Sweet Home Alabama -- Election Open Thread

by wj

I was intending to put up a thread like this Monday evening, on the thought that we might have something to say as events unfolded in Alabama Tuesday. But today brought something worth starting early.

The election in Alabama seems to be very close, with the result hinging on (primarily) turnout, and (secondarily) how many staunch Republicans will vote for someone not-Roy-Moore. Both of those feel, from the far side of the country, like a matter of permission.

Then this happened**. The senior, Republican, Senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby, got up this morning and said:

"I didn't vote for Roy Moore. I wouldn't vote for Roy Moore. I think the Republican Party can do better."

(He also said that believes the women, and that his former counterpart, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has likewise said he had no reason to doubt Moore's accusers.)

He not only said he hasn't voted for Moore yet, he said that he plans to write in someone else on his ballot. (He declined to say who.)

Think about that for a moment. If you are a totally tribal Republican partisan in Alabama, you just got a top guy in your party saying that it's just fine to not vote for your party's nominee. In a race as close as this one looks to be, that could tip the balance.

Now we get to see how the vote counts go.

** The Alabama Media Group is local. It publishes several of the biggest papers in Alabama, and also runs some TV news. They date back a couple of centuries in Alabama. That is, they aren't some coastal elite telling Alabamans what to do. And they ran an editorial this morning saying Our View: Conservatives should consider Senator Shelby's example.

Comments

[Nigel]

"These kinds of speeches are usually given in dictatorships..."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-most-frightening-aspect-of-trumps-tax-triumph

[bobbyp]

true 'dat, Nigel. Reminded me of the Communist Party Congresses under Mao....nobody uttered the words "great helmsman", but the thought was there.

[bobbyp]

Can reports of an incredible round of golf be far behind?

[cleek]

Lottery is fine with me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery

[Countme-a-Blockchain]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/steve-bannon-books-reading-list-214745

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/12/20/quick-takes-there-is-no-excuse-for-this-kind-of-ignorance/

Not claiming symmetry between now and then, but maybe Bannon could add this to Ivanka's reading list:

https://books.google.com/books?id=cXQWAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA671&lpg=PA671&dq=small+business+failures+in+1932&source=bl&ots=wqMyvXUbEl&sig=RlAuxxt4Z7gkqUlnmeUYfFSqkI4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii3pbng57YAhUS1GMKHZVFB6gQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q&f=false

Matters not any longer in bullshit America. The less true something is the more likely it is to be true. He who peddles the fakest news, wins.

Rump has no facts. I have others.

[bob mcmanus]

Good Bannon link at 10:57, Count. Looks kinds familiar to me, cause I have just done a spurt of reading in Georg Lukacs Destruction of Reason 1952, about 150 pages in two days. Lukacs was a Marxist-Leninist, almost Stalinist, and DoR is a history of philosophy (embedded in economic and social history) tracing the development of fascism from the reactions to the French Revolution up to WWII.
What rung a bell in the Bannon link was a comparison of The Fourth Turning to say Dilthey and Spengler.

It can be dangerous and difficult to read the likes of Heidegger or M Moldbug, and one needs a guide with a fairly solid perspective. I think only Marxism works, but a radical feminism of black nationalism might work, though I doubt it.

What absolutely will fail will be a liberal capitalist perspective, because the necessity for liberalism to resolve its internal contradictions around its plutocratic militaristic imperialist feminist or black leadership make its irrationalism deep and irradicable, and terminally vulnerable to fascistic tendencies. Therefore it is useful to look for those tendencies within liberalism itself.

Lukacs, DoR:

The need for a world-outlook, the necessity of the outlook expressible through vitalism meant expending more and more energy on turning history into a myth, the more so the greater the pretention to concreteness. Only the 'forms' of vitalistic anthropology and typology, inflated into entities, could inhabit the resultant myths. The more evolution advanced, the more real history lost any signifi­cance for the proponents of vitalism. With Spengler, real history was supplanted by the myths ; with Heidegger it sank into unauthenticity; with Klages it was presented as a set of parables on the Fall of man resulting from the dominance of reason and the infamous intellect. Much as all these concep­tions may have differed, they had in common the feature that the historical process appeared the spurious movement of a number of types. And the more militantly reactionary these myths became, and the more directly they anticipated the fascist myth, the more strongly they polarized into adversaries; and the more the whole mysticized history of life served to illustrate the sole right to life of the one 'form' and the total reprehensibility of the other*. With Junger this line was taken to the farthest stage possible in pre-fascist times. From here to Rosenberg it was only the shortest of steps.

But their methodology and ter­minology were still steeped in the esoteric wisdom of tiny closed, interlocking groups.

*"the white man"

[wj]

I have a real problem wrapping my head around the stupidity of denouncing as "fake news" something that you have to know was recorded. Yet members of this administration continue to do so:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/22/trumps-ambassador-to-the-netherlands-just-got-caught-lying-about-the-dutch/

[russell]

I have a real problem wrapping my head around the stupidity of denouncing as "fake news" something that you have to know was recorded.

