How Fascism Continues

The Trump Cult Doesn't Get It

The Trump Cult has one very big tell when it comes to the general election and it's their fall back position on everything.

Trolling.

They think they have liberals pegged as naive about Trump's chances in the general election. They assume that because we all thought Trump would lose in 2016 (as did Trump himself and most conservatives) that our predictions of him getting his ass kicked in the fall by any of the top candidates is the same naivete. It's not and here's why.

Trump barely won in 2016 by roughly 80, 000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He squeaked by. The Cult will have you believe that it was some sort of mammoth victory for them but, just like the "millions" that showed up for Trump's inauguration, it's pure fantasy.

Further, The Cult has to have the twice Obama voter go for Trump again this November or it ain't gonna happen. That one really causes some cognitive dissonance for them. They don't get that 2016 was a "fuck you" election and if anyone other than Hillary was the nominee, Trump would be running his own streaming service now and fleecing them for $8.99 a month. 2020 is going to be a different sort of election and not a repeat of 2016.

Any of the top contenders can wipe the floor up with Trump given his how detrimental his words and actions are to those twice Obama voters. They are sick of his bullshit and they will vote for Biden, Mayor Pete, Bernie or Warren. Honestly, they really only need a few votes in the Rust Belt and that's it. All of those candidates bring large constituencies with them and they are going to turn out to vote against Trump.

They did it in 2018. They did it in 2019 in red states. They will do it again this year.

A Projection of Cognitive Dissonance

Supporters of Donald Trump love to engage in projection. They accuse the rest of the country of doing the very thing they do. In the case of a recent comment by Kevin Baker, high priest in the Church of the Climate Denier, he illustrates how this works.

So, still delusional. I'm not sure what's going to happen to him when the cognitive dissonance strikes in November. He may vapor-lock. But I doubt it. His mastery of rationalization is remarkable, really.

This was in response to a recent post in which I stated the following.

The House was lost and will stay that way because of Trump. In fact, you guys are going to lose more seats there and the Senate as well. Heck, you’ve already lost state houses and governorships because you have hitched your wagon to a buffoon.

Let's take a look at a few key facts.

-The 2018 election flipped the US House back to the Democrats. This was an off year election and voter turnout approached 50%. They netted 40 seats and now have a 35 seat majority.

-Democrats flipped seven governorships in 2018. They flipped one in 2019 (Kentucky) and held on to another one in a deep red state (Louisiana).

-Democrats saw a net gain of five legislative chambers.So, Democrats had a net gain of five state government triplexes and Republicans had a net reduction of four triplexes. Democrats had a net gain of 308 state legislative seats and Republicans had a net loss 296 seats.

-Virginia is now entirely controlled by the Democrats who ran on gun safety. They are poised to pass sweeping new gun laws that are anathema to gun rights activists like Kevin.

Why did all of this happen? Two words.

Donald Trump.

His support was poison in all of these elections. People are tired of him and largely view him as yet another politician who breaks his promises. Remember the promise to drain the swamp? His recent actions with Ukraine, hiding his taxes, rolling back EPA standards, locking up children and generally acting like a king are all quite swampy.

It doesn't matter who the nominee is. Any of them are going to kick his ass in the fall. Of course, this assumes he will make it that far. I think there is a good chance he won't. I see him quitting, having health issues, or completely losing his shit when his tax returns are released in June of this year.

So, Kevin, why are YOU rationalizing the 2018 and 2019 elections? What's going to happen to YOU in the fall when cognitive dissonance strikes? After all, your Republican brain has been scientifically proven to have the most problems with cognitive dissonance. 

As always, I welcome a debate with you on any online platform if you ever decide to come out of your safe space.

Climate Change Denier Won’t Leave Safe Space

In looking at the comments of his now disproven post regarding climate change, Kevin Baker is still incapable of leaving his safe space to face actual scientists who make fact based arguments. I get that he has a personal issue with me but to shut out reality that much and be so afraid to actually engage someone...anyone...who even has a rudimentary knowledge of science tells me that doesn’t really believe what he is saying and just peddling propaganda at this point. Speaking of which...

