First they enacted Nixon's racist Southern Strategy And I did not speak
out Because I'm not "political".
Then they welcomed White Conservative Fundamentalists into the party's
inner circle And I did not speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then they embraced Hate Radio, Fox News and the whole Conservative
propaganda grievance machine And I did not speak out Because I'm not
"political".
Then they adopted the politics of Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove
and Lee Atwater And I did not speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then they cheered on the War in Iraq and used it to demonize all opposition And I did not speak
out Because I'm not "political".
Then they put on stupid hats, called themselves a "Tea Party" and had an
eight-year-long racist primal scream because Democrats elected a black guy And
I did not speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then they put on different stupid hats, called themselves "MAGA," and
nominated and elected the King of the Birthers. And I did not speak
out Because I'm not "political".
Then they nominated the King of the Birthers again And I did not
speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then they tried to overthrow the government when the King of the
Birthers lost And I did not speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then they brought him back and elected him again And I did not
speak out Because I'm not "political".
Then the King of the Birthers looted the treasury, put armed masked
goons in the streets to intimidate and murder American citizens, launched a
disastrous war for no explicable reason, torched our alliances, and generally
fucked this country up almost beyond repair
That's my variation on a short verse about taxes ("Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!") attributed to the late Louisiana Senator Russell Long.
It's also the FA portion of FAFO that Republican voters were only too happy to
sign up for when they nominated Trump to be their Dear Leader three times,
voted for him three times, and elected him twice.
Farm Bankruptcies Jump In 2025, More To Come In 2026
Farm bankruptcies across the nation have jumped 46% in 2025. You'll never
guess why.
A report from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows that farm
bankruptcies jumped by 46% across the nation. In Wisconsin alone, there
were only 2 bankruptcy filings each in 2023 and 2024. But in 2025, that
number leapt up to sixteen filings.
The reasons for this massive increase in bankruptcies should not be a
surprise to anyone. They include lost markets due to Trump's illegal
tariffs and ballooning costs due to Trumpflation. Everything a farm
needs to operate jumped in cost, but farmers weren't getting nearly
enough back to meet their costs.
Another factor adding to the farmers' woes was the labor issue. With
fewer migrant workers, labor costs rose, squeezing farmers even more.
In Trump's first term, his tariffs and his war on immigrants caused
Wisconsin dairy farms to close at a rate of two per day. To do the same
thing and expect different results is the definition of insanity - or in
Trump's case, dementia.
Unsurprisingly, experts are warning that 2026 is going to be more of
the same, only worse.
In keeping with our farming theme, that is what the fruit of the poison tree
looks like.
Trump Supporter Learns Hard Way ICE Doesn’t Just Target ‘Worst of the
Worst’
A New Jersey couple can’t believe “we were MAGA” after their immigration
ordeal.
A Donald Trump supporter is regretting voting for the president after
her husband was swept up in the administration’s immigration
clampdown.
Sandra Hafraoui’s husband, Abdellatif Hafraoui, spent 108 days in
custody after being detained by ICE at Newark Liberty International
Airport as the couple attempted to fly out on vacation.
Abdellatif, a Moroccan national who has lived in the U.S. for nearly 40
years, was detained despite having no criminal record. He was caught up
in the crackdown because of a missed immigration court date more than a
decade ago that he was not even aware he was scheduled to attend, NJ.com
reported.
Sandra, who voted for Trump in the last three elections, said she is
now reconsidering her MAGA allegiance and the president’s mass
deportation plans due to the treatment her husband endured.
“To think we were MAGA!” she told NJ.com. “You [Trump] said you were
going after the worst of the worst, but instead you ruined our
life.”...
And if these are the poison fruits, this is the seedbed where the poison plant
was rooted, watered, fertilized and allowed to grow big and strong.
From Investigate Midwest, November 13, 2024
Trump support grew in America’s top farming counties despite first-term
trade war
Farming-dependent counties rallied behind Trump with an average of nearly
78% support.
