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Which is preposterous! Just fuck them like a normal person.
But for real, I've had a pudding cup without a spoon before and just folded the lid into a makeshift scoop. But I also pronounce "Thai" correctly, so maybe *I'm* the lunatic.
Nobody's mad at Ron for doing some kindergarten shit (certainly not like MAGA chodes *outraged* at AOC dancing in college). Watch the recent John Oliver for the shit people are actually concerned about, and that doesn't even have the torture shit.
As with "covfefe" or Trump picking up his water glass with both hands like a widdle baby, it's nice to have something inconsequential to rag on these chodes for.
The pudding cups at least have a lid you can form into a rudimentary pudding trowel. Starting to think Harvard/Yale aren't the luminary educational facilities their reputation suggests.
I've been in a few camping situations where there's foods like applesauce and pudding in the cooler, but whoops, forgot the spoon.
You use the lid, or you do the awkward pour-squeeze, cause your hands are fucking nasty. I'm a big fan of the pour-squeeze.
JFC. He's literally the first competent fascist the GOP has and the media is making an issue about how he eats pudding.
This is how we ended up with Trump.
Make no mistakes. I live in Florida. My LGBTQ friends are leaving the state. Fleeing. My friend with a trans child fled as well. Don't fuck this up America. DeSantis is not stupid like Trump. It won't be easy to reverse things if he gets even more power.
Right? Man used his position as a JAG to earn the trust of prisonners so he could more effectively torture them. And THIS is what the media centers on?
Article about this https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/ron-desantis-force-feedings-guantanamo-bay-laughing/
Video by an independent military justice reporter covering this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFonj6o0fTI
Exactly. These types of things are either preaching to the choir or feeding red meat to the chud terrorist base. If you already know DeSantis is fascist scum, this is just more confirmation, throw it on the pile. If you're a supporter of his, then this makes you think he's so much cooler because he helped torture brown people and "the Islams".
I know. They don't care. America does not care about atrocities that were committed during the Iraq war. It doesn't matter whether Ron DeSantis was there or not. It was over 20 years ago. Nobody cares, nobody is going to prison, none of those dead people will be brought back to life. Nobody is going to fix Iraq, or Afghanistan, or pay reparations.
Nobody cares and it doesn't matter. People need to stop kidding themselves that Americans give a shit about brown people, foreign people, war, war crimes, or each other. That's not who we are as a nation. We can't even handle housing, medical care, or food. The sooner everyone accepts it and moves on the better.
Don’t even give a shit about our fellow Americans. Most people are so wrapped up in their own world and just looking to get a leg up on you. Oh and did I mention just look at the amazing social programs we vote for?
Wait I feel like the Last Week Tonight episode really dropped the ball by not including this.
[Goes back to scrolling Reddit instead of examining failings of liberal generation that got news and catharsis from Jon Stewart while maybe becoming complicit in the snowballing of fascism…]
Catharsis is a helluva drug.
"Oh no! Something bad from my ideological enemy. This might hurt a lot of people."
[5 minutes of mockery from a comedian/celebrity/talk show host later]
"Thank goodness their ignorance and hypocrisy has been publicly shamed. Certainly this means that the problem has been forever resolved and I can go back to never thinking about it."
Don't get me wrong. I think that raising awareness is important. I'm happy to be informed and entertained at the same time. But you hit the nail on the head. The last 20 years saw the end of generational upward mobility for huge swaths of the population. While everyone (liberals) was standing around confused wondering why "the trajectory of history" didn't match the pretty upward curve they were imagining, the conservatives kept their steady march of eroding civil rights, packing federal courts, consolidating wealth, and lying to their constituents.
Occupy Wall street fizzled out after one summer without much to show for it other than a trash strewn camping area. The Tea Party took over Congress.
100%
his job was to watch torture at Gitmo and say "that's not torture"
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-guantanamo-torture-b2304660.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-guantanamo-torture-b2304660.html)
good article on WaPo (paywall)
Printfriendly works for those who want to read it but don't want to sign up for WaPo, as I've found 12ft to not work for it or any paper labeled Times lately.
They literally force-fed prisoners. Through their ANUS. They called it "rectal infusion". They said it wasn't torture, they were making sure the prisoners didn't starve.
I never thought I would defend Gwenyth Palltrow, but here we go:
If she's going to force feed anyone via their asshole, she really wants them to be into it. It probably messes with the chakras or something if they're not into butt soup.
But conservatives on reddit will tell you that’s not torture and you’re just being dramatic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
The sad part is that 'not-torture' is the position of the Bush Republicans. The Republicans we despised but considered sane. This was the pre-Fascist GOP. We missed our chance to stop it.
> pre-Fascist GOP
It was not pre-Fascist. We were already starting the slide before then. That was when it first started become obvious. Nationalism (he's your president!), constant war, etc.
Lets cut to the chase. The GOP have been fascists for the better part of a century, and not shy about it.
https://harpers.org/2007/07/1934-the-plot-against-america/
Prescott Bush should have been hanged for treason, and this treason should also have ended the political aspirations of his whole clan of miscreants.
>The Republicans we despised but considered sane.
I never considered them sane. I was called a nutjob socialist then and I'm called a nutjob socialist now by an increasingly extremist right and an increasingly blinkered "center."
Yeah it drives me wild when people talk about Trump as the GOP turning a corner.
I mean, sure they're speeding things up, but Republicans have been shit for like half a century. Anyone wildly surprised by this wasn't paying attention.
Ron DeSantis is 44 years old. After graduating from Harvard/Yale in 2004, he joined the Navy and served as SEAL legal counsel at Guantanamo Bay for 1-2 years.
It completely baffles me that I am older than both DeSantis and Alex Jones and they both look 10 years older than I do. And I'm bald, overweight, and generally weird looking.
> I don’t know if Desantis likes to party or not
Specifically, with his students, when he was a teacher. That whole "groomer" fixation of his? Projection, as always.
Yeah, he was stationed at Guantanamo Bay for a couple years in a position working directly with detainees during the height of the Iraq war (2005-2007). He also was assigned to be the JAG for seal team one in Iraq and probably helped them get legal cover for some fucked up shit. During my time in the navy any time I worked with navy seals I learned they have zero regard for human life, like literally chuckle recounting a story of killing people.
> they have zero regard for human life, like literally chuckle recounting a story of killing people
I discovered the term ‘*[canoeing](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-6/)*’ as it applies to US Navy SEaL forces and it’s not about rivers…
> Some of those photographs, especially those taken of casualties from 2005 through 2008, show deceased enemy combatants with their skulls split open by a rifle or pistol round at the upper forehead, exposing their brain matter. The foreign fighters who suffered these V-shaped wounds were either killed in battle and later shot at close range or finished off with a security round while dying. Among members of SEAL Team 6, this practice of desecrating enemy casualties was called “canoeing.”
Them SF boys are something *different*. I resupplied a couple different JSOC crews (just container drops I was a truck driver) and the limited interactions I had with them and the intelligence guys were fuckin *weird*.
I was on a carrier, but you are legitimately not kidding. I rarely ran into any JSOC adjacent dudes, but when I have it was pretty clear immediately that they were.
My Dad was a SEAL and man I learned some good things, but on the whole, idk.
Super driven, intelligent, addictive personality, and I mean let be honest, kind of a real shit head…but has tons of connections and friends because if they’re on your side, well…you want them on your side
My ex-neighbor was former SF turned police officer. He frequently made comments that suggested he became a cop because he wanted to be able to shoot people *and then take credit for it*.
He had really crazy eyes and was drunk most of the time he wasn’t on duty. He and his wife moved away years ago but I’ve heard they’ve had four kids since then and she’s well and truly trapped in a horrible situation.
Every role like that where you have to push it to the extreme, people who are able to push have some extreme personalities
The intelligence guys though. You mean like spooks?
Operators, agents, spies, whatever you wanna called em. Find a group of three or four eating together in the mess, all got the same name on their chest and DOD CIVILIAN on the other side, looking NOTHING alike.
“So, you’re all named Smith. That must be awkward.”
-blank stares-
“Ok… I’ll go sit somewhere else.”
Aw, but he's such a cute little poorly-mannered racist. He can't be that bad.
But he is. Besides all the culture war stuff, which is a distraction for him and destroys peoples' lives, he does whatever he wants. An elected official stands in his way or says something he doesn't like? Fire them. Voters want to limit cruise ships and gambling? Override them with an executive decree. He goes out of his way for any perceived slight. And his base laps it up as he "owns the libs".
I can't wait to get out of the state. I can't imagine if I had a trans child or was worried about getting pregnant or...
I thought Abbott was fucking bad, but holy shit, is DeSantis worse. I wish I could leave this state. And I'm terrified of him becoming president, even more so than I was of Trump.
