Most Americans who are reasonably well informed about history know that Henry Ford was at least as important and influential to the development and popularity of anti-Semitism in the United States as he was to the automobile. That's saying a lot, given that it is almost impossible to overstate Ford's contributions to the latter industry. He can be credited with very few actual innovations in automotive engineering, as the Germans and French can claim most of the world's automotive "firsts" (which explains, incidentally, why so many French terms like chassis, limousine, chauffeur, coupe, garage, and carburetor made it into English). But like his friend Thomas Edison, where he excelled was not as an inventor but as someone who could apply ideas on a grand scale successfully. He took ideas available to him – both automotively and with anti-Semitism – and really made them work on a scale other proponents could hardly have imagined let alone executed.
The Dearborn Independent, Ford's anti-Jewish rag, was a source of friction (obviously) between Ford and his Jewish friends and colleagues.
Most abandoned him without hesitation. One, powerful Detroit rabbi Leo Franklin, had been a friend of Ford long enough to attempt to appeal to him on a personal level. Franklin believed, as was undeniably the case, that Ford was a fundamentally decent person who simply wasn't very bright and was easily led to support wacky ideas outside of his narrow range of mechanical and organizational talents. During a libel trial, for example, Ford received great ridicule for being unable to answer grade school level questions about the world, such as the significance of the year 1776 to American history.
Alas, Franklin eventually gave up. When Ford representatives sent the rabbi a new Ford in 1920, as they did annually, he returned the gift. Informed of this by his underlings, Ford asked incredulously and sincerely, "What's wrong Dr. Franklin? Has anything come between us?"
Ford believed, as many people do, that he could be virulently anti-Jewish without that fact interfering with his personal relationships with Jews. He argued in essence, I don't like Jews in general or as a whole but of course I like YOU in particular, Jewish Friend. It's the classic soft racist "I'm not against all ______, just the bad ones. You're one of the good ones" tactic.
A few weeks ago a generally very good sports journalism website ran this piece, "Donald Trump is Tearing the NFL Apart," to offer an interesting look at how personal friendships are being strained by the current political climate. Certainly the clickbait title is alarmist and the "data" of the voting preferences of 25 black and 25 white players is useless in any meaningful sense, but despite that the underlying issue here is real. It turns out that when one supports a political candidate who is so outspokenly derogatory toward anyone who isn't a white Christian male and whose election would represent real, tangible threats to women, Hispanics, African-Americans, and other demographics, people might re-evaluate their friendship with you. And it is not difficult at all to imagine many of the white Trump supporters in that article being genuinely surprised that black players might not feel particularly close with them anymore after learning that they like a guy who has employed literally every form of coded racism known to man in his campaign, along with some of the more explicit type.
Americans – white ones in particular – are in love with the idea that politics and religion can be segregated neatly into a separate reality that does not have to interfere with friends and family relationships. And in many cases, it works well enough. I find it very difficult but not impossible to imagine someone breaking off a friendship because Joe decided to vote for the lukewarm hole in the atmosphere that was Mitt Romney. Sure, there are people whose lives would be worse off had he been elected (and others whose lives would be better, namely the super rich) but he was hardly a polarizing figure. Most people probably struggle to remember his name right now.
The Trump campaign has so openly embraced the style and message of European far-right nationalist parties, the white power movement, and other groups whose popularity derives from racism, xenophobia, or other Neanderthal sentiments from the bottom of the political barrel that it's not hard to understand why someone not defined as a Real American by Trump would take it personally that friends and family support him. We're never supposed to take politics personally. We're supposed to "leave those differences aside" and carry on while avoiding the subject for the sake of maintaining good relations. That concept works alright if we support different candidates in the usual narrow window of political disagreement found in American politics. We're not going to come to blows because your guy supports repealing the Estate Tax, even though I find that idea both stupid and immoral.
This is a long way of saying to the people who support Trump (and therefore would never read this) that "Let's agree to disagree and keep being friends" is a poor strategy this year.
However you've managed to rationalize it in your head, supporting someone so openly and enthusiastically racist, xenophobic, and flat-out mean says a lot about you. White America already asks quite a lot of people we define as Not One of Us: that they protest, dress, behave, talk, think, act, and generally live in a way that makes us feel comfortable. And it is a deep irony that the same people most likely to cry "White privilege isn't real!" are the ones who expect black and Hispanic people in their lives (not to mention women, LGBT people, and a host of others Trump Cretins define as the enemy) to laugh off their Trump support or ignore it so that a bunch of angry white guys don't have hurt feelings and don't have to spend any time reflecting on what their endorsement of a de facto white supremacist says about them. If that isn't privilege, then nothing is.
