This is Going to Get Worse

[G_j]

https://thebaffler.com/latest/this-is-going-to-get-worse-burmila



This is what Donald Trump is, and what Donald Trump always was. | The Baffler
Ed Burmila, July 22


It will get worse because nobody is going to stop it, or is even trying. It will get worse because this is what Trumpism has been all along, because this narcissistic fraud is the vicar of every American who has longed for someone to say the quiet part loudly. It will get worse because conservatives either agree with him or look the other way in exchange for advancing their policy goals.

It will get worse because the media learned absolutely nothing from 2016, and every time Trump kicks the ball a gaggle of a hundred reporters chase it, overanalyzing it, giving Both Sides a chance to opine on it, and asking customers in Ohio diners how they’d like to see the ball kicked next time. It will get worse because the default media frame for covering racism is, “Was this racism?” and because they still believe that congressional Republicans will surely turn on Trump with the next outburst because Republicans are people of honor and integrity, because the entire worldview of legacy media requires that to be true.

The real horror is that this, sixteen months out from the election, is just the tip of an iceberg.

It will get worse because the House majority for which so many people fought so hard in 2018 has already signaled that impeachment is off the table, so even the pretense of accountability or oversight is gone. Instead, the House intends to hold endless “hearings” and point desperately to the Mueller Report like the losing coaches point to the rule book in Air Bud, gesticulating wildly as the dog dunks on them over and over, and the crowd loves the dog with all its heart and looks at the losing team with the contempt reserved for such demonstrations of learned helplessness, while the very voters to whom Democrats most desperately want to appeal don’t know or care about rules but sure do notice that one team managed to lose a basketball game to a fucking dog.

It will get worse because the leadership of the Democratic Party is not built, temperamentally or constitutionally, for this fight. It is built for 1996, ready to debate the V-chip or whether the top tax bracket should be 36 percent or 39 percent. It is a party built to negotiate, to concede, and to see “getting something done” as the value-neutral definition of victory. They are clutching to their treasured consensus politics, to their norms and to decorum, and it will never happen because the only people who give a shit about those things are elites with nothing really at stake, now or ever.

..more..

[magicarpet]

1. Sorry to say,... but looks to be spot on..

[mnhtnbb]

2. It's true. You don't negotiate with bullies.

You kick their asses.

[smirkymonkey]

4. Exactly! Will our democratic leaders ever learn?

It's so frustrating.

[Tipperary]

7. Frustrating, yes.

And very disappointing.

[RVN VET71]

19. Sanity and reason says to hold Trump's feet to the fire

It also says to point out and call out the GOP membership who sit by silently and say nothing about their Racist in Chief or, like Jordan, Meadows and other tea partiers, actually pleasure themselves with Trump's racist remarks and actions. The Dems should be shouting "racists"! daily. They should preface every public speech with a brief rehearsal of the most recent actions and speeches filled with blatant bigotry and racism. The Democratic run to the White House should be a clarion call to voters to either vote for freedom and decency or for Trump and his enablers.

[Nuggets]

31. I disagree. These aren't just bullies.

Strategy is key as narcissists are slippery snakes.
And we are definitely dealing with narcissists.

Ppl who insist we go low “just like they do” do not understand that will hurt us and help them because others will just see you as opposite but equal jerks.

[spanone]

3. K&R...

[CrispyQ]

5. Spot on commentary.

The dems better have a Plan B for the day the Con doesn't leave the WH, although I don't think they do. They've been in reactionary mode since Nixon. We needed a true opposition party the past 45 years & instead the dems drifted center every time the GOP took a hard right & now the People are FUBAR.

[Tipperary]

6. K and r.

Nail on head.

[louis-t]

8. The asshole sits around all day thinking up

horrible things to say about people who aren't 'nice' to him. That's his job. This will certainly get worse. The latest is "they are incapable of loving this country".

[BSdetect]

9. We've been kicked in the gonads so long we are numb to action.

[Grasswire2]

10. it does disturb me (and don't beat me up as ageist or sexist)...

....that arguably the two most powerful Democrats in events of this past year (Pelosi and DiFi) are from that long-gone era and are 1%-ers and truly have no skin in this fight and no evident willingness to fight in any way that will stop the juggernaut that is about to take us out.

