( as an american… ¡fuck! )

so, like, i guess they call it the sophomore slump
always crying & always drunk
a few dead, more gone, & the rest, well, on their way

( ¡thanks! ¡i hate it! )

– “Cigarette Ahegao”, Penelope Scott

I don’t e’en know what to say. The rightful kings have taken back their crown from the Russian Communist Party & asserted that, no, nobody loses better than the US Democratic Party. ¡E’en some rando named Allan Lichtman with his eldritch 13 Keys o’ Solomon to the White House failed to predict this outcome with his crystal ball!

Scrawling thru the comments sections o’ places like /r/politics & Daily Kos & Wonkette articles, it’s perturbing how liberals have responded to this upset that is apparently shocking, e’en tho polls have been showing this election as neck-&-neck with an easy possibility o’ consistently spilling ’cross many swing states for years. People had been pessimistic ’bout Harris’s chances for months before they suddenly decided ’twas in the bag, which I accurately predicted was a repeat o’ the 2016 euphoria — but this time without the polls to e’en back it up. I mean, part o’ me can understand: polls have been weird & suspicious for years & are o’erly reliant on assumptions that change too quickly &, despite the “Just World Fallacy” being a well-known logical fallacy, it’s natural to assume that the woman who had no major campaign errors & gainst which Republicans could say nothing beyond calling her laugh weird would win gainst the guy who devolved into babbling ’bout immigrants eating cats & dogs & holding a Madison Square Garden rally deliberately reminiscent o’ the infamous 1939 Nazi rallies & had infamously attempted a coup & had been spewing totalitarian rhetoric for years now. But the US voting public have been smashing incompetency expectations a’least since they elected Cowboy Ronnie Reagan: you’d think liberals would be used to it by now.

But most perturbing was how all these so-called liberals were so quick to eerily evoke The Onion’s joke ’bout rushing to find what minority group to scapegoat & bragging with sociopathic glee how fun it’ll be to see minority groups suffer the consequences o’ a Trump presidency as punishment for certain bunches o’ minorities voting for Trump, like Texan Latinos — ’cause Texas going blue was really on the cards.

( The latter is under the article, “The Coming Death of Hispanic-Owned Businesses” ).

This, ’course, includes mocking Muslims whose family might’ve been annihilated in Gaza in the most edgelord fashion:

That being said, I do like the person who replied with the ol’ saying, “Scratch a ( fake ) liberal, a fascist bleeds”:

As one would expect, these belligerent unhinged rants you’d expect from Republicans has not encouraged people to be mo’ supportive to the Democratic Party, but has done the opposite:

Just a reminder that “centrists” & “moderates” can be just as unhinged as the left & the right: that the “Horseshoe Theory” is outdated, replaced by the “Fork Theory”.

The irony is that minority groups have been experiencing this shit fore’er; — just look @ the immigration cages built under Obama or the destruction o’ Gaza happening under the Biden administration — the main change with Trumpian fascism is that now white liberals are @ risk, & that is why these white liberals are reacting with such alarm when before they were a lot mo’ calm when the violence was attacking groups o’ which they were not a part ( &, spoilers, we will see these people jumping to sacrifice minority groups to save their own skins soon ’nough ). They’re not wrong that it’s irrational to vote gainst Trump, since minorities do get less harm under the Democrats; but given how fast they are to hate on entire groups for what some members did, while giving themselves as individuals that are part o’ the white race that supported Trump the most, gives away how fake their concern was for nonwhites. It also reveals that none o’ these crackers know any progressive Latinos or Muslims in the real world that they care ’bout, as if they did I can’t imagine that they’d lump them in with those statistics they read; it’s clear that those statistics they read is all Latinos & Muslims are to them.

Now, I expect this kind o’ edgelordism from Reddit, the place that birthed us such cultural accomplishments as the “incel”, but I expected better from the comments o’, say, The Wonkette, especially since the General Secretary o’ the Communist Party o’ The Wonkette Schoenkopt herself wrote 1 o’ the mo’ sober & empathetic articles ’bout the Great American Disaster o’ 2024:

That said, as a proud Seattlite, I do stand by the commenter with what I think is an Arle icon who said, “CASCADIA FOREVER!”, as well as Daily Kos’s call for a west-coast succession — tho I think we should let the northeast join, too.

E’en AOC, the only cool politico, had to take time out o’ leaving comments on Donkey Kong 64 speedruns — ’cause she’s the only politician brave enough to appreciate that game’s genius — to tell these idiots to calm down.

I’m disturbed ( ¡in the house we’re droppin’ plates! ) that someone as cynical as I think these people are being way too nihilistic & misanthropic & it makes me skeptical that any kind o’ political improvement will happen when e’eryone is starting to agree on antisocial nihilism. After all, nobody can do that better than Trump; no Democrat is e’er going to beat him on that, & I’m not sure what use having Democrats who are better than Trump @ that would be. I can understand the tendency to fall into the idea, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, but we must remember that that “’em” is fascists. If one has given up all hope on any reason or goodwill coming from the majority e’er, no matter what Democrats or people on the left do or say, I don’t see how spitting bile on vague lumps o’ people will improve that — & let’s be clear here, these posters aren’t e’en being funny or charismatic when they do so, which is why I have been elected President o’ Political Satire for Life & they are just randos on ancient blogs. ( ¿Who the fuck writes a diary on Daily Kos anymo’? Have some self-respect & get a WordPress account for chrissakes ). The only logical routes to go from there would be to put one’s hope on some kind o’ benign technocratic oligarchy — & I’ve seen no one support this, especially any scientists who could be credible ’nough to lead that technocracy, e’en if we could somehow assure ourselves that they wouldn’t become corrupted & exploit their power for gain — or giving up on politics entirely & just going back to playing video games & watching YouTube videos. Certainly these people would’ve been better served doing so immediately after these election results. If one still supports democracy & still cares ’bout any form o’ progressivism — & if the latter isn’t true, one has no reason to be complaining ’bout the current results — then one has no choice but to put hope on there existing some way out there to make progressive policies electable.

Which is not to say that people haven’t been offering up all matter o’ pet theories for why Harris failed, none o’ which are backed by hard data, & many o’ which are contradictory. Here’s a list o’ ideas I’ve seen:

• Harris should’ve been mo’ left-wing
• Harris should’ve been less left-wing
• Harris should’ve fought back mo’ gainst Israel to avoid losing Muslim voters
• Harris should’ve fought back less gainst Israel to avoid losing Jewish voters
• The Democrats shouldn’t have called Trump & Republicans fascists
• The Democrats should’ve put mo’ emphasis on how fascist Trump & Republicans are

& the solutions that actually would’ve made any sense would’ve been impossible. People complained ’bout how Biden didn’t do ’nough to deal with inflation, but don’t offer any solutions o’ what he could’ve done, ’cause hardly any o’ them have read any economics &, mo’ unnervingly, seem to think that’s irrelevant, as if reality is just what we say it is — which is a disturbingly Orwellian conclusion people on all sides are tending toward, which, no matter what side you’re on, will inevitably lead to irrationality. It’s depressing to see progressives try to offer “solutions” by just shrugging & saying, “I don’t know, I’m not a politician, these guys are — they should have a solution”. If these progressives are so sick o’ elites, ¿why are they themselves treating politicians as elites that apparently have some understanding beyond us, as if we aren’t the ones who choose them, not the other way round. I sure don’t take for granted that Biden knows mo’ ’bout economics than I do; I spent most o’ the 2020 debates getting annoyed @ all the weak statements he made, like “I am the Democratic Party”, or the statements he didn’t make ( ¿why hasn’t any Democrat made fun o’ the hypocrisy o’ Republicans being against “defund the police”, but in favor o’ defunding e’erything else, to try deconstructing antigovernment sentiments & try & make people appreciate government spending again rather than weakly going, “nuh uh”, & moving on? ¿Why haven’t Democrats turned it back around on Republicans & accused them o’ favoring “defund healthcare”? ), e’en while knowing some o’ the “smarter” things Biden could’ve said would fall flat ’cause it would go o’er voters’ heads. That’s why I’m a satirist who can freely call the majority o’ Americans morons & suffer no consequences — as President o’ Political Satire for Life o’ The Mezunian you hicks in Michigan, Wisconsin, & Pennsylvania can’t vote me out — & not a politician who has to pretend not to have disdain for these slobs. Let’s be real: the US has ne’er had genius presidents. No, not e’en Obama: he was charismatic & a great speaker, which is what a good president needs, but I bet he doesn’t e’en know what “Post-Keynesianism” is & how it differs from “New Keynesianism”, & probably doesn’t care. They have career economists who will tell them what they want to hear: that it’s impractical to decrease inflation without attacking employment & wages. ¿Who do these progressives hope will be the intellectual basis for progressive politics? It doesn’t seem to me that any o’ these progressives care: they just care ’bout any vaguely left-wing politicians elected & get mad when those politicians don’t use magic forces to make the economy good. ( Actually, they don’t e’en put much effort into pushing for politicians themselves, but mo’ whine when they get 1 they don’t 100% love ). They engage in the same anti-intellectualist wishful thinking as Trumpists; that’s the only explanation for why the American public was economically miserable under Biden but Democrats couldn’t find a solution. Maybe steady Democratic policies could’ve gradually improved things eventually; but if Democrats can’t go a single cycle without attacking Biden or Harris as garbage ’cause they’re not solving economic problems quick ’nough, ¿why would anyone expect the people who went to Trump this election to be so patient?

As my snide refrain o’ “Moderate Liberals Known for Utter Failure” indicates, I have no qualms with mocking Democrats when they don’t bother, but it’s hard to think o’ any major flaw in Harris’s campaign beyond the fact that she was a Democrat, Democrats were the incumbent, & thanks to inflation, people were mad @ the incumbents. The real world doesn’t operate on the Just World Fallacy & sometimes uneducated people vote on bullshit ’cause they don’t actually understand anything. Nothing else explains the wide turn from Biden’s massive 81-million win in 2020, after which Biden did better than any progressive expected, & did pretty much what any centrist would expect, & his low polling in 2024. & people who bet on racism & sexism — as if the racists & sexists didn’t already have a better candidate than any white male Democrat than the loudly racist & sexist Trump — are forgetting that the whole reason the Democratic Party frantically switched to Harris was ’cause o’ how low Biden’s polling was. ¿Why was Harris’s higher then? While using that rationale may make leftists feel a sense o’ catharsis gainst terrible people — as if it’s healthy for leftists to stew impotently in their nihilism — all this does is punish potential future women & possibly black candidates ( despite Obama still being 1 o’ the most popular recent Democrat candidate disproving the latter ) for indefinite cycles based on the sloppy assumption that “women are unelectable” based on 2 evidence points, both o’ which skewed in many ways. E’en if Harris were to blame for not “communicating well enough” to people who get all their politics from rightwing grifters who have an interest in making up whate’er bullshit they can gainst the Democrats ( how this is done short o’ magical mind-control technology is ne’er elucidated by these self-asserted strategists ) or for being “devoid o’ personality” or “a husk o’ a human”, in contrast to Biden, the world’s most exciting politician, who, ne’ertheless, has the record for winning the most votes o’ any US president ( & which is a suspiciously common critique gainst women candidates ), then progressives have no step to stand on for blaming the “institutional” Democrats: the progressives were all demanding Biden step aside for Harris after his amazing debate where he revealed to the world how he beat medicare; I heard not a single complaint ’bout Harris would lose the racist & sexist vote that progressives surely hold dear. Same goes for the people whining ’bout how primary votes were ignored: I heard not a single complaint about such back in July; ¿now you cowards suddenly pretend like ’twas a problem all along?

None o’ this is a strong defense for the Bidens & Harrises o’ the Democratic Party, for whom any defense or attack from me is meaningless ( making jokes, like calling Biden “Biden His Time”, is a different story, as they bring us laughter, which is very useful ). Tim Kaine isn’t reading my communist stoner blog; institutional Democrats are going to do what they decide to do & what influence this post has on them could only come thru progressives reading this. I’m bored o’ hearing progressives just whine ’bout the Democrats they hold in expectation as being on their team while doing nothing to compel Democrats to do so, as if Tim Kaine & the ilk are going to read their whines & have a change o’ heart.

But what’s weirdest ’bout this fatalism is that it’s tied to some made up permanent swing o’ general sentiments & not, you know, the threat that Trump may seize dictatorial control & end elections, period — or a’least rig them so that de facto Republicans always keep control ( I’m not convinced Trump is competent ’nough — he still can’t figure out how to get the military to not hate him, which is kind o’ important to authoritarian regimes — to be able to seize control o’ the government; Trump likes to think o’ himself as Hitler, but he is not nearly as smart ). But let’s say elections go as normal: ¿why do people keep assuming election results mean permanent swings? Anyone who has paid attention to the last few decades would notice that politics swings back & forth as people get sick o’ 1 party & swing to the other. This especially happens during midterms after a newly elected president — & considering how weak the Republican’s win was this year, especially for the house, I’m going to go far ’nough to outright call that unless Trump seriously rigs the election, Dems are taking the house in 2026. & note that despite what centrists would tell you, these swings don’t go toward the center or as fatalistic leftists would tell you go toward the right, but go outward: e’ery Democratic president since Bill Clinton has inched further to the left as Republicans have gone rightward.

To be fair, there is 1 major criticism one could make gainst the Biden administration: the fact that Trump was allowed to get ’way with 1/6 & his many threats gainst his enemies. In a sense, leftists had a reason to be apathetic ’bout a hypocritical administration that brayed so oft ’bout what a threat to democracy Trump was, but did nothing ’bout it themselves, & surely wouldn’t allow leftists to take matters into their own hands. ¿What, then, would giving Democrats another 4 years accomplish? ¿Did the Democrats expect anyone to hold out the expectation that Trump could’ve been kept out o’ the oval office fore’er by mere elections, with how inevitable party swings are in this climate? If I were to diagnose the failure o’ the Democratic party to inspire ’nough passion to get people out to vote for them, there is a very simple reason: the Democratic party are bitches. Not only leftists, but e’en an increasing # o’ formerly moderate liberals who saw that the time for moderatism is dead, were calling for Democrats to stop being bitches who kowtowed to Republicans’ hypocritical, concern-troll demands & pretended that the same government that had no problem drone-striking any US citizen with a middle-eastern name could do absolutely nothing gainst a clear domestic terrorist, despite being given so many options — the supreme court e’en essentially declared the president invincible to law. @ that point the supreme court already declared the US president a dictator; but Biden, ironically just like the foolish purity-contest leftists who couldn’t vote for Harris due to her support for Israel despite the practical uselessness o’ such a decision, decided to be a foolish purity-content liberal & “protect” liberal republicanism by refusing to use said powers himself, but keeping such an authoritarian state in place for a future would-be dictator to exploit, based on this bizarre idea that the limits o’ government are not enshrined in law, but enshrined in the populace ne’er e’er electing someone who might want to ignore the law. We saw how long that lasted. Anyone with half a brain who truly cared ’bout liberal republicanism would have reacted by exploiting said powers to eliminate said court & replace it with a court that would reinstate the rule o’ law. This was the feckless party that was s’posed to protect republicanism gainst the eternal o’ 1 Republican victory, where e’ery election was the most important election, fore’er. In such a situation, US republicanism’s collapse was already inevitable. Biden was, in fact, the perfect representation o’ the Democratic party & the perfect representation o’ the US republic: a drooling senile man minutes away from death. Plus, we must honestly ask ourselves: ¿how many Americans actually care ’bout the republic, or e’en like it? I mean, I certainly prefer it to a dictatorship; — I definitely don’t look forward to feds getting up my craw ’cause I made fun o’ Emperor Massive Dumps & don’t want to go thru the hassle o’ moving my 5 cats & 500+ books to another country — but just as leftists have been warning that people need to support something positive in the Democratic party, not just vote for “not the Republicans”, leftists & liberals don’t want just “not a dictatorship”, they want a government that is truly responsive to the needs o’ the general public. History has shown that the public is willing to throw out democracy if some charismatic strongman charlatan can convince them that his dictatorship will make the trains run on time.

