Senator Scott Brown (R-MA)

Ick.  Those words make me want to puke.  I hope the polls turn out to be way, way off today… the idea of Massachusetts electing a darling of the teabaggerati makes me ill.

Damn, she IS hot. Is it wrong that I’m never going to read anything she’s written, because it would spoil my fantasy? It IS wrong? Oh well, I’m doing it anyway.

sigh.

Eh, don’t worry.  She’s laughing all the way to the bank pandering to misogynists like that.

Someday, someone’s going to write a very interesting book on Coulter-Malkin phenomenon on the right-wing and the various psychologies/pathologies at work…

Regarding the topic of the post, it’s people like Cupp that give the words “useful idiots” meaning.  Perhaps more than anything else, the Republicans have become masters of getting many, many people to vote against their own best interests, by getting bitter people - people largely embittered because life under Reichwing fiscal policy tends to do that to people - to cling to their guns and religion.

If people were truly aware of what sort of policies would provide them maximum benefit in their own lives, I don’t know how a Republican could ever again win a single election.

The problem is, the Democrats keep caving in to the notion that we are a “center-right nation” and delivering us weak sauce policy that looks to the uninformed voter like nothing more than a bureaucratic “big government takeover” and is hard to sell.  They’ve one this with healthcare reform - the reason the current pending legislation has lost so much support in the American public isn’t because it’s too progressive in its reach, it’s because the Democrats allowed Conservadems and Blue Dogs to water it down so much that it looks nothing like what was originally being talked about when the whole HCR debate began.

I don’t get why Democrats don’t get this fundamental point - the further right you push your own agenda, the more the Republican Party has to gain, not only in terms of kneecapping the most progressive policy you could have had, but also in terms of making you look like bureaucratic morons incapable of governing your way out of a paper bag.

The Democrats are likely going to lose this November, and it isn’t going to be because they were too progressive in their policy vision, but because they weren’t nearly progressive enough.  America seems a lot more comfortable with the idea of electing real Republicans than they do with the idea of electing fake Democrats.

As true as it is that the people should vote for Martha Coakley because Scott Brown would be a disaster (not just for HCR, but for the entire legislative agenda in 2010), people aren’t generally motivated to vote for someone simply because the alternative would be a lot worse.  See Gore, Al in 2000.

The problem is, the Democrats keep caving in to the notion that we are a “center-right nation” and delivering us weak sauce policy that looks to the uninformed voter like nothing more than a bureaucratic “big government takeover” and is hard to sell.

It’s because they listen almost exclusively to beltway media and beltway buzz. If they poked their heads outside the bubble every once in a while, they’d be amazed by what they saw…

The more time passes, the less I actually believe that the Democrats think the country is truly center-right. I think the leadership is fully aware that their real bosses, the people who hold the purse strings, are on the right, and that the narrative of the country itself being center-right is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that neither GOP nor Dems care about the actual wishes of the electorate, only those of the stock market. The Dems are offering an alternative to the GOP in that they’re trying to sell the masters of the world on a center-right economic doctrine, rather than far right one. That they feel this is the best they can hope for is, unfortunatly, probably right.

Pick up Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”. If South Africa’s ANC had to sell their own souls to the Chicago school, what hopes did the Dems (who were never very much on the Left to begin with) had of preserving theirs?

“Someday, someone’s going to write a very interesting book on Coulter-Malkin phenomenon on the right-wing and the various psychologies/pathologies at work…”

...yes, and the author will be an ex-patriot American writing from Europe or Asia — writing for other American ex-patriots — one of many performing the autopsy on what used to be America™, before we decided to became a third-world country with the economic and religious profile of a Central American dictatorship propped up by the United Fruit Company...

I don’t know that Cupp is an idiot.  She gets to be paid to be an asshole, which clearly is what she wants.  The way to do that is to pander to the right.  Being an asshole, she’s not going to be stopped by moral concerns.  So it works out.

Kate Harding wrote an interesting post about some two-bit wingnut pundit named S.E. Cupp

“Two-bit” is right—she’s making her rep primarily by taking wingnut welfare from yet another wingnut welfare recipient, namely the ever-downward-trending Tucker Carlson.