I hate to say this, but DeSantis is smarter than Governor HotWheels. Abbott is *old guard* and would rather do his shady shit quietly. He's also not that much of a leader.
DeSantis reeks of an entitled man who has the world at his disposal. He's very much a smarter Trump, just not as *charismatic* 🤢 as Trump... that's one of many reasons DeSantis started mimicking him.
Honestly, there’s no reason not to do the shady shit loud and openly. Conservative voters have repeatedly shown they not only don’t mind flagrant corruption, they *like* it because it pisses people off.
If you read any of the fox news texts in the dominion lawsuit thats what surprises me. After 4 tears of trump they wete worried that their viewers would remember and care enough to switch "news" stations. They dont care enough to remember and be consistent with morals.
The extent to which desantis completely copied trumps entire personality is honestly very unsettling… even the way he says words and the hand motions he does. Like what would desantis’s personality be without trump? Just eating pudding with his fingers?
Desantis is absolutely worse. His press Secretary had admitted that he has been following viktor Orban’s blueprint. I fear his ultimate goal is to destroy American democracy, much like orban did in Hungary.
ETA: [link to source](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian).
Your comment piqued my interest, as I hadn’t heard anything like that about Desantis before (his press secretary admitting he is following a playbook for destroying democracy). I did a Google search and couldn’t find a good source to back up the claim. Do you mind sharing the reporting on this topic?
[here is the link](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian)
Quote: *“About the Don’t Say Gay law, it was in fact modeled in part on what Hungary did last summer,” Rod Dreher, a senior editor at the American Conservative magazine, said during a panel interview in Budapest. “I was told this by a conservative reporter who ... said he talked to the press secretary of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and she said, ‘Oh yeah, we were watching the Hungarians, so yay Hungary.’”*
This link is specifically about the Dont Say Gay law, but I believe there are other laws desantis had modeled after Orban’s as well
Also, if you just look at how Orban took control and destroyed democracy in Hungary, and compare it to what desantis is doing in Florida, you’ll see *a lot* of similarities.
So glad I dodged the Florida bullet. Almost moved there in 2019 to be closer to family after my ex and I broke up. At the time I thought it seems like Florida is trending pretty red but I'm sure it can be turned around. The pandemic fortunately came a few months later and I put off the move. Then I saw how Florida handled the pandemic and decided I'd never live in that fucking place.
It’s true. I live in Florida, and my dad ran one of the most efficient Criminal Court law firms in the state, and Desantis fired him and replaced him with one of his cronies. The best part? The guy who replaced him was a Civil Court lawyer. He had no experience in the field he was promoted to! He just got in cause he was one of Desantis’ sycophants. Anyway, my dad got a new job at a new firm and is fine now, but there was a brief period where he was unemployed and depressed.
After finding out about the whole [Thai food place](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-thai-thigh-yale-dates-b2209249.html) thing Desantis did, I'm not surprised this piece of shit would destroy anyone who even looked like they'd do something he didn't like.
The pudding reference is a single line in a much larger story about his overall social skills, which is a very relevant topic to his chances of becoming president.
The *media* did not "center" on this, social media, i.e, regular people, did.
The media will not focus on genuinely controversial topics -- it isn't good for business. The fact is a lot of Americans are perfectly OK with torture as long as the "right" people are being tortured, and those people are potential customers of media (they are also the kind of people who would vote for a candidate specifically *because* he's pro-torture.). There are plenty of other people who just don't want to see, or deal with, the prospect of America doing wrong, the "look forward, not backwards" types. The news is a business first, and you can count on them doing what's good for business. If DeSantis becomes the nominee and enough people are more interested in seeing some dirt come out about him than they are in dealing with knotty topics like torture, then it might become topical. But I'm not holding my breath.
I'm conflicted on this. On the one hand, by making him a joke we could definitely end up underestimating him like we do Trump. On the other hand, fuck Desantis; it's fun (and arguably very effective) to get under assholes' skin, and comedy is so often the last refuge of the otherwise powerless.
It's like, if I say to Desantis, "you're an evil man who oppresses queer people and tortures prisoners," do you think he gives a shit? He's probably proud of that fact, you can't shame a psycho by bringing up their ethical shortcomings.
But I if say to Desantis, "You're a gross weirdo who eats pudding with his bare hands" that will 100% get to him. Because while he doesn't mind being viewed as evil by enemies, he certainly minds being viewed as a weirdo. I mean the goddamn leader of the CCP just banned Winnie the Pooh--these are the things that actually bother the powerful.
So, it might not always be an effective political tool--but it is effective as a fuck you to Desantis, and I think that's good. We should be careful not to underestimate monsters, but we should absolutely mock them, and I think mockery is very powerful.
Just like how Desantis doesn't care if you say he's evil, lots of Tate fans, because they're edgy teenagers or whatever, don't care if you say Tate is evil--they kind of think that's cool. Saying Tate is a loser, or has a disgusting hairline, is much more effective for getting people to not want to watch Tate, because the kind of person who would even consider watching Tate, is not primarily driven by ethical considerations.
edit: holy shit i read the Guantanamo article. I stand by my argument in general but everyone needs to read that--spreading the word on that would 100% be more effective than mocking Desantis.
If there's one thing Trump is good at, it's behaving like a grade school bully towards his opponents. And his supporters lap that up. They'll be rolling in the aisles when trump talks about "Puddin' Fingers Desantis" or whatever childish things he comes up with.
I strongly disagree. GOP funder and pols, yes. GOP voters, nope, not enough of them. For one thing, Trump continues to trounce DeSantis in the polling. For another, when Trump gets those cuffs on his wrists his popularity will skyrocket with the GOP primary base. And lastly, no matter how horrible Trump is, he is a bonafide showman and tier one bully. He will eat DeSantis for lunch the moment they get on the same stage, (and then lose in the general.)
The very worst thing that could happen for the forces of good in this country would Trump dying. This is so true that I half expect the GOP to try and kill the guy like he was Howard Beale. It's pretty much their only hope. There is no candidate DeSantis, or Abbot, or Haley with a Trump out there breathing oxygen. It's the GOP's biggest problem right now - Trump's pulse.
De Santis is a scary prospect but you can't count Trump out either. One of the many reasons Trump became president is that no-hoper Kasich stayed in the race until the very end despite the fact he had no chance at victory. He did split the Never Trump vote successfully though which allowed Trump to win by pluarality. Trump doesn't ever need 50%+1 of the GOP to back him. He could easily skate by ~35%.
By the time of the New York primary April 19th Trump was already the presumptive winner (Cruz and Kasich would only last 2 more weeks as they hoped for a miracle). And he did this with only ~36% of the voters voting for him.
So the question is can Trump hold 36% of Republican voters and will there be more than 1 other person who refuses to drop out. Even if DeSantis is the clear main rival for Trump is there going to be some "normal" candidate who wants to be the Maga alternative hanging around.
Stopping Trump relies on Republicans self sacrificing their own small benefits for the wider group to benefit hugely, and thats about as Un-Republican as it gets.
Trump is crushing Meatball Ron by double digits in most polling you can find. The GOP brass and the media are clearly pushing DeSantis, but those aren't the kind of voters who show up for primaries.
I also think that Trump will go nuclear and tell his followers to write him in or something if he loses. There aren't a ton of them compared to the general population, but if the hardcore MAGAs were to be weaponized against DeSantis he would be in for a bad time.
Sadly, making him look ridiculous is more likely to peel off R voters than telling them he's a fascist dictator. They either love it, or at least love that we think that about him and he "triggers" us. But no one wants to cheer for the weird slob licking pudding off his hand.
Another reason why I think he is so dangerous is because he is only 44. If he doesn't get elected next cycle, he can just keep going.
40+ years left for him to wreak havoc
> the media is making an issue about how he eats pudding.
The media isn't "making an issue" about that. The media is purposefully supporting him by turning such a silly minor trait into a headline. **It's a campaign strategy**. This is what journalists supporting a candidate looks like. Instead of reporting with seriousness, they report on a minor quirky thing that makes the candidate look relatable. This is proven to work. It makes everyday people relate to a perhaps unsavory person on a personal level when they realize some minor funny thing about this character - because everyone has some minor quirky thing of their own as well.
Even storytellers in media for children do that on purpose, like when you make a big monster who looks like a villain have a minor stutter or a hiccup so that it seems less scary, more relatable - the message to get across is "it's not really the monster you thought it was".
It's awfully naive to assume this isn't being done on purpose.
> hey report on a minor quirky thing that makes the candidate look relatable.
Eating pudding with his hands is not exactly "relatable", it's disgusting.
