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Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
Grifters gotta grift.
Trump is billions of dollars in debt. The one thing he has going for him is his brand, which is now toxic in all the industries he's invested in.
I heard a rumor that Jared Kushner might buy out the Trump properties, hence the pardon of his dad.
“We have one officer who lost his life as a direct result of the insurrection,” Mr. Papathanasiou said. “Another officer has tragically taken his own life. Between U.S.C.P. and our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have almost 140 officers injured. I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake.”
Specifically the line about brain injuries because they didn't have helmets. I think I had read previously that an officer was expected to lose an eye, though. I wonder if either of the officers who committed suicide did so because of life-altering injuries.
Oh god, I hadn't heard about all those injuries, that would certainly explain the suicides.
I mean beyond just that sort of thing, dudes were fighting for their lives. One cop died and it seems like they got lucky more didn't. PTSD and trauma can kill. Especially in a field like policing, which both culturally and often contractually can make it difficult to get mental care help.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Two police taking their own lives? I hope the Capitol Police don't feel that they are getting blamed for what happened.
It’s unfortunate that the two police officers took their own lives. We may never know why they chose to so so.
I do however hope the Capitol Police in general feel they share some of the blame for what happened. We all saw the videos of many Capitol Police standing down and showing no resistance whatsoever while armed rioters ran rampant through the halls of Congress.
Some acted honorably but many utterly failed in their duty and those officers should be ashamed.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
magas are incapable of independently feeling shame but i do hope internally they are being called out by their colleagues who were fighting for their lives and/or getting their asses kicked though i'm not sure if there does exist enough video/photos to identify all those officers who were complicit as most of them have been smart enough not to take their own selfies or brag online about their actions that day
AAAAA!!! PLAAAYGUUU!!!!
+1
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Two police taking their own lives? I hope the Capitol Police don't feel that they are getting blamed for what happened.
It’s unfortunate that the two police officers took their own lives. We may never know why they chose to so so.
I do however hope the Capitol Police in general feel they share some of the blame for what happened. We all saw the videos of many Capitol Police standing down and showing no resistance whatsoever while armed rioters ran rampant through the halls of Congress.
Some acted honorably but many utterly failed in their duty and those officers should be ashamed.
The failure was in leadership, though. While Selfie cop is undeniably an asshole and should be dismissed, a bunch of them fought until they were absolutely overwhelmed, because they were given neither tools nor personnel
the classic line is that independents are embarrassed republicans, and fuckin' if i was a republican, there ain't any more time to be embarrassed then when the sitting republican president is trying to hold onto power after a loss by inciting people to storm the capitol building.
i imagine a lot of the suburban districts where the gop has been having the most trouble recently are where most of that change is happening. urban areas are already generally D, and rural areas are only generally mad it didn't work.
Two police taking their own lives? I hope the Capitol Police don't feel that they are getting blamed for what happened.
It came out pretty quickly after the attack that morale had pretty much disintegrated among the police force. CBS News had an article covering it. Basically they had the hours of the attack itself with a relative handful of them trying to cope with a mob of thousands, only to return home to friends and family asking how the hell it had happened, people online accusing them of just letting the insurrectionists in, and their boss being fired for putting them all in the situation in the first place. Throw in the extent of the injuries they suffered or saw others suffer and it was a recipe for a tsunami of depression and anxiety, with dozens of officers needing immediate mental health support.
One female officer even turned in her own weapon because she knew she was about to use it on herself if she didn’t.
+28
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Two police taking their own lives? I hope the Capitol Police don't feel that they are getting blamed for what happened.
It’s unfortunate that the two police officers took their own lives. We may never know why they chose to so so.
I do however hope the Capitol Police in general feel they share some of the blame for what happened. We all saw the videos of many Capitol Police standing down and showing no resistance whatsoever while armed rioters ran rampant through the halls of Congress.
Some acted honorably but many utterly failed in their duty and those officers should be ashamed.
the organisation as a whole should feel the shame. individual officers being outnumbered ten to one should not really be condemned for trying to avoid being gang beaten.
There's also justifiable stories of dudes acting temporarily friendly with the insurrectionists so that they can last long enough to reach other cops, or to de-escalate long enough to get them out of the building. The whole "the cops were in on it" conspiracy theory, as ideologically pleasing as it might be, just hasn't really held up to scrutiny. The more video that comes out the more intense the fighting has been revealed to be.
Like it's something they've asked some of the cops in interviews, and multiple cops were like "we were overrun, I was isolated in an aggressive crowd, and if I opened fire I believed I would die for it."
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Bear in mind, by the way, that the officers who are back at work have been dealing with Republican lawmakers refusing to comply with basic measures like walking through a metal detector and not bringing their guns to the Capitol ever since.
This almost certainly just me being an asshole, but there's a part of me going "see, that's a riot you fucking twats" at the police.
