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Pass the Popcorn!

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On August 18, 2017
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At 1:29 pm
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In General
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You know what would be really sad? If Breitbart started supporting third party candidates against Republicans they don’t like. Oh, please don’t do that said every Democrat ever!

I wonder if a Breitbart war against Trump would significantly reduce his base support? I also wonder how the fascist in the Oval Office would react to this.

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  • aab84

    Breitbart v. Trump would be a fascinating war. I genuinely don’t know who the deplorables would choose. My guess is Trump, but I don’t know that you can rule out them deciding Trump has gone full cuck.

    • CP

      If Bannon wants to be the Ernst Rohm to Trump’s Adolf Hitler, he’s got an exciting and short future ahead of him.

      • firefall

        More like Moe to Trump’s Curly, really

        • Incontinentia Buttocks

          First time a tragedy…

          • CP

            The Night of the Long Knives was hardly a tragedy.

            • firefall

              Think of all the ones that didnt get knifed

    • NonyNony

      If there’s really going to be a war (I find that difficult to believe for a variety of reasons), Bannon screwed himself with that interview with the Prospect. He basically called the racists a bunch of chumps. They’re falling all over themselves right now telling themselves that it’s some kind of 11-dimensional chess, but you can be assured that if he starts bad-mouthing Trump the knives will come back out and that interview will be remembered.

      • Shemp Marx

        Nah, he’ll be fine. The racists at Breitbart don’t think they’re racists because they know that the democrats, those black baby aborting, civil war-losing, KKK-starting democrats are the real racists.

      • FlipYrWhig

        I think it’ll play out about like the SNL sketch where William Shatner rails at all the Trekkies and says it’s just a TV show, only to back down and say he was just playing Evil Kirk all along, and everyone is happy. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/trekkies/n9511?snl=1

      • SpiderDan

        That interview was an obvious suicide-by-cop. Bannon will say, “Look at who I chose to give that interview to,” and all questions will end.

        • weirdnoise

          Whether he wanted to be fired or, as he claimed, had submitted his resignation already, he no doubt saw the writing on the wall and wanted to hit back at Trump while he still could.

    • brad

      Via a new account that retweet’s Trump’s twitter feed it seems Ann Coulter is about 5 mins from calling him a cuck. It’s going to be beautiful and terrifying to see him flail about attacking people “on many sides”.

      • NonyNony

        That bot came at just the right time. I’m waiting now for Trump to unfollow Ann Coulter because boy-howdy she’s not happy. (Also for a hot second I wondered why she was so hot and bothered about Goldman Sachs before I remembered that for her that’s likely code for “the Jews”).

        Also I’m sure Bill O’Reilly giving all of the credit for the firing to Kelly will give Trump the warm and fuzzy feels.

    • Judas Peckerwood

      Trump’s base will stick with him right up to the point when they suddenly turn on him en masse and give him the full Mussolini treatment.

      • N__B

        The windows on DJT Tower are inoperable, so the full Mussolini treatment would have to happen at the White House.

        • so-in-so

          Umm, he was shot. They hung his body in a gas station to keep people from kicking/pissing on it.

          • N__B

            I meant you couldn’t easily hang his corpse from the tower. Although, now that I say that, I know some very skilled riggers.

            • nixnutz

              Nah, the lamp posts on 5th Avenue are almost too high already but I don’t think there’s a more fitting place.

            • so-in-so

              Ahh, I thought you were going for defenestration. Okay.

              ETA: the WH portico has to have SOME purpose.

          • Wapiti

            Public health considerations, yeah, that’s why we hung the body up.

            • the actual Bajmahal

              I thought it was to keep foraging bears from getting at it.

        • Spurred on by this thread I just read up on the strange life after death of Mussolini–I had no idea! The partisans caught him and his mistress heading north and returned him to Milan so he could be executed in the same public square where the fascists had killed and displayed 15 captured partisans/communists. The people took revenge for those murders by mutiliating the bodies before and after hanging them up. The US took the bodies down but photographed Mussolini and his mistress quasi embracing after death. M was buried but his grave was desecrated so often that fascists snuck in and stole his bones and hid them for ten years in a monastery. They were returned by a pro-right wing Italian government to his widow and reburied with more religious authorities and still serve as a focus of fascist pilgrimage to this day.

          • Hypersphericalcow

            My dad has an inherited pewter Mussolini ash tray: you stub out your cigarette into his large gaping mouth. I don’t know if it was produced here or in Italy.

          • so-in-so

            And all this AFTER German commandos rescued him from Italian captivity the first time in an airborne raid.

          • They spent their last night together in a room overlooking a lake. I remember that detail from Luigi Barzini’s “The Italians”.

          • Karen

            In the early Oughts I worked for the Texas agency that licensed and regulated car dealers. In the course of my job I met Count Ciano’s grandson. Ciano was married to Mussolini’s daughter, so that made this guy Mussolini’s great-grandson. I was the only one at my office who recognized this, and was specifically instructed not to mention the fact ever. (Mr. Ciano was the general counsel for North American Ducati motorcycles. He was also the best dressed man I’ve ever seen in real life. I swear his shoes cost three months of my salary. He was also quite polite and professional, though.)

          • M Lister

            They should have done like some people did to Milosevic – dig up his body, cut his head off, put a steak through his heart, and bury him at a cross roads.
            https://www.wired.com/2007/03/croatian_vampir/ You really want to make sure that sort of thing never comes back.

      • so-in-so

        I have gazed whistfully at gas station overhangs since January.

      • DamnYankeesLGM

        But isn’t a huge reason that they stick with him that they are stuck in an information echochamber? If one of the main organs of that echochamber changes sides, who knows what will happen.

