Via Think Progress.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Via Think Progress.
Valentino says he lives for months at a time in the woods. But he also likes art galleries and classical music. (Joe Riedl).
The doomsday prepper business is booming in Oregon, as well as other places. Willamette Week has a look at some of the apocalyptic entrepreneurs, from Valentino to a professional cuddler Survival Bro, to wealthy conservatives getting even wealthier in the apocalypse business. There’s a great deal of unintentional hilarity in the article, as well as the blatant fearmongering of the wealthier side of this business, so I recommend reading the whole thing.
…This is, after all, his business. For $190, he will take you up on the mountain for an “immersive, advanced survival training” course. His target market: “preppers”—a term commonly used to describe people obsessed with surviving cataclysmic societal collapse.
It’s a booming market.
“This is in vogue,” Valentino says.
[…]
Schlepping his packs on a plastic sled, Valentino leads a photographer and me over the snowy trail away from the parking lot at Barlow Pass Sno Park.
Partway up the trail, he remembers: “Oh! Safety.” He proceeds to explain all that could go wrong.
Mount Hood could explode. There could be an earthquake—he felt several tremors last year. Cougars could pounce from trees and eat our kidneys. We could disappear in a snow-covered pit. We could be impaled by a tree. Assuming good cellular service, help is two hours away.
Later, he remembers another thing. “I forgot,” he says. “Today there is avalanche warning.”
[…]
In the event of a catastrophe, Valentino says, Mount Hood will be no refuge. He expects it will be overrun with poorly trained, overconfident, trigger-happy preppers—more dangerous than in the city, where at least one could still find food and shelter.
“Let’s talk about shit hit the fan,” Valentino says. “People will not survive in the woods. They can’t. Something will happen. The cold will take them down. Or their own brain will take them down. And what if people have children?”
When the big shocks come, you won’t catch this mountain man running for the hills. Instead, he says, he’ll be in the city, helping others.
[…]
From a home base in Clatsop County, Ore., Cameron McKirdy runs a YouTube channel and website, survivalbros.com.
The site bills itself as “more than an emergency preparedness blog”: It’s also a “strong community” and an “alternative news” source (think conspiracy king Alex Jones). With his infotainment brand, McKirdy markets himself to millennials as a high-protein, fluoride-free guide to scraping by in the dystopian chaos.
[…]
McKirdy, 33, grew up in Seaside and attended the University of Oregon. He started taking survivalism seriously after a 2011 tsunami warning.
Like many people his age, he’s juggling multiple gigs. He was an announcer at mixed martial arts fights, but now he’s an on-call professional cuddler with Portland business Cuddle Up to Me, offering platonic embraces for $1 a minute.
McKirdy also works retail at a nutrition store, which confers a discount on the protein powders that compose much of his diet. Sometimes he wins cash prizes in eating competitions, and he makes about $100 a month from ads on his Survival Bros YouTube channel, which has roughly 6,000 subscribers.
[…]
Since McKirdy’s method amounts to small-time grifting, I ask what the difference is between being a Survival Bro and a hobo. “I prioritize self-care and hygiene,” he replies.
[…]
From their $844,000 home in Portland’s West Hills, David and Beth Pruett travel the country selling homemade first-aid kits and teaching informal classes about emergency medicine.
Since living through the San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Pruetts have stockpiled supplies, made checklists and practiced for the next disaster. David is a U.S. Navy veteran and an emergency medicine doctor at Oregon Health & Science University.
In 2011, David designed a compact, individual first-aid kit, the iFak, which is short for “individual first-aid kit” and stocked with medicines, bandages, implements and adhesives. Soon the couple turned their hobby into a preparedness business and blog, amp-3.net, which Beth runs from home, selling iFaks, radio gear, books like The Survival Nurse and Modern Weapons Caching, and some self-produced instructional DVDs. In 2015, Beth says, Amp-3 topped $140,000 in sales.
They get a lot of online sales, but it’s more effective to go where the customers are: prepper conventions.
Donald Trump, by Jason Mecier.