It's only stupid if your audience cares about facts.

[bob mcmanus]

Kirsten Gillibrand Is Playing Her Cards Right

"The New York senator was a Clinton-inspired Blue Dog before she remade herself as a progressive champion."

Couldn't find the absolutist quote by KG to the effect that there is no degrees or differences in women's oppression.

Five Women Are Accusing A Top Left-Leaning Media Executive Of Sexually Harassing Them

#Metoo is still going strong, and AFAICT, the targets are more on the socialistic Left than the fascistic or capitalist Right. This kinda use of force and bullying on a local level reminds me of early Mussolini tactics. there really is nothing comparable on the Trumpist Right.

Bannon is not taking over news offices and local gov'ts with purges of wrongthink. Women are.

[wj]

It's only stupid if your audience cares about facts.

Yeah, but even if you are sure (correctly or not) that a big swath of them don't care, there are still some who do. At least when there is a video of you saying something is "fake news" and a video of you saying exactly that.

Besides, the folks who don't care about facts likely don't object particularly to you repeating your previous lies. So why bother to claim you didn't say them?

[JanieM]

So why bother to claim you didn't say them?

Videos can be doctored, everyone knows that. Why would you believe *anything* you didn't want to believe these days?

[Hartmut]

It can be dangerous and difficult to read the likes of Heidegger

The guy is famous for writing totally incomprehensible texts without even using any foreign words. ;-)

[cleek]

reminds me of early Mussolini tactics

i suspect that's not unusual.

there really is nothing comparable on the Trumpist Right.

perhaps that's because the Trumpist right doesn't give a fuck about women being sexually abused?

like, it's almost literally a requirement for Trump fans to not care about sexual assault. it's essentially impossible to be a Trump fan otherwise.

[Marty]

https://www.westernjournal.com/list-32-senators-voted-shut-government-christmas/

32 Senators that voted to shut down the government 3 days before Christmas. Heartless, cruel, evil, shameful politics at play.

[bob mcmanus]

perhaps that's because the Trumpist right doesn't give a fuck about women being sexually abused?

By comparable I meant ground-level, localized power maneuvres, the intimidation and/or taking over of local media, gov'ts, corporations. Of course the substance and rhetoric used as tools and causes would be different.

This ground level street semi-pro activity is famously and universally considered as an absolutely necessary component of fascism. Tiki marches do not impress, and have not as far as I can tell, intimidated or silenced anyone.

Of course every iteration of irrationalist politics will be different, and the tools of intimidation updated. The calls for Franken to unresign are still off the record and in whisper mode.

[cleek]

By comparable I meant ground-level, localized power maneuvres, the intimidation and/or taking over of local media, gov'ts, corporations.

are you saying the right doesn't have a good ground game? that would be odd.

that "happy holidays" is almost a subversive thing to say these days is because the right has very strong intimidation game.

the fact that i have to live in fear of being shot?

the noise around preserving monuments to treason-in-the-name-of-slavery?

the ever-present howling of social conservatism?

[cleek]

Heartless, cruel, evil, shameful politics at play.

the Dreamers appreciate your concern.

[bob mcmanus]

the noise around preserving monuments to treason-in-the-name-of-slavery?

As opposed to say 1880, those monuments are coming down, yesterday in Memphis I think, not going up. That doesn't mark an end to racism, but does indicate a change in the power balances. A big fucking deal. I am sorry you can't see it. No, you have yet to have all the power, unimpeded.

Having just read the Wikipedia entry on Horst Wessel, I am not all impressed by people saying they're oppressed victims. Like I always say, I look at what's happening.

Of course, the power is configured and distributed differently in San Francisco and rural Alabama.

And you have to look at individual issues and outcomes to see what the various factions consider important. Corporate power and military spending are unrestrained by either side.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Marty, rump and the GOP are perfectly capable of licking their own genitals in self-admiration without your help.

I'm awaiting your announcement that you have stopped paying your Obamacare premiums because you are no longer mandated to pony up without health insurance.

Join the CHIP kids for the holidays.

Welp, it's travel time for me. Each and every one you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday, and a Happy New Year.

See ya in mid-January.

[cleek]

oh look, Trump is a narcissistic scumbag.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/its-very-gold-the-presidential-coin-undergoes-a-trumpian-makeover/2017/12/22/23c8b11e-e5bb-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html

[cleek]

A big fucking deal. I am sorry you can't see it.

we must be seeing two different sets of comments.

[cleek]

there are hundreds of those 'monuments' out there, still. and all the wingnuts in my neck of the woods know to put "DEFEND OUR HERITAGE" signs in their lawns. and they know they can cow our local govts into not doing anything about the monuments.

the right is perfectly capable of organizing around guns and religion and racism.

and the left is fascist?

adjust your lenses.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Republican bullshitter Mike Kelly is pumping out sunshine so fast from his low IQ hind end that he's likely to put what remains of the coal mining jobs in western Pennsylvania out of business entirely:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/trump-toadie-o-day.html

You could sit the man's butt down directly on a solar panel and power most of the East Coast electrical grid.