NC_Nate says:
Damn, this is good. It comes to me on a day when a family down the street, who have a nice-enough kid that my Jewish son plays with nearly every day after school, just stuck a big ole Trump sign out in their lawn.
We have a nice enough relationship with this family, limited mostly to small-talk and picking up the kids before dinner when they're at each other's house. But I gotta say it was a gut-punch to see it. It's one thing to vote for Trump, but a completely different level of dickishness to be proud enough of it to put a sign up in your lawn.
So now I'm wondering if these people know that the 7 year old playing in their house a few times a week is actually a sleeper agent of the international banking conspiracy working to bring about the downfall of America.
FDChief says:
Sigh. Yes, this.
I had an epistolary friend, one of the sorts of people that you have a long-running correspondence with via e-mail or in the comments sections of a blog. One of the things I liked about her was her perception; she always seemed to find a way to take a harder look at any particular topic.
But this election has…well, driven her kind of batshit. My guess is that it's an extreme case of Hitlery-Hate but whatever the reason she's become more and more objectively Trumpeter. I try and pretend that she's just Trump-curious, but…no. She's shilling for Drumpf.
And I find that I just can't…respect…that, or her, anymore in the way that you think about a friend or a relative who shows up at evenings-out or family get-togethers handing out Jack Chick tracts or flogging Amway.
I miss my friend, and I'd love to blame Trump for it. But she was the one that chose him, not the other way around…
John Danley says:
Operating under the auspices of chastising the politically correct has resulted in licensure for being conspicuously, defiantly, violently, and irrevocably incorrect. So gather 'round, gather 'round chillin;' get down, well just get down chillin'.
Kris says:
How do you guys deal with it when it's family though? My sister's husband is a Trump supporter and I really kind of don't want to talk to him or even be in the same room with him anymore.
CZ says:
Ugh, what Kris says. My mother. MY MOTHER. I can't even. Not even my dad is voting for Trump.
schmitt trigger says:
Neanderthal talk:
"Like me…….gooood"
"Not like me……baaaad"
John Danley says:
@Kris Says: "How do you guys deal with it when it's family though?"
Mandatory psychiatric evaluation via petition with the county clerk's office.
jordan says:
"a generally very good sports journalism website"
bleacher report
Ah,
Jude says:
Jesus, most of my family disowned me in 2012 when I pointed out that the Breitbart-level "sources" they had were inaccurate.
I'm actually really stoked that I can't see the ignorant shit they're championing in this election.
I maintain that I was incorrectly assigned to my so-called family due to a hospital mix-up.
mago says:
It can get worse. Much worse. There's always a dawn of course. In the meantime suffer little children.
Brutus says:
Is this a liberal acid test, to see who has the fortitude to tolerate social and political thought crime?
Had the Worse-and-Worst discussion with my dad just last week and he came out for Worst while admitting that it would foreseeably lead to bad outcomes. Though I'm mildly in the Worse camp, by default really, since Worst is just that, I can't say confidently that outcomes are likely to be a whole lot better. We both chalked it up and continued to get along as father and son. We're all trapped in this scenario or historical phase, and while it's fine, perhaps even morally mandatory, to drop friends whose thinking is too shallow or virulent (or both) to recognize what liberals rarely miss an opportunity to pat themselves on the back over, I can't see how allowing this to come between me and my family would be productive. (My wife and I diverge on yet another foundational issue and stay committed to each other.)
Khaled says:
I told my friend that Trump signs are a great way to see which one of your neighbors are racist. There are a maddening number of them around here, which is unfortunate. My friend wife (they are Muslim) picked up their son from a playdate with a friend from school and the family had a Trump sign in the yard. Their son has a Muslim name, and we're not sure if the family didn't realize they're Muslim because of South Asian heritage or if they really don't see the problem with his family because they're successful and not one of *those* people.
quixote says:
There can also be professional problems. I generally try not to discuss politics in college bio classes out of respect for the students. (I wouldn't like it if they started trying to tell me which end was up, after all.)
