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 ...
tambrosi says:
That was awesome. Nice find Mike
Ed says:
Crossfire has gone downhill quicker than any TV show in history save for Six Feet Under circa the season 2/3 crossover.
What happened was, CNN started getting murdered in the ratings by Fox News. They presumed that the reason was because people like to watch angry white men yelling a lot. And, instead of being objective and accused of being partisan anyway, being partisan while pretending to be objective.
Now it's basically just 4 people yelling at each other. A far cry from the days of Pat Buchanan telling Bill Press "If there were a vast right-wing conspiracy in progress, someone would have called me by now."
kat says:
they also seem to have studied the art of speed-talking-to-cover-one's-stupidity.
i love john stewart. i would have his love children just to produce more little jon stewarts in the world. at least the kiddies wouldn't wear bow-ties.
Myconfidence says:
I propose a collection to buy Jon Stewart a White House Press Pass. He would truly be a lion among the flock.