It may not seem this way, of course, because conservatives enjoy shaming rich liberals for their wealth.  To liberals, this might seem that they’re sincere in their hatred of the “elite”.  But it’s really not that—-shaming rich liberals for wealth is actually a way of shaming them for being class traitors

There’s another level at work to this traitor categorisation, which is that wealthy liberals spend their money on “un-American” things: non-conspicuous consumption (e.g. private college educations, clothing the expense of which can’t be gauged by a logo) and consumption of “snooty foreign” cultural products (e.g. French restaurants, exotic travel).

The irony, of course, is that wealthy conservatives also spend their money on such things—they’re just better at being dishonest about it. Cupp’s schtick, besides her good looks, seems to be a “shocking honesty” about her own differences from (although not superiority to) her marks—always a dangerous game for a confidence artist:

Oh, they’ll write poetic odes to them, insist that they’re the only Real Americans, and make money peddling books that suggest that said fundamentalist idiots are better people than us.  But when push comes to shove, you better respect that they aren’t that fucking stupid.  Believing in creationism is for those other right wingers, the morons.

Eventually it’ll come around to bite them on the arse. The so-called immigration issue is a major faultline in their party, with cheap-labour neoCons like Cupp being all for it and her Know-Nothing marks being violently against it. If she aggravates the suckers enough on this issue with the same frankness she does regarding her atheism, and they’ll turn on her in the same way they turned on Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan.

...yes, and the author will be an ex-patriot American writing from Europe or Asia — writing for other American ex-patriots

Spelling nitpick: unless one is a wingnut, expatriates aren’t necessarily ex-patriots—often they’re more patriotic than the ones who stay behind.

Conservatives don’t believe that liberals are “class traitors” as considered to be “unworthy to handle / undeserving of their wealth.”

Conservatism approves of certain prescribed ways of making money. Going outside those norms or making a living that does not depend on sucking up to conservatives, as Crupp makes her living doing, is considered cheating.

I can’t stop imagining a meeting between some pretty young ingenue who wants to be famous and her manager as they hammer out the details of turning her into a right-wing pundit. It’s taking all my willpower not to just write out the entire script, but it basically boils down to “Okay, kid, ya can’t act, ya can’t sing, you’re not bony enough to be a model, maybe we can set you up on Fox News as a crazy rightwing punditress?”  “But, Max, it goes against everything I believe!”  “The Heritage Foundation will pay you a million-five a year for life.”  “Sold!”

DTG:The real problem is that most of all the economic indicators..the way we keep score..is not even just biased against progressives, they’re completely against us. It’s like Fox News levels of bias. And this isn’t a right-wing thing, often progressives fall into the same traps.

We have/did see things such as stock market values, inflation, productivity growth and GDP growth as being the core factors of economic prosperity. More progressive indicators such as wages, employment, cost of living, etc. are only important in how they factor in the first set of indicators…and often they’re at completely cross purposes.

Why this is important, is that I strongly believe that the Democratic party, or at least the radical centrist wing of it, has a certain vision of their target voter. The swing voter, in other words…here’s my description:

An upper-middle class voter, living in a suburb. Making enough to save a significant amount for retirement, is dreaming of retiring early/living a high-flying retirement. Socially liberal (but wants to punish those with less…class than them), is concerned with inflation and their investment portfolio dropping. A layoff could never happen to them (they think). The success of their company will reward them because they know the people who make the decisions, and again, bad things can’t happen to them. Because above all. They’re winners. And the losers? Well..if they’re not punished for losing, then what does it mean to win?

That is what I think the “target voter” for the radical centrist wing of the Democratic party is. And the sad thing is, they’re probably not all that wrong on this. Now, they could go all-in, and go a progressive full economic reform package. But at the end of the day, even their core supporters will point to the falling indicator numbers and tsk-tsk at them.

Conservatives don’t believe that liberals are “class traitors” as considered to be “unworthy to handle / undeserving of their wealth.”

Actually they do. It’s a very good explanatory hypothesis because it explains much of conservative behavior.