1. McConnell doesn’t have the votes to deny witnesses. Ain’t over yet, bub.

2. Assuming Trump makes it the election (doubtful for many reasons), he’s going to get his ass kicked by any of the top nominees.

3. The House was lost and will stay that way because of Trump. In fact, you guys are going to lose more seats there and the Senate as well. Heck, you’ve already lost state houses and governorships because you have hitched your wagon to a buffoon.

Dude, you are going to be in for a tough year if you keep defaulting to troll...

Climate Change Challenge Rejected For Safe Space

I recently challenged science denier Kevin Baker to a debate on climate change. He commented on the challenge with his usual personal remarks (not allowed on this blog so it was not published) and declined the invitation. He also linked to a straw man argument that he and his commenters created about me that is 11 years old.

His comment made me reflect on the time I got voted off the blog (by one vote). In the voting post, a commenter remarked how they wanted Kevin's blog to be a place where they could retreat from the outside world (of facts) and just be free (of reality) or something like that. I've thought about that comment for a while and it always cracks me up. Even right-wingers need their safe spaces!

Kevin clearly needs such a safe space from the science of climate change but there is really no hiding from it. Climate deniers can make up whatever nonsense they want but it's all been refuted by the science. So, every time Kevin lies about climate change, I will be responding here and here on Reddit. I will use facts and peer-reviewed evidence to show that his assertions are completely wrong. He has an open invitation to respond but I don't think he will. As with many subjects, he engages with reasonable people outside his blog, doesn't like what he hears, and then retreats to his own blog to get back pats. Where is his mettle?

Sadly, he has allowed his personal emotions about liberals cloud his judgement and transform his views into an incoherent and paranoid mess. Worse, he is basically giving the middle finger to his own children and grandchildren who are going to have to live in a world with the number one threat (as identified by the Department of Defense) ignored due to adolescent feelings about authority.

The bottom line is that I'm going to call him on his bullshit about climate change whether he shows up to defend himself or not. He is welcome at any time to discover who understands the logic and reason of science and can defend it.

What Doesn't Refute Science

How To Intellectually Dominate Someone Who Says, "We are a republic, not a democracy."

Ever been in an online discussion about politics, majorities and minorities, and someone (usually a libertarian) will say something like, "We are a republic, not a democracy," to sound all smart and stuff? Well, Ryan McMaken has a solution for you! He tells you what they are really saying...

"I don't like your idea, and since it involves aspects that are democratic or majoritarian, I'll invoke the republic-not-a-democracy claim to discredit your idea." 

or

"A majority of the population appears to support this idea, so I will invoke the republic-not-a-democracy claim to illustrate that the majority should be ignored."

and then he proceeds to tell you how to get them to STFU. Enjoy the entire piece. It's simply wonderful.

“Your liberal angst gives me great pleasure.”

I've been saying for years that conservatives have only one conviction: trolling liberals. Due to whatever problem they had with authority in their lives, their first reaction to liberals saying facts and stuff is to try to get attention by being obnoxious.

Well, here's a fine example.

“I am going to continue hiding these books in the most obscure places I can find to keep this propaganda out of the hands of young minds,” the mystery book relocator wrote in a note left for Ms. Ammon, the library director, in the facility’s comment box.

“Your liberal angst gives me great pleasure.” 

People with this mindset should never be in charge of anything.

A Tough Week For the United States

Donald Trump's presidency has always been marred by his erratic personality. Each week brings some crazy pile of nonsense that chips away at his support. This time around it was attacks on the Fed chairman, trying and failing to buy Greenland for the oil reserves, and calling himself the "chosen one" while looking up to the heavens. The cherry on top was the latest round of tariffs coupled with an adolescent outburst towards US firms doing business with China.