America’s most farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly backed
President-elect Donald Trump in [2024's] election by an average of
77.7%.
Trump has appeared on three presidential ballots, beginning in 2016. In
2020 and 2024, he increased his support nationwide, topping 50% in this
year’s popular vote.
However, Trump also increased his support this year among
farming-dependent counties by nearly two percentage points compared to
2020...
Fuck 'em.
And now, an unfairly out-of-context bit of audio for your listening pleasure:
However, what remains a taboo subject everywhere except out here in
disreputable wilds of whatever is left of the Liberal blogosphere is
how exactly the Republican base came to be such a aggregation of
unsalvageable garbage people that they would nominate this degenerate monster
for president three times and elect him twice.
How is it that no one but us dirty hippies noticed or cared about the monstrous cancer that was growing in plain sight at the heart of the GOP until it was far too late to stop it?
"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." -- Frank Herbert, Dune
In 2016, voters were offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and a lying, racist sexual predator. And 62,984,825 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, racist abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
In 2020, voters were once again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had just finished nearly wrecked the country with his corruption, incompetence and unprecedented, non-stop lying. This time 74,224,319 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
In 2024, voters were yet again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had now led a violent coup against the government of the United States, who promised to pardon the traitors who had tried to overthrow the government, who had been impeached twice, was credibly accused of serious federal and state crimes in multiple jurisdictions and was now a multiply-convicted felon. This time 77,302,580 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
And in handing him absolute control over this country, they gave him the power to destroy it. Which he and his henchmen are, right now, in the process of doing.
G.O.P. Bill Has $1.1 Trillion in Health Cuts and 11.8 Million Losing Care, C.B.O. Says
Analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Republicans’ new version of the legislation would make far deeper cuts and lead to more people becoming uninsured than previous proposals.
According to a report published late Saturday night, the legislation would mean 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034. Federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare would be reduced by more than $1.1 trillion over that period — with more than $1 trillion of those cuts coming from Medicaid alone.
The fresh estimates make official what many analysts had already predicted and some Republican lawmakers had feared. The size and scope of the health care cuts in the bill, particularly from Medicaid, have been hotly debated, with fiscal hawks pressing for bigger reductions and other Republicans resisting them as they consider the impact on their constituents and health providers in their districts and states.
They are also at odds with President Trump’s vow not to touch Medicaid except to do away with waste and fraud.
The scale of the proposed reductions in Medicaid is unprecedented in the history of the program, which has tended to expand coverage over time since its creation in 1965.
USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years, researchers say
An analysis published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet projects that cuts to the agency will lead to more deaths from diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Analysis: Senate GOP’s Updated Megabill is Still a Disaster for Affordability, Jobs, and Clean Energy
It’s official: Republican Senate Leadership has released an updated version of their tax megabill, which will likely be the version that goes to the floor for a final vote. And somehow, it’s even worse than before. Senate Republicans are proposing passing legislation that will lock in higher household energy bills, kill American jobs, sell out the health of working and frontline communities, harm Medicaid, jeopardize food assistance, and torch our future.
If this bill passes, Republicans would be responsible for the loss of over 800,000 jobs, raising the average American’s electricity bills by 10 percent, and in a time of intense heat and grid demand, they’ll be reducing new energy capacity installed on the grid by at least 50 percent. All this—simply to line the pockets of billionaires, fossil fuel executives, and their top corporate backers with massive tax cuts.
All of this and all that is to come aren't the actions of a single monster, or even that monster and his pet Republican cowards and quislings and fanatics in congress.
All of this and all that is to come are the result of a premeditated act of democracide by 77,302,580 of our fellow citizens, and of all their enablers who stayed home or otherwise threw their vote away because they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for the black lady, or because, y'know, Both Sides.
If 77,302,580 feels like too big and too abstract a number for you to get your head around, remember that among all of those tens of millions who affirmatively decided to bind our country hand and foot and turn it over to rapacious degenerate parasites are...