Georges Soros, for instance, did not get his money in ways that are any different than the darlings of the right, but they have an undying hatred for him because he supports the other side. Personally I think they view him as a competitor, in the same way that Oracle/Sun/Netscape got together and bought off one bunch of politicians to oppose Microsoft-bought politicians and claimed they were doing it out of anti-monopolistic zeal, even though Oracle itself is a freaking monopoly (but in enterprise software instead of consumer software, which is arguably worse than M$!)

“Someday, someone’s going to write a very interesting book on Coulter-Malkin phenomenon on the right-wing and the various psychologies/pathologies at work…”

If it’s based on the idea that conservative men are incapable of dealing with real women on an intellectual level, so they become enamored with these characters who are nominally not ugly but become attractive because they are telling them they are right about everything, then I am on board to read that book.

Conservative men are so easy to peg.  Sarah Palin gives them a wink, and they melt.  Cupp tells them they are right, and they swoon.  Coutler and Malkin wear low-cut blouses and spout hate-rhetoric, and they pop a chub.

Should Scott Brown win tonight, the Democrats have two choices for the next 10 months between now and the midterm elections: hold the position that they are now crippled with a non-filibuster proof majority of 59 seats and cave in even more to conservative whims; hold the position that 59 seats still represents a huge majority and that they will push a progressive agenda in spite of being unable to prevent a filibuster, and the more Republicans threaten to filibuster, the more the Democrats respond by resorting to reconciliation (which only requires 50 votes + Biden) to get things done where they can if they are forced into that corner.

If they take the position that they will only pass legislation that has the approval of Olympia Snowe as the 60th vote, they are going to get decimated this November, because they won’t be getting much of anything useful passed.  The status quo is clearly not working in the Democrats favor, and without strong legislation to start to reign in the financial titans who created this mess and a good jobs bill to lower the horrific unemployment numbers, the American public will say, “Vote for Democrats?  Why?  They are completely useless.”

If there’s one huge difference I can point out between Republicans and Democrats it is this… when Republicans hold a 51 seat majority in the U.S. Senate, they govern as if they are in charge; when Democrats hold anything less than a 60 seat majority (and even when they do have a 60 seat majority), they run and hide in the corner and shy away from anything resembling a progressive agenda.

If the party’s goal is to lose as many seats as possible in November, I recommend that they should take a Coakley defeat as a sign that they should behave even weaker and cave in even more to conservatives than they did in 2009.  Because that is one surefire way to make damn sure that they will no longer have to suffer the burden of being expected to lead when they hold the majorities.  Fucking idiots.

A Coakley defeat will not be an electorate rejecting firebrand progressivism; it will be an electorate rejecting milquetoast mediocrity.

Really, I don’t get why the Democrats don’t risk the filibuster. Let the Republicans filibuster, and then stack the news cycles with the following messages, “Why do you hate Democracy? Why are you obstructing reforms that the American people need and want? Why are you letting special interests dictate the agenda of the Senate?”

OK, sorry to be a concern troll, but the Blue Texan post never provides any links or evidence that Brown doesn’t believe in evolution. It just says “since Scott Brown is a Republican, it’s statistically a very safe bet that he’s also a flat-earther,” which looks to me very much like guilt by association.

Don’t get me wrong: I have no doubt that he’s a jerk and fervently hope he loses. But even jerks deserve basic fairness.

My first exposure to Cupp was a year ago, when she wrote the following in the Washington Post:

“I’m a political writer and commentator, so Obama’s election is
actually good news for me, professionally. I now get to respectfully
disagree, rather than obsequiously concur.”

Really, I don’t get why the Democrats don’t risk the filibuster.

They’re managing the masters of the world and their reactions. When Obama got elected the stock market tanked (worst drop in 2 years). Was it because Obama is inexperienced, a bad choice for president, like Fox News claimed? No. But it was, in a way, Obama’s fault. It was punishment from the market (which is just a depersonalized way of referring to the owning class) for electing someone who they couldn’t be sure wouldn’t continue the Bush years looting of the public sector by outsourcing and selling government functions to the private sector (including the biggest economic growth sector, the War on Terra).

If they were to do any substantial health care reform, the markets would tank again, prompting more government bailouts (i.e. extortion money).