        • Hmm. An echo chamber with competing phonon sources? Well, we could see destructive interference, and that would be good. Or we could see beats big enough to breach the chamber, and that would be good.

          Or we might just all go deaf.

        • Shemp Marx

          They can turn on a dime. 8 months ago, 90 million americans did not work for a living. Now, despite the fundamentals not having changed all that much in the interim, the economy is booming and the unemployment rate is nice and low.

      • twbb

        Didn’t that require an invasion and the realization that they had to look like they hated him?

        • so-in-so

          It did take an invasion, but they really did hate him…

          • twbb

            Not when it was important to.

      • hickes01

        They are all practicing this phrase – Ich bin kein Trumpfanhänger.

    • WinningerR

      Interesting indeed. Breitbart destroys Trump, IMO. Since his presidency is scarcely more than one long publicity stunt, Trump desperately needs the propaganda apparatus to keep himself propped up, and Bretibart is beating heart of that apparatus.

      • tsam100

        I think you hit the nail on the head here. Fox is starting to wobble, but an assault from Breitbart would hurt him. I don’t think Trump has the ability to pivot to the less crazy Republicans. He’s all in with assholes who are strangely fixated on the term “cuck”

        • CP

          Yeah, if he loses Breitbart, he’s in real trouble.

          • My feeling is that Breitbart will attack everyone explicitly excepting Trump.

            • jim, some guy in iowa

              won’t that result in an even more isolated and paranoid and crazier trump?

              yes jim you said that like it was a bad thing

              • According to Trump’s Razor: “ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts” and that answer is likely correct.

                J.M. Marshall

        • Shemp Marx

          FWIW, to most of the Breitbart commentariat, Fox News has been Fake News for a while now.

          • tsam100

            Well, they’re not wrong…but the wrong kind of wrong. What a world we live in, eh?

    • AlexSaltzberg

      They would choose Trump if it was just Breitbart.

      If it was non-Fox News conservative media against Trump, the deplorables would go with the media.

    • ap77

      Not sure who wins here, but VERY excited about massive casualties on both sides.

    • Bluesmank

      ‘Breitbart v. Trump would be a fascinating war’

      My money is on Fox vs. Breitbart. That looks like a few years of the worst trench warfare in media.

      • Karen

        Can we start the LGM pool to buy popcorn futures now?

      • Mellano

        “There’s more money potential in white supremacy than anything else we’re looking at. Now if we don’t get into it, somebody else will. Maybe one of the alt-right websites. Maybe all of them. Now, with the money they earn, they can buy more regulators and political power. Then they come after us.

        “Now, we have the seniors, we have the exurbs. They’re the best things to have. But white supremacy is the thing of the future. If we don’t get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have. I mean, not now, but in ten years from now.”

        “So? What’s your answer going to be, pop?”

        • Unemployed_Northeastern

          TBF, James Murdoch just donated $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.

          • But for the Murdochs isn’t that literally chump change?

            • Aaron Morrow

              It’s literally change from chumps, yes.

            • N__B

              Yeah, but that’s not really fair since everything the Murdochs have is chump-everything. For example, their newspapers are chump-newspapers, their employees are chump-employees, and their beliefs are chump-beliefs.

              ETA: Aaron said it shorter and better.

            • I see it as also an opening round in a campaign to get their Sky TV take-over approved of by the Brits.

              The recent revelations about Fox TV and sexual harrassment in the work place threaten to put the kibosh on that deal. Coming out against Trump may not be worth a Mass, but it is worth a cool mil to the ADL.

          • Mellano

            True, and apparently Fox News itself has been pushing back a little on Trump’s response last week. But I’m still holding my breath about what their long term move will be.

            • addicted4444

              Trump basically pulled the rug out from under all his supporters with his Tuesday interview.

              The 2 day late press conference had nonetheless given them cover to pretend that Trump wasnt openly supporting Nazis, and that he was just “getting all the facts”. And they used it to the hilt after his press conference.

              Yet he went out and contradicted everything he, and they, said 1 day later. I feel at a certain point even Charlie Brown would just walk away to maintain the little personal dignity he had left.

            • CD

              It does seem possible there’s a genuine split growing in the right over antisemitism. (JM is contributing to ADL, not SPLC.) Fox has been happy to fan flames against black and brown people, but until last week the mainstream Fox/conservative line was we’re not antisemites, you lefties are. The alt-right/nazi/klan people, however, genuinely and vocally believe that Jews are the central villains of history. The fact that this does not bother Trump and he will indeed encourage them … clearly has some people worried.

              Sort of the same way Winston Churchill could be a vicious colonial racist and a principled anti-nazi.

              • Mellano

                I think you’re right regarding the antisemitism. I doubt many among the political class on the right, at least, are personally very antisemitic, and may even find that they have no stomach for using it as a flag for rallying voters.

                I feel like Fox’s racial politics grew out of a white resentment rhetoric more than Klan-style white supremacy. Sort of a “those people would be alright if only …” kind of moving target that at least gave lip service to the ideal of civil equality. The distinction may ultimately have no difference, but given that Fox broadcasts to millions of viewers, I still hope fervently that it won’t defend today’s Nazis with the same zeal that they do their usual political allies.

          • MikeG

            That makes up for the billions they’ve made weaponizing right-wing assholery for decades.

            • Unemployed_Northeastern

              Fair, but I think it signals that perhaps this is not a hill James Murdoch, and by extension Fox News, is willing to die upon.

    • david spikes

      Don’t think tht Bannon, Breitbart et.al. will directly attack Trump .but everyone else will be raked. And Trump just in the normal course of being an asshole will give the alt right lots of reasons for saying that Trump’s being manipulated, mislead and managed by the leftie traitors in the WH. Look for Ivanka and Jared to be the first targets.