The past year+ of cops brutalizing peaceful protestors have left me kinda low on sympathy when they suddenly get swarmed by people who are actually violent.
The registration changes are going to be a complicated kettle of fish to sort because it's not as straight forward as the media portrays.
-You have some set that had left the party long ago finally formalizing the process with their registration.
-You have another set that left because they are anticipating the rise of Trump's garbage party.
-You have another set that left because Trump is no longer on the ballot.
-You have a set that has left, but will still pull the lever for a republican every time.
-You have a set where this was the final stray on either being a constant republican voter or a republican/conservative voter at all.
It's bad for the GOP because some set of those voters aren't going to either voter republican ever again or they won't be a guaranteed republican vote; especially, if those voters decide to be far more critical with how they evaluate their choice of candidates in the general. Though the bigger blow IMO, is going to be when we get things where candidate selection is reserved only for party members. It's probably safe to say that a majority of the people getting out, probably aren't hardcore trumpists, but likely the more moderate voters of the GOP. In that regard, this is likely to result in the GOP getting even more extreme. Hell, in cases where candidate selection is open to all, this could be bad since that likely indicates a number of these people getting off of GOP notification lists, so they are less likely to participate in candidate selection; especially, when the people running the selection make it a point to limit public information on those happening. In short, we probably see this cascade because it becomes easier for more extreme republicans to win, which results in even more people being turned off by the party.
All that said, the GOP is reaping what they deserve here. The party as a whole is refusing to hold members accountable for aiding and encouraging the insurrection. I know during the committee vote in the Virginia State Senate for censuring Amanda Chase. The vote ended up being party line and the GOP members pulled out horseshit arguments about freedom of speech and other shit that doesn't defend what that psychopath did. For whatever reason, be it opportunism for votes that let them keep their shitty stances, agreement with treason or a refusal to do anything that might make them look weak. The GOP has decided they won't do anything to fix the issues that led to this and that very much makes them part of the problem. We definitely see plenty of cases where the asshole insurrectionists not only thought they would succeed and were justified, but that if they somehow failed, they wouldn't be held accountable. Even though some of them are crazy and would have gotten to that mindset on their own, many only arrived their because the GOP kept doing things to make them believe it would happen.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
+28
AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
edited January 2021
Forcing republicans to openly stand with or against Trump because of the coup is always a good idea because revenge and resentment is basically the only engine he and his core supporters have now. One way or another Trump - and any hypothetical successfully anointed successor of his "legacy" and brand - will continue to haunt the GOP because the devout supporters will never be able to settle for a diet version that tries to sneak into the limelight from the regular political sphere. Most republican voters fall in line but they all turned out en masse most recently and that didn't do it.
Forcing republicans to openly stand with or against Trump because of the coup is always a good idea because revenge and resentment is basically the only engine he and his core supporters have now. One way or another Trump - and any hypothetical successfully anointed successor of his "legacy" and brand - will continue to haunt the GOP because the devout supporters will never be able to settle for a diet version that tries to sneak into the limelight from the regular political sphere. Most republican voters fall in line but they all turned out en masse most recently and that didn't do it.
Truth. Allowing Republicans to memory-hole WBush was a mistake - it allowed them to wash their hands of the botched 9/11 response, the Great Recession, the Iraq War and the rise of ISIS, and blame them all on Obama. Trump is something that needs to be tattoo'd on the forehead of every Republican who refuses to stand up to him.
+30
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
He doesn't control the money, so he doesn't control the grift. How is he supposed to embezzle money that is used for a campaign he doesn't really believe in?
Forcing republicans to openly stand with or against Trump because of the coup is always a good idea because revenge and resentment is basically the only engine he and his core supporters have now. One way or another Trump - and any hypothetical successfully anointed successor of his "legacy" and brand - will continue to haunt the GOP because the devout supporters will never be able to settle for a diet version that tries to sneak into the limelight from the regular political sphere. Most republican voters fall in line but they all turned out en masse most recently and that didn't do it.
Truth. Allowing Republicans to memory-hole WBush was a mistake - it allowed them to wash their hands of the botched 9/11 response, the Great Recession, the Iraq War and the rise of ISIS, and blame them all on Obama. Trump is something that needs to be tattoo'd on the forehead of every Republican who refuses to stand up to him.
Neither the public nor the Republican party needed anyone's permission to memory-hole GWB. They just did it. Because that's what people do.
Forcing republicans to openly stand with or against Trump because of the coup is always a good idea because revenge and resentment is basically the only engine he and his core supporters have now. One way or another Trump - and any hypothetical successfully anointed successor of his "legacy" and brand - will continue to haunt the GOP because the devout supporters will never be able to settle for a diet version that tries to sneak into the limelight from the regular political sphere. Most republican voters fall in line but they all turned out en masse most recently and that didn't do it.