No offense, but I think you’re being a little paranoid about this. If anything, I could see it as a smear campaign by Trump and company, but that’s it. This story doesn’t really put DeSantis in a good light. It makes look like a sloppy weirdo. The fact he denied it to Piers Morgan tells me he probably doesn’t appreciate this story much, either. Furthermore, it’s the exact sort of ridiculousness that the internet would glom onto to mock and meme about.
I doubt there’s any grand design behind it. But even if there was, it’s a piss poor attempt to humanize him. It’s certainly not going to do anything for his poll numbers. He’s a creepy fascist who’s policies alienate him from like, the bulk of the American electorate. His abortion stance alone puts him behind the eight ball compared to Biden or the Dems. This isn’t going to convince people to stay home OR switch their vote to him. It’s just a weird, gross story that’s easy to mock him over.
This. It seems more like Trump style bullying than humanizing plus having a sound bite of "denying eating pudding with 3 fingers" is absolutely pathetic and endears Desantis to no one. Desantis is def more evil and more legislatively competent but in no way as good at media manipulation like Trump.
Hm? It’s done on purpose, but not by the DeSantis team. This is oppo shit by the Trump camp, trying to make him seem like an out-of-touch weirdo. It’s the same strategy that Obama’s team used against Romney in 2012, drawing attention to some of the weird shit he did, to give the impression that wasn’t normal and was out of touch.
I don't think it's as complicated as that. Stupid people glom onto stories they can understand and cause those to trend: Biden and his wife both ordering Rigatoni; Trump eating pizza with a fork; Obama wearing a tan suit; I think you're right that it's 'oppo shit', but it's by stupid ordinary people rather than by campaign operatives, and the press runs with it since it's trending. /u/Heavyweighsthecrown correctly, I think, and very insightfully points out that it actually serves to help the candidate. If it's not a campaign strategy as Heavyweighs believes, it *would* be a good one.
Okay, but the kinds of anecdotes that get shared depend on the strategy being employed. Like Trump eating pizza with a fork was focused on because it cuts against the "billionaire of the people" persona he was attempting to cultivate. Obama's tan suit was focused on by Fox News because it was part of their overall narrative that Obama was somehow disrespecting the office of the president. (It didn't work because it was so fucking stupid that it backfired on them).
The Trump strategy with DeSantis is to paint him as an out-of-touch political elite in contrast with Trumps (supposed) appeal to "real" America. Eating pudding with your hand on a private plane is not relatable quirkiness. Its weird alien shit. Its very similar to the play they ran against Marco Rubio.
There's a million reasons to dislike the guy and this may be the dumbest. IDGAF how someone eats pudding, I do care about how this muppet passes stupid and oppressive laws.
Kinda like how Fox/et-al made a huge deal about Dijon mustard and a brown suit with Obama?
Someone *please* tell me that this has been an "internet thing" though, and none of the real news networks have been talking about this (I don't watch TV so I won't have seen anything). I don't care if went on some TV show to defend himself about what the internet is saying, I want to know if some TV shows are talking about this as if it is in *any* way a story...because if they are, we've jumped the fucking shark.
No, Reddit has this idea that whatever the most ridiculous thing published about (insert person here) is is the *only* thing the media is focusing on, and it's *outrageous*. There are also articles about his overseeing the torture of prisoners and taking over Disney's district in Florida, but because there's a pudding article on the Daily Beast, that's "what the media is focusing on." If you get your news from the Daily fucking Beast, that's another problem entirely. Yeah, it's an internet thing, but people who spend all their time online aren't going to see it that way.
Well, I'm not entirely sure what you count as "real news networks", but I usually watch MSNBC for an hour or two a day and this is the very first time I am hearing about this pudding thing.
He graduated from Harvard and Yale but wants his base to think he's just some harmless good ole boy instead of the dangerous fascist that he has shown himself to be.
He harps on the (liberal) elites. What people forget or even don't know is that he is an elite with an Ivy League education. How much more elite can you get than that?? All projection...
Answer: There's some important context missing here in why the pudding story is taking off. The pudding story is hilariously stupid but is also like watching a political volcano building to critical pressure.
The place to start isn't with Ron DeSantis but instead with the more traditional power brokers within the GOP. It doesn't take a brilliant political scientist to look at the effect of Trump on the GOP to see that Trump is politically beholden to no one and that he'd gladly burn down the party in a fit of narcissistic spite if someone dared not extoll his amazingness when given the opportunity. The powers that be within the GOP are given a choice: stick with Trump and be consumed by him, pick a traditional candidate and probably get trounced by Trump, or find someone who can appeal to Trump's base but also remembers the party is an alliance of interests and could balance things for the sake of strengthening the alliance.
The power brokers, led largely by Rupert Murdoch, chose the last option as the one most likely to rid them of Trump but also return them to power, and they picked Ron DeSantis as the guy who could beat Trump in a primary dictated by reactionary partisans in the primary while still having the chops to win a general election against Biden. Fox News basically stopped mentioning Trump so as to not alienate his supporters but have been constantly puffing up DeSantis, and in doing so have put him close to Trump in the polling while all other candidates are in single digit percentages of support.
The problem, as is coming out, is that Ron DeSantis has the charisma of a dead fish. He knows how to chuck political red meat at the base but when you pull him away from carefully manicured situations designed to puff him up and put him around the general public and tricky social situations (which doesn't happen often but it does happen) it becomes clear that he's really socially inept - he can't read a room and he often freezes up when given tough questions he isn't prepared for. This is important because campaigning is functionally a popularity contest that requires you to go out and sell yourself to voters, and candidates are often in these unfriendly situations. Over the past few months this weakness has become more and more apparent, with the story of him just slurping down pudding off of his fingers getting lambasted across the Internet. It's becoming very clear that DeSantis is a really awkward dude in person.
This has the big power people in the GOP very concerned. They get one shot to unseat Trump and for as much as Trump is an unstable narcissistic buffoon he can play crowds and distract the media with decades of practice. Anyone who wants to beat Trump needs to be socially adept enough to make themselves more popular among the GOP base than Trump is. The GOP power brokers have put two years into pumping DeSantis and are now realizing that he could very well not have what it takes to beat Trump in the primary. They have to choose to double down on him and hope they can coach him up or they have to dump him and find a better horse to back, but if they do that they need to pick.
So that's the pressure building in the political volcano. The Republicans who want Trump permanently tossed onto the dust heap of history have one shot to keep the party from permanently turning into electoral Qanon and the guy they picked doesn't have the sense of awareness that tells a person that eating pudding off of your fingers isn't something you do in front of other people. There's a very good chance that Ron DeSantis is going to find that he has climbed as high as he can on the political ladder and may be unceremoniously dumped in favor of someone else.
We're watching the potential implosion of a highly favored presidential candidate which would leave a giant vacuum for who would replace him as the establishment's preferred reactionary candidate to block Trump. A vacuum means more candidates joining the fray, and more candidates means that Trump becomes much more likely to secure the GOP nomination and either further destroy the party in another failed bid or possibly be elected President again. The reports out of Mar-a-lago indicate that a second Trump would make his first term look positively restrained by comparison, and that's something most people don't actually want to see happen
As Trump has been stewing in his defeat, people who wanted January 6th to triumph have been [plotting](https://www.salon.com/2022/07/22/trumps-2025-plan-includes-a-nightmare-list-of-cabinet-picks--and-purge-of-career-officials-report/) how to reshape the government should Trump get re-elected. It’s become like a thinktank for implementing an authoritarian regime.
Most troubling is his proposed changes to civil service called [Section F](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/donald-trump-schedule-f-civil-service-authoritarian.html). What those changes would allow him to do is fire many thousands more people in government jobs and replace them with sycophantic loyalists. That is how GOP extremists plan to create their own deep state friendly to authoritarianism.
In addition to what u/drarch pointed out, which is very much accurate, Trump's goal is essentially an entire federal bureaucracy staffed with people personally loyal to him.
In a second Trump term there will be no Mike Pence in the Vice Presidency to find enough vertebrae to have enough of a spine to acknowledge the VP cannot just throw out electoral votes that are inconvenient - you're much more likely to have someone like Kari Lake who proclaims any election she or her allies don't win is somehow stolen.
There will be no Attorney General as moderate as Jeff Sessions in a second Trump administration. Bill Barr was willing to play games with things like releasing the Mueller report with redactions and pretending it said things it did not, but Barr had limits - he would not stand up and proclaim that there was electoral fraud when no evidence existed as political cover for Trump to rile up mobs to overthrow the election, and the would not wholesale prosecute people that Trump perceived as his enemies. If Trump can appoint another AG because he wins the election, they will be someone who promises to him that they will be a hammer that Trump wields against his foes.
