A Week Of Hate Courtesy Of Trump and His Supporters

Well, let's see. First we had Gregory Bush trying to kill black people in Kentucky. Then we had Cesar Sayoc send pipe bombs to 14 major Democratic leaders. And we ended with another shooting in which Robert Bowers walked into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed worshipers because he thought they were aiding the caravan coming from Honduras.

Thank you, Trump supporters and right wing bloggers/commenters for being responsible for all of this!

I've been saying this for quite some time on this site but these people are domestic terrorists. They are actively encouraging acts of violence against liberals. Their paranoid delusions have sent them to a place from which there is no coming back.

They are pure fucking evil and they want to kill. It's just that simple.

Consider Sayoc, who, according to reports...

...went on racist, anti-gay tirades at the Fort Lauderdale pizza shop where he worked as a night-shift deliveryman in 2017, telling his manager, a lesbian, that she and other gay people along with Democrats should all be put onto an island and then “nuked.” At a reunion event in 2015 with his college soccer team, he browbeat former team members with racist, sexist conspiracy theories.

Or Bush who tried to break into a black church only to give up and shoot up a grocery store with predominantly black patrons.

Bowers had an AR-15 (shocking...not) and several hand guns which helped him out a great deal, especially with shooting and killing the four policemen who were also armed. When you allow ordinary citizens the capability of a soldier, they create a war zone.

Of course, the right is already engaging in whatboutism, pointing out liberal violence that mythically equal. Worse, Trump blamed the media and Democrats for not being civil enough. Like the women who wears the sexy dress and gets raped, we brought it on ourselves.

When the Democrats take back the House in a week and a half, they should start issuing subpoenas to right wing hate groups and throwing these assholes in Gitmo. They aren't patriots.

They are traitors.

Democrats Need Their Die Hard Issue

Now that some time has passed since Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed, it's time for Democrats to reflect on how they lost...again. In order to get a good read on how this happened, let's go back to 2008.

Barack Obama won massively in his bid for president. Congress was all blue. Even the state houses looked solid for the Democrats across the country. People were talking about a permanent, democratic majority. Yet while this was all going on, the GOP quietly began to realize they could erode any gains by the left if they were just patient. After all, conservatives have far more reliable voters and knew that if they just bided their time and let the anger/hate/fear propaganda machine fully flow, democratic voters would assume victory forever and not turn out at the polls while conservative voters would vote every year no matter what.

More importantly, the picked one key issue that they knew would get voters out to the polls: JUDGES. 

Flash forward to today and we have a GOP that runs all three branches of government and 30 state houses. This has happened primarily because conservative voters want conservative judges running SCOTUS and all the federal courts below it. This die hard issue drives them to the polls. Donald Trump could be filmed sodomizing a 5 year old boy and then shooting him in the head but voters will forgive him because....

JUDGES.

The Democrats look good to take back the House three weeks and might have a shot at the Senate, although that is looking less likely. If they want to build a permanent majority, and they easily can because there are more liberal voters than conservative voters, they need to find that one key issue that people will rally behind no matter what. I think that issue is #MeToo.

The uptick in voter registration is largely a reaction to Donald Trump's misogyny. More women are running for office than ever before. Young voters are turning out and getting more people registered because of the mistreatment of women from the top of our power structures all the way down.

This issue could be the Democrats' die hard issue just as judges are with Republicans. People, especially women, have had enough. They want equal rights. Their anger will not go away after this election cycle. They will not rest until more women are in power at the federal and state level. It's time for Democratic leadership to seize this issue and make it their centerpiece.

If they want to win on November 6th and in every election in the future, this is all they should be talking about from now on.

Sticking By Kavanaugh

The old, white men are seeing their world threatened and they aren't happy about it. Clinging to power as bitterly as they are is fucking pathetic.

Watching the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings today, as most of America did, I saw a fairly clear ending to the rule of guys like Lindsey Graham. His tirade today was so incredibly out of step with the times that I am left to wonder what kind of world they think the rest of us want to live in.

Brett Kavanaugh came off like a douchey, frat boy desperately lying his ass off. He's a victim? Please, give me a break. He's got four women that are all telling the same story which means there is indeed a pattern.

I'm just thankful that #MeToo has finally gotten it right and is in the political realm. This is where the laws are made and the real change must be made. This fall, women are running in record numbers and they must win in order to change the patriarchy.

My Point Is Fully Proven

The Hypocrisy of the Right

A Noun, A Verb and A Liberal

I'm on spring break this week so I've been hitting the gym more than I usually do and working out. Yesterday morning, I ran in to Pastor Ed and decided to take his temperature on Donald Trump. Recall the last time I spoke with this hard core evangelical conservative he was not a fan.