Part of the problem with trying to whitewash trump is that he was a spectacularly shitty president; the few arguable positives that came from his presidency (appointing tons of judges and cutting taxes) are things that any generic republican could have done and without nearly as much of the toxic by-product that went along with it; He will forever be the president of 2 impeachments, the longest shut down, a catastrophic pandemic response, grift, sloth, betrayal, corruption and racism.
There simply isn't a rug big enough to sweep this much junk under.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
He doesn't control the money, so he doesn't control the grift. How is he supposed to embezzle money that is used for a campaign he doesn't really believe in?
Trump is still grifting the RNC. Someone probably told him that a competing party will divert money away from that.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Two police taking their own lives? I hope the Capitol Police don't feel that they are getting blamed for what happened.
It’s unfortunate that the two police officers took their own lives. We may never know why they chose to so so.
I do however hope the Capitol Police in general feel they share some of the blame for what happened. We all saw the videos of many Capitol Police standing down and showing no resistance whatsoever while armed rioters ran rampant through the halls of Congress.
Some acted honorably but many utterly failed in their duty and those officers should be ashamed.
the organisation as a whole should feel the shame. individual officers being outnumbered ten to one should not really be condemned for trying to avoid being gang beaten.
Plus, you know. I can't imagine it feels great to nearly have gotten killed by a bunch of nazis because your bosses actively hung you out to dry, and then go on the net in the evening and see some of your workmates taking selfies with the motherfuckers that were trying to kill you hours ago.
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
He doesn't control the money, so he doesn't control the grift. How is he supposed to embezzle money that is used for a campaign he doesn't really believe in?
Trump is still grifting the RNC. Someone probably told him that a competing party will divert money away from that.
That person would be wrong. Creating a Patriot Party would allow him to grift two complementary sources, Republicans and people who are fed up with the Republicans. Plus, he wouldn't be constantly fighting to hold on to the grift of the PP like he'll need to do with the GOP.
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
He doesn't control the money, so he doesn't control the grift. How is he supposed to embezzle money that is used for a campaign he doesn't really believe in?
Trump is still grifting the RNC. Someone probably told him that a competing party will divert money away from that.
That person would be wrong. Creating a Patriot Party would allow him to grift two complementary sources, Republicans and people who are fed up with the Republicans. Plus, he wouldn't be constantly fighting to hold on to the grift of the PP like he'll need to do with the GOP.
That’s assuming Trump is able to grift from this “MAGA” party. Just because they share a theme doesn’t automatically mean Trump gets some of that cash.
Trump’s team isn’t involved and I’m betting this James Davis person is just trying to grift Trump supporters and not really trying to win any races. It’s independent of Trump and unlike the RNC, he has no sycophants to siphon money for him.
All it’s gonna do is pull money from Trump, which he won’t allow.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Nah, I'd say the events on the 6th is going to cause some voters to leave the party, it really was a step too far some. The better question, is will this be in great enough numbers that it costs them elections and will it be permanent. Like I said, some set of people changing the registration are still going to pull the lever for republicans every time and you'll get another group that will move to what could be considered a swing vote where they don't reliable vote for either party.
So I'll agree that it's probably not as doom and gloom for the GOP as it ought to be. The issue I see for them though, is that this ramps up the crazification of their candidates down ticket and that starts costing them elections in competitive districts or finally shuts them out in the very few blue districts that they have some old incumbent holding.
Is the Patriot party more than a rumor from Trump's mouth? Like is it being taken seriously in online circles? I can't imagine too many chasing that before Trump has signaled he has definitively given up on the Republican party. And the way things are going with the party right now I don't see any need for him to do so.
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
He doesn't control the money, so he doesn't control the grift. How is he supposed to embezzle money that is used for a campaign he doesn't really believe in?
Trump is still grifting the RNC. Someone probably told him that a competing party will divert money away from that.
That person would be wrong. Creating a Patriot Party would allow him to grift two complementary sources, Republicans and people who are fed up with the Republicans. Plus, he wouldn't be constantly fighting to hold on to the grift of the PP like he'll need to do with the GOP.
I suspect he couldn't get both sources of grift because the GOP probably has some sort of bylaw that prevents someone with official capacity in another political party to have the reigns on stuff in their party. My guess is that the paly is to keep grifting the GOP until they either chuck out or don't serve his purposes anymore. Then at that point he'll form or co-op another party. This also has the upside of him getting into even more fights with the party establishment, which for him makes it easier to get more anti-establishment members, who will leave with him for the next party.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
I still remember how, after Trump was elected, there were all these thinkpieces about how it was proof that the left was living in a bubble, and how we all needed to actually talk to right-wing people and learn their story. Those articles ticked me off SO MUCH, because first of all I have right-wing family members, some of whom I actually am in contact with (more of them back then than I am in contact with now, but I still have one right-leaning family member with whom I am close).I know all about their thought processes. But obviously the other, bigger thing is that the reason right-wing people would vote for someone as criminal as Trump is because they are the ones living in the bubble, unable to learn about anyone outside their own culture, unable to learn even about their own candidate because their news sources won't allow it. That anyone would think otherwise, even at the time, is still crazy to me.