Alternet has a breakdown on the well-established ties to organized crime which Trump has had for years on end. This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, but if it helps open some eyes, good.
As President Trump discovers the prerogative of unilaterally making war, the media gaze has turned away from the ongoing FBI, House and Senate investigation of his Russia ties to the simpler dramas of cruise missiles, big bombs and tough but loose talk on North Korea.
Yet even the “mother of all bombs” cannot obliterate the accumulating body of evidence about his relationship with Russian organized crime figures and the not unrelated question about whether he and his entourage colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 presidential election. The story, notes Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall, is “Hiding in plain sight.”
The evidence of pre-election collusion between Trump and the Russians, while growing, is far from definitive. The evidence on Trump’s organized crime ties is stronger. Says Marshall:
“If we’d never heard about Russian intelligence hacking of the 2016 election or Carter Page or Paul Manafort or Sergei Kislyak this [Trump’s organized crime connections] would seem like an extraordinarily big deal. And indeed it is an extraordinarily big deal.”
Chronologically speaking, Trump’s ties to organized crime figures came first. Mutually beneficial transactions dating back to the 1990s led to closer relations in the 2000s and culminated in the contacts during the 2016 campaign. It all began with Russians who wanted to get their money out of the country.
Trump l’oeil: the atrium of Trump Towers.
Sultanism. It’s a good descriptor for what’s passing for government these days here in in good ol’ uStates.
Alfred Stepan and the late Juan J. Linz of Columbia University argued that sultanism is both a regime type (like democracy and authoritarianism) and an adjective describing a style of personal rule that is possible under all regime types, including democracy. They wrote:
“The essence of sultanism is unrestrained personal rulership … unconstrained by ideology, rational-legal norms, or any balance of power.”
Sultanism, in other words, is most common under authoritarian and autocratic rule, but it can also be present in democracies, when leaders personalize decision-making instead of following established institutional or legal processes.[…]
Most modern American presidents have risen through the institutions of U.S. democracy – state political parties, Capitol Hill, the military. They have been vetted and embedded in institutional rules, attitudes and relationships. Someone like Trump, coming in “from the cold,” in contrast, brings his family and close associates and makes decisions outside of those formal and informal institutions.
Having masterminded his unexpected victory based on an unconventional campaign, Trump has already shown a tendency to trust his instincts on major decisions of governance, creating impulsive, unpredictable decisions. His past record as CEO and his outsider status make Trump self-reliant and assured that most of the world is misguided and only he and his few trusted advisers, including his family, have the answers.
[…]
The U.S. presidency has always been prone to sultantistic tendencies, but under a Trump presidency what were once isolated incidents have predictably become a way of governing. When the closest advisers, both institutional (like Ivanka and Kushner) and informal (in the case of his two adult sons), are dominated by family members, the decision-making process will not only be erratic and possibly influenced by private family interests but also tend to ignore legal procedures that have also met the test of time.
Instead of a “team of rivals” under the rule of law, the Trump presidency may be akin to medieval monarchy, with decisions made by court politics, not legal procedures.
Very interesting reading over at The Conversation.
USS Carl Vinson. (Jo Jung-ho/Yonhap via AP, File).
China and Russia aren’t too happy with the Tiny Tyrant’s tough toddler obsession with nuclear weapons, nor his increasing instability without a first thought, let alone a second. They have dispatched intelligence gathering ships to dog the U.S. Carrier. I’m grateful for their intervention, such as it is at this time. I have not been this scared of nuclear war since I was a child. As nuclear tensions de-escalated through much of my lifetime, I had hoped to make it through the rest of life without having to worry about being crispy crittered or dying a slow death in nuclear winter. Now we have a maniac in the white house who is nursing a 30 year obsession with nuclear weapons with an itchy trigger finger.
China and Russia have dispatched intelligence-gathering vessels from their navies to chase the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is heading toward waters near the Korean Peninsula, multiple sources of the Japanese government revealed to The Yomiuri Shimbun.
It appears that both countries aim to probe the movements of the United States, which is showing a stance of not excluding military action against North Korea. The Self-Defense Forces are strengthening warning and surveillance activities in the waters and airspace around the area, according to the sources.
