February 15, 2024

"Everywhere I turn, people are rightly laboring to sound the alarm about Donald Trump’s spectacularly reckless, deeply evil expectorations...."

Frank Bruni expresses his frustration, in "We’re Running Out of Names for Trump. At Least Polite Ones" (NYT)(free access link!).

"Everywhere I turn...." reminds me of the famous Pauline Kael remark. But Pauline Kael was more self-aware. She said (get it right!):
"I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them."
If everywhere you turn you see nothing but hatred of Trump, you're missing millions of your fellow citizens.

Kael was talking about the 1972 election, which Richard Nixon won by a stunning landslide.

82 comments:

deepelemblues said...

Using the word "expectorations" is like using the words "amongst" or "amidst." Don't. Don't be Frank Bruni.

n.n said...

Will no one rid me of this deplorable... meddlesome Person of Orange (PoO)... Trump.

hawkeyedjb said...

George McGovern would be a right-winger in the modern Democratic party. He loved his country.

Iman said...

Love hates Trump.

Bruni should stick to what he knows.

mccullough said...

“sound the alarm” displays lazy writing.

Also too many adverbs.

Expectorate isn’t too bad. But I’m not a fan of phlegm metaphors.

loudogblog said...

The really dumb part about the 1972 election was that there absolutely no need for the Watergate break in because Nixon won by such a large margin.

Goldenpause said...

Everywhere Bruni turns in the NYT newsroom.

Ampersand said...

If there were a requirement that columnists had to say something that was at least slightly surprising, Frank Bruni wouldn't have published anything for the past 20 years.

Breezy said...

“But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

This is either a show, a survival instinct, a sixth sense, or a psychosis. Humans are awesome.

Wince said...

Expectorations?

Trump needs the ‘Tussin?

Dave Begley said...

The Right and Left can't agree about basic facts. See the story below about Michael Mann's fraudulent hockey stick.

The last time America was in this place was when the North and South couldn't agree about slavery.

rehajm said...

Food critic Bruni gives the 2024 Election Bistro 1/2 star out of a possible 5….

Oh, and the liberal name calling- the high school kids at lunch dreaming up insults. They don’t seem to be enjoying the game they created this election season do they? Makes me kind of enjoy it. Not as fun as some overdue hangings but enjoyable nonetheless…

PM said...

I see the NYT staff sitting around breathing into paper bags.

Aggie said...

And Pauline was in New York, giving a clue to her sphere of inquiry. I, on the other hand, was a kid sacking groceries in Massachusetts. And as Nixon was being hounded, we were treated to the spectacle of bumper stickers saying: "Don't blame me - I'm from Massachusetts ! "

Which tells you everything you need to know about those people that are proudly announcing how they're taking in illegal immigrants, virtuously - and are pleased to see them doing the cooking for their hosts (cleaning & landscaping to follow).

wendybar said...

Why would I even think about reading a political column by a food critic?? (in a failing Newspaper) I don't care that Frank is an idiot, who needs to get help for his TDS. I can think of a lot of names to call people like him, but he would probably curl up in the fetal position and cry like a little baby. THEY did this to themselves. So high and mighty now. I can't WAIT, until little Frankie and his progressive brethren are out in the streets, rioting and lighting cities on fire. It will be glorious.

gilbar said...

WHO was this John Hospers? and WHY did the Virginia Elector vote for him?
Isn't THAT insurrection?

gilbar said...

1972 presidential candidacy.. Hospers campaigning in 1972

In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, Hospers and Tonie Nathan were the first presidential and vice-presidential nominees, respectively, of the newly formed Libertarian Party.
The Libertarian Party was poorly organized, and Hospers and Nathan managed to get on the ballot in only two states[15] (Washington and Colorado), receiving 3,674 popular votes.

Hospers and Nathan received one electoral vote from faithless elector Roger MacBride, a Republican from Virginia, resulting in Nathan's becoming the first woman and the first Jew to receive an electoral vote in a United States presidential election.

tommyesq said...

Funny thing is, I think Trump has been much more subdued than he was in the last couple of elections.

madAsHell said...

Mr. Bruni is an embarrassment.

