Althouse: "I'm very dismayed about what's happening to the United States... I mean, dude, we cannot let this go. You cannot let democracy slide off the table."

November 23, 2021

"I'm very dismayed about what's happening to the United States... I mean, dude, we cannot let this go. You cannot let democracy slide off the table."

Said the filmmaker Ridley Scott, in Episode 1281 of Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast (at 50:27).

39 comments:

rehajm said...: But...but...dude. Those mean tweets...; 11/23/21, 11:53 AM
rehajm said...: Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.

We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts.

Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth.

We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.

Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.

We shall prevail!; 11/23/21, 11:55 AM
rhhardin said...: Democracy's doing okay, it's rule of law that has to be worried about.; 11/23/21, 11:58 AM
MikeR said...: Not listening to the whole podcast. Thus, it would be nice to know what he was talking about.; 11/23/21, 12:01 PM
Temujin said...: I'm going to comment here before listening to Ridley Scott's comments to Marc Maron. However my initial pre-listening gut comment is that I'll agree with his premise, but for different reasons.

Now I'll listen, and see if my gut was correct.; 11/23/21, 12:18 PM
Howard said...: Fucking pansy ass dilettantes. People love to wallow in self righteous anxiety like a child will chew on a cold sore. The situation is normal, everything's fucked up. In reality, things are less fucked up now except people's perceptions.; 11/23/21, 12:20 PM
Achilles said...: ""I'm very dismayed about what's happening to the United States... I mean, dude, we cannot let this go. You cannot let democracy slide off the table.""

It wont.

In the end our election system will get cleaned up and there will be no more mail in balloting.

The servants of the oligarchs will not be able to win an honest in person election.; 11/23/21, 12:21 PM
Ice Nine said...: What exactly is notable about this? At the beginning Maron rages about "anti-woke" comedians (What, all three of them?). Then these two Lefties let us know that they don't like the "lies" the other side in America are supposedly telling in order "to get back in."

In other news: Water is wet.; 11/23/21, 12:22 PM
Charlie said...: Sounds like two drunk guys at my local watering hole.; 11/23/21, 12:24 PM
tim maguire said...: we cannot let this go. You cannot let democracy slide off the table.

Ridley Scott thinks Biden stole the election? I wouldn't have guessed...; 11/23/21, 12:28 PM
Achilles said...: Society can only exist when incompatible elements are suppressed.

Either the Democrat barbarians are suppressed or freedom is suppressed.

Those two are incompatible in the same society.; 11/23/21, 12:28 PM
Ficta said...: What in God's name is he talking about? Organized, shameless fascism? I honestly have no idea what he's talking about. Vaccine mandates? I doubt it, but who knows. Proud Boys? Fringe movement. Antifa? That will get reined in in short order during the next Republican administration (if not sooner, suburban white women aren't going to put up with that much disorder). Democrat voting shenanigans? Okay, that's a little concerning, but the public repeatedly approves of voter ID in opinion polls and I'm pretty sure that's not what he has in mind. Twitter (or possibly MSNBC) seems to be inducing actual mental illness in people.; 11/23/21, 12:31 PM
The Vault Dweller said...: Still not going to talk about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and verdict at Thanksgiving.; 11/23/21, 1:02 PM
Jaq said...: A decision was made a couple of decades ago that no democracy would be willing to do the stuff that they demand be done to stave off the planet, according to their theories, reaching the same temperature it has been at for 5 billion years until four million years ago, when the epoch of ice ages that we are in began.; 11/23/21, 1:20 PM
Temujin said...: Well...I listened to as much as I could and my gut was right on target. Vomitous stuff.

I've never liked listening to Marc Maron. He's like a poor man's Woody Allen. Except that Allen is brilliant. Maron is an intellectual mess, an unexceptional comedian, and a very typical progressive mind. Which is to say, unremarkable. A person who spews rote insults to those he neither understands nor tries to understand. It didn't surprise me that he opened with a warning to his listeners to 'have a plan before entering the room at Thanksgiving, knowing what you'll be walking into'. Meaning- how to deal with those awful conservative uncles and cousins. What miserable people progressives are.

I had to keep forwarding- not because I didn't want to listen to Ridley Scott, but because I cannot listen to Marc Maron. But I did fall onto the lines about Democracy. Maron was agreeing with Scott that we're losing our democracy and it's apparently because of people like me. Maron just hates anyone not progressive. Scott at least thinks some of us are intelligent, but somehow crave power more than democracy or we'd not be such fascists. Apparently we're the fascists. Even though they control and censor writing and speaking through the corporate & social medias and control of virtually all education- from K-12 through the universities. They use their fascism to foment approved riots, but fall back in horror when the other side has an unapproved riot. I guess the one building you break into matters more than the 100 you burn down. They threaten more riots if elections don't go their way, or if court cases don't go their way.

But I digress. Anyway- we're not losing our Democracy. We're losing our Republic. And while some may say I'm nitpicking, that's a pretty large nit to pick. We're not a majority rule country. We're a 'protect individual rights' country. A constitutionally limited republic. It annoys me to no end when I hear those destroying the country bemoaning how we're losing our Democracy because the entire population refuses to submit.

Anyway, my message to both Marc Maron and Ridley Scott would be that there is no way Joe Biden received 81 million votes. And there has never been a proper explanation for the election process to be 'stopped', and most, but not all, poll workers removed, at 11 pm in key cities in 4-5 different states with Trump holding insurmountable leads. Only to find that at almost exactly the same time in those locations, a few hours later, Biden came up with enough votes to overcome that insurmountable lead.