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
People been noticing this for a long ass time now. I remember early in Obama's first term there was some incident (can't even remember what it was about anymore cause it don't fucking matter) where the Establishment and Limbaugh started arguing about some bullshit or other. And it was Steele and McConnell who had to back down and apologize to Limbaugh. That's how you know where the power is.
The right-wing media/influence sphere has always been dominated by grifters and nakedly self-interested people trying to turn a profit. (a classic from 8 years ago now: The Long Con) But as they've tightened and sealed off the information loop in order to build power, the political side has found themselves no longer in control. And slowly getting indoctrinated themselves or surrounded by and replaced by people who are.
“We have one officer who lost his life as a direct result of the insurrection,” Mr. Papathanasiou said. “Another officer has tragically taken his own life. Between U.S.C.P. and our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have almost 140 officers injured. I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake.”
Specifically the line about brain injuries because they didn't have helmets. I think I had read previously that an officer was expected to lose an eye, though. I wonder if either of the officers who committed suicide did so because of life-altering injuries.
Oh god, I hadn't heard about all those injuries, that would certainly explain the suicides.
It could, but I feel like they would have mentioned if the two who killed themselves did so after being paralyzed, permanently blinded, etc.
I'm still assuming they were afraid of getting outed for serious crimes (as opposed to just being huge nazis or something), or they were suffering from genuine depression and the final straw was either seeing their coup fail, seeing the blue-line crowd turn on them, or (more naively) realizing the blue-line crowd really were just fascists.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
I still remember how, after Trump was elected, there were all these thinkpieces about how it was proof that the left was living in a bubble, and how we all needed to actually talk to right-wing people and learn their story. Those articles ticked me off SO MUCH, because first of all I have right-wing family members, some of whom I actually am in contact with (more of them back then than I am in contact with now, but I still have one right-leaning family member with whom I am close).I know all about their thought processes. But obviously the other, bigger thing is that the reason right-wing people would vote for someone as criminal as Trump is because they are the ones living in the bubble, unable to learn about anyone outside their own culture, unable to learn even about their own candidate because their news sources won't allow it. That anyone would think otherwise, even at the time, is still crazy to me.
Also, there are more of us. That we don't value 1 vote as 1 vote for President is an unfortunate reality, but... that doesn't magically make us a minority. Just a disempowered majority. Perhaps even a 'silent' majority.
People tend to make the mistake when looking at rightwing nutjobs to assume they are all one flavor. This has the negative effect, where people assume the voters in a district are loonier than they actually are. Right now there are really two types we need to care about, the ones that are 100% unhinged and the ones that are able to filter themselves when they expect a significant amount of public attention. Trump and Greene represent the 100% unhinged, they'll say batshit things every chance they get and are starting to increasingly become the face of the party. This is the group that is turning off some republican voters, while motivating left leaning voters to turn out for elections instead of sitting them out. The other group is essentially the Collins and McConnells of the world, their beliefs are fucking garbage but they are aware that their average constituent gets bored by the day to day stuff, so they push really shitty thing there and then on the campaign trail or during times where there is tons of national attention on them, they shift how they do things. Yes, they still often back bullshit, but they also choose their words and actions to be something that doesn't repel the way the 100% unhinged achieve. This means they sucker a bunch of low information voters into thinking they are reasonable adults. For Collins this was probably a factor in her getting re-elected. For McConnell, it's about ensure some amount of public ire doesn't get turned upon the GOP.
I know the media covers McConnell's ass by pretending he has no agency, but that only partly works because he is able to con enough low information voters into believing that he isn't as bad as the rest of the party. He gets away with that because he knows neither the media nor those voters will dig enough to realize that his image is mostly a sham. You can tell he doesn't want this vote to happen and wants the whole thing swept under the rug because this likely isn't a vote winner for the GOP. If they rebuke Trump, it might prevent hemorrhaging out non-batshit voters, but comes a the expense of alienating the batshit voters. If they back Trump, they're going to lose more of the non-batshit voters and motivating people that normally stay home to vote against the GOP. They've pretty much it a point that can't be sustained. They need all the voters that showed for them, but we're seeing wedge issues that make it impossible to keep that coalition together.
Rebuking Trump, be it by censure or banning him from ever running again, has ended up much like their policies. What they actually want to do, let's be honest these assholes don't think rules should apply to them, is incredibly unpopular, but they can throw any of that under the bus because they'll lose too much of their coalition, so they opt to stall and do nothing when they can.
