Thursday, August 15, 2013

APOCALYPSE NOW.

Orson Scott Card, some of whose ravings were covered here years ago, has recently gotten some attention for his lunatic fantasy that Obama will use black street gangs to keep the presidency in the Obama family by force for years to come. But Card is a well-known sci-fi author; less likely to be noticed, but just as nuts, is longtime conservative author Donald Sensing. After explaining that Obama is running America by fiat, Sensing writes:
Obama can do this not because the Constitution or law authorize it. Most definitely they actually prohibit it. He is getting away with it because there is no one who can stop him and almost no one who wants to stop him. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, in the Democrat party is in the slightest interested in reining in Obama's expansion of executive diktat because they know what few of the rest of us are awakening to: the Democrats are never going to lose that executive authority again. Let me be clear, with a promise to elucidate another day: there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever... 
The president of the United States is now quite literally a dictate-er: he orders what he wishes and implements what he chooses.
Meanwhile a non-discrimination law in San Antonio that would keep the city from doing business with people who discriminate against gay people -- just as the city (and every other city I can think of) would if those people discriminated against blacks -- is portrayed by conservatives as "a disturbing infringement on liberty of conscience."

Try to imagine what a spectacle this presents to normal people: The Loyal Opposition telling them that the President is a dictator, and that non-discrimination laws are the real fascism. Maybe they actually think this is electoral gold. After all, we're all supposed to be libertarians now, right?  And, as we grow weary of repeating, libertarianism is basically conservatism with a brand makeover. At Forbes, Ralph Benko assures us that "Libertarians And Conservatives Must Find Common Ground" to win, and the way he suggests they achieve that is... to turn against gay rights. "Traditional values as vote getter (not just within the party base but with Independents — including ethnics and blue collar workers) violates the meta-narrative of the party elites," he says. "Still, the conclusion that traditional values is a net, and a legitimate, vote getter is almost impossible to avoid."

That'll be news to most people (though maybe Matt Welch will go for it), but conservatives aren't most people, and decreasingly resemble them. Here's Ben Shapiro with his own formula for conservative victory:
Ask anybody who’s ever broken up with a girlfriend, no matter what you say to your girlfriend after you break up with her, she’s going to think you’re a jerk. Right? And the same thing is true with the American people. 
The American people have broken up with conservativism. You’re not going to convince them that conservativism is the way to go by being really nice. The way that you’re going to convince them that conservatism is the way to go is because this is a two-party system, and we can paint the other side as mean and nasty as they are. And they are. They’re mean and nasty and they’re horrible people. I mean, they truly are.
Maybe Shapiro will get a chance to read that from the podium at the 2016 GOP Convention. You know, in my conspiratorial moments, I think these guys are all plants designed to destroy the Republican Party. Crazy, you say? We'll see who's crazy!

UPDATE. I feel compelled to add that another crazy idea of the week, that Fox News has betrayed conservatism and gone pro-gay, has drawn the attention of Rod Dreher.
Ask yourself, Fox viewers: how often do you see religion covered on the network at all, much less the regular inclusion of conservative religious voices in regular news and opinion coverage?
These guys haven't figured out that if you want dolchstoßlegende to work, you can't accuse everyone of stabbing you in the back.

141 comments:

  1. montag210:21 PM

    Pajamas Media interviewing Dead Breitbart's Ben Shapiro.

    Isn't that the definition of incest?

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  2. hellslittlestangel10:26 PM

    Libertarianism is both conservative and progressive, just as liberalism is both fascistic and socialistic. It's really that simple, people.

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  3. Spaghetti Lee10:30 PM

    So, in Shapiro's scenario, it's the equivalent of following your ex around, telling her that the new guy's a jerk and she'll regret hooking up with him? I'm not exactly lucky in love but I think that would, um, tend not to work?

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  4. montag210:34 PM

    Umm, I think Shapiro's not advocating following the ex around, but, rather, going on television and screaming, "the fucking slut will be sorry. Very, very sorry."

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  5. Yes, Obama is a dictator because of his draconian gun control legislation which disarmed the popu...no, that's not it. Well it's clearly because of his decree to make abortion free and legal to...no, that's not it. Oh, it's because he trampled corporate freedom of speech by overturning Citizens United by executive...

    No, that's not it, either.

    Perhaps if we were honest with ourselves we could admit that Obama is truly a dictator because he forced his blackness on the nation without a 100% consensus. And also because conservatives' rights are trampled every day because they only narrowly avoid being forced to hear him speak now and then on the only two cable news channels that air his speeches that they don't watch. That's what dictators do: have their propaganda air on some of the news networks! That's brazen dictation!

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  6. Spaghetti Lee10:41 PM

    Try to imagine what a spectacle this presents to normal people: The
    Loyal Opposition telling them that the President is a dictator, and that
    non-discrimination laws are the real fascism.