But this year, you can't do it just so you can keep grading the little blighters fairly. I'm right on the border with one of California's few islands of Drumpfoids, and some of the students are bound to have caught it from their families. If I knew about somebody's drumpiness, everything they said afterward would sound stupid. So I do my damndest to maintain a rather draconian don't-ask-don't-tell.
Noni Mausa says:
Visiting distant family last week, and had brunch with two aunts and their retired friends from church (Catholic, in case that matters.). Sweet, civil, good natured middle class people till they mentioned how much safer it would be once all the Muslims were deported, and how bad it was that the national deficit had ballooned under Obama. It was just like noticing your cookie-making grandma was really a zombie. And knowing that no presentation of facts, logic, or Christian charity would make the slightest dent in their beliefs. Dear God.
Gerald McGrew says:
Like Nate, I've settled on a basic framework where I differentiate between friends and family who are holding their nose and voting for Trump (either out of loyalty to general GOP policies or dislike of Clinton), and those who are actively stumping for him, trying to persuade others.
The former group I can "agree to disagree" and move on, but not the latter. All I can think is the next time any one of them say anything to me about the state of the country, morality, or any sort of ethical issue at all, I will just stare at them quizzically and say "But….you….supported…..Trump! You wanted the next President to be a man who brags about grabbing pussy and walking in to teenage girls' dressing rooms unannounced."
I don't think there's any going back from that.
geoff says:
(Tempted but resisting the urge to all caps this) Yes. I fucking hate this election, but it has had the salutary effect of ripping the mask off the GOP and exposing the hate underlying it. It's always been there, but underneath the surface, hidden. (Well, since about '68, or maybe 1980.) Might as well let it all hang out, amirite??
I talk a lot of shit about the Dems, and think they are well deserving of criticism, but they don't try to appeal to their partisans' worst natures. WTF have we come to when one of our two major political parties' rhetoric is explicitly hateful? I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!
NC_Nate says:
@Brutus – It's nice that you and your father can agree to disagree on this, but for those people not in the cultural majority (and by that I mean anyone who is not a straight, white, gentile male, and if you really believe that outcomes of a Clinton presidency would not be a whole lot better than a Trump presidency, I'm guessing you're a straight, white, gentile male), the realization that friends or acquaintances support a man who is trafficking in the most vile white supremacist rhetoric, aimed at you and your family, feels really personal.
You begin to second-guess your entire relationship with people you thought you knew. Did they always feel this way? Do they feel this way about *me* when I'm not around? It is something that is not easy to toss off as a "historical phase"
Drew says:
"Like Nate, I've settled on a basic framework where I differentiate between friends and family who are holding their nose and voting for Trump (either out of loyalty to general GOP policies or dislike of Clinton), and those who are actively stumping for him, trying to persuade others."
Distinction without a difference.
mago says:
Hey NC_Nate. Everybody you know thinks they know you. Your family most of all. But we all know jack.
eau says:
A couple I know have actually just broken up over Trump.
She has always been a green-left-fringe type, he's a loud-and-proud libertarian. While it seems impossible, the very distance between their respective political positions has always allowed them to agree to disagree around a mutual distrust of "mainstream", centrist politics and politicians. This "both sides do it" baseline allowed them to even discuss their opposing views relatively openly and frankly, despite the occasional blow-up.
No longer. His libertarianism has slowly (or quite quickly, I guess) devolved to full Trumpterism over the past few months. Fed up (and more than a little perturbed) with him literally attacking friends, family and even strangers, she has asked him to move out.
The silver lining here is that he is a grade-A peanut, and has been all along.
Her friends (like me) are all happy as Larry to see the back of this utter tosspot.
Take this opportunity, folks. Trump is Roddy Piper's "They Live" sunglasses. He's your dipstick-dipstick, tunneling deep into the inky interior of every dipstick you know, indicating the exactly how much of a dipstick he or she really is. Use this tool to rid yourself of these tools once and for all. Your remaining friends will thank you.
HoosierPoli says:
Brutus again fails Ed's poli-sci 101 test: "Do you understand what the First Amendment means?"
The government should not be in the business of punishing people for their thoughts or opinions. That is not the same thing as "I should be able to say and think whatever I want and suffer no repercussions in my social or professional life". If you vociferously support an brainless racists asshole, your friends and family may come to think that you yourself are in fact also a brainless racist asshole, and they might want to have less to do with you afterwards. If you don't want to risk it, keep your brainless racist asshole thoughts to yourself.