That's barely even a gun. There are larger caliber pellet guns.
Not suitable for "self-protection," though I assume it still fulfills the role of 2A jerkoff fodder.
I still love this post this is maximum Texan.
Before I had a baby and also bad depression, I had a Winchester 300 short magnum--The perfect home defense gun when your driveway starts a mile from your house.
+10
DHSChase lizards.....bark at donkeys..Registered Userregular
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
I still remember how, after Trump was elected, there were all these thinkpieces about how it was proof that the left was living in a bubble, and how we all needed to actually talk to right-wing people and learn their story. Those articles ticked me off SO MUCH, because first of all I have right-wing family members, some of whom I actually am in contact with (more of them back then than I am in contact with now, but I still have one right-leaning family member with whom I am close).I know all about their thought processes. But obviously the other, bigger thing is that the reason right-wing people would vote for someone as criminal as Trump is because they are the ones living in the bubble, unable to learn about anyone outside their own culture, unable to learn even about their own candidate because their news sources won't allow it. That anyone would think otherwise, even at the time, is still crazy to me.
That take, that the left was caught off guard, was always bullshit; Trump didn't fall from the stars on to that golden escalator he was already one the most meticulously chronicled human beings of the 20th and 21st centuries. Everyone with even basic right wing literacy saw it coming and saw what the true danger was and that was the Fox Axis of Bullshit laundering this absolutely known grifter narcissist idiot asshole into a populist outsider. That the echo chamber had become airtight was the real lesson because they bought into the story that the fucker who had two tabloid divorce sagas and even more bankruptcies was anything other than a fucking sociopath dickhead failson turned failfather reality TV show host asshole. No one was surprised just disbelieving that the stupidest possible extrapolation of 40 years of right wing media blaring racist vomit had come to pass and the entirety of the media just abdicated every shred of responsibility because the News was now just another reality TV show, because now every outlet is just another arm of some media conglomerate.
"Grip 'em up, grip 'em, grip 'em good, said the Gryphon... to the pig."
+18
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I mean a .22 can absolutely kill someone, even at some appreciable distance.
Bullets are bullets and do unpredictable things when shot at living beings.
Oh sure, but so can a pellet gun or a slingshot in the right cases
But a .22 shouldn't be used for self defense. I'm not sure it should be used at all.
That's the Texas talking. A .22 LR is really great for night home defense. Because you can shoot it in your house and not go deaf and blind. Which means you can predictably shoot more than once.
Research shows .22 LR actually has "stopped more crime" than any other bullet. There's a lot of qualifiers to that statement, which I don't feel like getting into.
And honestly, nobody wants to get shot, with any bullet.
There is of course a shotgun, the click clack is always impressive, and you can pepper em with birdshot for a less lethal alternative. But I would use a .22LR for home defense.
If I still believed in home defense, I'd probably go for a Taurus Judge with the 410 rounds. It's loud and big and scary but probably won't kill anyone at anything less than point-blank.
or (more naively) realizing the blue-line crowd really were just fascists.
A wide swath of law enforcement are incredibly ignorant in a lot of ways, when you get down to it. I'll guarantee there as at least one cop out there, on the 6th, who genuinely believes antifa is a national crime syndicate and had real problems accepting "their people" would ever do this.
Mitchell and Webb make it seem easy, but "Are we the baddies?" is a really hard thing to face.
i wouldn't put any hope in Republicans not turning out to vote Republican until after the election when it happens
Yeah, we had four years of Trump's ShameState to give them license not to vote, and they turned out in record numbers.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
it’s admittedly reductive but i think you can consider the republican party a subsidiary of the conservative media/entertainment/influencer complex [link to New Republic article]
and what we’re seeing now, from trump on down, are the consumers of that media claiming power within the party
majorie taylor greene, for example, is a trend-chasing conservative influencer who parlayed that into some real political power. so, for that matter, are madison cawthorn and lauren boebert
let me rephrase something. it’s not consumers of this media who are now claiming power — even ostensibly “serious” republicans like bill barr have obvious fox news brain — as much as it’s people with no conception of the world *outside* of conservative media.
a perfect hermetically sealed bubble
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
I still remember how, after Trump was elected, there were all these thinkpieces about how it was proof that the left was living in a bubble, and how we all needed to actually talk to right-wing people and learn their story. Those articles ticked me off SO MUCH, because first of all I have right-wing family members, some of whom I actually am in contact with (more of them back then than I am in contact with now, but I still have one right-leaning family member with whom I am close).I know all about their thought processes. But obviously the other, bigger thing is that the reason right-wing people would vote for someone as criminal as Trump is because they are the ones living in the bubble, unable to learn about anyone outside their own culture, unable to learn even about their own candidate because their news sources won't allow it. That anyone would think otherwise, even at the time, is still crazy to me.
