The Donald J. Trump Presidency

Just dreamed that Kellyanne Conway tested positive for coronavirus.

It felt so believable and real.

I might hate this guy

I had such a good day at work today, came home and didn't feel like garbage for once, should have been looking forward to a few days off in a row and feeling good about things in a way that I really don't think is too much to ask or hope for once in a blue moon.

Somehow I saw something he just posted on Twitter (honest to God I didn't go looking for it, I'm trying to recall how this even ended up on my phone's screen in the first place and I really cannot remember at all)) and it just sent me into a spiral and I just feel like my night is ruined. And that says just as much about me as it does about him, yeah I know. But damn, my thoughts are just going places I shouldn't share on a public forum.

Thanks for the heads up, Bob Woodward!

Yeah, this dude continues to burn (whatever little--and it's not much!--is left of) his reputation to the ground.  Fuck him.

In general I agree but I'm a little more focused on his subject's sins at the present moment.

Why do we hate bob

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/bob-woodward-made-himself-complicit-in-trumps-coronavirus-crime-against-humanity

edit: lol at me linking to an editorial rather than a breaking news alert because this is the only thing I've seen about it

Where can we listen to his tapes

undo wrote:Why do we hate bob

I already hated Bob because he's a dreadful writer who was repeatedly co-opted and duped by, lo-fucking-l, the Bush/Cheney administration. That's some embarrassing shit!

Duff... wrote:In general I agree but I'm a little more focused on his subject's sins at the present moment.

Yeah, given that shortly we'd learn how bad this stuff was from he rest of the world and all the things he got this mushbrain rage muffin to say (on tape!) I'm maybe a little more inclined to forgive him for this. Maybe.

Nothing would be different

He'd have been "vindicated" but it would have accelerated the politicization of the whole crisis. "The press is rooting for millions of deaths," Trump would post to Twitter. "Guess who they'll blame AGAIN?"

That's exactly right. Steve Bannon isn't a very knowledgable, smart, or interesting person but he has proven himself to be a very savvy political strategist. His ability to disarticulate politics from the typical ideological contest between Republicans and Democrats and instead focus the vitriol of populist anger against the media has proven itself to be a truly masterful move.

I think it has kind of destroyed a lot of legacy media now as well because they have implicated themselves in this hyper-partisan political divide. CNN anchors are just in permanent lecture mode now.

oh shit

that's all I've got right now, sorry

I dunno, 80+ years old with health concerns. Seems like over 4 years ago would have been a good time to retire.

Yeah, her selfishness and fealty to her "legacy" (itself subjectively defined and, lol, a fucking abstract) over the lived good and future of the country doesn't mean that she was the devil or anything, obviously (rather, it means she was human), but it certainly shoots (and already shot, back in like 2013) holes in the laughably stupid and blindered beatification which she's inexplicably enjoyed, of late.  She certainly deserves more than her fair share of respect, admiration, and thanks for fighting the good fight(s) for a long time.  She's not even close to being one of "the bad guys."  The problem is that powerful people making childish, petty mistakes can lead to great material harm; when reg'lar-ass people are like, "Nah, I'm actually gonna keep on even though I shouldn't," the worst shit that happens usually involves somebody's feelings temporarily being hurt.

I'm sorry.  I'm going to say that kinda shit until the day I die, as I'm pretty dtf with reality and the truth.  I'm not frustrated with people mourning the poor woman's death rather than wasting zero seconds before rhetorically burning her corpse, but rather because I'm taking it personally, re: having been yet again proven right.  I've been saying for nearly a decade that this kind of situation was the endgame of her stubbornness.  Dogmatic realpolitik isn't the answer, either, but like...God DAMN, son, how is it so hard for people to remember that there is a real world in which idea(l)s have to fucking exist???  It's maddening, and not at all unrelated in spirit to the whole "just be tough/positive and the virus will back down" nonsense.  Sure, you're tough.  Great.  I'm sure that "history," for the few years it remembers you in a meaningful way, will smile upon it or something.  But the republicans/the virus/the people who have to endure the outcomes of this thinking don't, I assure you, fucking care.

Much like her own ego-centrism, this is, of course, an example of my own.  Laughable, too, in that this is CLEARLY not about me.  In any fucking way.  lol  Fucking stupid, I know.

Nick wrote:I dunno, 80+ years old with health concerns. Seems like over 4 years ago would have been a good time to retire.

She left a dying wish, though! You gotta admire that dedication and forethought. How could a plan like that possibly fail?

I always found the cult of personality that surrounded her, which she clearly enjoyed, to be deeply problematic and strange. I try to empathize with what she must have meant to a lot of aspirational professional women who viewed her as a champion of a certain kind of bourgeois feminism. Although I might disagree with their politics and worldview, representation does matter and they've had very little of it in the major political institutions of this country for almost its entire history. So fair game to them.

Honestly, not only do I think this doesn't really matter, I actually think it will prove itself to be a positive. The balance of the Supreme Court obviously matters but people don't realize that conservatives have already swung the balance of circuit courts throughout the country, especially in southern states. Once we are able to reassemble a New Deal coalition in this country and we don't have the fucking brain dead carcasses of Pelosi and Schumer constantly tying our hands behind our backs and preventing us from actually winning an election, we will have to surmount the institutionalized legacy of neoliberal orthodoxy and conservative hegemony in the court system. The only way to do that will be to break the rules by packing the courts (FDR was forced to do the same thing). If conservatives want to delegitimize the federal court system by nakedly politicizing the process of appointing these justices, they should go right ahead. One should never really complain when your opponent does the work for you.

i actually agree with that ^

also last time i checked the death of (an actually fairly conservative) judge did nothing to quash the revolutionary potential of the working class.

Nick wrote:I dunno, 80+ years old with health concerns. Seems like over 4 years ago would have been a good time to retire.

I agree.

Trump responding to the RBG “dying wish” comment as made up by the Democrats was super funny and probably true!

what did he say this time?

I've just got to know!

If it's not "I hereby resign" who gives a fuck.

What about, ‘I have 4 weeks to live.’?