Comments

  1. gijoel says

    Honestly if it were a choice between Trump and Satan, I would choose the lesser of the two evils and vote Satan.

  2. Becca Stareyes says

    Hell, I’d add in all immigrants, especially those who aren’t white or from Anglophone countries. Because just like Islamophobic policies often affect anyone from the Middle East or who ‘looks’ Muslim, anyone who ‘looks’ like an undocumented immigrant is going to go through the hassle of constantly having to prove their documented status or citizenship. (Witness the threat of harassment to people who don’t ‘speak American’ at the voting booth; as if long-term residency and citizenship magically grant perfect American English with a TV broadcaster’s accent.)

  3. doubtthat says

    It’s not difficult to understand that the “again” in Make America Great Again refers to the country prior to the 15th Amendment (which, of course, would also eliminate the 19th).

  4. Plac ebo says

    “P.S. You’re a goddamned moron.”

    Said with the civility of many a hardcore Trump supporter. You sometimes make it hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

  5. Saad says

    Plac ebo, #4

    Good guy meek and mild, turning the other cheek, white people’s version of MLK Jr

  6. Siobhan says

    It’s not difficult to understand that the “again” in Make America Great Again refers to the country prior to the 15th Amendment (which, of course, would also eliminate the 19th).

    You know, the good old days, back when people still died of dysentery.

  7. Siobhan says

    “P.S. You’re a goddamned moron.”
    Said with the civility of many a hardcore Trump supporter. You sometimes make it hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

    So according to you all it takes to be a “bad guy” is to say a mean word.

    Well I guess the Pope calmly advocating for the psychiatric torture of trans people is just peachy keen because he’s so gosh damn calm about it.

  8. gmacs says

    Tone troll! We got tone troll!

    Seriously though, all the major criticisms of Clinton seem to be that she’s a politician.

  9. jefrir says

    Said with the civility of many a hardcore Trump supporter. You sometimes make it hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

    If you think the only difference is civility, you really haven’t been paying attention. Go read more, especially stuff by the groups mentioned in the OP.

  10. doubtthat says

    @6 Siobhan

    Keep the Pepto, get rid of all the non white dudes making decisions on their own…

    Technocratic life, Amish politics.

    Although, if Trump had to pick his ideal time period, I’m betting it would be the court of Louis XIV.

  11. Siobhan says

    Now the name of his handle is almost meta. Can’t tell if profound troll or just genuinely doesn’t know how words work.

  12. Hoosier X says

    It looks like you could substitute “tone trolls” for “white dudes.”

    It also looks like PZ doesn’t have time for “political correctness” either. But that’s only a virtue if you’re a Republican, apparently.

  13. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Maybe my ears are just too focused on hearing Clinton and filtered against Drumph, I just see a lot of people filtering out anything Clinton says and only hearing when Drumph “makes a good point”. My bias says that HRC, by being a woman, still undergoes inherent misogyny where people just disregard her words, as just “talk”. Even people fully against Drumph, made comments during the debate that Drumph was or once, “making points”. While totally disregarding all the real points HRC was making. *grrr*
    At least Drumph got his nose a little more controlled than previous debates, but it still sniffed a few times. The format did not allow him to do his creepy looming behind HRC. Wallace did try to fact check him a couple times, but…

    Drumph pulled a spooky hypothetical out of his butt, about the ‘late term abortion’ provision. Flabricating the mythical late-term woman who decides on a late-term abortion on a whim. Legally allowed, but mythical occurrences. Totally disregarding the emotional and health concerns involved in such a decision for such a procedure.
    Drumph would rather have a blanket law to eliminate wildly improbable occurrences.
    Like banning ALL immigrants because a FEW might become terrorists. (even though we currently vette immigrants very rigorously).
    He also stayed with his MO of denying everything as lies and distortions when quoted about things there are actual, unedited videos of him saying verbatim.

    I just saw an initial factcheck [sorry for not linking] of 36 items from the debate. HRC was cited only twice. Once about the SCOTUS ruling to which she objected, as being more than what she mentioned in the debate. And about the budget balance, probably not ending up being as balanced as she claimed it will be.
    The rest were all listing Drumph’s lies as total falsehoods. One in particular being the $6B he claims vanished from state dept while she was Secretary of State (SoS). He totally fabricated that figure out of zero lost.
    He sure keeps fact-checkers busy.