The aircraft carrier strike group, composed of the Carl Vinson at its core with guided-missile destroyers and other vessels, is understood to be around the East China Sea and heading north toward waters near the Korean Peninsula.
China and Russia, which prioritize stability in the Korean Peninsula, showed concern over the tough U.S. stance, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying the issue should be resolved peacefully through political and diplomatic efforts.
The dispatch of the intelligence-gathering vessels appears to be partly aimed at sending a warning signal to the United States.
Twitter.
Here it is, Ēostre Sunday, and what’s an Unpresident to do? Why turn into Mr. Tweet of course, and take umbrage over the marches to reveal his taxes. The Tiny Tyrant returns, once again, to the electoral college, and in unintended irony, tweets about his “victory” on his personal account, continuing to eschew the Potus account.
I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2017
I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?
Yes, taxes are brought up again, you ninny. No one cares about the electoral college, an outdated institution originally formed to protect slaveholders. Perhaps if you actually understood its origins, you’d stop hanging on to it like a pacifier.
Via Raw Story.
Kevin Swanson is being rather beastly over Beauty and the Beast, and for a different reason than the standard Christian zealot reason of “gay character”. Swanson is concerned with the promotion of inter-species breeding. Yep. Obviously, Mr. Swanson’s knowledge of how that whole breeding business works is deficient, but let’s take a look at La Belle et la Bête by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in 1740. The original work was more in line with a novella than a brief tale, and it was for adults, not children.
Villeneuve’s work is more novella than simple tale with its elaborate prose and numerous details, including stories told within stories. Her narrative is far from complete upon the Beast’s transformation into a man. Then we meet his mother and learn his backstory as well as Beauty’s own hidden history, for she is not the true daughter of a merchant, but a princess in disguise herself. All of this combines into an elaborate literary creation, not a traditionally truncated folktale. Villeneuve imagined new material, uniquely her own, while incorporating traditional folklore elements, many of which exist in the version we are most familiar with today. She writes about romantic love and marriage while exploring themes like women’s marital rights, although those themes are somewhat hidden in most English translations of the tale.
Two different English translations of Villeneuve’s tale are presented in this collection. The first one, by Ernest Dowson, was first published in 1908. It is one of the most accurate translations of Villeneuve’s content into English, including elements often changed or omitted in other translations. However, Dowson’s language is less ornate than Villeneuve’s and doesn’t capture the same essence as another favored translation, one by J. R. Planché, first published in 1858.
Planché’s translation includes footnotes by the present editor to show where he modified the text, changes he briefly touches upon in his comments to his Victorian audience. The changes, although small, are far from minor for they change an essential element of the tale. Instead of asking Beauty to marry him each night—a familiar refrain in modern versions of the story—the Beast asks Beauty, “May I sleep with you tonight?”
The question, while risqué, is not merely suggestive or erotic. It implies control and choice for Beauty over her own body and sexuality, something that was not legally hers or that of any woman who was handed over as property in marriage to a husband in centuries past. The Beast is no true beast since he never forces his physical desires upon her despite any rights implied by her presence in his home in what today may be considered a common law marriage, although the construct didn’t exist in Villeneuve’s time.
Another important change is in the Beast’s transformation scene. Beauty finally agrees to sleep with the Beast and marry him in the original Villeneuve. The Beast then sleeps beside her during the night, although no other activities beyond Beauty’s mysterious dreams are described. When she awakens the next morning, a man—one whom she has come to love in her dreams—is sleeping beside her instead of the Beast.
That, and more is from SurLaLune Fairytales. All of the above elevates the tale considerably from the versions which are familiar today, and it’s easy enough to figure out why Disney certainly wouldn’t touch upon such complexities. The Disney version is a simplified tale of love, with the requisite lesson about how appearances are not what matters, don’t judge a book by its cover, and so on. For Mr. Swanson, that’s quite bad enough, as somehow or another, along with the horrible effort to ‘homosexualize’ whole generations, claims the movie promotes ‘Inter-Species Breeding’, oh, the horror!