Bitter Scribe @ #21:

Actually, the point was that Scott Brown ISN’T a creationist, but despite that, he is still beloved by wingnutty creationist teabaggers.  The argument of this post is about the Republicans ability to woo God-fearing Christianists to their side despite some of them not even being Christians themselves, or even theists, for that matter.  S.E. Cupp is able to stir up rightwing furor by using phrases like “Judeo-Christian ethics”, despite the fact that she herself is an atheist.

Should be “couldn’t be sure he *would* continue the Bush years looting”.

If they were to do any substantial health care reform, the markets would tank again, prompting more government bailouts (i.e. extortion money).

And interestingly enough, the very day that the public option was nixed from the Senate Healthcare Bill but the mandate was kept in, just about every major health insurance company’s stock price saw a huge jump.  Despite their public protestations, I can’t help but think that AHIP and PhRMA got precisely the sort of healthcare reform that they wanted.

The point is that the depravity of the Bush years goes far beyond the attacks on the constitution. Those were only done to enable the real agenda, which was to privatize most of the state. DHS is about 70% private sector, and its mandate has been continuously increased at the expense of other government agencies (it’s in effect an amalgam of law enforcement, intelligence and the military apparatus).

Even if we accept the neoliberal orthodoxy that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector (which I don’t, and I guess most people here don’t), there is still the factor of these government agencies having being sold at a fraction of their value. These were built with our own money, sold at fire sale prices, and their value went through the roof. It’s like a new Gold Rush. A new frontier, they say. It’s bigger than the dotcom bubble. “No Blood For Oil” was a naive slogan, since oil was only a mere fraction of the value of what they were going to loot through this war.

Now due to the economic crisis that they engineered themselves through their policies, they are going to force this administration to give in even more in order to keep the support of the financial elites. In effect they have long since hollowed out the government, leaving only a shell and a husk. When the GOP is in they can enable large scale revolutionary ‘free market’ reforms. When the Dems are in, they’re stuck in crisis mode and need to save the furniture without actually fixing the house. Rinse and repeat. The capital owners don’t even really care anymore who is really in the White House, since whoever is in can be bullied economically to do what they want.

Bitter, that’s not what I got off it.  The point was that Brown is unusual.  Not that he’s a creationist, but that he’s not is unusual.

The folks at NRO flip their shit, because they don’t want to be lumped in with all those fundamentalist idiots.  Oh, they’ll write poetic odes to them, insist that they’re the only Real Americans, and make money peddling books that suggest that said fundamentalist idiots are better people than us.  But when push comes to shove, you better respect that they aren’t that fucking stupid.  Believing in creationism is for those other right wingers, the morons.

I grew up among “white shoe” Republicans, as my father condescendingly called them (even as he was one), and I can guarantee that the rabble are nothing but useful idiots to right wing populists.  The claims of class warfare and the like are yet another example of right wing projection.  They despise Real Americans far more than liberals could ever dream of doing.

Damn, she IS hot. Is it wrong that I’m never going to read anything she’s written, because it would spoil my fantasy?

Given that she goes from a paragraph taling about “inflicting blunt trauma” on foreigners “to preserve her way of life” to the next in which she dislocates her shoulder patting herself on the back for “valueing the sanctity of life”, she’s not worth reading.

Which makes me wonder two things:

i, Could we blow wingnuts’ minds by arguing that women need abortion “to preserve their way of life”?

ii, Could we have her face on some True Companions with, you know, some sort of liberal pseudo-personality?  Please?  Um, as Xmas presents for other people, of course.

Really, I don’t get why the Democrats don’t risk the filibuster. Let the Republicans filibuster, and then stack the news cycles with the following messages, “Why do you hate Democracy? Why are you obstructing reforms that the American people need and want? Why are you letting special interests dictate the agenda of the Senate?”

Because a large number of Democrats are pigs eating from the same trough as the Republicans, and don’t want to threaten their supply of swill.  You don’t have a two party system, you have a one and a half party system.

I can’t stop imagining a meeting between some pretty young ingenue who wants to be famous and her manager as they hammer out the details of turning her into a right-wing pundit. It’s taking all my willpower not to just write out the entire script, but it basically boils down to “Okay, kid, ya can’t act, ya can’t sing, you’re not bony enough to be a model, maybe we can set you up on Fox News as a crazy rightwing punditress?” “But, Max, it goes against everything I believe!” “The Heritage Foundation will pay you a million-five a year for life.” “Sold!”