"Comity" and "Bipartisanship" are as gone as doilies and swallowtail coats. GOPs in Congress are the enemy of our Constitution, of our American values and norms, currently. Concensus will NEVER HAPPEN and Dems in leadership must weaponize against the attacks, not be playing pattycake.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. if we allow slavery in 3/5 of the states, will they agree to fund Medicare?

You can't negotiate with white supremacists.

[empedocles]

12. I suggest the Dem Party is built for 2020, the Impeach Now caucus is driven by 1974

' . . . a confusion of the ideal and the real, never goes unpunished'. - Nietsche

[Nuggets]

30. +1000 nt

[Nevermypresident]

13. K & R

[Docreed2003]

14. K&R

It will get worse because it is being allowed to be worse! There is no check on Trump. Despite whatever plans our leadership may have, the average American doesn't know crap about the Mueller report and they aren't on the side of impeachment in large part because the messaging from our side had been muddled at best. We hold the power in the House to hold Trump and his minions feet to the fire. It's far past time to do so.

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. Brilliant and exactly spot on. I've had many of these thoughts in my

Head since election theft night, but this op Ed pulls all of the horror and danger together brilliantly.

And it is sad

[NewJeffCT]

16. Because Don McGahn, Annie Donaldson and everybody else

that has refused to testify will suddenly magically show up to testify if we add the word "impeachment" in front of the word "hearing" ?

And, when they don't show up, Bill Barr DoJ is going to magically prosecute those people for disobeying a subpoena when he hasn't done that yet?

And, if these Republicans do show eventually (after multiple lawsuits) up to testify, they will magically not take the 5th and magically be friendly witnesses for the prosecution?

[pangaia]

17. learned helplessness,

[certainot]

18. jebus wept. all dems have to do is stop ignoring talk radio. it's the only unique advantage

they have, responsible directly or indirectly for most of this shit, and it wold be realaly fucking easy to destroy that monopoly.

stoprush x 100 is easy with AI

there are also 88 major universities to protest

artificial intelligence means it is now much easier than it was then to mount boycott pressure.

it is much easier faster and cheaper now with artificial intelligence-enhanced transcription and a service like sonix.ai where it's $5/hr and they put it in a text program that makes it very easy to list advertisers and their contact info with very little listening. - described at republiconradio.org

RW talk radio is already way in debt and if dems start doing a little of that - which can be done with any radio station anywhere by streaming, the ad industry will get the message and do the rest - they willl have to stop bundling radio advertisers onto those stations. they will have to start asking them if they actually support trump, global warming denial, racism, putting kids in cages, threats to congresswomen, etc

protests at those universties will also convince most advertisers to drop rw radio

the ad industry wants those ears that all those mega limbaugh stations reach and when it applies market demand the monopoly will fall apart and many stations will be changing programs.

without rw radio the cons/fox/trump are doomed

[yonder]

20. This falls in line with this DU post that was circulating yesterday:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212301582

I'm thinking democrats need to be making a tactical shift in how we approach our messaging. A little less about policy differences, stats, rates of change, etc. - we can keep that in our back pocket - and much more on just how we're going to wrestle the elephant to the ground and hog-tie it with it's own disgusting behavior. Rope it up with their techniques without being dragged to their level.

[Saviolo]

21. If only everyone could have predicted this and warned someone.

Oh wait, yeah, lots and lots of people did. But the media is still just trying to sell clicks and commercial slots, so whatever crazy thing gets eyeballs will get coverage. Sane and sensible policy discussion doesn't make good TV, so you'll never see it hyped on TV.

I said it during the 2016 general: If Hillary said "Good morning, California!!" at 11:00am San Francisco time, Trump would say "How could Lying Hillary say good morning when it was 1pm in New York?!" and the media would say, "Well, he's not wrong..."

[grantcart]

22. Even if Trump loses it will get worse

He will be on the TV everyday until he is dead

[LiberalLovinLug]

25. This

Even if we squeak out a presidential victory in 2020, they may still have the Senate.

Trumpism will continue as long as Orange Donny has an ego. And maybe long after.