Now, granted, if Trump fails to destroy our federal election systems, Democrats are open to new leadership: Biden’s obviously out, since he’s basically a potted plant now; Kamala Harris’s career is o’er & she’s be standing on the sidelines like Hilary Clinton; Nancy Pelosi’s retired from house speaker; & nobody remembers that Chuck Schumer exists. The question is, ¿will progressives actually put any effort into trying to take leadership or will they continue to whine impotently on online forums while quoting some soundbyte Bernie Sanders releases from his nursing home & fantasizing ’bout a 2016 when Sanders — the only socialist in existence — became president? You bougie-ass cosplay commies like to reference Lenin & shit; well, as some rando shouted to Lenin: “¡Take power, you son of a bitch, when it is handed to you!”.

’Course there are still some delusional fake liberals — nerdy people who support Republicans ’cause they benefit them materially, but who pretend to be liberal to avoid being associated with the buffoonery that dominates the Republican party & try to fit in with the intellectual leftists who trade their material interests ( or don’t share material interests with rich white men ) for honesty & for some reason think these leftists don’t see thru them & put on a victim complex when leftists snub them — who will spew the ol’ niceties that the Democrats are just too vicious, — you know, the same Democrats who let a domestic terrorist win an election & just make himself a dictator — like Nate Silver, a STEM-lord — & not e’en a good 1, since this so-called “math geek” couldn’t e’en learn ’nough HTML & CSS to make his own website & not rely on Substack to give him a generic site that looks like e’eryone else’s, the coward — known for election polls & being a gambling addict ( running an election gambling site that bases its odds on polls like the 1s he makes, which isn’t a conflict o’ interest @ all ) & who has the delusion that he knows anything ’bout how people think, despite having ne’er talked to anyone in real life. Now, while a normal person on planet earth would consider the presidential candidate who repeatedly talks ’bout wanting to be a dictator; talks ’bout wanting to throw people out o’ the US for having beliefs he doesn’t like, including not believing in fairy tales ’bout an invisible man in the sky whose son/self could walk on water; & uses Nazi language, like saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” to be the epitome o’ toxic, Nate Silver is mo’ concerned with Democrats being so “ruthless” as to… force Biden to give up his re-election campaign after ’twas revealed he’s a vegetable, — e’en tho Nate Silver was 1 o’ the loudest voices calling for it — not going out o’ their way to praise the supreme court for… complaining ’bout affirmative action ’cause it s’posedly hurts Asian Americans ( ¿maybe ’cause you’re the only 1 who cares ’bout this very niche, specific issue, Nate? ), & not letting trans people be excluded from sports to better facilitate gender segregation. Also, they were mean to poor tech startups, who did e’erything for Democrats, like heavily fund Republicans ( as well as Nate Silver, who is funded by Republican Peter Thiel, but is totally a liberal, guys, he just constantly concern-trolls behalf o’ Republicans like those who pay him is all ). Funny enough, he whines ’bout a bunch o’ “unpopular” progressive policies they support & s’posed slow growth o’ blue states, all uncited, & the latter irrelevant ( western countries have slower growth than Africa, so I guess Africa is much better off than the west ), but Silver can’t say what liberal policies he thinks the Democrats should support & for whom. Then again, Silver shows his amazing ignorance o’ economics & not being rich with this hilarious advice:

Doing a better job of making California and New York growth-oriented jurisdictions will naturally make Democrats seem less like a party for rich snobs who don’t mind high taxes and bad services because they’re insulated from the struggles of daily life.

Nate, as someone who actually grew up white trash working poor — e’en living in a trailer @ a certain point in high school & relying on food bank food for a while — in an urban area, let me explain to you what poverty is actually like: we don’t care ’bout high taxes ( namely ’cause “high taxes” is high taxes on rich parasites like Nate Silver, not payroll taxes, which actually affects those o’ use with real jobs ); we are excited ’bout income tax time ’cause we get money back. On the other hand, “growth-oriented” isn’t useful, as rich people just keep all that growth for themselves while wages stagnate. Also I would take the “bad services” o’ actually having buses & trains in the city o’er having to spend thousands o’ $ on a car, maintenance, & gas to travel the miles o’ empty roads filling… whate’er imaginary rural prairie Silver thinks all poor people live on ’cause he watched The Waltons, since this cracker obviously lives in a tacky gated McMansion in Silicon Valley. Please read an economics book for once, Nate.

Honestly, there are so much dumb shit I’ve stumbled ’pon on his blog, including his laughable attempt @ forming his own made-up 3-way political triangle to pretend he isn’t aligned with conservatives based on some bullshit Hayek made up & nothing else, that we would be here all day if I made fun o’ it all. It’s clear that this guy’s understanding o’ politics comes only from doomscrolling Twitter bitch fights rather than actual books, which is why he tries to psychoanalyze the political thought o’ leftists rather than actually studying any real sociology or political scientist ( for example, it explains his confusion regarding the so-called separation o’ Marxism & intersectionality — he has no idea what “class” is, thinking that race, gender, & sexuality are somehow some completely different “identities” ). I would recommend he do actual studying, but that would take effort & time & would distract from his gambling, & I don’t think he’s arguing in good faith, anyway, & as he whines, the Democrats rightfully don’t take seriously any o’ his advice ’cause e’en they think he’s too out-o’-touch. Which is to say, I want to get this article o’er with ’cause I have books I want to read, like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich — I have no idea why I’ve suddenly developed curiosity on learning the details regarding the transition from democracy to totalitarianism — where I can learn things from people with reading actually scholarly works, not give myself brain cancer reading such eloquent articles as this bitch-ass ho whining ’cause the Big Left Cult won’t admit that they’re all involved in a conspiracy that he made up in his schizophrenic head to force woke “emotionalist” discourse on people & something something Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God. Yeah, I would be as dumb as Nate Silver if I read mind vomit like that all the time, too.

There are ’course plenty of other out-o’-touch, irrelevant Boomers & Gen-Xer centrists & Republicans pretending to be Democrats like Matt Yglesias & Morning Joe also jumping on the bandwagon that Democrats’ problem is that they’re not bigoted ’nough gainst trans people ( & aren’t taking seriously racist Republican dogwhistles ) — ’cause I’m sure being bigoted gainst trans people isn’t going to turn off e’en mo’ leftists from the Democrats & would encourage those who are comfortable with being bigoted to stop supporting the candidate for whom the main criticism is his bigotry in favor o’ this potential less-charismatic Democratic bigot. These proclamations only reveal how shallow Yglesias & Scarborough’s politics are: people with self-respect — so not these people — don’t just change their principles so they can fit in with the winning team, but work to try & make their principles win; liberals vote for Democrats on the condition that they support liberal principles; they don’t support liberal principles just ’cause they win. If liberal principles can’t win e’er, then there is no reason for the Democratic Party to exist @ all.

’Course, these people are truly conservatives bitter that the Republican Party has become the fascist party & are trying to twist the Democratic Party from a moderate liberal party into a conservative party, but that’s not going to work, ’cause conservativism is dead, as it always becomes when capitalism goes into crisis after great depressions. The same happened in the 1930s. If Silver, Yglesias & Scarborough knew any history, they’d know that it wasn’t conservatives who defeated fascism: ’twas the ( oft uneasy ) cooperation o’ socialists & liberals; conservatives by & large supported fascism, which is why the Republican Party opposed the US fighting against the Nazis. What the Silver, Yglesias, & Scarboroughs o’ the US are calling for when whining ’bout the left being too mean gainst the Republicans by calling them fascists is appeasement — & history has shown that appeasing fascists ne’er works; the only way to beat them is to crush them.

What they do show for those still in denial is how “It Can Happen to Us”: it shows how many pretend liberals can throw ’way their principles in the name o’ being on the winning team. It makes me wonder if these 3 claiming that calling hateful immigration & trans policy what they are is “extreme” & that we should compromise with fascists would say the same ’bout the kind o’ policies Germany applied gainst Jewish people, which, after all, a majority o’ Germans supported — & as Bret Stephens o’ The New York Times said, “It won’t do to dismiss a majority of the country as biased, ignorant or otherwise basely motivated”, & how many Americans Germans were trans Jewish after all. Much as Suozzi said, “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports”, I could just as much imagine him saying, “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think Jewish people should be running German businesses”. As Scarborough said, the opposition to the Nazi Party had a choice: “[Y]ou can support transgender Jewish rights up and down all the categories where the issue comes up, or you can understand that there’s certain things that we just go too far on, that a big bulk of our population does not support”. I’m sure these people feel good ’bout themselves now; but I wouldn’t want to be them 100 years later, given how historians will remember them — if they are unlucky ’nough to be remembered. Personally, I would rather not be eternally remembered as someone who acquiesced to fascists, e’en if it means the Democrats lose some elections.

Ne’ertheless, I’m still a bitter cynic, & I still prefer this bile to USA Today writing a fanfic in which the founding fathers’ ghosts lament the death o’ the US republic with the election o’ Emperor Massive Dumps. Apparently USA Today got the misapprehension that the death o’ the US republic & the fall o’ all political norms mean the death o’ the rules gainst posting cringe. They’re wrong.

You might expect that I’d leave it @ Democrat ( & fake Democrats ) tears, since they are the ones who lost, but no: as it turns out, Republicans are mostly reacting to this win with their own brand o’ self-victimhood whining.

For instance, Trump, rather than be happy @ how lucky he is to get a 2nd chance @ being president & having his charges dropped, would rather spend time whining ’bout policies California is planning in this very coherent post on Bootleg Twitter Bootleg Twitter:

Wait, ¿so is California “beautiful” already or does it still need to be made “great again”? ¿Made great how? ¿By making it like the poorer red states?

As for reactions from ordinary people — or people/bots on Reddit, which is perhaps not quite up to the standard o’ real people — we have women deciding to go celibate for Trump’s presidency in protest to him being a sexist pedophile rapist & the predictable triggered response from incels or young men whining that they have “nothing” ’cause they have no skills & it’s “outside their control” somehow ( somehow despite being a young white working-class man myself, I’ve avoided this tragic circumstance ) & how it’s Democrats’ fault for offering nothing — except subsidized health care, student loan forgiveness, food stamps, infrastructure improvements, assistance for small businesses…

Meanwhile, ¿what’s r/conservative talking ’bout? I bet they must be excited ’bout their unexpected victory & are probably talking ’bout all the exciting ways they think Republicans will improve society for all o’ us. O, wait, no, it’s mostly just focusing on how it effects the Democratic presidential candidate or how minorities feel ’bout it — basically, just spitting bile on their “enemies”, rather than celebrating with fellow friends, as, being a political clan defined purely on beating down others, they have no friends, & probably hate each other, too — especially those who are less pure than themselves. O yeah, & multiple threads o’ conspiracy theories ’bout election fraud because 1 o’ their senate candidates didn’t win, despite already taking the senate, anyway, based purely on “this doesn’t feel right, so it must be wrong”. That’s right: these spoiled babies would rather whine ’bout not getting all the senate seats than be excited ’bout getting a trifecta. This is why you ne’er try compromising with conservatives: they are ne’er happy with what they get.

O yeah, & we have some nice protests with signs showing “WOMEN ARE PROPERTY” & “HOMO SEX IS SIN( FULLY SEXY )”, as well as signs calling slaves property & a sign quoting the Biblical book o’ Romans saying that sodomy is “WORTHY OF DEATH” — to which I agree: such cumful pleasure is worth any risk, e’en death. ( But remember: Christians are so much mo’ tolerant than those dirty Muslims who believe in the same invisible man in the sky ). &, let’s see, fans o’ the neonazi with an AI-generated face, Nick Fuentes, sending messages that say, “your body, my choice”, the incredibly clever “get back to the kitchen”, & calling for repelling the 19th amendment & racist texts being sent to a bunch o’ black people, including children. ¿Do you think the crybaby conservatives who demand intolerant leftists stop being so divisive & doing things like Biden calling Trump & his supporters “garbage” — the meanest o’ insults, if you’re a 6-year-ol’ — & that’s why they had no choice but to vote for the pedophile rapist nazi candidate criticized these people for a bad representation o’ conservatives? ¿Do you think “liberal” Nate Silver who praised Republicans as so much mo’ civil than those doctrinaire Democrats who won’t compromise on whether or not discriminating gainst trans people is acceptable so much as acknowledged such repulsive messages being sent to kids? Nope: they have no problem with it — it’s not a “bad” representative o’ Republicans; it’s an accurate representation. It’s not just what the Republicans support, but also what the Silvers, Yglesias, & Scarboroughs support, which is why they didn’t complain ’bout it.

E’en after this massive win, what will probably the height o’ Republican success & apparent validation, I don’t envy Republicans. If this is how they react when they win, it’s clear that they are just miserable, small people. Contrast when Sleepy Joe, who was a mid candidate whose greatest achievement is still playing Luigi in Mario Kart, won in 2020 the general cheer ’mong liberals & actual hopes for the future. Hell, e’en I, whose job it is to say bad things ’bout people for entertainment, was mo’ positive than these ordinary Republicans. & it’s not as if the left, women, black people, gay people, & trans people won’t survive these 4 years & find better years in the future — much better than the bitter incels who will still be miserable & lonely or e’en Trump himself, who will waste his opportunity to just create messes & whine & spew bile just as much as he did when Biden was president.

To paraphrase a song from a much better battle in 2024:

you lied about the only people who could offer you some help;
fuck an election, you’ve got a long-life battle with yourselves

¡Stop the count! ¡Trump the Massive Dump Truck Trump already has 6 times as many votes as Kamala Haven’t Come Up with an Insulting Name to Give Her! ¡A Big win! ¡E’en the radical Marxist AP admits it! ¡Already the scheming communist Democrats are scheming to manufacture votes from immigrant states trying to jump the border like Alaska & Hawaii!

Anyway, here’s some news I ran into:

“MLK Jr.’s daughter demands MAGA account delete ‘vile’ deepfake”

These crackas ain’t learned from the Great Beef War o’ 2024 when Drake had AI Tupac diss Kendrick.

“DOJ agrees to not send monitors inside polling places after Ken Paxton files last-minute suit”

Republicans fight for electoral integrity by… ¿diminishing o’ersight?

“Proud Boys claim they’ll be at polling places as Trump ups violent rhetoric and election fraud claims”

O, I see: it’s ’cause we don’t need to waste government resources monitoring elections when the certified specialists, the Proud Boys, are on the case.

I sure feel safe voting with these average apple-pie Americans loitering around. If you honkeys are so proud, ¿why are you covering your faces? Have some self-esteem for your physical appearances, guys: I’m sure you’re all very beautiful.

