I found the video that I mentioned in yesterday’s post–the one in which Rachel Maddow gave me a sliver of hope that we might be turning the corner. I’ll post it down below. Added note: The video has been taken down and the account that posted it terminated. So it was probably uploaded illegally. I don’nt think it was political, though; just a DMCA strike. Instead, here is another Rachel Maddow video. Just because.
As I told my K, though, it’s going to get way worse before it gets better. But, it does seem like the Democrats are finally putting their foot down. And a few Republicans are at least making quiet noises of discomfort.
But, my god. The boldfaced lying continues to astound me. I mean, it shouldn’t. That’s their M.O. Lie, deflect, and attack. But, as Rachel (gah, I have the hugest political crush on her) said in the video, when people can see that you are lying, it’s much harder to pull the wool over their eyes. And, again, yeah, the dedicated base will eat whatever Trump vomits up in their mouths without question. And they will ask for more. They’re beyond reach. forget about them. But again, there’s that vast swathe of the middle people who can be won over.
By the way, I have two things I must say.
The first is that while I personally am very uneasy about the proliferation of guns in America, we have an agreement that people are allowed to conceal and carry if they have a license. Alex Pretti had a license and was lawfully carrying his gun. The feds are claiming that he pulled his gun and that’s why they fired at him. But video has shown that 1. a federal agent took a gun, probably from him, and then walk away. 2. His hands were up. He had his cell in one to recorrd them and nothing in the other. 3. His last words were apparently to the woman he was trying to help up. It was shared that he shouted, “Don’t touch her!” and then asked , “Are you ok?” to the woman.
My point is that my personal feelings about guns aside, one of the biggest golden calves for the far right is the 2nd Amendment. Now, however, they (and the feds) are trying to spin it so that Alex Pretti carrying a gun was the impetus for a federal agent killing him.
Oh, hell no. Hell to the fuck no. They are the ones who worship at the feet of the god of guns, so fuck that noise .I mean, we all knew it was only for them because that’s how they treat everything, but it’s interesting how quickly the second amendment righters turn on a dime when it suits them.
The second is the repeated emphasis on how both Rachel Macklin Good and Alex Pretti were natural-born American citizens.I know whey they are doing it (politicians and journalists, I mean), but it doesn’t make me feel good. Like, would it have been ok if they were immigrants? I know that’s not what anyone means by it, but that’s what it sounds like to me.
Look.I know that the best way to get empathy/sympathy for your side is to drraw similarities and try to get the opposition to think of you as being like them. It’s all about teams; who is in and who is out. And right now, immigrants are…not out, exactly, but not in excatly, either. We care about them and protect them, yes, but if someone is a citizen, then we need to trot out that fact over and over again.
There are several governors speaking out. Yes, they are all Democrats, but still. They are clearly denouncing the president and his lackeys. Some are even calling for Noem to step down (ha!) or to be removed from her position because she’s not fit to serve.
She really isn’t. Nor is Pam Bondi. Nor Gregory Bovino. Nor any of the other numbskulls that Trump selected. in this way, he is much like W. (George W.). Both of them pick people based on who they like or in the case of Trump, who licks his boots enough.
Side note: This is another issue I have with Democrats. They talk about diversity, but the top of the food chain is all white men. Well, mostly. Maybe a few white women. Very rarely are there people of color or queer people. There is more diversity on the right sometimes because being lockstep on ideology is more important than anything else. Usually, it’s to the Republican Party, but in the case of Trump, it’s to him. That’s neither here nor there.
The Republicans always stay on message. That is one of their greatest strengths. This time, though, the message of ‘the innecont citizes being mowed down is actually a seekrit terrrrrrrist’ is really hard to sell when all the video and eyewitnesses show/describe something much different.
Again, to paraphrase Rachel Maddow, it’s much easier to hate something that is theoretical than it is to view it with your own damn eyes. Like the five-year-old boy in a bunny hat that the feds used as bait to knock on his home’s front door. He and his father came here legally, by the way. They were seeking asylum, and this is what they get in return.
Fucking Bovino lying about it to our faces. Lying about it to the journalists trying to do their job (though, in my opinion, not pushing it hard enough). Here’s the problem with liars. You have to make them walk it back. You have to keep pushing them until they snap. But that’s not the job of the news—a’t least, they claim it isn’t.
I’ve had an issue for some time that journalists allow politicians to say whatever they want without much pushback. I’m not just talking Trump here, by the way. I was listening to a Democratic senator being interviewed by MS Now. I thought the interviewer asked a very prescient and incisive question, and the senator danced around it. I was huffing and sighing until she prodded him to answer the damn question. He did–kind of–but it reminded me that politicians were always keenly aware of public opinion and how to sway it.
This lot, though, take it to such an extreme. They cannot tell the truth if their life depended on it. Weirdly, Trump is the only one who I don’t think is actually lying. He says the wildest shit, yes, but he believes it at the time. Granted, it might last a mere few seconds until it completely leaves his mind, but it’s still his truth for that minute.
The rest of them are lying through their teeth. They have gotten the (literal) memo to smear anyone who in anti-Trump with the ‘terrorism’ label, and they have been doing their best to make it stick.
That’s all for today. I’ll have more to say tomorrow.