That take, that the left was caught off guard, was always bullshit; Trump didn't fall from the stars on to that golden escalator he was already one the most meticulously chronicled human beings of the 20th and 21st centuries. Everyone with even basic right wing literacy saw it coming and saw what the true danger was and that was the Fox Axis of Bullshit laundering this absolutely known grifter narcissist idiot asshole into a populist outsider. That the echo chamber had become airtight was the real lesson because they bought into the story that the fucker who had two tabloid divorce sagas and even more bankruptcies was anything other than a fucking sociopath dickhead failson turned failfather reality TV show host asshole. No one was surprised just disbelieving that the stupidest possible extrapolation of 40 years of right wing media blaring racist vomit had come to pass and the entirety of the media just abdicated every shred of responsibility because the News was now just another reality TV show, because now every outlet is just another arm of some media conglomerate.
I'd argue the anti-Trump people were caught off guard by some things in 2016. Largely I think by the fact that they hadn't anticipated just how much the mainstream media carrying water for Trump and making him look more moderate while attacking Clinton at every turn had shifted votes just enough for him to squeeze out wins in key states. People weren't out of touch with the Trump base, they knew who those shits were. If they were out of touch with anything it was the super-low information voter who just knew "Clinton bad, Trump famous businessman" because that's what they were getting from the snippets of mainstream news they caught.
Posts
The 'MAGA Patriot Party' filed federal election commission paperwork, but Trump disavowed them for some reason. You'd think he'd like that someone else did the work for him.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Grifters gotta grift.
Trump is billions of dollars in debt. The one thing he has going for him is his brand, which is now toxic in all the industries he's invested in.
I heard a rumor that Jared Kushner might buy out the Trump properties, hence the pardon of his dad.
FBI arrested person with pipe bombs who planned to attack California's governor, twitter, and Facebook.
I mean beyond just that sort of thing, dudes were fighting for their lives. One cop died and it seems like they got lucky more didn't. PTSD and trauma can kill. Especially in a field like policing, which both culturally and often contractually can make it difficult to get mental care help.
It’s unfortunate that the two police officers took their own lives. We may never know why they chose to so so.
I do however hope the Capitol Police in general feel they share some of the blame for what happened. We all saw the videos of many Capitol Police standing down and showing no resistance whatsoever while armed rioters ran rampant through the halls of Congress.
Some acted honorably but many utterly failed in their duty and those officers should be ashamed.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The failure was in leadership, though. While Selfie cop is undeniably an asshole and should be dismissed, a bunch of them fought until they were absolutely overwhelmed, because they were given neither tools nor personnel
i imagine a lot of the suburban districts where the gop has been having the most trouble recently are where most of that change is happening. urban areas are already generally D, and rural areas are only generally mad it didn't work.
It came out pretty quickly after the attack that morale had pretty much disintegrated among the police force. CBS News had an article covering it. Basically they had the hours of the attack itself with a relative handful of them trying to cope with a mob of thousands, only to return home to friends and family asking how the hell it had happened, people online accusing them of just letting the insurrectionists in, and their boss being fired for putting them all in the situation in the first place. Throw in the extent of the injuries they suffered or saw others suffer and it was a recipe for a tsunami of depression and anxiety, with dozens of officers needing immediate mental health support.
One female officer even turned in her own weapon because she knew she was about to use it on herself if she didn’t.
the organisation as a whole should feel the shame. individual officers being outnumbered ten to one should not really be condemned for trying to avoid being gang beaten.
Like it's something they've asked some of the cops in interviews, and multiple cops were like "we were overrun, I was isolated in an aggressive crowd, and if I opened fire I believed I would die for it."
The past year+ of cops brutalizing peaceful protestors have left me kinda low on sympathy when they suddenly get swarmed by people who are actually violent.
-You have some set that had left the party long ago finally formalizing the process with their registration.
-You have another set that left because they are anticipating the rise of Trump's garbage party.
-You have another set that left because Trump is no longer on the ballot.
-You have a set that has left, but will still pull the lever for a republican every time.
-You have a set where this was the final stray on either being a constant republican voter or a republican/conservative voter at all.
It's bad for the GOP because some set of those voters aren't going to either voter republican ever again or they won't be a guaranteed republican vote; especially, if those voters decide to be far more critical with how they evaluate their choice of candidates in the general. Though the bigger blow IMO, is going to be when we get things where candidate selection is reserved only for party members. It's probably safe to say that a majority of the people getting out, probably aren't hardcore trumpists, but likely the more moderate voters of the GOP. In that regard, this is likely to result in the GOP getting even more extreme. Hell, in cases where candidate selection is open to all, this could be bad since that likely indicates a number of these people getting off of GOP notification lists, so they are less likely to participate in candidate selection; especially, when the people running the selection make it a point to limit public information on those happening. In short, we probably see this cascade because it becomes easier for more extreme republicans to win, which results in even more people being turned off by the party.