“Kamala Harris Notches Another Big Hollywood Endorsement: Dick Van Dyke”

Hold on: ¿Dick van Dyke’s still alive?

Not gonna lie: seeing so many news articles & posts talking ’bout how Harris is going to SMASH this election like a like button — ¡look @ this poll showing her lead! — especially after all the polls showing Republican leads not that long ago, doesn’t assure me, but just give me Vietnam flashbacks to all the euphoria ’hind the 2016 election.

Tho, I have to say, I’m suspicious o’ some o’ the ( unofficial, I must emphasize ) results I’m seeing from AP, claiming that Trump has already won Utah despite 0 votes being counted & showing the 2 main candidates as Trump & Cornel West. You can’t discount West so early.

Daily Kos

There’s not much interesting from Daily Kos — well, interesting to make fun o’; they have very informative articles on general election odds & expectation & electoral statistical oddities going on in states like Ohio that, granted, may be typical liberal cope.

“State of the Race: We have a long way to go” & “Can we please stop the Dooming? NC, GA not called. No reason to think the Blue Wall won’t hold!”

As always, Daily Kos performs their biannual duty o’ being their readers’ therapist, soothing them that all those red splotches on the map from the impatient vote counters in the southeast doesn’t prove anything, the cities are on their way.

Mark Robinson is now free to ‘perv’ out on porn sites after likely massive loss

I can’t believe the self-described “Black Nazi” who insulted MLK Jr., expressed holocaust denial, & engaged in a bunch of other 4chan-level edgelord antics didn’t win. Maybe he was too woke. If he bit the head off a communist on live television instead o’ lamely just calling for some passive-tense killing o’ communists & socialists — ¡quit being a welfare queen & waiting for the government to do it for you, pull up your own bootstraps, & do it yourself, Robinson! — I’m sure he would’ve done better. I’m also not sure why Daily Kos emphasized the least bad part o’ this candidate: if a politician wants to perv out on porn sites, I believe that’s between them & God.

Anyway, I have much mo’ important updates from a much mo’ vital news source:

SiIvaGunner

Reddit

“/r/Politics’ 2024 US Elections Live Thread, Part 62”

For some reason Redditors on /r/politics are going full doomerism & already assuming the Democrats have lost.

Back to Daily Kos

Uh O: I looked back @ Daily Kos & now see doomerist articles from them.

“State of the Race: Preparing for the worst”

The title sounds very alarming, but the content just says, “This thing won’t be called on Tuesday night”. ¿I guess a bunch o’ liberals expected Harris to absolutely destroy Trump ’cause they don’t like him, despite most polls promising a close election?

This is just like 2016 and 2020. There will be lots of ink spilled over the reality that half this country is totally okay with a racist, insurrectionist, convicted felon. I can’t even fathom how we recover from that, but we must.

¿How many times do you have to relearn this lesson, Kos?

“Even when they win, Republicans are losers—and have been for 20 years”

Ultimate cope: “Well, a’least we did better than Kerry in 2004” & “Yeah, but we won the popular vote again, so that means demographics is destiny still”, the latter o’ which is strange in response to a president who threatens to be a dictator.

Other News

It seems confirmed that Republicans took back control o’ the Senate, which was highly expected & will make it difficult for Democrats to wrench back control o’ the supreme court unless they can take it back in 2026.

The Wonkette, which usually isn’t averse to a bit o’ doomerism, seems much mo’ reserved, tho.

Anyway, we’ve got much mo’ important news from Daily Kos:

O, shit, I’m going to go up & get 1 right now.

Well, it’s that time o’ the quadrennium: time to flip that coin & see if the us’s pseudeodemocracy will hobble on a few mo’ years or whether Massive Dumps Truck Trump will say, “¡You’re fired!” to its electoral system & say “¡Lock her up!” to lady liberty, as well as all o’ his enemies, from Dark Brando Sando to that McDonalds clerk who was a bit snide when taking his order. It’s hard to believe it’s been a decade since I 1st started doing these weird articles in 2014 — that 1st article being, honestly, still the best 1 I’ve written so far.

Let’s start off by rubbing our crystal ball, 538, & seeing what they forecast will be the leader of our impending doom:

Well, given how tiny the difference ’tween 53 & 46, that doesn’t give much o’ a hint — well, other than Joseph Kishore o’ the Socialist Equality Party better prepare himself for a big disappointment. Well, maybe Nate Silver on his baby Substack website has something that will give us a better clue:

¡Damn it! ¡Why can’t you forecasters twist your forecasts so they’re not right on the half-&-half mark instead o’ focusing on silly things like “being accurate”? ( Tho Nate Silver in another article insinuates that many polls are deliberately twisting their #s toward the center to fit in with other polls, making averages less accurate, due to fears o’ underrating Trump’s chances 3 times in a row, while noting that the mo’ consistently accurate polls, like the Ann Selzer polls, show Harris having relatively much better odds. )

But that’s all nugatory; unlike these vacillating cowards, The Mezunian has a forecast that is guaranteed to turn out true:

This is guaranteed to be true, since any vote that is not for the Englesist Magical Socialist™ Party is bourgeois treason, — including those from other socialist parties, which are fake socialism, & therefore they don’t count & are reactionary, too — & therefore invalid. Therefore, ¡stop the count! All those who whine ’bout vote counting not being immediate should rest easy when the Magical Socialists are in power, as you’ll ne’er need to vote ’gain when our warm protection is wrapped round you.

Anyway, I’m not surprised the candidate whose last presidency involved a catastrophic failure to take seriously a pandemic that killed millions & that ended with an attempted coup & being the only president to refuse to work with the next president during transition would be competitive with a woman who, um, changed her mind on fracking & supporting cutting funding to police, I guess. ¿Whate’er happened to Republicans being against high government spending? Funny how they only oppose spending when it involves helping people get fed or shelter & not when it involves violence or environmental destruction — almost like they’re just sociopaths who just make up an arbitrary self-contradictory definition o’ “freedom” to shroud their violent & apocalyptic fetishes.

This would explain why the Conservative Political Action Committee had on its banner the hilariously sarcastic line, “We Are All Domestic Terrorists”, which is, ’course, an absurdly bigoted assumption to make ’bout the party that spent the noughties accusing all Democrats o’ being terrorist lovers ’cause they refused to support didn’t support as ardently Republicans’ war against a middle-eastern country that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, or why they would make such hilarious jokes, like calling Puerto Rico — whose people make up an important proportion o’ the voting citizenry in vital swing state Pennsylvania — a “floating island of garbage” @ their Madison Square Garden “patriotic” rally, which was, in no way, connecting to a certain other infamous Madison Square Garden rally, no way. ¿Why do you liberals keep accusing Republicans o’ being Nazis just ’cause they can’t stop praising Hitler as “the kind of leader we need today” or running candidates tied to neo-Nazi organizations or stealing lines from Hitler? It sounds like liberals are the ones who love Nazis so much, given how obsessed they are with focusing on Republicans’ propensity for acting like Nazis. ¿Don’t they have less perverse things to focus on? ¿Don’t they realize how bigoted it is to accuse all Republicans o’ being fascists just ’cause they choose to associate with fascists? ( ’Course, it’s perfectly reasonable for Republicans to call all Democrats communists for decades, since that’s just an objectively-proven fact ).

Anyway, Republicans can’t be Nazis ’cause they support Israel… who are currently being investigated by the Genocide Convention for possibly committing genocide gainst Palestinians & whose prime minister defended Hitler & expressed conspiratorial denial o’ Hitler’s contribution toward the Holocaust, — a form o’ Holocaust denial — which signed an agreement with Poland to deny the historical fact o’ Poland’s participation in the Holocaust, — another form o’ Holocaust denial — & whose Diaspora Minister defended antisemitic stereotypes Musk applied to Holocaust-survivor George Soros ’cause Soros dared to not to support Israel’s right-wing government, despite not being against Israel’s existence itself, only supporting its left wing. Netanyahu’s son also made an antisemetic cartoon gainst Soros that won the applaud o’ Neo-Nazi organization The Daily Stormer. That a Holocaust-survivor would be maligned by Israel is no surprise, since Israel actually has a long history o’ denigrating Holocaust-survivors for being weak sheep who just let themselves be slaughtered, rather than the warmongering Israeli revolutionary hero, leading some Holocaust survivors to pretend to be Israeli-born, & e’en now Holocaust survivors face poverty in Israel. So, yeah, Israel cares so deeply ’bout Jewish people — when they’re useful tools for serving their far-right government’s imperialistic ambitions, nothing mo’; & since Republican Nazis who spew conspiracy theories ’bout “Jewish space lasers” & who chant, “Jews will not replace us”, as well as antisemetic Hungarian authoritarian leaders, also serve said far-right government’s imperialistic ambitions, Israel supports them, too. ¿Religious leaders being cynical & hypocritical authoritarians? ¿Who would’ve thought?

Anyway, if Republicans’ “this entire ethnicity o’ people are literally trash” “joke” wasn’t hilarious ’nough — ¿why can’t Democrats take a joke? ¡Such humorless wokes! — then their response to Dark Brando Sando’s ( accurate ) comeback that Trump & his sycophants are, in fact, garbage, which deeply triggered Republicans ( looks like Republicans are the ones who can’t take “jokes” now ) by… dressing in garbage bags, confirming Dark Brando Sando’s claim: “yes, we are in fact garbage, & proud o’ it”. This is just 1 step ’way from my exaggerated joke ’bout Republicans shitting their pants to own the libs who tell them it’s bad to do so, & why The Mezunian won a Pulitzer Prize in “describing those Republican crackers exactly as they be”. & this is why all o’er the US you see despair from those with functioning brains & self-respect: there is no chance o’ teaching sanity to people who proudly dress in garbage bags to extol their rotten inner natures. Luckily, it’s doubtful that these idiots make up mo’ than a very loud minority & the appearance o’ their importance is only due to the highlight given to them by o’eranxious liberals & conservatives desperate to pretend Republicans are still normal — since the alternative is to admit that regular conservatism has become utterly irrelevant & that the only reasonable alternative to fascism in the US is some form o’ leftist.

Anyway, as per tradition, it’s time we take a look @ a bunch o’ blogs & news sources I ignore rest o’ the year:

Counterpunch

This time bitter obscure commie rag Counterpunch has much mo’ interesting articles than the usual ol’ man grumbling o’ “regardless o’ who wins, it’s a victory for capitalism”, which, ’course, isn’t news @ all, but older than time, & was already said decades ago in a much catchier song by Chumbawamba:

“Will Rappers Elect Trump?”

This lists a bunch o’ super fashionable rappers that all the zoomzooms admire like Li’l Pimp, 50 Cent, & Li’l Wayne — just like how my nephew always rocks it to Limp Bizkit & Foo Fighters — &… honestly jumps from simplistic assumption to simplistic assumption, like that black people like Trump — sorry, “a percentage” o’ black people like Trump, which is backed by a source that just lists a bunch o’ anecdotes o’ fake TikTok rhinestone-ass rappers & rap influencers like DJ Akademiks Kendrick Lamar rightfully criticized in “Watch the Party Die”, no real statistics — ’cause he’s under criminal charges ( um… ¿What? ). Let me also say that it’s funny that this writer shames “primarily white media commentators” for “ignoring” this connection while constantly referencing The New York Times talking ’bout this connection: as we all know, The New York Times is the blackest o’ news sources in the US, with such hood alumni that are deep in the culture like DJ David Brooks, Ross “Douthat Boi”, & Thomas “The Funky Stacheman” Friedman. Anyway, this certainly doesn’t mean Republicans or The New York Times are mo’ inline with contemporary hiphop culture than Democrats: back in 2016 Obama rightfully predicted the true top dog o’ rap ’tween Kendrick Lamar & Drake 8 years early. Actual polls show the surprisingly contrary data that the black woman is mo’ popular with young black men than the white supremacist. E’en mo’ surprising, despite writing so many articles ’bout the Israeli-Palestinian War & the US’s role in it, this article makes no mention o’ the Biden administration’s controversial assistance to Israel during their bombardment o’ Gaza playing a role in Gen Z black people’s cooling on the Democrats, which would certainly be a mo’ logical connection than some rando whiteboy named Nicky Jam supporting Trump — especially since he took it back after that “Puerto Rico is an island of trash” “joke”, being Puerto Rican himself. ¡Oops!

Grade: C

“Nuts”

¿What’s Counterpunch’s article, “Nuts”, ’bout? It’s ’bout my nuts in yo’ face — ¡gottem!

Grade: 🥜

“America’s First World Problem: A Crisis of Democracy”

This article offers us the stunning sapphire o’ wisdom that the US should be, like, mo’ democratic & less autocratic.

So in reading the digital tea leaves of social media and the strident voices of pundits, prognosticators and provocateurs — apparently there is an America out there lying in ruins, buried in garbage and now needs a strongman, carrying the flags of hate, fear, fatalism and racism — riding in to save-the-day from the clutches of a degenerate zombie democracy, then dumped in the landfill of history and set on fire.

Really?? America DOES need to become a WAY better democracy — at home and abroad.

Cracka, ¿you couldn’t e’en show any receipts from said social media? & you can’t blame people for wanting zombie democracy: the Halloween season is still in the air. Wait a month or 2 & people’ll be calling for degenerate gingerbread democracy.

Grade: D

“A Terrifying Choice Awaits Us”

A tedious reiteration o’ the moral quagmire ’tween the “lesser o’ evils” Democrat apologists & the faux-revolutionary Jill Steinists that e’ery reader o’ this magazine must be tired o’ reading. Ne’er mind that there are much better 3rd-party alternatives to Stein.

Grade: C

“That’s Entertainment: Popular Alternatives to the Presidential Campaign Circus”

Counterpunch contrasts the few people who want to watch a bunch o’ ol’ politicos spewing stale propaganda @ people vs. the large crowds o’ people who would rather watch bland entertainment like football & some Marvel movie, but makes no mention o’ the people who do actually interesting things, like visiting obscure caves & taking photos o’ rare wildlife.

Grade: C

“Virtuous, Smug and Venal: British Electoral Interference in the US”

This is the best article I found, a look @ various British political groups’ attempts @ influencing US elections, a reverse o’ the usual US-centric focus on how the US influences other countries’ politics. I emphasize “attempts” ’cause it also lists many ways in which it fails, including attempts to convince Americans not to vote for George W. Bush in 2004, to which the nationalistic American conservative, predictably, reacted with trite stereotypical insults gainst said Brits ’bout bad teeth & how tiny their island is. ’Course, other countries trying to influence US elections is well known, such as recent examples o’ information campaigns from Russia, Ukraine, Israel, & Palestine to strengthen or weaken the US’s assistance toward Ukraine & Israel & the mutual spread o’ far right movements ’cross Europe & the US, including Hungarian authoritarian leader Orbán speaking @ US CPAC, & is an inevitability in our interconnected modern world where the internet can make international communication happen in seconds. Notably, the normally normatively-outspoken Counterpunch is ambiguous on whether they consider foreign influence genuinely troubling, but with rarer instances like British influence getting less attention, or if the negative tone applied to British influence is ironic, mocking the way the media hyperventilates o’er the influence o’ nations the media doesn’t like like Russia, Palestine, or China.