Gusty Winds said...

Bruni: Demagogue, autocrat, dictator, tyrant — so many of us have used and reused those terms, with good reason, to describe what he is or wants to be....We in the world outside of MAGA aren’t so much culpable of crying wolf as we are foiled, at this point, by the challenge of capturing the wolf’s madness and appetite.

Bruni is blind to his own point. It's all bullshit hyperbole. Trump is not, or wants to be a Demagogue, autocrat, dictator or tyrant. So...we are done listening to the Frank Brunis, David Frenchs, and David Brooks of the world.

There is zero self-awareness in Bruni's article. They have cried wolf. Over, and over, and over. "madness and appetite". Just more howling at the moon.

Joe Smith said...

If unmarried white women weren't allowed to vote, this country would be much better off.

Then we'd just have to dal with low-T liberal men, and they don't fight back.

Temujin said...

Hello. I work in the NYT building. When I do go outside, I'm in the thick of Manhattan. I play in Manhattan. I work in Manhattan. I went to school in Manhattan. Surely this must be a valid cross section of people in the US. Yet everywhere I turn, people are rightly laboring to sound the alarm about Donald Trump's blah, blah, blah...

These are unserious people living in fear about things said by a man who is best known for his overuse of superlatives and hyperbole. Most of us just smile at some of what he says, shake our heads at other things, or downright chuckle at still others. But among the Best Thinkers on the left...Dread. Fear. End of Democracy and...maybe all existence.

It's tired stuff from The Gray Lady.

YoungHegelian said...

You know, it may very well be that Trump is an agent of Satan himself.

But, I would believe it more if the folks who keep on talking about it were not so morally corrupt themselves. I mean, it's just amazing how these people can lie continuously and not be aware that we, the great unwashed, see we're being gaslighted.

It's like if the bishop kept droning on and on about the importance of chastity and temperance when everyone knew he owned the whorehouse.

rhhardin said...

Read the article with "Don Rickles" replacing "Trump" everywhere and its cluelessness is apparent.

Taken as an academic exercise in vituperation it's not very good either.

Gusty Winds said...

Donald Trump's...deeply evil expectorations.

See that's the thing Mr. Bruni. We think your lies and unjustified arrogance are deeply evil.

You know NOTHING about us. You see us as beneath you, and we're ok with that. You sold your soul and you're just kidding yourself.

But we know who you are and understand you. You've been in our faces our entire lives. That's why we don't want to be you, or have our lives run by the likes of you. And we certainly don't want to send our children and grandchildren to die for you and your elitist bullshit.

Yes. That the width of the chasm. Frankly. Fuck you Frank.

Interested Bystander said...

Has there ever been a bigger beatdown of a candidate than that which Nixon delivered on McGovern? Yet the Democrats managed to rid themselves of Nixon pretty handily.

dbp said...

The same people who sounded the alarm before Trump's first term are sounding it again. The thing is that, other than the Sturm und Drang from the alarmists--now and while Trump was president, things were run reasonably well under Trump and are being run noticeably worse under Biden.

Humperdink said...

Running out of polite names? Hitler, Nazi apparently qualify as polite? Who knew?

Rusty said...

When you run out of polite names for Trump you run out of polite names for me. It means you're doing politics wrong.

MadisonMan said...

The problem for Democrats is that people remember the Trump Administration, and realize that nothing horrible happened. In fact, it was a relatively peaceful 4 years! And now we have Biden trying to figure out how to fight multiple wars all at once.
Rubio had a nice reply to the gotcha question he was asked about something horrible Trump was supposed to have said earlier this week. I don't even recall what was causing the outrage. But Rubio, like me, lived through the Trump Administration. It wasn't a terrible time. And that's what Rubio noted.

Leland said...

Trump would have been losing in the primary by now if,
Democrats were not conducting lawfare against Trump, which keeps Trump in the news and removes all the oxygen from other candidates.
And, opponents on the left and right would articulate a vision for America rather than suggesting Trump is worse than any unstated and unknown thing they would do. We can see what Biden is doing and he has the worse approval rating of any President ever.

