Unvarnished: not adorned or glossed : plain, straightforward
As in...
Charlie Sykes (host of The Bulwark podcast): There will be times when you will agree with us. There will be times when you disagree with us. But I think you understand by now -- or at least I hope you... you think -- uh, that... uh, that... we... that what we say is unvarnished. And... and I think that... that's one of the things that... that we've really that I'm proud of with The Bulwark. Because all the different voices, they don't all say the same thing but the opinions are unvarnished. And I think that this is a moment in American politics where we need it. As opposed to the usual sort of disingenuous bullshit that you get, frankly, uh... from the partisan media. So, uh, if you have not yet joined Bulwark Plus, uh, please consider doing so...
Cool story bro!
Hey, what about the unvarnished truth that the GOP was a shitpile of bigots and imbeciles long before Trump showed up? And that, despite decades of dire warnings from the Left, you and your Never Trumper friends were instrumental in turning your party into the monster machine that produced Trump?
Ah, I see.
Well that's understandable. When you're selling subscription to the paywalled side of The Bulwark, that kinda talk is unhelpful.
Much easier to kick it with failed, one-term Tea Party congressman and ex-Hate Radio jock, Deadbeat Joe Walsh -- a conversation during which we learned many important things.
First, while it's true that while Rush Limbaugh was fun and entertaining way back in dim and distant Precambrian Era --
-- Charlie and Joe walked away from Limbaugh long ago because they were obviously all about calmly rappin' to the youth about policy --
-- and not just shouting red meat to the mob.
Second we were reminded that the real heroes here are...Charlie Sykes and Joe Walsh.
See, what we Liberals simply do not understand is how very, very hard on both of them is has been to walk away from the American Fascist Party.
So hard!
Sykes: What people need to understand, though, um...
What "people"? Who are the "people" who need to understand whatever it is you are about to say?
Sorry. Continue Charlie.
Sykes: ...though, um...is how visceral this loyalty is and what happens to a Republican or a Conservative that breaks with Trump. And I'm not offering a defense to people who are cowardly about it, but there's a reality that that when you break you lose everything. You are excommunicated. You're attacked. You are threatened. It's hard to overstate it.
Allow me translate. What Charlie is saying is that it's really hard being treated...exactly as the Right and the mainstream media treated Liberals during all the decades when we were warning them that this was happening in their party and that it was only going to get worse.
Ignored. Cast out. Attacked. Yes, I imagine it must be really tough being shit on by the same "Shit on the Liberals" machine that you yourself spent decades helping to build.
Sykes: And and so, you know for people who go, "Well okay, you... so you don't you have to do this but you get to do that."...
And to be clear, by "people", Sykes means me...
Sykes: ...trust me, uh, doing five-minute hits on television does not compensate for 20 years worth of work and relationships that are destroyed in this current atmosphere.
20 years worth of work...for Team Evil and relationships with demagogues, grifters and brownshirts.
So cry me a river.
And as for having to settle for "five-minute hits on television", five minutes of free advertising for your books, your website, your newsletters, and your podcast, for you and assorted other members of your Never Trump team, several times a day, every day, year after year, comes to literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free promotion and borrowed credibility.
Which doesn't exactly sound like a hardship to me.
So cry me a second river. Cry me the fucking Tigris and Euphrates.
Third, we learn that the Republican Party is now definitely done and dusted! Ceased to be! Expired and gone to meet St. Reagan. It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' Hand of the Market Invisible!
It's dead Jim! Dead!
So I guess you're probably going to join the only remaining major political party that isn't, y'know a shitpile of deranged bigots and imbeciles, right?
Sykes: I guess I'm... I am very uncomfortable with going from one tribe to another tribe. So I... I had no problem voting for Joe Biden, uh, in the... in the election but I'm not willing to throw in my lot with the Democrats or or give them a blank check.
Proving once again that neither of these two brain wizards have ever met an actual Democrat out in the real world. because when, in your entire adult life, has anyone ever given the Democrats a blank check? When in your entire adult life have the Democrats failed to march at least 3/4ths of the way down the field to beg Republicans for a modicum of comity and compromise, only to pull back a bloody stump?
Walsh: My take Charlie is, be bold. Plant your flag now. Give me a Centrist, common sense, "Let's get some shit done!" kind of a party that will attract moderate Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans. I would plant that flag now knowing that it's going to take two or three election cycles...
Sykes: So what is it that you think Progressives and the Democrats don't get? Or are getting wrong?
Sykes: I know that many you know folks on the Left don't want to hear advice from people like us...