Grade: B

“What Venezuelans Think About Their Presidential Election”

If there’s 1 thing I’ve gathered from my years o’ experience studying Venezuelan politics & listening to Venezuelans themselves it’s that one should not trust any English-speaking honkeys like this article writer — or anything any mainstream American media like The New York Times or The Washington Post — say ’bout what Venezuelans think, as it’s usually either capitalists sucking off American stooges or leftists sucking off a clearly corrupt & incompetent authoritarian & it seems that most Venezuelans I’ve heard don’t like any o’ their politicians any mo’ than Americans like theirs. Also, it’s hard not to see that it is a combination o’ the US intentionally sabotaging the Venezuelan economy thru sanctions & Chavez & Maduro’s incompetent handling o’ infrastructure development ( contrast Venezuela’s inability to make much money off their large amount of oil to heavily-sanctioned Russia’s ability to still make money off their oil ).

& indeed, Counterpunch’s defense o’ Maduro’s “victory” in 2024 is farther than e’en most left-wing organizations would go. To put it into perspective, contrast with Democracy Now!, a well-respected left-leaning non-profit news organization that usually defended Venezuela’s government, a’least gainst western media’s prematurely hysterical criticisms, in the past, but whose news article on the 2024 Venezuelan election was damning in how curt it was & how much it focused on Maduro’s authoritarian actions gainst protesters & his electoral rival. Most notably, the left-wing The Guardian, which has also defended Maduro’s democratic cred in the past, in what has to be their best-researched & sourced article I’ve seen from them, links to multiple collections o’ scanned vote tallies. I myself did the math on the proportions & calculated that, yeah, e’en if e’ery single vote not accounted for was for Maduro, it would be impossible for Maduro to have a higher vote count. Unless these collections involved an impressive amount o’ document-doctoring. Contrast this with the Venezuelan electoral authority refusing to release actual voting data, with the only “proof” o’ Maduro’s victory coming from the executive-captured supreme court. Counterpunch handwaves this by pointing out that many countries settle electoral disputes with the court system, including here in the US when Trump challenged Biden’s victory in 2020, while neglecting the mention the fact that US elections still provide publicly-available election results data, which is the actual issue.

Grade: D

“The Ukraine War is Lost. Three Options Remain”

Counterpunch prove themselves to be hypocritical imperialist apologists by spewing Russian propaganda that the US forced Russia to bloodily invade Ukraine to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, while not e’en going so far as to assert that the US was e’er trying to make Ukraine do so, much less provide any source to back it up, with the closest being the cowardly vague assertion, also without any evidence, that “[v]ery few outside the West, however, share this perspective” ( why non-European opinions should be relevant to European issues is ne’er answered, either; Eastern Europe certainly seems to be taking the west’s side mo’, with e’en Hungary slightly preferring the US o’er Russia ). ’Course, like much Russian apologia, they completely ignore Ukraine’s perspective, treating them as just a pawn relevant only to petty archaic Cold-War squabbles ’tween the US & Russia, not a real country with real people with lives, wants & concerns — just like how Israel apologists treat Palestinians. & much like how Israel has no “right” to have a neighbor that likes them or doesn’t ally themselves with Israeli enemies like Iran or how the US has no “right” to have neighbors like Cuba not be allied with communists they don’t like, Russia has no “right” to have a neighbor that isn’t allied with the west. Maybe Russia should stop threatening violence gainst their fellow Eastern European countries & start actually treating them like allies & Eastern European countries wouldn’t need to desperately turn to Western European powers — who, to be fair, probably do want to exploit them, let’s be real. But Counterpunch, ’course, needs to ignore Eastern Europe, ’cause treating Russia as a poor li’l victim compared to Eastern European countries — most o’ which were former victims o’ the imperialistic Soviet Union — is obviously absurd. I am consistent in treating these countries, ’cause I actually have some semblance o’ principles; Counterpunch just has stale tankie ideology to regurgitate. That Counterpunch is so willing to ignore Ukraine suffering just for the sake o’ getting yet another jab against the US, as if there aren’t already many valid jabs to take gainst the US, is pathetic & shows that they don’t actually care ’bout victims o’ imperialism.

You can tell how unserious Counterpunch is by how vaguely & how evasively they call for the west to “be diplomatic” & “negotiate”, but don’t give any details on what the west should offer. ¿A promise not to allow Ukraine to join NATO? It seems like Counterpunch is the 1 underrating Russia & treating them condescendingly: Putin would have to be an e’en bigger idiot that the kind o’ leader who would sabotage his country’s economy for the sake o’ 1800s-style empire-building to trust the US’s pinky promise. ¿Remember when the US promised protections for Ukraine after they scammed them into giving up their nukes? By the way, if the west is so obsessed with stoking aggression with Russia, ¿why the hell haven’t any o’ them put actual boots in Ukraine? ¿Why is the US, a country that certainly had no fear o’ invading random countries like Iraq, so averse to occupy Ukraine now that they have the perfect excuse? ¿What would be a better time than now? It could be due to nukes; but if nukes prevent the west from invading Russia, ¿what use would having NATO on Russia’s border have? It’s not like NATO being in Ukraine would make Russian nukes less dangerous for the US.

So insistent on defending Russia that this article contradicts itself in the most absurd way. Read this:

Russia’s slow, grinding use of attrition warfare has paid off: the eastern front is buckling before them and the Ukrainian army, which has put up an astonishingly stout and courageous resistance, is increasingly unable to hold the line.

…

George Beebe sees three options. NATO escalates and becomes directly involved in the fighting – action that could have unspeakable consequences. More likely, Ukraine could suffer a collapse – a combination of military and political failure as the ability to put an effective army in the field is lost.

I want to note that the 1st paragraph is pretty much the only time this article admits Ukraine has any role in this war beyond being NPCs, but still, thru vague language, treats the war mo’ like a friendly competition ’tween 2 admirable competitors rather than a 1-sided imperialistic invasion. Replace “Russia” with “The US” & “Ukraine” with “Iraq” & you have an average op-ed from Thomas Friedman in the kind o’ mainstream American media gainst which Counterpunch pretends they have any kind o’ principled distinction.

Anyway, these paragraphs give us BINGO on the Russian propaganda card by indulging in cope claims that Ukraine is going to collapse under Russia’s brilliant military strategy o’ taking a very long time, — in sharp contrast to Russia’s early expectation o’ a quick victory, now that it has clearly failed — but then claims that NATO “escalating” ( unlike Russia, which is merely fighting a defensive war o’ invasion ) “could have unspeakable consequences”, which are that “Ukraine could suffer a collapse” — implying that the latter would be mo’ likely if the former happened, in contrast to the already-existent s’posed inevitable collapse promised in the earlier paragraph. So this article is claiming that extra military power from some o’ the world’s strongest countries would make Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse than not “escalating” & letting Ukraine be alone in what this article just claimed was a s’posed inevitable loss. If this is true, Russia should want Ukraine to join NATO to make Russia safer, as apparently Ukraine getting help from NATO makes Ukraine weaker than Ukraine by themselves. Obviously this article writer didn’t mean this & is just an idiot who didn’t think thru what he wrote.

O, sorry, this is the actual “solution” to preventing Ukrainian collapse:

The third option, and clearly the preferable one for Beebe, is that the West changes course and “picks up the phone”, ending its refusal to negotiate.

¡Just pick up the phone! ¡It’s that simple! You’ll notice that this paragraph doesn’t say what the west should do after picking up said phone or what negotiations the west should offer. Putin certainly hasn’t taken seriously the west’s insistence that they aren’t trying to allow force Ukraine to join NATO, so I can’t imagine promising it 1 mo’ time would convince him. Nowhere does this article acknowledge the possibility that there is nothing the west could promise or offer Russia that would deter Russia from their invasion o’ Ukraine — that Russia wants nothing better than the conquer Ukraine. If they did acknowledge such a possibility, their fantasy that the Russian invasion could be solved by e’eryone just sticking dicks in each other’s bums & just be friends would be dashed to pieces.

But, ¡wait! ¿What’s this?

The Ukrainians face a terrible dilemma. Most seem to realize the war is lost. Any attempt at negotiation with the Russians, however, would unleash internal pressures inside Ukraine that could lead to a coup, assassinations or other upheaval. The US won’t want the war to end before President Biden leaves office in January 2025 – and may prolong the agony, loss of life and the ceding of yet more territory to Russia for US domestic reasons rather than the best interests of Ukraine. Where is all this leading?

OK, so now Counterpunch is claiming that attempts to negotiate would, in fact, make Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse. So it sounds like e’ery option somehow makes Ukraine mo’ likely to collapse, like how all 5 moles in those desert caves in EarthBound are the 3rd strongest mole. ¿Does this article writer — there’s just 1 name attributed — have multiple personality disorder? You can’t e’en defend this as the writer being just pessimistic ’bout any good outcome for Ukraine, — which, to be fair, would make sense e’en if Ukraine manages to defeat Russia, given how much damage Ukraine has already taken — since this article clearly took a chiding tone toward the west for “refusing to negotiate”. ¿Why do you think the west should stop refusing to negotiate if you think that would lead to a coup in Ukraine?

Also, baseless conspiracy theory that doesn’t e’en make any sense & just proves that this article writer is just spewing inane bullshit that’s different from what the lamestream media would say to sound special, no matter how dumb it is. ¿Why would Biden not want the war to end before he leaves office? ¿Because successfully resolving a war would make him look too good?

After having read & critiqued way mo’ than I expected from Counterpunch, I would like to take back my earlier snide remark: maybe Counterpunch should just stick to the trite “regardless o’ the election results, it’s still a victory for capitalism” article. Anyway, I hope your drive for $75,000 goes well, I guess — o’ which you boast comes from only 1% o’ your audience. I guess that means us people who don’t donate — after my recent New York trip I’m broke, sorry — are the true 99%.

Grade: F

The Nation

’Pon seeing the front page o’ The Nation I came up with a new drinking game: take a drink e’ery time I see an article ’long the lines o’ “Here’s why you should vote Democrat despite the whole Gazabombing”. Right @ the top I saw 2:

“In New York, Progressive Values Have a Line on the Ballot”

The 1st article was the basic rigamarole, tho ’twas interesting learning ’bout this “fusion ticket” thing, which we don’t have in Washington State, where we don’t really have political parties, technically: candidates optionally list their “preferred” party, but you don’t need to register for any party beyond checking some box during primaries promising you won’t cheat & vote for a different party for the presidential election during the general election. I was mildly annoyed by the self-aggrandizing way the writer bragged, “I was one of the first public figures to demand that the Biden administration call for a ceasefire”, which is a questionable claim, but whate’er. It’s an o’erall competent article compared to the Counterpunch articles, which felt like they were just hastily typed out in an hour.

Grade: B

“Bernie Sanders: ‘Netanyahu Prefers to Have Donald Trump in Office’”

I couldn’t get past the photo o’ Bern Boi looking like someone’s confused grampa without a free registration banner & I don’t feel like registering.

Grade: 👴

“Scared of E. Coli? Donald Trump Should Terrify You.”

There’s no reason to read the article: anything after this amazing headline will just be a disappointment.

Grade: S

Mo’ to come later tonight…

I was originally planning on avoiding talking ’bout the assassination o’ Trump’s right ear, — ¡typical leftist bias! — so I wouldn’t be put on a list when “Massive Dumps” Trump is coronated as CEO for Life o’ the new Patriotic States of America, or the reveal that Biden had a been an animated vegetable this whole time, or the twist that Biden is stepping down ’cause another Biden vs. Trump election is just cringe & so he can spend mo’ time playing as Luigi in Mario Kart, — ¿& who wouldn’t prefer that to giving missiles to Israel, who aren’t e’en grateful — or whate’er inane soap-opera twist comes up before this article comes out that will ruin my sweet jokes, but I just had to stumble ’pon this dumbass article by The Daily Beast: I shit you not, it’s called, “What Donald Trump’s Abandoned Shoe Reveals About Him and America” with a solemn photo o’ said “abandoned” shoe standing on velvet red carpet — albeit this goofy solemnity is ruined by the subtitle, “Sole Survivor” ( “ahaha, I don’t feel like they get that” ).

Sometimes a shoe is more than a shoe.

I’ll believe that as much as I’ll believe all those bronies trying to tell me that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic isn’t just a fun cartoon for kids but is a philosophical exploration as deep as Dostoevsky or that e’ery episode o’ the Pokémon anime after the 1st takes place in Ash Ketchum’s coma.

In the mayhem of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a single black Oxford shoe was left behind, abandoned on the platform where the former president was wounded by a sniper’s bullet and smothered in a Secret Service protective scrum.

Programmers have ne’er felt as sympathetic toward Trump as during those last few words, shuddering as they imagine the former president having to hold 15-minute stand-up meetings e’ery day to explain the the Secret Service what he’d done the previous day to contribute to that fortnight’s sprint. I am not 1 o’ them & call “fake news”: there is no way the wildly disciplineless Trump could be tamed by e’en the most legendary o’ scrum masters.

Trump, it seems, lost one shoe in the melee on stage.

& this is where this writer publisher/CEO, if the bio is correct, gets led astray by his thesaurus: “melee” is not just a generic synonym for any kind o’ battle, but specifically a hand-to-hand fight, not a gun battle. Perhaps save your flowery language for the poetry you’re still sure any day now will be published in those big journals that don’t exist anymo’ ’cause it’s no longer the 50s & nobody reads poetry anymo’ & stick with just regular-ass words, please. Trump’s fucking shoe is the last thing that deserves poetic prose.

That shoe–a sole survivor–

“¡This pun is so great, I just have to use it again!”

[…] reveals a lot about Trump as a consummate performer who cannily thinks first about himself and then about his audience. Under fire and on camera, the events in Butler offer a remarkable window into Trump’s primal instincts and mastery of political theater.

No, I’m pretty sure that shoe only reveals that Trump probably wears a slightly too-big shoe size, which I guess could say something ’bout his ego & his delusions o’ bigness. I’m pretty sure anyone, if they left their shoe while being led away by the Secret Service, would have left it there. If Trump had somehow o’erpowered the Secret Service agents holding onto him & insisted on getting his shoe back on, that would be mo’ notable.

After some irrelevant details I don’t care ’bout, including the introduction o’ a pointless side character, “Hawkeye”, who I’m going to assume is a M.A.S.H. cosplayer, we finally get something resembling an answer:

The goal, in Secret Service jargon, is to get Trump off the “X” (the target) as fast as possible. But Trump doesn’t sound in any particular hurry.

“Let me get my shoes,” he says, “Let me get my shoes.”

So, ¿Trump leaving his shoe ’hind is indicative o’ his “master of political theater” because… he didn’t want to leave his shoe ’hind, but he was forced to?

A male agent says, “I got you sir, I got you sir.”

Trump repeats: “Let me get my shoes on.”

Another agent suddenly notices the former president has been wounded. “Hold on,” the agent says, “your head is bloody.”

“Sir, we’ve got to move to the car, sir,” an agent says. Trump is wounded and bleeding. Every second counts.

But Trump is undeterred. He insists for a third time in only nine seconds, “Let me get my shoes.”

A female agent says “OK” and another agent says: “We got to move, we got to move.”

This is the worst Tom Clancy book I’ve e’er read.

