated like the existential threat to democracy that it actually is. And not just because it has the capacity to change the country forever in favor of the super rich but because it has the possibility of putting certain powerful people above the law.
That’s how the Democrats have the potential to win this thing. They need to ask whether the judge that Trump nominates is going to be loyal to him. We know what loyalty means to Trump. It means he gets away with whatever he wants.
So if you’re ok with more children being separated from their parents or having the loss of net neutrality concretized so there is no real free speech or that employers can just stop paying Social Security because it’s too burdensome on them or that Trump can get away with working with the Russians to turn the world’s greatest democracy into one in name only and in practice not, then go right ahead and try to hold McConnell’s feet to the fire on judicial nominations in an election year.
Yeah, see how well that goes.
They probably already have a plan to ram Kennedy’s replacement through. It’s going to be a blitzkrieg. Mark my words. These are people who recognize no rules and they aren’t going to cede one nanometer to Democrats unless they are forced to.
Anyone on the Democrats’ side who tries to convince you otherwise is not being honest.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
The Mediocre White Men, who are the solid backbone of Trumpublican support, know they would, on the average, suffer a relative decline of status in an egalitarian social democracy.
They also fear the need to compete with women and minority men, some of whom would have greater skills and talents than the Mediocre White Men.
Of course, if they would simply use their votes to team up with the rest of us and establish an egalitarian social democracy, similar to the kinds found in the Nordic states, it would not matter materially if they won or lost the “competition”, but then there’s that status thing again.
They have chosen DuBois’s “psychological wages of whiteness” (and maleness) over the assurance of the necessities of civilized life which a modern social democracy provides.
This does not speak well of their wisdom.
‘Bork’ it!
WE WILL, WE WILL, BORK YOU! (sing it!) 😈
Bush Junior nominated Roberts and Alito. Cheeto Benito nominated Gorsuch and now will get to pick another one.
(Thomas, the remaining reliably reactionary Justice, was nominated by Bush Senior.)
We will have four, and maybe more to come, Supreme Court Justices nominated by men who would not have become President, if enough Purity Ponies had not thrown tantrums in 2000 and 2016, either voting for Pure White Left candidates, or refusing to vote at all.
There is lot of you scratch my back while I do yours going on between Congress GOP and trump — trump gives them all the policy wins including a fully loaded right wing SCOTUS and in return they will turn the other way on his myriad of illegality/criminality and maybe even aid in getting rid of Mueller. Doing away with Mueller’s investigation helps them also because many of them are co-conspirators and if the whole truth came out the Republican party as we know would not exist. So an existential threat for them as it is for trump. Longer Mueller takes, trump and his GOP bond become stronger and his power increases without any check. People have to take to the streets to decimate GOP as a political party.
Apparently, Sinclair Lewis did NOT say:
“When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sinclair-lewis-on-fascism/
However, the statement holds much truth, whoever said it first.
On the other hand, I am somewhat surprised by how subordinate are the roles which subverted patriotism and subverted faith are playing in “Trumpism”, for lack of a better word. The majority of its ideology, if it can be called that, seems to be plain, unadorned hatred of women and minority men for refusing to accept subordination to the Mediocre White Men (and some bizarrely self-destructive white women–Stockholm Syndrome?), who are the hard core of Cheeto Benito’s support.
Basically, Cheeto Benito, his GOP, and their master Putin (never forget him), are taking advantage of a gigantic, sustained tantrum of Mediocre White Men.
So we agree that Murkowski, Collins, and Flake are not going to save us, and we agree that Dems are pretty much powerless to stop the impending Christian Caliphate. Look, I know there’s a molecule of comfort in proclaiming, “See, I fucking warned you,” but self-flagellating defeatism and garment-rending isn’t moving the needle, friend. Certainly not with people who take their civil liberties for granted, because they can’t put down their avocado toast long enough to apply this sort of introspection BEFORE a crisis.