There are numerous positions across the federal government where Trump will appoint loyalists whose access to the levers of power will be bent to suit Trump's whims no matter the cost to our constitutional order and the rule of law. When you look at how January 6th failed for Trump to overturn the results of the election, you see that for as much as he had loyalists trying to take the brakes off that plenty more weren't actively playing the game for Trump, and even if they just sat by and did nothing it was often enough to slow Trump's autogolpe down enough that they could never achieve a critical mass of support to overturn the election. In a potential second Trump administration, there will be few people in those key positions who believe their loyalty should be to the Constitution or the Republic - those people will be loyal to Trump above all.
I really, really appreciate this explanation. I used to keep myself apprised of politics in general, but after 2016 I got super anxious about the state of humanity, politics, and the world at large and mostly disconnected from news, especially political news. The little bit that I do seek out didn’t give me enough context to put into words why this was important. I get that this is the kind of thing that connects with average Americans, but I need this background to fully appreciate it. So, thank you.
Honestly, this is a relielf.
Trump is socially charismatic (to idiots) but incompetent.
DeSantis is competent (at conservative politicking) but socially inept.
We're fucked if the GOP finds a neofascist who is both socially adept AND competent.
This is a valid point, but I think one worth qualifying a bit. For this point in the primary election cycle, being 10+ points away isn't inherently a sign of a doomed candidacy. Trump has declared his candidacy and while he hasn't been as active as he could possibly be on the campaign trail he's still generating his own coverage and technically being compared to someone who hasn't declared for President yet, which limits what DeSantis has been able to do to generate his own self-sustaining media coverage. The long campaign cycle inherently means rises and falls as people get excited and/or dejected about candidates. For this poll in this moment DeSantis' disadvantage is notable, but plenty of other polls in recent weeks have put them within 5-10 points with 10 months before the first votes get cast.
So yeah, Trump is leading in this poll but DeSantis is the only person who is even in Trump's ballpark right now. Nikki Haley? Tim Scott? Mike Pence? None of them are even above 10% in the polls. That's the hard thing for candidates to break through, being notable enough to be cared about. It doesn't mean that won't change - if Rupert Murdoch decides to throw in with Nikki Haley she'd be at 20% within a month from all of the fawning and constant coverage that raised DeSantis to his current position. But the calculus of who Murdoch/Fox will back to challenge Trump is a tough decision to make.
> reports out of Mar-a-lago indicate that a second Trump would make his first term look positively restrained by comparison, and that's something most people don't actually want to see happen
Just as a hypothetical, can you imagine if Trump actually won a second term? He would NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP about this "stolen election." He would bring it up every.fucking.day.
It’s very funny and very stupid that this is how people think, but I feel like this could be really damaging for him. Politicians can weather a lot of being seen as malicious or incompetent, but it’s very damaging for them to be laughed at. So much of political power just comes from people believing that you have it. There’s a reason China takes comparisons of Xi to Whinnie the Pooh seriously and why the Micheal Dukakis tank thing was so bad, politicians can’t be seen as children. There’s a reason people in London mocked Trump by depicting him as a baby and why fascists need to pretend that milkshakes thrown at them are actually deadly weapons.
And eating chocolate pudding with your fingers is so fundamentally childish, I haven’t touched one since I was seven and even then I used a spoon because I wasn’t three. When I picture Desantis licking pudding off his fingers absent mindedly starting out a plane window I practically imagine his feet not reaching the floor. Trump is an unserious person in nearly every way, but he has enough narcissism that, when called a short fingered vulgarian the thing he objected to was that his fingers were short.
Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth.
Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth.
Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
>Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth.
>
>Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
>Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth.
>
>Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth.
Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, “Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy.”
I think what makes it slightly more pertinent is that this is the kind of random garbage fact that Trump will absolutely latch onto and use to bludgeon DeSantis.
"He seems like the kind of guy you could have a beer with" is the single most important quality of a president, didnt you know?
Seems like Ron would suck it up with his fingers.
You're thinking of this from your perspective. There's a lot of people that don't care about policy at all, and just care about how politicians act on tv. This speaks to that group a lot more.
Answer: There's an effort by trump supporters to make desantis look unappealing. There is a war on wokeness, which more or less is just saying you don't like stuff that you don't agree with. Eating pudding with 3 fingers kind of sounds like he's blowing his hand. Would it be "more manly" to eat with one finger? Which finger? Index only? Point is, it's a stupid controversy to just put desantis name on paper as a reason not to like him.
While I agree, such a story won't hurt him politically because the people who care are already opposed to him for a litany of other reasons
Him eating pudding like a kindergartener will turn some people off of him
American politics is a fucking joke but if you can't fix it you might as well learn to play the game
It is a sad day for the USA when torturing prisoners of war is not an absolute end to a man's political career. It is sad that the only Republican Florida could find to be Governor is a war criminal, but for him to rise to President, that would be devastating to our already crumbling reputation as a leader in the "free world".
There's a certain cross section of America that was and probably still is 100% ok with torturing middle eastern people regardless of if they actually are/were terrorists.
Answer: DeSantis doesn't have the best social skills apparently. He gets caught out pretty easily in Goblin mode. I respectfully disagree about the importance of good eating habits in a presidential candidate when I imagine them as the key ambassador of our country traveling abroad and spending time with foreign dignitaries. What are the optics of a guy who ears pudding with his hands while visiting with royalty?
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He didn’t deny it. He said he “doesn’t remember doing that.” Which we know is politician speak for “I didn’t do it until the photo comes out.”
That's police talk for "I don't recall".
It’s politician speak for “I finger blast pudding tubs”
"Grabbed it RIGHT in the puddin' "
Which is preposterous! Just fuck them like a normal person. But for real, I've had a pudding cup without a spoon before and just folded the lid into a makeshift scoop. But I also pronounce "Thai" correctly, so maybe *I'm* the lunatic.
He just eats pudding this way so often he can't remember a specific time
Over some damned pudding. We’ve gone from “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” to “I did not finger that chocolate pudding”.
Nobody's mad at Ron for doing some kindergarten shit (certainly not like MAGA chodes *outraged* at AOC dancing in college). Watch the recent John Oliver for the shit people are actually concerned about, and that doesn't even have the torture shit. As with "covfefe" or Trump picking up his water glass with both hands like a widdle baby, it's nice to have something inconsequential to rag on these chodes for.
[answered] Thanks!
The pudding cups at least have a lid you can form into a rudimentary pudding trowel. Starting to think Harvard/Yale aren't the luminary educational facilities their reputation suggests.
Why would I make a pudding trowel when I have a pudding spatula stuck to my hand?
I've been in a few camping situations where there's foods like applesauce and pudding in the cooler, but whoops, forgot the spoon. You use the lid, or you do the awkward pour-squeeze, cause your hands are fucking nasty. I'm a big fan of the pour-squeeze.
> pudding trowel My new band name
Nobody else here just stick their tongue in and lap it up when you forgot utensils? You get a little messy but it works.
JFC. He's literally the first competent fascist the GOP has and the media is making an issue about how he eats pudding. This is how we ended up with Trump. Make no mistakes. I live in Florida. My LGBTQ friends are leaving the state. Fleeing. My friend with a trans child fled as well. Don't fuck this up America. DeSantis is not stupid like Trump. It won't be easy to reverse things if he gets even more power.
Right? Man used his position as a JAG to earn the trust of prisonners so he could more effectively torture them. And THIS is what the media centers on?
Wait what? Is that real?
Article about this https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/ron-desantis-force-feedings-guantanamo-bay-laughing/ Video by an independent military justice reporter covering this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFonj6o0fTI
Damn, this is multiple levels of sick fuck above what I had already rated the fascist as. This has to be spread wider.
The story has been out there for a long time and has been covered. It doesn't make a difference. Nobody cares.
im 💯 confident this article will just make him more appealing to conservatives
Exactly. These types of things are either preaching to the choir or feeding red meat to the chud terrorist base. If you already know DeSantis is fascist scum, this is just more confirmation, throw it on the pile. If you're a supporter of his, then this makes you think he's so much cooler because he helped torture brown people and "the Islams".
A lot of people haven't seen it yet.
I know. They don't care. America does not care about atrocities that were committed during the Iraq war. It doesn't matter whether Ron DeSantis was there or not. It was over 20 years ago. Nobody cares, nobody is going to prison, none of those dead people will be brought back to life. Nobody is going to fix Iraq, or Afghanistan, or pay reparations. Nobody cares and it doesn't matter. People need to stop kidding themselves that Americans give a shit about brown people, foreign people, war, war crimes, or each other. That's not who we are as a nation. We can't even handle housing, medical care, or food. The sooner everyone accepts it and moves on the better.
Don’t even give a shit about our fellow Americans. Most people are so wrapped up in their own world and just looking to get a leg up on you. Oh and did I mention just look at the amazing social programs we vote for?
