The photos of the "crowds" at the tank parade remind me of when Bill Hicks would come on stage in an almost-empty club, scan the room slowly, and announce "I've had more people in bed than this" ...
When the president sends a cabinet member on TV to announce "We are using the military to liberate an American city from its elected leaders," where do you go from there. What is left to say. The idea of that being anything short of a near-universal "Wait, what the fuck is going on" moment proves how far we've backslid.
This is from 2022 but it was absolutely right. The practiced buffoonery of Trump 1, all the "just kiddings" and "seriously but not literallys" absolutely succeeded in desensitizing people who are hardly paying any attention to the harder stuff they always intended to do next. ...
The basic fallacy in chasing votes by being "tough on immigration" is that the modal American's position on the issue is "Deport the Bad ones and keep the Good ones," and they alone know who is which, and that simply does not translate into workable policy. So this kind of gestapo stuff horrifies some of the same people who cheered when Trump promised to do it. There are true sociopaths who love this, but "No, I meant only the BAD immigrants! Not my coworker/friend/neighbor!" is as likely a reaction as enthusiasm. You cannot do immigration policy that satisfies these people because what they want is nonsensical.
So by the time center-left parties fully commit to chasing the far right by "getting tough" on immigration, the backlash has already begun to build and they walk right into it. "I thought you people wanted this!" No, they want something impossible and convinced themselves they'd could have it - the "eat whatever you want AND lose weight!" of immigration policies.
It is hard to grasp but large masses of Americans are both racist/xenophobic AND not racist/xenophobic enough to applaud what Trump is doing. It's goldilocks shit, they want a level of racism/xenophobia calibrated exactly to their personal preferences, and you just can't make that policy. Don't try. ...
AP: Trump extends olive branch, invites Musk to White House cellar to taste some brand new amontillado ...
jkm says:
Did anyone else notice that, in its obituary article for Pimp C, TMZ.com embedded a flash slideshow featuring 'Monstah Bling'?
I can only hope I go out that way!
Samantha says:
My next-door-neighbor in the small town in Georgia where I grew up was hooked on cough syrup. As is the requirement for old white men in small towns in Georgia, he had a ridiculous nickname: "Snooks" Daniel. This may or may not have contributed to the addiction.
Anyway, he spent most days in bed (I know this because his wife had my sister and me over for dinner [which was actually lunch – it's a southern thing] pretty often, and we'd have to walk through his bedroom to get to the kitchen. He'd just lie there propped up on his pillows, glassy-eyed, watching soap operas until he'd run out of cough syrup and drag himself out of bed to drive to the store.
His gigantic, old-man car became mysteriously and increasingly banged up over the months, as he'd run into (I can only guess) mailboxes and who knows what else between home and the drugstore and back. But, gradually, word got around, and none of the drugstores would sell it to him anymore.
It was pretty sad to watch him decline and eventually die, and although it didn't stop my friends and me from tussin' now and then, it sure was an eye-opener about the less glamourous, decidedly un-pimp-like, side of drinking cough syrup.
duper says:
Sizzurp doesn't have Gin or any other kind of alcohol in it; the only psychoactive substances it contains are promethazine and codeine.. and Robo-tripping is a completely different drug (DeXtroMethorphan.)