Major Kong says:
I guess I should find it odd that a libertarian would be for an obvious authoritarian like Trump.
Then I remembered that most libertarians are just Republicans who don't want to admit it for some strange reason.
Talisker says:
Good stuff, Ed. My father-in-law is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. I'm a leftish Canadian/Brit, and was more so back in 2003 when I first met him. It was an education for me. I was used to an environment in which George W Bush was considered an idiot and a menace to humanity; but here was a smart, likable, well-informed guy who had voted for Bush, and would do so again in 2004. I disagreed with his choices, but had to respect that he'd thought about where he was coming from, and he felt more or less the same about me.
My FIL has voted Republican continuously since the Nixon years, but can't do it this time. He can't bring himself to vote Clinton either, thinks Johnson and Stein are ridiculous, and McMullin isn't on the ballot in Maryland, so he's planning to write in John McCain. It doesn't much matter anyway, because Maryland.
If he was voting for Trump (let alone actively campaigning), I would have lost a lot of respect for him.
Mark says:
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is still a criminal awaiting a conviction.
Amt guy says:
Allow me to paraphrase: Shut the fuck up Mark, you're out of your element.
My blindly Rep brother in-law and I have had an uneasy truce since our shouting match during Katrina when he stated Kerry was a traitor and I shouted back 'At least he showed up for service!'
Anyway, I'm going to vote today even though it's kind of moot here in Georgia.
Wim says:
It's an odd but undeniable relief that my parents didn't live long enough to lose me over Trump.
geoff says:
@Major Kong, the joke around here is that Libertarians are just Republicans who want weed to be legal ; )
Dave Dell says:
What geoff said.
The criticisms of Sec. HRC and the Dem sellout of what should be their base are well deserved. Sen. Sanders was a breath of fresh air for me and hopefully (and I'm pretty cynical about that hope) a wake up call for the Dem party. Since the Marijuana party didn't make the ballot here in Nebraska I've got Hobson's Choice for my vote for President.
It's easy to slip into a mindset about the Trump supporters that labels them as "the other". Looking at my behavior and thoughts, I discriminate against those I feel are religious extremists, discriminate against those I feel that are racists, homophobic, etc., etc. What they have in common to my mind is that they are incapable of rational thought and therefore are to be opposed when possible and otherwise ignored. I've given up on the idea that I can bring them to an understanding of my view of the world through the use of facts, and rational thought.
This means, of course, that some relationships have devolved into a cursory level of polite, minimized contact.
Mark says:
Amt guy – Why so much anger? You have your opinion and I have mine. I am not a supporter of Donald Trump, but Hillary supporters blindly support her even though they know for a fact, per the statement of the director of the FBI, that she broke numerous laws. Refusing to accept this fact is delusional.
Anonymous says:
So, since we seem to agree that Trump is very bad, and Clinton isn't the candidate many of us would have wanted, what can we do to have better choices in 2020?
Benny Lava says:
I'll be honest I don't see why people here are making moral judgements about someone and deeming them a bad person based on a sign in the yard. If it is more than that I understand. I observe that conservatives are much more likely to get in your face about politics and start fights over it. Who wants to be friends with a quarrelsome person. And don't they always try to efface their own truculence with statements like "I'm just voicing my opinion". They won't own the fact that they are starting pointless fights. That said if people will let each other live and let live why the anger?
Emerson Dameron says:
@geoff:
In grudging fairness to libertarians, they're mostly supporting the enjoyably ridiculous Gary Johnson. If they support Trump, they're arch-wingnuts trying to look cool.
Mo says:
Anybody else wading through Democracy for Realists?
NC_Nate says:
@Benny Lava –
You don't think people are justified in making a moral judgement about those who actively support a politician who, for all intents and purposes, is running a campaign based on white supremacy?
Mitt Romney, John McCain, hell ,even Sarah Palin for her ignorant incoherence, were never so overt about playing to the grievances of white nationalists as Trump is. It's one thing to argue with Republicans, but it's another thing when those arguments devolve quickly into racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic rhetoric, as they do now. It is personal in a way that I don't recall it ever being before.
Major Kong says:
Hell, I could have written the attack ads had Bernie Sanders been the nominee.
They'd have morphed him into the second coming of Mao, Joe Stalin, and Pol Pot with a dash of Hugo Chavez.
