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"Hachi"Michael Arceneaux
3/17/17 10:40am
YES MICHAEL!
I was waiting for the Root’s inevitable coverage of Van Jones, who in recent weeks has shown his true self, and last night held his Town Hall on CNN. Last night, he had Rep. Chris Collins on. Jones is too fucking quick to applaud Republicans (or Rethuglicans as Ms. Roo calls them), literally. Jones asked Collins last night what he thought about cutting Meals on Wheels, Collins floundered and offered some bullshit-ass deflecting before saying that he didn’t agree with cutting off Meals on Wheels. Jones then asked the audience to applaud for Collins taking a stand.
Excuse me, what? What, exactly, is the spineless, feckless Collins standing up for other than furthering the agenda of the White Nationalists?
Jones is a fraud. He is frequently paired with Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh Mackadoodle as some kind of voice of reason but I know better.
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  EvenBaggierTrousers5"Hachi"
  3/17/17 10:46am
  Collins floundered and offered some bullshit-ass deflecting before saying that he didn’t agree with cutting off Meals on Wheels. Jones then asked the audience to applaud for Collins taking a stand.
  So we have to applaud people for agreeing, sure, old people and veterans who can’t get out should probably have someone bring them food. Great. Way to set the bar, Jones.
  Did Jones ask Collins if he was going to actively oppose that section of the budget, try to get him on record? I’m guessing probably not.
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  "Hachi"EvenBaggierTrousers5
  3/17/17 10:52am
  Exactly. Why is Jones’ standard so low that we have to applaud people for doing the logical and right thing to do?
  Did Jones ask Collins if he was going to actively oppose that section of the budget, try to get him on record? I’m guessing probably not.
  Collins deflected and said that this is the “administration’s” budget. Way to be brave, Collins, way to be brave.
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EvenBaggierTrousers5Michael Arceneaux
3/17/17 10:36am
I think sometimes progressives think that that all 60 million people who voted for [Trump] have signed on to an Alt-Right, white nationalist agenda. They think that we now live in a country with 60 million neo-Nazis.
Oh, fuck off, Van Jones. This is the type of conflating that is delivered by and serves Trump and his supporters to defend their snowflake mentality and their rejection of reasonable compromise. No progressive/liberal/Democrat thinks everyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi,. They might think that they were OK with Nazi’s in positions of government, but they THEMSELVES...? No.
I’m starting to think Van Jones has drank the Kool-aid.
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  llaalleellEvenBaggierTrousers5
  3/17/17 11:05am
  Agreed. This rhetoric is toxic and disingenuous.
  And I don’t disagree with him that there needs to be a mechanism for common ground. But that can’t be built on a platform where people aren’t held accountable for the weight of their vote. In this environment, it’s just not sellable until conservatives can also come to the table with a willingness to confront issues of complicity and take a solid stand against what many consider to be Trump/Congress’s gross abuses of power and threats to democracy.
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  Hello, America: Find Your Soulllaalleell
  3/17/17 12:00pm
  Exactly. Common ground can only come where there is common ground, not where millions of Americans (and beyond) are literally under attack. I’m not going to compromise on my reproductive rights and right to get paid fairly, or the rights of my friends of various ethnicities, races, sexual orientations or gender identities. If we can’t find common ground there, I’m just going to fight until we force these people out.
  I cannot find “common ground” with the coal miner whose main problem with his economic situation is brown people.
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Manitos, The Tiny Hands of TrumpMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 11:57am
But a lot of people held their nose and voted for Donald Trump—despite his bigotry, not because of it. And that should be reason for some more confidence than people have been showing recently.
WHAAAAAAT!!?!!!?!!??
How the fuck am I supposed to feel confident that people saw this asshole call my people criminals, rapists, murderers and STILL decided to vote for him or not vote against him? That’s how little we matter to them.
Stop trying to make these assholes sympathetic when there are people actually struggling through Drump’s rhetoric and Republican policies. Every single Trump/Stein/Johnson voter can fuck right off.
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  Rooo sez BISH PLZManitos, The Tiny Hands of Trump
  3/23/17 6:32pm
  You know what’s interesting about that?
  JOHN SCALZI spoke more strongly about those enablers who voted for 45 who were okay with his bigotry than Van has done.
  And he is white.
  http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/10/the-cinemax-theory-of-racism/
  And fully do I understand how that gives him more privilege to speak, but ... Van could always have just kept his mouth shut on that particular subtopic. And he’s chosen not to take that route - so he deserves whatever vitriol we give him for doing it.
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OctoberSurpriseMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 12:15pm
My read on Jones, is as you suggest his motivations are career based and as such his commentary is meant to find a notch that allows him to, if ever called upon, to cite his “fair and balanced” bonafides. Its unfortunate because that very behavior pervades a media landscape that is more concerned about access and splashy graphics than hard news. I’m not made a Jones for not projecting the disgust I personally feel for Trump, I am disappointed in his rush to find something positive to say about an admin that has done nothing to deserve the benefit of doubt.