All that said, the GOP is reaping what they deserve here. The party as a whole is refusing to hold members accountable for aiding and encouraging the insurrection. I know during the committee vote in the Virginia State Senate for censuring Amanda Chase. The vote ended up being party line and the GOP members pulled out horseshit arguments about freedom of speech and other shit that doesn't defend what that psychopath did. For whatever reason, be it opportunism for votes that let them keep their shitty stances, agreement with treason or a refusal to do anything that might make them look weak. The GOP has decided they won't do anything to fix the issues that led to this and that very much makes them part of the problem. We definitely see plenty of cases where the asshole insurrectionists not only thought they would succeed and were justified, but that if they somehow failed, they wouldn't be held accountable. Even though some of them are crazy and would have gotten to that mindset on their own, many only arrived their because the GOP kept doing things to make them believe it would happen.
Truth. Allowing Republicans to memory-hole WBush was a mistake - it allowed them to wash their hands of the botched 9/11 response, the Great Recession, the Iraq War and the rise of ISIS, and blame them all on Obama. Trump is something that needs to be tattoo'd on the forehead of every Republican who refuses to stand up to him.
Neither the public nor the Republican party needed anyone's permission to memory-hole GWB. They just did it. Because that's what people do.
Part of the problem with trying to whitewash trump is that he was a spectacularly shitty president; the few arguable positives that came from his presidency (appointing tons of judges and cutting taxes) are things that any generic republican could have done and without nearly as much of the toxic by-product that went along with it; He will forever be the president of 2 impeachments, the longest shut down, a catastrophic pandemic response, grift, sloth, betrayal, corruption and racism.
There simply isn't a rug big enough to sweep this much junk under.
Jamelle Bouie, political analyst and a non-shitty NYT oped columnist, was musing on this earlier today, as an addition to a great New Republic article by Katelyn Burns, who is observing that the GOP is not really putting forth anything that could be considered governance, and is just making attacks on any who would question that they have all the right ideas and are without reproach.
I have to agree with this summation, and it explains why the radicalization of the right has been happening exponentially - those holding positions of political power are not the ones shaping the conservative media narrative, they are consuming the conservative media narrative. Feedback loops are to be expected when baseless "opinions" from media talking heads are repeated as gospel truths by politicians, who are then cited as proof that the baseless opinions are true. GOP politicians are not putting forth policies other than "oppose the Democrats" because the media they are consuming assures them that everything would be magically okay if only those pesky Democrats and their communist/socialist/globalist/Jewish(wait that wasn't supposed to be out-loud) puppet-masters weren't ruining things.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Yeah. The Georgia runoffs gave us a glimmer of hope though.
Trump is still grifting the RNC. Someone probably told him that a competing party will divert money away from that.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Plus, you know. I can't imagine it feels great to nearly have gotten killed by a bunch of nazis because your bosses actively hung you out to dry, and then go on the net in the evening and see some of your workmates taking selfies with the motherfuckers that were trying to kill you hours ago.
That person would be wrong. Creating a Patriot Party would allow him to grift two complementary sources, Republicans and people who are fed up with the Republicans. Plus, he wouldn't be constantly fighting to hold on to the grift of the PP like he'll need to do with the GOP.
That’s assuming Trump is able to grift from this “MAGA” party. Just because they share a theme doesn’t automatically mean Trump gets some of that cash.
Trump’s team isn’t involved and I’m betting this James Davis person is just trying to grift Trump supporters and not really trying to win any races. It’s independent of Trump and unlike the RNC, he has no sycophants to siphon money for him.
All it’s gonna do is pull money from Trump, which he won’t allow.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Nah, I'd say the events on the 6th is going to cause some voters to leave the party, it really was a step too far some. The better question, is will this be in great enough numbers that it costs them elections and will it be permanent. Like I said, some set of people changing the registration are still going to pull the lever for republicans every time and you'll get another group that will move to what could be considered a swing vote where they don't reliable vote for either party.
So I'll agree that it's probably not as doom and gloom for the GOP as it ought to be. The issue I see for them though, is that this ramps up the crazification of their candidates down ticket and that starts costing them elections in competitive districts or finally shuts them out in the very few blue districts that they have some old incumbent holding.
I suspect he couldn't get both sources of grift because the GOP probably has some sort of bylaw that prevents someone with official capacity in another political party to have the reigns on stuff in their party. My guess is that the paly is to keep grifting the GOP until they either chuck out or don't serve his purposes anymore. Then at that point he'll form or co-op another party. This also has the upside of him getting into even more fights with the party establishment, which for him makes it easier to get more anti-establishment members, who will leave with him for the next party.