    I'm simplifying things, but I think that from, oh say the late 60s to the early 90s, what conservatism represented to lots of voters was normalcy. Bland inoffensive whitebread golf-outing-with-a-bank-manager-type normalcy. Not always right, but reasonably reliable and responsible. They've lost that as an increasingly bigger portion of 'conservatives' have become wide-eyed loons hoarding guns and quoting long-dead monetarists and objectivists and muttering ominously about martial law and the New World Order and gay agendas and secularist conspiracies. They are no longer the guys who run the banks and the big businesses. A lot of those guys are now, for better or for worse, Democrats. (I'd argue that the Democratic Party has undergone a reverse transition)



    The suburbs, America's foremost blandness magnet, have gone from unquestionably Republican to slightly Republican at most. Look at presidential returns in suburban counties and districts. Republicans have lost that 'safe' element, and that's hard to get back. It took the Democrats years to recover nationally after LBJ. That's their problem, and it will continue to be their problem: most normal, apolitical, reasonably sensible people, once prime targets for Republicans, think they're plumb crazy. It's not everywhere (you wouldn't know this by watching CNN for instance) but I think the shift is there.

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  7. JennOfArk10:45 PM

    Let me be clear, with a promise to elucidate another day: there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever..
    And if you want to know why, read the rest of the paragraph that precedes this sentence.
    Talk about yer self-fulfilling prophecies...

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  8. Tehanu10:49 PM

    "These guys haven't figured out that if you want dolchstoßlegende to work, you can't accuse everyone of stabbing you in the back."


    Well, as usual, Roy, you have zeroed in on something the rest of us all had a vague impression of, and summed it up with elegant simplicity. I know I've said it many times before: you are a hell of a writer and I wish I had half your talent.

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  9. Let me be clear...there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever.

    Fingers crossed.

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  10. Spaghetti Lee10:53 PM

    I've entertained that notion myself. I haven't quite talked myself into believing it yet, but if it does happen it will be because they've lost the ability to win a national electorate. (And demographics. Can't forget those.) Not because Dictator Obama outlawed the GOP and hunted down all its members or whatever.



    I think pretty much the only thing keeping the GOP afloat is institutional memory and media-fueled mythmaking. You see in lots of polls that huge numbers of people disagree with conservative positions, but more of them identify as conservatives or Republicans, because those words still have gravitas to a lot of people, most notably Beltway media types who haven't traveled beyond the actual beltway since 1986 and who haven't talked to a working-class person since high school. If a newly-formed, previously unknown party appeared today with the GOP's ideas and values, with the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul as its standard-bearers, I like to think they'd get laughed away. But lots of people still have a vague notion that Republicans are Serious and must be Respected. Well, have them keep up this shitshow for a few decades and we'll see how many people still think that.

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  11. sharculese10:55 PM

    Maybe Shapiro will get a chance to read that from the podium at the 2016 GOP Convention.


    Oh, come on, Roy! I mean, the Republican Party is pretty fucking nuts, but giving the Keebler Dweebler a chance to speak for them on national prime time? They can't be that suicidal.


    Oh wait, fucking duh, of course they can.

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  12. Waffle_Man11:04 PM

    Wow, that Yucca flats thing is damning evidence. I can't think of a single better example that would make Obama look like a terrible, law-flouting person.


    It's not the idea that this President, like many other, breaks the law and the constitution with impunity that's crazy. That's completely true.


    It's the idea that Obama is somehow a special case, the product of a totalitarian ideology, a man dedicated to keeping power at all costs, despite all evidence to the contrary.


    And really, the Bush years laid a lot of the groundwork for all the awful things Obama is doing now. I don't see how you can imagine that the poor weak Republicans just don't have the power to stop big mean Obama unless you're living in wacky world.

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  13. montag211:15 PM

    Recall that this is the exact mirror image of what Karl Rove and Co. were crowing about less than a decade ago. According to them, Bush had ushered in a two-generation (minimum!) one-party Republican hegemony.


    And, once people got a good, hard look at what that meant, they voted in for President a less-than-one-term Democratic Senator, rather than another Republican. Twice.


    If Little Ben is hyperbolizing, it's largely out of hysteria. As soon as another Republican is installed in the White House, he and all the other right-wing operatives will be singing, "Happy Days Are Here Again," and will once again begin the process of gleefully destroying their brand in the name of extremism.

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  14. Shapiro: "So what the left has really focused on, particularly over the last few
    decades, is trying to paint everybody who disagrees with them as a
    vicious racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, bad people. We are all bad
    people."


    Yes, the noted liberal doctrine of Total Depravity, memorably articulated by those notorious Alinskyites Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin.

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  15. DocAmazing12:39 AM

    The Democrats should apologize for having pushed the unitary executive principle all through the early 2000s, that's for sure.

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  16. Pretty much, except I was thinking it was more like getting drunk, barging into a party where your ex was invited, and challenging her new boyfriend to a fistfight, all the while screaming "I can do better than you, bitch."


    You know, just the kind of behavior you want from someone running things.

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  17. These guys haven't figured out that if you want dolchstoßlegende to work, you can't accuse everyone of stabbing you in the back.

    I agree that they can't stay on a single, coherent message, even for a day or in a single column. And attacking Fox News is just daffy. But Gingrich and many a conservative has gotten great mileage out of the ol' "everyone I dislike is in cahoots against me!" gambit. And conservatives have attacked Obama for being both a fascist and socialist, and both a Muslim and a radical black Christian, and both a weakling abroad and a tyrant domestically. Sometimes conservatives don't even tag-team to split up the attacks, and the same frothing idiot will make both charges in a single outing. The conservative faithful don't really care about coherency. Hate heals all logic.

