That’s quite the overstated headline.
Madeline Dean: “The president is unwell.”
Mike Johnson: “A lot of people on your side are, too. I don’t control him.”
A couple years back a friend and I realized that far too many modern day adults think life is a nickelodean kid sitcom.
We caught the bad guys by tricking them into saying that they did something bad. The cops are going to arrest them and the video game club is saved! Oh, wait. They don’t give a shit and are just gonna keep doing bad stuff…
Its similar logic to how “both sides” villify intellectuals. Someone tried to explain a complicated topic you don’t want to hear but they said one sentence that you can take out of context and nitpick. You are the smart one and they are stupid and the cops are gonna arrest them and video game club is saved!
And we continue to see “They aren’t allowed to do that. It is against the rules!” as though it matters in the slightest.
The Rules exist so that we can all avoid violence. When The Rules are ignored, there is but one alternative.
“There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge (or ammo). Please use in that order”
The jury box is still holding up with all Bondi’s failed indictments.
It feels like it’s just a matter of time before they start ignoring that or bypassing the courts.
Supremes will do it for them. Just have to wait for cases to get to them. But they can’t rule on everything; not enough time for a small body to do that.
The Jury box is ultimately insufficient without Congress doing something, and Congress ain’t doing shit.
And that is the Call of Duty mindset at play!
You are morally righteous and the protagonist of your own life. Of course you just need to grab a gun and all problems will solve themselves in a slow mo shootout! And then everything will be better and you’ll get to bang your hot scientist love interest.
Which ignores the reality of how much violence is pointed at all of us. Some Very Smart People were insisting that the military are actually great because when the BLM protests were going on they just stood by with guns and didn’t shoot anyone. Which fully ignores what would happen if those protesters “went too far” and there wasn’t a fat white kid nearby to put them down. Those “kind and heroic and nice” military folk would have shouldered their rifles, chambered a round, and mowed down the protesters.
I realize it somewhat undermines the point of “stop basing your life on tv” but… go watch Andor. Specifically “Who Are You?”.
spoiler
It starts off like… a LOT of protests I have been in. Things feel REALLY REALLY bad. But we are there to peacefully protest a militarized force and we sing songs and show our solidarity. And… like far too many protests I have been a part of, someone “goes too far”. But instead of throwing a rock it is a gunshot (actually a false flag by the Imperials in this case). And suddenly that wall of militarized police who have been letting people blow off steam are now raising their guns. And instead of “rubber bullets” and tear gas it is blaster fire.
And yeah. Some people are strapped and they do fight back. But there are just far too many cops and then the tanks roll in and there is absolutely nothing that can be done as more and more people are murdered in, to quote mother fucking Disney, unprovoked genocide.
Resistance is complicated. I strongly encourage anyone who is interested to go to those protests and talk to those organizers. There is going to be a feeling out for obvious reasons, but understand that people are thinking this through and it goes WAY beyond “go buy some tacticool pants”.
A comedian I like who used to write for a TV show talked about wanting to do something similar to the Its Always Sunny “What are the rules” where the protagonist woke up and, instead of being black, was a woman. And the “joke” would be that he tries to live his life, brags about how he is getting so much more attention and free drinks, and then gets roofied and violently raped. And when he goes to the cops they call him a slut and want to “give him a ride home”. Needless to say the network vetoed the ever living hell out of it and said comedian later deleted the posts after realizing it was more depressing than funny to even talk about (and may have impacted future jobs).
But it really sticks with me when thinking of just how much privilege people have and how so many, generally white males, don’t understand what it means to have a system that is actively against them.
I feel like you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say with shorthand. A previous comment I made (which you may have already seen) might help elaborate:
Violence works, otherwise there wouldn’t be any. We’ve put up a whole system of laws and police and investigators and courts and prisons in order to provide an alternative to violence. And even then, that system is itself backed up with a real threat of violence as well as its occasional localized deployment.
Yesterday’s “pep rally” where none of the military leaders dragged in had anything good to say about it suggests that there is not the overwhelming military support that Trump wants there to be. There are plenty of examples of far less powerful local forces successfully standing up to superpowers. Afghanistan is one. Wallachia is another.
When the entire federal government and many state governments have wholly abandoned the systems put together to avoid violence, and are in fact using the husks of those systems to apply violence to their opponents, we’ve already crossed the Rubicon.
Yes, violence works.
Go walk up to a cop and explain to them that if they don’t start serving the people then you and the people are armed and going to stand up. … I can’t think of a funny way to explain that you won’t have any teeth and won’t ever be able to come back to explain how poorly that went. But THAT is “violence” in action. They just have a lot more than you do.
As for your comment about how people should stand up: Sure, there are examples of that working. There are also plenty of examples of that being met with mass executions.
It says a lot that nobody could be quite sure if the “we aren’t going to prosecute rape anymore” rally was actually going to be another 1979 Ba’ath Party Purge where all the people who had previously stood up to saddam (or might have done so in the future) were literally rounded up to be executed.