Good to know that, even though he blocked me long ago, and even though I have been kick off of Twitter forever, Mr. Sykes still makes it a point to secretly listens to The Professional Left podcast. Maybe I should sent him some of our very popular branded merch?
Sykes: ...but every once in a while I raise my hand and say. "Look I think there's tremendous potential here to get a lot of these disillusioned voters but don't go crazy in this particulardirection"...
Walsh: I think there are two areas where Democrats really lose people in the middle like you and I.
It's "you and me" not "you and I". But whatever.
Walsh: All of this wokeness! Like all of this woke stuff. Like you've got a... you've got to fall in line and think like them! In the taking George Washington and Abraham Lincoln taking their names off of schools! Most of America doesn't support that.
Walsh: And then the whole notion of finances, Charlie. Like free college and free everything! That's just not sustainable and if the Democratic Party goes down that road then again they're gonna lose people in the middle!
Walsh: Here's one thing we overlook in our criticism of Trump. Yeah, Trump's a horrible human being but the working-class vote -- especially the working-class white vote -- the Democratic Party is in real danger of absolutely losing touch with that vote because they're so focused on some of these "social justice" issues.
Because you can take the douchebag off of Hate Radio but you can't take the Hate Radio out of the douchebag.
13 comments:
Behold, the One True Thing he said- Sykes: "I know that many you know folks on the Left don't want to hear advice from people like us...
That goes double for folks actually ON the Left~
The only thing "centrist" about Joe Walsh is that he is at the center of his own universe, which as far as I can see is pretty damn far from being centrist about anything. Walsh just can't understand, and is pissed about, why Trump was more successful at stirring up the rabble than he was.
Is it possible to bottle Republicanism?
If possible, we can market and export it to North Korea, to Saudi Arabia, Somalia (no, it is already there). Expert it to Russia.
have any of our scientific great minds put republicanism under the microscope?
To find out more how it morphs into all the virus variants we have been exposed to so far and are going to be?
WE can fill a missile war head with Republicanism and launch it as a Minority Report first strike.
It would be longer lasting and more devastating that nuking a country.
Would it be cancel culture to round up republicans and send them all to Mars as a colony
I don't think it would cancel culture them or suppress their free speech. They would be able to speak all they want on mars, right? That is if he republican state parties that are there don't vote to censure their RINOS.
Yes, I imagine it must be really tough being shit on by the same "Shit on the Liberals" machine that you yourself spent decades helping to build.
I am always impressed by your ability to not type sentences like this one the way they deserve: in bold, italic, all-caps headlines big enough to be used as a bludgeon for smashing the skull of God.
Perhaps it's "unvarnished" because they ran out of varnish after huffing it all?
-Doug in Sugar Pine
I think that they stopped huffing the varnish a long time ago and have been guzzling the varnish from gallon buckets with an eye on the 5 gallon gas can...
Like BlueGal said DG, as sad as it is that you were perma-banned from twitter for far less than many bluechecks say every day, it has led to a very enjoyable increase in your blogging. Keep up the good work my man.
In other words "We'd be more in favor of what Democrats want if they could be more racist and less into economic justice."
That's not how it works, bro. And we also aren't unquestioning drones who change our morals on a dime. I can see why grifters like Sykes and Walsh are confused.
WE do not require eyes to hear their confusion.
It turns my stomach to listen to Charlie Sykes. But some of the "never-Trumpers" have renounced their memberships in the Republican Party. They're not all such oily hypocrites as Charlie Sykes; can't some be allowed back into the company of decent people, on at least a probationary basis? I'm thinking of Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, David Jolly, and Max Boot, and perhaps there are more -- but if I'm wrong about any of these people, I'd like to be corrected.
Too late to edit my comment, but I meant to congratulate you on your unceasing vilification of David Brooks. He deserves it, and you've provided me with a number of good, satisfying belly laughs over the years.
The next time a "conservative" describes an actual Democratic Party policy, proposal, or position in terms that are correct, fair, accurate, or that an actual Democrat would agree with, will be the first in my memory.
If Trump called Charlie Sykes to Mar A Lago for negotiation on a contract to market and campaign spin for him and / or his QANONites.
His first concern would be, his profit. Duration and job duration stability and assurances of not being fired if he was to make his contracting deal public.
It is more than laughable that people like Sykes make position comments as, I cannot be in the GOP for which it stands. I can say Democrats are correct about it. That is why I am becoming an Independent. You see I still hold all my conservative ideology, beliefs ;oke. Closeted Fascism And big GOP government when GOP have majority control and extreme obstruction when not.
Because, ONLY REPRUBLICAMS are allowed to rule (I mean Govern).
State right s for GOP governors but not democratic governors as example.
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