...people who are in the pews with you on Sunday, if you are a church-goer.
...people who are in line with you at the grocery store.
...people who are on the staff of your local school districts
...people who own local businesses.
...retirees living on pensions dining a couple of tables over from you at a local diner.
All of this and all that is to come is their fault.
It is our job to make sure they can never, ever live it down.
If you have eyes to see with and ears to hear, you have no doubt noticed the
media making a big deal of the 10 year anniversary of Donald Trump's June
16, 2015 journey down an escalator and into the hearts of the Republican
base.
Trump Has Us On His Golden Escalator to Hell—But There is a Way Off
Fox News:
Flashback: 10 years since Trump's golden escalator ride
‘The Five’ co-hosts recount President Donald Trump’s first election,
his game-changing rise in politics and already ‘fascinating’ second
term.
The Washington Examiner:
A decade of MAGA: How Trump’s golden escalator ride changed America
At the time, right down the line, all the Very Serious People and every
Republican who would go on to be a Never Trumpers regarded the whole idea of
Trump running for president as a goof. A joke. A jape. A
stunt. Burlesque. The notion of this jumped-up real estate
buffoon and reality teevee guy running for, well, anything was seen as a
clown on his way to the inevitable banana peel.
But there was a tiny contingent of us dirty hippies (who had long since been dispatched to media Coventry for the unforgivable sin of being right about the Right when everyone else had been wrong) who looked at Trump and saw the genuine threat he represented.
It's not that I had any special, inside dope about the way Trump had operated in the New York real estate market, or in the New York media market, or on reality teevee. I didn't. What I did have was a lifetime of up-close-and-personal exposure the Republican base, and could see with my own two eyes the terrible trajectory they had already been on for decades: a trajectory which both the legacy media and elite Conservative media categorically refused to believe existed at all.
And so, on June 18, 2015 -- two days after Trump announced -- I wrote this, which you are encouraged to send along to your favorite Never Trumper who still insists that no one could possibly have seen Trump coming, or what geniuses they are because they and only they caught wind of what a colossal ass-ache Trump might develop into. You are especially encouraged to send this along to your favorite Never Trump who is constantly moaning that we Liberals are potty-mouthed idiots who have no inkling what's really going on, or what is at stake.
From me, June 18, 2015:
The Premium Leads
In case you missed it, Squint and the Meat Puppet handed the MSNBC camera over to Donald Trump this morning for a relaxing, 30-minute handjob. While Trump rambled lazily from one pinnacle of bullshit and narcissism to the next, Morning Joe crack house regulars Mark Halperin (Glenn Beck's favorite mainstream media enabler) and the pickled remains of Mike Barnacle looked on, smirking and giggling. All that it lacked to complete the creepy, peep-show effect were trench-coats and bad lighting.
But of course, the story of the Trump candidacy has very little to do with Donald Trump.
As I wrote a few years ago, the brain-caste of the GOP spent a 40 years and billions of dollars carefully breeding an army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps. And they have been so successful at completely re-engineering the Right's ideological digestive system that they can no longer process any information which does not come to them in the form of Fox-approved Benghaaaazi goo.
In other words, in order to win elections and rake in vast fortunes, the Conservative brain caste has painstakingly created the perfect feeding-ground for con men and demagogues like Trump, the louder and more bombastic the better. And from David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal and "Meet the Press", to Ann Coulter and the Washington Free Beacon and the Breitbart Collective, in one way or another, virtually everyone in the media makes bank by flattering Conservative meatheads and pandering to their delusions.
They are the GOP's premium leads, but however abundant and renewable a resource the Conservative meatheads may be, come Presidential election time, there is never enough room at the trough for every rapacious Republican hog. This is why every few years we have these Little Red State Fundy moments; that delicate time when the knives come out and the various species of Conservative con men start cutting each other's balls over who gets to pluck the wingnut pigeons...
