I read to the end of the damn poem

The nasty guy gave a prime time speech to the nation last night. Of course, I didn’t watch it. In contrast to his lengthy rallies it was less than 20 minutes. The short description of what he said: he blamed Biden for the economic mess. As for the rest of it... Chitown Kev, in a pundit roundup for Daily Kos quoted Rex Huppke of USA Today:

In what was technically a prime-time address to the nation, President Donald Trump spent about 20 minutes on the night of Dec. 17 yelling into a camera, hollering red-faced about how incredibly great everything is, when things in America are decidedly not great. It was a torrent of lies and exaggerations ‒ about the economy, about prices, about immigrants ‒ that must have caused dozens of fact-checkers to spontaneously combust. [...] The lying, of course, is to be expected from Trump. But what stood out was his frenetic, angry delivery. It was like he had somewhere to be and was hacked off that he had to deal with some speech thing. The 79-year-old seemed incapable of pacing himself and sounded, frankly, like an angry, unhinged old man. [...] The untrue pablum ‒ “we have achieved more than anyone could have imagined,” “we have broken the grip of sinister woke radicals in our schools,” prices are "all coming down and coming down fast” ‒ flew from his mouth with a raised voice and a snarl. This was not an unpopular president seeking to calm voters and assure them that better days are coming. This was an angry loon, a street corner ranting nonsense with the cadence of someone reading possible side effects at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial.

Glad I didn’t watch. In the comments Rambler797 included a tweet by Bill Kristol that includes a link to an article by Britain’s Independent. The article’s title and description:

White House adds insulting plaques below Biden and Obama portraits. Newest additions appear to be part of the administration’s ongoing “troll” campaign against former presidents and Trump’s opponents.

Kristol added:

The only thing worse than a narcissistic sociopath is an unbelievably petty narcissistic sociopath.

Jonesy Cartoons posted one showing a mouse stirring its tea as another mouse says, “You do know it’s the night before Christmas, don’t you?” Kyle Bravo posted a cartoon of a family in a restaurant that has the walls filled with TVs. The mother says to her husband, “Can’t you put your phone down and stare at all the TVs everywhere like the rest of us?” Oliver Willis of Kos reported last Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been ordered released from federal custody. He’s the guy that the nasty guy mistakenly caught up in an ICE raid, though he is a legal resident with wife and child. Then he was sent to the horrible prison in El Salvador, mostly because the nasty guy wouldn’t admit to the mistake. After a while he was returned to the US but continued to be detained. He is now free. The only good thing about his ordeal is it showed the lies and rot behind the nasty guy’s immigration plans. Also last Friday Emily Singer of Kos reported that the Indiana state Senate rejected the nasty guy’s demand they gerrymander their Congressional districts to squeeze out two more Republican seats to hold all nine. Republicans are in full control of the state House and Senate and the Republican governor supported the nasty guy’s demand. So this should have been easy. It wasn’t. It failed 19-31. A lot of Republican senators voted no. And that was after a massive pressure campaign by the nasty guy, the vice nasty, nasty junior, and Speaker Johnson. There were also threats of violence, which had the opposite effect than was intended. After the vote the nasty guy claimed that it passed because he didn’t work on it very hard and Johnson denied a pressure campaign. Singer didn’t say how many Republicans are in the Indiana Senate, and didn’t report how many were among the no votes. So I asked my browser (which is Vivaldi). It says the Indiana Senate has 50 members and 40 of them are Republicans. So 21 of them – a majority of Republicans – voted no. Merlin196360 of the Kos community watched a podcast name Prairie Fire by Kowalski that discusses why American farmers support the nasty guy. Yeah, some of it is the expected racism and homophobia.

But Kowalski does address how American farmers became hostages to the “captured media” that corporate rightwing conservative corporations own. In other words, for over 35 years, American farmers have literally only heard one side of the political story. ... Kowalski also lays out the damage that Trump and Republican policies have done to rural areas and the viscous cycle it creates that reaffirms the thinking of American farmers and rural voters that Democrats suck. Once again, Americans farmers have only heard that the 2018 trade war with China was — wait for it — a success. And it’s true that is the lie promulgated by conservative media.