Again, resistance and violence are tools. People need to understand the consequences of that and the odds of it ending in anything other than mass executions.
In order to succeed, you must have the capability and the will. A necessary part of capability is sufficient strength. That strength can come from numbers.
Once enough people are desperate enough, and realize that they have the numbers, and by extension the capability, the will is not far behind.
Of course there are consequences to standing up to fascism. The consequences of not standing up to fascism are worse. Unfortunately, we’re all going to have to suffer those worse consequences in order for the population to choose the lesser consequences of revolution.
In the meantime, the fascists grow stronger, largely because of their forced abandonment of facts. Full circle then: Until there is no alternative to armed conflict (and maybe even then), feeding the post-truth paradigm only strengthens fascism. This will ultimately forestall revolution, and make it harder for revolution to succeed. It’s already going to get worse before it gets better; being loosey-goosey on facts will only make it that much worse for that much longer.
And here’s why Democrats keep losing the messaging game.
Because Americans are too dumb to understand context?
Yes, but also the media and “influencers” purposefully create these out of context sensationalist headlines that are often blatantly inaccurate given actual context.
And, unfortunately, this particular media outlet has a habit of it, too. I take what Daily Beast says with a big dose of skepticism until shown otherwise.
This headline seems reasonable, though.
Yup. Green Day and George Carlin nailed it.
Because the messaging is controlled by right wing billionaires??
I’m not following. Help me understand?
The phrase “A lot of people on your side are, too. I don’t control him” and especially the " I don’t control him" is an admission that he’s agreeing with her that what he’s doing is fucking wrong and trying to both sides shit is irrelevant and honestly a complete Epstein level of distraction that should be ignored.
You know damn well that the Republicans would take anything, in or out of context, and blare it from the roof top to make the Democrats seem weak or awful or whatever and the American people eat it up as truth.
Hate the game, make laws to change it, but play the damn game for fucks sake.
That’s what I don’t get why don’t the Dems play the same game? Look at all the shit Trump has done if his name wis Biden they would be screaming from the rooftops. Even his mental flubs and random dancing would be talked about endlessly.
Yet Trump can talk about another mans penis for 15 minutes and they are like he talked about other stuff also.… an admission that he’s agreeing with her that what he’s doing is fucking wrong …
That’s arguably true, and different from “admitting Trump is unwell”. Johnson didn’t “admit that Trump [is] unwell”.
You know damn well that the Republicans would take anything, in or out of context, and blare it from the roof top to make the Democrats seem weak or awful or whatever and the American people eat it up as truth.
Of course, because they lie. They mislead, intentionally misrepresent, gaslight, contradict themselves. They thrive when there is no truth. This “post-truth world” is one they made, on purpose, to serve their aims. Fighting back by lying may be a tactical success, but it will definitely be a strategic failure.
No, they must be fought with undeniable facts, until the inevitable arrives. Every “not quite true” dilutes the strength of actual fact and empowers fascism.
The “too” implies agreement
No, he’s changing the meaning of “unwell” by comparing what she says about Trump to what Republicans say about Democrats. Which is not that they are actually too old and sick to govern. Well, they do say that and a lot more, but that’s not the implication he’s making here. He’s downplaying how “unwell” Trump is. Because “unwell” is a fucking understatement, and this is him just pushing it further under.
Yeah, just keep on losing while holding some ridiculous moral high ground and hold fast to the stupidity of never reading between the lines and only hold them account if they actually say “Hi, I’m Charlie Kirk and I fully admit I’m a raging racist” and since he never said those exact words, then we’ll happily vote to celebrate his life with and official federal day of mourning.
There’s a difference between a fairly accurate interpretation of someone’s statement and overreaching to accomplish a political goal. I find the headline of this article to be the latter.
I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s as black and white as you’re making it out to be. “Never reading between the lines” is a strawman; nobody suggested that should be the case.
He knows.
He and all the other MAGA fucks are using it to their advantage. Trump is stupid as shit to begin with but now his brain is turning to mush. They show him AI videos of Portland burning or whatever and he starts making decrees. In exchange they tell him they’re building him a big throne room.
I guess the grindr situation got to him and needed a distraction.
Here’s what I suggest as a distraction to Mike Johnson’s Grindr profile:
Release the Epstein files!
I was like “wtf”. I would laugh my ass off if it turns out to be true, would show the weird deal that Johnson had with his son was a performative lie
they were probably just banging
the sycophancy is unreal with this one
Johnson then responds, “A lot of folks on your side are too, I don’t control him…” seemingly conceding Dean’s point that the president is unwell but arguing that he isn’t alone.
Not exactly a strong statement there
But how about nobody over 75 is running the country. How about nobody you consider unwell is.
But how about nobody over 75 is running the country. How about nobody you consider unwell is.
It’s almost like the constitution has a provision for this in the 25th amendment…