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  18. nanute5:18 AM

    In an effort to promote minority outreach the conservatives have come up with a new theme song that covers it all, Roy: http://youtu.be/hzTeLePbB08

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  19. And, remember, in Shapiro's own little fantasy, it's YOU who broke up with HER, before following stalking her and her partner in some desperate attempt to prove you aren't the jerk you seem to be with every utterance and action 24/7.


    She made a mistake and needs to admit you are the Only One, before you dump her again.


    Seems mature and stable to me. What could go wrong?

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  20. And, remember, in Shapiro's own little fantasy, it's YOU who broke up with HER, before following stalking her and her partner in some desperate attempt to prove you aren't the jerk you seem to be with every utterance and action 24/7.

    She made a mistake and needs to admit you are the Only One, before you dump her again.

    Seems mature and stable to me.

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  21. "Let me be clear, with a promise to elucidate another day: there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever... "


    Promises; promises...


    I suppose the Masters of the Universe tell a yokel like Sensing who they are installing next. Yeah, pull my other one, dude.

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  22. Aimai7:26 AM

    So, we've got a plan, then?

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  23. Attacking Faux News is just another aspect of their Playing the Refs gambit.


    These are folks who would spend 5 times as much energy and resources to cheat than to just learn the rules and win properly. It must feel like defeat to them--to win by "someone else's" rules, and they'd rather cheat or lose.

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  24. BigHank537:54 AM

    No, they have a single coherent message: THIS SUCKS AND THE LIBERALS DID IT. Tax money going to the undeserving blahs, the deficit, illegal immigration, the housing collapse, any war ever, the weather, crashing airplanes, the designated hitter rule, whatever you like.


    Now, this message is stupid enough that your average four-year-old can poke holes in it, so they have to dress it up a bit. Not that it helps much.

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  25. Derelict8:01 AM

    I'm not exactly lucky in love but I think that would, um, tend not to work?
    Any wonder why his nickname was "Virgin Ben Shapirol?"

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  26. BigHank538:06 AM

    Card seems to be following Dreher's well-worn tracks, adopting harder-line ideology because it's unpopular. Society's increasing tolerance for homosexuals, unmarried mothers, women who decide to not bear children, interracial relationships, unmarried cohabitation....none of this is going to get them bonus Jesus points for suffering under the lash of persecution. They might as well be in fucking Sweden. No, they're just going to have to martyr themselves.


    Here's a hint, boys: we're not hanging on your every word. We're waiting to see how you solve the problem of every wannabe Jesus: how do you get that last nail in?

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  27. Derelict8:08 AM

    Who is this "Bush" you're talking about? Don't you know that Obama has been president since September 12, 2001?[/current GOP]

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  28. Derelict8:24 AM

    The reason they spend five times the energy on cheating is because no rational person would ever support their actual agenda. In the present instance, the "cheat" is "Everybody hate on the ghey!" while the actual agenda remains what it's always been: Tax cuts for the rich and no regulations that might impede the oligarchy.

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  29. coozledad8:42 AM

    They know their shills are just overpaid dumbfucks who, in a world without cracklicker welfare, would be picking oakum or breaking rocks. That's why the Republicans have bypassed the whole 'being liked' thing and moved on to fucking with the democratic process.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k5l1-qHsQdI#at=35

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  30. Helmut Monotreme8:47 AM

    If they really were the randian style super geniuses they appear to be, you'd think they could figure out how to remove the safety on a nailgun and hold it by the ouchy end.

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  31. Matt Jones8:52 AM

    "No, they're just going to have to martyr themselves."


    Wish they would hurry the fuck up.

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  32. Glenn Kenny9:05 AM

    "There is no way, in this life, you can paint yourself as a nice person."

    Man, Shapiro really built up a LOT of resentment over all those years he was being mocked as "The Virgin Ben," huh?

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  33. glennisw9:33 AM

    "we can paint the other side as mean and nasty..." Really? So what have they been doing before this?

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  34. fraser9:35 AM

    I clicked through and read the Card piece. Baaaaad mistake. But I was enlightened to learn that "Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq" is listed as one of the Great Historical Lies that people fell for.

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  35. glennisw9:37 AM

    And, really, that kind of transgression isn't what bothers Shapiro - he's perfectly fine with that. The tyranny he's talking about is promoting more efficient light bulb standards, and bike paths.

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  36. mortimer20009:41 AM

    He's got a Bill Twittle vibe going that might be just the thing for the GOP convention. As a "Citizen Producer," Ben Shapiro made this video back in 2012. It's all about how the Tea Party was stabbed in the back by Republicans and -- surprise! -- conservatives!
    It's fascinating for all the wrong reasons, including a hand swipe thing that's hilarious.

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  37. mortimer20009:46 AM

    Dreher: Ask yourself, Fox viewers: how often do you see religion covered on the network at all...

    What's he complaining about? Fox newspeople talk about Muslims every chance they get.

