I don’t hate Cersei. Partially I just have a really hard time mustering hate for fictitious characters, but I also get her motivations. She learned cruelty and manipulation are the only tools available to her in a world where women are property. She wants recognition, but even in reaching near to the height of power…

Perhaps this is me grasping at straws, but I wonder if part of the inevitability of autocracy and failure of resistence in Gessen’s experience is at all related to the fact that Russians had already lived under an oppressive government for generations before Putin came along.

In my more Pollyanna moments, I hope that…

she is a monster

“Write a note to yourself about what you would never do. And when you come to the line, don’t cross it.”

He was also a 20 year old pilot shot down over the Pacific in 1944 who was the only one of the nine airman not captured (he ditched his plane farther out from Chichi Jima than the other pilots, managed to get on a life raft, and was protected by fire from American planes shooting at Japanese boats coming to get him).…

I was only 9 when he left office, but I remember H.W. being not so bad. I’d take him now, at 92, over what we’re about to get.

Yeah, if W wants to skip the inauguration to be with his dad, that’s totally understandable.

Trump’s note 4 years from now:

I do that too, it adds a little color and fun. I think Bush started doing this after he left office. I always kinda liked him...sure he is a republican but he seemed fairly genuine and trying to do what he thought was right unlike the current crop of republicans.

I’m not old enough to remember the details of Bush’s legacy....but this letter will always be a way of looking back to a time when things weren’t as they are now.

“He will be the only living former president not attending Donald Trump’s inauguration”

Weeeell we now know why everything is gold, amirite? #goldenshowerfetish

TN was in over his head as host of that show from the get go. His “gee-whiz, I’m not from here, explain how this works” approach to interviews and political commentary made for a lousy replacement. TDSWTN is unwatchable.

Once my dad told me he wished we (my siblings and I) had been kids the same time he had been (he’s 80, so the 1940's) because it felt to him like a “safer” time (post ww2, pre cold war). I explained to him how horrible that would have been for me as a (smart, tomboyish, independent) female, and I could see in his eyes…

I’m mad at all of the media outlets. It turns out I have a whole lot of anger to go around.

Comedy shows are supposed to make fun of the contenders and accentuate the absurd. You cannot blame JS for thinking DT was a joke.

I seriously doubt that Trump ran for president because he was reacting against comedians. (First of all, comedians have been mocking Donald Trump for 30 years — the “tiny hands” thing comes from 90's satire magazine Spy).

Absolutely. The further folks look back, the rosier the tint in their respective glasses. We get lost in nostalgia and forget that every era has its own iteration of crap, its own glaring embarrassment.

He also touched on that in this interview. When asked about the (alleged) anti-Semitism of guys like Bannon actually being in the White House, he chucked and said, “Have they read the Nixon transcripts? Have they heard the stuff Johnson said?”

I’ve asked most of my Trump supporting friends - what ISN’T great about America, and they can only say Obama and have no other reasoning behind it.