David Horsey’s Politics drives Americans apart | The Seattle Times
In my Seattle voting precinct, there were exactly zero votes cast for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. There would have been two votes for the guy in the White House if a pair of my casual friends just over the hill had not moved to Montana a year before because they were weary of living in political isolation.
In that feeling, the conservative couple are not unique among folks who lean to the right in this city and this state. My colleague, Danny Westneat, recently took a look at Idaho migration statistics and found Republicans far outnumber Democrats among recent transplants from Washington. This imbalance is so dramatic that it is hard to explain any other way than to acknowledge politics as a driver behind hundreds of relocations. In fact, Westneat found there are real estate firms in Idaho that specifically market to conservatives, urging them to escape Washington’s liberal “hell hole” and move to a place that celebrates God, guns and small government.
This phenomenon is not unique to Washington and Idaho. All over the country, there are people pulling up stakes and getting out of Dodge because they do not like living in a place where their neighbors do not share their political views. And it is not just conservatives abandoning blue states — there is also evidence of liberals fleeing from red states to find more congenial, progressive communities.
This sorting has been going on at some level ever since our political life started to become so nasty, intolerant and polarized. It seems that, now, the physical separation is accelerating. Cities and nearby suburbs are increasingly liberal, while exurbs and small towns are more right-wing than ever. And Americans are forgetting how to talk to one another unless everyone in the room — or the neighborhood or the college campus — sees things exactly the same way.
There used to be an old, conservative gentleman who lived just around the block from me. He would drive by my house now and then in his big pickup truck and, if I happened to be outside, he would harangue me about my political cartoons. The man had a sense of humor about it, though, and, when I did not respond with anger, but with a laugh and a smile, we always parted amicably. We were not exactly friends, but we got along, and we were certainly not enemies.
The old guy died a couple of years ago and I kind of miss him — just like I miss the days when American politics was a debate among friends, not Armageddon.
Horsey: ” I miss the days when American politics was a debate among friends, not Armageddon.”
speaking of debates, maher had some suggestions about improving televised political debates which might be helpful in dismantling the silo world we’ve built for ourselves:
I blame Ronald Reagan who turned so many Americans against their own government. He invented modern day culture wars (even Baptists were pro-choice until Jerry Falwell persuaded Reagan to weaponize abortion for the evangelical vote). Reagan indulged white supremacists, popularizing slogans such as “take our country back” and “America first” — forerunners to “make America great again”. Yep, you can trace back to Reagan pretty much everything that rips us apart today.
Air traffic controllers
Mental patients out
iran contra
rich people and corporate tax cuts.
A real turd.
Actor with Alzheimer’s….on the face of it not a great choice for leader.
yeah, ronny stacked the wood, dubya opened the flue and donny lit the fire.
Tax ignorance produces billionaires and magats.
PROTEST TOO MUCH?
He is still burnt by this, keeps coming back to it (12:43am last night)…
“I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that overnight The Reagan Library burnt to the ground and BOTH books were ruined. The good news is that he had finished coloring them.”
—Gore Vidal on Carson. (paraphrase from memory)
Perhaps the most awful thing any president ever said was Reagan’s sadly popular mantra:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.'”
Some scary ones here
“The nine most terrifying words in th…”
Yeah, he was talking about a REPUBLICAN government.
(“Heck of a job, Brownie”)
Republicans government: we gotta make sure the rich people triple their wealth; the rest of you people can go into the woods and eat dirt. We all know that life improves when the rich people get more money.
Gosh, pandemic? High time the rich people got more money.
I bet he was jumping ugly because…Megyn Kelly.
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/megyn-kelly-no-question-trump-is-in-cognitive-decline
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/08/texas-abortion-lawsuit-ken-paxton/
“After a Travis County district judge cleared the way for Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her pregnancy, Ken Paxton petitioned the state’s highest court to halt the ruling.”
Anyone of childbearing age who is old enough to get out of this state should go so.
“This is the first time an actively pregnant adult woman has gone to court to get an abortion since before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. A similar case was filed in Kentucky on Friday.”
“The central question is whether a lethal fetal anomaly qualifies a pregnant patient for an abortion under the narrow medical exception to the state’s near-total abortion ban. Cox’s lawyers argue that continuing this nonviable pregnancy poses a threat to her life and future fertility, thus necessitating an abortion.”