Swanson said that the movie was an “insidious” effort to “homosexualize the next generation of eight and ten-year-old kids” and ensure that they are “indoctrinated into the homosexual lifestyle.”
“This is how revolutions take place,” he said. “You are in the middle of a cultural revolution in the United States of America. No, this is not the cultural revolution that Mao Tse-tung brought to China; this is a different kind of cultural revolution, but I’m going to say it’s just about as dangerous … though a bit more insidious.”
Oooh, look at that nicely done twist into communism. You can’t have the gay without the commie in the christian version of the gay agenda. From what I understand, a minor character in the movie has a crush on his mean boss. This is hardly a gay version of Beauty and the Beast. (As the commonly known tale has little to do with the original these days, that would be a fun movie!) It’s not as though the current flick has become mandatory, and all people must have their eyelids taped open and have no choice but to watch it.
Even worse, Swanson said, the film is promoting inter-species breeding, which he said Hollywood has been pushing since the days of Star Trek.
“Christians, I don’t believe, can allow for this,” Swanson stated. “Humans are made in the image of God. Humans are assigned a spouse which happens to be a member of the opposite sex. Friends, God’s law forbids it … Christians should not allow for this, man. We cannot allow for humans to interbreed with other species. It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s confusion, it’s unnatural.”
“We are in some of the most radical, most anti-biblical, the most immoral, the most unethical, the most wicked sexual environment that the world has ever known, right now,” he warned.
Star Trek? Oh my. Does the not very thoughtful Mr. Swanson not know that we don’t have a federation, starships, or zillions of extraterrestials around to get sexy with? Yes, I had one hell of a crush on Mr. Spock when I was 9 years old, it was those ears. Unfortunately for me, there weren’t any neato trips to Vulcan happening. Given the limitations of television back then, and the lack of imagination now, most all the aliens pictured were suitably humanoid, barely distinguishable from the bog standard human. Even so, there’s no inter-species breeding going on in the Star Trek sense.
Humans are assigned a spouse? So all that dating stuff is not necessary? You had better let people know where the ticket center is, so they can grab their god ticket and see who has been all lined up for them. I think the only confusion going on here is in the mind of Mr. Swanson, a steamy mess of muddle. After all, there really isn’t a beast in Beauty and the Beast, he’s a prince in disguise, remember? A human type prince. Everyone gets all human prior to the happily married business.
Via RWW.
And we have a bonus facepalm today, in the form of Rick Wiles, who is now officially unhappy with the Tiny Tyrant over the Syria bombing. Mr. Wiles has now decided that the evil is in the form of Ms. Kushner and her husband:
Wiles went on to compare Ivanka with the daughter of Herod who, in Matthew 14, convinced her father to behead John the Baptist.
“That’s who I think Ivanka Trump is,” Wiles said. “She’s a Kabbala practicing, evil woman whispering evil things in the ear of her father. She’s going to the grave site of an old dead Kabbala practitioner and getting spirits telling her what to do … We have to pray against witchcraft in high places, witchcraft that plans to kill millions of people. … [Ivanka and Jared] are cleaning out the White House to surround President Trump with their Kabbala practitioners, and the only advice he is going to get will be from people who are evil. And the church is letting this happen.”
Oh my, now it’s a Jewish witch in the white house! I think it’s wars and bombs which are killing people, and it’s the Tiny Tyrant’s notion that it’s his military and his toys that are the actual problem.
Via RWW.
Wonkette.
According the latest, it’s Ms. Kushner who wants Bannon ousted, as she’s veddy, veddy concerned about … the Trump brand. Aww, you didn’t think it would be beautiful babies, did you? According to the de facto First Lady, Bannon is just one of daddy’s collectibles.
As pressure has borne down on the Trump administration to produce some victories to mark its first 100 days in office, Bannon has reportedly been finding himself increasingly isolated and overruled in the Oval Office. According to the Times, the president’s daughter has been making a case for Bannon’s removal to her father “in the strongest terms.”
“Ms. Trump has never been close to Mr. Bannon, although she appreciated the ferocity of his work. She puts him in the category of colorful, rough-hewed characters her father collects, with the likes of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump operative,” the Times said.