If he does lose, there is nothing preventing him from running again in 2024 is there? Because I can see with Fox News and other RW media pounding every day, plus an uncooperative Senate, so nothing will get passed anyways, Trump could come back in all the regal pomp and ceremony he dreams about. With Nancy long ago throwing Impeachment off the table, it will be way too late to do that then. Then its on to full fledged fascism.

That is why impeachment NOW, sooner would have been more effective, is still imperative. As well as following advice from this article, make the next election about what kind of country you want to live in. A Nazi fascist state, or a multicultural melting pot. The later does come with sacrifices to the privileged status of whites. But that is the "price" we must pay. Its an attitude shift, to celebrate our differences rather than to disdain and fear our differences. Make that case.

[G_j]

41. unfortunately

and what a horrible thought

[Ponietz]

23. Brilliant/Recommended--We're getting dunked on by a fucking dog.

Last edited Mon Jul 22, 2019, 07:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Confrontation is inevitable and best ASAP!

[G_j]

24. Inevitable

that is the terrible truth.

[Turbineguy]

26. All great empires in history

have come to an end. This is how we are doing it.

[Mike Nelson]

27. Because which party will do nothing?

… it's the Republicans who've signaled they will do nothing. If the votes are there and things get worse enough to pass impeachment referral, the Dems would do that... the Republicans won't convict. In fact, I have a new thought: If it gets so bad, Republicans have the votes to convict, Mitch McConel will find some way to never bring it up for a vote...

[COLGATE4]

28. K&R (And I wish I could do it 100 times more!)

[pbmus]

29. Unfortunately our leadership does not understand the game...

Anarchy is what trumps republicans want. Chaos brings confusion, confusion brings consolidated power. If Democrats do not get this playbook soon, the republic is done.

[Nuggets]

32. The media isn't trying to "get it"

They are part of it.

Imho, there’s a reason Trump singled out CNN.
So angry Progressives would tune into Trump’s supposed “media nemesis”, the same network that hired Corey Lewandowski as a panelist for a few months before the election and abruptly quit right after the election.

Same with the NYT who’s top leadership has had it in for the Clintons’s for years and wrote page after page keeping the stupid Clinton emails story afloat and using every euphemism possible to describe Trump’s lying as anything but lying.

[misanthrope]

33. The author was kind

when he said that inside Trump is a 12-year-old boy. I think Trump's emotional age is a fraction of 12.

[Efilroft Sul]

36. I agree. Most 12-year-old boys know right from wrong and will act accordingly.

At least, much more than Trump ever will.

[Progressive dog]

34. It will continue to get worse,

because the Democratic party refuses to ignore the Constitution or the law. Trump is in office because too many Americans have chosen not to oppose him. It sucks, but it will only change when Trump and his party are voted out of office.

[Skittles]

35. another reason I think Democrats are in dire need of new leadership

they're not prepared, not at all

[grantcart]

37. It's not the Democrats: leadership or policies

It's 60 million irrational losers who are projecting their remorse for their lives of failure, failure in education, employment, creating healthy families, etc , etc.

Trump could have blamed the Canadians and they would have accepted it but he tapped into their submerged but nascent racism to serve as a bond to keep the tribe focused.

This isn't a competition between two competing political options, it's a competition between a political party and a fear generating despot.

As Gene Robinson just said on Matthews "There are no persuadables".

This is an intelligence taste for America, unfortunately we have tens of millions who embrace idiocy in religion and politics.

[Skittles]

38. our leaders are not effectively battling this issue

of course Dem leadership comes into play; we need to STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR THEM

[KPN]

40. Sounds like denial to me. It's getting worse ... and has been consistently for more than 40 years

now. How can we not as a party assume at least some of the responsibility for that? Why is it do you think that millennials don't have faith in either of the two major parties?

[anarch]

39. regarding the bit about "boomers holding onto power until death comes"

and delaying/avoiding any real transition of the reins of power to the next generation and all...I'm convinced that medical science will keep many of the super-rich people who are alive today around for quite some considerable time, like to the point of doubling life expectancy (but only for the rich)...but I guess my point is, I think some of these people believe they will never die. Or something like it.