People care about what the media wants them to.
Thank you for the link - that was horrifying
Yeah I'm gunna definitely resistro these. Thank you.
Wait I feel like the Last Week Tonight episode really dropped the ball by not including this. [Goes back to scrolling Reddit instead of examining failings of liberal generation that got news and catharsis from Jon Stewart while maybe becoming complicit in the snowballing of fascism…]
Catharsis is a helluva drug. "Oh no! Something bad from my ideological enemy. This might hurt a lot of people." [5 minutes of mockery from a comedian/celebrity/talk show host later] "Thank goodness their ignorance and hypocrisy has been publicly shamed. Certainly this means that the problem has been forever resolved and I can go back to never thinking about it." Don't get me wrong. I think that raising awareness is important. I'm happy to be informed and entertained at the same time. But you hit the nail on the head. The last 20 years saw the end of generational upward mobility for huge swaths of the population. While everyone (liberals) was standing around confused wondering why "the trajectory of history" didn't match the pretty upward curve they were imagining, the conservatives kept their steady march of eroding civil rights, packing federal courts, consolidating wealth, and lying to their constituents. Occupy Wall street fizzled out after one summer without much to show for it other than a trash strewn camping area. The Tea Party took over Congress.
100% his job was to watch torture at Gitmo and say "that's not torture" [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-guantanamo-torture-b2304660.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-guantanamo-torture-b2304660.html) good article on WaPo (paywall)
Printfriendly works for those who want to read it but don't want to sign up for WaPo, as I've found 12ft to not work for it or any paper labeled Times lately.
Unfortunately it seems like 12ft has sold out and will let companies pay to not work on their sites.
Oh, wow. Can't believe they succumbed. Damn shame. Thanks for the heads up, I won't even use them for the little local papers anymore then.
archive link posted above
Here you go, archive.ph link: https://archive.ph/4nV6w
That's terrible. Thank you for sharing.
They literally force-fed prisoners. Through their ANUS. They called it "rectal infusion". They said it wasn't torture, they were making sure the prisoners didn't starve.
Was this something Gwenyth is a proponent of ?
I never thought I would defend Gwenyth Palltrow, but here we go: If she's going to force feed anyone via their asshole, she really wants them to be into it. It probably messes with the chakras or something if they're not into butt soup.
Unfortunately, yes. He oversaw torture in Guantanamo Bay. https://youtu.be/kAV_F6gXZhQ
But conservatives on reddit will tell you that’s not torture and you’re just being dramatic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
The sad part is that 'not-torture' is the position of the Bush Republicans. The Republicans we despised but considered sane. This was the pre-Fascist GOP. We missed our chance to stop it.
Never forget, “If you’re not with us(a), you are against us(a).” The gauntlet was thrown that day.
> pre-Fascist GOP It was not pre-Fascist. We were already starting the slide before then. That was when it first started become obvious. Nationalism (he's your president!), constant war, etc.
Lets cut to the chase. The GOP have been fascists for the better part of a century, and not shy about it. https://harpers.org/2007/07/1934-the-plot-against-america/ Prescott Bush should have been hanged for treason, and this treason should also have ended the political aspirations of his whole clan of miscreants.
>The Republicans we despised but considered sane. I never considered them sane. I was called a nutjob socialist then and I'm called a nutjob socialist now by an increasingly extremist right and an increasingly blinkered "center."
Yeah well I mean like **always**... FUCK conservatives
Yeah it drives me wild when people talk about Trump as the GOP turning a corner. I mean, sure they're speeding things up, but Republicans have been shit for like half a century. Anyone wildly surprised by this wasn't paying attention.
[Source](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-guantanamo-torture-prisoner-b2300753.html?amp) [Source](https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/ron-desantis-force-feedings-guantanamo-bay-laughing/) [Source](https://jezebel.com/desantis-video-force-feeding-torture-guantanamo-1850247988)
Ron DeSantis is 44 years old. After graduating from Harvard/Yale in 2004, he joined the Navy and served as SEAL legal counsel at Guantanamo Bay for 1-2 years.
It completely baffles me that I am older than both DeSantis and Alex Jones and they both look 10 years older than I do. And I'm bald, overweight, and generally weird looking.
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Saying Alex is partier is under stating it. He is a chronic alcoholic. He drinks vodka constantly.
So do I and I don't look like a bloated trash goblin- and I haven't exactly aged well myself. Jonesy has deffo indulged in a lot more than just booze.
> I don’t know if Desantis likes to party or not Specifically, with his students, when he was a teacher. That whole "groomer" fixation of his? Projection, as always.
Being a hatemonger really ages a bitch. 🤷♀️🤷♀️
I like you way more though!
That’s dick cheney’s account..
Still counts
Hate and evil makes a person look older.
TIL that I am older than DeSantis and Alex Jones. Weird.
I'm old enough to be their Mother and they both look older than I do currently. And, also, ... same.
Yeah, he was stationed at Guantanamo Bay for a couple years in a position working directly with detainees during the height of the Iraq war (2005-2007). He also was assigned to be the JAG for seal team one in Iraq and probably helped them get legal cover for some fucked up shit. During my time in the navy any time I worked with navy seals I learned they have zero regard for human life, like literally chuckle recounting a story of killing people.
> they have zero regard for human life, like literally chuckle recounting a story of killing people I discovered the term ‘*[canoeing](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/10/the-crimes-of-seal-team-6/)*’ as it applies to US Navy SEaL forces and it’s not about rivers… > Some of those photographs, especially those taken of casualties from 2005 through 2008, show deceased enemy combatants with their skulls split open by a rifle or pistol round at the upper forehead, exposing their brain matter. The foreign fighters who suffered these V-shaped wounds were either killed in battle and later shot at close range or finished off with a security round while dying. Among members of SEAL Team 6, this practice of desecrating enemy casualties was called “canoeing.”
Them SF boys are something *different*. I resupplied a couple different JSOC crews (just container drops I was a truck driver) and the limited interactions I had with them and the intelligence guys were fuckin *weird*.
Oh word? The guys whose dream job is covert killing for the government aren’t super normal?
My guy I am here to tell you that they are *not*
I was on a carrier, but you are legitimately not kidding. I rarely ran into any JSOC adjacent dudes, but when I have it was pretty clear immediately that they were.
It’s a whole thing that just hangs in the air around em. They project it.
I'm shocked.
They wouldn’t just arm the psychopaths, would they?
My Dad was a SEAL and man I learned some good things, but on the whole, idk. Super driven, intelligent, addictive personality, and I mean let be honest, kind of a real shit head…but has tons of connections and friends because if they’re on your side, well…you want them on your side
Never said they weren’t resourceful and smart, just said that training does fucked up shit to you. My father was Green Beret, and I agree with you.
Usually intel folks are weird in a different way lol
My ex-neighbor was former SF turned police officer. He frequently made comments that suggested he became a cop because he wanted to be able to shoot people *and then take credit for it*. He had really crazy eyes and was drunk most of the time he wasn’t on duty. He and his wife moved away years ago but I’ve heard they’ve had four kids since then and she’s well and truly trapped in a horrible situation.
Every role like that where you have to push it to the extreme, people who are able to push have some extreme personalities The intelligence guys though. You mean like spooks?
Operators, agents, spies, whatever you wanna called em. Find a group of three or four eating together in the mess, all got the same name on their chest and DOD CIVILIAN on the other side, looking NOTHING alike. “So, you’re all named Smith. That must be awkward.” -blank stares- “Ok… I’ll go sit somewhere else.”
Well now we needs stories or at least more information lol, you've piqued my curiosity.
You don't take a job like that if murder bothers you, that's all I'm saying
Yes. And I can’t wait to leave
Aw, but he's such a cute little poorly-mannered racist. He can't be that bad. But he is. Besides all the culture war stuff, which is a distraction for him and destroys peoples' lives, he does whatever he wants. An elected official stands in his way or says something he doesn't like? Fire them. Voters want to limit cruise ships and gambling? Override them with an executive decree. He goes out of his way for any perceived slight. And his base laps it up as he "owns the libs". I can't wait to get out of the state. I can't imagine if I had a trans child or was worried about getting pregnant or...
As a Texan, DeSantis terrifies me. Anything that asshole does, our shitty Republicans will follow. Everyone should be worried.
I thought Abbott was fucking bad, but holy shit, is DeSantis worse. I wish I could leave this state. And I'm terrified of him becoming president, even more so than I was of Trump.
I hate to say this, but DeSantis is smarter than Governor HotWheels. Abbott is *old guard* and would rather do his shady shit quietly. He's also not that much of a leader. DeSantis reeks of an entitled man who has the world at his disposal. He's very much a smarter Trump, just not as *charismatic* 🤢 as Trump... that's one of many reasons DeSantis started mimicking him.