You write, “[Congressional Republicans] recognize no rules and they aren’t going to cede one nanometer to Democrats unless they are forced to.”
Forced to?
Humor us with specifics.
Democrats and their allies are going to have to eat red meat for breakfast every day. They have to take it up to 11 and not back down.
And I would forget about a strategy based on abortion.
I know what I would do, let’s see if they do it. And I also know that I’m not going to put it on a board where operatives hang out looking for ideas they can turn into the next Fox News talking point.
Finally, we can not give into despair. That’s the one thing the GOP is sure to want to ram down our throats. They want non voters to think that their votes won’t matter so they’ll stay home in November. You can smell it from a mile away. Make people so depressed they don’t even show up. We’ll see what happens.
I’m not giving up.
Yeah, interesting how that request comes from someone whose WordPress name I don’t recall ever seeing here before.
You got me. I’m actually a deep state informant for Jeff Sessions and the ICE goon squad.
My cover is blown.
So the strategy is “vote in a Democratic Senate majority.” Gee, why didn’t anyone think of that before? Sorry if I sound underwhelmed. I just think our energies would be better spent figuring out ways to survive this clusterfuck than reflexively eating our own. I’m not giving up either, but history has not treated the hopeful kindly.
Remember, Trump is not Hitler.
Putin is Hitler.
Trump is not even Mussolini.
Trump is Vidkun Quisling, or one of Hitler’s other puppets.
I agree with this. After playing out various scenarios in my mind, I do not see any way that the nomination of a Radical Right Justice can be stopped. And Radical Right not only means bad on every social issue, but also someone who will rule against the Mueller investigation, and find that a president cannot be independently investigated. There are those on the “list” who actually have said just that. One of these will be the nominee and he or she (yes, there are a few awful Radical Right women, too; and one of those will make a good cover for the Fascists) will be confirmed. Not one Republican will vote against the nominee. This has all been baked in for quite a while, even before Trump; Republicans vote like a monolith.
I thought about whether the Democrats should even fight this, and risk losing valuable Democratic Senators in Red States, people whom we might not agree with all the time, but who are the best we could possibly do in one of those states. I guess it is better to fight; but as you suggest, the fight is really too late, at least on this front.. While Chris Matthews is now suddently yelling about how the Democratic Party will implode, and there will be a revolution there, if they do not fight; we recall that he did his part in trying to normalize Trump, suggesting that he might be speaking for all those noble hard-working White people in the PA towns who did not like stagnant wages or foreign wars. Virtually all of the media did that. And those on the Left wanted to suggest that we might be okay with Hillary losing; that we could come back even better with Sanders or Warren next time. That was of course the sickening stupidity of self-indulgent, ignorant people; and there are enough of them out there to have cost us the 2000 and 2016 elections, which had we won, would have given us a far better country.
I am certainly not for giving up, because there is no value at all in that. But I think our best hope is to flip the House; that will at least allow us to investigate Trump, curtail the traitorous activity from current House leadership. Run on all of those issues which the Radical Right Court is going to take away. It does not solve that, of course, but it gives us at least some leverage. Maybe we can somehow win the Senate, it is not impossible. We know that if Democrats use every possible device to stop the appointment of a Federalist Society Justice, we will not only end up losing, but the media will cover it so as to blame us. But of course if we do not fight, they will blame us, too; plus all the Purity People, fronted by bots and right-wing plants, will tell people not to vote for Democrats any longer, and to vote third party, or not vote at all. So I guess the best course is to bring up all the issues about the new Justice being able to protect Trump, and that being an inherent conflict; and how a President under FBI investigation should not be able to choose a Justice of the Court. Make people as aware as possible. But realize that we do not have the power to stop it, at least this part of it.
