BeyondGeography
BeyondGeography's JournalA most righteous rant: "I want my fucking country back, how about that?"
https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1348472626184925184It's never too late to appreciate the majesty of George McGovern
Thomas Knocks bio (volume 1; 2nd is forthcoming) is a great book:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691142999/the-rise-of-a-prairie-statesman
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691142999/the-rise-of-a-prairie-statesman
McGovern worshipped JFK. And yet, as a rookie Senator in 1963, he sounded the first alarm about Vietnam on the floor of the Senate. Widely considered to be among the most highly-skilled fighter pilots of WWII, he was forever haunted by the realization that he may have annihilated a family at lunchtime by accidentally discharging a bomb into their farmhouse. He flew the obligatory 35 B-24 combat missions and witnessed a 50 percent casualty rate among crews at his base in Italy. Upon returning home, he was appalled by what he considered to be the postwar rush to conflict with the Soviets.
He was so right about Vietnam, not just as a disastrous war but as a drain on LBJs Great Society thanks to the rights weaponization of the term liberalism to mean unconstrained spending. At its peak, LBJ was spending 6X more on the war than on Great Society programs.
Volume 1 runs until 1968. Im looking forward to Volume 2.
60 Minutes: Have to say, Raffensperger and Sterling
two GA Republicans, need to be appreciated. They have a strong sense, one might even say unshakeable, about the sanctity of the public space. This is primordial, and we are lost without it.
MAGAT snowflakes are proving what everyone here already knew
That they could never even begin to handle the political losses that we Democrats have been forced to absorb.
Imagine a Republican winning the popular vote and losing the election. We had to deal with that in two of the previous five elections.
Not only that, Al Gore was the rightful winner in 2000. Imagine if Republicans, knowing their guy had been screwed, had to watch Democratic thugs storm vote counters and a majority Democratic Supreme Court shut down the vote and declare our candidate the winner.
Hillary Clinton won by about 3 million votes and her margin of defeat in MI, WI and PA was less than half that of Trumps in 2020. She was undermined by Russia and the FBI along the way. She conceded the day after the election and did nothing, absolutely nothing, to rile up her voters, the vast majority of whom had the common sense to realize that she had no post-election path to victory.
These werent just political losses, they changed the course of history for the worse, which compounded the pain. Where would we be on climate change if we had the presidential leadership of Al Gore at the turn of the century? How many lives would have been saved if COVID happened on Hillary Clintons watch? Those are just two of the most obvious examples. We could go on.
Compared with Gore and Clinton, Trump should have had nothing to complain about. But there isnt a more coddled, delusional group of people on earth than white Americans who have hooked themselves up to the conservative media ecosystem. Trump, the most megalomaniacal liar well hopefully ever see, understood the possibilities. And his supporters have mostly gone all-in with him.
And theyre the patriots.
Ex-Capitol Police Chief calls Liebengood death a line-of-duty casualty
https://twitter.com/nancycordes/status/1348311032062738432Liebengood was assigned to the Senate Division and had been with the department since 2005.
On Twitter Sunday, CBS News Chief Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes said Former Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer told the news organization that Liebengoods death was a line of duty casualty.
The office of the U.S. Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Gainers reported statement.
https://www.cbs42.com/news/off-duty-us-capitol-police-officer-has-died/
Annie Lennox - Moonlight Sonata
Tim Snyder: America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power
The American AbyssThis is an essay-length piece in the NYT. I encourage you to read the whole thing. Some excerpts:
... On the surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the position of the strong and the weak. Trumps focus on alleged irregularities and contested states comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people...The lie outlasts the liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish stab in the back was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trumps myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?
On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trumps imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.
...If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trumps big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.
...Trumps coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.
...America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Ana Navarro to R-Enablers: You're not going to erase in 13 days what you did for the last four years
https://twitter.com/ananavarro/status/1347583109366231040Three cops vs. a wall of MAGATs
You already know who won.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1347019319566340101
Al Gore's noble exit is serving the nation well today
Graham just invoked him (if Al Gore can accept 5-4 from the Suprme Court, I can accept 4-3 from the Pennsylvania 2nd Circuit). Numerous Democrats have cited his gracious concession speech. Not to mention numerous commentators from multiple perspectives.
It hurt like hell at the time (not least because he actually won), but Gore didnt suffer for no good reason. He took one for the American team and walked away with his dignity intact.
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