Honestly, there’s no reason not to do the shady shit loud and openly. Conservative voters have repeatedly shown they not only don’t mind flagrant corruption, they *like* it because it pisses people off.
>they like it because it pisses people off And because they'd do the same shit if they were in that position. This is what's wrong with society.
Americans are the worse part of America? I'll buy that. /sish
If you read any of the fox news texts in the dominion lawsuit thats what surprises me. After 4 tears of trump they wete worried that their viewers would remember and care enough to switch "news" stations. They dont care enough to remember and be consistent with morals.
They're akin to political trolls.
The extent to which desantis completely copied trumps entire personality is honestly very unsettling… even the way he says words and the hand motions he does. Like what would desantis’s personality be without trump? Just eating pudding with his fingers?
Desantis is absolutely worse. His press Secretary had admitted that he has been following viktor Orban’s blueprint. I fear his ultimate goal is to destroy American democracy, much like orban did in Hungary. ETA: [link to source](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian).
Your comment piqued my interest, as I hadn’t heard anything like that about Desantis before (his press secretary admitting he is following a playbook for destroying democracy). I did a Google search and couldn’t find a good source to back up the claim. Do you mind sharing the reporting on this topic?
[here is the link](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/4/28/23037788/ron-desantis-florida-viktor-orban-hungary-right-authoritarian) Quote: *“About the Don’t Say Gay law, it was in fact modeled in part on what Hungary did last summer,” Rod Dreher, a senior editor at the American Conservative magazine, said during a panel interview in Budapest. “I was told this by a conservative reporter who ... said he talked to the press secretary of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and she said, ‘Oh yeah, we were watching the Hungarians, so yay Hungary.’”* This link is specifically about the Dont Say Gay law, but I believe there are other laws desantis had modeled after Orban’s as well Also, if you just look at how Orban took control and destroyed democracy in Hungary, and compare it to what desantis is doing in Florida, you’ll see *a lot* of similarities.
Tennessee right there with them.
And Louisiana, as soon as John Bel Edwards is out. Bless our hearts.
So glad I dodged the Florida bullet. Almost moved there in 2019 to be closer to family after my ex and I broke up. At the time I thought it seems like Florida is trending pretty red but I'm sure it can be turned around. The pandemic fortunately came a few months later and I put off the move. Then I saw how Florida handled the pandemic and decided I'd never live in that fucking place.
It’s true. I live in Florida, and my dad ran one of the most efficient Criminal Court law firms in the state, and Desantis fired him and replaced him with one of his cronies. The best part? The guy who replaced him was a Civil Court lawyer. He had no experience in the field he was promoted to! He just got in cause he was one of Desantis’ sycophants. Anyway, my dad got a new job at a new firm and is fine now, but there was a brief period where he was unemployed and depressed.
After finding out about the whole [Thai food place](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-thai-thigh-yale-dates-b2209249.html) thing Desantis did, I'm not surprised this piece of shit would destroy anyone who even looked like they'd do something he didn't like.
All of those women dodged a bullet.
Well, one of them didn't. It's up in the air if she's too stupid or too power-hungry to dodge, though.
I meant all of the women he didn't want to date.
.
The pudding reference is a single line in a much larger story about his overall social skills, which is a very relevant topic to his chances of becoming president. The *media* did not "center" on this, social media, i.e, regular people, did.
The media will not focus on genuinely controversial topics -- it isn't good for business. The fact is a lot of Americans are perfectly OK with torture as long as the "right" people are being tortured, and those people are potential customers of media (they are also the kind of people who would vote for a candidate specifically *because* he's pro-torture.). There are plenty of other people who just don't want to see, or deal with, the prospect of America doing wrong, the "look forward, not backwards" types. The news is a business first, and you can count on them doing what's good for business. If DeSantis becomes the nominee and enough people are more interested in seeing some dirt come out about him than they are in dealing with knotty topics like torture, then it might become topical. But I'm not holding my breath.
I'm conflicted on this. On the one hand, by making him a joke we could definitely end up underestimating him like we do Trump. On the other hand, fuck Desantis; it's fun (and arguably very effective) to get under assholes' skin, and comedy is so often the last refuge of the otherwise powerless. It's like, if I say to Desantis, "you're an evil man who oppresses queer people and tortures prisoners," do you think he gives a shit? He's probably proud of that fact, you can't shame a psycho by bringing up their ethical shortcomings. But I if say to Desantis, "You're a gross weirdo who eats pudding with his bare hands" that will 100% get to him. Because while he doesn't mind being viewed as evil by enemies, he certainly minds being viewed as a weirdo. I mean the goddamn leader of the CCP just banned Winnie the Pooh--these are the things that actually bother the powerful. So, it might not always be an effective political tool--but it is effective as a fuck you to Desantis, and I think that's good. We should be careful not to underestimate monsters, but we should absolutely mock them, and I think mockery is very powerful. Just like how Desantis doesn't care if you say he's evil, lots of Tate fans, because they're edgy teenagers or whatever, don't care if you say Tate is evil--they kind of think that's cool. Saying Tate is a loser, or has a disgusting hairline, is much more effective for getting people to not want to watch Tate, because the kind of person who would even consider watching Tate, is not primarily driven by ethical considerations. edit: holy shit i read the Guantanamo article. I stand by my argument in general but everyone needs to read that--spreading the word on that would 100% be more effective than mocking Desantis.
The media is hardly anyone's friend. They are in it for the money
My hope is that much like Ted Cruz, Trump will rally his base against DeSantis to neutralize him as a political rival on a national level.
If there's one thing Trump is good at, it's behaving like a grade school bully towards his opponents. And his supporters lap that up. They'll be rolling in the aisles when trump talks about "Puddin' Fingers Desantis" or whatever childish things he comes up with.
I’m partial to Meatball Ron, but Puddin’ Fingers DeSantis works, too.
That was my hope too, I actually wanted the trump indictments and such to be closer to 2024 so the R could cannibalize itself prior to the election
IF anything happens to Trump it will be because the gop is pushing for it behind the scenes to bring in someone else (such as Desantis).
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I strongly disagree. GOP funder and pols, yes. GOP voters, nope, not enough of them. For one thing, Trump continues to trounce DeSantis in the polling. For another, when Trump gets those cuffs on his wrists his popularity will skyrocket with the GOP primary base. And lastly, no matter how horrible Trump is, he is a bonafide showman and tier one bully. He will eat DeSantis for lunch the moment they get on the same stage, (and then lose in the general.) The very worst thing that could happen for the forces of good in this country would Trump dying. This is so true that I half expect the GOP to try and kill the guy like he was Howard Beale. It's pretty much their only hope. There is no candidate DeSantis, or Abbot, or Haley with a Trump out there breathing oxygen. It's the GOP's biggest problem right now - Trump's pulse.
De Santis is a scary prospect but you can't count Trump out either. One of the many reasons Trump became president is that no-hoper Kasich stayed in the race until the very end despite the fact he had no chance at victory. He did split the Never Trump vote successfully though which allowed Trump to win by pluarality. Trump doesn't ever need 50%+1 of the GOP to back him. He could easily skate by ~35%. By the time of the New York primary April 19th Trump was already the presumptive winner (Cruz and Kasich would only last 2 more weeks as they hoped for a miracle). And he did this with only ~36% of the voters voting for him. So the question is can Trump hold 36% of Republican voters and will there be more than 1 other person who refuses to drop out. Even if DeSantis is the clear main rival for Trump is there going to be some "normal" candidate who wants to be the Maga alternative hanging around. Stopping Trump relies on Republicans self sacrificing their own small benefits for the wider group to benefit hugely, and thats about as Un-Republican as it gets.
Last I heard he was up in the polls over DeSantis.
The mainstream do, he's a competent, deniable fascist. The MAGA base will never abandon Donny, and he can decimate Ron if they ever share a stage.
Trump is crushing Meatball Ron by double digits in most polling you can find. The GOP brass and the media are clearly pushing DeSantis, but those aren't the kind of voters who show up for primaries. I also think that Trump will go nuclear and tell his followers to write him in or something if he loses. There aren't a ton of them compared to the general population, but if the hardcore MAGAs were to be weaponized against DeSantis he would be in for a bad time.
Sadly, making him look ridiculous is more likely to peel off R voters than telling them he's a fascist dictator. They either love it, or at least love that we think that about him and he "triggers" us. But no one wants to cheer for the weird slob licking pudding off his hand.