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  38. Mark_Bzzzz9:54 AM

    That's really crazy. The fact that Saddam did not have the kinds of WMDs that Bush sent Powell to the UN to lie about is very well established, as well as the fact that they knew that Powell's claims were exaggerated and largely fabricated. Powell's speech was one of the biggest hoaxes in history.

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  39. FMguru9:59 AM

    Eh, it's just an effort to establish his bona fides as a clear-minded non-partisan unbiased critic of both sides, so you'll be more likely to believe him when he points out that Obama is worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.


    The Perfesser used this shtick a lot in his early days, occasionally tossing in some praise of Bill Clinton or some mild criticism of a Republican to set up his Reasonable Moderate routine.

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  40. Not really. The whole thrust of the analogy is the conservative movement as a person trying to win back the woman who left him. But it's a bad analogy because it suggests two men fighting over the same woman until they both die, which is peculiar. It's the kind of thing you see in rom-coms, not in real life. Makes sense, coming from someone who probably didn't have a wide experience of dating before marrying the woman his family expected him to marry.

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  41. Mark_Bzzzz10:06 AM

    Maybe I'm misinterpreting, and frankly, I don't want to spend the time reading Card's wooly fantasizing right now, but I interpreted it to mean that Card believes that the real lie is that Bush was a liar for using and disseminating the whole WMD rationale for starting the Iraq war, and that Bush acted in good faith at the time. Anyone who falls for that is a sucker.

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  42. DocAmazing10:12 AM

    Be fair: liberals did have a hand in the designated hitter rule.

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  43. FMguru10:13 AM

    Holy shit, you're right. He's complaining about those evil liberals and their widely circulated nonsense that George W. Bush somehow lied about Saddam's WMDs.



    Man, I am so looking forward to not seeing Ender's Game this fall.

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  44. Uncle Kvetch10:15 AM

    At this point it's clear that Lionel Trilling's take on conservatism as a collection of "irritable mental gestures," while brilliant, is hopelessly outdated. We're now talking about a three-year-old throwing a screaming, kicking, purple-faced tantrum...forever.


    What's the next stage? How long can it be before "throwing feces" ceases to be just a metaphor?

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  45. Mr. Wonderful10:16 AM

    "They’re mean and nasty and they’re horrible people. I mean, they truly are."


    Yes, well, we are to YOU, Ben, because you're a jerk and you deserve to be mocked. Otherwise, we're rubber, you're glue, and anything you say, write, think, whine, pule, pout, or claim, LITERALLY BOUNCES OFF OF US and STICKS TO YOU.



    O snap!

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  46. Protip: if you use the word "ethnics," you are almost definitely racist.

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  47. AtForbes, Ralph Benko assures us that "Libertarians And Conservatives Must Find Common Ground" to win, and the way he suggests they achieve that is... to turn against gay rights. "Traditional values as vote getter (not just within the party base but with Independents — including ethnics and blue collar workers) violates the meta-narrative of the party elites," he says. "Still, the conclusion that traditional values is a net, and a legitimate, vote getter is almost impossible to avoid."


    With thinking like that, pretty easy to see that the Republican party is deep down a 'party of principles', eh? Whether they are or not, either way it doesn't reflect well on them.

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  48. And Ben Shapiro is, in general, a stunted manchild.

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  49. FMguru10:22 AM

    It's a core element of Conservative Victimology that liberals are the mean ones and that conservatives have taken their abuse in stoic silence, but any minute now they'll stop fighting with one hand tied behind their backs and boy oh boy are you liberals going to be sorry then!


    Essentially, it's excuse-making for conservative losses and unpopularity - we only lost because we refused to take the gloves off and get down and dirty with those awful, lying, no-good lefties. It's of a piece with everything else conservatives/the GOP are doing these days, namely coming up with any excuse to explain away their losses so they don't have to actually address the fact that their party and ideology are in long-term decline at the national level. See how fervently they embraced that crackpot analysis that the GOP can keep winning national elections forever without a single minority vote, or this week's effort to win the 2016 election by have Limbaugh and Hannity moderate the primary debates.

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  50. Mr. Wonderful10:24 AM

    Yeah. Promises, promises...

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  51. For people like us here on this blog, who obviously have an interest in politics, it's easy to forget just how little the average layperson pays attention. The notion that the Republicans can be taken seriously, or that they have anything of value to add to national governance, survives for that very reason. And when the Republicans do something ridiculous that makes national headlines, eg "shut that whole thing down," a lot of laypeople just shrug and say, "eh, both sides are equally ridiculous. That's just politics, man." *sigh*

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  52. Initially read that as "urinary executive principle," was confused.

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  53. Well, unfortunately, a lot of those bland, whitebread people who now feel alienated (and reasonably so) by the GOP's crazyassity now identify as "centrists," when they really are just run-of-the-mill conservatives. The Republicans are no longer run-of-the-mill conservatives: they're now just complete morons.


    But the problem is that now that run-of-the-mill conservatism is "centrist," the notion that maybe workers should make a living wage is regarded as far-left wackiness. Fuckin' Overton window, man.