Alas, besides whining about Trump, the only other thing the opposition to Trump cares about isn’t America but is Ukraine or Gaza.

Vivek and RFK Jr. showed they can remove votes from Trump, but the left doesn’t want them either, so they give them no oxygen.

rhhardin said...

Here's the way vituperation is done
This Cowardly Trump Fluffer Mark Meadows Is a Lying Coward, with Robert Draper

The Elder said...

Such is life in the echo chamber!

Jerry said...

So he's spitting everywhere and missing the spittoon?

Sorry, couldn't help that one. ;)

Okay, so now we go from 'He's gonna destroy Our Democracy' (Hint: You don't OWN Democracy, everyone gets a say no matter how blazingly stupid) to warning about his horrible, evil, no good statements.

No matter what, don't look at them and judge for yourself! It'll rot your brain! It'll corrupt your morals! You might even get a laugh or two!

Why does it feel like we're watching a music video?

"Don't Look, Ethel!!!" https://youtu.be/XtzoUu7w-YM?si=1pfzrw45dqbnOI01

Seriously though - is this what we can expect for the next 8-9 months from our political commentariat? A screeching "Don't you dare look!" on anything Trump-related? If so - the more they scream hysterically about Trump and 'Muh Democracy!' the less people will listen. They've only got so much credibility in the first place, and that supply's worn pretty damned thin at this point.

This doesn't help restore the supply.

Jim at said...

Running out of names? Try President.

Larry1984 said...

I hated Nixon. Watching PBS years laterI learned that he did some good things. I think Nixon's actions were the result of the dead people voting in Chicago in 1960 and Nixon was trying to stay ahead of the Dem's cheating. I with Trump would keep his mouth shut some of the time.

Larry1984 said...

I hated Nixon. Watching PBS years laterI learned that he did some good things. I think Nixon's actions were the result of the dead people voting in Chicago in 1960 and Nixon was trying to stay ahead of the Dem's cheating. I with Trump would keep his mouth shut some of the time.

Big Mike said...

Repeating my comment from the Nalin Haley thread (slight changes):

As an example of what I mean about Donald Trump, he tried to make an issue of Haley’s husband not being with her on the campaign trail. First, if spouses are supposed to be with the candidates on the campaign trail, then where’s Melania? Secondly, Major Michael Haley is deployed overseas. Now a Democrat can get away with mocking a deployed soldier, but it’s typically fatal for the candidacy of an ordinary Republican. See what I mean about Trump’s lack of political instincts? But I retired into a blue collar neighborhood, and what I’m picking up from my neighbors is that Bidenomics has hit them and their families hard, and they see Trump as the only person with the brass balls enough to take on a federal establishment that hates the middle and working classes with a drooling passion, plus being the only person with the economic understanding to fix what Bidenomics broke.

A note for the lefty trolls who push cherry-picked statistics and estimated statistics from formerly trusted federal agencies (that will later “unexpectedly” be forced to revise those figures upward (unemployment, inflation rates) or downward (average wages) when reality catches up). You might sneer at working people, but they’ve got your number.

Skeptical Voter said...

Frank Bruni is a food critic? News to me, but then it's been 20 years since I last read the NYT on a daily basis (over lunch for amusement).

But I am reminded of a song about a pie that was a regular feature on the old Dr. Demento radio show. The pie in question was a "moose turd pie". It was baked up by the designated cook on a railway construction crew in an attempt to shift the cookie duties to someone else on the crew. Well if Frank Bruni is a food critic, he'd be just the guy to taste that moose turn pie and pronounce it "delicious". In the meantime Frank will continue to serve codswallop to the public.

n.n said...

An expectorant is a medicine you can use when you have a cough that produces mucus. Expectorants help thin the secretions in your airway and loosen up mucus, so you can make your cough more productive.
- clevelandclinic.org

Ahem. It could be a cold, a flu, it could be Covid-19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, ... It could be a PoO that mitigates progress.

Bob Boyd said...

Tiny bubbles

tim in vermont said...

Muh norms!