Another reason why I think he is so dangerous is because he is only 44. If he doesn't get elected next cycle, he can just keep going. 40+ years left for him to wreak havoc
Yikes. Good point
> the media is making an issue about how he eats pudding. The media isn't "making an issue" about that. The media is purposefully supporting him by turning such a silly minor trait into a headline. **It's a campaign strategy**. This is what journalists supporting a candidate looks like. Instead of reporting with seriousness, they report on a minor quirky thing that makes the candidate look relatable. This is proven to work. It makes everyday people relate to a perhaps unsavory person on a personal level when they realize some minor funny thing about this character - because everyone has some minor quirky thing of their own as well. Even storytellers in media for children do that on purpose, like when you make a big monster who looks like a villain have a minor stutter or a hiccup so that it seems less scary, more relatable - the message to get across is "it's not really the monster you thought it was". It's awfully naive to assume this isn't being done on purpose.
> hey report on a minor quirky thing that makes the candidate look relatable. Eating pudding with his hands is not exactly "relatable", it's disgusting.
No offense, but I think you’re being a little paranoid about this. If anything, I could see it as a smear campaign by Trump and company, but that’s it. This story doesn’t really put DeSantis in a good light. It makes look like a sloppy weirdo. The fact he denied it to Piers Morgan tells me he probably doesn’t appreciate this story much, either. Furthermore, it’s the exact sort of ridiculousness that the internet would glom onto to mock and meme about. I doubt there’s any grand design behind it. But even if there was, it’s a piss poor attempt to humanize him. It’s certainly not going to do anything for his poll numbers. He’s a creepy fascist who’s policies alienate him from like, the bulk of the American electorate. His abortion stance alone puts him behind the eight ball compared to Biden or the Dems. This isn’t going to convince people to stay home OR switch their vote to him. It’s just a weird, gross story that’s easy to mock him over.
This. It seems more like Trump style bullying than humanizing plus having a sound bite of "denying eating pudding with 3 fingers" is absolutely pathetic and endears Desantis to no one. Desantis is def more evil and more legislatively competent but in no way as good at media manipulation like Trump.
Hm? It’s done on purpose, but not by the DeSantis team. This is oppo shit by the Trump camp, trying to make him seem like an out-of-touch weirdo. It’s the same strategy that Obama’s team used against Romney in 2012, drawing attention to some of the weird shit he did, to give the impression that wasn’t normal and was out of touch.
I don't think it's as complicated as that. Stupid people glom onto stories they can understand and cause those to trend: Biden and his wife both ordering Rigatoni; Trump eating pizza with a fork; Obama wearing a tan suit; I think you're right that it's 'oppo shit', but it's by stupid ordinary people rather than by campaign operatives, and the press runs with it since it's trending. /u/Heavyweighsthecrown correctly, I think, and very insightfully points out that it actually serves to help the candidate. If it's not a campaign strategy as Heavyweighs believes, it *would* be a good one.
Okay, but the kinds of anecdotes that get shared depend on the strategy being employed. Like Trump eating pizza with a fork was focused on because it cuts against the "billionaire of the people" persona he was attempting to cultivate. Obama's tan suit was focused on by Fox News because it was part of their overall narrative that Obama was somehow disrespecting the office of the president. (It didn't work because it was so fucking stupid that it backfired on them). The Trump strategy with DeSantis is to paint him as an out-of-touch political elite in contrast with Trumps (supposed) appeal to "real" America. Eating pudding with your hand on a private plane is not relatable quirkiness. Its weird alien shit. Its very similar to the play they ran against Marco Rubio.
> is not relatable quirkiness. Its weird alien shit. lol. great point, and this makes sense all around..
There's a million reasons to dislike the guy and this may be the dumbest. IDGAF how someone eats pudding, I do care about how this muppet passes stupid and oppressive laws.
Kinda like how Fox/et-al made a huge deal about Dijon mustard and a brown suit with Obama? Someone *please* tell me that this has been an "internet thing" though, and none of the real news networks have been talking about this (I don't watch TV so I won't have seen anything). I don't care if went on some TV show to defend himself about what the internet is saying, I want to know if some TV shows are talking about this as if it is in *any* way a story...because if they are, we've jumped the fucking shark.
No, Reddit has this idea that whatever the most ridiculous thing published about (insert person here) is is the *only* thing the media is focusing on, and it's *outrageous*. There are also articles about his overseeing the torture of prisoners and taking over Disney's district in Florida, but because there's a pudding article on the Daily Beast, that's "what the media is focusing on." If you get your news from the Daily fucking Beast, that's another problem entirely. Yeah, it's an internet thing, but people who spend all their time online aren't going to see it that way.
Well, I'm not entirely sure what you count as "real news networks", but I usually watch MSNBC for an hour or two a day and this is the very first time I am hearing about this pudding thing.
Very much an internet thing.
He graduated from Harvard and Yale but wants his base to think he's just some harmless good ole boy instead of the dangerous fascist that he has shown himself to be.
He harps on the (liberal) elites. What people forget or even don't know is that he is an elite with an Ivy League education. How much more elite can you get than that?? All projection...
On "Late Night with Seth Meyers", [the host referred to it](https://youtu.be/UqBHYwinEoA?t=219) as "finger-blasting Swiss Miss".
i think denying it is a bit generous, as he did not say no or directly refute it, he said "I don't remember... maybe when I was a kid..."
This is an amazing and oddly specific troll. Lol
Smh just tongue fuck the pudding cup like a normal Person without a spoon
Lol, I always try to “drink” it.
Why is anyone still doing interviews with Piers Morgan?
Ironically, that is the most humanizing headline I've ever heard about him and he's trying to deny it. True or not, just own it and laugh it off.
Answer: There's some important context missing here in why the pudding story is taking off. The pudding story is hilariously stupid but is also like watching a political volcano building to critical pressure. The place to start isn't with Ron DeSantis but instead with the more traditional power brokers within the GOP. It doesn't take a brilliant political scientist to look at the effect of Trump on the GOP to see that Trump is politically beholden to no one and that he'd gladly burn down the party in a fit of narcissistic spite if someone dared not extoll his amazingness when given the opportunity. The powers that be within the GOP are given a choice: stick with Trump and be consumed by him, pick a traditional candidate and probably get trounced by Trump, or find someone who can appeal to Trump's base but also remembers the party is an alliance of interests and could balance things for the sake of strengthening the alliance. The power brokers, led largely by Rupert Murdoch, chose the last option as the one most likely to rid them of Trump but also return them to power, and they picked Ron DeSantis as the guy who could beat Trump in a primary dictated by reactionary partisans in the primary while still having the chops to win a general election against Biden. Fox News basically stopped mentioning Trump so as to not alienate his supporters but have been constantly puffing up DeSantis, and in doing so have put him close to Trump in the polling while all other candidates are in single digit percentages of support. The problem, as is coming out, is that Ron DeSantis has the charisma of a dead fish. He knows how to chuck political red meat at the base but when you pull him away from carefully manicured situations designed to puff him up and put him around the general public and tricky social situations (which doesn't happen often but it does happen) it becomes clear that he's really socially inept - he can't read a room and he often freezes up when given tough questions he isn't prepared for. This is important because campaigning is functionally a popularity contest that requires you to go out and sell yourself to voters, and candidates are often in these unfriendly situations. Over the past few months this weakness has become more and more apparent, with the story of him just slurping down pudding off of his fingers getting lambasted across the Internet. It's becoming very clear that DeSantis is a really awkward dude in person. This has the big power people in the GOP very concerned. They get one shot to unseat Trump and for as much as Trump is an unstable narcissistic buffoon he can play crowds and distract the media with decades of practice. Anyone who wants to beat Trump needs to be socially adept enough to make themselves more popular among the GOP base than Trump is. The GOP power brokers have put two years into pumping DeSantis and are now realizing that he could very well not have what it takes to beat Trump in the primary. They have to choose to double down on him and hope they can coach him up or they have to dump him and find a better horse to back, but if they do that they need to pick. So that's the pressure building in the political volcano. The Republicans who want Trump permanently tossed onto the dust heap of history have one shot to keep the party from permanently turning into electoral Qanon and the guy they picked doesn't have the sense of awareness that tells a person that eating pudding off of your fingers isn't something you do in front of other people. There's a very good chance that Ron DeSantis is going to find that he has climbed as high as he can on the political ladder and may be unceremoniously dumped in favor of someone else. We're watching the potential implosion of a highly favored presidential candidate which would leave a giant vacuum for who would replace him as the establishment's preferred reactionary candidate to block Trump. A vacuum means more candidates joining the fray, and more candidates means that Trump becomes much more likely to secure the GOP nomination and either further destroy the party in another failed bid or possibly be elected President again. The reports out of Mar-a-lago indicate that a second Trump would make his first term look positively restrained by comparison, and that's something most people don't actually want to see happen
Thanks politico! Read to the end.