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  54. In this video, Ben Shapiro explains how the Tea Party was betrayed


    Poe's Law strikes again.

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  55. NonyNony10:35 AM

    Ask yourself, Fox viewers: how often do you see religion covered on the
    network at all, much less the regular inclusion of conservative
    religious voices in regular news and opinion coverage?


    Oh my. The Flying Spaghetti Monster does not love me enough for Fox News to begin regularly covering religion and regularly including conservative religious voices in their news and opinion coverage.
    It would be a wonderful coalition-fracturing thing to have two or three different conservative religious voices all kill each other on television before an audience of their various faithful. It would probably make the Peoples Front of Judea/Judean Peoples Front arguments look like patty-cake.

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  56. Reminds me of an article (maybe on Salon or something?) where the writer attended a climate change denial seminar. As we all know, every climate change denier has a particular tack: there's no climate change, or there is but it's just a natural cycle, or there is but it's actually a good thing, etc. And as the writer of the article noted, each speaker would come up and completely contradict the one right before them. Speaker A would talk about how there's no climate change, and then Speaker B would come up and talk about how great climate change is going to be because, y'know, more plants and shit. And nobody seemed to notice or care about this complete incoherence, because as long as the speaker was sticking it to those damn libs, everyone was happy.

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  57. If you want a vision of the future of the Republican, imagine a foot stamping on the floor - forever.

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  58. Substance McGravitas10:54 AM

    the Democrats are never going to lose that executive authority again


    Be a better opposition you fucking turds.

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  59. Halloween_Jack10:56 AM

    Ask anybody who’s ever broken up with a girlfriend, no matter what you say to your girlfriend after you break up with her, she’s going to think you’re a jerk. Right?

    Uh... no? In fact, I'm on pretty good terms with a couple of my exes. Bit of a telling anecdote there, Ben, old bean.

    And to return to the first subject of your first paragraph, I could care less what some random nutcase conservablogger thinks, but OSC is someone with a lot of pull, at least in the SF community, where even ostensibly progressive authors and bloggers such as Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi won't call for joining a boycott of Ender's Game. OSC wrote this thing, which tied into successful and well-received video game, and his little rant about Obama recruiting his secret police from the ghettos reminds me of a certain Robert Crumb cartoon, only serious. (Card hedges his rant as just a little thought experiment, heh heh, which is about as convincing as his later attempts to gloss over "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" as not really wanting gays to go to jail, just, you know, if they don't shut up and get back in the fucking closet and tempting Cardinnocent straights with that wicked gay sex.) And it was published just last May, so he can't write it off as some old thing that doesn't really matter any more; he's still bugfuck crazy after all these years.

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  60. Duncan11:09 AM

    Well, that is pretty much the liberal case that Hugo Chavez was a dictator.

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  61. Duncan11:14 AM

    Yes, because Ender's Game is all about how George W. Bush was martyred by the liberal media, who made it seem like he was a liar on WMDs.

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  62. PulletSurprise11:14 AM

    There hasn't been a legitimately elected one since 1988.

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  63. Uncle Kvetch11:20 AM

    Triplanetary, you complete me.

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  64. That's what I meant about stopped clocks. Shapiro was wrong about the reasons in his own head, but he unwittingly described the dysfunctional worldview of typical wingnuts.


    And, yes, I do assume he is a sheltered puppy with very little real-world wisdom.

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  65. DocAmazing11:34 AM

    What's hilarious about that: in my neck of the woods, the Libertarian Party is home to a lot of well-off gay men who would be Log Cabin Republicans if they were just a little more self-deluded.

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  66. DocAmazing11:36 AM

    No, you're actually seeing the thing for what it is: trickle-down autocracy.

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  67. DocAmazing11:38 AM

    Now Maduro will calm the raucus caucus in Caracas.

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  68. XeckyGilchrist11:41 AM

    Bit of a telling anecdote there, Ben, old bean.


    Ain't it, though? Reminds me of a guy I knew whose every ex had a restraining order against him.


    Which is a fine idea, bringing it back to his absurd metaphor - America should get a restraining order against conservatives.

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  69. Mr. Wonderful11:46 AM

    (Spock voice) Fascinating.


    But then--not to get too armchair shrink-ish (although when has that ever stopped me?)--these are people positively hostile to the very notion of self-awareness and understanding themselves. They would much rather applaud a series of self-contradicting pep talks, and luxuriate in emotion, than engage in a process of thinking that could threaten their psychological comfort.



    They're not just unaware of the "information" about it, they're proudly derisive toward the idea that one's personality--and, hence, one's history, experience, and entire life--is contingent, received, and inherently blind to its own habits and proclivities.



    Maybe that's the basis for their anti-intellectualism, religiosity, and bigotry. It's also the basis for the success of Rush, Fox News, etc. As long as you're feeling something negative about someone else, you're also feeling that you're okay.

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  70. XeckyGilchrist11:48 AM

    I thought this was going to be that "Asian Girlz" horror that Keith Knight skewered so well here.

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  71. Mr. Wonderful11:51 AM

    "liberals are the mean ones"


    Not only that. Liberals are "unhappy," "angry," etc. I can't decide, when they go on like that, whether I'm witnessing something cute or dangerously unstable.