If that's not the end of our Republic, I don't know what is. I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving now.; 11/23/21, 1:27 PM
J. D. Canals said...: Slide off the table? OH NO!; 11/23/21, 1:34 PM
Jupiter said...: What if Democracy prefers to be on the floor?; 11/23/21, 1:40 PM
CJinPA said...: That SOB let them astronauts explore that alien cave with alien eggs that promptly launched an alien attack! Horrible display of leadership.; 11/23/21, 1:47 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Letting Antifa thugs riot, loot and arson. Yeah - that's democrat approved.; 11/23/21, 1:51 PM
EAB said...: Thr most amusing thing about listening to that is I’m likely just as concerned as those two…but my guess is for very different, if not opposing, reasons. History, though, does seem to teach that societies with such massive wealth and overall comfort tend to collapse.; 11/23/21, 1:52 PM
MayBee said...: I listened and got the idea he is talking about Republicans as fascists. I'm curious what you saw in this, Althouse.; 11/23/21, 2:08 PM
Iman said...: Can’t one expect an educated, 83 year old man to do better than “I mean, dude…”?

FFS; 11/23/21, 2:16 PM
Drago said...: Howard: "In reality, things are less fucked up now except people's perceptions."

LOL

Ah yes. All that non-existent inflation, the "roaring economy" (wink wink), no one left behind in Afghanistan, gas prices aren't really that high, Thanksgiving would be better if you just ate soy, there are no mobs conducing mass theft at places of business, largest exodus in the history of the US workforce.....but not over vaccine mandates(!), Joseph Rosenbaum (the child sodomizer) is a "hero!",.......

Yes, these are the things you would have to tell yourself to remain a Howard level lefty "in good standing".

I guess Biden's Earpiece Administration is releasing oil from the strategic reserve because everything is going so amazingly well!!; 11/23/21, 2:37 PM
Jeff Weimer said...: When Scott and Maron say "democracy" they mean "rule by Democrats." They're right to be concerned about that.; 11/23/21, 2:48 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Scott was great, but it mostly wasn't politics. I liked this quote because it was so ambiguous, and I loved "You cannot let democracy slide off the table." That's just very funny (and of course also serious, because we don't want democracy sliding off the table!).; 11/23/21, 3:03 PM
n.n said...: Demos-cracy is aborted at the Twilight fringe. She, he, slips and slides off the metal slab, etc., after a legalized and diverse procedure. The democratic/dictatorial duality is realized with its progress.; 11/23/21, 3:08 PM
Sebastian said...: "I'm very dismayed about what's happening to the United States"

Same here!

"You cannot let democracy slide off the table."

Indeed. Therefore, for starters, 1. we need to enforce election integrity, and 2. we need to keep the deep state from trying to overturn elections with collusion hoaxes. Don't want no mess on the floor.; 11/23/21, 3:22 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: Oh noes. Democracy is going to be like that restive meatball all covered with cheese. Don't sneeze, and then the rest-ive it won't happen.; 11/23/21, 3:54 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Chances are he's talking about mandates.; 11/23/21, 4:28 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: Democracy for those two clowns is when the right people (who agree with their beliefs) are in charge. Democracy appears to be a cultural or food preference more than a political system. The image is one of a favorite food you wouldn't want sliding off the table.; 11/23/21, 4:33 PM
Rollo said...: Maybe the world of Bladerunner was actually supposed to be Ridley's utopia.; 11/23/21, 5:16 PM
Narr said...: On the table? He means the kind of democracy described by Mencken: two wolves and a sheep discussing what's for dinner.

I am utterly ignorant of Marc Maron; Scott has some real talent as a director.; 11/23/21, 6:41 PM
Lyle Smith said...: WTF Maron thinks that right-wing fascism is the problem. Love his podcast, great interviewer, but he's also an idiot.; 11/23/21, 6:49 PM
Joe Smith said...: 'In reality, things are less fucked up now except people's perceptions.'

So all the crime in the streets, riots, inflation, etc. is just a figment of the collective imagination...good to know.

Maybe we should just lower our expectations.; 11/23/21, 6:55 PM
PM said...: Mr. Scott is an estimable director and presumably an informed voter on the issues important to him across the pond.; 11/23/21, 8:08 PM
Iman said...: Temujin @ 1:27pm…+10; 11/24/21, 7:59 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: "I'm very dismayed about what's happening to the United States... I mean, dude, we cannot let this go. You cannot let democracy slide off the table."

Sure we can. Just ignore the fact The NewAge Movement Is The Heart Of America's Political And Cultural Suicide and it will obviously continue to it's natural conclusion.; 11/24/21, 12:00 PM
Lurker21 said...: Scott actually defended Trump's tax policy, but apparently he had to make up for it by bludgeoning Trump over COVID.

You can ascribe his recent comments to Hollywood's usual politics and the typical British attitude towards Middle America.; 11/24/21, 5:43 PM
OSU '92 said...: I don’t understand this new line of attack from progressives about Democracy being in danger. It is popping up all over the place. Last I checked they have President, Senate and House in their control and they are ramming multi trillion dollar proposals down our throat. Is the idea that there just should be no opposition at all?; 11/24/21, 9:54 PM