US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[benjipwns]

With Michael Bloomberg now running for president, the news service that bears his name said Sunday it will not “investigate” him or any of his Democratic rivals, and Bloomberg Opinion will no longer run unsigned editorials.

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait announced the new rules in a note to his news organization’s 2,700 journalists and analysts Sunday, shortly after the former New York City mayor announced his candidacy.

At his news service, Micklethwait said, Bloomberg reporters will still cover polls, policies and how the Bloomberg campaign is faring, much as it does for all candidates. But it will not do investigative stories on Bloomberg — or, to be fair, on any of the other Democratic contenders.

[kingv]

https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1198610330315825153

This guy

That is not how I would describe trumps politics at all

[kingv]

His positions look like basically every other Republican politicians he’s just using leftist rhetoric.

That is somewhat unusual.

Trump is sort of a cipher who doesn’t actually say any of the things his supporters give him credit for. I think his parseltongue mush mouth way of speaking helps him in that way.

[Mandark]

Yeah, "Trumpism" in this sense is basically movement conservatism without the patina of libertarian rhetoric; Trump never talks about the magic of markets and told crowds he was the only GOP candidate who wouldn't cut Social Security or Medicare. Hawley, Tucker, and Steve Bannon are on this right-populist bandwagon where they pay lip service to the damage of unchecked capitalism and some journalists are taking it very seriously as a Struggle For The Soul Of The Republican Party.

In the end, it's the same program as Reagan-Bush conservatism: keep the big popular social programs in place while cutting labor/consumer/environmental protections (and probably still attaching work requirements/drug testing/time limits on programs aimed at the poor).

Hawley's probably going to get the same coverage that Paul Ryan got during his listening tour for poverty and will deliver roughly the same results.

[benjipwns]

Hawley’s economic views are set apart from the left in part by his diagnosis of America’s problems. He sees social isolation and the erosion of local communal life—including church, family, neighborhoods, and labor unions—as intimately tied to declining economic opportunity for the middle class. “Economic policy and our communities and neighborhoods sit right together. They’re really intertwined,” Hawley told me.

And unlike most Democrats, Hawley argues that cultural pathologies have helped create this fractured political moment, particularly the cult of individualism that he says drives everything from public policy to pop culture. In a vision of America in which liberty is primarily about unlimited personal freedom, he said in his speech to the American Principles Project Foundation, “place and home don’t matter much, and civic participation is beside the point.” This same vision produces “economic policy focused on individual advancement, where advancement means making more money and consuming more stuff,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “So in popular culture, billionaires become heroes, and the everyday working man becomes just some guy who never realized his potential.”

He sells himself as an ideas guy, casually citing the philosopher Edmund Burke and the Christian monk Pelagius in a single stretch. In his first year in office, he has broken with his GOP colleagues on a number of issues, including proposing regulations on big tech companies such as Facebook and Google and challenging the nomination of a D.C. Circuit Court judge, Neomi Rao, whom he deemed insufficiently pro-life.

“We must forge in this century a new politics of family and neighborhood, a new politics of love and belonging, a new politics of home,” he said in his speech this week. “That will mean rethinking old positions and revisiting old orthodoxies. It will mean challenging the old priorities of the political class.”

[Kara]

Didn't have much of a foot in this camp in the heyday of Paul Ryan but for whatever it's worth Josh Hawley is seriously discussed by left Catholic intellectuals in a way I have a hard time imaging Paul Ryan ever could.

e: I mean serious ones not irony poisoned ones like Donald Hughes.

[Tripon]

Eh, there's a long history of 'right wing' or conservative populism in the United States. Mainly, the fuck you, I got mine kind of state and federal government picking who's eligible for aid. Best example I can currently think of is the farm aid bailout due to the tariff wars with various countries to protect by and large current supporters of trump

[jakefromstatefarm]

He sells himself as an ideas guy, casually citing...Pelagius

uhhh...like, favourably?

e: nope. this fits snugly with the too clever by half hot takes you see on First Things and (the zanier elements on) Patheos. not surprised the christian literati are marginally enamored.

