Objectively intelligent.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

They were -- literally -- trying to stop the counting of electoral votes.

You should probably find some water because I think your hair is on fire again.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

There are good people on both sides of this issue.

I think there were a lot of Trump supporters outside the Capitol who were trying to protest peacefully. One of the things we've seen about political protests is that the large numbers make it hard for the police to stop the relatively small number of people who want to act badly.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

You should probably find some water because I think your hair is on fire again.

I think the word you are looking for is "shrill."

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I think the word you are looking for is "shrill."

Seriously. Also, hysterical. You’re acting like a child. A female child. You’re acting like this was some terrible thing that has happened. You’re wrong. These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/u...ner-trump.html

One of the people with Trump on his crazy call on Saturday to ask Georgia officials to fix the election for him was a lawyer named Cleta Mitchell, then a partner at Foley & Lardner. It appears she had been working for Trump without telling her firm. She has now left Foley.

That craziness seems so quaint and long ago now.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

One thing that Sebastian was totally right about is we no longer have to constantly listen to those hair-on-fire hysterical alarmists baselessly asserting that Trump is a “threat to democracy.” By the way, armed protestors have stormed the Capitol Building and those inside report hearing gunfire and explosions.

I'm sure glad we stopped listening to them...

[SEC_Chick]

So. Yeah.

Today was a shit show that exceeded even my worst case scenario expectations.

Not a fan of the new Democrat Senators from Georgia, tbh, but I am truly glad they won.

I think that a significant majority of Republicans should be disqualified from holding any public office.

I can't even see myself voting for Republicans for state level officers any more.

This is the worst day for America since 9/11.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

So. Yeah.

Today was a shit show that exceeded even my worst case scenario expectations.

Not a fan of the new Democrat Senators from Georgia, tbh, but I am truly glad they won.

I think that a significant majority of Republicans should be disqualified from holding any public office.

I can't even see myself voting for Republicans for state level officers any more.

This is the worst day for America since 9/11.

Some of my cousins are on Facebook explaining how the protestors seen on the Senate floor were antifa. I don't usually bother, but I told them that was stupid. I'm sure that will change hearts and minds.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Your trails look wonderful, but how far is the drive? I need to just step outside.

3.5 miles from my house. Back when traffic was lighter I used to run there.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

So. Yeah.

Today was a shit show that exceeded even my worst case scenario expectations.

Not a fan of the new Democrat Senators from Georgia, tbh, but I am truly glad they won.

I think that a significant majority of Republicans should be disqualified from holding any public office.

I can't even see myself voting for Republicans for state level officers any more.

This is the worst day for America since 9/11.

The Dems have a chance to demonstrate the claimed superiority of their policies, albeit limited by moderates like Joe Manchin, and the Rs have only themselves to blame.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

So. Yeah.

Today was a shit show that exceeded even my worst case scenario expectations.

Not a fan of the new Democrat Senators from Georgia, tbh, but I am truly glad they won.

I think that a significant majority of Republicans should be disqualified from holding any public office.

I can't even see myself voting for Republicans for state level officers any more.

This is the worst day for America since 9/11.

I think its a pack of deluded dead enders going out with one last barbaric yawp. (Somewhere, Whitman curses me for the equivalence.)

Trumpism might be best viewed as a moral panic. One of many moral panics we've had in recent years. People become obsessed with some issue, exhibit extreme fervor, tribalize over it, create fixation over it in the general public, then burn out under the heat of their own extremism. These things used to run over long periods of time and appear less frequently in the past, but with the advent of social media and its siloing effect on groups of fellow travelers, panics appear more often today.

Populism is arguably, by definition, a panic.

2008 exposed extreme inequalities emerging in our economy. The cure for it made those inequalities worse. We've had a K-shaped recovery since 2008. If you'd assets at that time, they've since appreciated nicely. If you didn't, or worse, if you didn't and you worked in a non-professional job, or a professional job that could be automated or offshored, the last dozen years have been mostly miserable.

Trump looked like a messiah to the credulous. He whipped them into a panic by expressing bluntly what they couldn't articulate: They were getting screwed by a system that didn't care about them.

So they freaked out and bought onto his nativist pitch. Then, as all panics will, They Went Nuts. Trumpism became, for the significant portion of his voters who were not merely voting their pocketbooks (the useful idiots), a religion.

Most panics fizzle out because they don't have a unifying hierarchy. Nobody's in charge (See: Occupy Wall Street). Trumpism was different, and it ended in the lurid fashion we all saw yesterday only because it had a CEO, or more aptly, a Pope. He was able to direct it, herd and focus its internal factions.

But ultimately, it was a panic, and as panics do, it will dissipate. It will have some impact going forward. Indeed, some of its impact may be positive, as it has caused us to refocus on the damage neoliberal economic policies do to certain segments of the population. But in a few months, when we all focus on the economic fallout that's coming once we get Covid-19 under control (the 20 years' worth of creative destruction to certain sectors of the economy [which was already unavoidable, but could be handled over a longer time frame] which Covid just accelerated into one year), Trumpism will be very much in the rear view mirror. And the pleasure of being able to read a news site or watch TV without seeing him will make the desire to forget him that much stronger, reinforcing his disappearance.