You and I all know he's not THAT kind of socialist but I think even in 2016 the word is toxic at the level of national politics.
Mark H says:
If nothing else, this election season is making it easier to cull my list of "Facebook friends."
Pretty soon I'l be down to less than 10.
Mark
oiojes says:
Very nice. One quibble: don't insult Neanderthals. They were likely killed off by those harboring these sentiments rather than embody them.
Tim says:
Like some others here, I also sort possible Trump voters into ardent supporters and those who are wavering because they somehow have misgivings about Hillary Clinton (or just plain can't stand her). I'm sympathetic to the latter because I have misgivings about her myself. I can also understand Drew saying it's a distinction without a difference, but I still think there is one. I've basically decided I have to vote for HRC and I'm trying to rationalize my way into forcing myself to do it. I get 95 percent of the way there, and then I read something else and fall back to 70 or 80 percent. I've got to stop reading stuff, but it's easier said than done.
On a lighter note, that headline is alarmist? I think it would be great if the NFL were torn apart into a thousand little pieces and scattered to the winds.
OK, I'm kidding. Sort of.
Emerson Dameron says:
@Maj. Kong –
Taibbi points out the obvious about the right-wing media's demonization inflation problem post-BO.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-fury-and-failure-of-donald-trump-w444943
I believe it's terribly important to examine Clinton's flaws as an executive and world leader, and I think we'll get back to that after Caligula gets routed.
I don't find it terribly useful to Just Know she's a terrible monster and point to a few trivial and overplayed controversies as evidence, which is what Trump's defenders do, to a person, when I try to engage them in dialogue.
I don't know that many people who genuinely believe in DJT. I know some people who loathe Hillary Clinton for reasons they can't really articulate, none of which are among the perfectly legitimate reasons to distrust Hillary Clinton. But the hatred for Obama reached such an absurd crescendo that it's hard to recapture that magic, especially when you're picking on a white lady.
Andrew says:
Trump was the final straw for me. None of the family members supporting him had been anything close to kind to me since forever. I'm thankful Trump ran so that I could accelerate what had already been a far-too-slow process on my side of saying, "Bye, Felicia".
Robert Walker-Smith says:
I don't know anyone who is 'blindly' supporting Clinton. She is the best worst choice at the moment, like Kerry and Gore and the other Clinton were.
There hasn't been a Presidential aspirant in my lifetime who has aroused deep and uncritical support from me. I don't expect it, and, frankly, seeing what that experience does to people I'd be worried if there was. I don't *like* Clinton, but that's not how I pick elected officials.
BK_NC says:
So, I'm not necessarily a Libertarian but until there is a strong 3rd party represented at every election, I don't see how anything can get better. Some people think I'm wasting my vote but I will continue to vote Libertarian until more of us do so and bring in another voice into our campaign season.
Check out this pretty cool video that will hopefully help those who don't want to vote for either of our current choices consider 3rd party voting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjTAgKAZW78
Or this one if you want something a little livelier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1kQ8Xt6Gsc.
Kaleberg says:
oiojes – The latest theory I've heard is that Neanderthals died off because they weren't as good at making warm clothing as modern humans. "However, they also suggest that modern humans made clothing out of a wider range of taxa than Neanderthals, and that clothing made by modern humans was more thermally effective than that made by Neanderthals." from 'Clothing and the Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans" by Lia Tarle. Granted, I live in the Seattle area, home of REI, Patagonia and a host of others, so I'm biased.
Was it only ten years ago that we heard that the only thing the Democratic party had left was identity politics? It seems like forever. Now, it seems that the only thing the Republican party has left is identity politics with the privileged arguing against giving anyone else a break.
BigD says:
I'm leaving the US in the next yr or so because of work and has nothing to do with the election. Part of me hopes Hillary is elected and soon after everyone gets screwed and all you Hillary voters will be able to look in the mirror and see the dumb shit who voted for her! I hope then when you look at your paycheck and see it cut in half that you can come up with some excuse that it's not your fault you voted her in. I also hope that those 500 million "refugees" come in take the rights you had and throw them in the garbage and then explain to your children when they ask "daddy or mommy why did this happen" will you lie to them or tell them the truth? Will you tell them you were the ones who screwed your future? Also will you tell stories to your grandchildren of the past or will you be to ashamed that you were stupid enough to believe hillarys garbage?