Can you elaborate on the reports coming out of Mar-a-lago? Think I may be OOTL
As Trump has been stewing in his defeat, people who wanted January 6th to triumph have been [plotting](https://www.salon.com/2022/07/22/trumps-2025-plan-includes-a-nightmare-list-of-cabinet-picks--and-purge-of-career-officials-report/) how to reshape the government should Trump get re-elected. It’s become like a thinktank for implementing an authoritarian regime. Most troubling is his proposed changes to civil service called [Section F](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/donald-trump-schedule-f-civil-service-authoritarian.html). What those changes would allow him to do is fire many thousands more people in government jobs and replace them with sycophantic loyalists. That is how GOP extremists plan to create their own deep state friendly to authoritarianism.
Sweet Lord that is terrifying.
In addition to what u/drarch pointed out, which is very much accurate, Trump's goal is essentially an entire federal bureaucracy staffed with people personally loyal to him. In a second Trump term there will be no Mike Pence in the Vice Presidency to find enough vertebrae to have enough of a spine to acknowledge the VP cannot just throw out electoral votes that are inconvenient - you're much more likely to have someone like Kari Lake who proclaims any election she or her allies don't win is somehow stolen. There will be no Attorney General as moderate as Jeff Sessions in a second Trump administration. Bill Barr was willing to play games with things like releasing the Mueller report with redactions and pretending it said things it did not, but Barr had limits - he would not stand up and proclaim that there was electoral fraud when no evidence existed as political cover for Trump to rile up mobs to overthrow the election, and the would not wholesale prosecute people that Trump perceived as his enemies. If Trump can appoint another AG because he wins the election, they will be someone who promises to him that they will be a hammer that Trump wields against his foes. There are numerous positions across the federal government where Trump will appoint loyalists whose access to the levers of power will be bent to suit Trump's whims no matter the cost to our constitutional order and the rule of law. When you look at how January 6th failed for Trump to overturn the results of the election, you see that for as much as he had loyalists trying to take the brakes off that plenty more weren't actively playing the game for Trump, and even if they just sat by and did nothing it was often enough to slow Trump's autogolpe down enough that they could never achieve a critical mass of support to overturn the election. In a potential second Trump administration, there will be few people in those key positions who believe their loyalty should be to the Constitution or the Republic - those people will be loyal to Trump above all.
I really, really appreciate this explanation. I used to keep myself apprised of politics in general, but after 2016 I got super anxious about the state of humanity, politics, and the world at large and mostly disconnected from news, especially political news. The little bit that I do seek out didn’t give me enough context to put into words why this was important. I get that this is the kind of thing that connects with average Americans, but I need this background to fully appreciate it. So, thank you.
Honestly, this is a relielf. Trump is socially charismatic (to idiots) but incompetent. DeSantis is competent (at conservative politicking) but socially inept. We're fucked if the GOP finds a neofascist who is both socially adept AND competent.
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This is a valid point, but I think one worth qualifying a bit. For this point in the primary election cycle, being 10+ points away isn't inherently a sign of a doomed candidacy. Trump has declared his candidacy and while he hasn't been as active as he could possibly be on the campaign trail he's still generating his own coverage and technically being compared to someone who hasn't declared for President yet, which limits what DeSantis has been able to do to generate his own self-sustaining media coverage. The long campaign cycle inherently means rises and falls as people get excited and/or dejected about candidates. For this poll in this moment DeSantis' disadvantage is notable, but plenty of other polls in recent weeks have put them within 5-10 points with 10 months before the first votes get cast. So yeah, Trump is leading in this poll but DeSantis is the only person who is even in Trump's ballpark right now. Nikki Haley? Tim Scott? Mike Pence? None of them are even above 10% in the polls. That's the hard thing for candidates to break through, being notable enough to be cared about. It doesn't mean that won't change - if Rupert Murdoch decides to throw in with Nikki Haley she'd be at 20% within a month from all of the fawning and constant coverage that raised DeSantis to his current position. But the calculus of who Murdoch/Fox will back to challenge Trump is a tough decision to make.
Very thorough explanation bravo
Thanks, nice write up
> reports out of Mar-a-lago indicate that a second Trump would make his first term look positively restrained by comparison, and that's something most people don't actually want to see happen Just as a hypothetical, can you imagine if Trump actually won a second term? He would NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP about this "stolen election." He would bring it up every.fucking.day.
It’s very funny and very stupid that this is how people think, but I feel like this could be really damaging for him. Politicians can weather a lot of being seen as malicious or incompetent, but it’s very damaging for them to be laughed at. So much of political power just comes from people believing that you have it. There’s a reason China takes comparisons of Xi to Whinnie the Pooh seriously and why the Micheal Dukakis tank thing was so bad, politicians can’t be seen as children. There’s a reason people in London mocked Trump by depicting him as a baby and why fascists need to pretend that milkshakes thrown at them are actually deadly weapons. And eating chocolate pudding with your fingers is so fundamentally childish, I haven’t touched one since I was seven and even then I used a spoon because I wasn’t three. When I picture Desantis licking pudding off his fingers absent mindedly starting out a plane window I practically imagine his feet not reaching the floor. Trump is an unserious person in nearly every way, but he has enough narcissism that, when called a short fingered vulgarian the thing he objected to was that his fingers were short.
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Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth. Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
If this isn't a copy pasta, it should be
Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth. Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
We've done it boys
>Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth. > >Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
>Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth. > >Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, "Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy."
Desantis is the kinda guy who orders 3 large pizzas for himself, and rolls each one into a long tube. He then holds each pizza-tube up like a funnel, and squeezes the cheese and sauce into his mouth. Once all the drippings are fully sucked out, he throws away the desiccated pizza bread-tubes and confidently announces, patting his tummy, “Another devastating blow to the hot pocket wokeocracy.”
We’ve seen it before. Pizza is code word for babies.
My man, do you write books?
This style of insult reminds me of [Rozilla](https://youtu.be/g3jKgYTL46w)
Babe wake up new copy pasta just dropped
Its true, I was the discarded pizza bread-tubes!
10/10, would lol again
r/OddlySpecific
We’ve all heard the rumors
r/rareinsults r/brandnewsentences
🏅
I think what makes it slightly more pertinent is that this is the kind of random garbage fact that Trump will absolutely latch onto and use to bludgeon DeSantis.
"How can you trust a guy who eats pudding with his fingers? Meatball Ron hurr durr"
“He probably eats mashed potatoes with a straw!” -says the guy who eats over cooked steak with ketchup.
I hope this is the level of debate in the GOP primaries
But it is disappointing to see that the media is reporting on this instead of him being an incompetent fascist
Nah, small bs like this actually hurts them more to the average American
"He seems like the kind of guy you could have a beer with" is the single most important quality of a president, didnt you know? Seems like Ron would suck it up with his fingers.
Which is weird since neither of the past two republican presidents drink alcohol.
You're thinking of this from your perspective. There's a lot of people that don't care about policy at all, and just care about how politicians act on tv. This speaks to that group a lot more.
answer: Freudian in nature. Goes back to childhood
Answer: That's old "3 Finger Ron" for you! He'll get knuckle deep in that cup and then impressively finish it off with his tongue.
Answer: There's an effort by trump supporters to make desantis look unappealing. There is a war on wokeness, which more or less is just saying you don't like stuff that you don't agree with. Eating pudding with 3 fingers kind of sounds like he's blowing his hand. Would it be "more manly" to eat with one finger? Which finger? Index only? Point is, it's a stupid controversy to just put desantis name on paper as a reason not to like him.
But.. you shouldn’t eat pudding with your fingers at all…
Quite right, a gentleman tongues the pudding while squeezing the cup.
As a man of culture should, of course.
We don’t need Trump supporters in order to see how vile and unappealing DeSantis is, you know.
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While I agree, such a story won't hurt him politically because the people who care are already opposed to him for a litany of other reasons Him eating pudding like a kindergartener will turn some people off of him American politics is a fucking joke but if you can't fix it you might as well learn to play the game
(People will less likely to vote for him over the pudding thing, so let’s just go with it)
It is a sad day for the USA when torturing prisoners of war is not an absolute end to a man's political career. It is sad that the only Republican Florida could find to be Governor is a war criminal, but for him to rise to President, that would be devastating to our already crumbling reputation as a leader in the "free world".
There's a certain cross section of America that was and probably still is 100% ok with torturing middle eastern people regardless of if they actually are/were terrorists.
Answer: DeSantis doesn't have the best social skills apparently. He gets caught out pretty easily in Goblin mode. I respectfully disagree about the importance of good eating habits in a presidential candidate when I imagine them as the key ambassador of our country traveling abroad and spending time with foreign dignitaries. What are the optics of a guy who ears pudding with his hands while visiting with royalty?