    • JDTrust

      The thread seems to think this could be a Tangerine killer — I’m not convinced.

      Stipulating that I’m giving them both too much credit, I mentioned in a different thread that the words ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘Golden Parachute’ keep running through my head for some reason — I’d change ‘Golden Parachute’ to ‘Well-Greased Exit’, but I hesitate to imagine the responses to *that* turn of phrase.

      What if (yeah, I know…) this is cooked up between the two of them? As in, someone smart at the White House (likely retired military personnel with an understanding of politics that exceeds the low bar of ‘More knowledgeable than the President’) said:

      “Sir, the lame both-sides condemnation you offered wasn’t nearly enough, but you *really* screwed the pooch with the antifa comments and the whole lack of permits thing. You need to offer a token sacrifice– Bannon will do, I think — as a sop to the masses. You might even get some good publicity, and if you bribe him enough he ought to play ball — you can both come out looking bigly good” (Note: My autocorrects turns ‘bigly’ into ‘bigot’… hmm…)

      The flaw that I’m seeing is that I’m arguing that the President might actually be using political savvy — even if that savvy is really other people’s advice. Given that I’ve also tried to argue recently that his greed might outweigh his ego… could this be a CYA ‘termination’ or am I being cynical/generous to his forward planning ability/out of my damned mind?

    • mongolia

      breitbart is quite minor in terms of impact – the key is when drudge/fox news/talk radio/sinclair/televangelists start parroting them, that’s when they have real influence. the base will go with whatever fox news/talk radio/their preacher tells them, so direct bannonism – the herrenvolk democracy part of trumps appeal – will be scrubbed from the history so we can get back to classic republican supply side economics and anti-government sentiment and shit like calling themselves “the party of lincoln.” though the 20% of the base that will (correctly) feel utterly duped waging war against the base will be fun, and hopefully be good for 2018

    • Tom B

      And the thing is, it’s only going to take a relatively small percentage of the hardcores peeling off for his support to dip below a politically viable level.

    • ASV

      It depends what the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem does. A considerable amount of Breitbart’s effect is filtered through Fox and talk radio.

  • Thirtyish

    May he rot in obscurity for all eternity. Amen.

  • liberal

    I heard he was booted when Trump finally heard that Bannon was a bankster. /joking

  • RD

    FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

    • Hogan

      Might makes Right! Might for Right! Might for Might! Right for Might! Fight! Fight! Fight!

      • Ithaqua

        Is that a Cerberus reference, perchance?

        • Hogan

          Yes, the Conniptin war cry.

          • postmodulator

            I don’t quite have the courage to seek out what, if anything, Dave Sim has said about Trump. I bet it’s entertainingly batshit.

            • Hogan

              “I don’t approve of his The Roach imitation, but I do approve of his ‘grab Cirinists by the pussy’ policy.”

          • FlipYrWhig

            I thought it was a parody of the Itchy and Scratchy theme song.

          • Ithaqua

            I wasn’t sure if it was coincidence!

  • Murc

    Man, how far gone do you have to be that you think Trump is at all equivalent to a Democrat?

    I mean, in the past month, he’s been belligerently xenophobic and bombastic abroad, and has been nudge-nudge wink-winking white supremacy at home. He’s been going after the social safety net, and his infrastructure plan will never materialize, and he’s appointing neoconfederates left, right, and center. Is that… not to their liking?

    What does it take to satisfy these people? And what the hell do they think Democrats stand for?

    I also love the “Democrat White House” dig.

    • Wasn’t that Crooked Hillary’s platform?

      • King Goat

        It was outlined in the missing emails.

    • aab84

      Isn’t the irony here that Bannon was the administration official most committed to any sort of Democratic ideas? Not the horrible, horrible racism, obviously. But Bannon wanted to raise taxes on rich people and do infrastructure and didn’t want to blow up North Korea.

      • addicted4444

        Or Bannon realized it played well with the base. Bannon wasn’t gonna raise taxes on him or his friends. Yet he knew it was a great idea to tell his loser followers that the “globalists” were screwing them.

      • so-in-so

        “White” Democratic ideas maybe. So we might get rid of the Nazis but get to keep the racist Confederates and the oligarchs?

    • Unemployed_Northeastern

      So he's just like Wilson and the Dixiecrats?

      – Every right-wing troll this week

    • applecor

      The idea is not that Trump is “equivalent to a Democrat”. It is that (1) nothing he has said in the past means anything about what he will do in the future and (2) he believes in nothing except getting attention, and therefore it is just as likely that he will adopt the Dem platform as the GOP platform if he believes that will win him praise and keep him in the news. If he survives in office until 2019 and the Dems take Congress, then maybe….?

      Not a significantly worse theory than I have seen anywhere else about Trump. I no longer predict anything in the realm of politics. I’m just here to learn.

      • aab84

        Except Trump seems deeply, genuinely committed to the racist, sexist, and anti-trans aspects of his administration, which are very obviously a non-starter for Democrats.

        • applecor

          Even if that is true, he could still fling the racist rhetoric while cooperating with the Dems on infrastructure, the budget, trade etc.

          I mean, we’re in a place where the MSM will praise him to the skies just for keeping the government open, amirite?

          • NonyNony

            If he were going to do that, Bannon would still be in there. That was the agenda that Bannon wanted – economic nationalism with enough racism to be able to use Hispanics, blacks, immigrants, etc. as the scapegoats that kind of nationalism needs.

            I wonder if he finally realized that he had no shot of getting anything on his agenda because the GOP is only willing to embrace the racism parts economic nationalism and really don’t want to have anything to do with the economic pieces.

