May 21, 2019

Nobody you need to convince is going to click on stuff like this anymore.



That's purely for the delectation of the already committed.

ADDED: I'm reminded of the book title "Three Felonies a Day" (subtitle: "How the Feds Target the Innocent") and that line from "Through the Looking-Glass," "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

AND: This movie clip seems relevant (with Chait as "Peewee"):

72 comments:

mccullough said...

Chait is an assurance salesman

Heartless Aztec said...

Oh I don't know. It's fun to read good comedy for a paragraph or two. But you're right in that it's not changing anyone's mind at this point. That'll take document releases signed off by Prez DJT hisself. And maybe not even then.

Rocketeer said...

Actually, it's for the delectation of those who need to be committed.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The biggest crime by Trump was that he wanted to fire the Mueller-god, and he didn't. But he thought about it, and said so! Mueller couldn't nail Trump --even with a shit-pile of Clinton devotees and revenge seeking loyalists on his staff. Trump's almost firing of the Mueller-god is the crime of the century.

Hillary's Private Server while head of the State Dept is unavailable for comment.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

In leftwing totalitarian thought-crime land, everything is a crime.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Chait is policing the bounds. How can a decent person think that Trump has done nothing impeachable, when he's done five impeachable things already this week?
Man, it is fun watching these guns spin on the supremacy of congress turntable! 2006-2010, congress has limitless power to oversee the executive branch. 2011-2018, congress is overstepping its bounds! 2019-? congress has limitless power to oversee the executive branch!

Mattman26 said...

Delectation. Had to look it up. Like it. (At first I figured it was something like "masturbatory zeal." Close, but cleaner.)

Bay Area Guy said...

Hmm. If Trump committed 5 impeachable acts this past week and, say, roughly, 327 impeachable acts over the past 2.5 years in office, I reckon a sane person might ask:

Why the ^@$@ hasn't he been impeached?

Well, because, maybe the House doesn't consider said acts actually impeachable?

And, then a sane person might ask, after 2.5 years of investigation, Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy and also declined to prosecute Trump for obstruction.

And, then, a sane person might ask, who is writing this hysterical pablum, that is disconnected from what is actually happening in the real world?

And, then, the sane person would learn, Hey, it's Jonathan Chait!

And, then, the sane person would google Mr. Chait, and read some of his prior work, and then understand that Chait really, really, really, really, emotionally, with fervor, with passion, doesn't like our current president. So, he writes what he is feeling, over and over and over and over and over again! But The New Yorker! really likes those articles, so they publish him.

And, life.....goes.....on

Nonapod said...

That's some juicy clickbait. I mean I know I shouldn't, but I can't help speculating what those 5 things might be.

I often wonder what exactly is it about lists that works so well on the imagination? It's something about the enumeration and the delineation of ideas and concepts that gives them more heft than they would alone. There's a certain satisfaction, a hit of dopemine that can be achieved by consuming content that's been broken up into nice bite sized chunks.

The content of entire websites have been built on listicles.

tim in vermont said...

Tuesday? I thought the challenge was to do “five impeachable things before breakfast.”

Jersey Fled said...

Bitter clingers.

Dave D said...

One would almost get the impression that PDJT is toying with them like a pork chop to a puppy.....

gspencer said...

Only 5 impeachable offenses this week alone?

I know it's more. Rumor has it that in helping Melania with the family laundry, Trump was seen mixing some solid colors with the whites. What racism!

Steven said...

You know, I'm actually starting to miss twenty years ago, when absolutely proven, incontrovertible obstruction of justice wasn't a big deal because there was no underlying crime, and therefore Congress should just "censure and move on".

gilbar said...

coordinated troll campaign using Instagram in an attempt to damage President Trump

Was EVERY ONE of these troll accounts was signed: Chuck?
Or just, some?

gilbar said...

Steven said...
You know, I'm actually starting to miss twenty years ago, when absolutely proven, incontrovertible obstruction of justice wasn't a big deal because there was no underlying crime, and therefore Congress should just "censure and move on".


Back then, it was TOTALLY DIFFERENT!
That was 'just about Sex.' You know; Rape, and Assault
Today, it's about someone being blackmailed. You know; about consensual Sex
See the difference?

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Trump wanted to fire Mueller, but he's bad at firing people.

Curious George said...

"Nobody you need to convince is going to click on stuff like this anymore."

Nobody you need to convince reads the New Yorker.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I think it's time for these zanies to put up or shut up. Mostly shut up.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Leftwingers are Russian puppets themselves. The greatest projection scam ever.

Ficta said...

I clicked on a "Trump tells 17 lies in 17 hours" (or something like that) the other day. I got about halfway through. There didn't seem to be any actual lies involved. It was all just standard opposition spin, the sort of thing you'd see in a standard newspaper op ed a couple decades ago. I gave up about halfway through, it was so silly.

