The Bee’s impeachment buzz
It’s been fading for quite some time, but the line between satire and news has now officially disappeared:
“Donald Trump has committed the high crime of TBA,” reads the resolution written by freshman congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, “and should be impeached and immediately removed from office before he can further damage this country by [INSERT SCARY THINGS HERE].”
“He absolutely should be impeached for something, I’m like pretty sure,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. “He’s a bad man and he made fun of my Green New Deal, which I worked on for like hours.”
And here is the reality, with remarks such as:
Given what we know about how Trump pressures and manipulates civil servants to tow his line, I'm not *quite* sure we can trust the transcript itself as being accurate/comprehensive.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 24, 2019
The whistleblower report is said to involve a number of things; this phone call is one but not all. https://t.co/5jeRJScYWB
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 24, 2019
This is a trap. I would bet that Trump is focusing on the transcript because he knows it isn’t great, but not nearly as incriminating as the entire whistleblower complaint.
We need the full whistleblower complaint ASAP and Democrats should accept nothing less. https://t.co/vRtoYalpOM
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 23, 2019
What Pelosi has done with her speech announcing the opening of an impeachment inquiry is to keep her options open and throw her base some fish. She is not asking Democrats in the House to vote on anything. She always can do so in the future, if something big emerges from the nets they’re casting.
As one reporter said this morning, you have to read between the lines. I am assuming that means make stuff up, i.e. lie.
“… keep her options open and throw her base some fish“
And also show the rest of the country that she is desperate, out of options, and losing. This is not a move you make when you’re winning the game. It’s a “hail Mary” from inside your own end zone.
People are going to turn on the Dems, and this will be one of the reasons why.
Pandering to the crazies in your base—whose views turn off a large chunk of the country, as we already know in this case—is **never** a good idea.
This level of insanity is not something you can just pivot away from after the primaries.
But hey, knock yourselves out, Pelosi and AOC. Go for it. You’re doing great!
Gales of laughter are a most appropriate response. Maybe a bewildered head shake or two.
Heh heh. The fossil can’t accomplish anything in the current state of affairs, so her priority is placating the REEEE patrol.
I think an awful of Democrats are impervious to evidence and/or what the rest of us view as facts. What repels and scares some over there however is the “style” of the Squad, Me-Too Forever, Greta 16 and Transgender Maniacs. We’ve all meanwhile become rather used to the style of Trump, and he’s much less scary than those others.
It’s still a long long way until the election.
The reaction from Trump haters to the transcript is a great illustration of the cognitive problem that has plagued them ever since he rode down that golden escalator.
A – Trump is evil.
B – Therefore, everything Trump does is evil.
C – Therefore, everyone who does not accept A and B is also evil.
This is how all conspiracy theories work. You obsess about any information, even the tiniest detail, that supports the theory while willfully ignoring all information, no matter how massive or conclusive, which undercuts it.
Trump haters put the absolute worst spin on everything he does, deny any and all evidence and logic which contradict that spin, and then act self-righteously flabbergasted at anyone who doesn’t do the same.
Mike
This just seems to be a dumb move to me, and I keep trying to understand why they keep pushing for it. The election is a little over a year away, and they seem poised to gain more seats in Congress, potentially take control of the Senate, and win the Presidency. I’m not near as convinced that Trump will win in 2020 as some here are. Much of the country actively dislikes him, and think he acts inappropriately. (Please save the arguments for why he’ll win, I’ve read and heard them all. I’m still not convinced.) This moves seems to be one that would harm their efforts to win the Presidency, as well as Congress and the Senate. I think it could potentially cost them a lot of races in state and local elections as well. So, why keep pushing this. A few reasons I’ve thought of…
1) They are scared they’e going to lose the Presidency, because they realize they do not have any candidates with a broad enough appeal to win.
2) Out and out blinding hatred on the part of Nadler, Schiff, et al.
3) They know via back channel that Ginsburg isn’t going to make it, and they fear Trump appointing another Supreme Court nominee. They want to try to damage him to the point where anyone he nominates will seem an illegitimate pick made by an illegitimate president.
4) They really are just that stupid.
5) They really do have something. (This scares the crap out of me, but given the players it also seems that it’s not the most likely scenario.)
Given the knowledge that unless they come up with something really dramatic, it’s DOA in the senate, this seems exceedingly stupid.
If they fail at this again, it will look like they have just been going after Trump since he was elected merely because they hate the guy, and are unable to accept the election results from 2016.
Papa Biden and Baby Biden working to Make Ukraine Great Again (MUGA).
There is a legal term that goes “You opened the door to this.” They have opened the door to Biden’s corruption and maybe Hillary’s. Did anyone else notice that Ukraine has the Hillary sever that Crowdstrike supposedly inspected instead of the FBI ?