...while trying desperately not to call attention to the fact that their entire political system depends on pandering to the army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps which the GOP has worked so long and hard to cultivate.
Fortunately for the Right, now that the "respectable" media has as much to lose by cracking out of turn as Hate Radio and Fox News, we can all look forward to another campaign season of the American mainstream media looking stoically the other way.
End of sobering sojourn into the twilight of the Before Time.
In defense of American democracy, if a lie, or 100 lies, or 1,000, would knock
the Undecided and the Independents off the fences they're eternally straddling or smoke
them out of their smug, hermetically sealed "Both Siderist" panic rooms,
you're damn right I would.
Without hesitation, I would lie my ass off all week and twice on
Sundays.
If you have a minute, let me explain why this is something Democrats need to
start seriously considering. And just to make the point that, if called upon,
some of us can hang with the Joe Rogan and the Barstool Sports crowd I'll do
it in language they would understand.
This is about winning, and in the here and now, winning is ugly, because in
the here and now, politics is not lofty or idealistic. We have our base
of people who, broadly, care about the same things, and they have their base
of reprogrammable meatbags who want to burn our democracy down and dance on
its grave. And so "winning" is about getting the laziest, stupidest
people in America to take your side, stop thinking of politics as a philosophy
class or an ethics panel or a TED talk.
It's not. It's a bar. Specifically, a dive bar. And it’s
getting near closing time and your goal is to get laid. Period.
There are belligerent assholes at the end of the bar shouting nonsense that
you find really offensive. Do you engage? You do not. Why? Because
your goal is to get laid. Period.
There’s a bored bartender, who is starting to wipe down the bar and close out
tabs. Can he be of any help? No he cannot. He is the letter
of the law. He is your ticking clock. When the clock strikes 2:00
AM, the lights go on and the patrons will be shown the door whether you’ve
hooked up or not.
There are a few other patrons nursing their drinks, and one of them is an
unaccompanied woman. She is the undecided or Centrist or independent
voter. And at this moment, your goal is to get her to go home with
you. To get electorally laid.
Not to get married. Not to start a family. Not to pick out
adjoining plots in the cemetery. Just laid.
So how can this be accomplished?
Well, let's make a quick list of the advice that highly paid consultants and
pundits are currently screaming at Democratic politicians.
Don’t talk about policy. Voters hate policy!
Don’t talk about facts. Facts confuse voters.
Be authentic, but not too authentic.
Be a fighter, but don’t be confrontational.
Never challenge anyone’s stupid, bigoted opinion. It doesn't matter if
the economy is improving. If they, personally, are not feeling better
then all of your charts and graphs won't mean shit.
Use plain, clear language, but don’t offend anyone. Conversely, you must never
take offense at being called a corrupt, baby-killing commie.
And above all, remember that no matter how wrong they are, voters are never
wrong because they have the final say. So you must respect the
voters, no matter how stupid or bigoted they are, and how very clear they make
it that they will never vote for you. Which is why you should be
authentic, but also stick to vibes.
Vibes and sports and farts and tit jokes.
That’s what the consultants and pundits say.
I favor a different strategy. A bolder strategy. And to explain
that strategy, let us turn now to “Better Call Saul”.
In the politics of here and now, be Kevin Costner.
Tell them what they want to hear.
Lie your ass off.
And before you start to feel bad about it, ask yourself this. Whatever
beef you have with Democrats, is it true or not true that, on his worst day,
Joe Biden is 100 times better, more decent and more focused on the problems of
real Americans than Donald Trump? Is it true or not true that, on her
worst day, Kamala Harris would have been 100 times better, more decent and
more focused on the problems of real Americans than Donald Trump?
To any sane person, this is obvious, right? Blindingly
obvious.
And yet…
And then we had that debate where Kamala Harris blew Trump out of the
water. And what difference did that make?
Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday's presidential debate
against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided
voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the
better candidate.
