The Modern American

by | Oct 1, 2020 | Libertarianism, Musings | 275 comments

The modern American is a peculiar creature. 60 years of cultural transformation have resulted in a culture that produces people who would be unrecognizable to their forbearers.

The modern American is immensely entitled. Growing up in an era of plenty, all but the oldest Americans have no conception of true want. They take for granted true luxury and always lust for more.

The modern American is hopelessly materialistic. Ads pouring into their brains from birth, even their anti-materialism comes with a book and a subscription box.

The modern American is aggressively vapid. Never one to know when to shut up, they gobble up self-help, new age, far east, organic, anti-aging, fair trade, holistic pablum and regurgitate it as if it were gospel.

The modern American is dogmatically amoral. The opinions, oh the opinions. But damn if you can’t find the slightest shred of principle. Bad is bad because, well, because it is. And good is good because it feels good. Simultaneously libertine and puritan.

The modern American is a relentless busybody. Everything is up for judgment by the court of public opinion. A brigade of harpies awaits every bad hair day, ready to heap scorn. From the HOA to celebrity gossip, an army of meddlers with nothing better to do lurks.

The modern American is despairingly hollow. Family is out of vogue. Community is shattered. Friends are avatars on social media, and the fleeting human interaction is done with a suspicious gaze from behind mask. Meandering from high to high, they’re constantly trying to fill the void.

The modern American is driven by purposelessness. Work to play, play to escape, escape to avoid confronting the abyss. Why bother questioning the exercise? The hamster wheel won’t turn itself, and some day it might actually make sense. Maybe you turn the wheel for the turning’s sake. Maybe you turn it for the pittance of cheese you get. Does any of it matter in the end?

The modern American is a stamped-out conformist. A decade plus of molding and forming spits out the ideal proto office drone, ready for advanced indoctrination before being conevyored into a cookie cutter drone job droning along to their gray wall cubicle in their gray sedan from their gray townhouse in a neat little row alongside a dozen other gray office drones. Choose your hair color, eye color, and face shape, allocate the personality points between a handful of hobbies, select a career field, and you too can start the game with your own level 1 office drone.

The modern American is a back seat activist. God forbid they actually get their hands dirty. It’s much easier to virtue signal. Activism is charity and charity is the work of big corporations and government. They can rely on their group affiliations and their bumper stickers to allow them to be counted amon the right thinkers, and they don’t even have to leave the couch.

The modern American is a lazy thinker. Why think critically when you can emote? It’s easier, often leads to short-term enrichment, and can be rationalized post-hoc because they have no morals.

The modern American is short sighted. Boardrooms look ahead a quarter at most. People aren’t broke until they run out of checks in the checkbook, and planning for the future is not enjoying today, which sucks. Enjoying today is all that matters because the modern American is a hedonist to the extreme. #FOMO

The modern American is a coward. Activism is a hash tag away. Charity is something government does to give me warm fuzzies. Anything risky should be outlawed, and anything unkind is clearly evil. Death is to be avoided at all costs at all times because, like, when you die you don’t get to keep your Instagram followers.

This is the point in the article where I’m supposed to shift gears and extol the virtues of the modern American, but I won’t. There are individuals who buck all of these trends, but they are exceptional to the last.

I am a pessimist when I look at our culture not because of some impending election or because of a handful of outliers rioting in the streets with the support of a substantial portion of the country. These are mere symptoms of the nihilistic disease that our culture suffers. You’re not supposed to look into the abyss. Instead, we dove in headfirst.

About The Author

trshmnstr

trshmnstr

I stink, therefore I am.

275 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    Why do you hate americans?

    • UnCivilServant

      Besides, the inky abyss is good swimming.

      • Aloysious

        But what lives in the inky abyss? What lies in wait wanting to nibble on your naughty bits?

      • UnCivilServant

        I’ve lived here for a long time, no one is waiting to nibble your naighty bits.

        Sorry to disappoint.

  2. leon

    The modern American is dogmatically amoral. The opinions, oh the opinions. But damn if you can’t find the slightest shred of principle. Bad is bad because, well, because it is. And good is good because it feels good. Simultaneously libertine and puritan.

    Call me a hopeless Religious freak, but i think this is the core issue at hand in America.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Speaking to a friend of mine yesterday, he related the story of an Episcopal church that could not find a qualified organist because the church was of the rare conservative variety and all the recently trained Anglican/Episcopal organists were avowedly leftist.

      Their solution will be to recruit an organist educated at Baylor (Baptist) and retrain them for Anglican services.

    • Animal

      It’s not exclusively a religious issue. I’m an atheist and share much the same opinion. Too many people make their decisions on feelz instead of principles.

      • KibbledKristen

        ^^This

        Religion isn’t necessary to have principles.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Yes. I’m quite agnostic myself but I sent my kids to Catholic school primary because they teach structured thinking and the development of critical thought.

        The public schools pretend to do so, but make so many lies of omission and framing that it is impossible.

      • AlexinCT

        I broke up with the Minnesoda girl because I couldn’t deal with the emotional appeals instead of the use of facts and logic. There is a reason team blue seems to appeal so much to people that make emotional appeals. That doesn’t mean there are a bunch of them, with their own cause, on team red.

      • Mojeaux

        Wait, what? Between last Friday and today?

      • Fourscore

        Where does this Minnesoda girl live? Asking for a friend.

  3. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Drink!

  4. leon

    This is the point in the article where I’m supposed to shift gears and extol the virtues of the modern American, but I won’t. There are individuals who buck all of these trends, but they are exceptional to the last.

    As it ever has been, as it ever will be. However Now we are trained to hate and revile those Americans, and our elites are as shallow as the common man.

    • Brett L

      I believe Socrates is the first person to be recorded bemoaning the soft and weak spirit brought on by affluence. Which probably means some old man whose kids settled down in the first farming settlement bemoaned to his friends that the people were getting weak and soft, not having to roam long distances to hunt and gather.

