Although he insists that he hasn’t.
Trump is not Hitler; I am not Neville Chamberlain; i’m a passionate Never-Trumper who wants to solve a problem that is empowering white nationalism everywhere
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 22, 2018
Only his solution to that problem of white nationalism is to surrender and give them what they want.
So give him his fucking wall. He won the election. He is owed this. It may never be completed; it may not work, as hoped. But it is now the only way to reassure a critical mass of Americans that mass immigration is under control, and the only way to make any progress under this president. And until the white working and middle classes are reassured, we will get nowhere. Don’t give it to him for nothing, of course. It should come with a full path to citizenship for all DACA immigrants, as in the proposed deal in January that Trump first liked and then reneged on, under Miller’s toxic influence. But it should also go bigger: a legislative fix for Flores; massive new funding for detention facilities, humane family-friendly housing, and, above all, much more money for the immigration legal system, now completely overwhelmed by asylum cases. If Democrats can show they want to deal with the humanitarian problem as a whole, and are willing to compromise on the wall, they’ll be in a much stronger position going forward than in the recent past.
He is not “owed” anything. Trump has a big job to do, running the country, which he is not doing — if anything he owes us, especially since he and his family and his cronies see their position of power as an opportunity to enrich themselves. He is supposed to be engaged in public service, and that is most definitely not what he is doing.
Isn’t Sullivan remarkably cavalier about throwing tens of billions of dollars on a wall that won’t work, throwing it away as a sop to the masses? Why not instead spend billions of dollars on improving educational opportunities for immigrants, helping them to integrate better into the culture here, for instance? Because that won’t appease that “critical mass of Americans” who’ve been encouraged by the propaganda machines of Trump and Fox News to settle for nothing less than punching down hard on the brown people.
And to think that once you give the bigots the great big wall they’re shrieking for, they’ll calm down and decide they’ve gone far enough is ludicrous — it betrays a total failure to understand how humans work. Give them a victory, and their cultlike devotion to Maximum Leader will increase, and they’ll demand more. Can you imagine Trump saying a nice “thank you” for his beautiful wall, then sitting back, reading the Constitution, and deciding to buckle down to the paperwork and minutiae of his job? No. He’ll start looking for another cause he can use to inflame his base, and win cheers for him and rage against the Democrats at future rallies. Sullivan is a man utterly clueless about human nature, who then engages in stupid punditry about human nature. He is blinded by his biases.
And then there’s this cack-handed nonsense.
Preventing illegal immigration is not racist, not white supremacist, not bigotry; it’s integral to any democracy functioning; it’s a core function of government.
Slowing massive demographic change is not fascist; it's conservative.
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 22, 2018
What that says to me is that Sullivan sees conservativism as nothing more than a nicer word for fascism. Fine with me; I agree. Massive demographic change is happening, it always has, and the question is…will you resist until you break and die, or do you adapt and become something new? Deny reality, or grow and change? This has been the story of human history for thousands of years, and conservatives have always opposed, often violently, the inevitable change that is always going to overwhelm them. It’s that transition from old guard defending the status quo to the status quo fighting to oppress change that marks the shift from conservative to fascist, nothing more.
But here’s the bit where I started to see red.
If all this sounds like appeasing a bigot, I understand. But better to see it, I think, as a way to address the legitimate concerns, fears, and worries of a large number of Americans who feel like strangers in their own land, and whose emotional response to that has been to empower the white nationalist right.
It was one little word.
“legitimate.”
“legitimate concerns, fears, and worries.”
What fucking LEGITIMATE concerns are you talking about? The anti-immigrant hysteria fomented by the Right? The lies about how “They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists”? Shall we discuss lies about how Germany is experiencing a crime wave committed by immigrants, when the German crime rate is the lowest it’s been in decades? Shall we have another White House photo op in which victims of crime by immigrants can misrepresent the threat? (I’d like to see the photo op in which Trump greets the families of people murdered by the police — it would be larger, but too many of those families would be black and would make the Republicans uncomfortable).
I feel like a stranger in my own land. I was brought up in a country that educated me to think that there were these important American ideals, like liberty and equality, that we were a nation of immigrants, this great melting pot where we welcomed the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, that Americans fought and died to bring freedom to others. These were all lies. This country was built on the backs of slaves over the corpses of the native peoples, and we fought wars to open markets so that we could exploit others.