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  72. tigrismus11:59 AM

    The president of the United States is now quite literally a dictate-er

    If only there were a word for this.

    Traditional values as vote getter (not just within the party base but with Independents — including ethnics and blue collar workers) violates the meta-narrative of the party elites



    It violates reality, too, considering what research has shown and what demographics make seem inevitable. I believe the meta-narrative requires the response "keep fucking that chicken" but I am not a party elite.

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  73. Spaghetti Lee12:08 PM

    But most people do support raising the minimum wage: https://www.google.com/search?q=public+polling+on+minimum+wage&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a (I couldn't find much for 'living wage': maybe that's not used often in polls.) They don't think it's 'far-left wackiness.' Lots more people than you think support worker protections and the like, too. We're not a nation of Randians. We're just a nation where Randians control the government and media. (Comforting, right?)


    What's weird is there's this disconnect where people support liberal policies, but identify with conservatism as an ideology or the Republicans as a party. I don't know why, but if that disconnect was ever resolved, the GOP would be in deep, deep trouble.

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  74. Spaghetti Lee12:11 PM

    Ron Blomberg was a deep-cover Commie plant.

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  75. Spaghetti Lee12:13 PM

    I admit I have a high chance of seeing it, and take a dim view of pop culture boycotts in general. Take comfort in the fact that most of the dough will go to the studios, not him personally. And maybe it will flop. We've had a lot of those this year.

    ReplyDelete
  76. BigHank5312:15 PM

    There's a reason they get so het up over schools teaching critical thinking, and it's not just because they hate answering awkward questions about the Old Testament.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Spaghetti Lee12:15 PM

    These are people who have literally stalked private citizens loosely associated with the Democratic Party. I don't know what they think 'meaner' means, short of kidnapping liberals and executing them on Fox News.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Spaghetti Lee12:17 PM

    I should add, if 29% don't support raising the minimum wage, that's a little less than people who self-identify as conservatives, so it's not even bloc opposition among them.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Kilgore Shapiro12:37 PM

    You can either be serfs, or you can fight!
    I love the smell of my palm in the morning.

    ReplyDelete
  80. gocart mozart12:40 PM

    Arugula eating is the Chicago Way.

    ReplyDelete
  81. gocart mozart1:01 PM

    But conservatives invented astroturf.

    ReplyDelete
  82. bekabot1:19 PM

    "I make you unhappy, don't I? And I make you angry, don't I? Well, that means you must be both unhappy and angry, right? Haaaaaah!! GOT-cha!!"

    ReplyDelete
  83. bekabot1:27 PM

    "These guys haven't figured out that if you want dolchstoßlegende to work, you can't accuse everyone of stabbing you in the back."



    Dolchstoßlegende works for these guys because they keep stabbing themselves in the back and then displaying their bleeding wounds to passers-by while repeating, "You did it, didn't you? It was you, wasn't it? No wait...it was you. But no, can't have been, it was you instead. Or...just a minute...was it you? Or you? Or..."


    Et cetera ad infinitum. Lather, rinse, repeat. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall...

    ReplyDelete
  84. Gromet1:35 PM

    Similar to your client deniers, Tri, I know a guy who thought Sara Palin was the best thing ever because she really pissed off liberals. That was all he needed. Questions of governing ability and character never entered into it. He just loooved to see liberals pissed off. So he was thrilled.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Gromet1:46 PM

    What's funny is that even Reince Preibus admitted this today -- words to the effect of "our party hasn't really won a national election in a quarter century." I can't find the quote anywhere, but it was reported on NPR this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  86. shortstop2:11 PM

    You're dead on about institutional memory and media mythmaking, but it's not just a Beltway media problem; lots and lots of voters -- including "working-class persons" -- are prey to both of these. My mother, a recovering Republican, was one. For years after it became apparent that her party was insane and that her policy preferences cued almost perfectly with the Democratic platform, she just couldn't let go of the "liberals = tax and spend" memes of her youth. Eventually we convinced her to come over to the dark side, and now she's phonebanking for commies. I fear it will take a long time for many Republican voters to let go of their earliest impressions of the party, no matter how far the reality has drifted (plummeted? from that image.

    ReplyDelete
  87. liberalrob2:33 PM

    The urinary executive trickling down upon us...and telling us it's raining...

    ReplyDelete
  88. Al Swearengen2:37 PM

    Especially the nihilistic vandals in Congress.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Bethany Spencer2:39 PM

    "Brazen dictation"

    God, I'm so tired of talking about Anthony Weiner.

    ReplyDelete
  90. liberalrob2:43 PM

    "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because
    they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta,
    because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the
    Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta
    children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children.
    And Epsilons are still worse."

    ReplyDelete
  91. liberalrob2:46 PM

    Shhh, don't give them ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Spaghetti Lee3:19 PM

    Honestly I've never understood why 'tax and spend' is supposed to be so scary. As opposed to what? Tax and keep? Tax and burn?