Once again, I will mention that the time to stop it was before, when we held power. How much blame Obama gets for this is up to each person to decide. I think it is a great deal. But it is true that he was following a line developed over the last decades, where Democrats basically always worry about the media attacking them for being tough, or not compromising. And the bitterly humorous thing is that even after all the nightmarish events of the last months, the media is still ready to attack and mock Democrats for not being the good-humored patsies that the media has appointed as their role in this ratings-fueled drama. We could see all this coming years ago, but didn’t quite realize that Russia would become a major instigator, and that the front man would be a corrupt carnival barker. But do remember that even though we might nostalgically want to think of GW Bush as at least not corrupt or evil, he appointed the oleaginous Roberts and the soulless Alito. This will now make four Justices who would never have been appointed in the alternative universe where all Democrats were intelligent enough to make sure that the Democratic candidate won, as opposed to some off them gratifying themselves with their illusions of moral superiority by voting for third-party candidates, or not showing up at all.
And his daddy gave us Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas!
And that nomination was in the last year of GHW Bush’s term, and the Democrats controlled the Senate, and they held hearings on him, as was always the case until McConnell came long;, and despite him not only being completely unqualified, but also being accused of sexual harassment t by Anita Hill, he was approved by the Senate. And he is still there, 28 years later. George Mitchell, former Senate Majority Leader, was on TV in 2016 talking about how he and Robert Dole worked together to insure a fair hearing for him, and how Mitchell,was not going to allow the Democrats to filibuster him, as many wanted to do, because he believed that Thomas deserved a vote. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?
Biden, William, let’s not forget Biden.
And it is breathtaking and nauseating to behold how there really is a vast-right wing conspiracy, just like Hillary told us decades ago, and of course got mocked and vilified by the media for saying. These people all work together, there are lines of communication. The Linda Tripps and Lucienne Goldbergs. The Stones who know in advance what Wikileaks will do. The Giulianis who have corrupt FBI sources who feel him information which he then leaks to the media. The Thiels whom Anthony Kennedy might have had business ties with. The Mercers, the Kochs, all connected by various chains. Devos and her brother Prince. Fox News basically becoming an arm of this administration through appointments. They are all out there, working together; while the media doesn’t see it or doesn’t want to see it. A web of corruption and monied power which now seems to control every aspect of the country. And as their best trick, they manage to convince their dupes that it is the Democrats which actually are the web of corruption, ‘The Clinton Crime Family.” Even the Mafia doesn’t try to convince the public that it is law enforcement which is corrupt, while they are acting nobly. But this group of loathsome people do. Goebbels said that part of The Big Lie was to claim that your enemies were the ones doing the things that you were actually doing. The more than daunting task is to somehow unearth all of this, and root it out. I don’t know if it is possible. But someone has to try.
The networks now do not only cover every speech and rally that Trump gives, they cover Melania Trump’s appearances. Are they going to cover Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and all the Trumps far and wide? These are endless commercials for Trump. How much different is this than Big Brother being broadcast 24 hours on everyone’s mandatory telescreen?
You know what? I never see that crap. I don’t watch cable news. Or network news. The only news program I listen to is Rachel Maddow. Other than that, I listen to a LOT of podcasts. I stick to podcasts that are more fact oriented and with little to no emotional content. And I read a lot of papers and some non-fiction. And that’s it!
You can (and should) avoid any video of the Trump Crime Family. You don’t have to watch it.
Absolutely. And I do always turn it off. But it greatly bothers me that Trump gets free advertising on a daily basis. I’m pretty sure that, everything else aside for a minute, he won because he got about ten times the media coverage that Hillary got in terms of rallies and statements. They’ve just continued it.
I didn’t watch that, but I heard on another news show the other day that Trump was screaming “enemy of the people!” about the media. People watch these things, and one may have just acted on it. What an awful situation we have, Hitler come to America. This must be ended.