[ToxicAdam]

It’s weird when your core belief is the same one shared by Marianne Williamson.

[benjipwns]

uhhh...like, favourably?

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/age-of-pelagius-joshua-hawley.html

[OnlyRegret]

Hawley’s economic views are set apart from the left in part by his diagnosis of America’s problems. He sees social isolation and the erosion of local communal life—including church, family, neighborhoods, and labor unions—as intimately tied to declining economic opportunity for the middle class. “Economic policy and our communities and neighborhoods sit right together. They’re really intertwined,” Hawley told me.

And unlike most Democrats, Hawley argues that cultural pathologies have helped create this fractured political moment, particularly the cult of individualism that he says drives everything from public policy to pop culture. In a vision of America in which liberty is primarily about unlimited personal freedom, he said in his speech to the American Principles Project Foundation, “place and home don’t matter much, and civic participation is beside the point.” This same vision produces “economic policy focused on individual advancement, where advancement means making more money and consuming more stuff,” he said, according to his prepared remarks. “So in popular culture, billionaires become heroes, and the everyday working man becomes just some guy who never realized his potential.”

He sells himself as an ideas guy, casually citing the philosopher Edmund Burke and the Christian monk Pelagius in a single stretch. In his first year in office, he has broken with his GOP colleagues on a number of issues, including proposing regulations on big tech companies such as Facebook and Google and challenging the nomination of a D.C. Circuit Court judge, Neomi Rao, whom he deemed insufficiently pro-life.

“We must forge in this century a new politics of family and neighborhood, a new politics of love and belonging, a new politics of home,” he said in his speech this week. “That will mean rethinking old positions and revisiting old orthodoxies. It will mean challenging the old priorities of the political class.”

Hm... Interesting 

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Secretary of the Navy accepted his firing like a boss.

Dear Mr.President

…

The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries. Good order and discipline is what has enabled our victory against foreign tyranny time and again, from Captain Lawrence’s famous order ‘Don’t Give up the Ship,’ to the discipline and determination that propelled our flag to the highest point on Iwo Jima. The Constitution, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, are the shields that set us apart and the beacons that protect us all. Through my Title Ten Authority, I have strived to ensure our proceedings are fair, transparent and consistent, from the newest recruit to the Flag and General Officer level.

Unfortunately it has become apparent that in this respect. I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline. I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Therefore, with pride in the achievements we've shared, and everlasting faith in the continued service and fidelity of the finest Sailors, Marines and civilian teammates on earth, I hereby acknowledge my termination as United States Secretary of the Navy, to be effective immediately.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/GayTulsiStan/status/1198793829048111106

[Joe Molotov]

Filler goes to pornhub specifically to jack off to Tulsi ads.

[james]

Eddie will retire peacefully is some Stalin shit

[kingv]

If the story about the Secnav going around the SECDEF straight to the President to arrange some sort of wide deal where they do a faux panel with a predetermined outcome is true.... that guy should be fired and the President was right to reject the offer.

If that story is true, honestly, his letter is kind of a joke and he doesn’t have any high horse to stand on.

 But it could just be an elaborate smear from Trump.

The whole Eddie Gallagher thing is pretty awful all around. Guy should be shitcanned for what he did and the military sends dudes to NJP all the fucking time for less with less evidence.

But at the same time, there doesn’t seem to be any good guys in the story.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/EamonJavers/status/1199019924959694849

https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1199021905648340992

Literal B E A S T  M O D E

[Great Rumbler]

Too bad that fine upstanding American hero had to stand next to a slobbering animal.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1198999071324856321

https://twitter.com/DavidBrodyCBN/status/1199017474278207488

 

[BIONIC]

Literal G O D  E M P E R O R  M O D E

[Cauliflower Of Love]

And to think Conan just got over his name being somewhat normal.

