All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Gray Lensman]

While it's not exactly easy to get into that whole wonky militia mindset...

"College Football..." would be the first thing out of my mouth if you asked for a short "First Reaction..." response to you saying "Michigan Wolverines..."

I was also thinking Red Dawn myself. The good one from the 80's, not the newer crappy one.

[The no face guy]

They were going to put her on trial and now they will be the ones on trial. I love the irony. And even if they were successful in kidnapping her, eventually they would be taken down. I'm always amazed when the right lose their nut.

Well that's Trump's hardcore base, xenophobic nut jobs who've fried their brains on one too many QAnon and great replacement theories.

They came out in droves to criticize the lock down, and Trump emboldened them by denigrating Gretchen Whitmer for doing her job for trying to keep people safe.

Inspired by their Fuhrer, they swarmed the state legislature, dressed like thugs in balaclava's brandishing semi automatic rifles.



I generally like take a non partisan approach to politics, because I want to always remain as objective as possible, but this is just how it is. His base are fringe right fruit loops, one step away from the KKK. He has to go!

[Kevinroc]

Less than an hour ago, the Hollywood news site Deadline briefly posted an article about Pence testing positive, with the tag "DO NOT PUBLISH UNTIL THE NEWS CROSSES"

https://twitter.com/search?q=deadlin...rc=typed_query

It might be a news embargo. Or it could have been someone making sure an article is ready in the event this were to occur, and royally screwing up.

In this case I think it's the latter. It's no secret that news organizations pre-write certain articles (such as the death of an actor or a politician or what have you) so they can go live when the event happens.

(This doesn't mean Pence isn't positive for Covid.)

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Bear in mind that during Hitler's putsch in Munich, he and his supporters carried weapons and guns stormed city hall, captured people and put them in captivity to "hold them for trial" and did that before they unraveled.

So this is very much a failed attempt at fascism (but so was Hitler's putsch), and its outline is fascist in the extreme.

[InformationGeek]

Trump only gets the best of jackasses to work on his campaign.

Trump campaign official Jason Miller is on Fox News attacking Gretchen Whitmer, the victim of a kidnapping plot: "If we want to talk about hatred, then Gov. Whitmer, go look in the mirror -- the fact that she wakes up everyday with such hatred in her heart for President Trump." https://t.co/sMXv7mgBfa

[JCAll]

I was also thinking Red Dawn myself. The good one from the 80's, not the newer crappy one.

I just naturally mark all these militia types down as "Red Dawn Fetishists". They're horny to shoot people, and not much else.

[The no face guy]

Bear in mind that during Hitler's putsch in Munich, he and his supporters carried weapons and guns stormed city hall, captured people and put them in captivity to "hold them for trial" and did that before they unraveled.

So this is very much a failed attempt at fascism (but so was Hitler's putsch), and its outline is fascist in the extreme.

Oh I have not doubt about that. The U.S. constitution is specifically designed to restrain people like Trump, but if he could tweek it towards autocracy he would.

When 4 star generals who have served in his administration start ringing alarm bells, it's a problem.

A for the militia men, a lot of them are middle aged, which is usually a sign that the economic rot has set in. 40 years ago they would have had high paying jobs on an auto assembly line, doing something more positive with their life.

[BeastieRunner]

I just naturally mark all these militia types down as "Red Dawn Fetishists". They're horny to shoot people, and not much else.

Long ago, I discovered the gun culture in America is not a religion but a sexual orientation.

[Adam Allen]

While it's not exactly easy to get into that whole wonky militia mindset...

"College Football..." would be the first thing out of my mouth if you asked for a short "First Reaction..." response to you saying "Michigan Wolverines..."

I was also thinking Red Dawn myself. The good one from the 80's, not the newer crappy one.

Yeah, might be that makes more sense. But if the article got their dumb group's name right, it wasn't Wolverines plural, but singular. Even that could be just the animal I guess, but when paired with Watchmen ... yeah, could still be coincidence that either of those could be a comics reference. I'd rather it was coincidence, really.

Anyhow, mostly unrelated to the above, more on how poorly Trump's campaign is looking currently ... anyone remember how W was looking, going into the election for his second term? I honestly don't recall. But, I do recall how unlikely it seemed that Trump would win in 2016, and there's a cynical part of me that wonders if all of this is not just political opera. Like, Trump will somehow squeak through a second term, and run the country even further into the ground ... like W's second term did ... so the country then inevitably rallys around a Democrat for 2024, and that candidate spends 8 bringing things back from the horrible state Trump left them in. Rinse and repeat, till we're all dead.

I mean granted, it does seem like things are even more dire than they were, back during W's administration. But I dunno, look at how much better the special effects look in Infinity War, compared to the early movies. The artists improve their craft.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The U.S. constitution is specifically designed to restrain people like Trump...

That sounds like "founder's chic" wishful thinking.

The US Constitution is a late-1700s document developed by late-1700s people, who still believed that Newton answered all problems of physics, that Euclid was the last word on mathematics, and who accepted that black people should be slaves and accounted as 3/5ths of property in the actual document of the Constitution itself, never (with the exception of Aaron Burr) accepted the idea of women having a vote, or even the concept of all white people across class lines voting.

It was not a document specifically designed to restrain people like Trump by any means. It wasn't really a document intended to become an object of secular veneration as it has recently (Constitutional Originalism as a doctrine is younger than Star Wars IV: A New Hope, and found purchase even among Republican judges around 2000 or so when Scalia wannabes - Alito and Roberts - hopped on the SCOTUS).

The US Constitution was certainly not built to address a problem like fascism.

[ed2962]

I was also thinking Red Dawn myself. The good one from the 80's, not the newer crappy one.

It works either way, I think. Weren't the group in the movie named after the high school football team?


Heck, I wonder if these guys really wanted to call themselves the Badgers, but were afraid of being sued...?

[numberthirty]

I was also thinking Red Dawn myself. The good one from the 80's, not the newer crappy one.

That would be my initial reaction if we were talking "Militia"/"Wolverines".

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Well that's Trump's hardcore base, xenophobic nut jobs who've fried their brains on one too many QAnon and great replacement theories.

They came out in droves to criticize the lock down, and Trump emboldened them by denigrating Gretchen Whitmer for doing her job for trying to keep people safe.

Inspired by their Fuhrer, they swarmed the state legislature, dressed like thugs in balaclava's brandishing semi automatic rifles.



I generally like take a non partisan approach to politics, because I want to always remain as objective as possible, but this is just how it is. His base are fringe right fruit loops, one step away from the KKK. He has to go!

Unless I’ve missed something during the current news cycle, has Trump himself addressed the whackjobs who tried to kidnap Governor Whitman, or denounced them as terrorists?

[The no face guy]

Unless I’ve missed something during the current news cycle, has Trump himself addressed the whackjobs who tried to kidnap Governor Whitman, or denounced them as terrorists?

No, probably for the same reason he didn't disavow David Duke or denounce white nationalism during the debate, he needs their votes, for xenophobia 2020 the sequel.

[babyblob]

Unless I’ve missed something during the current news cycle, has Trump himself addressed the whackjobs who tried to kidnap Governor Whitman, or denounced them as terrorists?

He has not but Fox news is saying he does not have to. There was a person on there who said Trump does not have to denounce every act of right wing crime of white supremacists and its not fair to ask him to because no one asked Obama to denounce every act of black gang violence.