His first remarks were not about Trump but about Obama and how he gutted the military. Then he launched in to a tirade about Hillary, how she is a crook, and how Comey changed the law to help her out. I asked him again about Trump. More comments about liberals, the debt and Obama's gutting of the military.

I then pulled out my phone and showed him this.

But Obama, notwithstanding his own opposition to nuclear weapons, has committed to modernizing the U.S. arsenal. He supports the Air Force's new bomber, a new ballistic missile submarine for the Navy, revitalizing a fleet of nuclear bombs, a potential new nuclear cruise missile and other commitments. Some estimates put the cost for the program Obama supports at around $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

Ed didn't care about the nuance. Obama. Bad. Gutted. Military. Why?

Facts, he said storming off.

I didn't really want to argue with him because I find myself less and less interested in doing Vladimir Putin's work for him. But the whole exchange did reinforce the core value that conservatives have today. They only stand for one thing.

Trolling liberals.

Any sort of criticism or questioning of Trump results in denials, redirects and sentences which contain the following.

A noun, a verb and a liberal.

I suppose that's what happens when Donald Trump is the leader of your party.

The Memo Was A Giant Yawn

After a week of breathless hand wringing, the GOP and Donald Trump finally released the Congressional Memo that supposedly illustrates how biased the FBI is towards Donald Trump. Before it came out, I was most amused at the notion that this was some sort of smoking gun that Devin Nunes uncovered in the deep, dark bowels of the FBI on a super secret agent spy mission.

THEY WROTE THE FUCKING MEMO!!

By this same measure, I could write a memo about how Donald Trump secretly formed ISIL back in 2011. Then I could release and claim that it was so. Sheesh...

After reading through the memo, I was please to see confirmation that the investigation into Donald Trump and his ties with Russia began with George Papadopolous and his drunken night of bragging. It did not begin with the FISA warrant on Carter Page based on the Steele Dossier. Carter Page was also under scrutiny long before the Steele Dossier.

So, the whole thing was full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Honestly, it's not surprising given the fact that Republicans are madly scrambling to somehow blunt what's sure to be coming this year: an indictment of President Trump for money laundering. 

Polls Are Usually Accurate

Conservatives hate polls. It's probably because they are fact based numbers and we all know that facts have a liberal bias. Conservatives don't want to face reality and want to play in the emotional end of the pool, chucking all logic right out the window.

Take the 2016 presidential election. Conservatives think that all the polls were wrong and Trump beat all those smug elites who talk about facts and stuff. The problem is that the polls were quite accurate. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by around 3%. Trump won all the states he was supposed to win by the margins that were detailed in the polls and he picked off three (Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) that were within the margin of error. Sure, the projections were wrong but not the polls. The final projection by Nate Silver gave Trump a 30% chance of victory. That's just a little bit less than 1 in 3 which is how it all played out.

So, because I'm someone who looks at polls and recognizes their scientific accuracy, I say that Roy Moore is going to win the Alabama senate race tomorrow. He's been up in the last several polls of likely voters (the only type of poll that matters) and is in a state that just doesn't have enough Democrats. He's also running against an unapologetic Democrat who supports abortion rights and gun control. Moore is running in a special election which means that the turnout demographic is going to be older and whiter. That means more conservative.

As I have said for many years here at Zombie Politics, conservatives are very tribal and want to beat liberals. They don't care who wins, even it's a monster like Roy Moore. If a member of the Nazi party from the 1930s ran against Jones, conservatives would be goose stepping their way to vote for the guy.

Since it's clear that conservatives have lost all capacity for rational thought, all efforts should be focused on getting out more voters and burying these psychotics at the polls. The headline for Wednesday morning.

Republicans elect accused child molester. 

What The Results of the Alabama Special Election Will Tell Us

The results of the Alabama special election are going to be the most definitive statement on the state of the GOP in 2017. I’m speaking more of the base here than of the national leaders who have largely rejected Moore.

If Moore loses, it will show that there are still plenty of decent people left in the GOP, especially in Alabama. It will means there is hope for conservatives in terms of being more reasoned voters.

If Moore wins, then it will fully illustrate what I have been saying for years: conservatives hate liberals with all of their hearts and souls and they are completely inconsolable. Further, Moore’s victory will show where the real problem lies in terms of partisan politics. It’s with the right, not the left. So, it will be end of the “both sides are bad” argument.

Moore’s victory will show that the conservatives would rather vote for an accused pedophile who was banned from a mall then vote for a liberal. They will show themselves to be so far gone in terms of emotions about liberals that it’s going to be impossible to bring them back.

They will then head into 2018 with a child molester in the Senate.