Darkisland said...

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll "Through the looking glass"

Out progressive/fascists seem to think the queen is the sane one in this exchange.

John Henry

n.n said...

twenty years ago... there was no underlying crime, and therefore Congress should just "censure and move on".

There was a recycled interest with the conception of #MeToo, which was a novelty that proved to be not politically viable, so they dumped #HerToo.

Ann Althouse said...

"That's some juicy clickbait. I mean I know I shouldn't, but I can't help speculating what those 5 things might be."

It's the opposite of juicy to me, and I would have to force myself to think of what the 5 things might be. My reaction is to completely not care. I assume it's more of the same political bullshit. Total crying-wolf effect for me. I won't bother with anything headlined like that. I don't even think it's funny or interesting to see how they bullshitted it up.

It's like that game I've told you I used to play with my sons when they were adolescents: What if you had to argue?

What if you had to argue that what you're doing right now is a crime?

J Severs said...

Trump failing to confess to his alleged offenses is likely considered another impeachable offense.

Seeing Red said...

The Progs as priests. That imagery in my head. Thanks a lot!

Molly said...

For those who don't want to encourage, I'll summarize the five here:

1. A kitchen in Mar a Lago left uncooked chicken on the counter for too long.
2. Trump tower Hotel in NYC failed to have a room for a person who had made a reservation.
3. Mattresses in some Trump owned hotels were found to have their mattress tags removed.
4. While playing tennis, he falsely claimed that a ball hit by his opponent was "out" when it was in fact "in".
5. When greeting a foreign leader, he wore a brown belt with black shoes.

Bay Area Guy said...

This entire thread about Trump is an impeachable offense!

Why is fat Jerry Nadler sitting on his ass doing nothing?

Sebastian said...

"That's purely for the delectation of the already committed."

No. It's also to crowd out everything else, to saturate the culture with their poison, to assert their hegemony.

Sure, Althouse professes to "completely not care." But unless and until the Althouses decide that the prog attack on the culture, including her culture, needs to be resisted once and for all, that they will never again vote for anyone associated with it, progs will keep at it.

Darkisland said...

For an idea of the tone of this article:


Trump initially returned to his prepared text, itself a creepily ethno-nationalist paean to his narrow Electoral College win. “You reclaimed your destiny, you defended your dignity, and you took back your country,” he read, in a passage that probably sounded better in the original German.

emph added

I went and read the article here http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/5-more-impeachable-acts-trump-barr-cohen-mcgahn-war-crimes-deutschebank.html


Wow! I could not believe how far off the rails it was.

Scared shitless that PDJT will win not only the electoral but the popular vote by pretty dide margins in 20.

I suppose if I I pore over the article closely and parse the words I might figure out what the 5 impeachable offenses are. But I did not see any in a quick read.

Amash does the same thing. Claims there are a lot of impeachable offenses but fails to tell us what they are.

Ditto Mad Max Waters and others.

And of course our resident Dick.

Can someone PLEASE tell me what the impeachable offenses are?

At this point I agree with Dave D. PDJT is just toying with the demmies. "Please don't impeach me" he is saying. "Please don't throw me into the briar patch either!"

John Henry

Bruce Hayden said...

Yes, it is silly. BUT it seems to be working. There are rumors that Speaker Palsi will allow impeachment to go forward in the House in a couple weeks. Which will, I think be electoral suicide for all the new Trump state House Dems. Trump and the Republicans can honestly call it a witch hunt, since they were unable to find an indictable crime first. But it does free Nadler and the other Dem chairs from having to fight the Administration for our information on Trump and his family that has nothing to do with their oversight responsibilities.

Original Mike said...

"What if you had to argue that what you're doing right now is a crime?"

I'm reading Althouse. Though the left would like that to be a crime, I don't think we're that far along. Yet.

Original Mike said...

On reflection, that must be obstruction.

narciso said...

Its chaitred, from a column where he said it was good to hate w, before there was an official journolist.

Wince said...

Chait is chafing under his own disgrace.

Yancey Ward said...

"I took Jonathon Chait seriously once, you won't believe what happened next!"

tim in vermont said...

OK, My five impeachable things joke was kind of obvious, in retrospect.

Michael K said...

But it does free Nadler and the other Dem chairs from having to fight the Administration for our information on Trump and his family that has nothing to do with their oversight responsibilities.

That Greenfield column somebody linked to before, has a pretty good explanation of what is going on.

Impeaching Trump is the obsession of a narrow slice of the Dem base. But it’s the one that provides much of the money and the manpower. The Democrats wouldn’t have won in 2018 without the Trump-haters,but they won’t be able to win in 2020 with them. Their fanaticism proved crucial in midterm elections where Democrats traditionally suffered from low voter turnout. But in a presidential election, voter turnout will be high. And the Democrats will need to win over independent voters.

