Sticking To A Media Diet

More than ever, it's a cinch to avoid consuming anything from the usual suspects. What I do take in comes via those bloggers with strong stomachs, and with the talent for evisceration that the major outlets offerings deserve.

Shakezula, for instance; all her stuff is must-read, in full.

This, on Nick Kristof's post-election column—

Abusers are horrible people, but their enablers are almost as bad, and with the I like to watch vibe thrown in as a nightmare bonus.

And on that topic, here's the NYT's human rights, women's rights, health, global affairs concern troll to explain why we'll feel so much better if we give our lunch money to the class bully.

Yet, like it or not, we Americans have a new president-elect, and it's time to buck up. I've seen past elections that were regarded as the end of the world — including, in many Democratic circles, the Reagan triumph of 1980 — and the republic survived. This time as well, our institutions are stronger than any one man. We are not Weimar Germany.

We are not Weimar is an awesome rallying cry. If you're a moron. And it is not a comfort to be reminded various concepts survived Reagan. Unlike the NYT's human rights columnist, I'd don't think that makes up for the many living, breathing human beings who didn't survive Reagan, in part because Smilin' Ron was one of the many malicious homophobes who convinced themselves that there could be such a thing as a virus that only killed gay men.

As an aside – when talking about actual human beings, the verb survive is a very chilly one. Thanks in part to people like Trump, we know human beings can survive – that is still have vital functions – all sorts of horrible things. Torturers rely on the durability of the human body. In America, people have developed bizarre, psuedo-evolutionary theories about the mental and physical durability of African-Americans that combines with a number of other biases to lower the quality of health care they receive, even when they can afford it. That people will survive should be so basic an assumption that it doesn't warrant mentioning. When it does warrant mentioning, it should be a cause for alarm.

Or to put it in terms Mr. Attitude of Platitude might understand, at least explain why the standard dropped from Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to You'll live.

Here, she's only getting warmed up in delivering the "Buck you, Nick Kristof" the column deserves.

This. If it is still publishing David Farenthold, the WaPo is nevertheless poised for its most natural role: shamelessly floating along in the whirl of a pussy-grabbing new Gilded Age.

All; In The Family

Mr. I Know How To Do Things tries getting top security clearance for the kids—then denies seeking it.

They need access now, to explain stuff to him. And for later on—to find out, Where's the key to the treasury?

Also this, from Yastreblansky—

Trump presidency is going to be all about jobs:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a close adviser to Mr. Trump, said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that excluding Mr. Trump's family from a role in his businesses "would basically put his children out of work." The public, Mr. Giuliani said, needs to trust Mr. Trump.

Ivanka's, Donny's, and Eric's jobs.

To Each His Own Grift

Ben Carson's failed "book tour posing as a candidacy" is capped off by this announcement--

According to Dr. Ben Carson's business manager Armstrong Williams, Dr. Ben Carson will not serve in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

Williams told Circa, that "the President-elect offered him anything he wanted to do. But in the end he didn't want anything." Adding that "his background didn't prepare him to run a federal agency."

Impresario

Shakezula, on media reaction to Steve Bannon's being named Trump's Karl Rove—

In the Trumpnited States of MAGAmerica, a president who makes a white supremacist one of his top advisers is not divisive. Noting that the white supremacist advising the president is in fact a white supremacist is divisive and irresponsible. So everyone should shut up.

Trump spoke not only to a dying demographic of elderly whites. Through his social media enabled bullying and vulgarity, Trump also spoke the language of young enraged white men. Like neo-Nazis and Klansmen, they may have not have voted in the past, but they turned out last week.

That there were no longer norms of behavior was obvious throughout this, the first Twitter election. But I hadn't made the connection between likely Trump voters and the last few years of reports about the behavior of young male gamers. Some have immersed themselves in social media campaigns to terrorize women; others joined a chorus that cheered on threats of rape and death.

I wonder if anything will ever come out about Bannon's previous gaming business ventures, immediately prior to his taking over Breitbart. If he wasn't directly involved in encouraging online terror, he was positioned to see marketing opportunity. Mother Jones noted this in September—

... he took over at Breitbart News in 2012. Bannon may have applied his web knowledge gained from his time at IGE and Affinity to Breitbart News, which he transformed into the preeminent destination for the internet-savvy, meme-centric alt-right—in part by stoking the anger behind Gamergate, which saw harassment of female gamers by their male peers.

How could they not have been thrilled to turn out for President Sexual Predator.

White Riot

Since the 9th Shaun King has posted sickening reports from around the country. His twitter feed is now filling up with trolls, but this is a sampling from the last three days.

Wild About Harry

When he's right, he's right. And in explicit detail—

White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump's victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.
...

We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them. Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.

If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.

If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.

Heartland Values

Via tengrain: a Midwesterner makes some points to the insularity of his Trump-voting hometown, with its fear of people they've never encountered. Patrick Thornton says of his hometown, and the like—

I'm from the rural midwest. All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backwards.

My home county is 97% white. It like a lot of other very unrepresentative counties went heavily to Donald Trump.

My high school had about 1,200 students. Two were Asian. One was Hispanic. Zero were Muslim. All the teachers were white.
...
Many rural Americans have isolated themselves from the rest of the country. They live in very unrepresentative areas.
...
Here it is in sharp relief: My HS had more sexual predator teachers (convicted!) than minority teachers. That's a rural American story.