Thursday, September 22, 2016

Remember, Remember


The 2nd of November
The Iraq War treason and plot.
I know of no reason 
Why Bush Era treason
Should ever be forgot...*

The subject of today's post is Drew Magary's very fine column in GQ entitled "If You Vote For Trump, Then Screw You", but before we get there I want to fire up the Kodak Carousel and take you on a little trip in time with me. back through the pages of our recent past.

Twelve years ago, you might remember, Senator John Kerry was busy whipping the shit out of the Worst President in Modern American History during a series of televised presidential debates.  The late Hunter S. Thompson was still alive and writing at the time and here were his impressions (emphasis added):
...
Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready for it. His long-awaited showdowns with John Kerry turned into a series of embarrassments that broke his nerve and demoralized his closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no matter how many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of Kerry supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners.

Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill.

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful... I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President", and then I felt ashamed.

Karl Rove, the President's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St Louis and Tempe. That is Rove's problem. His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters.

Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his teleprompter. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night - except this time, the false prince turned back into a frog.

Immediately after the first debate ended, I called Muhammad Ali at his home in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard that he couldn't come to the phone. "The debate really cracked him up," he chuckled. "The champ loves a good ass-whuppin'. He says Bush looked so scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down."...
It turned out Dr. Thompson wildly overestimated the sound judgement of the majority of American voters after being hammered for three years by continuous Republican fear-mongering screaming out of every radio, every teevee and every newspaper headline.  In their fear-stupor, enough "independents" and "undecideds" stampeded to join forces with the scum of the Right to do something so stratospherically stupid that we haven't even begun to make a dent in the ruin it left behind.

Of course there has been an ocean of Republican ratfucking, sedition and raw, racist sewage under the bridge since then (which has been documented virtually every agonizing day in excruciating detail on Liberal blogs such as this one) but in the immediate aftermath of the re-election of the Worst President in Modern American History, this post showed up first on Daily Kos, and then on TPM and the late Steve Gilliard's News Blog.  It's long (this was in the days before "tldr" was the internet reader's default setting), powerful and I have referenced it before on several occasions, but today I want to dial in on one very specific theme that recurred over and over again on the Left in the aftermath of the re-election of the Worst President in Modern American History.

A theme of  "Fuck These People."
...
You're good people.  You're educated.  You don't watch Fox News.   You don't listen to talk radio.  You, simply put, haven't the faintest idea what we're up against.

These are not Conservatives--this is not the Republican party we knew.  This is the Movement funded by Richard Mellon Scaife , the Koch Brothers,  and Joseph Coors, among others.

This is Ann "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building" Coulter , whose books are huge best-sellers.  Read a few of her columns and then come back and tell me I'm over reacting.

This is Rush "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream" Limbaugh , who has an adoring audience of many many millions...

How about Sean Hannity , on whose show a young woman caller, to much acclaim, pronounced that she was voting for Bush "because President Bush likes war.  Kerry doesn't like war.  So I'm voting for Bush."...

Michael "Savage" Weiner , who, while voicing his contempt for San Francisco's homeless and the efforts to help them, Savage, a long time Bay Area radio personality, said that female students who come from a Marin County private school to feed and provide services to the homeless "can go in and get raped by them because they seem to like the excitement of it..." These and other comments suggesting sexual activity between homeless people and minor students were peppered throughout the three-hour broadcast....

Check 'em out!  They want you dead.  Don't you think you should be aware?  Browse their sites and comment boards and then come back and tell me you can reach them, educate them, live in peace with them.  Or that you want to.

And don't forget this guy, who wrote , after the election:

"If anyone needs to work to 'bring the country together' it’s those on the left who have divided it so badly. Those who sought to destroy this great man should get down upon their knees and beg the victors for mercy. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll let a few of them linger on for the simple reason that they amuse us. My life’s goal is to see the Democratic Party virtually obliterated and left as a rump of people like Stephanie Herseth who both mostly agree with us anyways and are easy on the eyes.

"That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women.

"Let’s face a hard truth: this was the bitterest Presidential campaign in living memory. The Democrats and their allies staked everything on the defeat of this President. All of the resources they had accumulated over a generation of struggle were thrown into this battle: and they have failed. Despite all of their tricks, despite all of their lies, the people have rejected them. They mean nothing. They are worth nothing. There’s no point in trying to reach out to them because they won’t be reached out to. We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and our boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards."

All of whom are wildly popular, hugely influential, make tons of money, and who want us dead.
...

Fuck them.

And I know you, my fellow lefties... Your kindness, your warm welcome, your generosity, your concern, your love and passion--it will never work.  These people hate you.  Understand?  They HATE you.  They want you dead.  All your work, your energy, your wisdom, your experience--it means nothing to them and it reads as weakness.  They see your open, extended hand, and they feel oppressed by it-- it reads as scolding, as hectoring, as judgment, as oppression.  They think you're going to take away their children and their guns and their Bible that they never read and teach them evolution and force them to get gay married.  They really, really believe that, even as they take you for all you're worth.  In fact, this belief of theirs is what gives meaning to their sordid, hateful, fearful, resentful lives.   
They will never change.  Your kindness and generosity only enables them.  They'll take what we've got--our money, our art, our science, our technology, our wisdom, our humor, our compassion--and they'll spit on us and calls us communist traitor faggots.  Time to let go.  They hate us.  It's time we realize that...

They're bullies.  They hate weakness, vulnerability, anything smaller than they are, anything at a disadvantage to them.  They hate it.

Michael Moore thinks that if he just educates them--if he shows the beautiful young soldier with his limbs blown off, in the inescapable horror of morphine addiction; if he shows endless lists of the names of the young working-class people who died so horribly for a lie; if he shows Iraqi children flying kites; if he makes them watch an Iraqi elder get sexually molested and then mocked for it--if they just see it, they'll understand.

He's wrong.  Michael Moore's the one that doesn't understand.  They do see it.  They do know it.  They are fully aware.  They understand just fine.  They like it.  And god help anyone that gets in their way.

If they can make someone else suffer--suffer more than they do, even a little bit more (a lot more, that's a bonus) even if they have to increase their own suffering to make sure someone else suffers--they will do it--they'll do whatever it takes...

Fuck them.  Walk away.  Just say no.
...

Right-wingers are cowards.  They want a monarchy, a theocracy.  They hate Liberalism. They worship hierarchical power.  The only thing they respect is a boot in the face.  That gets them rolling over and peeing in exciting submission.  Fuck them.  Let's give them some of that Shock and Awe they love so much.  Let's withdraw.  They will not change.  They are just plain bad.  Spend your time and money on yourself, your family, your community, your values.  Let them drown in their own filth.

As Joe Conason writes ,
"Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people...

"If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances…"
It's ours--we fought and died for it.  They don't want it; they never did.  So fuck them.  Walk away.

...when you keep reaching out your hand in loving kindness to someone who hates your fucking guts and wants you dead, you're an idiot.

So stop it.

Stop enabling them.  Stop fighting for them.  Stop trying to give them something they don't want.  Just stop.  Stop not telling the truth because it'll hurt their feelings and cause unpleasantness.  They're bigots...


That was twelve years ago, and a person can learn a lot in twelve years.

Twelve years is longer than my first marriage lasted.  That experience taught me a bunch.

You can complete an entire American primary and secondary education in twelve years.

You can, on average, complete a bachelor's degree and a PhD in twelve years.

And if the history of the last twelve years should have taught us anything, it's that the judgement we rendered on the Right twelve years ago were, if anything, too merciful.   

After twelve years of the Bush administration's failures and lies spilling out  in front of the whole world, bloody and awful like the intestines of a gut-shot mobster?  After the massive, hysterical Republican denial that any of it was happening...followed by an equally massive, hysterical Republican denial that they had ever even heard of George W. Bush?  After the rise of Trump and his John Birther Society?  After a million desperate lies deployed for the sole purpose of stopping Barack Obama from trying to give millions of uninsured Americans a little help and peace of mind?  After a million more lies deployed to try to sabotage the Obama Administration as it worked to save the world from a global depression?  After the GOP all signed on to the Caucus Room Conspiracy to obstruct the Obama Administration to death? After the shutdowns and a dozen dozen bullshit partisan witch-hunts in lieu of actual governing?  

And after every fucking jot and tittle of it was eagerly aided and abetted by the Both Siderist Quislings of the American media, we finally arrive, twelve long years later, at...

If You Vote For Trump, Then Screw You

... And so I’d just like to say to that portion of the electorate: Fuck you. No, seriously. Go fuck yourselves. I’m not gonna waste any more time trying to convince you that you’re about to do something you’ll regret forever. I’m not gonna show you old clips of Trump saying rotten things. I’m not gonna try to ANNIHILATE Trump by showing you records of his hypocrisy and greed. I’m not gonna link to a John Oliver clip and be like, “THIS. So much this.” Nothing’s gonna take down Trump at this point, so I’m not gonna bother. No no, this post is for ME. I am preaching to the sad little choir in my soul here.

Because while Trump is a miserable bastard, YOU are the people who have handed him the bullhorn. YOU are the people willing to embarrass this nation and put it on the brink of economic ruin all because you wanna throw an electoral hissy fit. YOU are the people who want to revolutionize the way America does business by voting for its worst businessman, a disgusting neon pig who only makes money when he causes problems for other people instead of solving them. YOU are the thin-skinned yokels who clutch your bandoliers whenever someone hurls the mildest of slurs at you (“deplorables”), while cheering Trump on as he leaves a bonfire of truly hateful invective everywhere he goes. YOU are the people willing to overlook the fact that Trump is an unqualified, ignorant sociopath because DURRRR HILLARY IS BAD TOO DURRRR.

You know what? No, she’s not. She’s fine. I lived through one Clinton, and I can live through another. My reasons for hating Trump are better than your reasons for hating Hillary. Show me all the arguments against her you like. You guys don’t give a shit about facts and research when it comes to Trump, so I’m not gonna give a shit about whatever clumsy meme you cook up to explain why she did Benghazi. Nope. Sorry. Fuck your arguments, and fuck you. Trump has shown no respect for anyone, so I don’t see why you deserve any either. Whatever mildly frustrating centrist liberal bureaucracy that Hillary presides over will be fine compared to the spray tan mushroom cloud that would arise all because YOU thought Trump was such a brave, un-PC dickhead to everyone within shouting distance...

Twelve years later, and Dr. Hunter Thompson is long gone, Steve Gilliard is long gone, while Sean Hannity is doing better than ever, Rush Limbaugh has consolidated his grip on the Republican Party, and Ann Coulter is now a welcome guest on MSNBC where Chris Matthews help promote her horrible books.   

Which is why, twelve years later, we who have been right about the Right all along have no need to apologize or explain ourselves to anyone.  We have earned our Bachelor's and PhD's in "Dead Wrong All Along" Wingnut studies the hard way, grinding it out, doing our homework, reading and writing day after day, year after year. And we know from bitter experience that it is not enough for the Republican candidate to be profoundly unqualified, or for him to shit himself in public over and over again.  We know that the Right really are a basket of deplorables who are beyond the power to reason or civic redemption.  We know from bitter experience that the media -- who should have been reporting the Right's descent into madness with escalating alarm every day over the last twelve years -- have abandoned their posts and sold us out for money and ratings.  

Once again we find the only thing we can count on is each other.  Getting the unregistered to get registered.  Getting the souls to the polls.  

Once again, it falls to the dirty hippies to help protect America from its worst impulses and ugliest demagogues.

And once again, as we bitch and gripe and roll our eyes, we will roll up our sleeves and do our bit to save the day.



* From here

15 comments:

Jim Butts said...

This is so important. And you are important to those of us who want America to continue to become "the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history." Thank you.

Unknown said...

thank you sir for reprinting that...I do wish that Obama had read this at some point before taking office and saw just how useless his outreach was going to be.
What I can't understand really is the Democratic Party's refusal to learn who they are dealing with... witness Hillary Clinton's right pivot to woo the gop and talk about America Exceptionalism a move that can be filed under 'how to depress you base'
It is admirable to be generous in victory but in order for that to work the other side has to admit they lost -But the Democratic outreach feels as if the Union had offered Appomattox like peace terms after the battle of Antietam...they don't feel beaten and they have no reason to change.

dinthebeast said...

Trump is not a mistake for them. Their second choice was Cruz, for fuck's sake.

-Doug in Oakland

trgahan said...

For people so frustrated about Democrat's not being liberal enough, I think it is important to remember that, since at least the late 1800's, progressive/liberal governance is where voters have turned to after conservative governance fucked up something BIG.

Therefore, elected progressive/liberal representatives spend most of their political capital fixing what conservatives broke and, unfortunately, once it is fixed for the certain demographic groups (white middle and upper classes) much of their political capital disappears.


Meremark said...

Driftglass, this is so good. Soul food for thought. Pierce led me to Magray and the hallow of HST floated in my room warming me for several hours yesterday. Today you stoke my stove anew.

One branch of goons, broadcasting, chide that they embrace being deplorables. My follow-up question then is, Which type of deplorable are you; racist, bigot, misanthrop or pervert?

Good works by you are among the on-ramps for the information superhighway traffic that is simply drowning out tv/radio 'mainstream' which is only a meandering crook of sloggy mudflats beside the way. In other words, be of good cheer. We win, half-brain rightwingers lose. Reality has a liberal bias. See: the inexorable Righthand Thumb Screw Rule informing the universe.

Evolution screws them.

Lawrence said...

Not directly on topic, but I am getting really god damned tired of the Right threatening to murder us if they don't get their way. It used to be jackoffs like Ted Nugent and James Yeager. But now it's the Republican candidate and his mob. And the reflexive "It was just a joke" defense is an obvious lie.

unclestupidhead said...

I read here and listen on occasion.

Today I've decided to pay the writer.

Thanks!

RUKidding said...

I remember that post. Thanks for the reprint.

There was a dawning realization over the past nearly 40 years about how very effective, pernicious and pervasive rightwing propanda was/is/shall be, especially with all of the big money behind it. It's really all about: divide and conquer. Let the idiot rubes hate each other, and CHA CHING!!!!

For quite a while, I, like many others, tried "reaching out" and attempting to communicate with those on the right with extremely limited succcess. There have been some successes, though, but it takes someone somehow awakening from their stupor and usually tossing out their tv. To DFHs who rarely ever watch Fox - and run screaming from the room when we do - it's hard to fathom how anyone, especially intelligent people (like my family members), could fall for the very very obvious lies, hype, spin, etc. But it is somehow (inexplicable to me) so attractive and addictive, that those who fall under its spell seldom can see reason. It's really pretty frightening, in fact.

It's true that attempting to "reach out" and "reason" with rightwingers very invested in their POV has pretty much become a senseless exercise in futility. But such is the fear of the .001% who fund this shit, that they have upped the ante. And yes, now it's come down to literal threats of murder. Oh yeah: it's all just a "joke," and you hippy-dippies are taking it out of context, or you're twising the meaning or whatever other tripe they like to dictate to their dittoheads.

But yeah, at this point, there's no reasoning with these heavily brainwashed citizens, and Trump has just turned up the volumes by magnitudes. Trump, it's clear, is doing it to enrich himself, as his latest Tax Plan clearly and obviously indicates. He's not a fool. The .001% are happy to tag along and provide funding bc Trump's tax plan will make them ever richer and richer.

If some of the rubes get killed along the way? Yay. Let's useless mouths to feed. Let the rubes tussle. Great distration whilst the .001% massively robs us all yet again.

What do Trump's fans get out this? It's clearer and clearer that their main goal is to trounce on liberals/Democrats and beat down all minorities as much as possible. This is their "just deserts," their big reward. No they won't get any jobs. No their lives won't be improved. No they won't have better health care or improved financial security. No. No. No. But these yahoos don't appear to give a rats ass about any of that. Who cares about jobs security? Who cares about health care? Just let me stomp on some hippies or n*****rs or Muzlinz and hey: USA! USA! USA!

Yeah, it's hard to fathom these people and what they believe and how Trump will somehow "make America Great again" for them. Frankly, they'll be ever worse off, but because they say the "n" word in full out loud and proud and in public??? YAY. Let's have it!! Gimme!!

Yeah: Fuck 'Em. I call 'em racist stupid assholes because that's what they are. They can wear that as a badge of honor, if that's what they want. I don't give a shit. Irredeamible deplorable worthless dumb POS.

Not a giant Clinton fan, but for heaven's sake: GOTV. It's that serious.

Jimbo said...

That ad for GOTV was really well done, IMHO. To your larger point, Chimpy also won in 2004 because Ken Blackwell almost certainly tipped OH into the R column. So Chimpy won both of his elections on fraud. This is also a definite risk this time around. Almost certainly FL and NC will end up for Trump because of fraud and voter suppression. OH is a big question mark but Kasich has helped to ensure it will probably go to Trump too. This means it will be an extremely close election when it shouldn't be. OTOH, VA and CO are looking pretty stable for Clinton. Both states have Democratic administrations so it's harder for GOP to execute outright fraud.

Jimbo said...

A follow-up comment to my election comment. A lot of people (not necessarily this group of commenters) assume that Trump's appeal is just to the trailer trash, low information voter. Those people don't vote and most of the people who have come to his rallies are clearly middle class types; suburban or rural voters. The other people who will vote for Trump are the millions that don't really like Trump but would never vote for a Democrat. Their assumption is that the Establishment GOP will control Trump. And they may be right. Trump really just wants to make a large bunch of Executive Decrees on Day 1 and then turn over the day-to-day to Mike Pence who's popular in the GOP Congress. Trump then goes off to screwing over the American people with the GOP Congress supplying the enabling legislation. Problem is that the declared GOP platform will crash the economy well within a year by enabling massive bank and corporate fraud. So, GOTV to avoid an otherwise truly dead future.

Neo Tuxedo said...

What do Trump's fans get out this? It's clearer and clearer that their main goal is to trounce on liberals/Democrats and beat down all minorities as much as possible. This is their "just deserts," their big reward. No they won't get any jobs. No their lives won't be improved. No they won't have better health care or improved financial security. No. No. No. But these yahoos don't appear to give a rats ass about any of that. Who cares about jobs security? Who cares about health care? Just let me stomp on some hippies or n*****rs or Muzlinz and hey: USA! USA! USA!

Davis X. Machina said it so long ago:

The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of who[m] will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.

There's one born every minute, baby, don't you know...

jjstraka said...

This is your best post, and you have alot of good ones.

RUKidding said...

@Jimbo: I agree re W's fraudulent "elections." That both elections were close is indisputable. That Gore ran a poor campaign is also true. But I disagree that it was bc of Ralph Nader that W "won." That election was stolen in FL, and the following election where W ran aginst Kerry (who also ran a lackluster campaign despite clearly trouncing W in the debates) was stolen by KKKarl Rove in Ohio.

KKKarl Rove was convince that RMoney would win in 2012 because he had set up a similar scheme to rig OH votes. It is a thing of beauty and joy forever to witness Rover's melt down when he was actually calling OH for RMoney but bleeding from her hoo-hah Megyn Kelly informs Rove that Obama won Ohio. Rover can't believe it... because he thought his fix was in the bag. Some speculate that some sort of Anonymous-style organization somehow stopped Rove's rig.

I have real concern about continued GOP election fraud. It appears that some top dog Republicans do NOT want Trump to win, but as time goes by, it's equally clear that some powerful members of the .001% have gotten on board the Trump train. Well Trump's all about the Deal, and his successive tax plans clearly show how he's proposing to legally rig the tax codes to further enrich himself and his wealthy buddies. So anything goes at this point. And devious KKKarl Rove is still with us.

GOTV.

portlandmaxtrains said...

Off topic, but Josh Marshall has decided to start making part of his podcast free starting with this episode:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/podcast/josh-marshall-show-episode-three-josh-green

I think you would like it.

proverbialleadballoon said...

We need to blow these fuckers out in November. That has to be the goal. If we come up short of that and Clinton still wins by not that much, at least 'nothing will get fixed for 8 years' is a better choice than 'everything will be completely wrecked in 8 years like the last time'. What it would take in order for Trump to win is Democrats not getting out the vote, because despite the press spinning this into a horserace the demographics are there for a blowout. The Magary piece needs to be read by anyone in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, etc. Funny that a comedian has to be the one to say it in the media (Magary writes long-running features such as Thursday NFL Dick Joke Jamabaroo, and Why Your Team Sucks on Deadspin), or maybe it's not surprising at all that it's a fool saying it. The only way to stop the press from repeating 'it's both sides, 50/50, right don the middle' is if the actual numbers are 55/45 ten-point slap down. We either get out the vote, and blow these fuckers out, or it's another 8 years of 'nothing gets done' _At Best_. It's time this country made a motherfucking decision, perhaps this is hyperbolic, but the Civil War needs to be ended in the year 2016. It's over. We won. And fuck you.