      • UnCivilServant

        So what you’re saying is, we should make Trashy drink hemlock?

        /Cathy Newman

      • slumbrew

        My manager related a story he read:

        A Scottish raiding party had to stop for the night. This was the Highlands, so they were in snow but since they’re hard bastards, they all just slept on the ground.

        The clan chief rolled up a mound of snow to use as a pillow – seeing this, the rest of the raiders knew at that moment that the chief had gotten too old and become soft.

        That’s a whole other level of “kids these days”.

  5. Creosote Achilles

    That is a serious black pill.

    • Ted S.

      Always with the racist pills.

  6. Mojeaux

    Simultaneously libertine and puritan.

    Nice.

    The modern American is a lazy thinker. Why think critically when you can emote? It’s easier, often leads to short-term enrichment, and can be rationalized post-hoc because they have no morals.

    You have to be willing to meet your weaknesses head-on. Me, I’m not so much, but I do try to be honest with myself when something is pointed out.

    Enjoying today is all that matters because the modern American is a hedonist to the extreme.

    I still submit that “enjoying today is all that matters” is because people have no concept of the future because they feel they have no hope of anything better. There is no concept of money left over after the bills are paid. When you’re struggling to make it through each month and you know you’re going to have to do this next month, it drags your ass. So you buy things you want because the bills are always going to be there, but extra money is not.

  7. Drake

    The modern American is completely demoralized.

    The modern American has been deceived and indoctrinated.

    Full interview with Yuri Bezmenov.

  8. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Wow, just wow. Give him credit for being a liar of the first order.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/morning-i-met-donald-trump/616556/

    “Tears began to fill my eyes for the second time that morning. Closing them, I wanted so badly to be a carefree teenager once again, enjoying life with my family in North Bergen, rather than being the CIA director.”

    • UnCivilServant

      You could resign and stop being CIA director.

      • AlexinCT

        What? And risk whomever follows throws me under the bus to protect Obama and the other criminals? He was never going to do that.

    • leon

      Surely the man who has spent his whole life orchestrating global-political subterfuge, should be trusted.

    • Rebel Scum

      That lying, commie fuck can rot in hell.

      • Chipwooder

        What he said

    • Mojeaux

      Manhood at its finest.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        He’s so disconnected from reality that he thinks the Tom Clancy noble bureaucratic warrior myth is going to sell.

      • AlexinCT

        This is an example of these inept credentialed elite douchebags at their finest Mojeaux. They want no accountability and for everyone to see them as superior beings when they are neither superior nor competent.

    • Drake

      Did you cry when your fucking incompetence (or worse) got 19 American servicemen killed in the Khobar Towers attack while you were CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia? Talk about failing upwards – anyone in a normal job would have been fired on the spot.

    • CPRM

      If he’d played the game he could have been Sec State, like Pompeo, and gotten all the ant-war people to not be suspicious of all the ‘peace’ deals he makes…

    • DEG

      Both Clapper and I had retired from government previously—Jim had done it several times; I had done so only once—and we were both looking forward to catching up on the sleep, books, cultural events, and, most important, family time that had eluded us over the past eight years. Nevertheless, we also knew that we would deeply miss being part of the national-security mission and witnessing firsthand the camaraderie and the selfless sacrifice that defined the women and men of the intelligence community.

      I tapped out here. Fuck him.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think Aaron Sorkin wrote that for him.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Nah. Not snarky enough.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Both Clapper and I had retired from government previously—Jim had done it several times;

        In a just world, all of those pensions would be stripped from the pair of you.

    • Pope Jimbo

      What an ass. He really, really should be worrying about going to prison for his part in the attempted coup, but nope he will be lionized.

  9. Rebel Scum

    So you are saying that the modern American is an asshole.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I know I am.

      • Sean

        #metoo

  10. Rebel Scum

    The propaganda is strong with you.

    White mobs have once again moved out of the shadows and into the limelight during this Trump moment. Militia movements and right-wing extremists are starting to turn out in force to intimidate racial justice and anti-Trump demonstrators. Predominantly white and often explicitly racist, these groups now regularly use social media to threaten their adversaries. This election season, they’re gearing up to defend their president with an astonishing degree of support from Republican Party regulars. …

    As the 2020 election nears, that party is also desperately trying to flip the script by using fear of “their mobs” and “Antifa terrorists” to drive its base to the polls. “We have a Marxist mob perpetrate historic levels of violence & disorder in major American cities,”tweeted Florida Senator Marco Rubio in response to the Democratic National Convention in August. Not to be outdone, the president promptly said, “I’m the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness, and chaos.”

    Of course, this country has no such Marxist mobs. The only real groups of vigilantes with a demonstrated history of violence and the guns to back up their threats congregate on the far right. The white supremacist Atomwaffen Division, for instance, has been linked to at least five killings since 2017. In late May and early June, members of the far-right Boogaloo Bois conducted two ambushes of police officers and security personnel, killing two of them and injuring three more. Over the summer, as far-right organizations spread the meme “All Lives Splatter” around the internet, dozens of right-wingers drove vehicles of every sort into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters.

    I didn’t realize a collectivist socialist org was “far right”. And how many black on black murders were there in Chicago just this past weekend? Boogaloo Bois ambushing cops? WTF?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That dude is directly employed by the Open Society Foundation. In this case, he actually is a Soros-funded stooge

    • leon

      Boogaloo Bois are a mass organization, but Antifa is just an idea.

      • Drake

        An idea that so powerful it causes buildings to spontaneously combust.

    • leon

      dozens of right-wingers drove vehicles of every sort into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters.

      Everyone who gets mobbed by BLM rioters is a right-winger. This is pure propoganda. Fuck the author, fuck the left, may every communist rot in hell.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        See my comment above

        He’s a paid liar

    • R C Dean

      Of course, this country has no such Marxist mobs.