Making space with his hands in the middle of the phalanx so that he can see the crowd–and the cameras can see him–Trump mouths the words “fight, fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

Trump’s first thought: Himself. He needs his shoes for whatever reason–to run, to stand tall, they’re expensive. But then, his mind turns to his second thought: The crowd and what they really want. A gladiator rising back to his feet, his head bloodied and unbowed, shoes or no shoes.

So what Trump’s abandoned shoe reveals is that… it isn’t important @ all.

In a historic sense, of course, the shoe won’t matter.

As we’ve established, it also doesn’t matter in the symbolic sense, — or any sense — either.

For his supporters, Trump’s well-polished shoe left on the stage surely stands for his invincibility and indestructibility.

Considering the average demographic o’ Trump’s fans, I doubt this. They don’t strike me as the kind who would love to analyze the symbolism o’ Their Eyes Were Watching God in their language arts college class. @ best, they’re the kind who would reply like Flannery O’Connor when she was asked ’bout the symbolism o’ the hat the Misfit wore when asked ’bout the symbolism o’ Trump’s shoe: “it covers a foot”.

In this same moment, his opponent’s shoes may be perceived very differently: signs of President Joseph R. Biden’s potential vulnerability.

This makes no sense: ¿how is Biden, who still has both shoes, weaker than a man who only has 1 shoe now? ¡All Biden has to do is stomp on Trump’s uncovered foot to win!

For a politician who spent a half century in traditional black leather shoes, Biden’s recent footwear choices suggest an older man now focused on stability, steadiness and comfort: black Hoka Transport sneakers with cushioned soles, Sketchers slip-in sneakers, and Cole Haan Brogue Oxfords with rubber soles.

I’m glad to see that pundit hacks have developed their shallow wardrobe critiques from basic tan suits to these elaborate descriptions that seem to come straight from American Psycho.

Yes, shoes matter in politics. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon tried to show his casual side with strolls on the San Clemente beach. On the white sand, he wore black wingtip dress shoes. That faux pas confirmed what many suspected about Nixon.

Yes, that is what made Nixon 1 o’ the most hated presidents: not that whole Watergate scandal, but the fucking shoes he wore. That’s why the billions o’ satires ’bout him in various media like Futurama always make sure to make a comment ’bout the shoes he wore — they’re as iconic as Abraham Lincoln’s top hat or George Washington’s “wooden teeth” he scammed off his slaves.

In 2008, the holes in Barack Obama’s shoes reminded voters of Adlai Stevenson soles with holes. Men of the people, those holey shoes proclaimed.

1st, the only people who care ’bout Adlai Stevenson or e’en remember that he existed are Final Fantasy VI conspiracy theorists; 2nd, nobody e’er talked ’bout the holes in Obama’s shoes. The rest o’ the world doesn’t share your foot fetish, sorry.

For Trump, one shoe is a reminder of his moment in crisis. His first impulse was that he needed his Oxfords and didn’t want to leave them behind. But then his second instinct took over, making an even more indelible mark. At this moment in American politics, it seems this enduring image of a raised fist in the midst of chaos and confusion may be winning over stability and comfort.

So the significance o’ Trump’s abandoned shoe is as a red herring in the article: the actually important symbol is his naked fist. In my high school language arts class I once bullshitted that Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was ’bout the failure o’ German & Italian territories to unite into singular nations till the late 1800s as symbolized by Nora & Torvald Helmer’s breakup, which doesn’t e’en make sense as that play was both published & took place after Germany & Italy finally succeeded in unifying themselves, & yet my 17-year-ol’ self did a better job o’ stretching that idea out than this cracker did with making up any kind o’ symbol for Trump’s shoe. In short, this essay gets an F, see me after class.

Tier: F

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If this article is a representation o’ what “the Beast” is, ¡then sign me up! Or maybe I’ll just be a dirty pirate & hack thru your clever DRM by just removing the stupid banner you show & changing the CSS so the article can scroll ’gain. ( I realize the irony that just after this post will be asking readers to pay to my Patreon ). I do appreciate how “Can’t get enough of the Beast?” sounds like a nu-metal or post-grunge lyric, tho — probably the best writing I’ve read here so far, & it wasn’t e’en by this publisher/CEO.

Considering The Mezunian rightly predicted Clinton’s victory in 2016 & Trump’s victory in 2020, we know that e’eryone in the US cares deeply ’bout The Mezunian’s coveted presidential election prediction, so using 538’s goofy interactive map maker, I present to you a doubly nice prediction map:

¡Just look @ those elegant land lines surrounded by blue water! Truly the LORD will bless us with beautiful election results.

¿What the fuck is this dumb ass bullshit?

On New Year’s Eve of 2014, I became the subject of a terrifying experiment.

By the end of my stay, I had turned from a happy-go-lucky novelist into a squeaking gerbil of a man, psychologically compromised and barely sure of what constituted reality.

This “terrifying experiment” this melodramatic writer experienced was watching laughably inane state propaganda. The hairs haven’t stood up on my flesh this much since when H. P. Lovecraft described the unspeakable horrors o’ having to stand next to a black person on a New York bus. If they wanted to engage in a truly terrifying experiment they could subject themselves to the kind o’ real torture Russia — & the US — inflicts gainst people who were very naughty rather than the kind o’ shit the average unemployed person watched in the afternoon while bored & on drugs.

On the one hand, the length of my sentence has been commuted to five days from seven; on the other hand, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the state’s propaganda has become even more loud, brash, and genocidal, making any length of exposure to it psychologically problematic.

Clearly the worst tragedy o’ this invasion aren’t the many, many Ukranian lives lost but this o’erpaid writer’s emotional hardships having to endure this prison sentence that they inflicted on themself o’ sitting on their useless ass & watching TV all day.

Day 1

I arrive at the Public Hotel on the Lower East Side on a cold day this past April. My room has nice views of most of the downtown-Manhattan skyline, which lights up in flashes of pink and purple as the sun begins to set over New Jersey —

O, ¡fuck off! I fucking hate these shitty writers stroking their own hard-on pretending like they’re fucking Tom Wolfe. Nobody fucking cares what the weather was on a day you decided to sit on your fucking ass watching TV you assclown. “My orange Cheetos glowed under the dim light o’ my apartment. Now that my TV was muted during a commercial the only sound that could be heard was the skrit-skrit o’ me scratching my hairy balls”.

The first thing you notice when you switch on Russian TV is its totemic fascination with the swastika, which regularly appears on one of my screens. Sometimes it is taken from footage of the Nazi era, sometimes from purported videos of the Ukrainian far right. Sometimes it is on the news, sometimes in a documentary, sometimes in a TV drama. By my third or fourth swastika of the day, I start to believe that when the symbol is shown this often, it is not done so entirely with disparagement, but with a subconscious appeal to authoritarian power and to the state’s own fascism.

While I don’t disagree that contemporary Russian culture has an affinity for authoritarianism, this thesis o’ his is self-contradictory & absurd. ¿Why would Russia heavily associate the Ukrainian far right, the problem they use as a ’scuse for their invasion, & thus something they want to appear e’en mo’ gainst than Ukraine’s government, with their own culture? Furthermo’, as we will see, Russian propaganda apparently also loves to cater back to WWII & Russia’s fight against the Nazis. ¿Wouldn’t it be the ultimate treason to praise the very organization that tried to obliterate Russia, which literally put Russians in the holocaust? ¿Why not pick a mo’ fitting authoritarian leader, like, you know, Stalin, an actual Russian leader? I don’t want to doubt this writer’s amazing arm-chair theorizing that isn’t totally pulled out o’ his ass, ¿but wouldn’t it make mo’ sense that Russian propaganda is just using the Nazis as an effective Godwin’s rule tying the west in general to the Nazis & to try inducing constant fear gainst the west in their populace that if they don’t support the Ukrainian invasion the west will invade & mass murder them like the Nazis did in the 40s? After all, it’s not just Russian media obsessed with the Nazis: American media, like the History Channel, is notorious for their obsession with Hitler & the Nazis. ( Granted, given that this US election has a candidate who outright admits he’ll become a dictator “[only] for day 1” & is still ’bout half & half in popularity with his opponent, we can’t rule out the US having an affinity for authoritarianism, or Hitler, for that matter, given that candidate’s dogwhistling references to Hitler & the Nazis ).

A lot of time on all three networks is given over to flashy “newsroom” sets populated by older men in blazers who scream about the West. Kto Protiv (“Who Is Against”), on Rossiya 1, is one such program. The subject matter is often akin to what one sees on far-right television in the U.S., the exemplar of which is Fox News.

Fox News has always been known to scream ’bout “the West”.

But Russian state television is several degrees to the right of Fox, or even of its more lunatic competitor, Newsmax, although Tucker Carlson, the onetime king of televised white supremacy, is frequently shown on Russian TV as well—or, at least, he was back in April.

& here this hack writer stumbles o’er himself in contradictions, presumably so as not to offend his American audience. If Russian state television is “several degrees” to the right o’ Fox, ¿why does it regularly have on a former regular Fox white supremacist, — acknowledging that US media regularly has on white supremacists, ¿how can any media be several degrees to the right o’ that? — who is apparently moderate compared to worse US media? It sounds like Russian state television is @ just the level o’ lunatic fascist propaganda as US media — which I would agree is too much.

A panelist mispronounces the term LGBTQ+ to general laughter. (“Is it plus or minus?” another panelist asks.) Afterward, an “economic expert” tells the audience that transgender bodies have begun to fall apart. No evidence is cited for any of this; it’s merely people talking or, as some like to say, “asking questions.”

So it’s just a mo’ surreal The New York Times, then.

Meanwhile, on Channel 1, a black-and-white documentary shows Khrushchev greeting a group of cosmonauts. The glories of the Soviet past on one screen are contrasted with the realities of the present on another.

O’ all the bad propaganda Russian state media surely has defending their dumbass war, the typical nostalgia fuel is the least “terrifying” I could imagine. I know I always hide in pure terror @ the dystopian I live in whene’er I see histories ’bout George Washington. Clearly this is a devious plot by the US to make me like the US mo’. It’s almost as if e’ery country likes to pump up its past accomplishments. Hell, it’s better than Russia pretending they have present accomplishments.

You may ask why a government obsessed with propaganda would be showing programs about broken families. One reason is that audiences of all nations enjoy watching their fellow citizens in pain.

The show is presented by two dapper male hosts who are part of a well-trod Russian-TV theme: Provincials in distress are interviewed by stylish urban hosts, as if they are Chekhovian peasants being judged before the district court in czarist times. Subconsciously, shows like these teach poorer and older Russians (the kind of people who regularly watch state television) that they should be ashamed before their betters and that they cannot expect much from life or their immediate families.

This isn’t really any different from US daytime television, which is also aimed @ unemployed poor & is also infamous for propaganda denigrating toward poor people, especially Cops, literal state propaganda that shows cops as always competent & in the right & the criminals they go after always being incompetent, lazy, sloppy, ( usually ethnic ) & always poor. & if you were to ask my mother @ the time why she watched it, she would say the same thing: it’s comforting to see someone e’en worse off — e’en if clearly fake. Hardly the traumatizing torture that this article writer presents it as. If anything, what’s wrong with this is how boring it sounds compared to US shows like Maury or Jerry Springer, when he was still alive & it was still on.

The old woman crawls on the floor. “Forgive me! Forgive me!” she cries to her children. Now we have left the pages of Chekhov and arrived in Dostoyevsky Land.

This writer must’ve thought himself so clever & well-read for referencing 2 o’ the 3 most well-known Russian writers & not, like, any o’ the thousand other writers mo’ fitting — & my research indicates that this writer came from Russia, so either he barely read anything in his original language or he’s deliberately dumbing down this article for his audience. ¿& how would an ol’ woman crawling on the floor & crying, “Forgive me!”, be out o’ step for Chekhov — especially when you just described “Chekhovian peasants being judged before the district court in czarist times”.

The show about the dysfunctional family cuts to a commercial for a fast-food chain that has replaced McDonald’s after the sanctions for the Russian invasion of Ukraine were imposed.

Truly we see the unbearable hardships Russians now face for their imperialist crimes: ¡being deprived o’ that irresistible American cuisine!

The copycat McDonald’s is offering an unconvincing-looking “beeeeg speshal roast beef,” as an announcer describes it.

To be fair, if the roast beef looks unconvincing, then they did a pretty good job o’ emulating McDonalds.

On Rossiya 1, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is giving one of his usual bombastic speeches: “They want to cancel our country, as they like to say. They’re trying to cancel our country for pursuing its own politics. The West has long groomed Ukraine … Just like Germany invaded Russia.” The television shows another Nazi parade, a long sea of swastikas and chanting in German.

Again, they’re just Republicans on regular US media. Tho, I find it funny that this The Atlantic article has this, as it’s not as if they haven’t published incoherent rants ’bout “cancel culture”.

It’s only 9 p.m., but I am exhausted. I have drained two glasses of pisco sour and eaten my ceviche from the hotel’s restaurant, and am blindly watching a movie called Razplata (“Payback”), which seems to be about a drunken man who beats his wife. My vision is getting hazy and my eyes can barely see what’s happening on the three monitors, but I can sense that it is a triptych of a nation that has no idea what it is supposed to be.

What I love is that this article is far worse anti-US propaganda than Russia’s weak-ass attempt: nothing makes the Americans look like weak-ass crybabies like getting “exhausted” from sitting on your ass watching TV till 9 PM instead o’ working a real job. For any non-Americans out there reading this: we’re not all that lazy & useless; some o’ us have real, productive jobs & don’t just sit around watching shitty TV all day. Shit, as this blog shows, I read shitty news articles in my free time, & somehow I don’t get exhausted. Maybe this writer should eat better & work out mo’; it sounds like he has health problems.

Day 2

O my god, ¿we’re only @ day 2 out o’ 5? I take back what I said: I’m tired o’ this shitty article.

“Not my King!” The day’s news begins with anti-monarchist demonstrations in the U.K. “At least no one is throwing eggs at him like last time,” the NTV announcer intones as King Charles III is booed.

¡Hell yeah! I agree with this propaganda. ¿Who doesn’t hate filthy monarchs? Obviously only fascist Americans who have rejected e’en the watered-down liberalism on which the US was founded, that’s who. The only person I disagree with is the announcer: I wish they did throw eggs @ him.

Here the Royal Family is criticized for a variety of sins, such as colonialism in Africa and the 3 million pounds King Charles supposedly received from a Qatari sheikh.

Well, it’s cool to hear this white writer simp for colonizing Africa; ¿or is this writer like Kanye West & denies that the west colonized Africa? I dunno, I’m a far-leftist extremist, so I don’t support colonization & slavery, so maybe I’m not a reliable perspective, especially given the aforementioned large American audience hungry for white supremacists, but maybe it’s not a good idea to try attacking Russia by associating them with critics gainst African colonization. I’m sure this writer is implying that Russia is cynical in their criticism; but the west is surely a li’l cynical when they criticize Islamic fundamentalists & their treatment o’ women ( especially when they largely supported those Islamic fundamentalists gainst the Marxists who respected women’s rights better in Afghanistan earlier as part o’ their proxy cold war with the Soviet Union ), & yet it would still be right to call someone who snorts @ criticism, e’en by the west, o’ Islamic fundamentalist oppression as assholes.

Although Russian propaganda normally skews far right, its producers are able to pivot quickly from feigning horror at transgendered people to promoting a kind of Soviet-flavored anti-colonialism.