Revealing that reality is what drives those Americans to be concerned, afraid, and worried — they want to pull the blanket back over their heads, and if that requires more death and persecution and children thrown into cages, so be it. Those are not the Americans I want to make happy, though. Those are the comfortable burghers who need to be dragged into the public square and confronted with the fruits of their labors.
And what about the people who are fleeing to America? They aren’t criminals. They tend to be families who are trying to escape desperate, intolerable conditions in their home countries — conditions that are often a consequence of meddling and disruption by a certain Northern nation that prefers weak client states that serve its economic need. Read about the actual makeup of these migrants from people who study them. These migrants are the victims of gang violence, and are people with a fucking legitimate need to move to new opportunities, even to a country where official policy hates them and where they will be beaten and imprisoned and separated from their children.
For Central American residents, control of these gangs over their neighborhood likely means a weekly or monthly extortion payment simply for the right to operate a business or live in their territory. The price for failing to provide this money is death. All it takes is a neighbor or nearby shopkeeper to be gunned down for failing to pay the adequate fees, and it becomes clear that the only options are pay or flee. Parents may also send their children to the United States or take them north as the gangs try to recruit them into their activities: Boys of eleven years old (or younger) may be recruited as lookouts and teenage girls may be eyed for becoming the members’ “girlfriends.” Older women who date or at one point dated a gang member can become trapped and unable to escape the violence, with partner-violence a driving migratory factor for many women.
While the gang activities and gender-based violence can empty out neighborhoods, they are not the only factors driving outward migration from these cities. Across the region’s larger cities, LGBT migrants are fleeing discrimination and violence. At a recent trip to a migrant shelter in southern Mexico, I listened as the shelter’s director recounted the story of a father and teenage son who had fled Guatemala City only a few weeks prior: the father was afraid that his son would be killed for coming out as gay. It is not an idle threat. Since 2009, 264 LGBT people in Honduras have been murdered. The La 72 shelter in Tenosique, Tabasco even has a building in the shelter dedicated to providing specialized housing for LGBT migrants.
Our policy seems to be to stem the trickle of migration by making the US even more cruel and inhospitable than a Central American neighborhood dominated by MS-13 or Barrio-18, or by building walls so the “wretched refuse” die in the deserts outside our nonexistent Golden Door.
The very concept of “illegal immigration” is racist, white supremacist, and bigoted. Borders are artificial constructs used to maintain power imbalances, and what is undemocratic is refusing to acknowledge the needs and rights of whole groups of people on the basis of what side of an imaginary line they were born on. We use a racist notion of “legitimacy” to argue who lives, who dies, who suffers, who profits.
We should embrace and welcome people who see our country as a beacon, as representative of idealistic values we’re not particularly good at acting on, because maybe they’ll help change us to better be what we claim we are. Between the people in power who actually are fascists, and the media mouthpieces who make excuses for and enable the fascists, we need more people who are willing to stand up for equality and fairness and against oppression and brutality.
It’s estimated that there are at least 500,000 undocumented immigrants from Europe in the US. If all this concern about securing the borders isn’t racist, where are *those* “illegals” being rounded up?
Sullivan: “Completely resisting a legitimate agenda based on a clear campaign promise — well, it reminds me of the Republicans with Obamacare.”
I suppose the last part is true, but it is irrelevant. The first part, about this being a “legitimate agenda” is nuts. Mistreating asylum-seeking people is a violation of international treaty, which makes it a violation of US law. The President has directed Federal agencies to violate US law. I believe that is an impeachable offense. If you want to give the President what he “is owed” then give him impeachment.
Why the fuck would a president be “owed” something? Your office is about serving us. The only thing you’re owed is the compensation, benefits, and necessities like security that come with the position.
“He is owed this”…. What an anti-democratic thing to say.
I was yelling at some shit-squirming worm in the chat of a game when it said that 80% of families that show up on the border were criminals who’d taken children in order to coast in. I don’t know if he’d made that up himself or if it’s a new tagline from his masters.
Aren’t these the same people complaining about “feels before reals” and yelling “fuck your feelings” at Trump rallies? Why should we throw multiple billions of dollars at an ineffective wall just to soothe their precious feelings of discomfort about the fact that they will soon by minorities.
rpjohnston,
The weird thing (ok, one of the weird things) about it is, why would a criminal be so eager to get into the US, to the point of risking assault, rape, hunger, thirst, accident, and eventual arrest if they manage to make it across the border, when they could live a relatively comfortable life of crime at home?