            • NeonTrotsky

              People on the left kept freaking out that this guy was some kind of genius strategist, but really anyone who knew anything could tell you that kind of stuff was DOA with the modern Republican party. Bannon, quite ironically, actually seems quite caught up in poorly researched pieces by the “liberal” media about the white working class and why people voted for Trump, when in reality most of his voters were well off people who voted for Romney four years ago and don’t want to pay more in taxes.

              • mongolia

                how long until bannon and roseann demoro create a superpac together?

          • SatanicPanic

            I dunno, I am kind of in agreement with everyone who is saying that “WTF is wrong with this guy” sells more news than “oh he’s pivoting” and I’m pretty sure the media is too.

            • Aaron Morrow

              … who is going to take the hit to their sanity and check what Cillizza is saying?

              Not it.

              • SatanicPanic

                I was going to add- other than that sociopath Cilliza, they are real humans, and “nazis aren’t so bad” is probably a bridge too far ever for them. But Cilliza I am not sure about.

                • IIRC Cillizza actually said BOFF SIDES was completely uncalled-for w/r/t Charlottesville.

                • SatanicPanic

                  That guy never seems to get over even the low bar that I set for him.

                • In terms of “horseracist pundits who are extremely bad at their jobs,” I’ve thought Halperin & Shafer have him beat in the overtly-psychopathic department. Mind you, Cillizza is still rather nihilistic — this just means the bounds of basic human decency are a bit stronger for him than the other two (and his horseracism may be at least as much due to his fucking idiocy as overt indifference).

                  Speaking of: What happened to Halperin?

                • PohranicniStraze

                  horseracist

                  Someone who is deeply committed to the idea that Friesians are intrinsically superior to Appaloosas?

                • smut clyde

                  Friesians are cattle. I am farm-boy, I know the difference.

                • PohranicniStraze

                  They’re also horses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friesian_horse Very pretty ones at that.

                • As humanoidpanda noted back in February, the (overwhelmingly-deserved) extremely low opinion of horserace-coverage is more a result of Sturgeon’s law than the field’s intrinsic faults – Davids Wiegel and Graham are the most noteworthy exceptions.

      • so-in-so

        “Democrat” is just a slur to these people. Like Socialist or Fascist (until we got actual Fascists running around)

      • FlipYrWhig

        Wasn’t it Bannon who was saying that Ivanka, Kushner, and others I’m forgetting were “the Democrats” in the administration, meaning, as far as I could tell, “the Jews”?

        • Peter Curtin

          The others lumped in there were Cohn and Mnuchin – the Goldman Sachs folks on the economic team.

    • SatanicPanic

      These are the same people who simultaneously point out that the KKK was created by Democrats, the Democrats were the confederates, but are also mad at us for calling the KKK bad, and are defending monuments to the confederacy. Their words mean- WE HATE YOU- and that’s all.

      • Tribal signaling. That is all

        • postmodulator

          Everything is like slavery, except for slavery, which wasn’t that bad.

          The GOP is the party of Lincoln, who wasn’t that good.

          If this seems like word salad, that’s why you’re a commenter here and not at Breitbart.

          • Oh no, I get it. Was in the Army and maintained friends from the south. I’ve decided to tackle them and its word salads all the way down. The smarter ones just move the goal posts every other sentence, though at the bottom of it all it’s filled with tribal signaling (see my handshakes see my emotion of anger?) and others are cheering them on. I just know it ends with “but muh lifestyle” or wont to never feel uncomfortable. Still they can’t come out and say it outright or at first

    • david spikes

      It isn’t Trump-it’s all the squish traitors in the WH lead by Ivanka and Jared who are polluting the pristine clarity of Trumpthought.
      As for Coulter she’s just another if you make me mad just one more time I’m really going to do something, you know something really bad that’ll blow the lid right off.

      • Mellano

        Trump is the One True Hero who can save the white race true conservatives, the alpha male par excellence.

        He’s also a two bit patsy who can be rolled by a bunch of cucks and women.

        Contradiction? No contradiction. You’re the contradiction!

        • Shalimar

          Well, they believe similar impossibilities about Obama’s power and impotence to this day, so you have to believe they are capable of rationalizing any message they get about Trump indefinitely too.

    • addicted4444

      Nazis = non Nazis is way beyond nudge-nudge, but otherwise spot on.

    • Hypersphericalcow

      Cleek’s law is iron and unforgiving.

    • Hypothesis

      They don’t really have any ideals, and don’t especially care about them. Anyone who is not with them, is against them. Either you follow them mindlessly, or you’re the enemy. And everyone knows enemies are Democrats.

  • tsam100

    Oh FUCK yes.

    • Bizarro Mike

      Steve didn’t quit. Steve retired to spend more time cooking meth with his ex wife.

      • twbb

        I know some people who live in that community; she does not have a reputation for mental stability.

        • Bizarro Mike

          Huh. I mostly took this as “gossip from the neighbors”-level of truth.

      • wengler

        I often think of these type of stories and how they would be covered 24/7 in the Obama administration because the press was bored as hell. ‘Top aide funds porn and drug flophouse’ doesn’t even rate in Trumpworld.

      • smut clyde

        I was intrigued by the “acid-damaged bath-tub” aspect of that story. That is not how you make meth, people (or so I hear from a friend).
        http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qOOMc17v38E/VEG304-A5lI/AAAAAAAAPqc/LYbgCXt6j08/s1600/41P-lCS9R3L.jpg

    • david spikes

      Thought provoking-if Trump feels he’s being “managed” he lashes out and does exactly the opposite.
      And like staring into the blackness of non-existence; Trump get’s mad if he thinks people are lying to him.

  • N__B

    “Let’s him and him fight.”

  • Bring out the circular firing squad. Ready! Aim! Fire!

    And make sure the bullets are dipped in pigs blood, because Trump really likes that.

    • N__B

      Not classy enough for fighting involving DJT. Use fake gold leaf.

      • Ah, yes. Because silver would be too cheap :-)

        • Karen

          And too effective. Monsters gotta stick together, donchaknow.

        • Wapiti

          Fake silver leaf… that’s just tin foil, right?

          • Karen

            They used all that up making hats.

    • wengler

      Damn .45 jammed again. Must’ve been the pig’s blood. Let me look into the barrel and see…BANG!

  • SomeTreasonBrewing

    Since Trump doesn’t know the upshot of anything, including words, the chances that he runs as Democrat in 2020 are not zero.

    • tsam100

      He could land upward of 100 votes from Dem primary voters.

      • King Goat

        I dunno, there’s the WV primary…

  • Gregor Sansa

    Bannon: “I am going to go medieval on enemies of Trump now.”

    Not popcorn time just yet. Patience. The fan is still just revving up.

    • Gregor Sansa

      Turns out that quote is maybe dubious or out of date. We’ll see.

    • sibusisodan

      “When they see how I’ve depicted them in this tapestry I’m creating, it is on.”

  • DamnYankeesLGM

    I’m trying to think of any way this could be a bad thing.

    I am coming up with none.

    • N__B

      One of my father’s favorite jokes…

      A family is driving cross-country on vacation, stopping at national monuments and similar points of interest along the way. They’re at the Grand Canyon when one of the kids comes running to his mother: “Mommy, mommy, daddy fell in!” The mother responds, “You shouldn’t make me laugh when my lips are chapped.”

  • Hypersphericalcow

    This revolution started eating its young in record time.

    • IM

      the second time as farce.

      • ericblair

        And this time as farts.

        • Ash

          Duck Farts, to be precise.

  • so-in-so

    Except one report seemed to say he was going against (his perception of) Dump’s enemies.

  • Drew

    Thus begins the CUCKENING of the Trump Administration. Oh boy oh boy.

    • N__B

      I have no doubt that this administration will find a way to keep cucking that ficken.

    • perhaps Trump’s family hails from Cuxhaven?

    • Unemployed_Northeastern

      It’s a veritable turcucken, isn’t it?

      • VMink

        I’ll bring the cuckfeve.

    • Anthony Bruck

      Oh, the cuckophony!

    • N__B

      DJT is a cuckatrice, a mythical being with the body of a serpent and the head of a serpent, but not the same serpent. His gaze has the power to make women uncomfortable and make men lose their morals in a haze of greed.

  • Unemployed_Northeastern

    Oh Noes!

  • DN Nation

    Why are Mommy and Daddy Nazi fighting?

    • CD

      Brilliant

  • Unemployed_Northeastern
  • Jay B.

    Man, that Kelly sure has really made that Administration hum.

    • Aaron Morrow

      WP gave credit to Kelly, NYT gave credit to Kushner. They’re more likely to fight.

      • NonyNony

        Do you suppose they’re coordinating this to maximally make Trump mad at both of them, or do you suppose it’s just the WaPo giving credit to the member of the DC Military Establishment while the Times gives the credit to the local boy?

        Regardless I hope everyone keeps puffing up how great Kelly is. I don’t know if Trump will actually fire him (because how – apparently he had Kelly fire Bannon – who would the coward get to fire Kelly?), but it’s gotta be making him seethe in rage.

        • Jay B.

          The guy just had one of the worst weeks an Administration has ever had — like Katrina-level bad — and Bannon said some of the more sane things that came out of that shitshow, so they can him. Kushner has ALWAYS been a source of leaks, so those won’t stop. Bannon can now spend his days nursing his oozing sores and going after Kushner and settling scores. Trump is still at the center of the dysfunction and he’s cracking at every possible opportunity. None of it is surprising, not even the eternal gullibility of the idiots in the press who believe in the Wise Men of Washington routine.

          • david spikes

            Sources of Jared’s power: he’s invisible, doesn’t do interviews, does what Daddy in law tells him. And of course he so stupid he makes Trump feel smart, which would be frightening-if he weren’t so stupid.

        • Hogan

          Different anonymous sources giving different accounts that reflect well on different factions. Just another day in TrumpWorld.

        • Shantanu Saha

          It indicates the following: Kelly is WaPo’s source, and Kushner is NYT’s. They both want to take credit for getting rid of Bannon.

    • DamnYankeesLGM

      I mean, if Kelly did isolate and oust Bannon, that’s a genuine point in his favor.

      • Jay B.

        Counterpoint, in an ineffectual effort to rein in dysfunction at the White House, he’s now created an entire second front of chaos where now one of the president’s closest allies will be sniping at him unfiltered for the next couple of years.

        • The fool! He fell victim to one of the classic blunders – the most famous of which is “never get involved in a media war between assholes”

      • Junipermo

        I guess, but at this point it’s shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, as far as trying to salvage a reasonable presidency from this shitshow.

        That said, I’m glad Bannon is out. He never should have been in.

  • GOP infighting is truly the best kind of infighting.

    i wish i thought Bannon leaving was going to soften/fix/improve Trump in any way. but if the last week is any indication, it won’t. Bannon’s apparently been on the outs for a while and Trump still gave us a week of utter scumbaggery.

    • It might weaken efforts to extend strengthen the ban. Miller’s still there but it was a whole lot of Bannon.

  • humanoidpanda

    I stil remember February, when the chaotic rollout of the Muslim ban and mass protests in the airports where part of his genius plan to destroy liberals forever and maybe preparation for a coup.