76 trombones and 110 cornets right behind.

Among the regs rump got rid of was the one prohibiting talking out your ass.

Cult.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/most-obamacare-enrollees-states-trump-won

[russell]

mcmanus, i feel obliged to ask: have you ever actually put your own personal @ss in the street?

it's cool either way, i'm just... curious.

count, safe travels, and we'll see ya on the flip side.

[Marty]

I can across this in my Twitter feed, it was billed as written by someone who is not a particular fan of Trump.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/the-death-rattle-of-obamas-foreign-policy-record-susan-rice/

[Hartmut]

US administrations tend to differ in tone not substance on foreign policy. And even if the president is a wee bit more reluctant (like Obama), Congress (both parties alike) usually isn't. The only thing complicating it during the last administration was the GOP's schizophreny to have to be hawkish as usual and at the same time preventing Obama from doing the American thing (applying the Ledeen doctrine) because that would have made him 'looking strong'.

[russell]

Commentary is basically one the voices of American neo-conservatism. It is no surprise that they like Trump's belligerent tone, that stuff is their breakfast lunch and dinner.

Trump is certainly proceeding from a profoundly different view of the world, and of the relationship between nations, than Obama did. It remains to be seen how it plays out.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/22/1726809/-The-Cowardice-And-Possible-Blackmail-Of-Lindsey-Graham-And-Other-Republicans

[Countme-a-Demon]

What Christian euthanasia looks like, when administered by republican accountants:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/22/1726888/-Intolerable-cruelty-Kansas-Medicaid-leaves-elderly-to-die-without-care

Yeah, yeah, I'm leaving already.

[bobbyp]

More on the neocon cat fight.

[cleek]

just cause it's cool.... my sister in law has a piece published on Vox right now.

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/yw5dxk/i-was-an-undocumented-restaurant-worker

[cleek]

errr. vice, not vox.

i always mix them up.

[Marty]

And then on vice:

https://nyti.ms/2pjM0Ht

[sapient]

That's very disturbing, Marty. But did you link to the story in order to impugn cleek's sister-in-law? If so, not sure what to say to you, other than the usual. Back to pie filtering.

[Marty]

sapient, not at all, I thought his sister-in-laws article was pretty interesting. Just the vice reference reminded me of something I saw earlier in the day.

[sapient]

Glad to know that. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

[cleek]

didn't really surprise me - Vice has a pretty strong bro- vibe.

my SiL is a free-lancer, though. i doubt she spends much time at Vice HQ.

[Nigel]

Happy Christmas, all !

(I'd wait for midnight, but I still have stockings to stuff... and stuffing to prepare.)

[wj]

It's always midnight somewhere.... ;-)

[Nigel]

Oh, and a brief shoutout to President Trump, for,bringing Christmas back.

Don't know what we'd have done without you, dude.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/trump-praises-himself-in-call-to-troops-we-say-christmas-again-very-proudly.html

[JanieM]

From snowy-ice-snowy Maine, Merry Christmas to all!

Isn't it nice how the days are getting longer?!?

I hope everyone is enjoying the season, whatever you celebrate.

[Marty]

I have nothing left to do but wake up for Christmas. I hope your days are blessed. And dilly dilly.

[hairshirthedonist]

Make Christmas Great Again

[bobbyp]

I've heard that it is OK to say 'Merry Christmas' again. Can it be true?

[wj]

Is it OK to say Happy Hanukkah to the half of the Supreme Court that is Jewish?

[sapient]

I hope so, wj. Probably should have done that a week ago though.

[sapient]

By the way, folks, to all who celebrate Christmas, I hope you're having a lovely Christmas Day! And to other folks, have a good day too! Looking forward to another lazy week, then mobilizing!

[russell]

christmas loot - new pants and a new black hoodie, larry young in paris and seckou keita, artisanal salami and some really really dark chocolate, a nice shutterfly picture album from our trip to italy back in september.

brother in law is visiting, friends are coming for dinner. we're making my wife's ex-mother-in-law's roast pork recipe - cradled pork roast on the bone with kraut and onions. shoveled the driveway, easy peasy only two inches deep. brought some wood around from the woodpile, we'll have chestnuts roasting on an open fire for real.

a splendid day.

best wishes to all, whatever and however you celebrate, including nothing and not at all. every day the days get longer.

[sapient]

a nice shutterfly picture album from our trip to italy back in september

OMG. You're one of those people. I envy that photo thing! It's so cool, but we can't manage it for some reason.

[Nigel]

Don't know whether you can acces this in the Us, but it is excellent listening:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jv8pc

I'm normally working at this time of the morning, so missed the first episode last week. Clarke Peters' narration is an extra treat.

[russell]

You're one of those people.

my wife put it together. i personally am clueless.

[wj]

Here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/12/26/to-beat-president-trump-you-have-to-learn-to-think-like-his-supporters/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_2_na&utm_term=.858436cdc991
is an interesting, and rather different take on Trump and his followers. By someone who experienced another, but similar, populist in Venezuela.