Meanwhile, I heard on NPR that Sessions has made arresting migrants such a high priority that border agencies are diverting money and resources from stopping drug smuggling. Not that I support the so-called war on drugs, but of course they haven’t thought through the consequences. (Or perhaps they have–more illegal drugs on the street could mean more support for “law and order” candidates.)
All true and laudable, obviously. But there is another vital dimension to this. The racism and scapegoating of immigrants is not an agenda in itself – it’s a show to distract the people from the economic inequality that the Republican (and Democrat) policies are there to perpetuate and worsen. Both parties, but the Republicans in particular, exist to further the interests of their corporate owners. They can’t win enough votes to rule by actually standing on their core policies, so they need something to galvanise support. Racism, xenophobia and fear are the age-old go-to for such people.
There genuinely are economic frustrations and concerns that blight the majority of the US population. The rapacity of their corporate overlords has bled them dry just as it has wrecked Central America in the pursuit of resources. But the way to put those people at ease is not to appease their racism – it’s to set up a political movement that actually stands for their interests and their welfare. Until the stranglehold of the wealthy is pried from the levers of power there is not going to be much by way of meaningful progress towards the sort of society that welcomes immigrants with open arms and stops disrupting weaker countries to force their people to leave.
Yeah, I agree that “throwing tens of billions of dollars on a wall that won’t work” is a stupid policy. However, we live in super-stupid times with an administration that routinely tosses billions down rat-holes for no better reason than to enrich its enablers and the grifter-in-chief. I would go so far as to argue in favor of approving an appropriation for the stupid wall if only it were in exchange for a semi-decent immigration law (with citizenship provisions for DACA enrollees). Cut a deal. Then, after taking Congress away from the Republicans in November, revoke the wall funding.
Andy. Andy Andy Andy.
Why do I doubt you were braying this over the eight years of the previous administration? One, I should add, that was led by someone who actually won the popular vote. And speaking of the popular vote, I should add how suspect so many elections in the US are thanks to massive vote suppression and gerrymandering. Republicans are running roughshod over democracy so not a one is owed a thing by “winning” an election.
(Fun fact: since 1992 only one Republican has won a single presidential term while also winning the popular vote, and that was after not winning it for his first term.)
I guess if I was a “Democratic” senator or congress critter the response would be something like:
“You want to build a wall? Fine. You will get the money for this from Mexico of course, so obviously there’s no need for funding from us. Have a nice day…”.
It doesn’t take a lot of digging to learn that American policy in Mexico and Central America is driving families to the desperate attempt to flee their homes. This isn’t new. The Southern supporters of the Texas Revolution, the Mexican-American War, and the various filibusterers saw the region as the new slave states they needed to keep the balance in the Senate…”balance” meaning blocking any attempt to outlaw slavery. While the US finally caught up with Mexico in banning slavery, the region continued to be exploited by US agricultural interests, such as United Fruit Company, keeping people in virtual slavery using US military and intelligence agencies to impose dictators and suppress unions and other attempts to improve the lives of working people.
If we are legitimately concerned about gangs of killers, the US should stop funding regimes that rely on death squads to terrorize their people and maintain their control.
And who does Andy think all that money is going to?
I do not know when my country went from “Tear down this wall!!” to “Build the wall!”, but it started long before Trump.
Flashes of news footage dance in my head… reassuring me I really did live through that.
You’re forgetting “chain migration”. It’s closer to 200 million.
This administration has burst through the crash barriers of the slippery slope. We can discuss when exactly this happened (inauguration day would be my estimate) but that it has now happened is incontrovertible. Trump is tearing up not only the written Constitution but all unwritten rules of behavior and language that in any way might constrain him. I would not be offensive to a mere supporter (unless provoked) but any employee or active agent of the administration is absolutely fair game for ridicule and shame, especially in public.
And so are the slippery-slopers in the mushy middle.
#9:Tabby Lavalamp
You’d be wrong in this case. Andrew Sullivan was a big fan of President Obama, and considered him more of a true conservative than many of his Republican rivals, much to the chagrin of his fellow right-wing pundits.