      If you are going to lie, go big. Ignore those hours of footage of avowedly Marxist (led) mobs rioting, looting, etc.

      The only real groups of vigilantes with a demonstrated history of violence and the guns to back up their threats congregate on the far right.

      Moving the goalposts helps, although the Marxist mobs are peppered with people who are carrying guns. Need to work on this one.

      The body count for the antifa/BLM riots is well north of the 7 deaths he attributes to the “right wing”, BTW.

      In late May and early June, members of the far-right Boogaloo Bois conducted two ambushes of police officers and security personnel, killing two of them and injuring three more.

      Not ringing a bell. Where was this?

    • Chipwooder

      There was a cop killed in NoCal by some Air Force guy who was purportedly a “Boogaloo Boy” but I’ve never read anything concrete about it, just a lot of speculation

  11. The Other Kevin

    I stumbled on this in the last thread, but I’ve been thinking about it all morning. Just as people consider Trump a symptom of a larger issue, you can say the same thing about the first debate. People are talking about what a shit show it was, but isn’t that what politics has become? How was that first debate any different from a “discussion” on Twitter or Facebook? Everything is about politics, the other side is evil or stupid, and the way to “win” is to shout down and interrupt the other side. It reminds me of the last scene in Lord of the Flies.

    To that end, you might want to add a line about self-awareness, Trashy.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’ve tried to logically discuss dinner things in Facebook

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        What the hell?

        I’ve tried to logically discuss some things on Facebook. It’s usually responded to with ad hominems and accusations of being a troll.

        People just aren’t interested in debate. They want validation.

      • AlexinCT

        Liberalism is a mental disorder cult.

      • Rebel Scum

        I’ve tried to logically discuss dinner things in Facebook

        People tend to be serious about their deep dish and Hawaiian pizza opinions.

      • UnCivilServant

        *sharpens pizza cutter*

    • Drake

      I was thinking about Roman history. If you read the political dialogue a century before the end of the Republic, everyone sounds smart and calm. Towards the end, they all sounded like idiots and liars. Part of the problem was the Republic that worked really well in a city-state surrounded by farmlands the size of Delaware, broke down when it grew to control the entire Mediterranean. Too much money, too much corruption, and they resorted first to street violence, then open warfare when politics failed.

  12. PieInTheSky

    Growing up in an era of plenty, all but the oldest Americans have no conception of true want. – this is probably a it to generalized ans some would say it is your privilege talking.

    The modern American is hopelessly materialistic. – most people throughout history probably were, to the best of what they could get

    The modern American is aggressively vapid. – meh see previous

    The modern American is a stamped-out conformist. – unlike?

    • PieInTheSky

      overall I prefer to be vapid and purposeless than starving

      • EvilSheldon

        Maslow always gets the last laugh.

      • Mojeaux

        This is the correct answer.

  13. pan fried wylie

    RE: the ethnic province of a Subway sandwich

    the sandwich is a British invention
    Italian style bread
    mostly Italian-inspired fillings

    Assembled In America

    point goes to Pie.

    • PieInTheSky

      Italian style bread – you sure? with all that sugar?

    • CPRM

      But they had a kiddie diddler spokesman, so [insert joke here]

      • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

        As long as it’s only a joke that’s inserted.

      • Bobarian LMD

        If you insert your joke in that kiddie, you’re gonna be sharing a cell with Jared.

  14. R C Dean

    Oof. Hard to argue with a lot of this. I suspect that such people have always been among us, but in prior eras they were a small outlier (probably confined mostly to the ruling class) and today they appear to be a pretty good-sized majority.

    This, I think, applies to smaller subset of the population:

    A decade plus of molding and forming spits out the ideal proto office drone, ready for advanced indoctrination before being conevyored into a cookie cutter drone job droning along to their gray wall cubicle in their gray sedan from their gray townhouse in a neat little row alongside a dozen other gray office drones.

    Still lots of blue collar or at least non-office jobs out there.

    • Rebel Scum

      Well, my car is silver. My cubicle is wood/white. My house is gray, but gray is ‘in’ right now. The deck on my lawn mower is gray, but that was the only option.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      I had “little pink houses” going in my head when I wrote that part. Thus the bad mood.

      • DEG

        That song would do it.

    • Chipwooder

      So, basically, Prince William County.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        *nods* PWC may or may not have been the image in my head while writing that part. (actually, the specific location is in the Loudoun County side of the line by a half mile)

      • Chipwooder

        Heh….townhouses was the giveaway. I’ve never seen a place blanketed by townhouses the way NoVa is. Richmond’s trending that way too, of course.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        it’s becoming increasingly popular elsewhere, too. basically every new development here in the northern suburbs of Dallas in the 3 years we were gone is a mixed use development with apartments, townhouses, and postage stamp lot single family homes. mo

    • Certified Public Asshat

      their gray sedan

      Gray, white, or black crossover.

  15. Count Potato

    “The boss of the NYT op-ed page was fired because he ran a controversial op-ed by a sitting U.S. Senator.

    But a few months later, a propagandist for an authoritarian regime gets to argue that a violent putdown of peaceful protests was needed in the same pages.

    This is just nuts.”

    https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1311693607162830849

    “HONG KONG — No amount of outcry, condemnation or sanctions over the Chinese government’s purported encroachment in Hong Kong’s affairs will alter the fact that Hong Kong is part of China and that its destiny is intertwined with the mainland’s.

    Hong Kong has been rocked by a series of crises after the eruption of protests last year over a proposed bill (long since withdrawn) that would have allowed the extradition of some suspects in criminal cases to mainland China.

    Hong Kongers who wanted the city promptly to return to peace thought the authorities’ handling of the situation, which dragged on for months and grew more and more violent, was incompetent. For other locals, many outsiders and apparently much of the global media, a people’s legitimate quest for more democracy was being suppressed.

    Something had to be done, and the Chinese authorities did it.