It’s almost as if Russian propaganda serves its own materialist interest rather than the US’s own made-up abstract ideology groupings. To be fair, I’m sure foreigners find the US supporting left-wing ideas like political democracy, but opposing economic democracy & supporting right-wing economics absurd.

Surely something will appeal to Misha from Murmansk or Vanya from Vladivostok, or any of the more than 100 million viewers who spend an average of almost four hours a day digesting this spicy gruel.

I would say that you could feel the seething disdain this writer has for these filthy foreigners with their weird names, but as stated, this writer came from the Soviet Union, so either he’s just cynically playing on the average American’s seething racism so he can be 1 o’ the “good ones” or is like that Dave Chappelle black KKK member.

After the booing of King Charles, the national weather forecast features temperatures in Donetsk and Melitopol in addition to Yalta, all cities stolen from Ukraine. I note that the city of Kherson, liberated by the Ukrainian army, does not make an appearance.

Clearly the worst thing Russia has done to Ukraine is refuse to tell them what the weather is in their cities. Ukrainians are now rethinking this war thing. “Let’s face it: ¡we are nothing without Russia’s irreplaceable weather-predicting technology!”.

But NTV is skewing younger with a show about women being stalked by ex-lovers. “He’s a professional boxer and he punched me several times,” a woman says of her former boyfriend. “He has a very aggressive nature.” A model is being blackmailed over sex videos by her ex. “Smartphones have made stalking easy,” the announcer intones. “He threatened to knock my teeth out,” another woman says, and we are treated to an array of horrifying bruises. The program notes that stalking of exes by spurned lovers is a problem in the U.S. and Germany as well.

If this article taught me anything — & that’s if this writer isn’t completely making e’erything up, which is possible — it’s that for all Russia’s talk o’ the weak, decadent west, Russia’s media is just as trashy as US media. That’s what happens when you let that capitalism into your country. Lenin wouldn’t have let this happen. ¿Where are Marx & Lenin when we need them, Counter Punch?

This may be true, but after watching Russian television for less than 24 hours, I am starting to see a through line here, which is the consistent presence of violence in Russian shows, usually committed against women and children. The verb meaning “to hit” comes up constantly, which makes sense in a country where men encounter horrific hazing in the military as well as a cruel and violent penal system. In 2017 the Duma even passed a law decriminalizing domestic abuse that does not result in the victim being treated in a hospital.

I would love to hear this writer’s theory on why US media — & media all o’er the world, in fact — is also full o’ violence, especially gainst women. It’s terrible, yes, but not terribly relevant to Russia’s invasion o’ Ukraine or their authoritarian politics. I can’t imagine thinking, { Well, yes, they are making an imperial conquest on Ukraine & have essentially a president for life; but a’least they don’t love to hit women }.

There’s an ad break for a male anti-impotence drug called “the Emperor’s Secret,” supposedly made in China out of various fungi. “The Emperor’s Secret can be mixed with alcohol,” the announcer helpfully advises the Russian male.

¿What is the point o’ this? This shit exists in the US. I’m sorry writer who has ne’er watched TV before & is apparently amazed by this 20th-century technology, but I’m not enthralled by this carnival you’re attempting to exhibit. All you’re telling me is that Russians are just as boring as Americans. ¿Is this meant to make me sympathize with Russians? ’Cause the idea that anti-impotence drug commercials will be the seed to the US’s own fall into fascism doesn’t make me feel better.

Next up, NTV introduces an American named John McIntyre who fought with the Ukrainians but then fled to Russia. He has been described as mentally unstable by fellow soldiers and commanders and was allegedly pushed out of the Ukrainian army for incompetence, but in Russia he is a prized asset, proudly wearing his Che Guevara baseball cap and T-shirt. The program intimates that it was a right-wing Ukrainian battalion that caused the well-known massacres in Bucha and Irpin, and not the Russian soldiers whose campaign of rape, execution, and terror was well documented.

I’m not sure why this writer assumes we’re all ableist assholes like him & think we’re going to naturally hate someone Ukrainians insult for illnesses that are not his fault or ’cause he wears T-shirts. I love how American media is so shitty that it makes me almost sympathize with the opposite side with which they want me to sympathize when I already sympathize with their side. It’s almost as if American culture is repugnant & has a twisted conception o’ what is “good”. We can’t emphasize Russia’s imperialism too much, as imperialism is too popular for Americans to make them hate Russians as we want them to, so let’s bring up neurodivergent people & Che-Guevara-shirt-wearing hipsters: those people Americans hate.

It’s especially ludicrous that they mix that nonsense with a short sentence o’ actual, serious whitewashing @ the end, in the same paragraph, e’en tho it has nothing to do with the sentence before. It’s almost as if this writer is an illiterate hack who doesn’t know how paragraphs work.

“Are there people like you in the States?” the interviewer asks McIntyre. “There are many pro-Russian Americans,” the young man replies. “American intelligence, they own the media machines. Most people watch CNN, but Fox has the most objective positions.”

I mean, if most Americans are watching fucking CNN, that would explain why so many o’ them are stupid ’nough to be pro-Putin.

“Their voices are getting louder!” an announcer on a Rossiya 1 newscast booms as older Germans are shown marching in a pro-Russia demonstration. “NATO out of Ukraine!” they chant. “U.S. and CIA out of Ukraine!” Afterward, an attractive young female correspondent brings cakes to Russian soldiers at the front. The war may be brutal, but, for Misha from Murmansk, it can also be sexy and exciting.

There is nothing mo’ sad than this o’erpaid idiot shaking his fist @ this rando Russian he made up in his head. “¡Damn you, Misha from Murmansk! ¡You were the cause o’ e’erything!”. ¿Can I get a citation proving that this totally-real Misha from Murmansk finds this war sexy & exciting & gives a shit @ all ’bout this woman & isn’t just listening to this program in the background while grinding for shiny Pokémon like most Americans do?

Channel 1 is stepping up its game in the propaganda Olympics with a “documentary” series called The Age of the USSR, which blends animation and old footage. The Russian language, the announcer tells us, has no word for “loser,” but instead has neudachnik, literally “unlucky person.” “The loser is guilty for what he hasn’t achieved,” the announcer explains. “The neudachnik is not guilty of a lack of achievement, just a lack of fortune, and he deserves sympathy.” Hence, Russia, a country of poor roads, decaying houses, and abysmal life expectancy, is not a nation of losers who lack achievement, but simply those upon whom fortune has not smiled. In other words: Don’t blame Putin for the mess we live in.

Yes, Russia should be mo’ like the US, who always blames ourselves for our own failings, which is why we try to blame Russia for magically brainwashing us into electing a white supremacist president in 2016 & not the US voters themselves, who are surely not racist, that’s why they were still lynching black people into the 50s. I’m not sure who this “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” line is aimed @: the Republicans dumb ’nough to believe in it are too far gone down the Russian hole & leftists don’t believe in this right-wing idea o’ shitting on “losers” for not being rich. I guess I’m not sure who this article is aimed @. Presumably a tiny minority o’ self-important people who will have no actual effect on US politics. But I won’t let that burst the bubble o’ this creative-writing-associate-degree dropout from his valiant, hard-hitting work sitting around watching shitty TV while judging the “losers” from his o’erpriced New York apartment. Here’s a propaganda tip for this writer that he could have learned from his “experiment”: propaganda works better if it’s not delivered by an insufferable douche.

And then the genocidal rhetoric is amped up with an animation showing a half-naked drunk Ukrainian in a pigsty (the actual pig is snorting nearby). The Ukrainian is shown with a haircut featuring a long lock of hair. This hair symbolism refers to the khokhol, a slur that Russians use against Ukrainians. It is equivalent to the worst kind of anti-Semitic and racist slurs. The image of the drunken Ukrainian with his khokhol haircut is no less eliminationist than the “hook-nosed Jew controlling the world” imagery of the Third Reich.

Yeah, ¿how would Russians feel ’bout media depicting them all as drunken losers who sit around their decaying homes drinking watching shitty TV all day & making up excuses for why they’re just “unlucky” instead o’ lazy & just let their husbands beat them all day?

O, wait: that’s this entire article. Well, like I said: we know why so many Americans end up pro-Putin — racist fascists tend to flock together. Perhaps this Russian-American writer didn’t intend to feed into that sentiment, but that is 100% the demographic the WASPs who run The Atlantic were aiming @ when they agreed to publish this.

Meanwhile on NTV, more German grannies are chanting “for peace” in a pro-Russia march, participating, whether they realize it or not, in what amounts to their own Nuremberg rally.

O my god, this propaganda is so fucking boring. Go back to the ol’ woman crawling on the floor & begging for forgiveness. Man, I can’t fathom what kind o’ country would have so much propaganda favorable to itself in its media.

As the day continues, NTV presents a documentary entitled I Was Zelensky’s Filth. A young imprisoned woman is accused of trying to bomb Mariupol’s city hall, after the battered city held a sham election in favor of joining Russia. “Mariupol is a place of glory for Russian forces and shame for the Kiev führer,” the announcer declares. That führer, of course, is none other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, a Jew whose relatives perished in the Holocaust. The show visits the apartment of the supposed terrorist, which is hilariously staged with an American flag and Nazi memorabilia. Can Sasha from Samara possibly believe this nonsense?

This is pissing me off @ Russian media for a different reason: you can’t name your show “I Was Zelensky’s Filth” & have it be this boring. ¿Where’s the sex? I want to see some bad Zelensky imitator fucking plow 3 women @ a time. I want to see him make ol’ woman beg on the floor.

Meanwhile, on Rossiya 1 news, we learn that German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz has “fully committed himself to America. Germany can’t deal with the rising price of energy. The Greens are to blame. Germany will be turned into Kenya soon.”

This is hilarious propaganda ’cause, other than the Kenya exaggeration, it’s true: if Germany’s dumbass chancellor hadn’t shut down those nuclear power plants Germany wouldn’t need Russia’s climate-killing gas. I’m not sure how this sick burn serves Russia’s political goals, howe’er.

Geopolitics takes up an inordinate amount of airtime on Russian TV. Russian viewers are probably subjected to more images of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen than their American or European counterparts.

It makes sense that western media would want to keep such a warmonger as Blinken from too much scrutiny, which is why only the filthy leftist In These Times wants to bring it up here. Perhaps “journalists”, as they call themselves when they want to feel cute, in both countries should be ashamed @ their lack o’ scrutiny toward their own military leaders.

Day 4

There is a sadness to watching this much Russian television. I have started drinking earlier and have switched from pisco sours to vodka martinis. A part of me wants to die.

I find this writer’s constant moaning & groaning e’en mo’ unbearable ’cause here I am having to read his awful fucking reiteration o’ Russian propaganda. So not only do I get the most dumbed down version o’ what he sees, I have to see it thru his shitty-ass writing. Also, I’m not a money-wasting jackass, so I don’t know what is so inferior ’bout vodka martinis to pisco sours, ’cause I don’t waste thousands o’ $ on shit that’s just going to make me go blackout drunk, anyway. If this fuckface actually cared ’bout Ukraine he would have saved his money on grocery-store beer that’s just as good — or just not have been a degenerate drunk while hypocritically criticizing Russians for being degenerate drunks — & sent that money he saved to Ukraine’s cause. But that would be actually sacrificing himself for someone other than himself, & he only wants to pretend to do so.

But not before I catch Maria Butina’s new show on Channel 1. Butina is famous for being arrested and jailed as an unregistered Russian foreign agent in the United States. Once she was deported from the U.S., she became a member of Russia’s Parliament and, of course, the host of her own TV program. (“Today’s program is brought to you by Erecton Activ. Every woman wants to be near a strong man, strong in every way. Only 2,999 rubles.”)

Yeah, it’s crazy that Russia’s government would reward someone who did work for Russia’s government. It’s almost as if they serve their own interests & not the US’s. Like, that would be crazy if an American spy became a government official or had a show ’bout all the cool spying they did, ¿right? Clearly nobody would take that person seriously, since absolutely nobody likes spies or finds them cool.

Today, the redheaded Butina, wearing an equally red blouse and suit pants, decides to talk about Hillary Clinton. Wait, what? Who still cares about Hillary Clinton? Apparently, Butina and Tanya from Taganrog still do.

Damn, I don’t think Trump has said something so cold ’bout Clinton.

Tense music begins. According to the program, Clinton laughed “hysterically” when she was shown pictures of the death of Muammar Qaddafi. “What kind of monster responds to a person’s death like that?” Butina asks. A “psychiatrist” appears and says, “Yes, she’s a monster. But it’s because she has had to compete with men.”

I love how this writer glides o’er the inconvenient footage o’ Clinton laughing @ someone’s brutal death, which apparently included being sodomized with a bayonet. Whether “hysterical” or not, well-adjusted people don’t laugh @ pictures o’ brutal death, e’en gainst dictators. So while I don’t agree with this so-called psychiatrist’s public psychoanalysis without consent, which violates many psychological ethics, I think a layman would agree that it does make Clinton look like a terrible human being who lacks empathy. Many American liberals think Clinton is a monster: that’s kind o’ why she failed to win an election gainst Donald fucking Trump. Hating on Clinton, 1 o’ the most hateable American politicians, is the most low-hanging fruit e’er. Wake me when Russian propaganda has some shit to say ’bout Jimmy Carter.

But Hillary is just the appetizer to the entrée of evil that really controls the strings of world government. That man is of course George Soros. “He helped the Gestapo arrest his own co-religionists and then take away their own possessions,” an announcer says to chilling background music. “George Soros. The spider.”

I can’t believe Russia would steal Glenn Beck’s best bits.

Of course, the image of Jew as vermin or as a spider holding the world in its web is typical and, frankly, not even very imaginative anti-Semitic propaganda.

I would love to know how this writer thinks imaginative anti-Semitic propaganda would look.

But as I watch Butina’s show, I remember that my own grandfather was a Jew born in Ukraine who died fighting Germany’s fascist armies during the siege of Leningrad. A decade after his death, another fascist named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born in the city my grandfather died defending. Watching Butina and her garden-variety anti-Semitism feels like a terrible desecration of his memory.

If it makes you feel better, Russia was desecrating Ukrainians long before Putin was born. If the Nazis didn’t get him, there was a good chance the famine would’ve. You could say his invasion o’ Ukraine was “typical and, frankly, not even very imaginative”. & honestly, I think the fact that your father begat such a whiny, spoiled buffoon who compares sitting on his ass & watching television to actually fighting a war is a far greater desecration o’ your grandfather’s memory. To paraphrase the wise Kendrick Lamar: “I read this & wish your grandpa would’ve worn a condom”.

Meanwhile, on NTV’s news program, Elon Musk declares in a clip, “All news is propaganda. People have to decide for themselves.” Russian state television could not have said it better.

This is baffling on all accounts. I expect Musk to say something as empty & hypocritical; ¿but is The Atlantic trying to claim that “People have to decide for themselves” is a totalitarian idea & not, what most would consider it, an Orwellian lie that a totalitarian regime pretends to follow while presenting only voices they disagree with as the “real authoritarians”? ¿Is The Atlantic unironically against people deciding for themselves? ¿Why else would they make the absurd statement that “Russian state television could not have said it better”? Liberals would certainly say they could live it better. Also, all news is propaganda, as empty as that is to say: as George Orwell said, all art is propaganda. ¿Or is George Orwell, 1 o’ the western world’s leading critics gainst Soviet Russia, a Russian asset, too? The fact that The Atlantic, a rich, relatively powerful ( which to be fair, still isn’t all that powerful anymo’ ) part o’ the news decided to hammer its readers o’er the head with this digression gainst “the news” certainly doesn’t convince me that The Atlantic isn’t propaganda — & very sloppy, poorly-concealed propaganda, to boot.