BREAKING: A newly obtained letter reveals that the White House contacted Attorney General Merrick Garland the night before the public release of the special counsel report on Joe Biden, and expressed strong opposition and disapproval to the report's remarks regarding the president's memory in an effort force a revisal of the report.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018d-ae03-dff1-a7df-effb0b150000

No wonder they hate X.

baghdadbob said...

Pauline Kael feels them in theaters, Peter Strzok smells them in Southern Virginia Wal-Marts.

Icky!

Yancey Ward said...

Perhaps Frank can smuggle himself into Canada and take advantage of MAID.

gadfly said...

Obviously, the beginning of the end for Richard Nixon began in secret with the formation of the Whitehouse Special Investigative Unit (The Plumbers) to stop leaks to the press such as Daniel Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers in 1971. Break-ins to Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office began the illegal activities that were followed by the Watergate office break-in in June 1972 of the Democratic Election Committee, where they were caught red-handed.

But the 1972 election came and went without Nixon having admitted his connection to these illegal activities, and nobody wanted to elect nutty George McGovern under any circumstances, so the November 1972 vote count was unaffected. Honest Republican politicians finally convinced Tricky Dick that he would admit to his guilt or face impeachment and that was enough to bring about the President's resignation.

But Donald Trump has none of the ethics of Richard Nixon, and his MAGA members and dishonest Republican politicians want power over the people without abiding by the rule of law and our constitution. But as demonstrated by the 2020 election results, many voters have figured out that Trump is a crook. The fact of the matter is that Trump has never received a majority of votes in either of his elections. And he won't in 2024.

Dude1394 said...

Isn’t it amazing, ask any of the people hating on Trump why specifically and they may have some rude comments but most of the time they literally do not have a clue or they believe democrat propaganda. Cannot tell you a single item.

Rhonda said...

I think stunning is not correct. If I remember correctly as I still have Democrats for Nixon paraphernalia, it was only stunning probably to the assembled press, whose hatred of Nixon was well known.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

"Deeply." Another word not used by real people in real life.

Quaestor said...

"But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them."

And they could smell you, Miss Kael.

Drago said...

Leland: "Trump would have been losing in the primary by now if,
Democrats were not conducting lawfare against Trump, which keeps Trump in the news and removes all the oxygen from other candidates."

Incorrect regarding Trump "would have been losing". He was always going to run ahead of the other primary candidates.

Correct as to how the legacy media flogging every possible story about Trump to death sucks up oxygen.

walter said...

It takes about 4 people to surround someone.

Jupiter said...

Frank, how's the quiche at that new little bistro down on Hudson Street? If you haven't tried it yet, you're in for a real treat! But don't sit at the sidewalk tables out front, unless you want to get your phone stolen by America's Strength.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Biden is evil.

Not Trump.

Rabel said...

Back then the hard left, which is reliably dishonest, didn't have the degree of control of the media that they have now. Thus the vote results.

For example, two days ago the Wichita PD announced that they had charged a man in the Jackie Robinson statue case.

Anybody here heard about that? It was reported, but buried. Deep.

No need to look it up. It was exactly as most here speculated. With the added irony that the "racist" was Hispanic.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

“you're missing millions of your fellow citizens”

There is another side to that equation. Contempt for fellow citizens is a foundational principle of MAGA.

tcrosse said...

Trump-haters rationalize their hatred, an otherwise unworthy emotion, by ascribing all sorts of nasty characteristics and crimes to him. Unfortunately, they extend this hatred to his supporters, which is unlikely to persuade any of them otherwise.

tim maguire said...

When I read “expectorations”, I thought he was talking about some health problem and I paused in my reading to try to think if I’d heard anything about Trump being sick. A classic sign of bad writing.

Aggie said...

@Gadfly sez: "But Donald Trump has none of the ethics of Richard Nixon, and his MAGA members and dishonest Republican politicians "

... for those of you who thought that 'retroactive continuity', or 'retconning', is limited to soap operas and serials. Nope! Every Republican gets a re-make when they appear in the rear view mirror, safely out of office. Sure, they might have been Hitler back then, or a sociopath or imbecile or comparable to an ape or a maggot, but in the warm nostalgic glow, they're always better than the Republicans right now - who are busy being Hitler, or a criminal sociopath, or an imbecile.....

