As a middle-aged white guy who is anti-Trump but on most issues somewhat to the right of center and who has his roots in exactly the short of rural shit-hole described so eloquently by Ben, I'll never forget one of the moments of true hilarity that I experienced during the last election when I was told that Tim Walz was supposed to be a selling point on the Harris ticket for people like me.
My Canadian (BC) mother always started the year (well, every month) with Rabbit Rabbit (an older friend from North Carolina does the same). I always mean to, but I probably fail at it more often than Ben.
I'm not going to defend the coach jokes about JD Vance (although I think a more talented politician would have just brushed them aside).
But what I have never been able to understand is the pearl-clutching conservatives do whenever a Democrat or person of the left says something mean or crude about a Republican.
There is no single person in politics who is more mean crude, vicious in his insults than our current President, most of his vitriol directed at Democrats. What is a very very stupid couch fucking joke next to that?
I'll grant that Trump is sui generis, and his penchant for insults is just one of the many things he does that no one holds him accounatble for.
But this trend goes back before Trump. There used to be a narrative that Republicans were radicalized by how mean Democrats were to Mitt Romney. Really? Romney ran against Barack Obama, and I can't think of a Democratic politican who was more viciously attacked and insulted and defamed by Republicans than Barack Obama. When Obama ran for POTUS, the Republican VP nominee accused him of terrorism.
Anyway, couch fucking jokes aside, Republicans and right wingers, at worst, give as good as they get. And still they pearl clutch any time they are the target of Democrats or the left.
My general observation is that people remember the stuff that made them mad, but not stuff that made other people mad. Frequently when I talk to Republicans, and I mention something outrageous Trump did, they'll be like "Oh yeah, I forgot about that". And similarly, when I mention stuff that Democrats did (including Democrats in the media), they will similarly have to search their memories before they even recall it, and then they will recall it as having been a much less prominent part of the discourse than it actually was. Recent examples include people who forgot Trump being nasty about John McCain's war record, and pretty online folks who had completely forgotten about Covington Catholic, in which social media and to some extent establishment media, along with a bunch of online outlets, ran with a completely misleading video that seemed to show a bunch of white high school teenagers in MAGA hats mobbing a native American activist. Perennial examples include any argument about the Supreme Court wars, in which both sides remember every escalation by the other guys, and have memory-holed their own side's norm violations.
This leads to a phenomenon where neither side can understand why the other side is mad, because the other side are so clearly the provocateurs, while your own side have been playing clean with *maybe* a few tiny violations that you only remember if the other guys bring them up. As someone who loathes Trump but doesn't particularly care for the Democrats, either, this is not my recollection of the last ten years.
It's all part of the absurd lack of agency given to Republicans and Magastan via Trump that really cheeses me off. Both-side-isms is really goddamn tedious at this point.
Ben seems skeptical about "the media" influencing the populace rather than the other way around, but I think one place where the media is clearly trying to make "fetch" happen with some level of success is Abundance, and before that, YIMBY. I'm a big fan of Abundance, but that concept has been around for as long as there have been economic libertarians. However now that a couple of the mainest of main stream media people have strung together some words to make the concept more palatable to non-libertarians, it seems to be everywhere, despite still not commanding majority interest or salience.
I might suggest that three people who have national platforms to air their every grievance and opinion be a little more generous to those who do not... Marching, boycotting, or even canceling your jazz combo's planned engagement at the Trump-Kennedy Center is something engaged citizens can actually DO, besides just waiting patiently to vote in the midterms. Whether those actions (or political podcasts, for that matter) are effective or not will probably only be understood in hindsight.
Also, doesn't the name "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" suggest that that both honorees are dead?
I agreed with Josh and Ben about this specific instance, but I think Megan was right in her general point. The feeling of I have to DO something is natural, but it's one of the natural impulses it's better to resist.
An extreme example that formed my opinion here is the host on Hardball yelling at someone who was against putting body scanners in airports back in the early days of the war on terror. The guy has all these reasons the scanners were a bad idea, and the host didn't answer them, he just started yelling, "What are you going to do?" Over and over again.
I see really wanting to do something as in the same category as being really angry or being really horny. It's not that you should never act on that, and the emotion is very helpful if you need to act, but it shouldn't be taken as justification for action.
Sorry I can't think of a more neutral example, but the way people talk about political action feels to me like saying flipping off a driver who cut you off is the right thing to do. Whether or not the political action is good, the assumption that the desire is justification enough brothers me.
I think Delcy Rodríguez will do as commanded, because the clear alternative is a lifetime in a US federal supermax prison. One "benefit" of kidnapping a head of state.
Good episode.
As a middle-aged white guy who is anti-Trump but on most issues somewhat to the right of center and who has his roots in exactly the short of rural shit-hole described so eloquently by Ben, I'll never forget one of the moments of true hilarity that I experienced during the last election when I was told that Tim Walz was supposed to be a selling point on the Harris ticket for people like me.
This. Very much this.
My Canadian (BC) mother always started the year (well, every month) with Rabbit Rabbit (an older friend from North Carolina does the same). I always mean to, but I probably fail at it more often than Ben.
