In Breaking Bad, the character Walter White explains to a major drug dealer why cheaper knockoffs of his signature Blue Sky methamphetamine are just not enough: “So… it’s grade-school tee-ball vs. the New York Yankees. Yours is just some tepid… off-brand, generic cola. What I’m making is classic Coke.”
This week, James Carville released his own uncut, undiluted classic product to a nation of rage addicts. Blue Sky rage. What set off Carville was telling. He and others were outraged that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner to discuss areas of common ground. Such dialogue “with the enemy” is unthinkable in an “age of rage,” particularly for someone like Carville who previously threatened that, once Democrats are back in power, Trump supporters would be treated the same way as Nazi collaborators after World War II.
Carville went into his signature berserker trance on his podcast appropriately called the “Politics War Room”: “These people are a pack of felons and traitors, and you do not meet with them! You do not meet with them. There’s only one thing you can do with people that you genuinely believe deep inside of every fabric of your body are a pack of thieves and a pack of traitors.”
As usual, Carville delivers the line with the intensity of a man seconds away from a self-induced stroke. The message, however, is clear. Anyone seeking a middle ground or compromise is a traitor and will be dealt with the same way as collaborators once Democrats regain power.
What is really on display is rage politics. When you feed this addiction, you have to keep your product pure to avoid the pain of rage withdrawal. Carville is asking Democrats the same question as Walter White in whether they really want some cheap knockoff when they can have the real thing. Go with the classic. Go with the rage.
Over on the social media safe space for liberals, BlueSky, Carville is being heralded as a prophet of furor. It was a perfect combination. BlueSky was created for liberals to remove themselves, particularly from X, because of conservatives returning to social media after years of censorship.
The media billed BlueSky as the future, as many predicted the rapid death of X. It did not exactly work out that way. Many liberal influencers proclaiming their abandonment of X never actually left and many others have returned. BlueSky is now little more than a progressive boutique in comparison to X. It has an estimated 43 million users as opposed to as many as 600 million for X. (Monthly active users drop to around 27 million versus more than 300 million).
Yet, the business model of BlueSky is to offer a protected zone for liberals to rave amongst themselves without the distraction of as many opposing views or voices.
It is a social platform that is premised on the same “you do not meet with them” screed of Carville.
Recently, Carville has lashed out at the far left of his party, such as Democratic Socialists, over their radical agenda. However, he and other establishment figures are primarily objecting to the fact that these radical policies will not succeed in the election and return them to power.
Carville has no problem trashing the system to secure and maintain power. He previously called for packing the Supreme Court, but notably told Democrats not to actually talk about it: “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F—k it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
Other Democratic leaders continue to try to co-opt the mob for their own uses. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer dismissed questions about the DSA platform in eliminating the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the Senate. These are small differences, according to Schumer, compared with the need to win elections: “Not everyone has the same exact view on every single issue.”
One of those small disagreements is the very existence of the institution that Schumer so desperately wants to lead.
Carville and Schumer, however, appear to agree on the key element of the political strategy in keeping the rage alive. The greatest threat to that strategy is any dialogue of Democrats with their Republican neighbors. If reason were to break out before the elections, all could be lost.
The effort reflects the fact that the rage in an age of rage eventually burns off. People look into a mirror on both sides and realize that we have become grotesque and Carvillian by yielding to the anger and hate. Once people start to talk again, it is harder to hate so completely and blindly that hate traffickers need.
So Blue Sky rage is hitting the streets. The Classic coke of hate to be injected directly into the veins of a nation of rage addicts.
After all, as Walter White asked his fellow traffickers, “Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Carville’s entire schtick is to say slightly bombastic things about, before he agrees with, the entire left agenda. it’s his ratings boost when the dems to see him ‘go off the rails’ only for him to ‘come back onboard’. It’s cathartic for them. “We can’t lose carville!” Carville’s ‘rage’ is glue to party cohesiveness. It’s not working anymore as he’s spent his reputation.
Does anyone else smile when libs turn on each other?
