I agree with that line of thinking.  Do what we need to do, both before and after the elections (including, as I tried to make clear in the "Fortitude" post thread, with respect to the impeachment matter if that is pursued in the next Congress.  A sober, calm, patient, explain-the-constitution, no victory dances approach will be essential to maximize chances of winning the public opinion battle.), without feeding the troll, without saying or doing stuff that makes it easier for him, GOP congressional campaigns, and the right-wing noise machine to get any traction with their manufactured distractive narratives.  That does not at all rule out continuing intelligent, valid, sharp criticisms.  

Direct actions prior to the election to my way of thinking are not necessarily inadvisable or counter-productive, not that I have any ability whatever to do anything other than express personal hopes and fears as to what fellow citizens will choose to do.  But direct action efforts which involve FTF to confrontation or presence are dicier.  They are difficult to keep focused with helpful messages for the elections.  And they can get out of hand if the opposition initiates or provokes disorder or violence.  It's a given that the right-wing media machine will make every effort to blame protestors for any disruption or violence that could occur in connection with a direct action effort.  The election, not far away now, is a one-time chance to get some sort of functional checks in place, to reduce the amount of damage that is being done for a two-year period leading up to the presidential election.  So I am concerned about things our side chooses to do, and not do, which are high risk for impeding efforts to win back the Congress.  

Of course the opposition will seek to manufacture distractive, mis-directive, and/or fraudulent narratives anyway.  It's what they do.  

Our real audience is people we want to vote D in the November elections, and public opinion more broadly going forward.  If we return idiocy with over-reaction or unfortunate responses, or are so distracted or un-alert that we forget to say and advocate for what we will seek to do to mitigate peoples' real and pressing problems, it just complicates the multiple, headache-inducing tasks of what needs to be done to turn our country around. 

Trump and the GOP are generating plenty of anger and passion motivating many among the long and ever-growing list of those opposed to show up in November.  The passion gap--GOP voters generally have not been as fired up--still favors Democrats, even though it may have shrunken slightly of late. 

Depending on how the SCOTUS nomination plays out, that passion gap could, as has been pointed out, shrink further.  This is one reason why those who, like me, favor vigorous opposition to the likely nominee, in opposition to an even more extreme SC, need to exert to do everything possible to keep the debate from being exclusively about Roe v. Wade, and identify other crucial issues in play.  My favored candidate for what to focus on in that regard is: SCOTUS needs to stand as a bulwark and safeguard for our founding concept that no person, including no President, is above the law.  Remind the public that we fought a revolution because we refused to submit to tyrannical/autocratic rule and that those of us who are undistracted by Trump's pyrotechnics and understand the GOP's anti-democratic agenda have no interest in turning back that clock.

Not that it matters, but based on this account, I agree that what Mink did was admirable.  Also intelligent, and, yes, civil (for which I hope she will not lose points from the anti-civility, anti-snowflake police). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/03/why-a-teacher-ca...

From the description, although Pruitt surely did not welcome the encounter, it was not of a (seriously) harassing nature.  Inconveniencing, yes, I suppose, because he was trying to eat his meal and relax. 

But, arguably, it was a legitimate attempt by a concerned citizen to take advantage of a maybe once in a lifetime opportunity to deliver a short, civil message to a prominent public official.  She was wise to have it videotaped, on top of that. 

She knew she had herself under emotional control.  Knowing he was on videotape, and based on the fact she presented as someone who was not some nutcase on a rampage possibly ready to physically assault him (which would have triggered his antsy security detail to get her out immediately, if they had picked up on any such signs), Pruitt, we can guess, probably felt inhibited from asking her to leave, leaving himself before she was done, or asking his security detail to usher her away from his table.  That may have been the smartest thing he did as EPA administrator. 

The potential problem comes, the one I was attempting to express concerns about anyway, when a public official, or anyone else really with a microphone or a public following encourages individuals to harass Administration officials, without qualification or nuance which in any case would probably get lost in the media or any other public account of what they actually said. 

It seems to me that could very easily lead to incidents where, say, some individuals attempt to stalk public officials, or, say, multiple people show up, maybe ranting and raving, where you might think videotaping it would probably be more counter-productive than not to the purposes the confronters want to advance--because the prevailing takeaway for those viewing the videotape might be along lines of "wow, those anti-Trump people are really rude, whiny, and obnoxious.  It's just some political bone they are picking at, after all." 

Mink did the opposite of all of those things.  She avoided pitfalls that could have led to a negative PR event. 

I think I saw yesterday that an ethics complaint has been filed against Waters by the GOP in Congress for allegedly inciting violence.  She said, after the fact once she started to get blowback (and she may have said it at the time she made her initial remarks as well), that she was not urging violence.  I doubt it's a surprise to anyone here that the GOP Congress would leap at any opportunity to keep the remarks, and their own twisted interpretation of them, at the forefront of the "news" cycle.   

Try to keep up. That was the discussion last year. All these stories now are about what to do about not feeding the troll, how to handle that spot the media is in.

What I see is that you and he are similar in that you like to participate in grievance Olympics

My puzzlement is why. Where does that get you? I got the impression that you did not think anyone who voted for Trump is worth any time. So why are you so interested in fighting what they say?

It is all lies and made up stuff and 2/3 of the population knows it.

The press is stuck reporting that these are lies and made up stuff because he is president they must, it frustrates them because they are forced to feed the troll and don't now how to get out of that except to ridicule it somehow. They are continually open to suggestions about how to handle it, the White House reporters tweet to each other all the time about it, they know they are being used.

But if you are interested in actual politics, it does not make sense to take it so seriously and fight his nonsense meant to inflame you and get him approval with the fans. It's even counter productive, as the resulting screeching turns off swings.

I stand by my original statement on the Red Hen thing that Sarah Sanders used it as an opportunity to play more of the victim olympics games. I surely don't fault the restaurant owner for doing anything she felt right and comfortable with as regards her clientele and reputation, but I am also very sure it was not smart politics if that is what she was trying to do.

KAREEM'S ESSAY IS CORRECT.

Trump is one thing, the GOP another. Trump's trolling is not helping the GOP, in most cases it's hurting them. He is stealing their supposed base and ripping them apart. Brand name conservatives are leaving the party and telling people to vote Dem.

As to the judiciary problem: this problem goes with any GOP president. Trump's so wack he might mistakenly pick someone for the Supremes that a President Pence would never consider. It could happen! He could nominate a moderate without knowing an better!

One of the main problems of governing right now is that he distracts with things that aren't reality!!!

Instead of talking about what Pompeo is doing in North Korea, the nation is talking about crazy shit he said in Montana that has nothing to do with reality. 

There's probably not a single person on Wall St. that thinks a trade war is a good idea to "MAGA", nor Congress. Are we talking about that?

I stand by my statement about him not being effective UNLESS his intent was to sow chaos according to the direction of Putin. Since he has run with the MAGA  theme from day one, I can only go with incompetence and narcissist distraction over intent to bring the nation down by trolling.