WTF: August 26, 2020
Disorienting candor from the GOP: We have no principles or ideas. F*ck all y’all.
This Tim Alberta article about the Republicans abandoning even the pretense of having some sort of governing theory is something I have been thinking about for a while now. One cannot argue ideas and policy with opponents who stand for nothing, are completely untethered from the truth and believe only in money and power. So just imagine how thrilled I was that someone else wrote it — someone with great contacts and a real platform — so now I don’t have to scream it into the void. My kids get so embarrassed when I do that. The GOP abandoning the pretense of even producing a platform document is the Trumpiest thing they have done so far — the admission that they stand for nothing that can’t be inked in all caps Sharpie on the back of an envelope is kind of stunning. The article is long but worth the effort and the media has been talking about it non-stop since. It is a depressing reminder that one party has fully relinquished control to the hateful conspiracy-loving fringe.
Politico: The Grand Old Meltdown
It can now safely be said, as his first term in the White House draws toward closure, that Donald Trump’s party is the very definition of a cult of personality. It stands for no special ideal. It possesses no organizing principle. It represents no detailed vision for governing. Filling the vacuum is a lazy, identity-based populism that draws from that lowest common denominator Sanford alluded to. If it agitates the base, if it lights up a Fox News chyron, if it serves to alienate sturdy real Americans from delicate coastal elites, then it’s got a place in the Grand Old Party.
“Owning the libs and pissing off the media,” shrugs Brendan Buck, a longtime senior congressional aide and imperturbable party veteran if ever there was one. “That’s what we believe in now. There’s really not much more to it.”
Wow. It appears that the RNC will have to do some last minute speaker reshuffling, as it seems imprudent to feature the recently-arrested-for-defrauding-Trump-supporters-about-a-self-funded-border-wall Steve Bannon, and the recently-resigned-from-Liberty-University-pool-boy-employing-failson-of-a-televangelist-cuckhold Jerry Falwell Jr. Despite the impending departure of “alternative facts” Kellyanne Conway from the White House, she is still expected to speak.
But who would even want to compete with Kimberly Guilfoyle/Dwight Schrute?
But of all the dregs featured at this convention, the Missouri gun-couple with freaky weird hands, Chachi without Joannie, Rep Matt Gaetz aka Ma Headroom 2.0, Rep Jim Jordan most famous for looking the other way while many Ohio State University wrestlers were being molested in the showers but also for being mysteriously and perennially jacketless, the demon sperm Doctor, MAGA kid, My Pillow guy and the weird emcee skits hosted by Donald Trump, the one that should give us some real pause is this gal, Abby Johnson. This Serena Joy would take away her own right to vote and believes that there is a higher proportion of black and brown men in jail because they are… inherently more violent? That is seriously her conclusion. Just, wow.
Anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson, who will speak on Tuesday during the second night of the Republican National Convention, has advocated in recent months for a head-of-household voting system that has historically barred women and people of color from casting ballots…
Head-of-household voting would permit only the head of a household — and not all household members who are citizens over 18 years of age — to cast a ballot. Johnson believes the male member of the household would be the de facto decision maker.
“But what happens when the husband is a Republican and the wife is a Democrat or vice versa?” a Twitter user asked Johnson.
“Then they would have to decide on one vote. In a Godly household, the husband would get the final say,” she replied.
Ew. And this from the same gal:
Vice: An RNC Speaker Said Cops Would Be ‘Smart’ to Racially Profile Her Own Son
One of the Republican National Convention’s top speakers said in a recent video that it would be “smart” for a police officer to racially profile her biracial son, because “statistically, my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.”…“Statistically, I look at our prison population and I see that there is a disproportionately high number of African-American males in our prison population for crimes, particularly for violent crimes. So statistically, when a police officer sees a brown man like my Jude walking down the road — as opposed to my white nerdy kids, my white nerdy men walking down the road — because of the statistics that he knows in his head, that these police officers know in their head, they’re going to know that statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.”
(Note to Abby, using the word statistically multiple times doesn’t disguise your ignorance or your racism.)
The very best people, indeed.
Yahoo News: RNC speaker Abby Johnson shows how not to appeal to women voters
There are ways for Republicans to appeal to women. There are even ways to do so in pro-life terms — by talking about the tragic, wrenching struggles and anguish experienced by so many women when they contemplate and make the decision to terminate a pregnancy. But Johnson said nothing about any of that, and really expressed no empathy for women at all. Which is exactly what one would expect of someone who would prefer a Handmaid’s Tale world in which women lose their bodily and political autonomy and are forced to submit their minds and civic convictions to the absolute rule of their husbands.
So to recap: Abby Johnson is an ignorant racist who, statistically, appears to not understand some really basic things about our “justice” system and would like to surrender the bodily autonomy and vote of 51% of the population, statistically speaking, of course. Hmmm, weird. I guess repeatedly using the word “statistically” doesn’t actually conceal terrible ideas.
The Sideshow
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Exclusive: An RNC speaker set to appear tonight urged her supporters to research an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about a global Jewish plot to enslave the “goyim.” https://t.co/aOpqlQ5OTI
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Highlights #RNC pic.twitter.com/dBRmbFtsmW
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Are you watching the RNC Convention Live or just the highlights on Twitter? pic.twitter.com/mKK23fWoCv
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100 years ago, this month, the 19th Amendment was passed, granting women the right to vote. Today, women like @GOPChairwoman & @EliseStefanik are following in the footsteps of these brave suffragettes & leaving a legacy for future generations of women. pic.twitter.com/iC7mERqTW0
What is going on with Gun Couple’s hands? It’s almost enough to distract from their overt racism. Almost.
Moira Rose’s Evaluation of Days 1 & 2 of the GOP No-Ideas Trump Fest.
Angry Oh No GIF by CBC – Find & Share on GIPHY
A GIF from the CBC
