You can call anyone who disagrees with you “smug”.
“I Can’t Admit I Was Wrong Because I Don’t Want to Give the People I Hate the Satisfaction of Being Right” drives more of our discourse than we realize.
JANUARY 6 COMMISSION: Our former President spent two months complaining that the 2020 election was rigged and held a rally outside the Capitol to protest the certification. Immediately after the rally, hundreds of attendees stormed the Capitol Building
R: So what’s your point
J6C: We contend that the President’s words inspired the crowd to commit violence
R: How can you ignore the other words he said where it sounds plausible that he was NOT calling for violence
J6C: Then it certainly seems that message was lost on the people who were actually there
J6C: We have retrieved e-mails where Trump staffers discussed how to fabricate an “emergency” as a means to override the election results
SHORTER GOP: Why do liberals blame us every time a white teenager brings a gun into a public place and shoots people with it just because we actively encourage white teenagers to bring guns into public places and shoot people with them
R: I do not endorse the message of the preceding post, as there is clearly a difference between shooting sweet & innocent high school students and shooting the rioting human vermin that are running loose in every city where BLM congregates, for reasons I shall decline to explain
R: Wait, are you suggesting I’m racist for using Black Lives Matter as a dog whistle which equates police-brutality protests with subhuman savages rioting and looting and worst of all destroying property? I’m not racist YOU’RE racist ever think of that
Yes, I’m sure these reckless gun owners who also happen to be Trump-supporting Republicans will finally face justice after a protracted and heavily-publicized court case oh, wait
Well, this is clearly different from the Rittenhouse case, because their guilt seems extremely obvious to laypeople oh, wait
I mean, what are the odds that repulsive white people will be sprung on a technicality yet AGAIN, that simply isn’t how justice works in America oh, wait
ME: (straps Stephen Breyer to a chair with eyelids pulled apart, Clockwork Orange-style, and forces him to re-watch entirety of yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing)
BREYER:
ME:
BREYER:
ME: WELL?!
BREYER: (chuckles) I’ve never given much thought to other people’s opinions of me
This won’t be news to a lot of people, but the Supreme Court is now so nakedly partisan that it has become the duty of all existing Justices to retire while their own Party has the Presidency.
And it’s ironic that our eldest judges are the least inclined to embrace that reality.
Justice Ginsburg turned 80 & was having health problems while Obama was President. Her refusal to retire was unquestionably a gamble.
What’s done is done. I didn’t fully appreciate the consequences of her actions at the time. But how can we fail to learn from her example now?