  14. robro says

    gmacs @ #8 — “Seriously though, all the major criticisms of Clinton seem to be that she’s a politician.” Yep, and an experienced one to boot. The worst curse of all, unless you’re a Republican who’s been in government for decades. Then it’s OK to be a politician.

    slithey toad @ #15 — “HRC, by being a woman, still undergoes inherent misogyny…” I think that’s unquestionably the case, though few anti-Clinton folk would openly admit to it, or even recognize it in themselves.

  15. Ed Seedhouse says

    Siobhan @5: “You know, the good old days, back when people still died of dysentery.”

    But you know things have never been as bad as they are now, because Trump says so.

    Being *owned* and having your “owner” sell your wife or children to another people owner, being whipped at whim for sassing the “master”, living in the 1920’s and thirties and being strung up to a tree by your neck for looking the wrong way at one of our “pure” white women, being shot in the 60’s for daring to ask for your constitutional rights, why none of that compares to the hell “the blacks” are living in today.

    Because Trump says so, blessed be the name of Trump.

  16. anbheal says

    I’d like the meme a bit better if it said “Latinos” instead of Undocumented Immigrants. The douch-bros I know who are most worked up over the Brown Menace no distinction between the over 50 million American citizens, the majority born here, whose first language in the home is Spanish, and the five or six million of the 11 million migrant workers here who hail from south of the Rio Bravo (the largest single group of undocumented workers is Chinese, there are a million middle-easterners, a million-plus Indians, a million plus SE Asians, a million-plus Eastern Europeans, and over a half-million of those filthy Canadians). So fewer than one in ten of the Latinos they will ever encounter is here without a work visa. More than 90 percent are red-blooded Americans. Who simply cook better and dance better and work harder than the douche-bros. They’re not going away. “Para Espanol, imprime uno” on the 800 customer service lines is not going away. So all of that hatred is directed at fellow citizens, who are gong nowhere. The whole “undocumented worker stealing our jobs” canard is just a flimsy veil for plain old racism.

  17. mumbles says

    First, I’ll say Chris Wallace did a better job than I expected.

    Second…If you see me today, you’ll see me smiling, possibly telling a joke to a stranger. It’s correct to say that Clinton is the best nominee. Last night, she made that clear. It’s almost as if she had this planned out all along – and Trump simply never came up with a response that worked. And last night, he descended into pure childishness. “You’re the puppet”, “bad hombres”, “wrong”.

    A bit in the way of background – my family is very matriarchal. Nobody has had more than one male child, in the past hundred years that I know of. In my generation, I’m the one guy. And one thing you learn to see is how badly women can get treated in our society – because you learn to fight against it. Not because you’re the guy, not because it’s you’re role, but because you’ve seen the strength* that women can have, and you wish to join in.

    It’s difficult to express fully, and I know I did a bad job.

    Make no mistake, Trump did not deserve to be on stage with Hillary Clinton – he never did. I saw women and men who were disgusted that he got that chance. That’s okay. But she has done it, three times now, with so much dignity. And in doing so, she has shown all the more why she deserves to be president.

    *I was tempted to write “stremf”.

  18. ikanreed says

    Hey, if I can step in and let my shiny, almost mirror-like white skin interject in this conversation and suggest, as sincerely concerned member of your own side(but also, I’m over and above sides, properly in the middle), that maybe if you’re rude to bigots who would rather have war refugees die than risk there being more Muslims in your country it’s really going to offend us.

    Them! I mean them! It’s so rude!

  19. blf says

    It’s not difficult to understand that the “again” in Make America Great Again refers to the country prior to the 15th Amendment (which, of course, would also eliminate the 19th).

    Teh trum-prat noticeably hates the press (e.g., threatening to make it much easier for public figures to sue for libale) — so before the 1st Amendment (which also means there would be no 13th).

    There might still be he original, unamended Constitution, but since he’s been told to actually read it as he clearly has no idea what it says or means, the “Again” probably means earlier than that.

    Just when? Well, he probably doesn’t want to wind all the way back to pre-European-invasion, so that does put a lower bound — albeit he seems to think he’s a Genghis Khan and Ceaser and so on, so that c.1500CE lower bound is perhaps only because of the “America”.