“… and he made fun of my Green New Deal, which I worked on for like hours.”
Best laugh of the day. Who said millennials aren’t hard workers?
_____
I agree with Tom that neither Trump nor the GOP has the election in the bag. But he left out another possible reason for the current attack.
The whole VP Biden, Ukraine, and Hunter Biden lining his pockets thing reeks to high heaven, if true. Imagine what would happen if much of that were to be uncovered before the election, in the absence of a vigorous counter-attack.
TommyJay, YES another reason, the Democrats HAVE to keep Trump and the Republicans on the defensive, because they are so hopelessly corrupt, that if their corruption ever really gets investigated it will destroy the Democratic party.
I found that Crowdstrike reference very interesting, and I heard Limbaugh going on about that today on the radio. Who knows?
The Bee is very funny, and often hits very close to the truth. I started seeing leftists doubting the validity of the transcript even before it was published. If Trump was willing to publish it, that meant there was nothing incriminating there, so they had to try to discredit it.
The behavior of the democrats is easily explainable; they are congenitally incapable of accepting reality.
And ultimately, reality always prevails.
So, why keep pushing this. A few reasons I’ve thought of…
Two hypotheses:
1. They don’t necessarily converse outside their bubble. Street-level Democrats have no ideal what all this looks like to people not immersed in their matrix. It’s quite possible the same is true of elected officials and their staffs.
2. Trump has partially succeeded in moving some Overton windows and taking control of the public discourse away from the social nexus for which the Democratic Party is an electoral vehicle. Republicans have been deferential to liberal opinion and have truckled to contrived sh!tstorms for about thirty years now (and did so intermittently for twenty years prior to that). The opposition is quite at sea emotionally.
Remember, what ‘Trump is a racist’ means is that Trump is not deferential to Democratic Party mascots and he doesn’t respond to all the REEEing from the opposition. The Bushes could be made to dance a jig in the saloon, as can Paul Ryan and Cocaine Mitch. That Trump tells ’em to buzz off enrages them.
Ray on September 25, 2019 at 12:37 pm said:
As one reporter said this morning, you have to read between the lines. I am assuming that means make stuff up, i.e. lie.
* * *
This is the party that also brought us dogwhistles (that only they can hear) and microaggressions.
“I started seeing leftists doubting the validity of the transcript even before it was published. ” – Kate
From a tweet shown in a RedState post, since The Whistleblower & The Phone Call is now the epicenter of the Impeachment Earthquake .
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2019/09/24/trump-authorizes-release-ukraine-call-transcript-liberals-pick-goalposts-throw-ocean/
RBe
@RBPundit
THE PHONE CALL
THE PHONE CALL
THE PHONE CALL
*Trump releases transcript*
NO WAIT. THE OTHER STUFF.
NO WAIT. THE OTHER STUFF.
The Bee is the closest thing to real news we have now.
I envisioned this post as delivered by Mini-AOC, the little girl that the Left harassed and threatened into removing her YouTube posts, which were darling.
The Bee is fundraising off of the “fact checks” by Snopes, so I thought this post was an interesting one. Spin away, spin away, spin away all.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48867870
Snopes: How do you survive 25 years debunking fake news?
By Dhruti Shah, BBC News, 23 September 2019
You will note that the first bolded sentence essentially means that, once SPLC & its ilk has told Snopes that you are an unreliable,site, they never go back to check and see if that label still holds.
They also forget that The Enquirer broke the John Edwards adultery story, when no “reputable” site would touch it.
I’m adoring the “Islam is RIGHT about women” fliers which have popped up in Winchester, Mass.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/09/26/the-genius-of-the-islam-is-right-about-women-stunt/
Progressives know there is something wrong with that sentence, but they are caught in a classic double-bind. If they agree, they are agreeing with Islam that women are basically second-class citizens. If they disagree, they are agreeing that Muslims have a truly screwed position towards women and consequently, progressives are Islamophobic.
Brilliant work!
It’s not just the Bee. There is another promising site, “The Derringer,” which is ringing similar changes:
“OPINION: Whether or Not Trump Committed a Crime, Can’t We All Agree That He is Guilty of It?”
https://www.thederringer.com/opinion-whether-or-not-trump-committed-a-crime-cant-we-all-agree-that-he-is-guilty-of-it/
We are now the counter-culture! The Force is with us.
Just the headlines at Derringer had me laughing.
Like the Bee’s, some of them were based quite literally on things some Democrats have been saying, but most of them capture the zeitgeist very neatly.
