Johnson spoke at the Republican National Convention, which is no surprise, given that all the speakers had the prerequisite of being a liar and fraud in order to get a slot. I first dug into her history when her life “story” was told in the Christian propaganda film, Unplanned.
It’s good to get a reminder, though. Go read this update from Texas Monthly posted last year. She lied about Planned Parenthood, she lied about the abortion that she claimed motivated her to leave the organization. The truth is that she’s a venal fraud who saw an opportunity for a scandal that would profit her greatly, and has now put her on the national stage.
Is it too much to hope that hitching her star to the criminal grifter Trump will finally bring her down?
I’m always a bit confused by women whose political position is that women are too feeble minded to have meaningful political positions.
But it makes kind of sense. Ether Trump “wins”, in which case she’ll make money, or he loses, in which case she has nothing to lose anyway.
By now we should all know that it doesn’t matter how hard to fact check or what truth actually is. The Fetus Fetishists need Abby Johnson’s account to be true. It’s true because abortion is evil. All that information that supposedly refutes her claims are lies, told by liberals, socialists, feminists, atheists, and/or Satanists who hate God, Jesus, Christianity, children, motherhood, the family, and of course, “Murica. It also doesn’t matter that she said she hopes the police profile her bi-racial son because he’s “statistically” more likely to commit crimes. It doesn’t matter that she tweeted that Americans should only get one vote per household wherein “godly households” would have the vote cast by the husband .
Nothing convinces them. Nothing shocks them. Nothing is too extreme for them. In light of this, we need to stop treating American politics as some sort of rational, tea-and-crumpets, agree-to-disagree discussion and see our opponents for what they are: An existential, terrorist threat to democracy and the future.
Christians love these tales of “I was a Roman legionary until I found Jesus!” (or whatever) and they’re almost always completely false. I knew a mormon, once, who told me he was a “total drunk” before he got steady into the church. Upon deep enquiry it turned out a “total drunk” drinks two beers and throws up. Uh, OK.
Republicans: écrasez l’infâme
They must be disempowered and the system of religion/white supremacy that undergirds the US needs to be destroyed. Or we’re going to keep re-fighting the civil war every 100 years forever.
Akira MacKenzie @2: Of course saying that black people should be racial profiled and husbands should be the only people in a household that can vote isn’t too extreme for the Fetus Fetishers. Those are both things that they think are good.
Um… at this point, who in either party isn’t a liar? Biden was positively Trump-like in the frequency of his lies during the primaries — he claimed he never tried to cut Social Security, that he had been against GWB’s Iraq invasion, that he got arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela, all sorts of Gish Gallop-style if-I-tell-enough-lies-fast-enough-the-opposition-can’t-fact-check-them-all stuff, and he’s the nominee. His VP has publicly done an about-face on essentially every policy position which made her notionally “progressive” according to her fans, and between the two of them they have rejected multiple policies from the platform that both of them ran on during the primaries. And we had Colin Powell and John Kasich speaking at the convention — because apparently not only are Republican votes more important to Biden than Democratic ones, but he believes that Republicans actively famous for telling lies make good endorsements. Frankly, there’s no high ground here to condemn Johnson from.
Marcus@3 some folks have used that fact to con Christians. A good example is Mike Warnke, who claimed to have been a high level Satanist, and used that to make a pretty good living for more than two decades.
Yeah Vicar, Biden is JUST LIKE Trump. Are you really as fucking stupid as you pretend to be, or are you really a talented actor? Because it’s very convincing.
@Vicar #5 — Sure there is. Ours. Not Biden’s, certainly, but I do hope most people here are aware we’re going to have to fight the wretch tooth and nail to get a fraction of what needs to be done, done, once he gets in office (if he gets in office). As for people in either party who aren’t liars? AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib seem like a good start. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, as well. Certainly, the attempted takeover of the Dems is slow and unlikely to manage anything like enough change on its own, but it’s still an additional front that the status quo warriors have to fight on and devote their limited people power to. That, all on its own, is a benefit, if nothing else.
538 once pointed out that, if you look at Biden’s actual votes in the Senate, he basically always votes with the “median Democrat.” I take that to mean that he has no firm ideas of his own, but rather just goes with the flow.
We need to elect lots of progressives in down-ballot races. If we can move the Overton window back left, Biden will likely follow.
@9
I gave up hope on the Democratic party years ago. Republicans are conservative. The Democrats are moderates. And the left doesn’t get a voice in 21st century American politics. I don’t see that changing anytime soon, but I could be wrong.
@Vicar — Okay. YOU run for office, then.
@WMDKitty I don’t think Vicar is whiny enough to stand as a Trump replacement.
In some respects, yes … if you leave out things like trying to cut Social Security (and Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, and “every single, solitary thing in the government”), increasing the scope of the death penalty, pushing for the war on drugs and building border walls, wanting to invade Iraq since before it was cool, pretending like he was some kind of civil rights leader so that people won’t look too hard at his actual record, etc. (Okay, maybe that last one is pretty standard.)
There are definitely some things where he’s really been in his own weird little corner of belligerent conservativeness. But of course, these days he lies about it, so that obviously means it doesn’t count.
It’s really quite simple. You don’t have a left-wing party. Until someone sets one up for you, the only recourse you have is this.
You vote for Biden, and as many other Democratic politicians as you can (ideally the progressive ones). Then, when he wins, you keep protesting, keep lobbying, keep pushing. Hold the Democratic politicians’ feet to the fire on all the issues that matter. Organize. March. Strike. Let them know you won’t be fobbed off with a tiny fraction of what you need, like last time.
Because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter much whether a politician is honest, progressive or a nice person. Franklin Roosevelt was none of those things when he was elected President – he was a wealthy capitalist and a scion of an old political family. What matters is whether he is frightened of you, and willing to accede to your demands. More frightened of you than of losing the goodwill of his capitalist paymasters. Roosevelt budged because he feared an actual, honest to goodness revolution, of the sort that had happened in Russia only a couple of decades ago. Biden needs to fear something similar.
Back then, of course, you had a Communist party, two Socialist parties and a massive Trade Union movement working together to apply the pressure for you. You’re going to need something on the same scale. Maybe BLM and Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement can become that. I don’t know. Maybe half a dozen individual states need to start talking seriously about seceding and becoming independent countries.
The point is, Biden can be influenced. The fact he changes his mind and U-turns and pretends he didn’t used to hold offensive views is distasteful, sure, but a useful sign that he can be pushed in the right direction. Trump… not so much.
The Vicar is a Trump-Slave.
That is all.
Well, the Vicar cares d do much about social justice they’ll* derail each and every conversation, let’s say about reproductive rights and women’s right to vote with their own pet topic.
Though they do of course have help from another couple of one trick ponies who will happily v derail whatever topic as well.
*I honestly can’t remember the Vicar’s pronouns.
I really, really wish that people would realize that there is more to government in the US than the Presidency. Yes, the President wields a lot of power, but he is NOT a dictator–as the Presidency of Obama clearly shows.
If you push the Senate to the left, Biden will move to the left. If you elect more progressives as happened in 2018, you’ll get more progressive ideas.
Democracy is not about one-vote-one-time. You have to fricking show up and vote, whether there is a Presidency at stake or not.
I honestly think this time it is. because if you don’t get this right, you will not have another chance in a long time.