The humorous part of this all is Carville’s hypocrisy in ranting about the Republicans being thought of as a collective of thieves and snd crooks. How can he have the audacity to say that after we see the organized criminal activity of the Democratic establishment daily. Minnesota, Massachusetts, Michigan, California, DOGE, Fulron County, Arizona, jeez the list is never ending. Yet Carville states in spite of their own party split to COMMUNISM and Jew hatred EVERY single Democrat believes that the current administration is a bunch of crooks and criminals.
Democrats are insane and delusional, they should never be allowed to be in control of anything again.
The Age Of Rage is a popular tactic by the Socialist/Communist folks. It fits beautifully into their goal of Divisionism.
That’s how the Jacobins succeeded. Until they didn’t. The mob always turns on the instigators.
I encourage Professor Turley to respond to some of the 200 daily comments and move away from his own protection zone of posting in the morning and staying away for 24 hours.
JT, Why do you allow all this Russian trolls to pollute your blog?
JT, what are you doing to reduce the rage in our country? NOTHING. No, not nothing, you are adding to it by your biased stories.
Shame JT, Shame.
no bias. You might be looking at the world through tds colored glasses.
Carville used to be an impressive political force, especially in 1992 when he engineered Clinton’s successful path to the White House. He was so impressive that his counterpart on the vanquished H.W. Bush team decided to marry him.
But now? Hate has so corrupted his mind and soul that he has become a stupid old man.
ESTOVIR (Old Man), Trump is the guy obsessed with retribution. Trump keeps cutting off congressionally approved funds to blue states simply because they didn’t vote for him. No president has ever pulled that sh!t before!
^ Anonymous is Estovir
Corruption? Yep nothing says corruption like the President of the United States raking in $2 billion in his first 18 months in office, much of it foreign money that is a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
^ Anonymous is Estovir ^
Emoluments Clause?
Nobody cared when a Ukrainian politician started paying Biden’s crackhead son $1million a year, weeks after the Navy booted him for drug use. And shortly after Obama named Daddy Joe his “point man for Ukraine.”
The odd thing was Zlochevsky ALREADY had a US attorney on his BOD, the superbly qualified Alan Apter.
Obviously Hunter was only the bagman, so what did Joe do for Zlochevsky?
Sadly, we will never know. Dems impeached Trump merely for asking Zelensky to look into it.
He was so impressive that his counterpart on the vanquished H.W. Bush team decided to marry him.
I used to enjoy watching Mary Matalin and and her husband in the 1990s on C-Span. IIRC Rush Limbaugh had a close relationship with her, featuring her on occasion on his EIB network. James Carville has become an also-ran. I don’t know who listens to him given one can only run so long on the same “success” story re: Bill Clinton – who is no longer considered a significant anything.
I think these folks are high paid. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary, the DSA candidates, et al. Carville is totally unhinged, and I cant imagine he being like that 24/7. It’s a lot like Charles Schumer and his infamous threat to SCOTUS Justices. Politics has become gaudy theatre with all of the attraction of cheap perfume on a call girl. it’s the new religion of Americans complete with condemnation, no redemption, burning in hell, of course inquisitions and oracles in the legacy media. Dante Alighieri would have a feast with these scoundrels
He kinda just turned into an angry old man shaking his cane at the sky when the dems tried to put him and his old-fashion democratic ideas out to pasture. They don’t listen to him anymore so he’s just getting madder and louder and curses more. Old dumbocrats don’t die, they just fade away.
Leftism is a totalitarian movement, at its core. James Carville is, sadly, not alone in dehumanizing conservatives, and threatening them all as soon as the Left regains power.
The Khmer Rouge was one such Leftist movement, in Cambodia, that tried to reshape society by force. In its class war, it killed as many intellectuals as possible, to the point that people were murdered because they wore glasses.
Demonize your opponent, and you never have to debate him.
Demonize your opponent, and you never have to debate him.