That led a lot of liberals to believe, wrongly, that Sullivan had shed his conservative roots, but has always been an avowed Margaret Thatcher acolyte, and remains so to this day.
Oh, and while he is anti-Brexit, he’s given the same rationalization for that as he has for Trump — that it’s our fault for not catering to the pride and anxieties of the white working class.
Your’re being far too charitable to Sullivan. He isn’t clueless, he’s disingenuous.
If the wall gets funded it becomes a duty to ensure it fails by many means.
To quote a fake Churchill “you can’t negotiate with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”
If we don’t stop this immigration we’ll be overrun by Micks and Krauts! Maybe even Wops! We have to….
Oh, it isn’t the 1840’s anymore? My mistake. Sorry.
PZ . . . You are a light upon the darkling plain.
jack16
I think the simplest way to reconcile Sullivan’s drifting political leanings over the years is to realize that Andrew Sullivan doesn’t give a shit about anything that doesn’t affect Andrew Sullivan personally.
You would think that Sullivan, being an immigrant to the U.S. himself, would have some compassion here. Although anti-immigration “populists” usually don’t rail against white men from the U.K., many of them did advocate (and probably still do, for all I know) excluding immigrants and even just temporary visitors who were HIV+ as Sullivan was. I guess back then, giving them what they wanted wasn’t a good idea.
On a related note, here’s something I learned about over the weekend: while his immigration application was pending, Sullivan got busted for marijuana possession on federal land. Apparently being a high-profile political writer has its advantages, because he got the U.S. Attorney’s office — which at that time was still routinely prosecuting such cases — to ask the court to dismiss the charges, on the grounds that a conviction might interfere with Sullivan’s pending immigration application. The magistrate judge was so irritated by the special treatment on display (the same day as Sullivan’s scheduled appearance, there were three other weed possession defendants against whom the U.S. Attorney did proceed) that he took the unusual step of writing a published opinion lamenting the fact that the law did not appear to give him much choice other than to grant the prosecution’s request.
But it sure seems easy for Sullivan to say that the door should get slammed shut now that he’s on the inside.
So the Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t really racist, it was just conservative? Well, I guess if anyone was looking for more evidence that whatever daylight there may once have been between “conservative” and “racist” has pretty much disappeared, Sullivan seems to have provided it.
Did he remember the times when people voted for Obama with a margin greater than Trump and all the conservatives fell over themselves letting him have Obamacare ? Or did he forget how we have Merrick Garland as our ninth supreme court justice and so on…
jamesredekop@1 I often wonder how many Canadians work illegally in the US. I’m sure there must be a significant number.
A good example of how demographic change will still occur no matter what level of immigrants you allow in is Saskatchewan. Indigenous people currently have the highest birthrate here, with estimates make up 35 percent of the population by 2045.
I wonder what level of immigration Sullivan thinks is acceptable. Whatever it is it’s likely to be too much to lessen the “concerns, fears, and worries” of so much of the anti-immigration crowd. And why should those “who feel like strangers in their own land” because of immigration get priority over Americans who feel that way because of the amount of racism they see? Some months ago there was some press about a Native American person who was told to go back where he came from.
This woman is rather dark complected… and she was only jogging.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jogger-crosses-us-canada-border-is-held-for-2-weeks/ar-AAz1MTy
I believe the grand appeasement that Sullivan envisions is quite possible if Trump actually wants it. The Dems will give the wall if Trump gives DACA. However, Trump sees this as a loss with a white preference (or merit based to use the dog whistle terms) shift in immigrations policy.
Great article PZ!
Irony never sleeps. James Hohmann, the byline on The Washington Post email I receive, The Daily 202, titles this morning’s Big Idea with “Liberal hostility toward Trump aides could galvanize the GOP base.” Poor snowflakes.
This is because Florida AG Pam Bondi was “accosted” (i.e. yelled at) at a documentary about Fred Rogers titled, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” She had to be escorted from the event by Tampa police. Bondi was in the news during the election because she appears to have swept under the rug some 22 fraud complaints agains Trump U.
Also, a restaurant owner told Sarah Hucksterbee to leave the restaurant for being Trump’s spokes-liar. Perhaps Sarah should have asked for a wedding cake.