“In recent weeks, she has spoken bluntly about Mr. Bannon’s shortcomings to the president. She was especially incensed by articles she believed were planted by Mr. Bannon’s allies suggesting he, not her father, honed the populist economic message that helped sweep the Midwest. She made that point in the strongest terms to her father, who agreed, according to a family friend,” the report continued.
Ivanka Trump reportedly sees one of her roles in the White House is to serve as a protector of the family brand. Throughout the campaign and since her father’s inauguration, she has reportedly worried that the ultraconservative Bannon — with his failed Muslim ban and repeated attacks on her husband by Breitbart.com — will damage the Trump brand.
I rather imagine Bannon and his supporters aren’t going to be overly pleased at the depiction of Bannon as a plaything. Tsk. Via Raw Story.
The Mexican president rode in the state carriage in 2015 but President Obama chose to spare his hosts the security nightmare. Mr Trump faces a more severe threat in October. TOBY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images.
The Tiny Toddler Tyrant is having a tantrum over riding in the Queen’s gold carriage when he visits London. Needless to say, it’s a security nightmare in the best of times, and these are not the best of times. President Obama waived this bit of pomp in order to spare everyone said security nightmare, but Tiny Toddler Trump? Oh no, he wants his carriage ride. A gold carriage? Why, that just has “Trump” written all over it, right?
Donald Trump waving from the Queen’s royal carriage is not a scenario many would have foreseen a year ago, but it has become a very real prospect, forcing security services to plan an unprecedented lockdown.
The White House has made clear it regards the carriage procession down the Mall as an essential element of the itinerary for the visit currently planned for the second week of October, according to officials.
Security sources have warned, however, that the procession will require a “monster” security operation, far greater than for any recent state visit.
Essential? No, it’s not essential. President Obama showed that it was no such thing, and had a wonderful visit. This is a capsule portrait of the monstrous toddler currently loose in the white house. He wants what he wants when he wants it, there’s zero possibility of acting like a godsdamn adult. Yet another 70something white man who thinks the world is his little plaything on a gold platter. Naturally, there isn’t one single thing on this planet which is more important, and essential than Tiny Trump getting his gold carriage ride.
British security services are balking, saying the president’s wish is presenting them with “monster” problems is helping to keep the U.S. president safe.
London Metropolitan Police have already been making plans for Trump’s visit, expecting tens of thousands of protesters to descend on the procession route. Their preference is for Trump to make use of a bullet and bomb-proof car that was previously used by former President Barack Obama.
“The vehicle which carries the president of the United States is a spectacular vehicle. It is designed to withstand a massive attack like a low-level rocket grenade,” a police source explained. “If he’s in that vehicle he is incredibly well protected and on top of that it can travel at enormous speed. If he is in a golden coach being dragged up the Mall by a couple of horses, the risk factor is dramatically increased.”
Perhaps they should consider spraying the merely spectacular vehicle with gold paint, and having horses trot along in front.
Via The Times of London and Raw Story.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (YouTube).
By golly, a representative of the Party of Very Old White Men has declared that the internet is optional! You don’t need that silly web thingy, no sir! The distance between these willfully ignorant, very old white men and reality continues to widen. They seem to think that you really don’t need net access at all, outside of email or finding delicious porn, so if you don’t like the stripping of privacy rights, well, you can go without.
In a town hall appearance held on Thursday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. defended his decision to vote to repeal the Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules passed by the FCC last October by arguing that “nobody’s got to use the internet.”
When a constituent attending the event in Wisconsin’s fifth district raised the issue that she has only one ISP available in her neighborhood and now has little recourse to protect her personal information from her internet provider, Sensenbrenner responded:
“You know, nobody’s got to use the internet….I don’t think it’s my job to tell you that you cannot get advertising through your information being sold. My job, I think, is to tell you that you have the opportunity to do it and then you take it upon yourself to make the choice.”
The congressman’s press office doubled down on this, responding to a tweet claiming Sensenbrenner said “not to use the internet” by stating, “Actually, he said that nobody has to use the internet. They have a choice.”