All of this is perfectly in line with Trump's role as a Russian asset. Their goal is to erode our hegemony in the world and they are doing a good job of it. The stock market is all over the place, everyday people are taking financial hits as a result of the tariffs, and some of Trump's own supporters are beginning to question him.

“I voted for Trump in 2016 because I thought he was saying what everyone was thinking. But I’m disappointed,” says Debbie Dymek, an estate sale manager, as she pushes her cart through the aisles of a Meijer grocery store in Sterling Heights. “The bashing of everything and everyone, is that necessary? I’m an outspoken person, so when he says things that bother me, I know it must bother others.”

What Ms. Dymek likely doesn't understand is the army of trolls out there that love all of this. Most right-wing bloggers and commenters are rooting for the country to fall apart. They sooooo want this because of their emotional issues with authority figures. Trump has brought all these assholes out of their slimy holes and this is their time in the sun. The crazier Trump gets, the more they love it.

But average folks like these Iowa farmers aren't loving it anymore.

But fellow farmer Mike Holden, standing nearby, respectfully begs to differ. Though he has historically voted Republican 80% of the time, he doesn’t support Mr. Trump. He points out that farmers have no control over the weather, the cost of inputs like seed or machinery, or the price of grain, so they can’t pass on the cost of something like tariffs, which have driven the price of soybeans down by roughly 20%.

“We have enough uncontrollables,” says Mr. Holden, who raises beef and grows corn and soybeans. “We don’t need another one in the government.”

Mr. Ulch, who for years ran a fertilizer company on top of farming, had always wanted a businessperson to be president, so that he or she would understand “what goes on out here.”But he would have preferred someone like Mitt Romney. “To be honest with you, my vote [in 2016] was more against Hillary than it was for Trump,” he says – and that was before the trade wars hit. 

 “I’ll have a hard time voting for Trump again,” says Mr. Ulch.

So who will they vote for? Ms. Dymek gives us a clue.

“Warren?” she says, confirming that she named the Massachusetts senator correctly. “I like her because she’s forceful in a good way. I think she believes what she says.”

I'd ROTFLMFAO if Warren out populists Donald Trump and wins.

The Poison of the Alt-Right

The main story in today's Times illustrates just how much the alt-right is poisoning our country.  How familiar does this sound?

Mr. Cain, 26, recently swore off the alt-right nearly five years after discovering it, and has become a vocal critic of the movement. He is scarred by his experience of being radicalized by what he calls a “decentralized cult” of far-right YouTube personalities, who convinced him that Western civilization was under threat from Muslim immigrants and cultural Marxists, that innate I.Q. differences explained racial disparities, and that feminism was a dangerous ideology.

Reminds me a lot of the assholes from Kevin Baker's site. Make no mistake about it, folks, they are a CULT. And the propaganda they peddle is a great danger to our nation's security. They claim to be fighting for "freedom" but what they really want is an authoritarian state where they can subjugate anyone who they perceive as a threat.

Threats, of course, originate from most of the rest of us who want our society to evolve from the Neanderthal-like mentality they currently espouse. They are so petty and vindicative that making the world a better place somehow mushes up in their mind as a boiling pit of sewage. They can't see that it's their own personality disorder and ongoing mommy/daddy issues that cause them to see good things as evil.

Cain talks about being brainwashed. It looks likes it's time to start deprogramming...

"They will thrash and spit and bellow..."

Jon Pavlovitz has an amazing blog that I enjoy every day. His recent piece, The Extinction of the White American Male Dinosaur, is his best post yet. I found myself thinking of all the angry and hateful old white men that used to post here and over on Kevin Baker's gun blog, especially these two parts.

In the coming days, the Tweets will become more erratic, the legislative assaults grow more transparently desperate, the hate crimes more brazen, the sermons grow more alarmist and incendiary. These Jurassic, soon-to-be-amber-trapped relics, will act is if the very sky above them is falling, because in very real ways, it is. They will thrash and spit and bellow, in an effort to buy themselves a few more days and a bit more power and another Federal judge or two, but they cannot stave off their inevitable disappearance, as progress and civilization and time swallow them up. 

The misogynistic, supremacist nostalgia of their dying glory days is dissolving, in the glorious refining fire of what is coming on the horizon: color and diversity and new and young and wide open. The wall-builders and the close-fisted and the table-monopolizers will not survive this evolution.

Indeed, they won't.

This is what the future looks like, assholes. You aren't in it.

Happy New Year!!

Welcome to 2019 AKA the year we take our country back from the internet trolls. It's also going to be the year that Donald Trump will leave office-either by choice or force.

We here at Zombie Politics would like to extend our thanks to all of our readers, especially the new ones who have joined from Quora and Twitter. We used to average around 100 regular readers a day and now we are up to three times that and more sometimes. A large part of the increase has been due to Nikto's solid commentary. Thanks, buddy!

We appreciate your readership!

How Can Trump Supporters Look At Themselves In The Mirror In The Morning?

Yesterday, a former Mossad chief pointed out the obvious.

"Officials in Moscow looked at the 2016 U.S. presidential race and asked, ‘Which candidate would we like to have sitting in the White House? Who will help us achieve our goals?’ And they chose him. From that moment, they deployed a system [of bots] for the length of the elections, and ran him for president,” former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo told the audience at the Marker’s digital conference in Israel on Monday, where experts gathered to discuss online disinformation campaigns and bots.

“What we’ve seen so far with respect to bots and the distortion of information is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the greatest threat of recent years, and it threatens the basic values that we share—democracy and the world order created since World War Two,” Pardo noted, according to Haaretz.

And that's from the best intelligence agency in the world. So, how do Trump supporters look at themselves in the mirror every morning knowing that they are supporting a traitor to our country? They are acting against the interests of our country. Why? Because they have only one conviction: hating Democrats.

That makes them traitors and here is where we should send them, starting with right wing bloggers and commenters.

I wonder how many of them are actively involved with Russian trollbot farms. In fact, perhaps many right wing bloggers and commenters aren't even real people. They used fake names and certainly seem like caricatures to me.

If they are real people, I just don't see how they can NOT be completely disgusted with themselves.

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.

A Perfect Illustration of Today's Conservative

Quote of the Day (Dedicated To Right Wing Bloggers and Commenters Everywhere)

They would rather give a strident middle finger to Barack Obama, even at the expense of the air their kids breathe and the schools they attend. 

They’d prefer to “piss off Liberals,” even if their medical bills bankrupt them and businesses migrate away and natural disasters go ignored. 

Their white fragility is so tenuous, that they’ll give this President a blank check because he’s reversing any recent advances by marginalized communities whose gains they see as threats to their own. 

They’ll gladly take the bold type headline of “Trump Wins,” without caring to read the fine print where they are being hit the hardest and getting nothing trickling down.

---John Pavlovitz. 

 Sadly, sums up some of my friends and family...

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.

How Russian Trolls Operate

The above is a very informative video that all of us should use as a benchmark in online discussions. I don't engage in comments with anyone that I don't know personally anymore.

This video also makes me wonder if the former commenters here were actual US citizens are troll farm douchebags. It certainly would make a lot of sense. Even if they weren't, they are still doing the bidding of totalitarians which I find fucking hilarious.

Their hatred of liberals trumps everything else, including being loyal to their country.

Following Steve Bannon Back Under The Rock

It was only a few short months ago that this guy was supposedly all powerful. Look at him now. He’s nothing as the cartoon above so astutely illustrates.

This is a good lesson for liberals, moderates and conservatives who are horrified at what’s been happening with Trump. Just be patient. These people are morons. It’s all going to be over soon.

And all their little troll supporters will crawl back under the rock with Bannon...

Ever Argue With Someone On The Internet?

It looks like this...

I don't need a book to tell me that Donald Trump is mentally unbalanced. I don't need the smug, liberal elite media to tell me. I only need his Twitter feed.

Oh, and doesn't this remind you of the folks who used to post here?