    Also I remember being told how the transgender ban is a genius move to make dems in rust belt to self immolate.

    And how the Trump both sides shtick is a trap to force the left to go all on on “ideology”.

    In short, Bannon to political strategy is like Gob Bluth and to real estate development.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fodTiDnXNWA

  • NicknotNick

    Though I resist practicing Trumpology out of the conviction that very few things that happen in the White House are the product of a ‘plan’ that can be ‘understood’, my guess would be that this is a power struggle between Bannon, Fox News, and Kelly. Bannon may or may not have gotten himself fired, but now I would bet he is going to try to demonstrate that he can command Trump’s attention, even working outside. If he can, he’ll have influence and he’ll be back.

    If I was Bannon, I would start by negging Trump from Breitbart, but that’s just me.

    • Ash

      Could Bannon get Breitbart to get in on a President Kelly meme?

  • He’s out! CHEERS!

  • njorl

    I think they’re capable of ginning up a phony conflict to give Trump cover until his white supremacist shit cools.
    If Trump is actually blaming Bannon for his current mess, though, and scapegoating him, then there might be some real bad blood.

    • Jay B.

      I don’t know, Bannon’s drunk dial to Kuttner certainly showed that he’s the more genteel type of dickheaded racist. So I don’t know that anyone but Trump thought there were some good folks on the Nazi side.

      • njorl

        I’m not saying that Trump didn’t decide to talk about fine nazis all on his own. I’m saying there’s a good chance Trump is blaming Bannon for it because someone other than Trump has to be to blame for it.

        • petesh

          Agreed. I thought there was going to be a firing on Tuesday, though I did not know who the victim would be, but he let out his frustrations in public instead, thus delaying the decisive, resolute, forceful, leader-like defenestration of … oh OK, Bannon … until Friday. But hold! ‘Tis not even true news-dump time. What next?

        • Jay B.

          I’m sure you are right. I’m equally sure this hellish circus of a presidency will continue to play almost exactly the same moving forward.

          • rea

            this hellish circus of a presidency

            It’s a reality TV show, and in every episode something outrageous has to happen, to keep up the audience’s interest. It’s Real Presidents of Washington, DC

    • david spikes

      At least one good thing, Trump has stopped thinking about blowing up the world. And the Village’s ADD means NK has disappeared from the radar-although Kim must be furious that no one in the US seems to be paying attention.

  • NicknotNick

    As always, though, it’s important to remember that Trump is the worst person in the White House. Getting rid of anyone else is a secondary tactical victory that doesn’t really matter.

    • N__B

      If it reduces DJT’s level of comfort, it matters. If it reduces the nazi influence within the WH, it matters. If it encourages other administration nazis to look over their shoulders or get ready to quit, it matters.

      A partial victory is not nothing.

      • NicknotNick

        I disagree, a partial victory can be nothing; it can also be not-nothing. We don’t know yet which this is.

        • N__B

          You categorically said that “Getting rid of anyone else is a secondary tactical victory that doesn’t really matter.” If you meant to qualify that, fine; as written it’s wrong.

    • Junipermo

      Every little bit helps. No, it doesn’t fix the big problem, which is Trump, but every little bit helps.

  • CaptServo

    Serious: While I’m glad to see Bannon further removed from the levers of power, I’m nervous that this bit of theater will give trump an ‘out’ from his horrendous behavior earlier this week, particularly among media elites who are Desperately Seeking Pivot. This pattern of awful trump thing-distraction-media move on has been replicated too many times.

    Not-so-serious: If I could do what Bannon could, I’d never leave the [White] House.

    • david spikes

      Not to worry. By next week Trump will be doing something equally horrendous.

      • petesh

        Equally? More! Our audience demands greater and greater spectacles. (I saw that.)

        • Ash

          No bread, but we have ALL the best circuses!

      • ericblair

        We need somebody to run “previouslies” on Sundays each week, because this dark comedy is really hard to keep up with.

        • ericblair

          Seriously, I’m a long time political junkie and this is just fucking exhausting.

          • david spikes

            Once a week-ok. But this every damned day another shitstorm-sheeeesh.

      • Anna in PDX

        I subscribe to this newsletter called “WTF just happened today”

    • Bannon is low salience to most people compared with Trump. Plus his ouster is in the “bury it” part of the cycle. Plus it’s not like Trump will back off his earlie claims.

      It’s pure win.

  • Karen

    The campaign was the Max Bialystok version of “The Manchurian Candidate.” Now we’re getting to see the absurdist dark comedy version of “The Bunker.”

    Tortured literary analogies keep me sane these days.

    • N__B

      Or: “Hey kids! Let’s put on the Third Reich!”

      • allin58

        It’s springtime for Trumpster!

    • applecor

      Well, my first thought was “I guess it’s only January or February for Hitler”.

      • Gwai Lo, MD

        That would be the right season for oranges in this hemisphere.

    • Come to think of it: the Max Bialystock version of The Manchurian Candidate would be great!

    • Anna in PDX

      That’s what keeps me coming back to this joint (the tortured literary analogies that is)

  • NonyNony

    Bloomberg is giving a “source say” that Gorka might be next.

    Bannon ally Sebastian Gorka faces possible removal from his White House post, sources say https://t.co/Jge5taaOQv pic.twitter.com/SyozdbCEg1— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) August 18, 2017

    Wishful thinking?

    • Hogan

      OK, do two things for me, Sredni Vashtar.

      • Joe Paulson

        Short story reference. Looks. Ah.

      • smut clyde

        OK, do two things for me, Brown Jenkin.

        Afterthought: I would pay good money for a Saki / Lovecraft mash-up.

        • Hogan

          I’m in.

      • He was a good naxi, as nazis go, and as nazis go he went.