The other half of me hopes she doesn't win because of those who chose not to vote for her and end up getting screwed for everything they knew would happen if she got elected. I'm just glad I'm not going to be here either way and won't have any tie to the govt! I'll have a foreign bank account and be working for that countries govt! So have fun with the choice you make! I'll look back on Facebook and here what all the fools have to say! If it's there and the freedom to say certain things isn't taken away. Anyways I'm just glad I won't be here to have to see it or have any strings that attach me here or to the UN. I'm just glad this job opened up that I've been waiting for! Perfect timing! Well guys and gals keep in touch!
Lalo Khezia says:
@BigD is it too much to hope that your new job is off-planet?
Leo Artunian says:
BigD –
Best wishes on your move to a country with no attachment to the U.N., a job that will of course always be there no matter what and where the effects of climate change exacerbated by the conservative policies of the last twenty years will never ever affect you. Your new job *is* on Mars, isn't it?
Leo Artunian says:
Lalo Khezia –
Two minds but with a single thought, eh?
Emerson Dameron says:
http://i.imgur.com/JCpQ3Lz.png
mothra says:
BK_NC: Vote Libertarian if you must, but take it from a New Mexican who lived under Gary Johnson's "reign,": he is an out and out idiot. NOTHING happened in New Mexico while he was governor and he was absolutely gleeful about it. New Mexico is the poorest state in the nation and could hardly afford two terms of a useless, stupid governor. So we circled the drain even further under his watch.
But he can ride a bike far and smoke dope, so yay!
seniorscrub says:
As of 2015 here is the list of non-member countries in the UN:
Taiwan (left the UN when the Republic of China got its seat) and Kosovo.
Vatican City is a non-voting member and Palestine is a non-member observer state (for now).
Or maybe a dependency:
American Samoa (US),Anguilla (GB),Aruba (NL),Bermuda (GB),Bouvet Island (NO),British Indian Ocean Territory (GB),British Virgin Islands (GB),Cayman Islands (GB),Christmas Island (AU)
Cocos Islands (AU),Cook Islands (NZ),Coral Sea Islands Territory (AU),Falkland Islands (GB),Faroe Islands (DK),French Guiana (FR),French Polynesia (FR),French Southern Lands (FR)
Gibraltar (GB),Greenland (DK),Guadeloupe (FR),Guam (US),Guernsey (GB),Heard and McDonald Islands (AU),Hong Kong (CN),Isle of Man (GB),Jan Mayen (NO),Jersey (GB),Macau (CN),Martinique (FR)
Mayotte (FR),Montserrat (GB),Navassa (US),Netherlands Antilles (NL),New Caledonia (FR),Niue (NZ),Norfolk Island (AU),Northern Mariana Islands (US),Pitcairn Island (GB),Puerto Rico (US)
Reunion (FR),Saint Helena (GB),Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (FR),South Georgia (GB),Svalbard (NO),Tokelau (NZ),Turks and Caicos Islands (GB),U.S. Minor Pacific Islands (US),U.S. Virgin Islands (US)
Wallis and Futuna (FR)
or maybe
Antarctica
or Exotic Northern Cyprus – a self-declared state that is recognized only by Turkey.
Anyway, Bon Voyage!
Major Kong says:
Why wait for "500 million refugees" to throw my rights in the garbage when I can vote for Trump and cut out middle-men?
old white person says:
BigD-How are refugees going to take away our rights?? No, please don't answer.
GibsonGirl99 says:
Anonymous Says: "So, since we seem to agree that Trump is very bad, and Clinton isn't the candidate many of us would have wanted, what can we do to have better choices in 2020?"
The answer is "Be better citizens." (with many thanks to Jim Wright, of Stonekettle Station)
Methinks that this silly season is better understood by A) those who have a little Richard Hofstadter in their biological hard drive and B) those who do their level best to be logical and considerate at the same time. And then there are those of us who have long ago given up consuming broadcast media, and pick our other sources with care.
I wish we had a system that wasn't designed to be inimical to third, forth, and sixth parties! But the only way to change it is to agitate locally, and network nationally/globally and hope we can turn the ship without wrecking it on the shoals of demagoguery.
I wish people understood that the term 'fascist' does not apply only to: WWII dictators of either Germanic or Italian heritage, and whose time has surely passed. Per the OED: definition #2. In extended use (depreciative). a. A person who behaves in a manner perceived as autocratic, intolerant, or oppressive; esp. one who advocates a particular viewpoint or practice in a manner that seeks to enforce conformity.
Sound like anyone we know? (And am I the only one who finds it humorous that our country could have a person in the highest office in the land with initials that spell out an affliction of those trying to cease being practicing alcoholics? And why didn't we use THAT in our humorous put-downs? [Explains why he INSISTS on the J, though. Maybe he was bullied in school.])
Anyway, Thank you, mon cher Gin & Tacos, you give great rant, and have a commenting community of rare bouquet and savor. Hugs to all y'all. Except BigD–I think we're all better off without him, amiright? I personally hope he's going someplace where he'll be caned in public if he spits his chewing gum out on the street. But that might just be me.
GibsonGirl99 says:
Sorry! I meant "third, fourth, fifth and sixth parties"
This is what I get not spell-checking. And still being kinda strung out from RenFest.
Emerson Dameron says:
@old white person –
I'm guessing BigD is referring to the phalanx of Muslim refugees that will establish Sharia Law in our lifetimes.
Fortunately, there is no precedent for a bunch of America-hating yahoos deciding they want to burn down a long-standing US political institution and making it happen through sheer numbers.
Wait a second. Shit.
Harry Krause says:
"But I gotta say it was a gut-punch to see it. It's one thing to vote for Trump, but a completely different level of dickishness to be proud enough of it to put a sign up in your lawn."
How do you think Trump supporters feel when they see "Clinton" signs in your yard? You think they are being dickish by showing who they are voting for, but if you do the same, it is not dickish?
Such tolerance from the Left. We really could use more of that in the real world. Which would of course make this North Korea.
Really? says:
Although I bet BigD and I agree about absolutely nothing else, we do have a similar fantasy. I sometimes wish I could just decide reality was fucking wrong and didn't matter like republicans do. It seems like it's nice to not have to ever think about the future or to be unable to feel or experience empathy. I also sometimes wish that republican assholes would get their every wish so we could all watch it fall apart. However, unlike BigD I can't escape reality so I vote democratic so I at least have a chance at a future that is not a mad max like hellscape
Katydid says:
@Harry: I seemed to have missed the part where Hillary Clinton advocated deporting legal residents and openly discriminating against and sexually assaulting women and minorities, the way Donald Trump has. I'm sure you can provide links from reputable sources of her advocating just this. We'll be here waiting. Until then, we'll just figure you're just a troll.
FDChief says:
While I yield to no one in my contempt for the way the Democratic Party ran in terror from its New Deal legacy after the Rise of Reagan, to even pretend that somehow a Clinton 45 Administration would be the Apocalypse is to go deep into Tinfoil Hatland. Clinton is a bog-standard centerist corporate-friendly politician, the sort of person who in a parliamentary system would be running as a "Christian Democrat" or something like it.
The Sanders movement shows that the Democrats CAN be pulled to the left.
But…not only can the GOP not go there…it's obvious that it won't even let the corporatist centerist Democrats go there; the obstruction we've seen since Clinton 42 will be a bagatelle compared to what we've seen with Obama and will see with Clinton 45.
Think about that for a moment. Not only is there not the slightest chance of the GOP backing off its plutocracy/Christian theocracy/New Gilded Age ideology…it won't even let the opposition be corporate centerist Christian Democrats because they're insufficiently fucking nutzoid for smacking homos, luuurving Jesus and snowflake babies, hugging rich people and big corporations, and bombing the shit out of darkies and fuzzy-wuzzies.
Trump be damned. How the hell do you respect someone who wants that shit?
Death Panel Truck says:
Do I like Hillary Clinton? Not really. But I’m pretty goddamned sure she’s sane enough to be trusted with the nuclear launch codes.
I’m not voting for a best friend. I’m not casting a vote for a buddy I’d like to have a beer with. Sixteen years ago, too many Americans did just that. We ended up with the worst president in the nation’s history.
There are two viable candidates: one is an adult; the other a spoiled, poo-flinging three-year-old. I'll be voting for the adult.
Major Kong says:
Keep in mind that 500 million refugees would be more than 1.5 times the entire US population.
democommie says:
When I think about the best way to deal with erstwhile friends and inconveniently immutable relatives, after dismissing the SSI* and NOT killing them all in an orgy of RWBadass deathporn, I think,"terminal avoidance" is the only sane option.