Reuters interviewed 10 people who were still unsure how they were going to
vote in the Nov. 5 election before they watched the debate. Six said
afterward they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward
backing him. Three said they would now back Harris and one was still
unsure how he would vote.
Felicity voted for Trump in 2020 but has yet to decide if
she'll back the former president a second time.
I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for Trump, it came
down to who would I trust with my kid alone and it wasn't [President Joe]
Biden.
I'm still undecided.
All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are voting for
Trump.
I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which one.
I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward Kamala over
Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone in a room with my
daughter.
I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot booth...
Jessi voted for Biden in 2020 but this year, she was leaning toward a
third party candidate. She's now also going to vote for Jill Stein.
My mind would have been changed to maybe vote for Harris if I had heard
more from her that was substantial.
Nothing she said, I felt, throughout the campaign really sounded like it
had any substance, and there were some key issues I don't support her
position on.
I would say the same for Trump, so I'm
going to stick with third party.
If enough voters in swing states decided to go third party, Democrats and
Republicans would have to realise they have to choose candidates who we
can support....
In September, Mat told the BBC that Harris "very likely" had his
vote. He's since left his ballot for president blank.
I ended up casting an empty ballot for president. It was tough but I felt
like no candidate really offered any policy that resonated with me.
It didn't feel like any candidate offered anything that was very
substantial. ...
Tracy was impressed with Harris after her TV debate with Trump,
but remained undecided. Now, she's still not sure - so she's not voting
for either Harris or Trump.
I have definite plans of who I'm going to vote for, but I can't tell you
the candidate's name because I don't know the candidate's name. I'm voting
for a third party.
Hopefully that [candidate] is an adult. I'm not happy with either of our
[major] presidential candidates.
I know the third-party candidate doesn't stand a chance to get in. It's
just to send a signal to Washington that I'm not playing their game and if
they want me to vote Democratic or Republican, they better put somebody in
there with brains.
One of them is a bully who wants to own the country and the other one
wants to give the whole thing away...
Vanessa was impressed with Harris earlier in the campaign but is
throwing her support behind Trump.
I believe Trump has surrounded himself with competent leaders such as
Tulsi [Gabbard], RFK, and [JD] Vance...
Now, taking all of that into consideration – the overwhelming evidence that
Trump was and is completely unfit to hold any political office anywhere,
versus the basic decency and competence of both Biden and Harris – what is it
that undecided and independent voters really want? (And remember,
pundits and consultants are adamant that, however crazy or stupid the voter’s
issues and priorities may be, you as a candidate are bound to respect them.)
What do undecided and independent voters really want?
They want to be lied to. It's no more complicated than that.
By now, the undecideds who voted 3rd party or voted for Jill Stein
or stayed home or filled out "None of the above" for president must have figured out that this kind of performative “sending a message” voting is
ridiculous and never works, because the only message it sends is “I
am ridiculous”. And it sends a message to all the third-party/Third Way/Forward Party/No Labels grifters out there that
maybe they can hit you up for a donation. But they want to believe a
lie, and Jill Stein gives them what they ask for.
At some level, the woman Jimmy McGill hooked up with for the night back in
Chicago knew he wasn’t Kevin Costner, but she wanted him to be.
She was willing to be lied to, and he was willing to provide.
As painful as it is, think about the two presidential campaigns in 2024. One was
more than substantive and detailed enough for anyone who bothered to
look. But undecideds are lazy. They’re always on the verge of
“doing their own research” when the truth is, they don’t wanna do even the
minimal amount of homework necessary to make an informed decision.
Instead many of them soak up what little they think they know about politics
from hanging around gamer sites and Joe Rogan and Barstool Sports.
Y’know, for the vibes and the farts and the tit jokes.
So, if the Democrats were offering boring substance and detail, what was Trump
offering?
They are begging to be lied to. Demanding it.
Don’t insult them by refusing.
So, until the rest of the country sobers up and starts acting like adults, be Kevin Costner.