I think that is a big hope, if our votes will still count in 2024. The oldster white guys who watch a lot of television will be dying off at a rapid pace, and the then middle-aged people of color will be voting. There is no way to stop the demographic change in this country… without gas chambers. Republicans will never, ever get the Muslim-nation or Hispanic-nation vote after this. Those in power now don’t care, they’ll be long gone on their pensions and lobbying money. If our votes count.
There should be an expose of every Republican lawmaker and others who have used abortion services for their mistresses/gf/wife/daughter, if R v.W gets on the chopping block.
Perfect, delay the SCOTUS nomination by a president under criminal investigation until Mueller concludes his investigation.
RD posted this yesterday (giving credit where it is due and there was also a bunch twitter people saying this) — I hope this takes on a life of its own and become huge chorus.
*posted about
Good that Booker took it to the Rs.
best news in US politics this year: in a huge upset Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member 28-yr old Alexandria Ocasio Cortez defeated the 4th most powerful Corporate right-wing Democrat Corrupt Joe Crowley in the NY-14 House race. #ImWithHer
There were other victories for Progressives also, including former NAACP chair Benjamin Jealous winning the Maryland Governor primary.
These 2 results restore a bit of faith for me that a Democratic party primary can actually be a democratic fair process.
Does this blog community support Ocasio Cortez?
We support all Democrats who run this year in solidarity.
Cortez and Jealous? Yes.
You? Let’s just say you haven’t won my trust yet.
Yep! Looks like a bunch of people trying to prove something rather than help the Democrats win against trump.
Feels like 2008 all over again. Can’t wait to check out dashboard.securing democracy.org to see what the Russian bot and troll agenda is at the moment…
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
Enough is ENOUGH! I have HAD IT with these MUTHAFUCKIN’ SNAKES in these MUTHAFUCKIN’ BLOGPOST TITLES! 😛
I see it’s another Thoughts and Prayers day in America.
The guy was apprehended within minutes. Shot gun..White male. Not a homicide by cop. Not cooperating… all signs point to a trumpee.
And he didn’t have the guts to off himself-so, yeah.
RD, look here! I would spit on her fucking face. Go away, you b#tch.
That’s what I screamed at the TV: “It’s your fucking fault.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/opinions/democrats-badly-underestimated-trump-zelizer/index.html
What?? WE underestimated him?
What about all those crazy Trump voters who still think he’s better than sliced bread and Will. Not. Get. It. until he permanently vitiates then from their jobs or social security or family or freedom of speech or . I haven’t met a Democrat yet who didn’t feel a deep sense of despair the day after the 2016 election and was shaken to their cores. We worked our fucking asses off to prevent this from happening.
And if they are referring to the Sanders or Jill Stein voters, then they aren’t referring to real Democrats. There were plenty of Sanders and Stein primary voters who worked for Hillary at the end of the campaign. They were real Democrats who saw the alternative and didn’t want any part of it.
The others are not Democrats and are completely irrational who can’t seem to think their way out of a paper bag.
Remember, it’s from a CNN hack. Mainstream media doesn’t really want the GOP out because MM owners want low taxes–you know my spiel by now.
This is why I love about you RD, shining out the facts and the truth.
Thank you.
Maybe what we Americans have underestimated is the degree of corruption and criminal conduct carry out by republicans at all levels…
And where is Obama?
Obama gave a speech in which he said Democrats need to fight, and need to stop waiting for him, alluding to being seen as a messiah. No kidding.
Ah, jeez, the cause of the problem himself telling us how we’re on our own. I swear he’s as much of a narcissist as Trump.
Aha, I was sort of right. Kennedy was forced out!
Sorry, wrong link/tweet. This is the one about Kennedy being forced/pressured to retire (I was right!)
That highlighted part from NYT is a lie and a tell! I will bet my last dollar that there was ‘direct’ something going on to force him out. It was not Michael Cohen, this time though. He is busy otherwise.
It’s the money. The NY Times broke (the next day) how Kennedy’s son, a Deutschebank employee, loaned Trump Inc a bunch of $$$.