Day 5

I can almost taste my freedom. The weather is improving, spring is finally here, and all of New York seems to be beckoning me to escape my luxurious prison cell.

Anyone who uses the term “luxurious prison cell” does not know what a real prison cell is.

But I also feel overwhelming disgust, as if there’s a thick layer of dirt behind my shirt collar.

That’s ’cause you’re a dirty fucking slob who didn’t shower the whole time you were laying there boozing up & watching shitty Russian propaganda. But you’re not a loser who can’t be bothered to take care o’ your fucking self while engaging in the easiest job in the world, you’re just a neudachnik, an unlucky person.

I watch a show called For Men / For Women, in which a woman is attacked on the street by her ex-husband, who, with the aid of his relatives, also kidnaps her little son. “I fell on the asphalt, and he is holding me down and beating me,” the woman says. “I lost my breast milk. I went to the police. The police didn’t do anything.”

O, shit, we’re reading Something Awful’s r/relationship thread. That’s my Jerry Springer.

The poor woman’s lament reminds me of the show I watched a few days prior (it now seems like a lifetime ago) about women being stalked and beaten by their ex-lovers. “He has a very aggressive nature,” a woman said of her former lover, the professional boxer. As does Russia in 2023. So many of the shows I’ve watched during the past five days were obsessed with the West, with our Clintons and Soroses and Von der Leyens. Russia is the spurned lover with the “very aggressive nature” taking out his inhumanity on the innocent neighbor next door. Despite all the posturing and doublespeak, Russian television announces as much to the world. Whether on the airwaves or, perhaps someday, at the Hague, the evidence has been clearly presented.

I sure hope Gary’s middle-school teacher gave him gold stars for this totally-not-corny metaphor. “It’s like, ¿what if Russia was, like, an abusive lover to Ukraine, bro?”.

& as an extra taunt, this article ends with an ad for this writer’s book — ’cause I certainly want more o’ this great writing. Said book is, shockingly, a bunch o’ rich assholes in a rich house & half o’ them are struggling writers & the other half are racist stereotypes, like a “Korean-American app developer” or “Southern flamethrower of an essayist” ( the latter o’ which is both ). Or if you want a real treat, you can read his most recent article @ The Atlantic, titled, “Crying myself to sleep on the biggest cruise ship ever”, which repeats this article’s riveting day-to-day gimmick, almost as if this writer is a 1-trick pony ( & that 1 trick blew ass ). The only article I want to read ’bout some rich asshole crying himself to sleep on the biggest cruise ship e’er is just before he & the ship are burned down by the proletarian uprising, &, spoilers, that badass shit doesn’t happen. Thanks for writing propaganda just as boring as Putin’s lame-ass I Was Zelensky’s Filth yet again.

Fuck The Atlantic for publishing what has got to be the least effective propaganda against Russia’s aggression against Ukraine e’er — & most insufferable writing I’ve read in a while — & fuck Putin for sparking a war that, e’en indirectly, led to it being published. With all the paranoid red-scare conspiracies people drum up, ¿are we sure The Atlantic isn’t infiltrated by Russians & this article isn’t an attempt to delegitimize Putin’s critics as useless morons? If The Atlantic really wants to help Ukraine, they should start writing propaganda for Russia: they’re such unlikable twats that they’d hurt Russia mo’ by association than by antagonism.

As e’eryone knows, my favorite genre o’ news article is that genre o’ porn known as self-masturbation. Newspapers writers ( or the editors who force them to write these articles or they won’t get the Twix candy bars they get as their salary ), lacking any semblance o’ self-awareness, wonder all the time why people aren’t taking their “news” seriously while rewarding their loyal readers with faces full o’ cum. Well, ¡get your spoons, folks, ’cause we’re digging right in! This is “We Have Two Medias in This Country, and They’re Going to Elect Donald Trump” from some newspaper called The New Republic. Man, I wish we had a new republic, but I get the feeling that their name is a reference to how the US felt new 2 centuries ago.

It’s often asked in my circles: Why isn’t Joe Biden getting more credit for his accomplishments? As with anything, there’s no single reason.

If this writer were as smart as they think they are, they would follow this inane question not by throwing out a bunch o’ answers that sound like they make sense, strewn o’ any evidence, but with their own questions: ¿“credit by whom” & “credit for what”? Obviously Biden isn’t going to get credit from right-wing media, whose express purpose is to make him look bad. This has always been the case & has ne’er been a full stop to Democrats winning in the past. ¿Does this writer not remember how Obama was blamed for a recession his Republican predecessor had caused? If anything, there are far mo’ Democrats defensive o’ Biden than of Obama — probably due to being mo’ sensitive to the prospect o’ losing to Trump after scoffing @ the idea back in 2016. To put it into perspective, Ralph Nader, who infamously ran as a 3rd-party candidate to deliberately siphon off votes from the Democratic party as a form o’ going on strike, has said he will support Biden ’cause he prefers “autocracy” — which, weirdly, in his mind, don’t suppress votes or suppress freedom o’ speech, which sounds exactly what actual autocracies do — to fascism. ( If Nader had a better grasp o’ words he’d have maybe been able to come closer to a mo’ accurate term to describe mainstream US politics, like “oligarchy”, which is not as authoritarian as autocracy, but not quite democracy ).

Inflation is a factor.

It should be noted that while Biden did help pass bills that ameliorated inflation, he also insisted in following decorum tradition in keeping Trump’s shitty head o’ the Federal Reserve, who has been trying to sabotage the possibility o’ wages keeping up with inflation. Perhaps we could talk ’bout the media’s terrible framing o’ inflation, inflating its own importance when in sexy grand #s, while ignoring the fact that wages have been barely keeping ’bove inflation for decades.

But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media.

Underpinning this whole article is 1 major fallacy: that “media” — which is so vague it’s practically meaningless, specially as the internet has opened up all avenues as potential forms o’ propaganda, but I’m going to take, given the clues this article offers, as newspapers, or as young people call it, “dying media” or “irrelevant media” — plays a vital role in election’s outcomes. There’s a good reason for this fallacy: it can be nonfalsifiably defended, as one can easily scrounge up a ’scuse, no matter what the papers say, that what the papers said made people think howe’er they think. The fact that the media — which, to its credit, is a’least not gullible ’nough to fall for e’en Trump — has been warning gainst Trump for years, only for him to win in 2016, doesn’t matter, ’cause bad news is good news, & this only made people like him mo’ thru o’erexposure, somehow. Ne’er mind that the vast, vast majority o’ Trump fans don’t read The New York Times. It’s widely acknowledged that Trump’s win in 2016 was mo’ a loss for Clinton: the culprit was a low turnout by Democrats, people who are much mo’ likely to read The New York Times. You’d think all these warnings would’ve induced them to get out & vote if we assumed that e’en the majority o’ Democrats let themselves be inspired by The New York Times. If we reject this assumption, we get a much simpler picture — both to Trump’s victory & to The New York Times’s falling #s.

Or rather, the two medias.

In fact, there are many mo’ medias if one isn’t geriatric & ventures beyond only the few richest o’ newspapers or TV channels.

At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance.

This is a remarkable statement in how contradictory it is to the central thesis o’ this article. Later on he will assert that the problem is that “the media” is too obsessed with both-sidesing e’erything — which is essentially refusing to call any side ( well, any o’ the 2 officially-accepted rich, powerful sides ) a winner.

“Deliberation, compromise, and sober governance” are so vague, they’re basically just empty superlatives. Right-wingers are very sober & deliberate when they are exploiting people’s superstitious bigotries to divide & conquer them. As for “compromise” — ¿compromise with whom? As this article will admit many times, the media has done a great job o’ compromising with bigots while speaking on various topics like Israel vs. Palestine or Venezuela’s political issues with the subtlety o’ a Jack Chick comic. ¿Was Thomas Friedman, longtime writer for The New York Times, & thus very much o’ the traditional, not the fringe right-wing, media, evoking “compromise” when he told Muslims to, & I quote, “suck on this” in reference to the US’s illegal war gainst Iraq?

Let me begin by discussing these two medias. The first, of course, is what we call the mainstream media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major (non-Fox) news networks, a handful of other newspapers and magazines. This has also been known as the “agenda-setting media,” because historically, that’s what they did: Whatever was the lead story in The New York Times that day filtered down, through the wire services and other delivery systems, to every newspaper and television and radio station in the United States.

Uh huh. Totally correct. Literally e’ery newspaper, including all the li’l local newspapers, just straight-up take their news from The New York Times. Awfully nice o’ them not to sue all these agencies for plagiarism. For instance, I’m sure this Democracy Now interview that describes the governments o’ Iran & Syria as the “Axis of Resistance” came straight from The New York Times. Similarly, Counterpunch’s lovely article, “Where are Marx and Lenin When We Need Them?” showing a hilarious painting o’ Karl Marx looking depressed as fuck, came straight from the Bezos Post — or a’least that’s what my uncle told me he read on Social Truth o’er Thanksgiving.

My biggest question: if a few small newspapers like The New York Times & The Washington Post held the “historical” role o’ essentially monopolizing the media & “setting agenda” — which is a nice way o’ enforcing beliefs — like communist dictators, — which is this writer’s inane claim, not mine, remember — ¿would that not have been just as “tragic for democracy”, as this writer claimed earlier was an upcoming threat? I don’t know ’bout this writer, but where I come from democracies don’t have their entire agenda decided by a tiny minority o’ large organizations but allow things like free thought. Luckily that’s not the case & this idiotic writer is just spewing right-wing conspiracy theories &, in actual fact, nobody gives a shit what The New York Times says.

Then there’s an avowedly right-wing propaganda network. This got cranked up in the 1970s, when conservatives, irate over what they (not incorrectly) saw as a strong liberal bias in the mainstream media, decided to build their own.

Here’s a golden rule for knowing what one’s political leanings are, regardless o’ what they say in some sad attempt to crank the overton window: if one thinks the media is biased on 1 side, one is biased on the other side. Nobody who is taken serious within the left-wing community considers the media to be left-wing any mo’ than anyone who is taken serious within the right-wing community considers the media to be right-wing ( the fact that this writer probably isn’t taken seriously by either, or by anyone, is a different story… ).

Note, ’course, that nowhere in this article does this writer provide any evidence o’ this “not incorrect” liberal bias, which would get this writer a pretty nasty grade in my high school. I guess my high school just had higher standards than The New Republic.

Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post. In the 1980s, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon started The Washington Times. In the 1990s, right-wing talk radio exploded (enabled, in part, by a 2–1 decision by a judicial panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals making the Fairness Doctrine discretionary; those judges were Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork). Then the Fox News Channel was launched.

Anyone who has e’er watched Citizen Kane, much less knows the history o’ yellow journalism & how rich owners o’ newspapers like Hearst & Pulitzer ( the fact that they named an award for “good” journalism after a propagandist hack tells you all you need to know ’bout what a sham “good” journalism is ) spewed propaganda to deliberately stoke war with Spain to conquer Cuba, knows that newspapers being vessels for propaganda is as ol’ as time itself.

Also, there’s an inherent contradiction to this story: you just claimed that the media was liberal biased, but then say that the Fairness Doctrine, which pressured the media to take a balanced approach to issues ( how well this could be done, given the subjectivity o’ what a “balanced” approach is, — many bizarrely consider being 100% pro-Israel & anti-Palestine or being explicitly pro-capitalist & anti-socialist to be “centrist” views in the US ( & only the US ), for instance — is a different story ), & imply that it was effective. But if ’twere effective, the media would have been balanced, not “liberal biased”.

Back then, even with the launch of Fox, the mainstream media was much larger and more influential than the right-wing media. If the mainstream media was a beachball, the right-wing media was the size of a golf ball.

Today? They’re about the same size. In fact, the right-wing media might finally be bigger.

That’s OK, ’cause both are dwarfed by some high-school dropout “influencer”’s X account.

The success of the right-wing media is by and large due to the way they speak in lockstep, with one voice, and the way they push one very partisan agenda. They promote Republicans and conservatives, and they say nothing good ever about Democrats or liberals (exception: people who go off the reservation and willingly foul the Democratic-liberal nest, like Joe Manchin or some liberal academic or talking head who turns right, like Glenn Greenwald). Their guiding ethos is not journalistic but political: to advance one party and creed and work their readers and viewers into a constant state of agitation about the other party and creed.

Meanwhile, when New York Times writers refuse to support Israel in their race war gainst Palestine, they “resign”, that’s ’cause the New York Times is totally tolerant o’ differing viewpoints & definitely don’t push 1-sided, right-wing political views.

Sure, they’re “liberal,” in two senses. First, their editorial pages typically endorse Democrats. And second, they are culturally liberal, because they are mostly based in big cities and their staffs include lots of LGBTQ people, for example, and precious few evangelical Christians.

Yeah, we all know long-time writers like Ross Douthart aren’t Christian fanatics who defend homophobes, & we all know The New York Times’s great track record with LGBTQ+ people, given that major open letter protesting their transphobia ( which their owner replied to with mafia-style veiled threats ). But as this writer has it, allowing LGBTQ+ people to exist within their halls is practically going full Karl Marx. Perhaps the problem is the writer who internalizes & parrots the right-wing propaganda that tolerating gay people’s existence is just as “biased” as wanting them dead.

When The New York Times or CNN or MSNBC gets a scoop about serious corruption in the Biden administration, they pursue the lead and, if verified, report it.

Right, like when CNN lied & claimed that Biden ended his own student loan repayment policy, not the supreme court.

So, to the loud and bumptious anti-Biden chorus that blames him for everything bad, there is no equally loud and bumptious pro-Biden answering chorus speaking as one and giving him credit for everything good.

You’ve clearly ne’er been on /r/politics. ’Gain, there’s no such thing as liberal media — well, ’cept for “mainstream” media, which is liberally-biased ’cause they don’t fire all gay people & only spread bigoted lies ’bout trans people half the time, but treat mediocre Democrat president evenly with insurrectionist Republican presidents. ¿Daily Kos? Ne’er heard o’ ’em. It’s embarrassing that this writer’s revealing their lack o’ knowledge o’ any media beyond the most basic & trying to present it as “wisdom”.

¿Why should it matter that much how well these newspapers treat equally rich & powerful white men like Biden & Trump? ¿How does these various newspapers treat working class people or Palestinian civilians or trans people?

And with respect to economics specifically, the imbalance is made worse by the fact that the mainstream business press, as Tim Noah pointed out not long ago, tends to accentuate the negative and see bad news nearly always coming around the corner.

That & they’re ignorant o’ the complexities o’ economics & will accept whate’er some salesman economist like Paul Krugman says uncritically.