The title of this post is a quote from the 1961 movie
"Judgment at Nuremberg". It is spoken by the character Ernst Janning
played by Burt Lancaster. This was the curse he laid on himself, on his
co-defendants, and on all Germans who ignored the rise of Hitler.
Meanwhile, back here in 2025 --
They keep publishing exactly what they’re doing
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/u...
-- on hears all all kinds of bitching and whining about Democrats that all
come down to,
"Why oh why didn't those feckless Democrats warn...? Why didn't the
Democrats message better...?"
Except...
There were hundreds of videos like these all over all legacy media and all
social media platforms.. Ads. Speeches. Pressers.
There was ample warning. There was abundant messaging.
Trump won these independent voters. Now some are souring on his second
term.
Unaffiliated voters are starting to turn against Trump and his
disruptive agenda, demonstrating political risks for the president and
his party.
Independent voter Lisa Kirk voted for Donald Trump in 2016 in the hope
he would run the country like a business. She cast her ballot for Trump
again last fall as he promised to lower prices.
Then his tariffs threatened to tank the economy. Kirk tried not to
check her 401(k) this month as the stock market sank. Last week, she
wondered aloud to her husband if she should take the hit and withdraw
funds: “If we’re going to go into a recession,” she said, “I might lose
it all.”
Asked what she thought of Trump’s second term, the 60-year-old Home
Depot employee began with a long pause. “Ummm …”
“Economically, he’s not the same person,” she said of Trump.
Independent voters are starting to sour on Trump and his disruptive
agenda...
Independent voters can go take a flying fuck at the moooooon.
But what about every legacy media outlet's other favorite group. Those
darn Centrists. You know, those weak-willed, dim-witted goobers who will
walk 1,000 miles to find a fence to straddle.
Believe It or Not, Many Voters Think Trump Is a Moderate
...Since the Trump campaign is deploying massive resources on
convincing voters that she is a “radical leftist” or even a “Marxist” or
a “communist,” the Harris campaign is working overtime (as most
strikingly reflected in her relentlessly centrist DNC acceptance speech)
to develop crowd-pleasing and swing-voter-reassuring messages and policy
priorities.
But they have another problem that will complicate their task, as
reflected in another Times-Siena question:
Do you think Donald Trump is too conservative, not conservative
enough, or not too far either way?
Only 32 percent of likely voters say Trump is “too conservative,” while
49 percent say he is “not too far either way.” 48 percent of
self-identified independents are in that “not too far either way”
category, as are 25 percent of Democrats. So believe it or not, at this
moment, and even before Team Trump spends a half-billion dollars or so
smearing Harris as dangerously leftist,
it’s the 45th president who is the perceived centrist in the race.
That’s exactly what public-opinion researchers discerned in 2016, mostly
because Trump jettisoned unpopular conservative positions favoring
Social Security and Medicare privatization, free trade, and “forever
wars” while Hillary Clinton suffered from decades of conservative
attacks on her. Trump is in a position to replay that comparison if
Harris lets him get away with it.
To anyone paying attention to the issues, the idea that there is
anything “centrist” about Donald Trump is beyond preposterous...
And that is exactly the point. It is preposterous to continue treating
these people with kid-gloves: as creatures who are so delicate and fragile
that to refer to them as anything more bluntly descriptive than
"low-information voters" would shatter them and drive them away forever. With
a decade of evidence laying right there at their feet, Independents and
Centrists helped a mush-brained fascist and all of his creepy, sadistic,
stupid and deranged henchmen back in office, so how much further away do you
think they could be driven?
With a decade of evidence laying right there at their feet,
if they didn't know, it was because they didn't want to know.
And that doesn't make them low-information voters.
"Fun Fact: The word 'tariff' comes from an old Ottoman Turkish word which, loosely translated, means 'I can't believe these fucking meatheads keep falling for this grifter's bullshit'. " -- driftglass
Links:
The Professional Left is brought to you by our wholly imaginary
"sponsors" and real listeners like you!
The Trump administration, seeking to stamp out federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, is calling on government employees to snitch on any colleagues that continue to follow such policies.
This question is actually a lot more complex than you might imagine, because
it is not in the Conservative nature to ever under any circumstances admit to
being wrong. In fact, for decades the only permissible way to own up to
being wrong on the Right was to confess that your opinions or tactics or
whatever just weren't Conservative enough.
Which is why George W. Bush's serial fuckuppery culminating the Iraq War
debacle coup de grace broke a lot of Conservative brains.
When it comes to the simple act of forming their mouths to say the words "I
was wrong" they go all Arthur Fonzarelli:
Even today, leading legacy media Cons can be found either manufacturing
excuses for why they weren't really, really, for real wrong to back Bush's
farrago of lies that put us into Iraq.
From Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, March, 2023
I Supported the Invasion of Iraq
But a just cause doesn’t make for a just war.
Twenty years after the United States led a coalition to overthrow Saddam
Hussein, the conventional wisdom is now that the postwar fiasco proved
that the war was a mistake from its inception. The war, as it was
executed, was indeed a disaster, but there was ample cause for launching
it.
Or strike a truculent, fuck-you-libtard pose and declare that Bush's
clusterfuck was a great idea.
From Bret Stephens, The New York Times, March 21, 2023:
20 Years On, I Don’t Regret Supporting the Iraq War
If you lived through those times you will no doubt remember the ferocious and,
for a time, entirely successful Conservative media campaign to paint the war
as a rousing success even as evidence of everything falling apart kept piling
up.
On the tony side of town, every Sunday Show seemed to be stacked
three-deep with administration stooges and legacy media hacks assuring
everyone that it was all going to plan. On the rougher side of town, the
Conservative bloggers and Hate Radio goofs were out in force, tagging anyone
who whispered a discouraging word as a terrorist-loving, Murrica-hating
commie.
And if there were some rough spots, well, let's give it another six months
before we start to worry.
The Friedman Unit, or simply Friedman,[1]
is a
tongue-in-cheekneologism. One Friedman
Unit is equal to six months,[2]
specifically the "next six months", a period repeatedly declared by
New York Times
columnist
Thomas Friedman to
be the most critical of the then-ongoing
Iraq War[3]
even though such pronouncements extended back over two and a half years.
And it all worked...for a while. Until, eventually, the cost in blood and
treasure of the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq became impossible to cover up any
more. Then came the torture revelations. And Teri Schiavo. And
Katrina. And the collapse of the global economy. And, hey, where did
this gargantuan deficit come from? What the hell happened to our budget
surplus?
So, what happened when the unmovable object of a party base that is
congenitally incapable of admitting mistakes collided with the irresistible
force of a clusterfucked war, a drowned American city and a collapsing global
economy? Well, suddenly, like a fart in a cyclotron, the Republican base
was gone, baby, gone. Body-swapped almost one-for-one, for a huge
crop of brand-new "independents".
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running
away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their
uniforms.
-- about which so much laudatory ink was spilled by a lying and
complicit legacy media who very definitely also did not want to dwell
on who had been right and who had been disastrously wrong during the Age of
Bush.
Revisiting this same Republican base 16 years later and we find -- surprise!
-- they never actually gave a shit about Iraq or New Orleans or torture or
Teri Schiavo or the deficit or, well, any of it. All they have ever
cared about was being right in a way that let them feel superior to us
stoopid, know-it-all Liberals.
Owning the Libs. Drinking Liberal tears.
Which is why they went all-in on a dry-drunk halfwit like Dubya Bush --
twice!. It was a giant "Fuck Your Feeling" to Democrats, who had just
finished paying off the deficits that Reagan and Bush Sr. had run up,
balancing the budget and creating 20 million new jobs.
Because -- again, surprise! -- delivering on all of that stuff and more --
things Republicans had said were the most important things in the
world but had never once delivered on -- did not make Republicans feel all
warm 'n fuzzy inside. Quite the contrary: they fucking
hated Bill Clinton for it. They hated him so much they
"lawfared" his ass. Impeached him and tried to remove him from office over a
blowjob.
And then, after they had given their slavering loyalty to Dubya, they
weren't just shown to be utterly and humiliatingly wrong. They were
shown to be utterly and humiliatingly wrong
in front of the Liberals.
The agonies of 1,000 demons being given holy water enemas could not have
felt worse.
But stop and consider for a moment how they were shown to be
utterly and humiliatingly wrong. By what means? Through what
lens? Because as we all know, these people have no problem just
wishing away anything they do not want to believe. The J6 attempted
coup? Obviously that was Antifa!
Or Nancy Pelosi!
Or FBI infiltrators!
Or, hey, wait a minute? Maybe J6 was
actually a good thing!
Maybe the 2020 election was actually stolen and the coup plotters are
actually martyrs and political prisoners!
The difference between the Before Time and now is that, back then, it was
still possible for a tiny bit of light from the outside world to leak into
their ideological bunker. Republicans could still see the
failures in Iraq and Bush's criminally incompetent response to Hurricane
Katrina through a small, cracked legacy media window on the wider world.
So, what lesson did they take from being humiliated by Bush's lies and
incompetence? The lesson that, those holes and leaks needed to be
boarded up and spackled over right now!
Next time, they needed to hire an even bigger, louder liar telling even
bigger, louder lies. One who would never back down in the face of
potentially humiliating reality, but would unflinchingly live out this
lesson from "A Guide For The Married Man".
Deny. Deny. Deny.
The base would demand that their Conservative media be completely aligned
with the will of their new Dear Leader. That the last vestiges of
"news" be purged from their "news media", and that all talking heads lie
about everything without apology. From now on it was to be all
propaganda all the time, and Republican elected officials had damn well
better sing out their enthusiastic support for the party's new Stalinist
direction.
So, in response to the question,
"How quickly will the bootlickers turn on Trump and the broligarchy once
they fuck up?"
I would answer that the question itself reflects a pre-Trump understanding
of how the GOP works now.
To misquote an old communist excuse for why communism never worked,
"Trumpism cannot fail. Trumpism can only be failed." The
violent, brainwashed zombie Republican base
will not tolerate being humiliated in front of the Liberal again. So
all failures, disasters, bloodshed and corruption will be January
Sixth-ed.
Sure, a tiny handful of Trump ass-kissers may finally reach their gag-reflex
limit and slink off to pretend that they were part of the resistance all
along, but for the other 99% whatever shit blows up in their faces
will be chalked up to Fake News.
Or it was all part of the Giant Liberal Conspiracy.
Republicans reject spending bill, under pressure from Trump and Musk
Unless Congress acts, a government shutdown deadline looms just past
midnight Saturday.
Republicans rejected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan plan to
avert a government shutdown, as President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk
joined a broad swath of the House GOP on Wednesday to condemn a compromise
bill full of Democratic policy priorities.
The rebuke, which built steadily through the day and culminated with a
long written statement from Trump in the late afternoon, has forced
Johnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime
shutdown — and maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be
reelected as speaker early next year.
“Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is
dead,” Musk boasted on X, the social media site he owns, after he spent
the day blasting the legislation. “The voice of the people has
triumphed!”
Johnson has not outlined a backup plan, and multiple people familiar with
the real-time conversations said the next step remains unclear, as leaders
would need significant support from both parties — and Trump — to pass a
funding extension. If Congress doesn’t extend the deadline, most federal
operations would shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, though the effects of a
shutdown wouldn’t fully kick in until Monday...
Wow, so there really is a War on Christmas. And its the Republicans who
are trying to blow old St. Nick out of the sky.
Well Feliz Navidad, kids, and a Happy FAFO New Year to all the meatbags who
voted for this clusterfuck.