[Nintex]

So how do you bridge the political divide of

"Donald Trump is basically god or at least American Jesus. He can turn a homeless person into a super model with the magic power of his tax cuts"

and

"Drumpf is an idiot and has stage 8 dementia but he's also a cunning Russian agent who has nearly completed his mission of destroying American democracy, the free press and the planet itself with his mind control powers"

[Mandark]

Didn't have much of a foot in this camp in the heyday of Paul Ryan but for whatever it's worth Josh Hawley is seriously discussed by left Catholic intellectuals in a way I have a hard time imaging Paul Ryan ever could.

e: I mean serious ones not irony poisoned ones like Donald Hughes.

Ryan got a lot of very credulous coverage in American media, both during his initial rise and when he went on his poverty tour a few years later. His main audience was soi-disant "wonks" like Ezra Klein though.

In general, political media is always eager to find rising stars, and I expect Hawley to get the same soft-focus profiles that Ryan, Jindal, Haley, Christie, Cantor, McCarthy, etc. got before him. Hell, the NYT called Shapiro "the cool kid's philosopher."

[team filler]

https://mobile.twitter.com/scrowder/status/1198992518366613504

[Nintex]

Didn't have much of a foot in this camp in the heyday of Paul Ryan but for whatever it's worth Josh Hawley is seriously discussed by left Catholic intellectuals in a way I have a hard time imaging Paul Ryan ever could.

e: I mean serious ones not irony poisoned ones like Donald Hughes.

Ryan got a lot of very credulous coverage in American media, both during his initial rise and when he went on his poverty tour a few years later. His main audience was soi-disant "wonks" like Ezra Klein though.

In general, political media is always eager to find rising stars, and I expect Hawley to get the same soft-focus profiles that Ryan, Jindal, Haley, Christie, Cantor, McCarthy, etc. got before him. Hell, the NYT called Shapiro "the cool kid's philosopher."

send here by god

[close]

[Joe Molotov]

who?

[Brehvolution]

 

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1199024050581975040

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said President Donald Trump ordered him to allow a controversial Navy SEAL accused of war crimes to keep his status in the elite service, despite resistance from Navy leaders.

Esper said that on Sunday Trump "gave me an order" that Eddie Gallagher would retain his Trident, the pin worn by Navy SEALS that symbolizes their membership in the elite military community.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/politics/esper-spencer-aftermath/index.html

Get out of here! I don't believe this!

[james]

82 Days Underwater: The Tide Is High, but They’re Holding On
A brutal “king tides” season made worse by climate change has flooded the streets of a Florida Keys community for nearly three months.

Before he leaves for work, Rick Darden, an accountant with his own firm, stuffs a long-sleeved shirt, slacks and dress shoes in a backpack. Then he heads out, clad in shorts and waders, for the half-mile trek through the seawater that has flooded the streets of his Florida Keys neighborhood for the past 82 days.

A colleague picks him up at the Winn-Dixie grocery store on the main road, Overseas Highway, and drives him to the office to change. In the afternoons, he puts his boots on again and catches another ride back.

“Humiliating,” said Mr. Darden, 54, describing his routine since the sea invaded the Stillwright Point community in Key Largo, leaving him and his neighbors leery of taking out their cars in the corrosive saltwater that now floods the streets. “It just restricts your ability to move out and around.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/us/florida-keys-flooding-king-tide.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

That sure is something.

Keep voting red Florida!

[kingv]

“I’m retiring in FL, it’s paradise”

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1198983958832304129

this guy

[Nintex]

“I’m retiring in FL, it’s paradise”

the Trump's paradise

As I walk on the Epstein island of death
I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left
'Coz I've been winnin' and snortin' so long, that
Even my Ivanka thinks that my mind is gone
But I ain't never crossed a lib that didn't deserve it
Me be treated like a loser you know that's unheard of
You better watch how you're talkin', and where you're walkin'
Or you and your reporters might be lined in chalk
I really hate this job but I gotta, run
As I grow I see myself in the rocket smoke, fool
I'm the kinda D the little homies wanna be like
On my knees in the night, doin' rallies in the streetlight