NPR host Leila Fadel spoke to Mahmood Mamdani. He’s the father of Zohran, who just won New York’s mayoral race. The father has been an academic “focused on colonialism and anti-colonialism in Africa. And that academic work stems from his own experience as a Ugandan citizen of Indian origin.” He wrote the book “Slow Poison” about post-British Uganda. A major part of the story is Idi Amin, and Yoweri Museveni, the two autocrats who took advantage of the colonial legacy. Amin was trained by Britain in counterinsurgency – state terrorism – and came to power in 1971 with the support of Britain and Israel, than refused to be their stooge. He was cruel and demanded an all black society – which excluded Mamdani. He became stateless more than once. In that time he learned from the Civil Rights Movement in the US. It affected his outlook. So he examined how he changed his views. A lot of political discourse is who belongs and who doesn’t. Every people has a story of origins and migration. The settler, the colonizer, is supposed to be free to roam and explore. The migrant must deal with the fiction that he belongs to a homeland, implying he doesn’t belong here. Part of Zohran’s message is if you live here you belong here. In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Mark Jacobs of Stop the Presses discussing why the nasty guy gets so little pushback when he verbally abuses reporters, why reporters won’t tell him off.

Part of the problem is the Washington media’s competitiveness, which works against formation of a united front. In local journalism, we’ve seen a trend in which news organizations are less dog-eat-dog competitive and more interested in collaborating with each other. Facing diminished resources, they realize that working together may be the only way to be successful. Among national political reporters, however, there is a battle for attention and credit that makes solidarity less attractive. Washington is where journalists become celebrities. When Trump dodges one reporter’s question, the next reporter rarely picks up that question and presses it. They’d rather ask their own question. There’s no glory in repeating someone else’s.

Margaret Sullivan of American Crisis discusses the lack of a five-alarm fire in the media over the slide into authoritarianism. She doesn’t have all the answers but does have a few. There should be more collective action by news organizations when the nasty guy lies or attacks journalists. News organizations should have public statements of mission acknowledging that things have changed and news media has a role in addressing it. Stop the “both sides” coverage that “equates truth and falsehood in the name of fairness.” In the comments paulpro posted Greg Kearney’s updated version on Martin Niemöller’s famous poem.

First they came for trans people. But I wasn’t trans... so I said nothing. Then they came for gay people. But I wasn’t gay... so I said nothing. Then the came for the disabled. But I wasn’t disabled... so I said nothing. Then the came for the immigrant. But I wasn’t an immigrant... so I said nothing. Then the came for the socialist. But I wasn’t a socialist... so I said nothing. Then they came for me.

A response from rugbymom:

What's heartening is how many people have gone out of their way, out of their comfort zone, to say or do some variation of “Nope, you're not coming for _____, not on my watch, because I read to the end of the damn poem.”

FarWestGirl responded to that with a photo of a protester with a sign, “First, they came for the Muslims and we said... Not This Time Motherf---er.” Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Thursday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted recent comments by Dick Van Dyke, who just celebrated his 100th birthday.

There are millions of people who share [Trump's] anger, paranoia, and his hatred. That's what bothers me—it really sounds like the dumbing down of America. Some of the people I talk to have a fuzzy line between the Constitution and the Bible. I think we have to stop a man who wants to be The Dictator. It bothers me that people can't read him…it's such a bare exposure to greed and the lust for power.

In Wednesday’s column Bill included a video of a recent interview of Van Dyke commenting on his birthday. Bill also included Merriam Webster’s word of the year. It is “slop” defined as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” Merriam Webster added:

The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up.

Back at the end of October Dictionary.com posted its own word of the year. It is “67” (pronounced “six-seven”) which doesn’t mean anything. When I was in middle school the phrase was “Fif-tay two!” I have no idea where it came from and it meant as much as “67” does now. I wouldn’t bother mentioning “67” but Dictionary also included their finalists. These are much more interesting. Some of them: Aura farming: developing one’s image for public admiration. Broligarchy: the leaders of the powerful tech world. Clanker: once a term to deride robots, it is now a term to deride AI systems, chatbots, and nonhuman technologies. Gen Z stare: an expressionless look the younger generation gives their elders. Overtourism: “the overwhelming influx of visitors to popular destinations, leading to environmental strain, cultural disruption, and local frustration.” NPR host Mary Louise Kelly talked to Kinsley Glassel and Wynnona Mattison, students at Rocky Heights Middle School in Lone Tree, CO. They were winners of NPR's Student Podcast Challenge. Their topic was strategic nonconformity, how to blend in with peers while staying different enough to stand out. The two have a fun way of explaining their topic, “to conform in the most nonconformist way possible.” Examples: If your peers wear black t-shirts with band names, wear one that instead of saying “The Rolling Stones” has stones rolling down a hill. Instead of asking the basic “How are you?” throw out a philosophical riddle, though you might no longer be invited to parties. On your social media post photos of just your socks. Mattison concludes:

So ultimately, it's like I'm not following the rules, but I'm also following them. But I'm doing it in such a weird, unexpected way that you think I'm not.