Sensenbrenner’s view contrasts with that of the United Nations, which has labeled internet access a basic human right, and with most trends that see more and more reliance on internet access to partake in other basic tasks, from completing school work to searching for employment.
As people in the tweet streams pointed out, people don’t have to use indoor plumbing, cars, electricity, or many other nifty modern things, but that would make life very difficult, and messy. Change happens, and if you’re a dinosaur who wants to sit in their swamp and sulk, have at it, but you should not be in position to legislate what other people can or cannot do, or what they can or cannot have. It’s damn near impossible to do anything without net access anymore, and someone who was in touch with reality would be aware of that one.
And no, I’m not going to apologize for being ageist. I am sick to death of old white men who think they rule the world, and how they see things is how it is. I’m hardly young myself, and I know not all older people are unrepentant dumbfucks, many of them are grand, ferociously intelligent people. Unfortunately, we seem to be short on them in what passes for U.S. government. I do want younger people in government. I want people who are not set in concrete and stuck in the 1950s. I also want lots of women and people of colour in government. It’s a dream.
Via Raw Story.
Credit: Screenshot, Fox News.
In a disgusting, repellent display, even for those purveyors of disgusting, Fox News thought it would be appropriate to show the Moab bombing of Afghanistan, overlaid with treacly jingoism in the form of country music. As much as I love words, I don’t have enough for this perversion, my gorge is rising. I’ll include one of the videos here, if you can cope with it. I suggest not playing, I did, and it made me want to vomit.
That didn’t stop Fox News, however. President Trump’s favorite television program — Fox and Friends — celebrated the bombing, with a soundtrack to boot.
“The video is black and white. But that is what freedom looks like, that’s the red white and blue,” host Ainsley Earhardt said after the program showed the video of the bomb dropping in Afghanistan.
“One of my favorite things in 16 years at Fox News is watching bombs drop on bad guys,” Geraldo Rivera says.
Oh. In that case, I look forward to someone dropping a bomb on Fox News.
The video was shown overlaid with country star Toby Keith singing the chorus of “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” which celebrates the military with jingoistic fervor:
“Hey Uncle Sam, put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty started shakin’ her fist
And the eagle will fly man, it’s gonna be hell
When you hear mother freedom start ringin’ her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you courtesy of the red white and blue.”Later in the program, Fox and Friends showed the video again, again overlaying it with uber-patriotic country music.
“We’ll play a little music, demonstrate the moment of impact there in Afghanistan on the MOAB in Nangarhar province,” host Pete Hegseth says, as the video plays under Kid Rock singing “born free.”
[…]
Fox News, which was the most-watched cable network of 2016 and is a primary source of news for millions of Americans (including, it seems, the President), isn’t overly concerned about those deaths, however.
“I think it is very, very important we kill bad guys but there is no denying that the issue of friendly fire is really egregious,” Rivera said, only to be immediately rebutted by host Pete Hegseth.
“Why go there first, Geraldo?” said Hegseth. “Civilian casualties happen. We’re going against an enemy that cuts off our heads.”
Oh right, seems yours hasn’t been cut off, has it, you fucking moron? Have there been waves of the Mother Of All Swords landing here in the good ol’ U.S. of Amerikka, resulting in thousands of heads rolling? I haven’t noticed anything like that at all. Not that I’d be entirely against certain heads rolling, and I’m looking at Fox News. I’d most likely favour a guillotine though. More efficient. Goddamn disgusting asshole apes, chattering away, ever so excited over dead people. Celebrating. Yeah, why ever go there, ’cause you know, people die, who gives a shit, lookit that bomb go! Of course, when other people fight back against that sort of thing, they are the bad ones. And, they are the bad ones when they become radicalized because bombs keep being dropped on them, killing people. Those people that don’t matter, because hot damn, lookit at that thing go! Fucking barbaric animals.
:Spits:
Samuel L. Jackson.
