117 Comments
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Fuse Junkie's avatar

If we can’t start being honest about what’s happening here, we’ll never be free. I really enjoyed your comments today.

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James  Heywood's avatar

Wonderfully honest and with such heart.

I know you will be very successful ✨️ with your kids, or young adults.

You have such strength and honesty. Bless you 🙏 and keep strong and never surrender.

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John A. Johnson's avatar

"He stood on that stage, in front of a widow, in front of grieving people, and said he hated half the country. That he didn’t wish them well. The President of the United States declaring that hatred is his guiding principle."

The President of the United States saying he hates half of the country has to be totally unprecedented. This is definitely not normal. This is definitely not okay.

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Christine's avatar

It is so not normal. We can’t let this sub-human coward get away with trying to ruin our country. He’s just cruel!!!

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Lee Annis's avatar

Well-written, Jo! Part of the reason is that you share a sad personal angle. That takes lots of courage!

I kinda wish you didnt feel you had to, but your own authenticity adds so much to all of our understanding

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Charles Austin's avatar

That shit show was a cross between a Nazi party rally in Nurenberg circa 1935 and Monday Night Raw. Hate is the foundation of MAGA. Miller's spew was classic Joseph Goebbels. This is pure evil. They intend to crush dissent under their jackboots. They'll use any means necessary to achieve their goals. Therefore, we need to fight back with the same mind set. Shame doesn't work, because they have no shame. This isn't a formal debate, it's an alley fight. And our very existence is at stake. We stand on the shoulders of the Greatest Generation. They triumphed over this evil, and so must we. Again, thank you for your phenomenal writing and advocacy. Be well, be safe, and hug the kids for me.😃❤️😘

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HI2thDoc's avatar

Again, wishing your Dad's Liberator was overhead of that neo-Nazi fest with a full load of ordinance, Charles.

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Cat Is Serious's avatar

I’m sorry you had to be raised as you were…… no one deserves that! I thank you for obviously rising above to become such a strong voice for democracy and being a good human!

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Richard Brody's avatar

Your remark about jamming a knife into your gut is true to form. But Trump takes it another step and twists the knife, as if to say, “Does that hurt?” and smiling all the while.

Miller is a real piece of work himself. He’s almost worse than Trump because he knows Trump is too stupid and weak to do this stuff on his own, so he eggs the asshole on. Trump never had an original thought in his life, other than trying to cheat people out of money and breaking the law because he felt a certain immunity.

And this is important, too, and I waited to read your entire piece: Some 50,000 people in that stadium were screaming at the top of their lungs in approval of every miserable word that Trump uttered. That’s scary. That’s 50,000 bullies more than we need in our lives.

And last but not least: Remember those black and white newsreels from the 1930’s when Hitler “mesmerized” his audience which screamed its acceptance of utterly the worst human being who ever lived? Well, friends, that’s Adolph Hitler reincarnated to our President. He’s stealing our country and our rights from under our noses. And we cannot let this happen. We can hope, though, that some brave news outlet will pull away the curtain of the dictator of Oz and show him from what a worthless piece of shit he really is. When that happens, no doubt, Miller will be kissing his ass performing the most disgusting sucking up in history.

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Ken from CO's avatar

JD Vance was right when he said trump was "America's Hitler (or was it cultural heroin), not that Vance is right about most things.)

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Patris's avatar

I couldn’t watch his stupid face so 🙏💙 for taking a hit for the team. But mostly arms around you for the pain in your childhood…

I’ve been in the presence of people like this, sickened by their impulse to harm, even gleefully. That you survived and overcame that focus only leaves me more in awe of your strength.

As for Blotto, I am comforted by the myth of King Meidas, who, craving gold ultimately succumbed to a surfeit of it. (Greek gods and goddesses did not preach kindness. They were not that hypocritical.)

Apocryphal of course, but something that should give us all a quiet moment before we’re inundated again with more of his crap.

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Robot Bender's avatar

I've read my history, JoJo. Much of that was said in much the same way by Josef Goebbels, some of it close to verbatim. I think that whole farce of a funeral was a call for a "Christian Jihad." Just think about the language he used, the words. They've turned Kirk into a martyr much like the Nazis did with Horst Wessel. I think that violence against their perceived enemies is going to worsen very quickly now. Mass arrests of non-MAGA politicians, judges, etc. Shooting protesters with live ammo.

I think we're past the last barrier at this point. IMHO, about the only thing that can stop it is a military counter-coup. I'm not saying to give up. I'm saying "Realize where we are."

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Lillian Murty's avatar

Totally agree

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Glenn Reynolds's avatar

An old (and slimy) legal trick is to use something as “sword and shield.” Used to trick the “low wattage” types. Like MAGA. The tragic violence allows him to condemn it and at the same time tacitly encourage it. Jan 6 shows what he is about.

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Rory MacLeod's avatar

A stunningly emotive article JoJo… you move me to tears a lot.. your pained childhood..

I REALLY get that.. my mum , who adores me, sitting me down when I was 3 and explaining that my dad was in heaven and I COULD speak to him by closing my eyes. He died when I was 2 weeks old.. so I was raised by a loving grieving 24 years old mum..

I’m 60 now…

The childhood you describe, has similarities..

The pain, the loss.. the need to make EVERYONE HAPPY AND OK!

The need for quiet invisibility…

The acute ability to “read a room”.. the need to be a people pleaser.

So when people like us, see Trump, the anxieties resurface..

He evokes pain…

Why ? Because we can see the NON VERBAL SIGNS OF EVIL…

A bitter jealous weak man.. a man given everything, at the start of life, unlike many of us.. and instead of graciously accepting his luck… he chooses the arrogance and pretence that he was a success..

That’s WHY he despises intelligent successful people.. Springsteen, De Niro, Kimmel, Colbert, Swift…

Because he is a hologram of a man…

Our STRENGTH IS to see through a fraud and bully like Trump… and to not be moved by him and in fact to push back, unlike the compliant media..

I despise the man! For his weakness

❤️🌟

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Rob's avatar

Jo, thank you for watching it for us, so we don't gotta. I did the 10 minute lowlight reel, and was horrified (please don't get me started) ...

Voices DO carry - Yours among the most of all! :)

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Ann Panda's avatar

Stephen Miller is Jewish! That's what I will never understand about his gleeful participation in all this!

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Robot Bender's avatar

Self hatred is a thing.

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Robin D's avatar

He is as Jewish as Trump is Christian.

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Sandra Greer's avatar

His relatives are deeply offended by his behavior. He apparently was like this in high school, and just added to it.

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Al Keim's avatar

Maybe his Dad took Tylenol.

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Debra Dassow's avatar

The Chair of the Republican Party in my County (I am Chair of the Democratic Party in my county) has MAGA printed on his yarmulke.

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Al Keim's avatar

Oy gevalt!

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KingRayVet's avatar

Make it make sense. Right? So absurd, but I definitely understand. There's people in my community that seem to have forgotten they're Black and I'm extremely insulted by all of those clowns like Kirk, Chump, Miller, etc. SMFH 🙄

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Mary  McCabe's avatar

Gross.

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Ann Panda's avatar

Of ffs.

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Eleanor's avatar

Another excellent piece... Thank you! I'm so sorry that you grew up with an abusive mother--that's the worst. Your willingness to share about your history makes this piece particularly powerful. I hope you will continue to raise your voice, and I pray you and your family will stay safe.

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Al Keim's avatar

Yes, you're Mom was a bad break but I bet you're a fantastic Mother❤️

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RRiveter's avatar

What I am truly stymied about is that Kirk's wife did not control this debacle more than she did. I know she's young but for God's sakes, not that young. Why on earth would she agree to this type of ridiculous, hate-filled, pseudo Christian rally about her husband's death vs having a respectable small, private funeral for him? I know he was laid out at a chapel of some sort, and they supposedly belong to a bona fide church. I have absolutely no doubt that Trump and cronies convinced her of this hate rally, which to be frank, was embarrassing for her, her dead husband, and her family. I understand that she bends both knees for this wart of a man, but is this the type of shit she wants her children to hear as they grow older? She's ok with that? If so, then I guess this was right up her alley. There was no need for a huge event for so-called "sympathizers". They could leave flowers, notes, whatever, then get out of dodge and let the family mourn their loss, instead of this event which further led to a ripping apart of our Republic. Maybe there's just a simple explanation: she agrees and she doesn't give a shit. If she really thinks that Trump will continue support of her and her political agendas, she is out for a rude awakening. She is not her husband, but a woman with 2 young children to raise. He will stop thinking about her husband yesterday.

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Stacey Dexter's avatar

I have always enjoyed your work and resonated with your passion. But today JoJo, this post pushed me to annually subscribe because I want your voice to keep being heard… and I know how much public support is treasured. Your take completely aligned with what I have felt all along about Trump supporters: Maga are a group of traumatized individuals who feel a familiarity with Trump…because of their own abusive pasts. He, his words, his actions and viciousness are familiar to them. I feel they also meld a certain amount of retaliation with this familiarity towards “the other” to feel powerful over someone else as a way to assuage their deep and unhealed wounds. Trump played on this theme endlessly during his rallies with quips about how he understood how his base had been “left behind” by those in power, the Dems, the left. Most of us who have abusive backgrounds have surely longed for a way to release some of our buried rage. The helplessness and unfairness and psychic injury is something that becomes its own entity if we have not grown and strived to become someone else, strived to reckon with that pain. I fear that what we are seeing now is how it shows itself. You are right on the money. Thank you for this thoughtful and personal share— today you have connected with so many of us who really get it. (And as a Bostonian, I saw til Tuesday live so many times and that song was always my favorite 💔)

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JoJoFromJerz's avatar

Thank you so much and welcome!!!

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cablecargal's avatar

Me, too! I subscribed to JoJo today.

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JoJoFromJerz's avatar

Thank you!!! ❤️

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