    ReplyDelete
  93. Mooser3:23 PM

    "Ask anybody who’s ever broken up with a girlfriend, no matter what you say to your girlfriend after you break up with her, she’s going to think you’re a jerk."
    Well, there's a guy who's not ashamed to show us he has never read Wharton's "House of Innocence". I would be, but I guess he's not.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Mooser3:28 PM

    "These guys haven't figured out that if you want dolchstoßlegende to work, you can't accuse everyone of stabbing you in the back."

    "It seems to me we've been holding something underneath our tongues
    I'm afraid if you ever got a pat on the back
    It would likely burst your lungs"

    ReplyDelete
  95. Mooser3:33 PM

    "Be a better opposition you fucking turds."
    I guess Card is trying to tell us that the Republicans are really just the Democrat's employer-sponsored union. So, you see, any effective techniques of making their greivances public or bringing pressure to bear on the employer is denied them.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Mooser3:40 PM

    "Man, Shapiro really built up a LOT of resentment over all those years he was being mocked as "The Virgin Ben," huh?
    "

    You mean he's not a virgin anymore?

    ReplyDelete
  97. DocAmazing3:41 PM

    Too much dick, not enough tation.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Mooser3:42 PM

    "Wish they would hurry the fuck up."
    Oh, they like to be properly dressed for any occaision, but they can't seem to find the third piece of that suit, thank goodness.

    ReplyDelete
  99. DocAmazing3:43 PM

    Now let's not get ridiculous, here...

    ReplyDelete
  100. Mooser3:46 PM

    I hope we never have another "frat boy" President.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Not to mention, his wife might take differently to the "not lucky in love" part.


    Foot-in-mouth--can that happen to someone who asks "what's wrong with the taste of foot? I don't get it."

    ReplyDelete
  102. Anna in PDX3:50 PM

    good grief if he is into masochism there are all kinds of other ways to get his kicks.

    ReplyDelete
  103. or vice versa.

    ReplyDelete
  104. "Letting people starve in the streets as a result of insufficient government services" is the morally upstanding path.

    ReplyDelete
  105. calling all toasters6:12 PM

    TVB: Scumbaggery cannot fail, it can only be failed.

    ReplyDelete
  106. calling all toasters6:15 PM

    "How long can it be before "throwing feces" ceases to be just a metaphor?"


    Right after the debates moderated by Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh fall flat-- they'r e going to use Tom Green and Johnny Knoxville next.

    ReplyDelete
  107. shortstop6:15 PM

    Well, it's supposed to be "not tax at all, except for things I think are worth taxing for." Generally, "tax and spend" is unsubtle code for "spend on people other than myself, including blah people." However, as my mother has never been a racist (seriously, I'm not kidding) nor particularly selfish, I'm not sure why she fell for that crap. Her parents would have starved without Roosevelt coming along.

    ReplyDelete
  108. calling all toasters7:01 PM

    Roy, you make me break out in song...

    "Sympathy for the Republicans"

    Please allow me to introduce myself
    I'm an asshole, filled with hate
    It's all the fault of the liberals
    That women laugh in my face

    I was 'round when Cheeto dust
    Helped send our boys to Iraq
    Although we were proved fucking right
    No interns would touch my cock

    Pleased to meet you
    Hope you think I'm smart
    But what's puzzling you
    Is whether this is performance art

    I went to a university
    Where they tried to wash my brain
    A bunch of fascist communists
    Sarah Palin screamed in vain

    I boycott Glee
    Cause of all the fairies
    You'll be posts of salt
    I'm making like John Galt

    I shouted out,
    "She killed the Kennedys!"
    But the media pretends
    It wasn't Hillary

    So if you meet me
    Have some courtesy
    Have some deference and admiration
    Or I'll destroy your arguments
    In my imagination

    ReplyDelete
  109. Let me be clear, with a promise to elucidate another day: there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever...



    Keeping fingers crossed here.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Ask anybody who’s ever broken up with a girlfriend, no matter what you
    say to your girlfriend after you break up with her, she’s going to think
    you’re a jerk. Right?



    how would ben know this?

    ReplyDelete
  111. Orson Scott Card, some of whose ravings were covered here years ago, has recently gotten some attention for his lunatic fantasy that Obama will use black street gangs to keep the presidency in the Obama family by force for years to come.

    To steal a joke from Slate commenter Allan Richardson, Card is on a bad LDS trip.

    ReplyDelete
  112. I like the following bit- in order to show people how mean and horrible the Democrats are, we have to be mean and horrible.


    Flawless logic!

    ReplyDelete
  113. I'll only see it if they give George Takei a role in it. After the big "reveal" at the end, George could enter and deliver a great "Oh, myyyyyy!"

    ReplyDelete
  114. satch8:55 PM

    "Ask anyone who's ever broken up with a girlfriend, yadda yadda blah de blah... (and isn't it precious that Shapiro makes it clear that HE'S the one who broke it off)"


    Mark my words: Shapiro's the guy who we'll be stunned to read about in the not too distant future who buys a gun, violates the restraining order, and kills the ex, the kids, and the new boyfriend, and then turns the gun on himself.

    ReplyDelete
  115. JennOfArk9:43 PM

    Mostly OT, but "Black Hitler" got its first televised mention that I'm aware of by John Oliver on the Daily Show a few nights ago. Whoo-hoo internets liberal snarkmasters!