All the Democrats have to offer is Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. The leftists used to mock the Roman Catholic Church for being judgmental, hierarchical, rigid and hierarchical. We have learned that they were never really against Roman Catholicism. They just wanted to wear the papal tiara and have the right to call anathema sit as they saw fit. Success!
In homage to Tim Curry…..
This is a tad bit confusing, bc for quite a while, Alinsky worked FOR the Catholic Church.
The Archdiocese of Chicago wanted to discourage white flight, as members of the Great Migration moved out of the South Side and West Side ghettoes. They did not want to duplicate the churches, schools, and hospitals in place for decades.
Alinsky worked with clergy of different types to get them to propose solutions. Ultimately, nothing could be done.
Trump is the poster child for totalitarianism. Tell us: what Democrat president ever tore down part of the White House without permission from Congress and historic preservation, decided to build a gilded ballroom larger than the White House, lied about the cost being paid by donors, started a war based on a lie, started an insurrection because he lost an election, filled a frivolous lawsuit against his own government after the statute of limitations expired and then “settled” the lawsuit with a slush fund to pay the insurrectionists a million dollars each, after pardoning them, and granting himself and his worthless children lifetime immunity from IRS audits and prosecution? What Democrat president ever approved government contracts with companies in which his children have financial interests or started a cryptocurrency business in which foreign investors are heavily invested?
What Democrat president ever helped himself to our Treasury to fund vanity projects, is trying to prevent voting by mail by trying to get the USPS to track voter eligibility, is trying to compile information on every voter in America, even though the Constitution says clearly that states control voting? All because his party stands to take a beating in the midterms?
Then there’s putting his picture on passports, renaming things after himself, threatening to tear down the JFK Center unless he can put his name on it, wanting a triumphal arch built in his honor, getting his picture on a $250 bill and removing the name of the first black sailor to win the Navy Cross for valor on a ship under construction already named for the sailor. These are just a few examples of the kind of totalitarianism of Donald Trump.
MAGA is NOT conservative. It is a cult of personality.
Lots of TDS here. How do you make it through the day?
Trump rules your mind because you know he is better than you.
I asked several rhetorical questions—-why can’t you answer them without resorting to your binky–“it’s just TDS”? If there’s any “derangement” here, it’s ignoring Trump, his corruption, his arrogance, his failures and all the damage he has done to our economy, our relations with our allies and standing on the world stage.
Riddle me this: what would you MAGAs be saying if our first black President (who is still more respected and was more successful than Trump) had tried to do these things, and more—like the childish AI-generated images of Trump on horseback riding next to George Washington with a space shuttle flying above and an Indy car racing past, putting his ugly fat face on Mt. Rushmore, putting his face on an image of Jesus as a healer of a wounded soldier, or the other silly memes Trump posts? What if Barak Obama sat up all night rage posting like Trump does, or routinely falls asleep at meetings? Oh, and did MAGA media show one of his latest photos–a picture of him in uniform while in HIGH SCHOOL at the (now defunct) New York Military Academy–which was a military-style school where Donald was sent because he kept getting kicked out of private schools for bullying other students? Trump claims he was in a “military academy”–an ABSOLUTE LIE! Regardless of the title of the defunct school, a military academy is a COLLEGE–not high school. For another thing, Trump is too stupid to qualify for West Point, Annapolis or the other real military academies. A third thing–Trump is a draft-dodger who insults our military by calling them “suckers and losers”.
And, as regards our military and the 19 year old sailor who tried to kill himself by jumping off the SS. Abraham Lincoln, Hegseth: 1. denied paternity leave; this sailor had a daughter who was born in February; 2. has charged the sailor with malingering (accusing the sailor, without evidence, of faking his depression and suicidal ideation) and desertion (for the time he spent in the water before being rescued). Despite being stateside for 2 weeks now, he was only seen by a psychiatrist yesterday. Shades of George Patton here. And, a record number of Marines are seeking early release.
So much BS, so little time. Where to begin?