Voting "Yes" With Emojis

An OK Night For The Democrats

Much hay is being made by the Democrats over their election wins last Tuesday night. There's a lot of headlines and stories about how much trouble Trump and the GOP are in blah blah blah. I think it was just an OK night for Team Blue. Why?

Trump still enjoys an 80 percent approval rating among conservatives. They are still the more reliable voter than liberals. That's why all this talk about Trump's sinking approval rating doesn't really matter. All of those polls suck except one: the Rasmussen poll. Take a look at the approve-disapprove as of today. Rasmussen is the only one that samples likely voters. That's why Trump is only underwater by 13 points. The likely voter skews more conservative.

If the Democrats want to crow up about something, they need to figure out a way to shift the likely voter more to the left and that means more people out to vote. The only thing conservatives have going for them is that their voters are more reliable. They don't have the numbers and they certainly don't have the solutions.

How on EARTH are they called racists?

It always cracks me up when the right can't figure out why people are always calling them racist. They immediately go to being super offended and foam at the mouth about race baiting. Perhaps directing the FBI to label black identity groups as domestic terrorists might be a good indicator why they are perceived as being racist.

In the FBI’s report, BIE is described as a conglomeration of black nationalists, black supremacists, and black separatists, among other disaffiliated racist individuals who are anti-police, anti-white, and/or seeking to rectify perceived social injustices against blacks. The FBI essentially merged these various black hate groups under one umbrella, giving it a new name, in the hopes of classifying these groups as an organized extremist movement.

I guess that would include the Black Lives Matter movement as well.

As is usually the case, we have an enormous amount of projection. The domestic terrorists are on the right, not the left. The ones we should be worried about are the NRA, Spencer's band of white nationalists and nearly all of the supporters of Donald Trump.

Trump Cozies Up To The City Mice

And I am going to LMAO re-attach it and laugh it off again when Trump supporters wonder WTF?

What A Week!

Hey, conservatives, Mike Pence looking more attractive these days?

The presidency of Donald Trump really went into the shitter this week as he all too willingly fell into the "Cult of Both Sides" defense of the Nazis and other white supremacists that were marching in Charlottesville, VA last weekend. Like the right wing bloggers and commenters that worship him, Trump tried to dodge the responsibility of fomenting racist assholes by making it seem like liberals are bad and stuff too. 

This drew swift condemnation from many people across the political spectrum and Trump has grown increasingly isolated from his own party. Senator Corker from Tennessee recently questioned his competence and capacity to serve as president. Business leaders withdrew from his economic councils, ultimately causing their collapse. Steve Bannon was fired from his position as Chief Strategist. What does it all mean?

Not all that much when you take a look at the polls. The problem isn't really Trump and we need to start shifting away from him. The problem is his supporters. The polls show they are sticking with him even if the majority of the country is not. I saw a lot of liberals in my news feed delighted at Bannon being gone. Who cares? Bannon isn't the problem. Trump isn't the problem. They are merely playing to a need that's out there. This need is pretty fucking dark if you consider they are willing to excuse literal Nazis being emboldened and moving to act. So, what are our options in deal with these people?

The best option is to build a larger and sustaining coalition that buries them at the polls in EVERY SINGLE ELECTION, including the odd year, local elections. The only reason why they win is due to complacency. It has nothing to do with their message being more popular. They simply are better voters. The good guys need more and better voters.

The second best option is to let them fuck up in the sunlight. The age of social media means you can't really do anything anonymously anymore. Take a look at what happened to some of the marchers in last week's protests in Charlottesville. Or how about Crying Chris Cantwell? Most of these folks talk a good game but, in the final analysis, they are limp noodles. Don't try to ban them from your college campus or stop their open and lawful protest. Give them a mic and let them talk. Put them out in front of every major news organization on television and online. If good people are going to build larger and sustaining coalitions to stop them, they need to have a continual reminder about what we are up against.

Stop attacking Trump. That doesn't mean that you can't relay what he has done or said. Since he thrives on the attention, take it away from him and put it on the people that support him. They are going to be around a lot longer than he is. The good news is that there are more of us than there are of them. Let's use that advantage wisely.

Tribes+Trolls=Epic Fail

The last few days have seen me come to a stark realization about Trump and his supporters. They don't know what to do now that they are governing so they can't govern. How do you lead when your core ideology is to be contrarian?

I base this on two cold and rational facts. First, these are very tribal people. If you are in The Cult, you can do whatever you want. You can stand in the middle of the 5th Avenue and shoot someone and no one will care. Fareed Zakaria explores this in depth in the video below.



Take this information and couple it with this.



So, we have a very tribal people who exist only to troll. Where does that leave us? With this...