I still remember how, after Trump was elected, there were all these thinkpieces about how it was proof that the left was living in a bubble, and how we all needed to actually talk to right-wing people and learn their story. Those articles ticked me off SO MUCH, because first of all I have right-wing family members, some of whom I actually am in contact with (more of them back then than I am in contact with now, but I still have one right-leaning family member with whom I am close).I know all about their thought processes. But obviously the other, bigger thing is that the reason right-wing people would vote for someone as criminal as Trump is because they are the ones living in the bubble, unable to learn about anyone outside their own culture, unable to learn even about their own candidate because their news sources won't allow it. That anyone would think otherwise, even at the time, is still crazy to me.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
People been noticing this for a long ass time now. I remember early in Obama's first term there was some incident (can't even remember what it was about anymore cause it don't fucking matter) where the Establishment and Limbaugh started arguing about some bullshit or other. And it was Steele and McConnell who had to back down and apologize to Limbaugh. That's how you know where the power is.
The right-wing media/influence sphere has always been dominated by grifters and nakedly self-interested people trying to turn a profit. (a classic from 8 years ago now: The Long Con) But as they've tightened and sealed off the information loop in order to build power, the political side has found themselves no longer in control. And slowly getting indoctrinated themselves or surrounded by and replaced by people who are.
It could, but I feel like they would have mentioned if the two who killed themselves did so after being paralyzed, permanently blinded, etc.
I'm still assuming they were afraid of getting outed for serious crimes (as opposed to just being huge nazis or something), or they were suffering from genuine depression and the final straw was either seeing their coup fail, seeing the blue-line crowd turn on them, or (more naively) realizing the blue-line crowd really were just fascists.
Also, there are more of us. That we don't value 1 vote as 1 vote for President is an unfortunate reality, but... that doesn't magically make us a minority. Just a disempowered majority. Perhaps even a 'silent' majority.
I know the media covers McConnell's ass by pretending he has no agency, but that only partly works because he is able to con enough low information voters into believing that he isn't as bad as the rest of the party. He gets away with that because he knows neither the media nor those voters will dig enough to realize that his image is mostly a sham. You can tell he doesn't want this vote to happen and wants the whole thing swept under the rug because this likely isn't a vote winner for the GOP. If they rebuke Trump, it might prevent hemorrhaging out non-batshit voters, but comes a the expense of alienating the batshit voters. If they back Trump, they're going to lose more of the non-batshit voters and motivating people that normally stay home to vote against the GOP. They've pretty much it a point that can't be sustained. They need all the voters that showed for them, but we're seeing wedge issues that make it impossible to keep that coalition together.
Rebuking Trump, be it by censure or banning him from ever running again, has ended up much like their policies. What they actually want to do, let's be honest these assholes don't think rules should apply to them, is incredibly unpopular, but they can throw any of that under the bus because they'll lose too much of their coalition, so they opt to stall and do nothing when they can.
Before I had a baby and also bad depression, I had a Winchester 300 short magnum--The perfect home defense gun when your driveway starts a mile from your house.
That take, that the left was caught off guard, was always bullshit; Trump didn't fall from the stars on to that golden escalator he was already one the most meticulously chronicled human beings of the 20th and 21st centuries. Everyone with even basic right wing literacy saw it coming and saw what the true danger was and that was the Fox Axis of Bullshit laundering this absolutely known grifter narcissist idiot asshole into a populist outsider. That the echo chamber had become airtight was the real lesson because they bought into the story that the fucker who had two tabloid divorce sagas and even more bankruptcies was anything other than a fucking sociopath dickhead failson turned failfather reality TV show host asshole. No one was surprised just disbelieving that the stupidest possible extrapolation of 40 years of right wing media blaring racist vomit had come to pass and the entirety of the media just abdicated every shred of responsibility because the News was now just another reality TV show, because now every outlet is just another arm of some media conglomerate.
If I still believed in home defense, I'd probably go for a Taurus Judge with the 410 rounds. It's loud and big and scary but probably won't kill anyone at anything less than point-blank.
A wide swath of law enforcement are incredibly ignorant in a lot of ways, when you get down to it. I'll guarantee there as at least one cop out there, on the 6th, who genuinely believes antifa is a national crime syndicate and had real problems accepting "their people" would ever do this.
Mitchell and Webb make it seem easy, but "Are we the baddies?" is a really hard thing to face.
I'd argue the anti-Trump people were caught off guard by some things in 2016. Largely I think by the fact that they hadn't anticipated just how much the mainstream media carrying water for Trump and making him look more moderate while attacking Clinton at every turn had shifted votes just enough for him to squeeze out wins in key states. People weren't out of touch with the Trump base, they knew who those shits were. If they were out of touch with anything it was the super-low information voter who just knew "Clinton bad, Trump famous businessman" because that's what they were getting from the snippets of mainstream news they caught.