Yesterday was a unique political/psychological phenomenon. It's what you get when a panic is hijacked by a demagogue. Comparisons to Hitler or Mussolini seem easy but are ultimately facile. The Beer Hall Putsch failed. Yesterday's embarrassing approximation of it failed even more miserably. Real authoritarianism only succeeds when advocated and pushed by people working inside the system. Thinkers, plotters, people very much unlike Trump. Very much unlike the desperate sorts looking for new religions in the form of moral panics.

If you worry about authoritarians, which you should, you should worry about tech, and the corporations which are growing and consolidating power as smaller competition folds during this pandemic.

I still don't fear Donald Trump. He's too dumb to fear. I fear the people telling me they need to be given powers, to squash media, to preclude voices, to spy on us, to protect us from future Trumps. Those are the authoritarians who will create fascism under our noses, and they'll have armies of dupes cheering along with them - "It's all in our better interest!"

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

We've had a K-shaped recovery since 2008. If you'd assets at that time, they've since appreciated nicely. If you didn't, or worse, if you didn't and you worked in a non-professional job, or a professional job that could be automated or offshored, the last dozen years have been mostly miserable.

At any point do you let facts into your analysis? Because this isn't a remotely accurate description of that period of time.

But in a few months, when we all focus on the economic fallout that's coming once we get Covid-19 under control (the 20 years' worth of creative destruction to certain sectors of the economy [which was already unavoidable, but could be handled over a longer time frame] which Covid just accelerated into one year)

Wait, you think ending the pandemic is going to be bad for the economy?? Perhaps catastrophically??

Trumpism will be very much in the rear view mirror.

Trumpism is about racial resentment and white people's perceived loss of relative advantage, it isn't going away. It never has.

The Beer Hall Putsch failed. Yesterday's embarrassing approximation of it failed even more miserably.

Did you stop reading the history book at that page or something?

I still don't fear Donald Trump. He's too dumb to fear. I fear the people telling me they need to be given powers, to squash media, to preclude voices, to spy on us, to protect us from future Trumps. Those are the authoritarians who will create fascism under our noses, and they'll have armies of dupes cheering along with them - "It's all in our better interest!"

Trump is too dumb. The next guy (whether Cruz or Hawley or Cotton or whomever) won't be.

The good news is that no one likes those guys, so they may not be able to pull it off. But I'd rather not test it.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Me too (but no friend), but had my worse running injury ever trying to avoid 2 walkers that were hogging the entire sidewalk on a street too busy to step into.

Ice?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

At any point do you let facts into your analysis? Because this isn't a remotely accurate description of that period of time.

I'm not googling wage growth relative to asset valuation during that period. If you disagree with that assessment, fine. It's supportable with reams of data, and yes, it can also be criticized with reams of data. But there is no way I'm dicking around providing cites for you to attack at the margins in bad faith.

Wait, you think ending the pandemic is going to be bad for the economy?? Perhaps catastrophically??

Do you know what a K recovery is? This means the economy will return for some, and get worse for many others. The obsolescence of certain industries, certain classes and types of workers, was just radically accelerated. The top half of the K will carry things a bit, but you'll see a real, serious split between the haves and have nots.

The argument against that is people will run out to restaurants, hotels, and travel when this is over. That's true. But those industries have learned numerous efficiencies during this downturn. Coming out of this, there will be far fewer bars, restaurants, hotels, etc. There'll be less office space utilized. The combination of pullbacks, which I couldn't hope to list here, will have a significant negative impact. And even if a mere 10% of jobs in those areas don't come back, it's a huge economic mess.

Small retail? Fucked. And the argument "dark stores" where people order online and then pick things up, will fill that unused space, is facially, obviously wrong.

Trumpism is about racial resentment and white people's perceived loss of relative advantage, it isn't going away. It never has.

Trumpism is dead. Racial resentment will still exist, but the snake doesn't live without a head. No PT Barnum at the helm, no Trumpism.

Did you stop reading the history book at that page or something?

Hitler went to jail after the putsch and did something Trump would never do: Wrote a book outlining a coherent ethos and developed a plan to implement it by getting himself elected within the system. He did not throw a hissy fit after losing an election and then dare a pack of beer drunk opioid addicts to storm the Capitol.

Trump is too dumb. The next guy (whether Cruz or Hawley or Cotton or whomever) won't be.

Those three are establishment republicans. They talk populist bs, but they'd serve their corporate masters, just like all establishment politicians of both parties do.

The good news is that no one likes those guys, so they may not be able to pull it off. But I'd rather not test it.

I'd rather not allow authoritarianism to sneak in the side door by having credulous people suggest that we need to preclude speech. You seem fine with quiet but actual authoritarianism exercised by increasingly powerful coporations and govt agencies, but concerned about hopelessly ineffective populist authoritarians, and fake populist authoritarians like Hawley. I don't like either, but the former are already controlling us. Maybe it's wise to focus on them, rather than cheerlead them because you're credulous enough to believe they're benevolent?

When I hear a person call himself a liberal and then argue that Twitter and FB need to do something about "dangerous" speech, or that NSA spying was OK because "it's in our best interest," there are but two conclusions to make:

1. Most of our public, and worse, a huge part of our educated public, are easily duped fools;
2. The American ideal of freedom is fucked going forward

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think its a pack of deluded dead enders going out with one last barbaric yawp.

Would love to put money on this with you. What's the wager here?