    As such, I’d suggest the interval between the end-ish of the Revolution and the implementation of the Constitution, especially when there was some talk of crowning George Washington — Trump-branded kingship sounds about right, king “teh orange kook” trum-prat I. He’s already got several princes ready to take over and continue his despotic rule, and he could grab whatever he wanted and “it” is always someone else’s fault, unless “it” actually worked, then he alone has credit.

  20. ikanreed says

    #22

    No way, of course it’s not a joke. I’m obviously better than you because I’m not sure who’s right. If I knew for sure that saying things like “All Mexicans are rapists” or “Just grab them by the pussy” totally disqualified you for the presidency then I’d just be jumping to conclusions, like, *gasp*, voting for a woman all, the time. Better to make sure that, I, the high logical, ultra rational white male moderate, acknowledge that both sides are bad first.

  21. mumbles says

    …and here we are.

    This is not really about ‘Oh, white men are awful.” It’s about “look at yourself.”

    As I said, I’m the only man in a matriarchy. That’s technically it.

    Although. I am sure I’m right when it comes to Trump. Yes, calling all Mexicans rapists, or saying that he can molest women…those are disqulifying.

    And I’ll stand up.

    And standing on those principals doesn’t make make me something amazing. It’s just basic humanhood.

  22. says

    I’m glad I’m one of the white dudes who can see the plainly evident difference. If anything’s preventing me from seeing Hillary’s flaws, it’s Donald Trump distracting me with his efforts to discover new lows he can get away with on television and Twitter.

  23. ikanreed says

    #25

    Sorry, I thought going even more over-the-top would make it clear I was, in fact, joking.

    Trump is a joke, and “undecided voters” in this fucking election are smug assholes, who play to a false middle.

    I could forgive and understand people for being undecided in 2012 or 2008, but I can’t grasp anyone who’s undecided about the walking, talking embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the country.

  24. What a Maroon, living up to the 'nym says

    blf @ 23,

    So does that mean we return everything from Texas west to Mexico (or Canada, or Russia, or independence, as the case may be)?

  25. Holms says

    Even setting aside the obvious lunacy of Donald, even if it was just some bland career politician vs. bland career politician, the fact that the election campaign lasts TWO FUCKING YEARS should be enough to eliminate any indecision from any reasonable observer that is politically engaged. When one of the candidates is borderline KKK…? There is no goddamn excuse.

  26. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    One thing Drumph did, unintentionally, clarify his slogan. The slogan’s use of “great” refers “militarily”.
    He sees America falling behind many other military powers. Alluding to military strength (firepower) being the sole determinant of victory in conflict.
    He is not talking domestically “great”, only internationally aggressively forceful dominance “great”.
    ugh
    everything he accuses HRC and Dems of doing, he can be seen doing exactly those things. Like advocating violent protests. HE himself told his Convention crowd to put a fist into anyone who boos his speeches.

  27. doubtthat says

    @blf

    If only there was a way to combine Medieval notions of the divine right to rule with modern gold-plating and slot machine technology…

  28. unclefrogy says

    as you notice very little of what trumo says is never clearly defined it is always left just a little bit vague at least. that is one of the main tools of the conman and the huckster let the mark put in what he wants just keep feeding him until he buys it then cash in. As a bonus keep him coming back for more of his own projections thinking you will deliver what his greed and ego desires.
    the bus conversation is an example of what can happen when you put two such assholes together in private, the unfortunately for them was it was recorded and they spoke the truth.
    I think it is really astonishing that talk coming out of the trump campaign is that of forming some kind of media company consisting of trump, Roger Ailes and Breitbart News
    thoughts and words fail
    uncle frogy

  29. Siobhan says

    Sorry, I thought going even more over-the-top would make it clear I was, in fact, joking.

    The danger of a Poe is that no matter how bad you get, somebody probably thinks that way for real. :P

  30. randall says

    The down side of the thankfully more certain Clinton victory would be the obtuse legitimacy it would confer on the hacks in the Republic party ( perhaps that is redundant). I can hear the squalling now from Ryan, McConnell, Sessions, et al., “See? We weren’t as bad as you thought!”. The greater the landslide the worse it will be.