    The scale and frequency of antigovernment protests has now subsided — thanks to a national security law for Hong Kong promulgated in Beijing on June 30.

    Several prominent democracy advocates have since announced their retirement from politics, disbanded their parties or fled the city.

    The West tends to glorify these people as defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms, but they have done great harm to the city by going against its constitutional order and stirring up chaos and disaffection toward our motherland.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opinion/hong-kong-china-security-law.html

    • leon

      It makes sense when you realize they are all communists who support china.

      • Drake

        And do not want to see it fail like their beloved USSR.

      • R C Dean

        Say, any news from the Three Gorges Dam recently? How’s their flooding and locust infestation going, anyway?

      • UnCivilServant

        I hadn’t heard about the locusts. when did they show up?

  16. KibbledKristen

    Simultaneously libertine and puritan

    Neo-Victorianism abounds, but only for certain aspects of life.

    But I’m more of an optimist. I see it as a pendulum, and it will swing back to what made us us at some point. Maybe.

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      I hope you’re right.

  17. Drake

    The average American has been horribly educated and is completely misinformed of their country’s history.

    • CPRM

      their country

      It’s fucking White Supremacist language like this that we, brothers and sisters, need to unite against.

    • PieInTheSky

      unlike the average Chinese

      • Ozymandias

        Seriously, Pie, do you have some reason to believe the Chinese are as ahistorical as their American counterparts? Because that wasn’t my experience at all. The average Chinese seemed to have a much more acute sense of their history as a people – as distinct from communism.
        (I need to get back to my article series on China.)

  18. DEG

    Does any of it matter in the end?

    No, in the long run we’re all dead.

    Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

    On a serious note, I have been wondering why many of the things I do make me feel like I swapped places with Sisyphus in the Underworld.

  19. KibbledKristen

    Speaking of libertine, my neighbor just found a gram of medicinal plant on the floor of the grocery store.

    • UnCivilServant

      Don’t trust floor weed.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Tell them sharing is caring.

    • KibbledKristen

      I need to refer back to NA’s last IFLA to see what her horrorscope says.

      • UnCivilServant

        Horrorscopehow appropos

    • Brett L

      A couple years back, Mrs. L found one of the densest buds I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering on the bathroom floor of a restaurant. Either floor cleaner is a hell of a booster, or it was just great. I’m sure some waitress was bummed when she discovered it missing.

      • KibbledKristen

        This was in an actual medicinal canister. I have 2.5 hours left on the work clock…

    • Chipwooder

      You bunch of hippies.

  20. Rebel Scum

    October Surprise: Trump drops Pence and picks up Tulsi just in time for Tulsi to use Copmala as a verbal punching bag in the VP debate. ///AManCanDream

    • DEG

      Unfortunately the video titled “Hawaiian Soldier Beats Crooked Cop Into Submission” is no longer on PornHub. However, there are many Tulsi Gabbard workout videos on PornHub.

  21. Pine_Tree

    I’ve said this here before I think, but I frankly trace it to the Fundamentalist-Modernist schism in the Presbyterian church in the early 20th century. The Modernists won, and mainstream Christianity (with mainstream America following behind) dropped all the actually Christian elements in favor of Progressivism. Lacking any actual belief in anything other than their own goodness, they started down the road we’re on now where they (and the State in their hands) are their own gods.

    • Sensei

      “What do yo mean?”

      – Maximilien de Robespierre

      • UnCivilServant

        “Madame Guillotine is waiting, citizen.”

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      at this point, they’re out of masks to tear off, so they tear off their faces to expose skeletor.

    • Chipwooder

      CEOs are very highly esteemed by Marxists. I’m sure they’ll embrace him warmly.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That is the strangest thing about this. I’m guessing that as the ex-CEO of Twitter you must be pretty rich. Does he really think he won’t be one of the first put into the camps?

        And I noticed he offered only to do video commentary. Nice. Too good to do the dirty work himself of putting people up against the wall.

      • Chipwooder

        The CEO types think they’ve successfully pulled off the House of Saud trick, where you pay off the insurgents who despise you so they focus their efforts on other enemies. That’s what all of this corporate wokism is about. It’s all entirely performative.

        Someday, that won’t be enough anymore. These guys really haven’t thought this through. I guess Wharton didn’t require critical thinking skills.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The currency bubble is killing us. Asshats like Costolo are only able to succeed because the Fed is underwriting their efforts by inflating the money supply.

  22. Rebel Scum

    Dissent will not be tolerated.

    The 19-year-old cyclist responded to a tweet from Dutch journalist Jose Been where she said she hoped “this horrible presidency ends” for her American friends, adding, “if you follow me and support Trump you can go.”

    Simmons replied to Been with a “Bye” and a black hand emoji.

    Been deleted her tweet later on.

    Another Twitter user wrote that Simmons was, “Apparently a Trumper.” Simmons responded, “That’s right,” signing off with an American flag emoji.

    Trek-Segafredo then put out a statement that Simmons would be suspended from the team until further notice.

    “Regrettably, team rider Quinn Simmons made statements online that we feel are divisive, incendiary, and detrimental to the team, professional cycling, its fans, and the positive future we hope to help create for the sport,” the team wrote. “(He) will not be racing for Trek-Segafredo until further notice.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Fuck Trek. I won’t be buying their crap now.

    • EvilSheldon

      Someone was looking to jump ship.

    • Ted S.

      I’ve been saying it for a long time, but when sportswriters say athletes should stand up for things they believe in, they mean things they the sportswriters believe in, not they the athletes.

    • WTF

      How in the everloving fuck is an American saying he supports the American president “divisive and incendiary”?

  23. Nephilium

    So while reading this, I had this song running through my head.

    We don’t run Washington and no one really does
    Ask not what you can do for your country
    Ask what your country did to you

  24. Sensei

    Meanwhile in yet another reason 2020 sucks, I just got word from my wife that her cousin’s 6 year old child has completed his third round of chemotherapy for a rare leukemia unsuccessfully.