“Ukraine Transcript Confirms Our Worst Fears/Greatest Hopes About Trump’s Guilt/Innocence”
“The Only Way to Stop Trump’s Fascism is to Restrict Speech, Disarm the Population, and Nationalize the Economy”
” “But We’re the Good Guys,” Stammers Progressive as the Truth Slowly Hits Him”
“OPINION: Whether or Not Trump Committed a Crime, Can’t We All Agree That He is Guilty of It?”
“Americans Shocked to Learn Democrats Running for President of THIS Country”
Warning: some of the Derringer’s stories are not as safe for work as the Bee’s (depending, I suppose, on where you work….)
However, this is my favorite.
“Clinton Attacks Facebook for Spreading Fake News Ever Since She Won Election”
BTW, they want to make sure that Snopes doesn’t get confused.
The Derringer
Fake News for Satirical Times
https://www.thederringer.com/snopes-calls-the-derringer-faker-than-the-bible/
(Well, Snopes hasn’t actually done that yet, but it’s only a matter of time.)
In the 50s and 60s the liberal/left took off partly on the force of humor. The conservative/right had become too stodgy and was easily blindsided.
Now the shoe is on the other foot.
@ AesopFan: “Americans Shocked to Learn Democrats Running for President of THIS Country” Loved it. Thanks for the tip.
I think the Democrats are partly using this as amatter of timing, so tat if here are any big items, such as a Supreme Court nomination, they can use the mere fact of being under impeachment as an additional argument. “Why, we couldn’t possibly accept a nominee put forward by a president who is under impeachment proceedings. It would further harm the legitimacy of the Court.” (Looks backward for fainting couch.)
@Art Deco:
Re: your two hypotheses:
“1. They don’t necessarily converse outside their bubble. Street-level Democrats have no idea what all this looks like to people not immersed in their matrix. It’s quite possible the same is true of elected officials and their staffs.”
I think and hope this is correct.
One thing that concerns me, though, is whether we are too much in our bubbles. Conservatives can’t avoid the leftist dominance of news media, so we’re never entirely ignorant of their narrative. But our understanding of what percentage of the population are persuaded by their propaganda, vs. what percentage dismisses it, is based on polling, and I no longer trust polling.
So, while the fantasies of the leftist media organs certainly look risible to “people not immersed in their matrix,” I remain concerned that this “laughing and shaking our heads” group is too small to matter.
“2. Trump has partially succeeded in moving some Overton windows and taking control of the public discourse away from the social nexus for which the Democratic Party is an electoral vehicle. Republicans have been deferential to liberal opinion and have truckled to contrived sh!tstorms for about thirty years now (and did so intermittently for twenty years prior to that). The opposition is quite at sea emotionally.”
That part is entirely correct, but this reversal-of-deference hasn’t yet gone far enough. We have Trump, of course, but he won’t be there forever. And we have Lindsey Graham 2.0, and of course Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are still there. But they all still feel like exceptions to the norm. We need every GOP elected official to get that same steel in their spine, and embrace the power of laughing at the Dems.
While the numbers remain small, the Leftists hope they can defeat Trump, and then defeat Graham, and then tell conservatives, “See, that’s what happens if you get uppity.” I don’t think they’ll succeed, in either case, but the reason they’re throwing all their resources and credibility into that effort is because they sense a Preference Cascade in the making. If more than a handful of conservative voices can make fun of them with impunity, the trickle will become a flood, and their goose is cooked.
R.C. on September 26, 2019 at 10:32 am said:
@Art Deco:
Re: your two hypotheses:
…
One thing that concerns me, though, is whether we are too much in our bubbles.
* * *
We certainly can be, although your points to the contrary are well-taken.
Way way back in the pre-Obama days, a blogger at Big Lizards* (SF writer Dafydd ab Hugh in real life) was very much on-target about the Left’s radicalism, but I remember one post of his during the height of conservative ranting about Nancy Pelosi (the first time around) in which he pointed out that, to anyone reading her speeches/comments or viewing her actions through the MSM lens, she sounded and looked perfectly reasonable, so that the agitation of the Right did not seem to them to have any basis.
I noticed the same thing about Obama: if you read/listened in a news vacuum (or, worse, an MSM-generated bubble), his demeanor and policies did not sound at all unhinged, despite the crazy things, that he was doing.
*
Only intermittent posts for the last few years, but located here:
https://www.biglizards.net/blog/
“We have Trump, of course, but he won’t be there forever. And we have Lindsey Graham 2.0, and of course Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are still there. ” – R.C.
Graham is almost bipolar in his bipartisanship these days, and I have been very disappointed in Senator Lee’s positions on some policies.
There are some solid conservatives in the Senate & House, but not nearly enough.
We’re gonna need a lot more GOP primary challengers.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/former-mccain-romney-adviser-claims-30-gop-senators-would-vote-impeachment-anonymously