Women will be harmed by the alt-right Women will suffer, women will die.
These so-called conservatives who cherry-pick the Bible and claim they have authority from God (like MAGAt Mike) do not give a flying f@ck about women.
The Bible-bangers also don’t give a flying f@ck about children, either. They don’t care if they’re housed, clothed, fed, or educated. (They would actually prefer that they not be educated; it makes them easier to control.)
Ex-Governor, Rick Perry, coaxed some California companies to move to Texas. Hey, it’s a right-to-work state, so labor is cheap. Texas has lax business laws, so do what you want to humans or the environment. I thought more of those transplants would be Dems. Why? My relatives in California are all churchy Republicans.
patD – Does any of this transplanting to states that share your worldview have a measurable impact on elections? Two votes, meh, but really widespread swings that gerrymandering can’t offset?
Perhaps tRUMPsky’s brain glitches are of a syphilitic nature?
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/07/ted-cruz-am-radio-senate/
“Cruz on Tuesday requested a unanimous consent decision on his AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act. The legislation was blocked by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who said the mandate on private companies would be an overstep of congressional power.”
“AM radio is “enormously important to millions of Texans,” Cruz told The Texas Tribune in October. He noted the platform is essential for diverse talk radio — especially for conservative voices.”
“I think silencing those voices is enormously harmful to both free speech but also to a robust democratic process,” Cruz said.
“AM radio is a haven for people to speak, even if their views are disfavored by the political ruling class,” Cruz said on the Senate floor. “Rush Limbaugh would not exist without AM radio. The views of my friend, [Rand Paul] the senator from Kentucky, would be heard by many fewer people without AM radio.”
“AM radio in rural Texas and other southern states is also a platform for religious, local news and sports programming. Local stations will also run chain or network programming with more well-known commentators, according to Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.”
“Some rural communities are dependent on getting local interest information from a single radio station or single newspaper, Cross said.”
Yep, and how are ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Par-ee? It’s rural folks, who are mostly evangelical, that are the bread and butter of MAGAtLand, and many of them live on the edge of poverty. You can find neo-conservative BS on satellite radio, but that costs money. What happens if the alt-right, hate speech stops filling their heads via AM radio? MAGAts are the nastiest of ear worms.
Ummm, and I guess, thank you Rand? I have nothing against AM radio, but it surely ticked off Ted, so…
Don’t wanna doxx myself, but around here, most definitely
Spent many years as a blue dot in a red state. Even when I lived in blue states, I managed to end up in red counties.
https://greenvilledemocrats.com/blue-dots-red-state/
… read that story about Ken Paxton wanting to force a woman to bring an unviable pregnancy to term and was blown-away by what a monster he is, Texans are evil to elect these people
Here is what has moved into my community:
The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas.
These people are trying to take over our schools… but they haven’t been able to get elected to the school board. So they are volunteering for the schools budget advisory committee. The school board has rejected all of their proposals so far.
The 2023 Heisman Trophy winner will be announced during the televised Heisman Trophy Ceremony Presented by Nissan that will air Saturday (Dec. 9) at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
https://www.heisman.com/articles/2023-heisman-trophy-top-10-announced/
https://apnews.com/article/trump-capitol-riot-immunity-9528a29b2dbebb6ee4a4ebd26780f98c
“Lawyers for the 2024 Republican presidential primary frontrunner filed a notice of appeal Thursday indicating that they will challenge U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision rejecting Trump’s bid to dismiss the case headed to trial in Washington, D.C., in March.”
“The one-page filing, the first step in a process that could potentially reach the Supreme Court in the months ahead, was accompanied by a request from the Trump team to freeze deadlines in the case while the appeals court considers the matter.”
“The filing of President Trump’s notice of appeal has deprived this Court of jurisdiction over this case in its entirety pending resolution of the appeal,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Therefore, a stay of all further proceedings is mandatory and automatic.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/09/politics/iowa-caucus-casey-desantis-moms/index.html
“We’re asking all of these moms and grandmoms to come from wherever it might be, North Carolina, South Carolina and to descend upon the state of Iowa to be a part of the caucus, because you do not have to be a resident of Iowa to be able to participate in the caucus. So, moms and grandmas are going to be able to come and be a part and let their voice be heard in support of Ron DeSantis,” Casey said, in a side-by-side interview on Fox News with her husband ahead of a “Mamas for DeSantis” event in West Des Moines.