    At this point the prognosis is not good. The last round was essentially experimental treatments that weren’t on label for pediatric use.

    Fuck cancer…

    • l0b0t

      Shit! Fuck cancer, indeed. I’m so sorry to hear that.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sorry man. That sucks.

    • EvilSheldon

      Sorry to hear that. Cancer really sucks.

    • Brett L

      That sucks. Fuck cancer.

    • B.P.

      Ugh.

    • Sean

      That’s horrible. Sorry.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. So sorry to hear that.

    • Tundra

      Sorry, dude. Terrible news.

    • Mojeaux

      Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sorry.

    • slumbrew

      That is terrible. I’m sorry to hear it.

    • Akira

      Sorry to hear that, man. Always harder when it happens to kids.

      My girlfriend’s dad is undergoing chemo, and it’s not looking good. My poor girl (and the rest of the family) are absolutely torn up.

      Fuck cancer a thousand times over.

      • Sensei

        Sorry to you too.

        Thanks to everyone.

    • DEG

      Sorry.

  25. Rebel Scum

    Says someone who likely favors strict economic and social regimentation.

    “I think that the biggest crisis that we face right now — you know, the people who like fascism … should not be the object of our persuasive energies right now,” Giridharadas told co-host Mika Brzezinski. “There are a lot of decent people who may be unwittingly enabling what Jeremy was just describing. And it’s important to think about what those folks need to do. So I think for those of us in the media, frankly, whether it’s headline writers, whether it’s those who decide what to put on TV, whether it’s people making decisions about how to frame things, it’s very important to understand that this is a decisive break from our past what Donald Trump is doing right now. This is a frontal assault on the idea that we should elect the president democratically.”

    Giridharadas added that people, like CEOs donating to the GOP, need to “think about the fact that you may be enabling the actual shattering of American democracy.”

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Giridharadas added that people, like CEOs donating to the GOP, need to “think about the fact that you may be enabling the actual shattering of American democracy.”

      offs

      • EvilSheldon

        When you tell them that democracy has been an abject failure, and that you’d love to see it shattered, then the smoke really starts coming out of their ears…

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Athens? What’s an Athens?

      • kbolino

        They don’t want and have never wanted democracy. Democracy is just as much the NRA holding gun control at bay and Donald Trump storming into the Republican Party and winning two electoral upsets as it is the Brady Campaign standing atop the bodies in every mass shooting and Barack Obama coasting on white liberal guilt into the Presidency.

        Every time they identify a boogeyman, it becomes clearer that what they hate is not a set of policies they dislike, it’s a set of people they believe should be silenced.

    • Chipwooder

      At this point, whenever I read or hear the words of these motherfuckers, I hear the Charlie Brown adults: “Woh WOH, woh woh WOH woh”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “This is a frontal assault on the idea that we should elect the president democratically”

      Actually, we don’t elect him democratically you ignorant fuck.

    • B.P.

      People so dedicated to democracy that they’ve been running a four-year-long coup.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Their messaging is so tightly aligned opposite to what they are doing that I have to think it’s on purpose. They’re batting 1.000 on decrying exactly what they’re doing behind the scenes.

    • R C Dean

      I think that the biggest crisis that we face right now — you know, the people who like fascism

      Who was it here who said lefties can diagnose a problem, its just that their solutions are terrible?

    • Mostly Peaceful JaimeRoberto

      If Trump is a fascist, then I guess fascism isn’t all that bad. Another word has lost its meaning.

    • Drake

      Received our mail-in ballots today. Kept my son’s who is at college, tore up the rest as we intend to vote in person.

      • Sensei

        Interesting. Ours came today too here in Essex County.

      • R C Dean

        Is your son actually a legal voter in your state?

        It varies, of course, but generally people who get a mail-in ballot but try to vote in person are (supposed to be) allowed to vote in person, but their ballots are put in the “provisional” bucket, which is generally not counted unless its a really close race.

      • UnCivilServant

        Tyhese are unsolicitied mail-in ballots, New Jersey sent them to everyone.

        Makes it easier to collect un-filled ballots and stuff the boxes.

      • Sensei

        NJ has flipped flopped things. I haven’t bothered to read much about it, but in person is now provisional and the ballots mailed to all registered voters are primary.

        It will be a disaster of course…

      • UnCivilServant

        It will be a disaster

        Just as planned.

      • Drake

        I haven’t paid much attention either because my vote means nothing in a national election year. No way would they let Trump or the Republican candidate for Senator win. My district is thoroughly gerrymandered so my vote for Rep is meaningless as they made sure there are enough Bergen County libs attached to our bizarrely shaped district to negate all the Warren County hicks.

      • Drake

        Next year they really be packing the fake ballots to ensure Murphy wins again despite the incredible hate he has inspired.

    • Rebel Scum

      There is a reason you have to request an absentee ballot. This shit is all kinds of illegitimate.

      • R C Dean

        Phase 1 of ballot harvesting: get a shitload of ballots out into the wild. In Minneapolis, each one of those is worth hundreds of dollars.

        Although why anyone would waste their time ballot harvesting in DC, a 90% Dem city that can’t swing a state, I don’t know. So in DC, at least, its probably just rank incompetence.

      • kbolino

        There are local elections going on in DC, too.

      • Pine_Tree

        And graft.

  26. Count Potato

    “Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I’ll happily provide video commentary.”

    https://twitter.com/dickc/status/1311472075903647750

    CWAA

    • hoof_in_mouth

      What a cuck, a real Che would be out there getting his sallow fingers bloody

    • Animal

      Bring it, pussy.

    • R C Dean

      I’ll happily provide video commentary.

      “Wait, no, I didn’t mean me!”

  27. Not Adahn

    Simultaneously libertine and puritan

    I try to keep my libertinism pure. I cannot stand it when people try to talk politics at an orgy. That’s the main reason I could never take part in O.T.O.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Is your objection because of the politics? Or just common courtesy to not talk with your mouth full?