Josephbleau said...

"expectorations"

Def: The virus encrusted plastic mass of human excretia that covers the inside of a fake "N95" covid mask. I love the smell of snot in the morning, smells like I can make some one do some useless thing they don't want to do.

Chicago hospitals still require masks. KowTow proles! If you don't like it, go away and die.

Jim at said...

Contempt for fellow citizens is a foundational principle of MAGA.

Yeah. 'Cause we're the ones running around calling everybody else Nazis.

PM said...

Bruni dropped those thoughts like maggots from an overhead.

Oso Negro said...

We may have had reasonably fair elections in 1972. Now, not so much

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

"We're running out of ways to lie about how awful we think Trump will be [to our barbarian ways]." Progressivism is modern day barbarism.

Jupiter said...

"Bruni should stick to what he knows."

Well. If you knew, what Bruni knows, you probably wouldn't want it sticking to you, either.

Skeptical Voter said...

Everywhere he turns? Does this doofus ever get further away than two blocks from his newsroom office? If he does--then he's a liar. But if he stays inside the NYT newsroom, well then he's correct.

Brooke Price said...

D C has no Senators or congressmen and no electoral college votes. The map is Democratic Party fraud

tim in vermont said...

History will view Joe Biden as the most reckless president that we ever had.

tim in vermont said...

“That man spittin’” is the highest compliment one can give a rapper.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Leland - waking up to reality.

the left want Trump. It's clear. They need him as the grand distraction he provides.

tim in vermont said...

Maybe Bruni had just watched The Lair of the White Worm on Criterion, and knocked out the column dictating to his phone.

Big Mike said...

So are Bruni and Pamela Paul in on the graft and corruption? Is that why they’re panicky?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

DC is not a state. No voting. The map is suspect.

Of course the corrupt left are trying to change that, too.

There is a reason we no longer have Voter ID requirements. The corrupt left.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Turns out the John Brennan- corrupt evil CIA hack - planted the lies about Trump and Russia.

Turns out Putin wanted Hillary to win in 2016.

Tina Trent said...

Frank Brunei's first book was co-authored by the great Elinor Burkett and was called Consumer Terrorism. It offered advice I you were ripped off. I'm sure she wrote it.

Then he went full LGBT activist and landed a restaurant reviewer job at the Times.

She wrote several brilliant books and has been both forgotten and publicly humiliated.

I have no doubt she sleeps well at night. She's honest and curious and tells hard truths.

AMDG said...

Ireside in a suburb in North Fulton county. Our city government is heavily Republican. Our state senator and state rep are Republican. Our Congressman will be Republican after redistricting will once again be Republican (our district was in the western edge of a Democrat district.

While I am sure people I know will vote for him (no women) I do not know a single person that affirmatively supports Trump. Among our circle of mostly Republican, church going, white friends Trump is universally viewed as a buffoon who needs to go away. It would be as if Kael did not know anybody who affirmatively supported McGovern.

Rusty said...

Watergate never would have happened if John Dean hadn't been dating a whore.

MadisonMan said...

DC is not a state. No voting. The map is suspect.
DC does have Presidential Electors however. 23rd Amendment.

wendybar said...

Seeing as North Fulton county helped elect somebody like Fani Willis, I am not surprised they won't vote for Trump. I guess they like their corruption more. You deserve what your county votes for...

walter said...

"While I am sure people I know will vote for him (no women) "
The women going to vote For Pedo Pete who showered with his daughter and greenlit sex trafficking and Fentanyl.
Standards.

Rocco said...

Frank Bruno wrote…
“…people are rightly laboring to sound the alarm about Donald Trump’s spectacularly reckless, deeply evil expectorations...."

For some reason I had an image of Trevor from Ghosts struggling to interact with a keyboard in the material world.

Rusty said...

Rocco said...
The English version or the American version? I think the English version is better.

Rocco said...

Rusty,

The US version of Ghosts. I like the US version, but I definitely see some weak spots. I haven't seen enough of the UK version to form an opinion of it yet. One advantage the UK version seems to have is that they have a lot more history to play with.