        • petesh

          Upvoted for PGW Saki ref. I think I used to have a memory but I’m not sure where I left the index.

          • Hogan

            An edit function is a beautiful thing.

        • Hogan

          That one was for you, aimai.

  • randykhan

    I was just discussing the question of the impact of a Breitbart war on Trump with a friend. We both decided we didn’t know, but that even a tiny effect on his support could be a big problem for him come 2020, as he’s never had any margin to spare.

  • mongolia

    paul ryan & mitch mcconnell: we’re going to get to pro-growth tax reform soon, right?

    :D

    • Ash

      Hard as hell to pivot from “Nazis are good people!” to “Tax cuts for me and thee”!

  • hellslittlestangel

    If it’s now a Democratic White House, does this mean the House of Representatives is going to go back to voting to repeal Obamacare every other fucking day?

  • Whirrlaway

    I say again, if The Big Cheese had gone either way we would be in such trouble … choose oligarchs to the left or militias to the right, destruction and armed vileness equally inevitable. But he tried to do a straddle, and he’s leaving the seat of his pants on the fence. So there’s a unexpected opportunity to pick up some pieces here.

    • Snarki, child of Loki

      In the classic terminology, that makes “The Big Cheese” a Mugwump.

  • TheBrett

    When you’re Trump and lose Breitbart . . . who really is still in your corner at that point? Your kids? Hicks No Comment? The generals?

    • SomeTreasonBrewing

      His evangelical council, apparently

      • Gwai Lo, MD

        If they can’t pray for his soul, they can pray for his heart attack.

      • Unemployed_Northeastern

        One of them dropped out Fri. night.

    • mnuba

      Alex Jones? Putin?

    • DN Nation

      Michael Tracey

    • Anna in PDX

      Assange

    • SatanicPanic

      Glenn Greenwald

  • petesh

    As you probably heard, all 17 members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities quit. (It was 16 at first, but they found the 17th apparently.) The letter can be found here (do please click the “more” button):
    https://twitter.com/kalpenn/status/898593985270120449
    Examine, if you will, the initial letters of each paragraph. I’ll spot you the first two: R-E-

    • so-in-so

      Beautiful! I wonder who gets to point it out to Drumpf. No way he figures it out himself!

      • mds

        Yeah, I was gonna say, seventeen is a bit high to count.

    • “Take the first letter out of each word in this joint /
      Listen close as I prove my point”

      • randykhan

        Honestly, it’s a little too cute for me, and it’s also obvious that they told Politico (and probably others) about their cleverness. The gesture of all of them resigning really is what’s important here, and to a certain extent they’re obscuring it.

      • Gwai Lo, MD

        Trouble T-roy approves.

    • Just_Dropping_By

      How did it get staffed in the first place? Or were they all Obama administration holdovers?

      • stepped pyramids

        They were Obamar holdovers.

  • Hogan

    And it’s on.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/breitbart-editor-bannon-ouster-schwarzenegger

    After declaring “WAR” following news of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s ouster, Breitbart News’ senior editor-at-large wrote that President Donald Trump risked becoming “Schwarzenegger 2.0.”

    • sibusisodan

      It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. It’s being recognised more and more these days. Tremendous.

    • gyrfalcon

      I am terrified at the thought of Trump staffing his White House with Democrats, seeking to speechify and govern as a political moderate, and promoting legislation championed by Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi.

      • rea

        That would be rational. He’ll never do that.

  • WinningerR

    Bannon going down like this is one of the plausible pathways to impeachment. The only thing keeping Trump in office is the Republican Congress’ fear of his “base.” A very large majority of them would love to get rid of Trump to end the embarrassment, end the wounds he’s inflicting on the party, and get their legislative agenda back on track, but Trump still has a stranglehold on the troglodytes who’ve become so important to the typical GOPer’s electoral future. If Brietbart does indeed declare war, starts peddling a “Trump betrayed us” narrative, and gets any traction, Trump is toast.

  • Karen

    Unrelated to this post, but still something the LGM commentariat might enjoy: a review of the Capitol’s Confederate statues. This piece was linked by the noted radical site Go Fug Yourself, noted mostly for catty fashion discussions and pictures of tiaras. (And one of my favorite places on the Web, along with Tom and Lorenzo.)

    One of the things that has most heartened me during this horrible time has been the united anti-Trump positions of pretty much everyone in every creative field from composers through fashion designers down to chefs and food bloggers. I haven’t seen that much loathing for someone in high office ever.

    • Anna in PDX

      That was really funny. Thanks. Also, I love GFY too in spite of the fact I know less than nothing about high fashion. They are just funny and use great metaphors.

    • Gwai Lo, MD

      Damon Young of VerySmartBrothas wrote this spectacular piece about a statue in Pittsburgh. His usual work is exquisite, but hearing him break down every racist nuance of this statue with humorous indignity is next-level.

      http://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-most-racist-statue-in-america-is-in-pittsburgh-1797950305

  • sigaba

    Wow.

    So just to cover the bases: four minutes in a standard mocrowave, only handle the bag by the ends, wait until kernel pops are 3 seconds apart

  • Mike in DC

    The one cautionary downer note on this joyous day is that, so far, Trump’s response to CVille hasn’t yet hurt him in the polls. In fact, he’s ticked up a point or two in Ras and gallup. Probably a combo of Cleek’s law and some racist Rs returning to the fold.

    • DAS

      A good number of people in my community, even some Democrats, are more upset that the “far left” convinced Gillibrand to withdraw her support for the anti-BDS bill than they are about Trump’s “not all people who march with Nazis are bad” comments. The far left that hates Israel and is increasingly powerful in the Democratic party is a far greater danger than the small number of Nazis whose influence the liberal media is blowing out of proportion.