    • Brochettaward

      People who put ketchup on steak

      Trump failing to denounce himself is really his greatest sin.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Avatar checks out.

        Ketchup on steak is delicious. I blame the decline of America for rejection of good MCM recipes like Swiss steak.

  28. Chipwooder

    Whoopsie! Did I say that out loud? What I meant to say was that masks are of dire importance and in no way at all political theater!

    • Gdragon

      Lampposts. For all of them.

  29. hoof_in_mouth

    Can’t disagree. It is weird to me how things that were obviously weakness or would lead to despair have been elevated to aspirational goals, while the stoic virtues that would lead to contentment have been shunned. Previous elites may have been corrupt hypocrites but they at least pretended to hold middle-class values as ideals.

    Re: the debate, I keep telling people that these two idiots are what our political system has decided are fit to lead, and since you know a tree by its fruit, WE are really sick, the system is us. No-one disagrees, they just say the other side is somehow worse.

    • kbolino

      It is weird to me how things that were obviously weakness or would lead to despair have been elevated to aspirational goals, while the stoic virtues that would lead to contentment have been shunned.

      They are not just shunned, they have been equated to tolerating evil, and tolerating evil has been equated with perpetrating evil. It seems to me to be the inevitable outcome of moralism without morality (i.e., puritanical libertinism as trashy identifies it). Everybody knows that “evil triumphs when good men do nothing” (paraphrasing Edmund Burke), and everybody knows Hitler is evil. There is no fixed point on the modern moral compass except for Nazism, and so reductio ad hitlerum has gone from a debased logical fallacy to the only useful moral argument. Slavery is Nazism, Jim Crow is Nazism, fascism is Nazism, conservatism is Nazism, law enforcement is Nazism, voter ID is Nazism, the bourgeoisie is Nazism, masculinity is Nazism, donating money to the wrong cause is Nazism, the two-digit year I was born is Nazism, anything not explicitly, slavishly, and childishly trumpeted as opposed to Nazism is of course Nazism.

      There is a reason this is a religion without salvation; there is no explicit and consistent definition of “good”, only of “bad”, and so the compass shifts wildly: it always points away from Nazism but it never points toward anything else for very long. What is acceptable today is unacceptable tomorrow, and vice versa.

      I don’t know how to stop it, because it has become rhetorically immune from the only accusation that matters. If evil and Nazi are synonyms, how can the people who are not Nazis be evil?

  30. Tundra

    Black pill day, I guess.

    Per Idle Hand’s recommendation, I listened to the latest Free Man Beyond the Wall this morning. His guest had some pretty interesting speculation about the times we are going through right now. Pete, Vin and trashy all agree: we’re fucked and the sooner we accept it the better. Oh, and things are gonna get way worse before they get better. We are never going back to the before-days, even after the election.

    Instead of mass murders, though, I sure would like to see some acceleration of the national divorce. We can’t continue like this and I don’t think we should try.

    • Chipwooder

      My deepest wish is for actual federalism. Let California be California and Oklahoma be Oklahoma.

      Statist fucks of all stripes can’t abide that, though.

      • R C Dean

        Yup. And that’s why no peaceful divorce is possible. When the US collapses, it will be in blood and flame.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      The problem with national divorce was and is the fact that the cultural divide is largely urban versus rural, with the suburbs acting as an interface between the two cultures.

      Take TX for example. We could strike up the Texas republic again, but there are millions of urban leftists in the state. What happens to the 40% who are ideologically aligned with the country that Texas just split from?

      Some will vote with their feet, but the rest will be content to undo everything that such a secession would represent.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Dude you are so smart (well at least quicker)!

      • R C Dean

        What happens to the 40% who are ideologically aligned with the country that Texas just split from?

        The best case scenario is probably something like what happened in India was partitioned. Which was an utter shitshow, possible body count north of 1MM. There are no plausible clean borders that don’t leave a lot of people on the wrong side of the line, both ways.

      • Pope Jimbo

        It will be a shit show. The strange thing will be that the urban cores will have to figure out some way to feed themselves if things really split rural/urban.

        Similar to China now. They really, really need people to buy their crap a lot more than we need to buy crap from them.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Which was an utter shitshow, possible body count north of 1MM.

        IOW, there’s no escaping the violence. Submit and be slaughtered or fight and hope to slaughter instead.

      • kinnath

        Walls around the city.

        Then siege. Starve the fuckers.

        They’ll submit one way or the other.

      • grrizzly

        Even in Massachusetts Trump received more than 30% in 2016.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I don’t know how you do the divorce though. This isn’t as regional a break as the South vs North as before. This is rural vs city.

      Minnesoda is a great example. The yahoos on the Left who are talking succession always include Minnesoda in their United Blue States, but in reality, only the Twin Cities would vote to join. The rural deplorables would want to stay in the Republic of Red. How can Minneapolis/St. Paul survive surrounded by a different country?

      • UnCivilServant

        Simple, the commies are driven out, put on trains to chicago, and the tracks ripped up behind them.

      • robc

        City-states.

      • Tundra

        There you go!

      • Chipwooder

        Yep. I’ve pondered that as well. I can’t think of any other way it could possibly happen without great bloodshed.

      • leon

        The Divorce Needs a strong centralized leader to take us through it. I nominate myself, as i’m the only one willing to relenquish that power once it has been given to me.

    • kinnath

      Regarding the cities, the Industrial Revolution turned cities into power houses. This is where major industry lived, and the people went to cities to work there.

      Over the last 50ish years, the cities have driven industry out of the big cities and replaced it with high-finance. This tended to divide the population into the very-well-off and the poor. Two sides of the deep blue coin.

      Now, the high-paying white collar jobs are fleeing the cities too.

      The cities will collapse leaving only the poor to fend for themselves, and the curse that is white-collar-liberal-wokester will pollute the rest of the country.

      • slumbrew

        Perhaps having the wokesters more diffuse may attenuate their influence?

        I dunno, any ray of sunlight would be nice.

      • UnCivilServant

        “Ugh, can you believe these people. They called me an asshole for telling them my pronouns.”

      • slumbrew

        I’m picturing some woke, mid-level human resources drone moving to the country, surrounded by dairy farmers.

      • UnCivilServant

        “Ya know, ma’am, I’ve seen enough actual bullshit to know when someone’s full of it.”

        “It’s Ze!”

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Social media has permanently thrown a wrench in that plan. When I can coordinate with 50k other communist agitators across the country, I can have as many of them as I need show up to agitate in my town.

      • slumbrew

        It’s one thing to get some fellow-travellers to show up in another city, it’s another to have them drive 6 hours into the countryside.

        I’ll shit on my own little fantasy and acknowledge that the woksters won’t leave the city and spread out evenly, they’ll just move to smaller cities and towns and will still clump up there.

        i.e., the hedge fundies and their woke wives aren’t moving from NYC to Horseshoe Bend, AR – they’re moving the same couple of cities in Florida.

  31. Certified Public Asshat

    Whatever happened to the Glibfin series Trashy?

    • UnCivilServant

      He couldn’t find additional financing for it.

    • slumbrew

      What’s it worth to you for him to continue?

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      lol, work got busy. the next episode is started, but I was hoping to secure a few hours to crank it out on the computer and havent had the time or mental energy.

      Articles like this one are mindless and a bit cathartic to tap out on the phone in 20 minutes. I try to devote more effort, time, and thought to GlibFin since I’m holding myself out as somebody with experience.

      Also, my Koch bucks haven’t come in yet.

  32. Mojeaux

    TFW you realize you totally forgot about your mom’s pneumonia and didn’t check on her. *headdesk*

    • UnCivilServant

      Check in and let us know how she’s doing.

      • Mojeaux

        She has a frozen diaphragm and is scheduled to see a cardiothoracic surgeon soon.

      • UnCivilServant

        oof.

        I hope they fix it.

      • Mojeaux

        Yeah, me too!

        The hospital did the test 4 weeks ago and never sent the report over to her PCP. She only saw him this morning.

      • R C Dean

        The hospital did the test 4 weeks ago and never sent the report over to her PCP.

        *looks at weekly summary of malpractice cases, sighs dejectedly*

      • Mojeaux

        It’s almost like you read my mind…

      • Ted S.

        All I could think of was this.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Exactly what I was thinking! And a frozen one must be incredibly uncomfortable.

      • DEG

        I hope the surgery works.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Wish you and your mother luck

      • Tundra

        Yikes!

        I hope she gets better soon!

    • Mojeaux

      Thanks, all. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next. She doesn’t even have an appointment with the cardiothoracic surgeon yet.

      On the bright side, it’s a mystery solved. It was really disconcerting to hear her work so hard to breathe and not know why.

  33. Homple

    “Simultaneously libertine and puritan.”

    Also tyrannical and anarchic.

    • leon

      I think the term Anarcho-Tyranny was a great one coined to explain the riots. You are still required to follow the law, but no law is being applied to stop the mobs from destorying your livelihood.

    • slumbrew

      Well I hope we’re not too messianic, or a trifle too satanic

  34. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Who was it talking about getting inundated with spam calls from numbers similar to your own the other day?

    Every 10-15 minutes all day today. The first 6 digits are the same as my number, the last 4 are random.

    • UnCivilServant

      Same exchange and area code used to imply they were your neighbors. It’s a meantal trick to get their target vulnerable population to answer.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Yep, they don’t know that I picked the exchange at random and don’t know anybody with the same exchange. It’s an easy tell.

      • pan fried wylie

        Or, the other half of Everyone, who got an area-appropriate exchange when they got the number 20yrs ago, but havent lived there in 10yrs.

    • Timeloose

      I’m thoroughly enjoying the KMFDM Lyrics. I haven’t listened to that album since the tape melted in my car in South TX.

      • Nephilium

        /points up at comment 24

        It really is a fitting song for %current year%, especially considering it came out almost 25 years ago.

      • Timeloose

        Someone’s writing down your mistakes
        Someone’s documenting your downfall”

    • B.P.

      Are you being a patient boy?

      • Chipwooder

        In the waiting room?

      • Tundra

        I wait I wait I wait!

  35. Rebel Scum

    TMITE

    Oliver Darcy
    @oliverdarcy

    Really a sad state of affairs when the White House @PressSec can’t offer a clear and direct answer to this question.

    Really sad state of affairs when you dishonest media cuntes mischaracterize/ignore the answers to absurd questions.

    • leon

      You know whats funny, Is that apparently all Trump has to say is “White supremacy is just an Idea”, which is more true than what biden says about ANTIFA.

      • Rebel Scum

        I’m still waiting for Biden to denounce the endorsement by Richard Spencer.

      • Ted S.

        Or the hate speech that led to the attempted assassinations of Rep. Scalise and Sen. Paul.

    • commodious spittoon

      TMITE

      Teenage Mutant ?? Turtles ??

      • pan fried wylie

        They hit the peacepipe and munch out on frybread.

      • kinnath

        the media is the enemy

  36. AlexinCT
  37. Nephilium

    So Fred Perry clothing has decided that Proud Boys are worse then Skinheads.

    • Rebel Scum

      Why do they hate the POC’s of the Proud Boys?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Nothing like turning away business.

  38. leon

    “To be absolutely clear, if you see any Proud Boys materials or products featuring our Laurel Wreath or any Black/Yellow/Yellow related items, they have absolutely nothing to do with us, and we are working with our lawyers to pursue any unlawful use of our brand,” Fred Perry said in a statement.

    Get ready to start signing EULA’s when you buy clothes.

    • Pope Jimbo

      Great. Now Trump will have to walk around naked because no one will license him the right to wear the clothes they make.

      Another byproduct of this trend will be the court decision that says that you cannot sell old clothes to other people at a rummage sales. The clothes were only licensed to the purchaser and that does not transfer.

      • leon

        Great. Now Trump will have to walk around naked because no one will license him the right to wear the clothes they make.

        I think there’s a fairy tale about this….

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This sort of bullshit is self-limiting. People will find alternatives.

  39. Chipwooder

    “The Black/Yellow/Yellow twin tipped shirt has been an important part of that uniform since its introduction in the late 70s, and has been adopted generation after generation by various subcultures, without prejudice.”

    Oh? I guess I’m just imagining the Nazi skinheads who wore them.

    I actually had a bunch of Fred Perry shirts when I was a kid because the company my dad worked for in the ’80s owned them at the time. Dad even met Fred Perry himself a few times. Said he was quite a delightful old gentleman.

    • Nephilium

      Nope. Bones (racist skinheads), SHARPS (anti-racist skins), and non-affiliated skins all wore the polos.

      • Chipwooder

        Oh, I know. I can remember the early ’90s.

    • Akira

      I can’t fathom paying $80-100 for a Fred Perry polo shirt when I could get one that looks virtually identical for $20.

      • Pope Jimbo

        You know why they look identical? Because they are identical.

        The factory in China just changes the label stitching machine for a few hours a day. A lot of clothing wholesalers in the US have what they call a private label that is nothing but the same product as some other fashion line but with a different label.

        I used to do IT work for a wholesaler and I bought lots of stuff from them at stupid deep discounts. Carhardt jackets, Izod pique shirts, etc. Clothing is quite the racket.

    • SandMan

      Some real horndogs!

  40. R C Dean

    Biden called it a day at 8:30 am today.

    A non-complicit media would be pissed off that a Presidential candidate is refusing them any access, day after day.

    • Sean

      Shocked, I am.

      • UnCivilServant

        when nine hundred hours you reach, work as much, you will not.

    • The Other Kevin

      He’s doing them a favor. Now they don’t have to spend all day making up excuses for the crazy shit he says.

    • Rebel Scum

      Just in time for his 9am nap!

      Trump did another rally last night, right after having the debate the prior night and while still having the duties of the presidency.

      • R C Dean

        Much as he pisses me off, I have to admire his energy. 74 years old. Hard to believe Biden is only 3 years older.

    • kbolino

      The media and campaign are in bed with each other, so they get all the access they want behind the scenes.

    • Not Adahn

      NPR is talking up his train tour, how he’s visiting all these places and giving speeches several times a day.

      • B.P.

        Something something Lincoln funeral train….

    • leon

      Why would they need access when they know all they need to talk about is the Proud Boys and how Trump is creating his own SS?

      Besides, Biden has clearly signaled that he won’t be giving any policy, because the important thing is that people vote for him, and then they can find out about his policy.

    • kbolino

      Of course, there’s the obligatory editor’s note repeating media narrative about Trump and the Proud Boys.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Republicans had spent eight years amassing power in an executive branch now occupied by Barack Obama.

      True, but that power amassing didn’t start with W’s inauguration.

      • kbolino

        The President and his appointees gained some power, but as it turns out the greatest growth in the power of the executive branch was not for the elected or appointed officials, but rather for the careerists and civil servants.

    • R C Dean

      Interesting. I skimmed it and it seems out of place with the batshit lunacy and leftist apologia in the articles listed at the bottom of the page.

  41. AlexinCT

    Heh!

    • R C Dean

      A comment from Mike Huckabee about a doctor telling a patient he needs to lose 100 pounds does have a certain ring of truth.

  42. Yusef drives a Kia

    Under night I packed my van,
    and ventured to the cold Northland,
    to leave my baggage far away,
    I think it’s here that I will stay,

    Told of temps and chilling cold,
    I found a job for those so bold,
    to work outside, voluntarily,
    and see what Winter can throw at me,
    https://photos.app.goo.gl/Xw3uRS9n2duJ3tqq9

    the pay is good, the benes fine,
    and I only work in bright sunshine,
    now is come our busy time,
    with mando OT I’ll be fine,

    Sister loves me, and wants me to stay,
    and found a mobile for 23K,
    2 beds and 1 bath, plenty big for my zoo,
    it has a gas stove, and a new Furnace too,

    my issue right now is down payment,
    the owners can work out a deal,
    they want to help me get in there,
    and 23K is a steal,

    I think I have been drawn here,
    by powers not my own,
    everything around me, has fallen into place,
    compared to Arizona, this might be outer space,

    I ask for any assistance,
    last time but not the first,
    and I coulnd’t find a better way,
    to beg it could be worse

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      picture totally in the wrong place,

  43. R C Dean

    Oh, FFS:

    C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, who will moderate the second presidential debate, got his start as a staff assistant in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s communication office, and prior to that worked as in intern in the office of then-senator Joe Biden.

    • Drake

      I’m sure he’ll be as impartial as Wallace.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      interesting times? no,

    • pan fried wylie

      The debate after that will just be moderated by Biden.

      • Drake

        That would be more impartial and funnier.

      • leon

        I was about to say: “So biden would actually have to debate for himself?”

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Shut yer Yap!

      • Nephilium

        You need someone non-partisan. You know, like Obama.

      • Rebel Scum

        ///NoMalarkey

      • Gdragon

        And Dr. Jill will be debating.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Jill as the moderator.

        Highlight of the debate will be when she loses her cool when Joe starts rambling on and on.

        “JOE! Pull yourself together you clod. We didn’t trot you out here to lose to Trump. I will not be denied my chance to be First Lady.”

  44. Threedoor

    Wait? Social media share buttons? How long have I been away?

  45. Pat

    Is this not the expected and/or intended outcome of a liberal, humanist, capitalist society? It was certainly a foreseeable and foreseen outcome. There’s some kind of law about foreseeable consequences.