It is blatant to me how much this writer is deliberately ignoring factors. When talking ’bout demographics like “not hating LGBTQ+ people”, urban, & the vague term “culturally liberal”, ¿how do you not list the economic status o’ the people who run these papers when talking ’bout skewed economic perspectives? ¿Is it because that would mean this pretend leftist — or “liberal”: I’m not sure if this writer considers “liberal” to be separate from “leftist”, as some people think; but if they do, that would make the term “liberal-biased” weird, as it would leave a giant question mark where leftists would fall: in such a circumstance “liberal-biased” would seem to be a pejorative for “centrist-biased” — would have to critically analyze the US’s very-much-pro-rich economy using actual left-wing ideas, & not just, “well, inflation’s lower than expected, so there’s no reason the average working class person should complain that they’ll still have to work 40 hours as a menial worker drone till they’re in their 60s while others get rich lying to people”.

Most reporters know that they are personally pretty liberal, so they overcompensate for that.

Sorry, let me fix that: “Most reporters know that they are personally rich, white, & cis, so they’re equally biased in favor o’ their material interests as Republicans”.

Most of them went to elite schools and have maybe never known a Southerner or an evangelical, so they overcompensate for that as well.

¿Do they o’ercompensate for their ignorance & lack o’ class interests with the urban working class or religions that are not the dominant religion in the US, like Muslims, too? ¿Why does this writer think there has ne’er been a rich Southerner or evangelical or that these people have ne’er been to elite schools? Clearly this writer has ne’er gone to an elite school, ’cause they are unbelievably stupid if they expect anyone with a brain to think “Southerns” ( which, when used in this context, only e’er includes white people: e’en tho southern states like Mississippi & Georgia have ’mong the highest ratio o’ black populations, black southerners might as well be imaginary people to these ignorant journalists ) & evangelicals are the most victimized minorities in the US. This person is literally just regurgitating the most inane, obviously false right-wing lies e’er & pretending to be fighting gainst right-wing lies while doing so.

That’s what gave us all those stories of reporters venturing out into the heartland to try to “understand” Trump voters.

Right: stupidity.

Meanwhile, no reporters are sent to pro-Palestinian protests to “understand” them: their newspapers just call them antisemites ( tho, bizarrely, the pro-Israel protests aren’t Islamaphobic or arabphobic, e’en tho, as a “Jewish state”, Israel, inherently, treats anyone outside that religion or race as 2nd-class, just as nobody would seriously think the US could be a “Christian state” or “white state” & not treat non-Christians or non-white as 2nd-class citizens ) & gleefully join their Republican friends in calling for them to be obliterated.

And all those stories about people who refused to wear masks or get their shots.

Yeah, it really shows the lack o’ good taste in these newspapers that they would rather focus on useless morons than people who have actual interesting problems. Good thing I read actually good news so I didn’t have to read this garbage.

How many more of these can we bear to read, I kept wondering at the time.

Yeah, it’s tragic you’re too uneducated to know there are better outlets out there.

And I couldn’t help but notice that there was no mass effort to find and understand Biden voters after he won in 2020.

Maybe ’cause it’s boring to read the obvious.

“¿Why did you vote for Biden?”.

“I’m not a dumbass”.

“Thank you for this interview”.

I sent a journalist, Marion Renault, down to red America (Mobile, Alabama, specifically) to report on the people who were following the rules—who were wearing their masks and getting vaccines in an inhospitable milieu. She produced a beautiful, moving report that I felt certain would land her on TV and get attention. No one cared.

& this is how our young journalists 1st discovers this beautiful economic system known as capitalism.

It didn’t fit the narrative—either right-wing or mainstream. Not enough chaos or conflict to be found in American citizens helping to knit up the civic fabric during a traumatizing pandemic, I guess.

I mean, if you armed the pro-mask people & had them violently fight back gainst the already-violent disease-spreaders, maybe you could have both conflict & be on the right side. Maybe the problem isn’t just that the “liberal” side is too willing to “understand” the other side, but also that they’re not willing to actually fight gainst the other side, but keep insisting that the most important thing is to tell warm fuzzy stories ’bout grandma getting her COVID vaccine rather than preparing oneself for all the right-wingers arming themselves & getting away with terrorist attacks.

So, to show you how idiotic this writer is, they acknowledge that the problem is economic, — that the media has to lie in a way that helps right-wingers to entice the moronic cattle that makes up their audience, any intelligent person having long abandoned these Jerry Springer sideshows long ago in disgust in search o’ actual honest information — but their recommendation is… the mainstream media should just stop doing the bad things they personally don’t like, e’en if it goes gainst their material interests. Just “call a lie a lie”, bro. ¿Why should they do that when, as businesses in a capitalist system where any failure to fully profit hurts your competitive edge, specially in a medium like newspapers that are becoming narrower & narrower monopolies, making money is e’erything? They claim, “Remember that we are not just in the “news” business. We’re in the information business. We’re in the preservation of the civic fabric business. And we’re in the business of people”, but they’re wrong: their business is selling people what they want to hear & what gets them to view your ads.If the country loses democracy, it’s not as if that’s a full impediment to The New York Times; they can still make money selling what King Trump tells them to say. As they themselves say, they’re perfectly comfortable with kowtowing to Republicans.

But there is much better news: people don’t need to read either the mainstream media or the right-wing media, but can read from an infinite variety o’ media — or better, read actual scientific studies, statistics, history books by actual historians or economics books by actual economists & not hack journalists with creative writing degrees. Or they could just read The Onion, since it’s just as informative & much funnier.

But, no, you should totally spend that monthly $10 to save democracy from “dying in darkness” by filling some rich, white, Republican newspaper owner’s large stash o’ Scrooge McDuck cash.

I just cannot believe it. Given how controversial Russia’s invasion o’ Ukraine has been I was sure that my man Николай Харитонов — or as the filthy bourgeoisie call him, “Nikolay Kharitonov” — would have beaten Путин, who I was sure the people would’ve been sick o’ by now, just like how that 1 Democrat defeated Bush in 2004 due to his dumb invasion o’ Iraq Obama defeated the Republican candidate who followed Bush’s 2 terms after the Republicans’ dumb invasion o’ Iraq. Ne’ertheless, according to Wikipedia, which is the most accurate source for election results all professional stoner blogs use as an authority, Харитонов lost with a pitiful 4.31% vote & absolutely no federal subjects gainst Путин’s amazing 87.28%, in contrast to only winning 77.53% in the 2018 election ( to be fair, the Communist candidate in that election had an impressive moustache, which Николай Харитонов lacks completely ). Then ’gain, Харитонов also supporting Путин’s invasion — &, in fact, having li’l to criticize gainst Путин, making him mo’ like Trump’s answer to, uh… that Florida guy o’er Biden. In fact, none o’ the valid candidates are antiwar, as the only potential antiwar candidates are apparently so dumb they turned in invalid signatures, whate’er those are. Probably signed by those mules the Democrats used to steal the US election instead o’ real patriotic Russians. O well: I have faith that the 2030 election will be the 1 when the Communist Party finally wins & brings that sexy brotherhood o’ people that Lenin promised back in 1917 but ne’er did for reasons.

I know this update is late, given that the 3-day election period ended last Monday; but I wanted wait & be extra sure that the results were completely confirmed. I want my coverage to be as careful & transparent as Путин says Russia’s democracy is, which is weirdly, not what independent vote observers say. But they’re all “western-influenced”, so we can ignore them & just listen to Путин, who would ne’er lie, just as we can ignore all “liberal media” & only listen to transparently rightwing personalities who yell a lot & sell me health supplements. After all, Путин helpfully reminded people that, in contrast, in the US “with mail-in voting… you can buy a vote for $10”, which was definitely not propaganda he’s regurgitating from his good friend Donald the “Massive Dumps” Trump Truck. Well, joke’s on Путин: I didn’t have to pay anything to use my mail-in vote — ’twas free. I didn’t e’en have to pay postage ’cause communist Washington State pays for it for you out o’ the taxpayers’ pocket. Our oligarchs wish they could get that $10 voting fee so the dirty poors would stop rigging the election gainst the tiny minority o’ rich people.

Interestingly, while looking up Николай Харитонов I was reminded that Davos, the group o’ rich capitalists that are now sadder that they can’t sip vodkas with the oligarchs they wish they could be in the US than the death o’ any Ukrainian NPCs, were instrumental to defeating the Communists in 1996 & keeping the modern Russian Federation’s OG drunk protofascist dictator, Ельцин ( the book The Oligarchs: Wealth & Power in the New Russia by David E. Hoffman also provides a lot o’ detail on this subject, albeit with the star-struck praise for the corrupt & e’en violent behavior o’ these rugged capitalist individualists you’d expect from a regular Washington Post contributor o’ the early 2000s ), who once had parliament bombed & tried to dissolve them, as well as considering “cancel[ing] or postpon[ing] the election in order to prevent a Communist victory”. & apparently official Russian records that Медведевs — the guy who pretended to be president from 2008 to 2012 while Путин continued to actually run Russia to get around Russia’s constitutional rule gainst a president having mo’ than 2 consecutive terms, back when Путин actually attempted to convince people Russia was a democracy — stupidly released show him outright saying he himself didn’t think Ельцин’s 1996 election was legitimate, despite his own political success owing as much to it as Путин’s. It’s almost as if Russia had ne’er been a real democracy & the US only pretended it was when its results were mo’ favorable to them. Still, I’m sure Davos is proud o’ their role in empowering this new fascist empire in their obsession with beating the already-weakened but still dirty commies; as much, I’m sure, as the US is proud o’ their strengthening o’ Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to defeat those evil commies & their commie support for women’s emancipation & secularism. It’s exciting to think ’bout what political problems our great oligarchs are currently cooking up for us in the future in their valiant effort to prevent e’en a tiny crumb o’ their giant Scrooge McDuck piles trickling down to the dirty poors.

The New York Times was embarrassed yet ’gain, as they always are, when a Disney squirrel found out 1 o’ their freelancers liked this expression o’ a political opinion, which I thought was protected freedom o’ speech & can’t be pointed out to e’eryone, embarrassing me. I’m surprised nobody has noted the irony o’ how much this staunch Zionist’s incoherent word salad mirrors Hitler’s notorious, “Who, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” quote ( clearly Hitler has bad taste in music & has ne’er heard the rocking songs from System of a Down ). In any case, Kanye West tells me that Hitler invented highways, so it’s surely a good idea to mirror his ideas, & we shouldn’t let the New York Times cancelculture Schwartz’s culture just like how we shouldn’t let Fantano — who is bald & divorced, & we can’t trust bald & divorced people — cancel — wait, ¿what was I talking ’bout ’gain?

Anyway, now the New York Times won’t be able to keep her around to write such totally-not-lurid tales ’bout beheading 40 child heads, — my favorite Arabian Nights story, right next to the 1 where some guy prays to God for a giant dick — as opposed to the way civilized countries kill children thru blowing them up or shooting them, meant to paint Arabs as stereotypical cartoon villains with wacky pirate sabers who should be treated as — I believe the term Verthaim used that Schwartz liked so much was “human animals”, which is redundant, as all humans are part o’ the kingdom animalia — similar to inventing a story ’bout Jewish people drinking the blood o’ their victims, which I’m sure I’ll see soon in the next Sinfest on the social media formerly known as “Twitter”, which e’en the conservative New York Post called a “conspiracy theory” ( tho perhaps with the interest o’ making Biden His Time look bad — clear proof that they’re making up that he’s making it up, since my senpai president ne’er lies. ¿What’s next, NYP: “Biden actually played as Donkey Kong in Mario Kart”? ).

Also, ¿did NYT really need to write this in such a silly way:

“Those ‘likes’ are unacceptable violations of our company policy. We are currently reviewing the matter.”

“Our establishment does not find this behavior rizzed. We are currently reviewing whether or not we will cease smashing that like button on their work in the future”.

Anyway, I was lucky ’nough to stumble ’pon a much mo’ riveting article from The New York Post: “Joe Rogan and Kid Rock clash over how Israel should win war against Gaza: ‘That’s actually a war crime’”. I don’t know if we should waste these 2 intellectual titans on such a meager topic as this. I do have to say, tho, that “That’s actually a war crime” is my favorite VH1 war reality show in the dystopian world I live in ( real life ).

Having made the mistake o’ actually reading this article, I refuse to believe it isn’t a bit by both o’ these “debaters” talking ’bout war as if it’s an XBox game & the New York Post reporting dryly like the middleaged school teacher still waiting for them to turn in their paper due last week:

Kid Rock disagreed, pointing to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. “Boom. Just wiped out,” he said of the atomic bombings, which maimed hundreds of thousands of people.

I have to admit, I can’t argue with, “Boom. Just wiped out”. Check mate, mate.

But the twist is when the surprise 4th clown enters the article, with the greatest joke o’ all:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, shared over the weekend that he believes the war can end within “weeks.”

But Biden His Time™ was not ’bout to be outdone in this black comedy God is apparently subjecting us to:

“I was on the telephone with the people in the region,” Biden told reporters on the South Lawn Thursday morning, adding: “Probably not by Monday, but I’m hopeful.”

¿What “people in the region”? ¿The government? ¿Hamas? I mean, considering they’re in hiding, I can imagine it isn’t easy to get contact with them. ¿Is he just cold-calling randos in Gaza, saying, “Hey, ¿are you in Hamas? ¿Could you — ¿Hello?”.

The president said earlier this week he hoped a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas could be in place in roughly a week at an ice cream shop in New York as part of an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “We’re close, we’re not done yet,” Biden said.

This will be the ace in the hole: Islamic-fundamentalist militants can’t resist New York ice cream & hearing some really funny monologues by Seth Meyers.

[Note: I only now realized the article meant that Biden said this to Seth Meyers with ice cream, not that he invited Hamas to have ice cream. Very weird how they organized this sentence: ¿why not lead with where Biden said this & end with the actually important part ’bout his goals for a weirdly hyphenated ceasefire? Putting the part ’bout ice cream & Seth Meyers @ the end makes it sound like it’s an important part o’ Biden’s strategy, not just the background to the important part. ]

The U.S. and Israel are still waiting to hear back from Hamas on whether it will agree to a six-week pause in fighting and a new proposal for a prisoners-for-hostages exchange, that person said.

I can just imagine Biden constantly calling Hamas HQ & the top leader shakes his head @ the attendant & says, <Don’t answer. It’s fucking Biden ’gain with his dumbass ice cream>.

Anyway, to bring it all back to our original discussion, The New York Times hadn’t quite fulfilled their shame fetish quota this week, so they went full throttle when 2 o’ their reporters opened up an AMA on the /r/politics subreddit & got mostly dunked on for their weak-ass coverage, including bringing up some softcore porn fanfic they wrote ’bout Trump &, ’course, that open letter gainst them regarding their transphobic coverage & their head editor, or whoe’er he was, whinily threatening workers who signed it. Unsurprisingly, they only seemed to reply to the few praiseworthy softball questions.

All o’ this internet stuff makes me think the line, “1st they came for the Communists & I did not speak out. Because I was not a Communist”, should be updated to, “1st they came for the Muslims & I burped. Because When the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 – major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth – known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown. The 4-equidistant time points can be considered as Time Square imprinted upon the circle of Earth. In a single rotation of the Earth sphere, each Time corner point rotates through the other 3-corner Time points, thus creating 16 corners, 96 hours and 4-simultaneous 24-hour Days within a single rotation of Earth – equated to a Higher Order of Life Time Cube”.

From the wordsmith, Trump:

“Everybody I speak to says how horrible it is,” he said during an event at the border on Thursday. “Nobody [can] explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages — we have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They are truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.

Such deep, meaningful words inspired me to compose the following political ( sprite ) comic: