#partisanship

This is an actual plaque Mr. Trump has just put on the White House wall. No joke.

Biden was the only president that did NOT get a gilded portrait. Instead, it's a photo of an autopen.

Mr. Trump's constant pathological partisan hatred and bashing of Biden and the left is despicable, disgusting, and complete trash. The main reason MAGA is deplorable is because Mr. Trump is deplorable. And criminal. And to put his grade school whining about the Democrats on the wall of the White House makes me sick. They should be torn down and fed to him immediately. Make him eat the frames, too.

His delusional megalomania influences his actions. These plaques are embarrassing and treasonous.

Fuckface von Clownstick Spins Dinner Shooting for Ballroom Agenda and Blitzer Is CNN's One-Shoed Hero

Jon Stewart dives into the chaos at the White House Correspondents' Dinner: After a shooter interrupted mentalist Oz Pearlman revealing Karoline Leavitt’s baby name, cabinet members abandoned their wives to rush to safety, Wolf Blitzer reported on the scene without a shoe, and Fuckface von Clownstick insisted none of this would’ve happened in his larger, more secure, East Wing ballroom. Plus, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog recounts his traumatic night of dodging bullets while trying to avoid having his carcass eaten by RFK Jr.

Jodi Kantor - Supreme Court Coverage & How to Start: Discovering Your Life's Work

Canada's last Chinese-language daily paper to cease operations, January 15, 2026

Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao is ceasing Canadian operations at the end of the month. As JP Gallardo explains, the paper served a vital role in the Chinese-Canadian community.

Chinese-language paper, Ming Pao, closing down in Canada, January 16, 2026

Ming Pao Daily News has published its final issue Friday in Metro Vancouver. The publication, which started in Hong Kong, is shutting down its Canadian operations by the end of the month. The paper has been serving the Chinese-speaking community in Metro Vancouver for over three decades.

Only Chinese-language daily paper in Canada prints final editions, January 16, 2026

Ming Pao, the only Chinese-language daily newspaper in Canada printed its final editions and is closing offices in Richmond, B.C. and Toronto after more than thirty years. Some warn it may create news deserts for Chinese speakers and immigrants.

I have to stress this shrinking of Hong Kong/Chinese diaspora media isn't just about being left behind in the digital landscape. Every Chinatown had to have at least a couple bookstore/stationery /periodical racks filled with imported and domestic Chinese newspapers and magazines for every interest, age, and most political persuasions.

The retreat of Sing Tao and now Ming Pao in Canada is part of a deeper unwinding of generations of a specific, broader mass media intake. These are the connections that made and kept Canto-pop and dramas popular, an entire rental media and fast-paced dub/sub industry that moved new anime and manga out to the far reaches, bringing imported fandom merch and, just as important, the bootleg and blatant rip-offs with them. Television and radio stations seem to still be kicking, but clearly better at adjusting to a changing audience--one that probably isn't following the rise of pageant stars like a Maggie Cheung or Michelle Yeoh or the latest HK films.

Ming Pao is famously co-founded by Louis Cha (Jin Yong) of wuxia novel series fame. These kinds of printed media were a vehicle for the diaspora popular culture which included said serialized novels, politics, editorials, celebrity gossip, current events, comics, satire, the list goes on. They are an important tangible connection to the broader local and international culture for native Chinese readers.

Not only has the space moved online and on to phones, the remaining dailies and weeklies are reduced to only paid subscriptions, or finally completely online and have become mostly advertising and classifieds.

It is depressing to see the domestic papers reduced to barely a handful of articles, some obviously copy-pasted from syndication, and very little about anything current especially politically. The remaining print media that do have something to say are often hyper-partisan to the exclusion of much else--I'm looking directly at you Epoch Times. Since 1997, much of the Chinese-language media has moved to pro-PRC editorial stances and ownership, both implicitly and explicitly, meaning much less variety of perspective or even conspicuous silence from sources and journalism that used to command a great deal of trust.

Daniel Cox at American Storylines:

Watching the clips from Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, what struck me more than anything else is how utterly unrecognizable the Republican Party has become under Trump. A party that once stressed the importance of honesty and integrity is gone. The rally speakers engaged in unrestrained vitriol and bigotry.  It’s not all happening on stage either.  The Washington Post interviewed Craig Dumas, a T-shirt vendor at one of Trump’s campaign events. His best seller? “Say No to the Hoe.” Variations of this message can be found at Trump rallies around the country. When the Post reporters talked with Brian Howard, a Trump rally-attendee, about his “Joe and the Hoe Gotta Go” T-shirt, he replied: “We can joke. We can wear crude shirts. Everybody here is having a good time.” 

Hilarious.  How much is Trump to blame for the type of nasty, derogatory rhetoric that has become a mainstay of American politics? I would argue more than a little.   But worse than the normalization of casual cruelty is the way Trump has subverted the importance of character in politics. In our late summer poll, we found that 44 percent of Americans believe he committed sexual assault. A Marquette Law School poll conducted over the summer found that 62 percent of voters believe Trump is corrupt. Only 41 percent of voters believe Trump could be described as honest and trustworthy. Even a quarter of Republicans do not believe Trump is honest.  Most Americans who are supporting Trump recognize that he has deep personality flaws, that he is not a good role model. The central animating question of the Trump era has always been: How can so many Americans support Trump for the country’s highest office when so many Americans have such a low opinion of his character? 

All Politicians Are Corrupt and Dishonest 

From the very beginning of Trump’s political career, he has sought to position himself as a brash outsider against a corrupt, effete establishment. At the same time, he never promised to restore honor and dignity to the presidency. Rather, he promised to wade into the swamp and fight dirty. Plenty of Americans were receptive to the message.  It’s not hard to see why.  Trust in government has plummeted over the past few decades. Part of the reason this happened is that Americans increasingly view their elected leaders as unethical. This is a fairly recent phenomenon. Twenty years ago, only about one in four Americans rated the honesty of members of Congress as low or very low. Most Americans rated the honesty of their elected officials as average, and one in five rated it as above average. Today, most Americans do not believe members of Congress are honest or ethical. In 2023, seventy percent of the public rated the honesty and integrity of congressmembers as low or very low. That’s a massive change and it has profound implications on the voting decisions Americans make. If elected officials are viewed as universally dishonest, then integrity is no longer a useful metric in assessing their worthiness for public office. 

Who benefits the most from this? The candidates who are most ethically compromised. Officials who engage in the most egregious acts of public corruption. 

[...]

Polarized Voters Want Pugilistic Politicians 

It's been well documented that Americans have become more polarized over the past couple decades. This has been especially evident in the negative views partisans have about those across the aisle—a phenomenon political scientists define as affective polarization. Republicans and Democrats have come to dislike each other much more in the modern era.  A couple years ago I wrote about the dramatic change occurring among partisans during the Trump presidency. Republicans and Democrats not only believed their opponents were simply wrong or misguided, but that they presented a threat to the nation. In 2017, only about half of Democrats and Republicans believed their opposition represented a threat to the country—a worryingly high number. By 2020, three-quarters of Republicans and nearly two-thirds of Democrats said the other side posed a threat to the country. 

More recent polling suggests things may be getting worse. A new poll by Johns Hopkins University found that nearly half of Republicans and Democrats believe the opposing party is “downright evil.” And a recent NBC News survey found that 8 in 10 Democrats and Republicans said their opponents are so dangerous they pose a threat that would destroy America as we know it.  The growing hostility that partisans feel towards their opponents has altered the way voters respond to deficiencies in their party’s candidates. As partisan animosity toward their political opponents grows, Democrats and Republicans become less concerned about the behavior of their own leaders. It becomes easier to overlook disqualifying attributes, because the political alternative is always worse.   It has also led partisans to prioritize candidates who would go after their opponents. If character no longer matters amidst heightened partisan hostilities, an ability and willingness to destroy the other side does. Trump excels at this type of combative politics. He relishes it. 

The real tragedy is that more Americans have come to believe that honesty and integrity don’t matter. Trump has convinced many Americans that being a good guy in politics is not only unnecessary, but undesirable. It’s a sign of weakness or capitulation. An unsurprising result is that more Americans discount a candidate’s character when making political choices. In 2011 most Americans believed that elected officials who engaged in immoral acts in their personal lives would not behave ethically in carrying out their public duties. Now, most Americans believe the opposite. The shift is far more pronounced among Republicans, but it’s not exclusive to them.   Whether he wins or loses, Trump’s legacy will be forever wrapped up in his bizarre, belittling and bullying behavior, and how he transformed our expectations for political leaders. When Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, talked with Jared Kushner about Trump’s behavior, he received a startling reply. “No one can go as low as the president,” Kushner said. “You shouldn’t even try.” It was a compliment. 

The fact that every president and VP has a garage or filing cabinet or shoebox full of classified documents isn't (merely) evidence of political impunity - it's also the latest absurd turn in the long-running true scandal: the American epidemic of overclassification and excessive secrecy.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/30/i-come-to-a-land-downunder/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

Pro-Israel Democrats could have taken a stand against her and Tlaib. But, intimidated by the rise of the intersectional movement that has seized control of the left-wing base of the Democratic Party, and fearing that they will be branded as racists if they speak out, they have refused to ostracize them.

In doing so, they have essentially legitimized Omar’s views. Her anti-Zionist and antisemitic ideas are now routinely published in the pages of liberal mainstream outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post. And the ranks of the “Squad” have vastly expanded in the last two election cycles, with even more sympathizers among those who identify as progressive Democrats.

Republicans have their outliers, like Greene and others. They routinely make outrageous and often indefensible statements, although Democrats are equally guilty of the promiscuous use of inappropriate Holocaust analogies.

But they are not guilty of seeking to normalize antisemitism by masquerading as mere “critics” of Israel. And, unlike Omar, they lack the influence that comes with being part of a movement that already dominates academia and much of the media with its toxic myths about white privilege and lies about Israel’s being an “apartheid” state.

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