Monday, April 03, 2023

Last Friday Was My 18th Blogiversary

That's 18 years, 11,000 posts, around 4,000 original graphics and in that entire time only seven typos :-)

And lemme tell ya, over the last 18 years I have seen some shit.

This is a post mine from April 1st, 2005.  The only substantive differences between then and now are:

  1. The bigoted,deranged GOP base now runs the party directly and not by proxy. And, 
  2. The people who made a living lying about the bigotry and derangement of the GOP base in 2005 now make a living pretending to be utterly shocked that the GOP base suddenly and inexplicably turned into a mob of bigots and imbeciles in 2016.

Swap around a few names and it's the sort of thing Liberals could have (and did) write on any given day over the past couple of decades.   A sin for which we were declared "pariah" and exiled forever into the outer media darkness forever.

Or it's something the Lincoln Lads and The Bulwark could've (and did) file the serial numbers off of and post to wild acclaim and a fistfull of MSNBC contributor contracts and book deals five minutes ago.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Tip jar below the post if you are so inclined.


Rep. DeLay Preps the Beds for the GOP's Big Sleep


(This particular bit started life as a comment in Gilliard's Shoppe but has been Repurposed to better serve You, The Customer :-)

The little-“p” politics of this is fascinating.  [The fact that] Over the long run that the GOP is demographically/electorally doomed to become the minority Thurston Howell Party again. Either when the Fundy Shining Path Rebels that make up their margin of victory make one too many batshit demands, or are are told “No” once too often.

(If you want to get a clear picture of how this will look, rent “Fatal Attraction” or “Play Misty For Me”. I’m not going to be ignored, George!)

So either they take their bat and ball and stomp disgustedly back to Mordor, or a handful of moderate Republicans get so freaked out by the Randall Terry Wing of the Party that they bolt or stay home.

But short run…Tom DeLay is now a Household Name. Been waiting 10 years for that to happen and always amazed that Republicans had no fucking clue who he was, even though you’d tell them five or a hundred times. Sheesh. All RAM and no Hard Drive with some people.

Every GOP Leader knows the Gingrich Lesson: No matter how much the membership owes you, they’ll go absolutely Lord of The Flies on your Piggy-ass the minute you becomes a measurable liability. Newt was so completely “I Am The Reich” that he would have been perfectly happy to go into the bunker and fight it out until the GOP was razed to rubble had he not been stopped by his own House Republicans.

And since the Suddenly Huge Liability named Tom DeLay is now just “Tell Tale Heart”--thundering away under the GOP floorboards, threatening to drown out everything else, the question is, will that same dynamic play twice?

Well DeLay ain’t Gingrich. He learned from that episode, and they don’t call him The Hammer for his shipwright skills. He spent a decade forcibly collecting GOP testicles and caching them in his private Crown Royal bag. At the slightest provocation he will to politically and personally destroy anyone who doesn’t bend a deep knee to His Gorgon Awfulness.

And both the Texas and National Republican parties have shown absolutely craven willingness to rewrite the Rules on the fly any time the Beast’s wet-bar needed to be restocked with virgin’s blood, or whenever a law or policy might make threaten to cinch-in the bottomless lust he and his stooges have for Power, Money, Trinkets and Perks, even a trifle.

So (hahah!) they’ve kinda disarmed themselves to accommodate him, and now they’re stuck very much up on that very windy gibbet with him. So if you were running in 2006 and playing How Do I Save My Pink Republican Skin while DeLay is holding your ass held hostage, what do you do?

Got to time it juuuust right. Jump away from Herr DeLay too soon and he’ll blow your head off. Jump too late, and your face will be morphed into Tom DeLay…into Randall Terry…into, I dunno, Osama Bin Laden? in every ad, every day, for the entire election cycle.

My simple suggestion for voters in 2006?

Shoot the hostage ;-)
The Tip Jar Is Open


 


4 comments:

SouthSideGT said...

Drifty you are the political writer equivalent of Mr. Atoz who looks into our political past with your blog which is some kind of Atavachron. I am not nerd or writer enough to finish my metaphor but keep up the great work and here's to 18 more years The One willing.

Robt said...

Just saying, GOP is aware they are a dwindling membership.

It is why they gerrymander so harshly even their own GOP can't vote them out of their majority in state legislatures.

GOP U.S. Presidents haven't won the popular vote and only the electoral college has been abused for their wins.

Obviously they se the need to to control state legislatures to use their majorities to control votes and judges but more so now, to grant themselves the authority to overturn any election they don't like and will claim it was frauded somehow as excuse. They aren't ready yet to come out and say, If you elect anyone but a republicans. We will toss that out and give it to who we want.
The next step is they will nominate and choose your representatives for you and it will be GOP.

John Eastman has a theory Which went to the top of the GOP list of rotten illegal shitty stuff to hold power. They actually tried it begetting GOP congress people to refuse to certify electors the state had already certified.

In other words U.S. congress people in Washington DC will choose your president if they don't like it and they won't like it if it isn't a GOP .

In other words their oath to the constitution that addresses "For and by We the People". They do not care at all for it, do not honor their oath to defend it and they will be your little Kim Jung Un and decide for you.

When the GOP does and eventually they dictate and punish their own GOP voters. And eventually they will get to it. They won't have the vote to get rid of them.

They already violate the "Freedom of religion" and that government shall not establish religion".
They use religion to control people to be their master. Eventually they won't need those religious zealots in the GOP's Christian version of Iran's theocracy. They will turn on those religious GOPers. They will not have anywhere to go, to correct or anyone to be an ally to do anything about it.

Why am I writing this. You are more than aware of it.

Robt said...

In the clown photo ?

Was the clown dead and buried . Then came back to dig himself out and roam the earth for human brains to eat?

Just asking because if he is the undead hungry for human brains. He is not owing to find any in the GOP.

Caoimhin Laochdha said...

. . . and I've read most of those posts.

Drift,

Thank you for spot on political analysis given with sardonic Swiftian aplomb.

Being a simple person who prefers "picture books," I am always drawn to your visuals. Your photoshops are world class. I see your images and imagine the "New Yorker" & MAD magazine having a child who they ultimately sent to Art School with an exacto knife and a cannister of nitrous; and who then graduated to take an understudy job at Charlie Hebdo.

Thank you & blog on!
-cl

ps. Who is this David Brooks guy anyway?