I'm not going to defend the coach jokes about JD Vance (although I think a more talented politician would have just brushed them aside).
But what I have never been able to understand is the pearl-clutching conservatives do whenever a Democrat or person of the left says something mean or crude about a Republican.
There is no single person in politics who is more mean crude, vicious in his insults than our current President, most of his vitriol directed at Democrats. What is a very very stupid couch fucking joke next to that?
I'll grant that Trump is sui generis, and his penchant for insults is just one of the many things he does that no one holds him accounatble for.
But this trend goes back before Trump. There used to be a narrative that Republicans were radicalized by how mean Democrats were to Mitt Romney. Really? Romney ran against Barack Obama, and I can't think of a Democratic politican who was more viciously attacked and insulted and defamed by Republicans than Barack Obama. When Obama ran for POTUS, the Republican VP nominee accused him of terrorism.
Anyway, couch fucking jokes aside, Republicans and right wingers, at worst, give as good as they get. And still they pearl clutch any time they are the target of Democrats or the left.
My general observation is that people remember the stuff that made them mad, but not stuff that made other people mad. Frequently when I talk to Republicans, and I mention something outrageous Trump did, they'll be like "Oh yeah, I forgot about that". And similarly, when I mention stuff that Democrats did (including Democrats in the media), they will similarly have to search their memories before they even recall it, and then they will recall it as having been a much less prominent part of the discourse than it actually was. Recent examples include people who forgot Trump being nasty about John McCain's war record, and pretty online folks who had completely forgotten about Covington Catholic, in which social media and to some extent establishment media, along with a bunch of online outlets, ran with a completely misleading video that seemed to show a bunch of white high school teenagers in MAGA hats mobbing a native American activist. Perennial examples include any argument about the Supreme Court wars, in which both sides remember every escalation by the other guys, and have memory-holed their own side's norm violations.
This leads to a phenomenon where neither side can understand why the other side is mad, because the other side are so clearly the provocateurs, while your own side have been playing clean with *maybe* a few tiny violations that you only remember if the other guys bring them up. As someone who loathes Trump but doesn't particularly care for the Democrats, either, this is not my recollection of the last ten years.
It's all part of the absurd lack of agency given to Republicans and Magastan via Trump that really cheeses me off. Both-side-isms is really goddamn tedious at this point.
i mean, plainly put, is accusing the entire population of a region of "eating pets" really anywhere near a joke about humping a couch?
and let's face it, jd vance probably does fuck couches. or at least loveseats. especially if they call him a race-mixing cuck during the deed.
The response to the Venezuela raid was weirdly tepid in my view. Trump belongs in The Hague.
In re: fraud and letting go, I like Patrick McKenzie's take: the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero. https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fraud/
Ben seems skeptical about "the media" influencing the populace rather than the other way around, but I think one place where the media is clearly trying to make "fetch" happen with some level of success is Abundance, and before that, YIMBY. I'm a big fan of Abundance, but that concept has been around for as long as there have been economic libertarians. However now that a couple of the mainest of main stream media people have strung together some words to make the concept more palatable to non-libertarians, it seems to be everywhere, despite still not commanding majority interest or salience.
Megan seems to be the only one not bucking for a job in the Mamdani administration.
I wouldn't know… I fast forward everytime she's speaking.
I agree with all the dunking on Walz but the JD fuck marry kill meme was pretty good.
In retrospect, it seems like a clumsy early attempt at the sort of thing that Newsome has since been doing much more effectively.
I might suggest that three people who have national platforms to air their every grievance and opinion be a little more generous to those who do not... Marching, boycotting, or even canceling your jazz combo's planned engagement at the Trump-Kennedy Center is something engaged citizens can actually DO, besides just waiting patiently to vote in the midterms. Whether those actions (or political podcasts, for that matter) are effective or not will probably only be understood in hindsight.
Also, doesn't the name "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" suggest that that both honorees are dead?
Josh and I both defended them!
I agreed with Josh and Ben about this specific instance, but I think Megan was right in her general point. The feeling of I have to DO something is natural, but it's one of the natural impulses it's better to resist.
An extreme example that formed my opinion here is the host on Hardball yelling at someone who was against putting body scanners in airports back in the early days of the war on terror. The guy has all these reasons the scanners were a bad idea, and the host didn't answer them, he just started yelling, "What are you going to do?" Over and over again.
I see really wanting to do something as in the same category as being really angry or being really horny. It's not that you should never act on that, and the emotion is very helpful if you need to act, but it shouldn't be taken as justification for action.
Sorry I can't think of a more neutral example, but the way people talk about political action feels to me like saying flipping off a driver who cut you off is the right thing to do. Whether or not the political action is good, the assumption that the desire is justification enough brothers me.
I think Delcy Rodríguez will do as commanded, because the clear alternative is a lifetime in a US federal supermax prison. One "benefit" of kidnapping a head of state.
Hahaha… “do as commanded”? That's hilarious. It assumes Trump actually wants to follow through on something. I find that very unlikely.
We’ll see, won’t we? He’s already stealing their oil, no?