Been griftin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Been griftin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise

They got the situation, they got me facin'
I can't live a normal life, I was raised by the mics
So I gotta be down with the Fox team
Too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams
I'm an uneducated fool with money on my mind
Got my phone in my hand and a gleam in my eye
I'm a loc'd out grifter set tweetin' banger
And my followers is down so don't arouse my anger, fool
Joe ain't nothin' but a heartbeat away
I'm livin' life, do or die, what can I say
I'm seventy-three now, but will I live to see seventy-four
The way things are going I don't know

Tell me why are we, so blind to see
That the one's we hurt, are Rudy and me
Been griftin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Been griftin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise

Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's corrupt, but half of them ain't lookin'
What's going on in the oval, but I don't know what's Russian'
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to call me
If they can't understand it, how can they impeach me
I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool

Been spendin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Been spendin' most their lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise
Keep tweetin' most our lives,
livin' in the Trump's paradise

[close]

[thisismyusername]

https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1198983958832304129

this guy

I swear to god, if he comes from behind and gets the nomination... I'm going to drone-strike the DNC with Amazon Delivery Drones... in Minecraft(TM)
---

Anyway, continuing my hateraide on all non-Progressive Candidates that won't send us to FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM:

https://joebiden.info/

[benjipwns]

Didn't have much of a foot in this camp in the heyday of Paul Ryan but for whatever it's worth Josh Hawley is seriously discussed by left Catholic intellectuals in a way I have a hard time imaging Paul Ryan ever could.

e: I mean serious ones not irony poisoned ones like Donald Hughes.

Ryan got a lot of very credulous coverage in American media, both during his initial rise and when he went on his poverty tour a few years later. His main audience was soi-disant "wonks" like Ezra Klein though.

In general, political media is always eager to find rising stars, and I expect Hawley to get the same soft-focus profiles that Ryan, Jindal, Haley, Christie, Cantor, McCarthy, etc. got before him. Hell, the NYT called Shapiro "the cool kid's philosopher."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mckaycoppins/paul-ryan-finds-god

McKay Coppins actually covered the "poverty tour" rather extensively for his ill-timed* book The Wilderness expanding massively over this piece and another long "Paul Ryan is secretly meeting poor people" profile I can't seem to find now (it may be the WaPo link in that article but I don't pay for the WaPo so) with any kind of search terms.

*the book came out in like summer 2015, it covered all the top potential GOP candidates like Ryan, Rubio, Jeb, Christie, Jindal, etc. the book never once mentioned a man named Donald Trump except on the last page in what was a hastily thrown in at the last minute "Perhaps the base will flock to Donald Trump" kind of sarcastic sentence in a paragraph that included other long-shots like Ben Carson and Lindsey Graham. Book also had only a tiny amount of Ted Cruz IIRC.

[CatsCatsCats]

Everyone knows it takes 4 years at Goldman Sachs at least to become part of the ruling class





stfu dufus

[agrajag]

dufus is such a shitlib 

[Mandark]

I swear to god, if he comes from behind and gets the nomination... I'm going to drone-strike the DNC with Amazon Delivery Drones... in Minecraft(TM)

what do you think the dnc does?

[james]

I swear to god, if he comes from behind and gets the nomination... I'm going to drone-strike the DNC with Amazon Delivery Drones... in Minecraft(TM)

what do you think the dnc does?

Fuck us over?

[Nintex]

I'd be more worried about Bloomberg buying the nomination and ending up with Trump vs. Bloomberg.

[Mandark]

about a zero percent chance of that happening

[curly]

My optimistic take on the blame-the-DNC talk is it's an acknowledgement that there are power structures with immense and undemocratic control over the American electoral system combined with an inability to properly diagnose what those structures are because they're too complex and decentralized to make easy sense of

[benjipwns]

I can see it as a slightly more informed version of the whole credit/blame the President for everything kind of reductive framework. Sorta like how he's god emperor of the economy literally no matter what the "news" or situation actually is, let alone what he has or hasn't done or can or cannot do.