    ReplyDelete
  116. JennOfArk9:52 PM

    Well, now that you've told us what's going to happen, I doubt we'll be "stunned"...THANKS FOR SPOILING THE SURPRISE, DICKWEED!!

    ReplyDelete
  117. BigHank5311:21 PM

    Jesus, how much would you have to pay someone to check?

    ReplyDelete
  118. Orson Scott Card, some of whose ravings were covered here years ago, has recently gotten some attention for his lunatic fantasy

    I believe this lunatic fantasy is aptly titled (Pret)Enders Game.

    ReplyDelete
  119. redoubt1:15 AM

    these are people positively hostile to the very notion of self-awareness and understanding themselves.


    To these people, selfishness=self-awareness.

    ReplyDelete
  120. RHWombat1:22 AM

    loss-phobic losers, looking for winners amongst themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  121. The last time the republicans faced that problem, they made Eisenhower their presidential candidate.

    They are not there yet. They haven't even reached the Dewey stage.

    ReplyDelete
  122. philadelphialawyer8:50 AM

    "there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever.."
    Nor a Federalist or Whig one either. Because Jefferson and Lincoln, each in his second term, deputized street thugs as national policemen, and they rounded up all the members of the old parties who wouldn't switch sides.

    ReplyDelete
  123. philadelphialawyer9:06 AM

    Yeah, even to our newly "libertarian" conservative friends, the "real" threat to liberty is not the MIC/national security state/national law enforcement state/NSA/CIA/FBI/DEA/DHS/Pentagon, etc, etc. No, it's an slightly overzealous OSHA enforcement agent or a five cent increase in the minimum wage.

    ReplyDelete
  124. coozledad9:14 AM

    What does unitary executive mean? It's like they cribbed it from the tripartite god thing but with an emphasis on the son standing at the podium rather than father Cheney and holy ghost Addington.


    That can't be it.


    Maybe they meant Duke of Earl prinzip.

    ReplyDelete
  125. Mr. Wonderful10:27 AM

    Good point. In the same way that indignation = self-respect.

    ReplyDelete
  126. billcinsd11:22 AM

    well with Republicans since at least Reagan, it's been Borrow and Spend

    ReplyDelete
  127. billcinsd11:43 AM

    Wasn't he Jewish? if so, that rather blows the deep-cover

    ReplyDelete
  128. DocAmazing11:49 AM

    He won't turn the gun on himself. It's against his religion.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Mooser1:05 PM

    "To steal a joke from Slate commenter Allan Richardson, Card is on a bad LDS trip."
    To steal another from a man who married his daughter: I wish him a bum voyage!

    ReplyDelete
  130. Mooser1:08 PM

    "He won't turn the gun on himself. It's against his religion."
    I'm no mayven on my own religion, but I'm not sure Judaism forbids suicide. I mean, look at Zionism. It'll be our Dr. Kevorkian.

    ReplyDelete
  131. JoyfulA1:48 PM

    Ulrich Zwingli? Why are you dragging poor Ulrich Zwingli into this?

    ReplyDelete
  132. FlipYrWhig3:11 PM

    They support liberal policies for people like them, and conservative policies for people not like them.

    ReplyDelete
  133. fraser4:58 PM

    I remember traditional values hack John Leo said that during the Terri Schiavo controversy, the media proved its bias against religion by actually covering religious protesters instead the secular disabled people. Because the religious people all sounded nuts and didn't have good arguments so obviously that , er, um, look a disabled chicken.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Conservatives, standing athwart at the White Picket Fence of History, yelling, "Meanies!".

    ReplyDelete
  135. drkrick7:38 PM

    It's tribal identity, like John Prine's grandpa voting for Eisenhower 'cuz Lincoln won the war. It takes some people a long time to accept that the last chief's successor is a drooling idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  136. calling all toasters1:16 PM

    I believe Weiner is actually a dictweeter.

    ReplyDelete
  137. calling all toasters1:25 PM

    Funny story: this actually happened to Ben many times. Except for the former girlfriend part.

    ReplyDelete
  138. tigrismus1:47 PM

    Sure, his hand is STILL mad from the last time.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Ask yourself, Fox viewers: how often do you see religion covered on the
    network at all, much less the regular inclusion of conservative
    religious voices in regular news and opinion coverage?


    Die Abnehm Lösung download

    ReplyDelete
  140. Ask yourself, Fox viewers: how often do you see religion covered on the network at all,much less the regular inclusion of conservative
    religious voices in regular news and opinion coverage?


    Oh, for fuck's sake. Mike Huckabee is actually a paid Fox News employee. It's Franklin Graham's home away from home for catapaulting his mendacious ass-scrapings about Muslims and the persecution of Real True Christians in Obama's America. You can't swing a dead jackass in the studio without hitting some shitstain who can't shut up about how Christian they are (Hi, Sean!) And, of course, as noted before, it's open season on anyone and everyone who practices a "false" religion. All that's missing is some ranting theocrat with a chalkboard of "teaching" ... aha, Dreher's pissmoan is all about Glenn Beck, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete