this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 210 points 1 year ago (4 children)

"This don't feel like a victory today, bro," Bannon said, observing how Johnson's office had directed all incoming calls to voicemail after voting took place. "When 209 Hakeem Jeffries-loving Democrats vote for something, it just doesn't feel like a victory. I'm not feeling victorious right now. I kind of got this righteous indignation."

And there it is. It's not about governing, it about ensuring that your team is beating the other team. Doesn't matter that the government is avoiding a shutdown and essential government functions will continue to keep people alive, safe, employed, etc, because the other team voted for it, it must be bad.

[–] AbidanYre 97 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also, nothing about Steve Bannon is righteous. He's a piece of dog shit in the shape of a human.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And just barely that shape, if we're being honest.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Bannon is starting to look like that cockroach wearing a dead guy as a skin suit from Men in Black.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He's got a brand new Eddie suit

[–] Dultas 7 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How did I get that wrong? I've only seen that movie like 30 times...

[–] netburnr 5 points 1 year ago

Maybe they used the flashy thing on you too many times.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Sugar water!

[–] billiam0202 11 points 1 year ago

That's floating in bottom-shelf-of-the-basement gin.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hakeem Jeffries-loving Democrats

Pretty sure he meant to say the N-word instead of Hakeem Jeffries

[–] Viking_Hippie 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also, nobody* loves Jeffries. It's his turn according to the congresswoman whose allies still control all committee assignments and who's still one of the most effective solicitors of the legal bribes they depend on, so the rest just have to go along with it.

*except maybe an owner donor or two.

[–] hansl 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Citation needed. All democrats are rallying behind him so he must at least be tolerated by the majority of the party.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's exactly his point, tolerated, not loved

[–] hansl 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s fine. I don’t love most of my coworkers and my bosses. I tolerate and respect them, though. I don’t see why that’s a positive or negative to want to share a hotel room when traveling with your speaker.

[–] IchNichtenLichten 44 points 1 year ago

It's interesting that it's all about how he "feels", nothing to do with facts, logic, context, or any consideration of the effects on the people who live in the U.S.

Sensitive motherfucker, isn't he?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

You didn't hear? Politics is football now.

[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Turns out, it's not so easy to start a fascist theocracy with democracy still in place.

[–] foggy 63 points 1 year ago (2 children)

All through Trump's presidency I kept telling myself, this is the stress test. The goal is clear, but the system was designed to withstand the blow.

Government is a mess. They're slow as molasses. This is a feature, not a bug. Our government is such a tangled mess, taking it over is way more difficult than just keeping it going.

We do have a few cancers growing within the system. Here's hoping the system works, and eradicates them.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The goal is clear, but the system was designed to withstand the blow.

The system was largely designed over two hundred years ago, and fascism was designed to take advantage of its inadequacies.

The Weimar Republic was modeled after the American government, and fell to the same gridlock and political schisms we are seeing happen today.

The system does not have a way to hamper fascism because fascism is a revolutionary force. The goal isn't to command the current government, but to destroy it and replace it with another.

As I see it, their only real goal is to make the government so dysfunctional that the people will demand a strong man to come and fix it all. And I think most people will say they've been doing a fine job at that.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, we're seeing it a lot right now. Our government was designed to work when everyone is operating in good faith. It has nothing to defend against that not being the case

[–] Wrench 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's designed to block a few bad faith attackers. The problem is the GOP decided to embrace bad actors from the core, and that rot has taken over the entire party.

Now it's not a few bad faith actors, it's half the electorate, who have also been systematically appointing their bad faith cronies in unelected positions.

Edit - And by a few, I mean less than 1/3rd. The constitution is designed for all political parties to band together and oust the bad actors in a 2/3rd majority.

But GOP allowed themselves to be fully taken over by fascists, and those that aren't full fascists in ideology won't even make a stand. Those that did are already out, and never tried to organize to stand together with the Dems to remove the zealots.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Trump's presidency highlighted just how much "spit and a handshake" the US government really is.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is why Trump is threatening to fire all the federal nonpartisan employees. They are the ones doing all the day to day work to keep things going. If he guts that entire structure it'll be total chaos but then he can issue decrees to his loyalists and there won't be a structure to push back against anything illegal, unconstitutional or unethical.

If that comes to pass it'll be a real mess for sure.

[–] shalafi 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Serious question on that. Why are they not talking about firing the top military brass? That seems the logical first step, and the first thing autocrats have done through history.

People often comment on the politics of individual soldiers. IDGAF. The leadership is not going to kowtow to Trumps whims.

Too unpalatable to be said out loud? If so, why not just paint them as enemies and vermin? If I was managing the propaganda for Trump, I could easily make several top generals out to be bad guys who won't work with me.

[–] ysjet 11 points 1 year ago

Because Tommy Tuberville is holding up top military brass appointees so trump can change them and instate a whole swath of the at once. No need to fire anyone if you hold the spots open until your guy wins.

Same way they stacked the supreme Court.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Gish galloping to fascism is the plan.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Never stop reminding people that this exists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

That's why they're dismantling democracy.

[–] Sanctus 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I read the article. What the fuck was Bannon trying to spew? Doesn't feel like a victory? It shouldn't feel like shit we're passing a fucken budget to keep our country running. You should be urging yourself not to check your phone so you avoid appearing disinterested. It shouldn't be a WWE match in this bitch. Fuck. Don't grow up kids, there are no adults.

[–] Blackbeard 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The part that I sometimes find the most disturbing is that they seem to think that's exactly how it is for everyone else.

And worse yet, in many ways the general welfare and common good are not irrelevant to them but something they are committed to actively opposing. General welfare and common good tend toward increasing the numbers of sane, secure, less-traumatized, reasonably-educated people who vote for more of the same in a positive feedback loop. And that is hell for anyone who's committed to a race to the bottom in what they perceive as a fundamentally dog-eat-dog world where we are no more than semi-literate primates.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@Sanctus @jeffw

If they took just a quick moment to invite me to testify, there would absolutely be a WWE match in that bitch.

MarkWayneBubbaJoeBob is welcome to come get some. I would enjoy nothing more than stuffing my fist into the gaping shitholes they call mouths.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He really didn''t avert a shutdown, he just delayed it a bit. House Republicans failed to pass a rule to consider the Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill.

Vote was 198-223.

When thinking about next year and the prospects for a spending bill, keep in mind that House Republicans cannot pass party-line rules on GOP spending bills.

This means next year Democrats will again be needed since the numbers can't change by rule.

Johnson painted himself into a corner.

[–] Dkarma 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't you mean bought himself a year?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The first part of the budget will expire January 19, the second February 2. Not that far away.

[–] Dkarma 0 points 1 year ago

That's when the budget expires not Johnson's speakership.

[–] Additional_Prune 11 points 1 year ago

The MAGAts and people like Bannon want to destroy the government. They say "deep state" and "administrative state," but they mean any semblance of government that isn't the fascist dictatorship that they want. Government for them and not for anybody who isn't them. Liberals, Democracts, college professors, feminists, LGBT, immigrants (excluding those who fit their very narrow ideological parameters), etc., all get labeled unpersons and you can guess what happens next. Steve Bannon has reportedly called himself a Leninist. Lenin is responsible the for the deaths of millions of Russians. (Estimates vary.)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It amazes me that this guy scammed MAGA donors out of millions with his fake build the wall scheme, received a presidential pardon for it, and still is seen as a source of authority by conservatives.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I'm curious to see how the the Klansmen in Congress will punish Mike Johnson. My money is on newly-discovered "evidence" that Johnson's been cavorting with underage rent boys.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It's a win for the American people and for competent government. Small wonder it doesn't feel like a win for the MAGA agents saboteurs. They've proudly declared themselves enemies of competent governance and stability. They are, after all, all domestic terrorists

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Good, cry more. If they’re all sad and angry that someone took action for a bipartisan solution after months of their unmoving BS, they deserve it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Agreed, but that might be missing the significance of the moment somewhat. It apparently only takes Bannon and a small handful of other unreasonably influential voices on the right to send Congress even further into chaos and dysfunction, making the passing of one current bill a comparatively tiny relief.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’m not missing anything here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

ok, that's great!

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