  31. pipefighter says

    @PZ, you forgot the part where the guy freaks out and says that all those groups complain all the time and dismisses there claim based upon that bullshit belief. I’ve had this argument a few times…

  32. mumbles says

    @36 Randall,

    They don’t get away with this, either. We’ve watched their antics over the past decade, we’ll also discuss them. But that’ll be another day.

    Also…

    @27 ikanreed

    You got me XD

  33. numerobis says

    “Not all white men” — even among white men he’s doing not so great. That brings me hope for a better tomorrow.

  34. Pierce R. Butler says

    gmacs @ # 8 & robro @ # 16: … all the major criticisms of Clinton seem to be that she’s a politician.

    So that bit about multiple opportunistic war crimes in Libya, and that other stuff about destabilizing Syria (plus backing Dubious in doing the same to Iraq), and the total allegiance to Wall Street (except when it’s to Netanyahu), and … – all that constitutes minor criticism in y’alls’ books?

  35. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    Well, if they weren’t a mix of lies and other bits blown out of proportion or blamed entirely on her when she only had a minor stake in them? I suppose they might be more than minor criticisms.

  36. Pierce R. Butler says

    Ariaflame… @ # 42: … she only had a minor stake in them…

    Try to find a report on the US-Libya debacle in which SecState Clinton’s role is NOT considered crucial.

    True, she was only one of nearly 100 Senators who gave Bush/Cheney a blank check for their bloody rampage in Iraq – but R. Feingold did show that opposition to that (and the horrendous “Patriot Act”) was not only possible but right.

    Likewise, the fact that the majority of US politicians grovel before Goldman Sachs, the Likudniks, et al justifies any one of them – how?

  37. says

    Of course Trump is worse than Clinton. But Creed is worse than the Eagles; this doesn’t actually make the Eagles good.

    Case in point, one group that the writer presumes to speak for, Muslims. For real? Clinton is no champion for the rights of Muslim people, not in the US and absolutely not in other nations. For instance, her “Plan” to prevent domestic attacks? “We need Muslims to be our eyes and ears on the front lines!” she said of Muslim communities in the US, during the last debate, and the one before! She wants “local leaders” to “work closely with law enforcement,” she wants an “intelligence network’ in Muslim communities, all to prevent terrorism.

    Okay.

    All this amounts to basically declaring that Muslims in America are conditional citizens. That they are a special danger to non-Muslims that must be singled out and given extra police scrutiny (this always works out GREAT for segregated minority communities.) Muslims in the US must be treated as either criminals, potential criminals, or “informants.” Terrorism is apparently endemic and epidemic in Muslim – and ONLY Muslim – communities. She expects Muslims in the US to spy on each other, frames it as their special responsibility to do so. And this is the only time Muslim Americans come up in any of her speeches or debates, to cast the mas potential threats that need special scrutiny and whose status depends on whether they comply with her surveillance plans on them.

    Of course, most terrorist acts in the US have been committed by white anglophone Christians. There’s no talk of monitoring southern baptists or Illinois Methodists, though. Wonder why that is?

  38. says

    Ariaflame… @ # 42 – are you really arguing that the Secretary of State only has a “minor role” in enacting foreign policy? Does Colin Powell get a similar pardon for his “vial of anthrax” crap at the UN?

  39. ck, the Irate Lump says

    If you set aside the idea that both the candidates are evil, you’re left with the calculating candidate and the buffoon candidate. The pragmatic candidate and the grandiose candidate. The stoic candidate and the easily provoked candidate. How fucking easy is that choice? You don’t even have to like Clinton to make it.

  40. drowner says

    Pragmatism Vs Idealism…

    When is the right time to be idealistic? It is good to be idealistic when writing a poem, I suppose.

    When is the right time to be pragmatic? Well, usually, like in the run-up to the Presidential election, like right now.

    If you want to be idealistic about American politics, fucking do it, but don’t wait until the 11th fucking hour when you have absolutely no power whatsoever to effect change. Otherwise your words fall reallllllllly fucking short. Start locally. If you’re tired of being labelled along with your other pasty cohorts (full disclosure: i am oh so fucking pasty white, and male) then you have to work *extra* hard to shrug off some stereotypes. If you need, ask your darker-skinned neighbors for advice on what that’s like.