As far as I know, neither Bondi nor Hucksterbee had their children taken from them nor have they been deported or charged…or really anything. Just some rich people getting told to their face that they aren’t acting like neighbors.
All of this galvanizing the GOP base is the fault of those of us who do care about people and think there’s something wrong with using children to extort political concessions that make very rich people richer.
I don’t remember any complaints of galvanizing the Democratic base because of people being roughly thrown out Trump campaign events.
Being pissed about the treatment of his aides isn’t going to bring out the Trump voters in November, that’s one thing I do know.
dragonessfredriksson@12–
Reagan was telling someone else to tear down a wall. We can’t expect our benighted leaders to develop policies as they demand others do, can we?
We cheered that as a nation.
I am saddened by where we are currently.
So very very sad.
Perhaps I am grieving.
Perhaps we should all be grieving.
Also, however much one thinks policing illegal immigration is important, I have yet to hear of a democracy that was existentially threatened because of illegal immigrants. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of democracies collapsing while the anti-democratic forces blamed immigrants. I think it says everything that Sullivan opens with an “I’m not fascist but…” gambit.
@chrislawson #31:
I believe multiple native civilizations in North and South (?) America were effectively democracies and also destroyed by illegal immigration (at least in their eyes) from Europe. Those don’t count, though, because they weren’t white people, I guess?
Also, I don’t know about other possible democracies that were destroyed by European imperialism, but I’m sure there are some.
And yes, I understand those are completely different in that none of those were global superpowers. Illegal immigration in no way could undermine American democracy unless, say, the bulk of Chinese (as an example of a people who are numerous enough and ideologically tied enough) moved to the USA in high enough numbers to basically overrun the citizens of the US and effectively become the de facto ruling class of the country. Even then, the US government would still have the weapons and powers to make that scenario iffy.
Either way I support some immigration controls, but minor ones and mainly to ensure people aren’t trying to skirt reasonable regulations (i.e. fleeing Nazis, war criminals, financial criminals, etc.). The people requesting asylum, yes investigate them, make sure they aren’t a cartel boss fleeing state retribution or something, but ultimately let them into the country.
methuseus@32–
1. I don’t think you’ll find many historians who would agree that native American cultures had much resembling modern democracies. While there were some quasi-democratic processes in pre-Columbian political processes (e.g. the equal say of each nation in the Iroquois confederation), they didn’t elect leaders by mass popular vote. This is not a criticism — many of these societies seem much more humane and well governed than the European colonial powers were, even to their own subjects.
Some pre-Columbian societies appear to have been highly collective (see this interesting Science article) but this was not really democratic, just less hierarchical (presumably they had fewer lobsters to observe).
2. Illegal immigration should not be conflated with military invasion and forced eviction from traditional lands. When the Mexican army rolls through the southern states, takes all the land for their own people, and sells captured US citizens into slavery and puts the rest in concentration camps, then I’ll consider the equivalence reasonable. I’m not just saying this to be snarky — I really don’t want to see any demonisation of illegal immigrants or refugees (who aren’t even illegal but are treated that way) by equating them to colonisers.
The problem is the polarization. Illegal immigration is a complicated issue with no easy answers and a whole lot of potential solutions. There’s a whole lot of factors going on, so many different ways you can address them. In a sane nation, there would be negotiations between both sides until we reach a consensus that some majority could roughly agree on.
We don’t currently live in a sane nation though. The right and the left are drifting further and further apart. Demands are getting more and more unreasonable, and compromise is becoming less and less viable. On top of that, a lot of the cultural norms and unwritten rules in politics are breaking down. It’s becoming more about winning in the now, to the point where supreme court seats are being held open for years, and more time is spent trying to tear down the things the previous administration did than iterating on them to make them better, or coming up with your own programs to pitch. It’s all become so petty and short-sighted. It’s become a contest to “win” instead of a cooperative effort to reconcile differing opinions.
I really do worry about the democrats when they inevitably come back into power after the current shitshow. I’d like to think that they bring in a bunch of sane professionals and we can get back to running a country in a semi-reasonable way. More than likely though, they’ll engage in a similar amount of pettiness, the republicans will go back to stonewalling *everything*, the supreme court will probably have a solid conservative majority left over from the Trump administration, and the issues that created the current political divide continue to worsen.