“Scarlett, you’re going to love it.  It’s like a remake of ‘Bob Roberts” with you in the lead…”

Holy crap, Waspy McWaspyface Cupp is shooting off Blue Blood like a fountain in every photo I’ve found of her. I’m not sure anybody is going to buy her populist shtick, Harding quotes Cupp as describing her parents as “compassionate, hard-working, down-to-earth, unpretentious, God-fearing common folk,” but the girl was born in a wealthy California resort town and raised in fucking Andover. The “common folk” I know not only don’t live in Andover, they also don’t say “common folk” because they aren’t fucking caricatures.

From the Wiki for Andover: “Males with full-time year-round jobs had a median income higher than $100,000”
From the Wiki for my hometown in flyover country: “Males had a median income of $42,216”

If there’s one huge difference I can point out between Republicans and Democrats it is this… when Republicans hold a 51 seat majority in the U.S. Senate, they govern as if they are in charge; when Democrats hold anything less than a 60 seat majority (and even when they do have a 60 seat majority), they run and hide in the corner and shy away from anything resembling a progressive agenda.

Can someone please, please tell me what they do this? It just emboldens the Rethugs.

From the Wiki for Andover: “Males with full-time year-round jobs had a median income higher than $100,000”

Yeah, fucking salt of the earth types. Median income? Shit. If I’m generous I might think that the upper range income of my acquaintances goes up to that much, and I consider myself to be a child of privilege with my 56K $CAN a year (split in two because my partner is unemployed).

pitbull, do you have a solution for the Blue Dogs or the filibuster?

Because Blue Dogs + Republicans == Majority right now.

Also, ‘risk filibuster’?

WTF.  They have been.  There’s been more filibusters last year than in four years of the Clinton Administration.

Someone write an article on this.  Because CBrachyrhynchos, Black Bloc, ya’ll are uninformed.

If you didn’t hear about the filibuster in the news… MAYBE THAT’S PART OF THE PROBLEM.

I’m uninformed? Tell me, what happened to the ANC? What happened to Solidarity in Poland? These were far to the Left of the Democrats and they ended up selling their countries to the lowest bidders. My working hypothesis is that the Democrats are not more left-wing than a socialist union like Solidarity. Am I completly out of line in thinking that? I don’t think so.

It doesnt’ matter who’s in power, Wall Street calls the shot. Or you suffer the consequences (ask Argentina what those might be… or Chile).

I just get the impression that Cupp’s pissed off the there’s not a lot left to loot now that she’s stepping up to the plate.

Got to tell you, cost of real estate in Andover is such that $100K wont get you a morgage there any time in the last decade.  Most people there have dual income just to pay for the house, which tend to be “historic” (meaning pretentious and often falling down or at least in need of major repair). 
I live in Haverhill, a nearby working class city.  Andover is abutted by Lawrence.  Look that one up.  Most of the white-white folks Cupp’s age plus from the Greater Lawrence area claim to be from Andover, North Andover or Methuen, in order of prestege and pretension. 
There are some working class people in the area, but most of them have been there generations.  I imagine it’s the same for Carlsbad if it’s anything like the resort town in No. Idaho I lived in for a year.  Someone has to teach in the schools, drive the school buses, own the restaurants and cook the food and wait the tables, etc. and getting a bus to Andover from Lawrence or Haverhill is damn near impossible.  There are one or two commuter rail stops on the line that connects them.

If I was trying to front as “common folk” I wouldn’t pretend I was from a wealthy community. Most people where I’m from have dual incomes and can’t afford their mortgages either. I’m not sure how a high cost of living justifies a median income far beyond the $37,000 national average for males (based on 2006 numbers, the newest I found.)

I’m too exhausted to wage class-warfare today, but I think it’s legit to call bullshit on some rich girl fakin’ being “common folk.”

Despite their public protestations, I can’t help but think that AHIP and PhRMA got precisely the sort of healthcare reform that they wanted.
Comment #26: DTG in STL

damn skippy, they did. bought and paid for. and every time anyone even breathes that maybe they should pay more money or close the frickin’ “doughnut hole” they’re hollering and crying about how it’ll ruin the industry.