  • bexley

    Bannon friend says Breitbart ramping up for war against Trump.

    Fake news. No way Bannon has a friend.

    • Unemployed_Northeastern

      J. Daniels is his friend.

  • sibusisodan

    Just to add the schaden to the freude, did people catch the transcript of juror selection in the Shkreli trial? Sample:

    > juror no. 77: From everything I’ve seen on the news, everything I’ve read, I believe the defendant is the face of corporate greed in America.

    >brafman: We would object.

    >juror no. 77: You’d have to convince me he was innocent rather than guilty.

    https://harpers.org/archive/2017/09/public-enemy/

    • Elizabeth

      My favorite was this:

      The court: The purpose of jury selection is to ensure fairness and impartiality in this case. If you think that you could not be fair and impartial, it is your duty to tell me. All right. Juror Number 1.

      Juror no. 1: I’m aware of the defendant and I hate him.

    • bexley

      Yeah – I think my favourite was this one:

      Juror No 59: “Your Honor, totally he is guilty and in no way can I let him slide out of anything because – ”

      The court: “OK. Is that your attitude toward anyone charged with a crime who has not been proven guilty?”

      Juror No 59: “It’s my attitude toward his entire demeanor, what he has done to people.”

      The court: “All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.”

      Juror No 59: “And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.”

    • Anna in PDX

      …and he disrespected Wu Tang Clan.

      • farin

        And if we know one thing about the Wu Tang Clan,

    • Ithaqua

      I read that link and laughed until my sides hurt. “The only thing I can be impartial about is what prison this guy goes to.”

  • hickes01

    Night of the Small Hands? Gregor Strassor is gone.

  • Whirrlaway

    emme do a search of LGM for “popcorn” && “trump” during the first few months of last year. Raise your hand to own up.

  • brad

    Damn, via Joshua Green on twitter directly from Bannon,

    If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.

    https://twitter.com/JoshuaGreen/status/898655598367133704
    Eta: probably not coincidentally, that comes via retweeting on Trump’s feed.
    Also via Joshua Green

    Bannon sounded like he’d just consumed 40 Red Bulls

    Someone’s having a serious manic phase.

    • Lurking Canadian

      What does that even mean? Is he unable to go to war for Trump from inside the White House? Perhaps prevented by the Trump administration’s clear regard for the tradition of keeping the White House above politics?

      • brad

        I guess it means he can’t say the Nazis were right and Trump supports them from inside the building. Quite the victory for Kelly.

      • kaydenpat

        Who really knows what people like Bannon mean about anything? He strikes me as a liar and manipulative person who was using Trump to push an alt-right agenda from the White House. He succeeded in that. I don’t see what he can do from the outside unless his ouster is just for show.

    • kaydenpat

      Oooh. We’re all shaking in our boots. You were so effective in the White House that we can’t imagine how effective you’ll be on your own writing for a nutty Rightwing website.

    • CP

      Enemy civil wars are the best civil wars.

    • David

      Yeah, this was my understanding too, he would not go against Trump (specifically) just his enemies and would possibly begin another media venture, not return to Breitbart. I guess for me the (newest) confusion is:
      1. If not back to Breitbart, can we expect Breitbart to attack Trump?
      2. If Breitbart attacks Trump but Bannon still supports Trump then Breitbart versus Bannon?

      I make decisions all day, trying to figure this out is beginning to bore me. Little help?

      • brad

        I think the key is separate or together, Bannon and Breitbart both depend on Mercer money. There may be some minor noise but I’d expect Breitbart to fall in line. Bannon’s statements and reported concern about pushing back on the #war tweet have to show his patron’s intent.

        Eta: He’s back at Breitbart, confirmed.

        • David

          So the simplified, “What does Master Mercer want?” Seems like an easy way to unify this. Looks like the Kochs get all the press, not familiar enough with the Mercer entourage, yet.

    • “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

      • CP

        “Thanks for the tip!”
        – the Russians

        • rea

          “I think we Russians knew that already”–Marshal Kutuzov

    • gyrfalcon

      — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.

      Eighth United States Army will be so disappointed.

    • golden_valley

      I think he means he’s going to war against us. Those sell outs in the White House aren’t fulfilling the mission so he’ll just do it himself with Brietbart and Mercer money.

  • LosGatosCA

    If they don’t enlist James Comey, it won’t be very effective.

  • DJ

    The Times is now reporting that Bannon has resumed his role as chairman of Breitbart.

    https://nyti.ms/2v9jjKP

    ETA: Sorry if I’m late with this news.

  • rea

    I also wonder how the fascist in the Oval Office would react to this.

    The chances of Trump nuking North Korea just went way up.

  • everything a war. Christ.

    • Gwai Lo, MD

      Welcome to fascism.

  • Joe Paulson

    Other reports are that he’s still for Trump.

    • Gwai Lo, MD

      He is. But attacking the dominant factions within the White House still has the net effect of hamstringing Trump. Painting Trump as a victim vs. a villain is more a matter of audience than functionality.

      • Joe Paulson

        There was some early reports (“pass the popcorn”) that he was going to turn against Trump; but now, I’m reading he is saying that he will be out there defending Trump. Maybe, he will attack some of his enemies within the White House. He probably was already do that leaking to the press.

      • CP

        There’s a chance that painting Trump as a victim will do a lot of harm too. A ton of people, the kind who read Breitbart, have no problem with villainy (they positively encourage it in fact), but despise weakness.

        If the end result of this is that Trump’s image among the deplorables is “poor guy, he means well, but he can’t wipe his own ass without General Kelly and Jared Kushner’s permission,” that’s fine by me.

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