If you had told me six years ago that the American Left would be self-destructing as rapidly and violently as they appear to be today, I'd have had you committed. But bear in mind, their "long march through the institutions" has secured their (ever more tenuous) grasp on the reins of power. They own academia, the media, and the entertainment industry almost completely, and that's still a lot of power, power they won't surrender easily.

Before I get back to my original point...hmm...let's see...Donald Trump has been a successful member of the media and entertainment industry for several decades. And he's their champion? Wow, Just wow...talk about being conned...hook, line and sinker...

More importantly (and back to my original point), this proves that they can't fucking govern. It's still all the liberal elite's fault and all they know is plots, secret conspiracies, and being a whiny troll. Never in my life have I seen a group of people so incapable of reflection. They won. They run the entire government. And still, somehow, they take ZERO responsibility for their fuck up after fuck up.

When they lose next year (and it's going to be massive), the cognitive dissonance is going to be nuclear.

One Republican That Owns It

Jeff Flake is one Republican who is owning the Trump Era. While the rest of the conservatives out there continue to blame Hillary Clinton, the media and smug liberals for what is clearly the complete and total incompetence of their dear leader, Flake is calling it like it is. And he has some advice.

So, where should Republicans go from here? First, we shouldn’t hesitate to speak out if the president “plays to the base” in ways that damage the Republican Party’s ability to grow and speak to a larger audience. Second, Republicans need to take the long view when it comes to issues like free trade: Populist and protectionist policies might play well in the short term, but they handicap the country in the long term. Third, Republicans need to stand up for institutions and prerogatives, like the Senate filibuster, that have served us well for more than two centuries.

Will they listen?

Neutered!

Well, well, well. It looks ol' Donny Boy isn't quiet the deal maker he made himself out to be. He has officially failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What happened to all that draining of the swamp stuff? Looks like the swamp got him.

And it got the GOP as well. Remember back when the Democrats had both chambers and the presidency and they really couldn't get much done (except saving tens of thousands of lives with health care, of course)? I distinctly remember being chided for my party being ineffective. Where is the taunting now?

Even more hilarious is just how popular the ACA is right now (over 50% approve). I guess Nancy Pelosi was right. Once it passed, people saw what was in it, experienced it and turns out, they love it!

The president says he's just going to let the ACA fail. That might be a problem.

Despite doomsday rhetoric, Obamacare markets are stabilizing

Fake News!!

But Her Emails...

Mission Accomplished, Conservatives Rejoice!

Check out this headline from NPR.

Americans Say Civility Has Worsened Under Trump; Trust In Institutions Down

From the article...

Seven in 10 Americans say the level of civility in Washington has gotten worse since President Trump was elected, while just 6 percent say the overall tone has improved. Twenty percent say it's stayed the same. For comparison, 35 percent in 2009 said civility in the country had declined in the U.S. following President Obama's election, per a Gallup survey. Eight years ago, 21 percent of Americans in that poll thought civility and the tone of discourse in the country had improved.

And few people have a high level of trust in many of the institutions that are the backbone of American democracy. Only intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the CIA and the FBI engender much goodwill, with 60 percent saying they have some degree of trust in them.

I can practically hear the cheers from conservatives. They want people arguing and they want faith in the government low. Mission Accomplished!

Anger, Hate, and Fear Come Home To Roost

GOP Congressmen felt the wraith of a psychotic yesterday in the form of one James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois. In ten gut wrenching minutes, Hodgkinson shot up a baseball field where many House reps were practicing for a charity game. At this point, the only fatality is Hodgkinson himself although House Majority Whip, Steve Saclise is still in critical condition after being hit in the hip.

As I suspected, the blame for this is being laid at the feet of the "hateful rhetoric" of the left. That's like the pyromaniac accusing someone suffering from pyrophobia of starting a fire. Worse, the relaxed attitude towards gun violence and total instransigence on enhancing firearm regulation lead to events like this every day. I'm reminding of the following verse from the Bible.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap ( King James Version of the Bible, Epistle to the Galatians, 6:7).

It was only a matter of time before some angry, nut job on the left easily acquired firearms and went after the folks who made it easier to do so. This guy would have never had the guns he did had Republicans taken steps over the years to restrict access to firearms. Under current law, however, he legally purchased the assault rifle used yesterday in the shooting. Rand Paul, who was present at the shooting, said were it not for the Capital police (trained, armed professionals), it would have been worse. I'm wondering if they will learn anything from this horrific event.

Sadly, I doubt it. What will likely happen is a call for Congressmen to arm themselves at all times. Or more about how liberals are all incendiary revolutionists bent on taking down the state. I've been saying for years that this kind of event is what will change the minds of those folks who don't recognize the reality of gun violence.

The reality of their epistemic closure tells me otherwise.