Actor Samuel L. Jackson — star of the films Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained — recorded a “Get Out the Vote” ad for Democratic congressional candidate Joel Ossoff, who is running in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District for the seat vacated by newly appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
CNN reported that in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)-funded ad, Jackson called on voters to “stop Donald Trump, the man who encourages racial and religious discrimination, and sexism.”
“Remember what happened the last time people stayed home,” Jackson said. “We got stuck with Trump. We have to channel the great vengeance and furious anger we have for this administration into votes at the ballot box.”
The radio ad:
Via Raw Story. And, lest this day be an uneventful one or anything, China is warning about the likelihood of incipient nuclear war.
CREDIT: Diana Ofosu/ThinkProgress.
Oh, the poor Trumpholes, they are disappointed, why, why, there’s a bog standard republican in the white house! I never bought the whole “we voted for him because he’s anti-establishment!” You can’t really get more establishment than Trump. At the same time, that sentiment baffled the hell out of me, because I know what anti-establishment actually is – I’m a child of the counter-culture, a bonafide hippie, and no matter how you stretch and distort the definition, Trump does not fit. Turns out that distorting and stretching the definition wasn’t the problem. A brand new definition is in place for anti-establishment in the eyes of Trumpholes, it now means nationalism. As in “Rah, rah, white ‘merican nationalism, yeah!” Bit of an eye opener for me. Anyroad, they are most upset with their God Awful Emperor, who doesn’t seem to be doing all those God Awful Emperor things, and he’s gone … *gasp* soft, oh no! He is, at the moment, doing what he always does, truly stupid shit beyond the pale, like asking his faithful what bits of the government should be shut down, but I guess that’s not enough anymore. What most of the Trumpholes want, it seems, is President Bannon.
Donald Trump’s true believers are losing the faith.
As Trump struggles to keep his campaign promises and flirts with political moderation, his most steadfast supporters — from veteran advisers to anti-immigration activists to the volunteers who dropped their jobs to help elect him — are increasingly dismayed by the direction of his presidency.
Their complaints range from Trump’s embrace of an interventionist foreign policy to his less hawkish tone on China to, most recently, his marginalization of his nationalist chief strategist, Steve Bannon. But the crux of their disillusionment, interviews with nearly two dozen Trump loyalists reveal, is a belief that Trump the candidate bears little resemblance to Trump the president. He’s failing, in their view, to deliver on his promise of a transformative “America First” agenda driven by hard-edged populism.
“Donald Trump dropped an emotional anchor. He captured how Americans feel,” said Tania Vojvodic, a fervent Trump supporter who founded one of his first campaign volunteer networks. “We expect him to keep his word, and right now he’s not keeping his word.”
Earlier this week, Vojvodic launched a Facebook group called, “The concerned support base of President Trump,” which quickly drew several dozen sign-ups. She also changed the banner on her Facebook page to a picture of Bannon accompanied by the declaration: “Mr. President: I stand with Steve Bannon.”
[…]
Trump voters “felt like they were voting for an anti-establishment candidate — and they’re terrified, they’re losing faith,” Cardillo said. “They’re saying, ‘Why does he have these people around him?’”
The gripes go beyond Bannon’s apparent downgrade. Many of Trump’s most stalwart supporters, including radio show hosts Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham, called last week’s bombing of Syria a betrayal of Trump’s pledge to be an “America First” commander in chief who would avoid unnecessary conflicts overseas.
[…]
Other Trump boosters worry that he’s ditching his economic agenda. They wonder why he backed off his vow to label China a currency manipulator, and are chagrined by his reversal on his position to eliminate the Export-Import Bank.
Oh, that’s easy enough. The dipshit was flattered, and had a 10 minute history lesson on China and Korea, so now he knows everything, by golly! And as for the bank, he changed his mind because someone actually explained what it was to him, because he did not fucking know, what with being a fuckwitted ignoramus.
Michelle Dallacroce, an anti-immigration activist, is more pointed. Immigration is “why we voted for Donald Trump,” she said. “This could be the most elaborate reality show. I’m wondering, was this all an illusion for us, using our movement so he could get in there?”
Oh, they want their poison, and they want it now! Politico has the full story on the disappointment.