The RNC was facing the same sort of thing before it got on board, and then after it won except for a few pockets of True Americans like Lou Dobbs Tonight, a lot of those temporarily faded away. The 2016 Republican Convention had a similar "count the votes" kind of undercurrent that led to some public on stage doing of routine paperworks because the Trump supporters didn't have complete faith in the process not sabotaging their guy.

It's kinda amusing that this started at a time when the DNC was relatively toothless because the Obama camp had created a parallel structure that starved it. DWS certainly didn't help in running the thing into the ground. The "revolt" was also beneficial to both sides, the Clinton camp got to temporarily seize control of the operation which helped to also create the illusion that they were always rigging things behind the scenes. (Also, because they were, of course.) The comparative animosity in the Republican camp helped them separate Trump and many of the Senate/etc. races strategically which helped them unintentionally allocate resources in a way that turned out for the better for them and wound up unifying them behind Trump more than was imagined at the time.

[team filler]

bernie is the jim cornette of politic and berners are smarks

[benjipwns]

I'm not sure that's unique to the BernardBros, but the "type" and their "methods" are definitely. Like being able to identify a Rothbardian, Cosmotarian or Objectivist off a single paragraph, usually the first one.

[benjipwns]

You gave me an idea: If they don't already, Twitter should sell bookends that are blue checkmarks.

[TVC15]

I'd be more worried about Bloomberg buying the nomination and ending up with Trump vs. Bloomberg.

I’d sell all my stuff and move into benji’ s outhouse.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/shabazz_66/status/1199168285868273664

the mad lad has done it again 

[benjipwns]

I’d sell all my stuff and move into benji’ s outhouse.

Excuse me? Outhouse?

[TVC15]

benji I would suck the cock right off your body if that were your outhouse. That’s basically my dream home

[Mandark]

My pessimistic take is that it's what curly said but there is also a Schmittian streak to Bern politics where anyone who is not of the Bern is an enemy. They're correct to recognize that the process has lots of little holes for entrenched interests to exert influence but that streak can get in the way of dry, boring reading about the rules that only wonks truly enjoy.

The DNC is a synecdoche for The Establishment. "Superdelegates" works the same way.

Bernie's fans generally share the belief that his political program is very, very popular, so if he loses an election it's because of some jiggery pokery by powerful enemies*. I find that assumption of underlying popular support to be really interesting.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*Hypothetically it could also be explained by Sanders not running a flawless campaign but I wouldn't suggest bringing this up.

[close]

[team filler]

every dem candidate outside of biden adopted med4all, but it's not popular! warren's entire campaign is a watered down version of bern dawg and it's worked out pretty well, but it's not popular! 

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/neoliberal_dad/status/1199178699096154112

 

[benjipwns]

watered down makes it sound like it's less material, when it's more like the "more quantity is more quality" college paper style version of bern dawg

 

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/EricQuachSpeaks/status/1199131285609779202

did the FBI ever figure out who hacked archive.org to edit her old blogs?

[BIONIC]

I bet the Russians fabricated the fact that Joy hates cannibalistic gays too 

[Occam]

Good article from last month.
https://prospect.org/impeachment/republicans-turned-on-nixon-trump-impeachment-media/

Basically reflects what I have been saying, America's problem is that Fox News (and Sinclair Broadcasting, which isn't mentioned in the article) aren''t held accountable for straight up lying about everything and successfully creating a counterfactual culture.
It's kind of like Nazi Germany, where everyone lived in an alternative reality. The difference being, in Nazi Germany you had little choice as all media was state controlled and you were severely punished for deviation. In America, the bubble dwellers voluntarily submit and wear blinders.

[Trent Dole]

or benis

[Occam]

You're either Bernus or Burnus

Translation, please.

[Mandark]

Obama cribbed from that in 2012 and it became the You Didn't Build That "gaffe" that Romney and the GOP thought they could capitalize on.