Denny Carter

How To Talk To An Economic Doomer

One strategy for convincing someone that the economy is actually good is to get directly in front of their face and spout off economic data and measurements until spittle is raining down on the skeptic.  If you go on long enough – if you cite enough valid statistics that demonstrate a

They Want The Robots To Be Racist

I have a bad habit of pretending the right-wing mind is some labyrinthian construct that one can only comprehend by sinking oneself into the deepest depths of conservative thought.  Then I see right wingers begging machines to be racist and I realize how fucking stupid I’ve been, how needlessly

The Science of the Squishy Lib

Open mindedness, generosity, tolerance, finding common ground in our humanity: This is what the libs want.  By “the libs,” I don’t mean anyone to the left of Newt Gingrich, but rather folks who have tightened their blindfolds during our slow but steady descent into fascism and have hoped against

I’m Begging The Democrats To Watch TV

Americans are raving with praise for a show about a billionaire family being tormented and killed by a saucy little demon and Democrats are shying away from an Eat The Rich ethos. That millions of Americans are titillated by the suffering of the wealthy on their TV screens apparently means

The Free Speech Warriors And Their Bad-Faith Game

Any time I wonder what kind of speech the Free Speech Warriors are defending, I’m reminded of the ocean of bad faith in which they so happily swim.  Two or three times a year, the world’s foremost Free Speech Lovers will get together and sign a statement about

A Bad-Faith Presidential Candidate To Save Us All

I can see it so clearly in my mind’s eye: A Democratic presidential candidate adorned in all the trappings of 21st century jingoism, using the no-holds-barred language of conservatives, bulldozing his way through Republicans and into the hearts and minds of normie voters who love this shit.  This presidential

Be The Tree

Social media, once you’ve breached a certain follower threshold, is like a nonstop party begging for your attendance.  For some folks, that threshold is a few thousands followers. For others, it’s tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. I don’t say any of this to garner

Why No One Cares About The Biden Impeachment

There was a time in American history – around 36 months ago – when articles of impeachment against a United States president was a Big Fucking Deal, a Thing That Demands Attention. It meant the president had done something extraordinarily illegal and was deemed no longer fit for office even by the

Book Burning And The Power Of Bad Faith

In what could very well be a deleted scene from 2006’s Idiocracy, but what is instead a real clip from our increasingly dumb and dangerous political landscape, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Missouri recently used a flamethrower to set books aflame as giddy supporters cheered on. This scene could

We Need To See More Pain

The cushy trappings of modern life have tricked us into believing the conflict between labor and capital belongs to a bygone era. You’re not working fourteen hours a day in the pitch black of a coal mine so you might put food on your family’s table. Your boss

The Incredibly Gross Bad Faith of Birth Rate Worries

The love for their children was in every gesture, every word, every look. You could sense it – feel it – even from a distance. A mom and dad, dressed in what appeared to be used clothing – him in an oversized collared shirt with a small hole in the shoulder, wearing oversized

The Disadvantage of Caring About Anything

For all the energy I expend on detailing the deleterious effects of the right wing’s political bad faith, I acknowledge – through a clenched jaw and gritted molars – that it is a useful tactic for which there is no easy counter. The vitality of bad faith attacks launched by the

Sorry, Your Traditionalism Isn't Punk Rock

There are fundamental misunderstandings in the United States about what constitutes counter culture, just as there are mind-melting misinterpretations of what constitutes working class politics. Or maybe – just maybe – bad faith can explain it all. Every once in a while as I peruse one of the fourteen microblogging sites I’

So Close, Yet So Tragically Far

Conservatives are always so close to identifying the source of their suffering, the core of society’s wrenching inequalities that have immiserated everyday working people for so long. They were close during the early days of the COVID pandemic, when it was clear multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies that had intentionally

It's OK To Fall In Line – For Now

A deeply unfortunate byproduct of every election becoming an existential contest between authoritarianism and what remains of democracy is that the left cannot – for now – challenge failed Democratic orthodoxy. This is not an admission of defeat to the forces of the disastrous centrism that has defined the Democratic Party for

White Supremacy Is Sheer Terror

Finding a reason to hate Amazon Prime’s “Them” isn’t difficult. It is degradation porn, exploitative of black Americans’ historical traumas, and shocking for the sake of shock value. Critics have called for the show – ostensibly about the horrors of redlining – to be removed from streaming services, to be

The Belligerent, Bad-Faith Bullshit of SCOTUS's Major Questions Doctrine

Creating an impenetrable force field through which no progressive public policy could pass was always going to be a two-step process for the American right. And the second step is more infuriating – and for the left, more vexing – than the first. The first step in creating a right-wing backstop against

An Open Letter To Jason Aldean

Dear Mr. Aldean, I would first like to congratulate you on your recent viral fame and your unwavering commitment to owning and/or triggering the libs. Your single, “Try That In A Small Town,” is the talk of the internet, from liberals calling it “extremist dog whistle racism without equal”

The Bad Faith Of 'Popular' Right-Wing Media And Why It Matters

It was all so absurd and unbelievable from the start. Conservatives across the US have used social media over the past month to weave a conspiracy in which a fascist film known as Sound of Freedom was being censored and undermined by shadowy forces. We were to believe that wage

Only Power Can Save Us Now

It’s human nature for the worst of us to want power. The desire for power and the ability to shape society as we believe it should be is seemingly baked into the DNA of the most heartless, craven human beings. It is them -- not the do gooders, not

BFT Podcast Episode 3: Flying The Fuck-You Flag

On today's podcast, I talk about the bad faith and mind-melting levels of gaslighting involved in the flying of big-ass American flags (and other variations of the flag). Remember to become a Bad Faith Times subscriber and/or supporter. Eventually, the BFT pod will be available exclusively for supporters at

Republicans Are Going To Have To Find Other Ways To Steal Elections

That there are three Supreme Court justices ready to end free and fair elections in the United States is a crisis in and of itself. Thankfully, for now those three robed fascists with billionaire sponsors – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch – are in the Court's minority on a fundamental

Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

It wasn’t all that long ago that I bought a Toyota Prius and was summarily mocked by every man in my life. Driving around in a boxy 2008 Prius was seen as nothing short of vehicular castration by many (mostly conservative) guys in the early years of the Obama

Bad Faith Times Podcast Episode 2: RFK Is Quite Bad

I very much felt like ranting about Robert Kennedy, Jr. and his stunningly bad-faith run for the White House in 2024. I wrote last month about RFK's bad-faith campaign and its various goals, and since then, he has cozied up to right-wing media personalities and Silicon Valley moguls dead set

Dads, Give Up Your Authoritarian Impulse

A lot of Americans my age – folks born in the late 70s and early 80s – grew up in households ruled by fatherly authoritarian decree. Tough dads ruling the home with an iron fist certainly weren't exclusive to this time frame. Fathers who came of age in the early Reagan years