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  DolemiteOctoberSurprise
  3/17/17 3:19pm
  So you’re also thinking he might want to jump over to Fox News in the future? Like Megyn Kelly was “hard” on Trump and jumped over to NBC?
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  OctoberSurpriseDolemite
  3/20/17 10:44am
  Nah, not necessarily FNC, but there are plenty of other opportunities for talking heads these days. If he boxes himself in as far as political stances he limits those opportunities to some extent. Certainly this behavior benefits him in his current job, as if he is seen as equitable perhaps he gets better access to the folks he is covering.
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Hello, America: Find Your SoulMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 11:56am
Sure, maybe they’re not all ALT-RIGHT Nazis, but they are enablers at best. They are ignorant. They are selfish. Whatever it is, even if they don’t particularly want there to be tremendous humanitarian (and other) costs over Trump’s term and beyond, they simply decided it didn’t matter to them. They are not noble and not sympathetic no matter how much Van Jones wants to sell it to us.
I don’t know if he’s just trying to be someone’s black friend or what, but this “let’s all understand each other shit” is driving me nuts. We understand. We understand loud and clear and it’s time we recognized the possibility that there are a lot of people whose STRONG beliefs will never be aligned with the greater good, will never be aligned with reason, and will never be aligned with ours.
We don’t need to come together. We need to struggle and make sure these people are not successful any longer. We need to act in our own self-interests.
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JennyGeils8675309Michael Arceneaux
3/17/17 7:46pm
Has anyone tried a quick camera flash to his face yet?
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  Rooo sez BISH PLZJennyGeils8675309
  3/23/17 6:29pm
  never gets old
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anomalyMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 1:35pm
Thanks Michael. I’ve recognized this about Van Jones for nearly a year now and I’m glad others are catching on as well. I think he just likes the idea of appealing to the white working class and admires candidates who can do that. I saw him do that with Bernie and I see him do it with Trump, he values the pain of white working class, almost as if he finds it more valid than any other demographic, including non-white working class. He also has a habit of saying “elite out of touch liberals don’t understand the plight of wwc and how they think.” It’s funny because his narrative is actually what I find very out of touch. All the data we have on these voters shows why and how they vote the way they do. So when people like Van Jones say those voters vote the way they do because of some sympathetic reasons, its him who’s not actually listening to those voters. I was in Wisconsin and Michigan for the last election, I talked to tens of thousands of voters in the rustbelt and actually listened to what they cared about and how they vote, something Van Jones should try.
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  Rooo sez BISH PLZanomaly
  3/23/17 6:30pm
  Well ...
  he is married to a white woman.
  So maybe said young lady came from more of that kind of background than the “principled patrician” one I was imagining she had.
  (Interesting that we’ve never seen her. Kind of has that Get Out feeling about it.)
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mattdizzleMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 10:08am
Van Jones is a seasoned member of the governing class and is calling balls and strikes as he sees them. It doesnt mean he agrees. “Resist” and “Fuck off Racist” might work on your favorite messageboard or comments section, but doesnt work when applying actual policy and law enforcement to a nation. People dont disappear when you say “Problematic”, and his job was still to provide functioning policy for those people, like them or not. (And/Or Comment on cable news on other people doing the same job)

Thats the difference between many activists for civil rights in our era and van jones, like it or not.
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  Raineyb1013mattdizzle
  3/17/17 11:03am
  His job is as a talking head he is not involved in policy he bloviates on TV. There is a spectrum between bending over backwards to be nice to assholes and straight up telling them to fuck off. Van Jones is not succeeding in finding that middle ground at all.
  Right now Van Jones is about as effective at applying policy to law enforcement as a wet noodle is at causing pain and worse, he lets Trump supporters off the goddamn hook when it comes to confronting their racist fuckery.
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  8th of November Freedom Brigademattdizzle
  3/17/17 7:24pm
  He is trying to build his career, he is not setting policy on CNN. He is walking a very weak line period.
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StartingOverAgainMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 10:13am
That’s what made this other little nugget from Jones all the more laughable: “If he finds a way to do that over and over again, he’s going to be there for eight years.”
Ehhhhhh ...
Do I agree that it is laughable to think that moment was “great” or whatever?
Yes.
But in the context of whether or not it will help Trump retain his office what you think doesn’t fucking matter. Neither does what I think.
There was no universe where you were ever going to vote for Trump. Me neither. Also probably most of your readers.
So the question is how would the wishy washy voters, the poor, uneducated whites who shifted their votes from D to R last year, perceive a string of moments like that maneuver in the speech with the widow?
The rather unmessy but grim truth is that they eat that shit up.
Watching Jones after that speech say that in context, it seems like that is what he was driving at. He’s too nice to say it directly though. Though in truth, even if he wanted to unload with both barrels, CNN would have a hard time giving him as much screen time as they do.
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redzedMichael Arceneaux
3/17/17 10:27am
I watched him (in the company of a bunch of Trump supporters) on election night. He is too kind. Period. And that’s what makes him a wonderful person and someone - unlike a lot of other pundits you see on TV - that you would love to be friends with, if given half the chance. This man wears his heart on his sleeve, and I, for one, think it’s a beautiful thing.
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