We’re pretty screwed if this is the new norm. Alternating waves of liberalism and conservatism, their desires mutually exclusive, spending most of their time trying to reverse what the other side has been doing the last four years.
The bulk of fears of losing their lifestyle and status ARE in fact legitimate. It’s only the notion that they (er we, save that I don’t suffer the following) should be protected and immune from concerns of losing their privilege are illegitimate.
While being an SJW in almost every other way, the prime place where I part company is the dehumanization of the fearful-of-being-displaced. To be sure they should NOT have a fear of being displaced and should seek to make their “place” a part of a wider more inclusive community (which I do) but their fears are real … and justified. They will be displaced. Their privilege is eroding … often with real and material consequence.
We need to acknowledge that the Trumpazoids are just as human as we. It’s just that Trump’s coterie has concocted a drug that mainline’s their fantasies of remaining on top simply be continuing to be what our ancestors took for them in a rapidly changing world.
— TWZ
rcs19 @ 0707
I won’t deny that political polarization is part of the problem. Implying that it is the /whole/ problem elides a whole lot of issues.
One has to look at *who* did the polarization and *why*. The why is rallying the base.
The who is the GOP. Ignoring that is just a demonstration of Murc’s Law, “Only Democrats have agency.” I.e. people only join the Nazi party because Dems choose to call them bigots.
patricklinnen @ 0844
Oh for sure. I’m not trying to make false equivalencies. The GOP pioneered the idea of party-focused news in the last few decades (and party-focused news ecosystems). They’ve always been extremely proactive about trying to make sure their base *only* gets their news from party sources, and actively distrusts anything else.
Their active promotion of lies, slanted coverage and conspiracy theories, along with their intentional courting of extremists, racists and conspiracy nuts for short-term political gain, is a pretty huge reason that things have turned into such a shitshow. My concern is that the democrats wind up embracing similar tactics if things keep getting pettier and uglier and more personal, since the two-party system in its current form encourages polarization. A polarized electorate is beneficial to both parties.
I’m hoping that most of this is just growing pains though. The baby-boomers are getting old and losing power, demographics are shifting, the internet is letting minority groups organize and voice their issues to a degree unprecedented in the past, and a lot of older industries in conservative regions are drying up (coal, manufacturing, etc). There’s a lot going on right now that has conservatives unsure and nervous, and the right-wing media machine does nothing but fan the flames and make it worse. The fact that they’ve been actively courting extremists and racists for decades hasn’t helped either. Maybe when a significant portion of their politicians become undetectable, they’ll finally reform the party (granted, gerrymandering and the irrational fear of liberals will make this take far longer than it should).
I think any government in Australia or the USA which talks about “illegal immigrants” had better be starting off by talking about the ones who stole the country from its original inhabitants first and foremost. In the USA, they could start by abiding by some of the terms of the treaties they signed (and repeatedly broke). In Australia, they could begin with actually damn well sitting down and negotiating a treaty with the Indigenous peoples in the first fscking place.
Isn’t it funny how two nations where their entire raison d’etre is from British colonists arriving, uninvited, then slaughtering the current inhabitants wholesale in order to take their land and cause massive environmental degradation, are the ones which are most worried about potential “illegal immigrants”. Why, you’d almost suspect there was a bit of projection happening. I’ve often said the best way for people who genuinely want to migrate to Australia these days by sea to do things would be to show up with a bunch of armed soldiers, plant a flag and claim the place in the name of $HOMELAND. It worked once, what’s to say it won’t work again?
These people need to seriously sit down for literally five minutes and ask themselves why people would risk a journey hundreds or even thousands of miles across inhospitable and deadly country paying people who may be murderers for even a little bit of guidance. Spoiler alert, they’re not doing all that so they can score your sweet minimum wage dishwasher job.
@Meg:
Did you see that dustup when a family composed of members of an indigenous nation took a photo of themselves dissing the Mount Rushmore & someone on the right made a big deal about immigrants coming onto someone else’s land and not respecting their history?
I’ll look it up, give me a second. [click. whirrrrrrrrr.] Ah, yes. Here’s a good account.
The quote from the pompous, outraged right winger is even better than I remember:
The twit sending that out was “Lucian B Wintrich”. Classic.
rcs619,
Your “both sides” garbage really does look blindingly stupid when a bunch of kleptocrats and fascists are in power, and demonstrating every day their utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law.