As usual, it’s not Trump that’s the most offensive to me, it’s the people around him. We know Trump is a narcissistic sociopath. We’ve known that for decades. Of course he’s smiling in this environment: he wasn’t shot and there are cameras pointed at him, so obviously he’s happy.

Seriously. Ignore it, dismiss it, or flag it. Stop fucking responding to it. 

Yeah, absolutely, but to be fair it’s not limited to them. It’s also what a great deal of the moneyed interests of this country want. A terrified and divided working class is the best kind if you want to take advantage of them without repercussions, while they bicker and point fingers at each other.

“I hate people who hate fascists” is the sort of thing only a fascist would say.

Whether or not Carlson sees it or not is kind of moot. Maybe he knows what’s going on and is just cynically cashing a check, or maybe he’s dumb enough to really believe the stuff that falls out of the abyss that is his mouth. But that doesn’t really matter: he’s just a messenger boy. The strategy of the wealthy elite…

Yeah that’s pretty much been the Fox News stance since “alt right” started becoming a talking point. In order for Fox to call you a racist you have to have “racist asshole” as the heading of your LinkedIn profile, and begin each public appearance with, “well as an avowed white supremacist...”

Damn, come on. I wish Obama was still in charge as much as anybody, but the man doesn’t owe us shit. For one thing, he’s doing a hell of a lot more than Netflix deals right now. He’s done more to help more Americans just since he left office than almost everyone reading this comment will do in their entire lives, the…

Really well written as usual, Paul.

So that was the public message his handlers forced him to give, next comes the unhinged tweetstorm and calls to Fox and Friends ranting about how the hispanics were asking for it and it was actually Obama pulling the trigger because he’s Muslim and hates America.

And that’s where we are as a nation. One of our two major political parties is so dependent on white supremacists that they absolutely refuse to call them out or disavow them even when they slaughter dozens of fucking people. Could there be more obvious proof that the GOP values power over American lives?

People who aren’t actually thinking of buying either. 

“failed to abide by basic norms of decorum and order,”

What frustrates me the most is that I don’t even use Twitter anymore. I have an account somewhere that I haven’t used in years, but I don’t check the site at all, I don’t have the app on my phone or my tablet. And yet, I’m still subjected to it because American media covers shit like this as though it’s actual news.…

I’m sometimes awed by the percentage of our daily news that’s made up of idiotic tweets posted by awful people. We’re all so inured to the stupidity of this age, sometimes it’s the minor things, little petty dipshittery like this, that makes me really step back and think.

Before you congratulate these people for growing a spine...

“I mean, this is the level to which we have sunken as a society, where I can’t even set up a last-minute, hastily-arranged, self-serving press conference full of misinformation and half-assed lies on someone else’s private property without any notice or permission whatsoever.”

Good Lord, I look forward to moving past the “vanity project” phase of the campaign season. I’m not as worried by the large field as some people are, but I am getting very tired of these useless chucklefucks who seem to have no real purpose but to dampen enthusiasm. Go back to locally disappointing the people of Ohio,…

Yep. And it’s not like it’s limited to cars: it’s everything. And you can’t trust marketing to know where things are actually made: “made in the USA” is an empty phrase at this point. I always got a kick out of the fact that for socks to be labeled as “made in the USA,” all that needed to be done in this country was…

Yeah, I get what you’re saying, and I’m not proposing that everything the mainstream media does is part of a sinister plutocratic plot to stamp out progressivism. As you say, the vast majority of their actions are driven by profit and market share.

Yeah, the way this debate was moderated and the ensuing coverage from CNN and the other big networks is a great big reminder that the major news networks are not actually news organizations, but simply megaphones for their owners: people with vested interests in killing progressive momentum.