“After the Fox News appearance, Casey DeSantis clarified on X that by participating in the Iowa caucuses, she didn’t mean voting.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/politics/louisiana-red-neck-christmas-parade-trump/index.html
“The parade route went past people living in an RV and a tent, abandoned stores, a pawn shop, and a couple Dollar Generals. More than 30% of Bawcomville residents live below the poverty line, and the surrounding Ouachita Parish was deemed a persistent poverty county in a 2022 report by the Congressional Research Service. A 2015 documentary called “The Other Side,” which follows a man addicted to meth, was filmed in Bawcomville. The area is well-known locally as a poor community in need of better housing…”
“People don’t realize this is kind of like a Third World country,” Holmes said. There were many homeless people in the area, living in abandoned mobile homes, she explained. “And in the woods,” Mayo added. “Makeshift tents.” They said homelessness was harder to see there than in the streets of the big cities.”
“It’s a terrible situation we’re in. Even people with jobs are suffering because of the high price of the economy,” Mayo said.
“As for the 2024 presidential election, Mayo said, “We hope Trump gets back in there. Maybe he can straighten it out … Because it wasn’t in this turmoil when he left. All this has managed to happen in the last three years.”
No, all of that didn’t happen in the last three years. No, Orange Adolf will not help you. He hates poor folks, as do all Republicans.
“Disproportionate doom seems to be a new American affliction,” a Financial Times columnist wrote in December. A September Bloomberg opinion column was headlined, “Risks Are Growing of a Double-Dip ‘Vibecession’” – “vibecession” being a term coined in June 2022 by Kyla Scanlon and picked up widely to express fears that gloomy economic views could become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
“Just look at our pocketbooks … What little people may have been able to save from the stimuluses we got – all that is gone. People are living off credit now, if they even have that.” She said her property taxes, property insurance, and utility bills had gotten more expensive. “I don’t know how these families that come to this redneck parade – this community – even can buy groceries.”
“Redneck” doesn’t necessarily mean broke – there are plenty of expensive trucks in the parade. To Baker, redneck meant “We’d rather be out in the woods, be out in the country – sit back on the porch, bonfire, cold beer.”
Surviving or struggling, these are the folks who are with Orange Adolf until the bitter end of our democracy.
Housing, housing, housing.
Ever wonder how you kill your career? Examples like Rosann Barr should help. Seems Kelsey Grammer, Frasier actor, had an interview with BBC cut short when he started talking about his support for sfb. My, my. So much for the next version of Frasier. Nobody said you had to be intelligent to be an actor.
Interesting how the MAGA crowd wants to re-instate the most inept and incompetent government we’ve ever had in our history.
(Especially considering most of them are nearly completely dependent on government subsidies of some form or other.)
Universities want to say hate speech is free speech and it’s not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/us/university-of-pennsylvania-president-resigns.html?referringSource=articleShare
“Support for Ms. Magill, already shaken in recent months over her approach to a Palestinian literary conference and the university’s initial response to the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, unraveled after her testimony. Influential graduates questioned her leadership, wealthy contributors moved to withdraw donations, and public officials besieged the university to oust its president.”
Looks like there is no such thing as free speech any more.
What we are seeing is a concerted effort to shut down one side of the debate by labeling everything one side says as hate speech. It is not a good time to support open discussion. That is almost any topic, right left or indifferent.
Jack
first song of the season
https://startswith.us/takeaction/
Starts With Us is trying to help facilitate civil interactions.
Jack – The cold open on SNL spoke to your point.
BTW, Dumbass’ crack legal team needs to read the F.R.Crim.P., specifically Rule 8(a)(1). A stay on appeal is not automatic.
You don’t have to be a lawyer to read that and understand that a petition for appeal does not automatically deprive the District Court of jurisdiction to preside over the case during an appeal. There may be an exception for the petition for appeal Dumbass is filing but quick research while waiting for ibuprofen and melatonin to kick in didn’t find one.
NEW THREAD by Jack