Sunday, August 19, 2018

Deflecto Patronus!

(Chuck Todd shown here trying to conjuring his Patronus)

Both Siderism really is the Beltway's one, true Patronus Charm.  It's all-purpose, all-powerful protective magic.

And it is killing us.

Paul Krugman described how in The New York Times yesterday in a column which I would humbly describe as exactly what it would look like if I had a byline in a metropolitan daily.

Minus the swears.

From The New York Times:
The Slippery Slope of Complicit

When was the last time centrist talking heads declared, “Donald Trump just became president” (because he bombed someone, or something like that)? I think it’s been more than a year. At this point, you have to be a truly fanatical practitioner of bothsidesism not to see that Trump is every bit as terrible a human being, and every bit as much a menace to the republic, as some of us warned when all the cool kids were busy snarking about Clinton’s emails.

The real news of the past few weeks isn’t that Trump is a wannabe Mussolini who can’t even make the trains run on time. It’s the absence of any meaningful pushback from Congressional Republicans. Indeed, not only are they acquiescing in Trump’s corruption, his incitements to violence, and his abuse of power, up to and including using the power of office to punish critics, they’re increasingly vocal in cheering him on....

And modern Republican politicians are, with few exceptions, apparatchiks: they are creatures of a monolithic movement that doesn’t allow dissent but protects the loyal from risk. Even if they should happen to lose a race in their gerrymandered districts, as long as they toed the line they can count on “wing nut welfare” — commentator slots on Fox News, appointments at think tanks, and so on.

Even now, I don’t think most political commentators have grasped how deep the rot goes. I don’t think they understand, or at any rate admit to themselves, that democracy really could die just a few months from now.

And if it doesn’t, if Republicans lose Congress and Trump leaves office on or before January 2021, the same people who kept declaring that Trump just became president will try to go back to pretending that Republican politicians are serious, honorable people who care about policy. But they aren’t...
And if you think this is something new, think again.

Here is Joe Scarborough from a decade ago brutally mutilating the actual history of his Republican party right in front of Paul Krugman in order to get in on that sweet, sweet Both Siderist action that instantly became the Beltway default setting once the Bush Administration collapsed



Behold, a Tip Jar!

3 comments:

dinthebeast said...

I saw this last night and thought, Welp, there's gonna be a Driftglass post about this one because it sounds just like him.
So how much of an allowance for the awful, awful stuff they publish these days should be given to the NYT for publishing this gleaming little nugget?
Hint: What was almost as good to see as the column was the notification beneath it that "David Brooks is on book leave."

-Doug in Oakland

Pagan in repose said...

AT this point the only question I want asked by reporters everywhere, everyday to the republican members of the House and Senate is why are they not writing up papers of impeachment. And I mean in that kind of a "why" that a 6 year old asks their parents in that never ending "but why" until they cough up the real answer for why their party is abdicating their constitutional responsibility. Sort of like "Why do you hate our Republic? Senator. Why are you helping the Russians? Senator..."Why do you approve of the President taking away peoples 1st amendment rights? Why did you sell out our country to the Russians Congressman. Why do you approve of the president advocating violence against newspaper reporters? congressman.

I want the reporters to ask questions like these every goddamn second, minute, hour and day until they answer why. Why, congressperson, why.

As far as I'm concerned why is the only question left to ask.

I know we have the mid-term elections coming up, but these question need to be answered by the republicans NOW. Before this country goes any further. The republican need to spell out what the fuck do they believe in.

We appear to be at the jumping off place and the republican party has a lot to explain for their abdication of their constitutional responsibilities. And yes please come and revoke my fucking security clearance, you revolting stench of self serving corruption pustule.

I hope my rant was somewhat coherent.

Davis said...

The NYT just hired a pro-Trump guy to tell us how wrong we about the the president.