* Steven Segal Initiative
Brigid King says:
I have bookclub* tomorrow with a woman who I've learned through FB is a major Trump supporter, a NC HB2 supporter and may consider herself 3 percenter. Any chance no one will bring up politics 20 days before the election?
Oh, also I work with her.
*We'll be discussing the book, Midwives, if you are curious.
Tim H. says:
To me, Hillary would be not my favorite perfume, Trump would be the sun baked diaper pail.
seniorscrub says:
@ Tim H
seniorscrub says:
What I meant to say… To me, Hillary would be not my favorite perfume, Trump would be the sun baked diaper pail./
…left in a fetid swamp choked with rotting vegetation, bloated animal carcasses, and raw sewage.
Heisenberg says:
https://thearcmag.com/what-i-have-learned-from-photographing-400-and-counting-iowan-towns-f399f5ffbfd5
Colleen says:
I just ended my relationship with my next door neighbor/friend today over Trump. I told her I don't want to know people who think he's a good idea for president.
Procopius says:
"Franklin believed, as was undeniably the case, that Ford was a fundamentally decent person,…"
Where on earth did you dig this opium dream up from? Ford was not in any way a decent person. He despised working men. He hated women. He held in contempt any person he did not consider as smart as himself. He had a friend who was a rabbi? it just shows how unaware he was. Too many people do not know that FORD DID NOT PAY HIS WORKMEN $5 A DAY! Oh, he offered that rate of pay publicly, and there actually were a few men who met his very stringent requirements. If they didn't go to church on Sunday, they didn't get it. If they were Catholic, they didn't get it. If they were Jewish, they didn get it, and I suspect it would not have been a good working environment for them. If his inspectors thought their grass was too long, they didn't get it. If his inspectors thought they didn't bathe enough they didn't get it. If his inspectors thought they needed a haircut, they didn't get it. If their neighbors reported to the inspectors that they bought a bucket of beer on a Saturday night, they didn't get it. The list is very much longer than this. And of course you are tactfully ignoring Bill Bennet, the thug and ex-convict who ran his "Service Department." The Service Department was the collection of ex-boxers, ex-cops, veteran soldiers. other thugs who had been fired from just about every kind of honest employment and spied on the workers to make sure they didn't talk to each other about starting or joining a union. When I was in high school I was told about the time when the workers went out at the River Rouge Plant and the governor sent the National Guard in to set up machine gun emplacements to protect the plant from the filthy commies. Bennets Boys took over the machine guns and opened fire on the striking workers. I admit I haven't been able to verify that story, but I can tell you it was still passed by word of mouth in Detroit sixty years ago and believed as honest truth. Old Henry was hated about as much as it's possible to hate a man. He was not "a decent man."
X-RWU says:
Alright, I know I'm precisely 2 weeks late on responding to this particular post, but I got my own $0.02 to throw in…
Indeed, Henry Ford was particularly loathsome for his extreme hatred of the Jews (you didn't even mention how Hitler himself had a portrait of Ford in his own office), and… wait, I was going to say how at least Ford paid his workers enough to buy his own product, but after seeing Procopius' comment above, now I'm truly unsure about that one.
And I was also going to say, it's not just the mean old racist white Right-wingers who pull this "Oh, don't worry, I like YOU but I just hate the rest of them" crap. Another good example: The Left is full of people who claim to hate Israel because it's a "racist state" and would love nothing more than to see it destroyed and wiped off the map, but are quick to reassure their Jewish friends and colleagues "Oh, don't worry, we don't hate Jews, YOU folks are fine and we like you, it's just those Zionists and Israelis who we want to see destroyed." (And even then, most of those same Jewish Americans are most likely to be liberals and vote Democrat anyway because they, like everyone else, can mostly see through the Republicans' phony act.) This attitude is rife on liberal-dominated college campuses, with places like UC Irvine being the absolute worst.
wifi repeater 2015 says:
The sleek and smooth design with this handset helps it be look in excess of stylish.
All across the northern hemisphere summer months holidays are gonna, or already have,
started.
There are numerous duplicate versions of such chargers available inside market.
Now what I'm going to accomplish is allow you to be wait for my next article.
Best wifi repeater 2015 extender review Although the S4 has some good extra features, among those are:
Air View, Multi Window, Air Gesture, Smart Stay and Smart Scroll.