I think this is key and a dilemma for Pelosi.

Rep. Adam Schiff’s fundraising take went from below a million in 2016 to $6.25 million in 2018. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s finances ballooned from $1.9 million in 2016 to over $3 million in 2018. Swalwell became so confident that he even decided to run for president. Rep. Sheila Lee Jackson had her best fundraising totals since the Bush era. Rep. Maxine Waters went from raising $729,000 in 2012 to $1.59 million.

It's always about the Benjamins.

But the rest of the country isn’t California or New York.

Impeachment was a con. Democrats solicited fortunes from bicoastal donors while promising them something that they knew they couldn’t and wouldn’t deliver. It’s a familiar con in politics. There’s just one problem. Pelosi, Schumer and the Dem leadership need the donors they’ve conned to keep giving.


How do they get off the train ?

Kevin said...

The point isn't to convince the unconvinced that Trump's guilty.

The point is to convince the already convinced they weren't conned.

Kevin said...

It's the opposite of juicy to me, and I would have to force myself to think of what the 5 things might be.

If it were really true, wouldn't everyone be reporting it?

Wouldn't the most egregious thing be in the headline?

If they really had the goods, could you avoid NOT hearing about it?

This is how a rational person thinks.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Daily Impeachable Offense = "2 Minute Hate"

tcrosse said...

Impeach and be damned.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“I'm reading Althouse. Though the left would like that to be a crime, I don't think we're that far along. Yet.”

Oh good grief. Most of the left doesn’t know who the hell Althouse is and couldn’t care less who you read.

Earnest Prole said...

Lefty Trump panic is now indistinguishable from right-wing trolling.

Freeman Hunt said...

Heh. I've been wondering lately why people still link stuff like that on social media. Like yelling into a hole.

daskol said...

Chait has a better article in the most recent issue criticizing Bernie for his education policy.

John Ray said...

I like Ann's thought, they can eat my shorts. Oh, wait a sec., I don't wear shorts. Oh, those shorts, yeah, they can eat 'em.

Original Mike said...

>"Oh good grief. Most of the left doesn’t know who the hell Althouse is and couldn’t care less who you read."

Yeah, I was thinking of you. Really.

Though that part about them not caring what I what is belied by all their censorship.

Original Mike said...

"what I read"

narayanan said...

...Most of the left doesn’t know who the hell Althouse is...

Somebody could always leave a note behind at website of the item being cut - "this is being pasted in my special blogspot".

Leland said...

I don't think they are trying to convince people to join the impeach Trump bandwagon. They are trying to keep others from jumping off the bandwagon.

Milwaukie guy said...

My favorite listicle is the 200 proofs of a flat earth.

Original Mike said...

Hey, we could ask Inga what the five reasons are. She surely read the article.

Fen said...

paean to his narrow Electoral College win.

How is 304-227 a narrow Electoral College win?

It's so nice of the author to telegraph how dishonest the rest of his piece is.

Fen said...

Oh good grief. Most of the left doesn’t know who the hell Althouse is and couldn’t care less who you read.

Snort. Then why have they been shelling FOX News for the last decade?

Fen said...

I've been wondering lately why people still link stuff like that on social media. Like yelling into a hole.

Their audience isn't you, it's themselves. They use social media to create a virtual reality. Stuff like this helps them weave an illusion to alter their own reality. Like repeating into their mirror The Daily Affirmation.

I discovered this on Facebook when I realized my liberal friend was not posting these memes etc to invite debate, she was Virtue Signaling to others that she was part of their herd and crafting a self-delusional narrative that justified treating people like us as Nazis.

It also explains why Trump haters react the way schizophrenics do when reality crashes into their fantasy world and shatters it, as we saw on election day. As we still see daily here with certain commenters.

Fen said...

Daniel Greenfield wrote a good article re this a week after Trump was elected:

"Every quantum leap in mass communications also made possible a vast improvement in propaganda techniques. Nazi and Soviet propaganda looks as crude to us as a Babbage calculating machine. Virtual reality isn't something that's coming. It's here. It's been here for a while. The potent combination of media budgets and crowd-sourced social media distribution has allowed for a previously unparalleled level of propaganda that creates and inhabits its own virtual reality.

There's a name for that sort of thing. Schizophrenia.

What happens when the schizophrenic media reality collapses when it comes into too sharp of a conflict with reality is the same behavior that schizophrenics exhibit when their perceptions of the world conflict with the real world.

The people venting and rioting and screaming were living in a cozy reality. Everyone in that progressive reality understood that history was on their side, that the majority was with them and that the right was a decaying mass of racists and corporations soon to be swept away by the tide of change.