First, the New York Military Academy is NOT defunct, but still in operation. Second, there used to HUNDREDS of high schools that called themselves military academies. Most were boarding schools. Students were cadets, they wore uniforms, they learned discipline. Often there was JROTC. One of my classmates went to Culver Military Academy, in Indiana.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the New York Military Academy:
“Due to financial problems and enrollment that had dwindled to 145 students, the school was scheduled to close in June 2010.[7][8] However, a group of alumni and local business people created a plan to save the school, raising almost $6 million of financing in a matter of weeks, and expecting to sell off some less-utilized portions of the campus.[9][10]
On March 3, 2015, NYMA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and the academy failed to open in September 2015 for the school year. Instead, it headed to bankruptcy auction,[11][12] where on September 30 it was auctioned for $15.825 million to the Chinese-owned Research Center on Natural Conservation Inc., a non-profit corporation led by billionaire Vincent Tianquan Mo,[13] Chairman and CEO of SouFun Holdings and a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.[13][14]
Re-opening
After spending millions of dollars refurbishing the campus, supporting instruction and making capital improvements, the school reopened on November 2, 2015, with “a handful of returning students” and a recruitment drive.[15][16] For 2016–17, the academic year began with a total of 29 students.[17]
Years later, the sale attracted attention from federal officials: in January 2023, Florida representative Michael Waltz wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in which he expressed concern over the implications that “CCP-influenced schools” had for America’s national security and in February and July, Congress introduced bills in the House and Senate that proposed barring private schools with ties to the Chinese government from starting or continuing Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs.”
Trump posted that picture of himself cosplaying as a member of a “military academy” to IMPLY he was a cadet at West Point, Annapolis or other US service academies on the college level–just like he likes to pretend that he’s worthy to be seen in the same company as George Washington, or the other AI-generated memes depicting himself as a hero. He was sent to NYMA after getting expelled from several private schools due to his bullying of other students.
And, members of my family attended Culver, too, but we never went around saying they went to a “military academy”.
You may be confusing Trump with Joe Biden. Trump, like Obama, was able to transfer from a decent school (Fordham vs. Oxy) to an Ivy. (Penn vs. Columbia). Unless you’re saying Obama is stupid. Biden could not have pulled this off, graduating as he did right at the bottom quarter of his undistinguished state school.
But twice during his term, Biden claimed his predecessor as Senator “shortlisted him for Annapolis.” During his commencement speeches at both West Point and Annapolis.
Two problems with that claim: First, a history of asthma is disqualifying, and a physical examcomes early in the process. Second, after graduating from law school, he evaded the Vietnam draft completely by claiming… childhood asthma.
So did Biden lie to the cadets? Or did he lie to his draft board? Because one claim excludes the other.
According to his sister, Trump paid a Jewish guy named “Epstein” to take the entrance exam for Wharton School of Business. We’re not talking about Biden–we’re talking about Trump. Here’s what “PolitiFact” says about Biden’s deferments:
“President Joe Biden did receive five draft deferments, but they were granted because he was a student, first in college and then law school.
Later, Biden underwent a physical exam and received a Selective Service 1-Y classification — which specified that he could be drafted only in a national emergency — because of his asthma.”
Joe Biden WAS examined and found to be ineligible except in cases of national emergencies–stop repeating MAGA lies.
“. . . Trump paid a Jewish guy named “Epstein” to take the entrance exam for Wharton School of Business.”
There is no entrance exam for the Wharton School.
Try a different smear.
LOL the left has nothing on Trump. They have to create and believe in incredible innuendo’s just to cope!
Hey leftys: we Trump voters aren’t stupid, Trump is the cleanest President we’ve ever had! There are only two types of leftys; those that create lies (insincere) and those that believe them (dopes).
Wharton relied on college transcripts and personal interviews to make the transfer admissions decisions. Apparently Trump had been a good enough student at Fordham.
The SAT was used for freshman admissions back then. It was considered a general intelligence test whose power was its ability to predict freshman year performance. Trump could point to his actual freshman year performance.
