US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

Problems, problems

The White House is struggling to contain the national discussion about President Trump’s mental acuity and fitness for the job, @PhilipRucker and @AshleyRParker report: https://t.co/lGxgBQNrwV

— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) January 9, 2018

Well THAT'S confidence building:

“He is absolutely no different than the day he got elected, and he has used this unconventional but very effective manner of managing for the 30 years that I’ve known him in business, finance, media and now governing,” Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Trump’s longtime friend and inauguration chairman, said in an interview Monday.

“It’s not mental instability,” Barrack added. “It’s management by controlled and orchestrated chaos.”

"It's not bullshit, but it is fecal matter."

the new york GOP can't scape together statewide candidates, which is bad news for their congressional delegation (same thing happening in CA)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/08/new-york-republicans-trump-midterms-328245

wow, that royce announcements is especially good news given the recent leanings of orange county:

Royce’s decision to retire is a blow to his party’s hopes to hold onto the Democratic-trending Orange County swing seat. Royce won reelection last year by double digits even as Hillary Clinton was carrying the district by 52 percent to 43 percent — a major shift to Democrats after Mitt Romney won it by four percentage points in 2012.

" he has used this unconventional but very effective manner of managing for the 30 years that I’ve known him in business, finance, media " by ripping off everyone he works with left right and centre yes ok got it, at least you admit it.

barrack knows trump via the sewer known as atlantic city so take all of what he says with a grain of salt

xxpost - Yeah Royce's seat is cooked and done. Rohrbacher's gotta be feeling a little less sanguine as well -- worth noting he voted against the tax bill and said so loudly. But if anything Russian-related blows up further he's dead meat.

Oprah 2020 is not going to be a Bernie Sanders-style populist campaign. She's going to be Hillary with fewer scandals and stratospheric communication skills. She'll give us an electrifying presentation of utterly conventional politics.

— Jeremy C. Young (@jeremycyoung) January 9, 2018

This is an odd comparison, but in some ways I think the world leader Oprah most resembles is Emmanuel Macron. Both are charismatic outsiders who electrify voters looking for a change, but then give them neoliberalism on steroids.

— Jeremy C. Young (@jeremycyoung) January 9, 2018

Oh, fuck off America.

^ probably an accurate enough characterization of Oprah (xp)

Not an Oprah fan, although obviously she'd be a big step forward from the current occupant. I imagine he'll just preemptively lock her up before things ever get that far, though.

not really a fan of continuing the "celeb outsider" oval office trend, even if I like Oprah for the most part.

What a step forward, another TV star. Kind of looking forward to China taking over in the future.

https://nypost.com/2018/01/08/fans-boo-as-trump-causes-major-logjam-at-championship-game/

As I'm sure you noticed, the bar for "big step forward" is very low at the moment.

You can say that again, that speech she gave was fucking dire.

I vote DJP for Prez in 2020 (actually I would vote for him if he ran in all seriousness)

like idk, if we don't want to accomplish much we could elect our version of a tv celeb outsider who despite being a much better human being and having much more progressive values, would still spent most of her first two years in office struggling to transition from TV to the biggest job in the damn country.

though if we can't win back either the Senate or House in midterms, we're sheerly voting for an Executive veto and not much else anyway.

really could do without the sexist and racist screeds against her today, too....another 'ignore social media' day.

and fortunately I don't have the kind of relatives on my FB feed (anymore) who would be DO YOU SEE when posting photos of Oprah + Harvey Weinstein.

Oprah was a stan for Jenny Mccarthy and her antivax BS, not to mention Dr Oz. No thanks.

my friend defended the move by mentioning how 5 other US Presidents had no political experience.

Let's see, two of them are on most "worst Presidents" lists, one of them will make that list when his term is over, and a fourth on that list died less than halfway into his first term. Real inspiring company there.

She has a ton of positive qualities, yes, just not sure any of them qualify her for office. Just because she'd be a zillion times better than the walking abortion we have now, and because I actually like her as a person, well....that doesn't mean I want her to be President.

she'd be a good chief of staff

as long as drs. phil and oz are banned from the white house

Dr Oz should be banned from living above-ground

It’s fine if Oprah’s president because nothing matters but the next nominee should be Elizabeth Warren.

There needs to be a broad economic program. A rich celebrity is not the right messenger for that.

That matters more to me than experience. I would chamge my mind if Oprah made free public college, single payer healthcare, and a $15 minimum wage at the center of her message. But I don’t think she would.

I dont think anyone would :(

sanders m/l already did

Right. If there was a candidate who had a program like that but could also speak to minority constituencies in a way Hillary couldn’t — part of the reason for her suppressed turnout compared to Obama — that’d be the person. Maybe it’s Oprah. I don’t think so though.

Political experience doesn’t matter though if the person otherwise has good judgment. They would have advisors to execute their program. The problem with Trump is not his lack of experience, it’s that he is a malevolent person who can’t think coherently.

He felt women understood him. Or, the kind of women he liked — positive-outlook, can-do, loyal women, who also looked good — understood him. Everybody who successfully worked for him understood that there was always a subtext of his needs and personal tics that had to be scrupulously attended to; in this, he was not all that different from other highly successful figures, just more so. It would be hard to imagine someone who expected a greater awareness of and more catering to his peculiar whims, rhythms, prejudices, and often inchoate desires. He needed special — extra special — handling. Women, he explained to one friend with something like self-awareness, generally got this more precisely than men. In particular, women who self-selected themselves as tolerant of or oblivious to or amused by or steeled against his casual misogyny and constant sexual subtext — which was somehow, incongruously and often jarringly, matched with paternal regard — got this.

I had three exchanges today w/ people reflexively positing Oprah v. Trump as inevitable binary, "yeah but she'd be way better than Trump"

America fuck you

I mean, maybe we’re just going to have celebrity presidents from now on. Hope not.

The Rock 2028

Let's go

can you smell what the rock is nominating

i'd vote for oprah but i already have a car

seriously though i hate to be contrarian of the day but i would vote for oprah a thousand times over another craggy-faced, personality-free old white man with impeccable credentials and well-thought-out policy positions. that's not america anymore.

you might just get your chance to vote

for a craggy faced man

against a craggy faced man

sorry.

seriously though i hate to be contrarian of the day

you're not, you're dope of the day

you're not, you're dope

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, January 9, 2018 12:20 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw

catching up for the day.

1: karl qft:

i have no idea what oprah's politics are (which you'd think would affect her chances of becoming president, but no, it doesn't actually matter much)

2: hoos qft:

"you are so lucky that i gave you that privilege" is making me boggle in a way that i thought i'd become immune to in the last year

like oprah being president sounds okay if the extent of your politics is "woke facebook" but where does she stand on, say, Israel?

"you get a capital and you get a capital and you..."

can't wait to see which youtube celebrity runs in 2024 and which claymation adult swim character runs against him in 2028