But this wasn't reality. It was a carefully constructed narrative that fooled even the people who were building it. It was a virtual world overlaid over the real world. Its narratives were so integrated with the real world that it seemed as if it were real. There were stories and polls. Everyone in their social media bubble, except a few crazy uncles agreed with them. All the celebrities were on board.

And then the holodeck got switched off."

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Rachel Maddow - queen of the schizophrenics.

Fen said...

That Greenfield column somebody linked to before, has a pretty good explanation of what is going on.

I think it was Hayden who linked. Whoever it was, thanks, good find. His site is full of interesting analysis you can really sink your teeth into.

Bookmarked.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Original Mike said...

"Though that part about them not caring what I read is belied by all their censorship."

interesting thought

Ray - SoCal said...

More evidence their will be an attempted impeachment vote in the house.

Lots of pressure building, and no way I can see to reduce the pressure.

Especially now with a Gop house member also calling for impeachment - it’s bipartisan!

Poor Nancy, Lucky Donald...

bagoh20 said...

The left has taken on the attractive and adorable mixed character of Nurse Ratched, Dean Wormer, Barney Fife, and the Monty Python guy who explains how to drown a witch. They are so up tight, confused, and serious that if they tried to sit down that stick would go right through the top of their heads.

Fen said...

More evidence their will be an attempted impeachment vote in the house.

Screw it, I say we repeal the 22nd Amendment and give Trump 8 more years.

Don't worry Dems, we'll put it back when we're done.

Michael K said...

More evidence their will be an attempted impeachment vote in the house.

Lots of pressure building, and no way I can see to reduce the pressure.

Especially now with a Gop house member also calling for impeachment - it’s bipartisan!

Poor Nancy, Lucky Donald...


Elijah Cummings might be having a momentary hesitation this week.

A charity run by the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings received millions from special interest groups and corporations that had business before her husband’s committee and could have been used illegally, according to an IRS complaint filed by an ethics watchdog group.

Cummings, 68, a Maryland Democrat, is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His wife, Maya Rockeymoore, 48, is the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party and briefly ran in the state's gubernatorial race last year. The couple married in 2008. Cummings was once heavily in debt — in part due to hefty child support payments to his first wife and two other women he had children with — but his financial situation has improved considerably over the past decade.


Yes, and we know how.

Randolf said...

The obstruction of justice article against Clinton wasn't about his sexual assaults. It was for his orders (as President to government employee) to Betty Currie and Sidney Blumenthal to go before the same Federal grand jury and lie about what they knew about Clinton's perjuries.

rcocean said...

The Important thing is that Pelosi and Schumer have ZERO interest in working with Trump to make the country better. On almost every issue its been "The Democrat way or the Highway". Their contempt for the Americans who voted for Trump is off the charts. No interest in securing the border, fixing NAFTA, fixing the crazy immigration laws, getting some compromise Health care plan or do anything. They're not even interested in horse-trading a minimum wage increase for border security.

So since they're not doing anything substantive, why not impeach? They got to keep busy somehow.

Marcus Bressler said...

It's New York Magazine, not The New Yorker though they are both peas in a pod when it comes to TDS. I remember when the former was interesting to read back when Clay Felker was the editor, coming off of Esquire. Haven't read any of these in decades due to the leftist rantings.

THEOLDMAN

Achilles said...

gilbar said...
coordinated troll campaign using Instagram in an attempt to damage President Trump

Was EVERY ONE of these troll accounts was signed: Chuck?
Or just, some?


That isn't how these troll accounts work.

There are simple scripts you can write that allow you to send the same message to as many accounts as you have on a list.

They are a small group of people, possibly one person. It takes them as long to send 10000 posts as it does to send one.

Achilles said...

Inga...Allie Oop said...
“I'm reading Althouse. Though the left would like that to be a crime, I don't think we're that far along. Yet.”

Oh good grief. Most of the left doesn’t know who the hell Althouse is and couldn’t care less who you read.

But we see everything you and most leftists are exposed to.

It is why you are so wrong about everything and generally come off like an idiot.

It is why we are generally more informed than you are and are right about how things are.

You are living in a fantasy world. You hang around other people who purposely close themselves off from reality.

bagoh20 said...

"Somebody could always leave a note behind at website of the item being cut - "this is being pasted in my special blogspot".

"Journalists across the country went insane. After years of it, a centerleft blogger finally noticed. You'll never guess what happened next.

walter said...

A picture's worth a thousand words:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maya-rockeymoore-cummings-calls-irs-complaint-against-her-politically-motivated/2019/05/21/7b0e33da-7bc0-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html

JAORE said...

Impeach Barr is gaining steam in the FB posts of people I know. I, of course, ignore political posts and block political sites on FB. Grandchildren pics are welcome. "Lock her up!" or "Impeach the MFer!" not so much..