So Biden lied to the cadets, the midshipmen, their family and friends, the faculties, and whoever else showed up at commencement, about being “shortlisted for Annapolis.” That still makes him an unrepentant liar.
Joe Biden lied about his resume so many times he is the Dems’ George Santos.
In high school. Joe was both a lifeguard and a varsity running back. In neither role could he have called timeout while he used his inhaler.
And the II-S deferment lasted only one year, and had to be reapplied for each year. How did Joe avoid military service for all three years of law school? How many less wealthy, less educated Americans had to serve in his place?
Let’s look at the charges:
Art. 83. Malingering
Any person subject to this chapter who, with the intent to avoid work, duty, or service-
(1) feigns illness, physical disablement, mental lapse, or mental derangement; or
(2) intentionally inflicts self-injury
Art. 85. Desertion
(a)Any member of the armed forces who—
(1)without authority goes or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away therefrom permanently;
The sailor here MALINGERED when he attempted to avoid further service as a member of the crew of the Abraham Lincoln, by intentionally jumping overboard, bc he reasonably expected to end his life via self-injury.
The sailor here DESERTED when he left his place of duty, by jumping off the Abraham Lincoln, with the intent to remain away therefrom permanently, by striking the water and drowning.
Where the hell do you, drunken wife beater Hegseth or anyone else get off claiming that this sailor was a malingerer? You don’t know him. You never examined him, and you wouldn’t be qualified to do so in any event. As a MAGA, you are obviously delusional. According to his wife, he sought help for his depression, but got nothing. Where do you get off deciding that he jumped overboard to “avoid further service”, as opposed to being unable to take the strain of separation from his family, the unhealthy and unsanitary conditions on board the Abraham Lincoln, as opposed to severe depression? Depression can be fatal when it is untreated, and should be handled like any other health problem.
He’s weak! weak! i tell you. tell him to man-up!
Hon, being separated from one’s family for long stretches of time is an integral part of Naval service. And the overwhelming majority of Lincoln sailors put up with the conditions aboard in order to continue their service to our country.
I posted the statutes, and showed how the sailor’s behavior fit the elements of the crimes. You seem to think he had a valid excuse to commit them.
Democrat FDR tore the facade off Cousin Teddy’s east side porte-cochere to BUILD the East Wing, for which he never sought or received anyone’s approval.
Congressional Republicans wailed and gnashed their teeth, to no avail.
The excuse was national security. FDR built a bombproof bunker early in WW II, and the East Wing both literally and figuratively covered it up.
michaeldix: what you write is FALSE. There’s no evidence that FDR lacked Congressional approval or that he DID receive it, but he DID need a bunker because of WWII. Here’s what “Factually” says about that:
“Franklin D. Roosevelt’s principal documented contribution in this period was the creation of the East Wing in 1942—built to conceal a bunker and expand staff and office space for wartime operations—and contemporary sources describe the work as carried out with wartime secrecy that raised questions but do not, in the materials provided, show a record of explicit congressional approval for that specific wartime construction [1] [2]. Additional archival records or congressional files would be required to determine conclusively whether formal legislative consent was sought or granted for the 1942 work.”
Trump’s ballroom is all about his ego and need to build a “legacy” because he knows no one will honor him after he leaves.
What a load of crap. The Congressional Record in its present form goes back to 1873, spanning both world wars. If Congress had authorized spending money of the Eaet Wing, there would be a record of it.
Who says there isn’t one, and who says it was looked for? That’s what “Factually” says–they need to review additional archival records and congressional files to conclusively say. In any event, FDR didn’t build the East Wing as some kind of gilded honor for himself–he needed the bunker because of WWII.
Linking to the pages where the House and Senate authorized funding the East Wing should be trivially simple. Hint: They didn’t do it.
And the need to protect the President is far greater than 1942. No Nazi bombers flew over DC. Nobody tried to assassinate FDR.
fat drunk and stupid OR relying on AI for the truth is no way to go through life, son.
“There’s no evidence ”
yah, if you don’t loook. whatadope