I'm giving this my Trump derangement syndrome tag, even though I don't think it's precisely deranged. I just don't want too much tag proliferation.
When Trump first made noise about running for President, I just used my tag for "The Apprentice" and resisted making a tag even for his name. Now, I've got a bunch of Trump tags, and I'm trying to keep them from getting as ridiculously numerous as my Obama tags. I think I need to do a good culling of my Obama tags — maybe get rid of anything that didn't collect at least 4 posts.
Anyway, speaking of Trump derangement syndrome, Cassidy starts out:
Over the past few weeks, a number of anguished friends and acquaintances, and even some strangers, have got in touch with me to ask what they might do to oppose Donald Trump. Being a fellow sufferer from OATS—Obsessing About Trump Syndrome—my first instinct has been to tell people to get off social media and take a long walk. It won’t do anybody much good, except possibly Trump, if large numbers of people who voted against him send themselves mad by constantly reading about him, cursing him, and recirculating his latest outrages.Well, that's pretty sensible. OATS is a little silly, but it does allow one to say "I'm feeling my OATS."
To feel ones oats means "to be lively; to feel self-important" — according to the Oxford English Dictionary. P.T. Barnum used it in his 1869 memoir "Struggles & Triumphs":
As I grew older my settled aversion to manual labor, farm or other kind, was manifest in various ways.... In despair of doing better with me, my father concluded to make a merchant of me..... Of course, I "felt my oats." It was condescension on my part to talk with boys who did out-door work. I stood behind the counter with a pen over my ear, was polite to the ladies, and was wonderfully active in waiting upon customers. We ketp a cash, credit and barter store, and I drove sharp bargains with women who brought butter, eggs, beeswax and feathers to exchange for dry goods, and with men who wanted to trade oats, corn, buckwheat, axe-helves, hats, and other commodities for tenpenny nails, molasses, or New England rum.The art of the deal.
Of course, Trump has been compared to P.T. Barnum and he has embraced the comparison. From back in January:
Yesterday, on "Meet the Press," Donald Trump was presented with a list of characters he'd been compared to: "some people are calling you the Music Man of this race. Kim Kardashian. Biff, from Back to the Future. George Costanza. P.T. Barnum. What's - any of those do you consider a compliment?" Trump immediately said "P.T. Barnum."
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He's the humbug Wizard of Oz, if you grant that Hillary is the Wicked Witch of the West.
Or, he's Randall McMurphy to her Nurse Ratched.
Of course DJT likes Barnum. P.T. was a New Yorker who promoted big shows and got rich...and they named a high speed attack Boat after him.
Lefty journalists are a gift that keeps on giving.
I need to do a good culling of my Obama tags — maybe get rid of anything that didn't collect at least 4 posts.
Obama is never going to go away, so if you keep writing those tags may still prove useful in the future.
I wonder how many of those making the comparison know that Barnum wound up as the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut after spending a few years in the Connecticut state legislature?
1. "[Call] on members of the Electoral College to reject Trump"
7. "Support local initiatives to resist the Trump and the Republican agenda."
8. "In still relying on the Electoral College and the rule that says each state has two seats in the U.S. Senate, we are beholden to the prejudices and interests of an eighteenth-century ruling class that was white, landed, and dedicated to preserving the prerogatives of their individual states."
To paraphrase:
1. Rely on the Electoral College
7. Preserve the preogatives of the individual states
8. Don't rely on the Electoral College because it preserves the prerogatives of the individual states.
I think my irony reserves have run dry.
* * *
I actually support all of these points except for #1 which is an "attack on civil society" that "flout[s] accepted norms" to borrow some of Mr. Cassidy's phrasing.
"Culling my Obama tags" sounds threatening, coming from someone in Wisconsin deer country.
It shouldn't be "Trump Derangement Syndrome," it should be "Liberal Derangement Syndrome."
These people are deranged and delusional -- not just at Trump, but at imaginary Russian hackers, people who think global warming is overhyped, people who think traditional marriage is a good thing, people who have second thoughts about what NAFTA did to our manufacturing sector, etc, etc.
If they don't recalibrate their mindset, they are in for a protracted schlonging these next 4 years.
In any liberal democracy, the ultimate guardian of decency and civil liberties is an active civil society, which can push back against efforts to mislead the public, flout accepted norms, and centralize power. That’s why, usually, one of the first thing that would-be autocrats do when they take power is attack civil society. [emph added]
Progs' lack of self-insight is well-nigh sociopathic.
But what is civil society? In addition to big national organizations, such as labor unions, the A.C.L.U., and the N.A.A.C.P., civil society comprises countless local groups, including charities, environmental activists, church groups, think tanks, reading groups, peace campaigners, parents’ associations, and youth groups. It encompasses any group that mediates between the individual, the government, and the market, and whose goal is promoting the common good.
Don't tell Mr. Cassidy, but people who voted for Trump also participate in civil society by the millions. I imagine the main difference between them and the writer's preferred "civil society" groups is that the latter are supported by considerably more funds pumped in from a centralized power.
From Wikipedia: "Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American politician, showman, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus.[1] Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me",[2] and his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers".[3] Barnum is widely, but erroneously, credited with coining the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute".[
Trump is Bart Simpson to Hillary's Lucy Van Pelt.
Althouse, have you seen the Dahlia Lithwick/David Cohen op-ed in the Times, all about how "Democrats should fight like Repubicans"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/opinion/buck-up-democrats-and-fight-like-republicans.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Basically, the two of them said, on Chris Hayes' MSNBC program, that Democrats should use the power of Obama-installed federal judges and sue the shit out of Republicans in the executive branch.
http://www.msnbc.com/all
Also, sowing wild oats. And mare zee dotes. And little lam zee divey.
I hope the Democrats "fight" like Republicans. It means they'll be running away and surrendering a lot.
Did you have an Obama Derangement Syndrome?
"...and recirculating his latest outrages.
I think at this point people like Cassidy don't even know what they're "outraged" about anymore, but are like tired, cranky toddlers kept up well past their bedtimes. They wail and scream non-stop, and repeat "I want", "I don't wanna", or "that's not fair" over and over and over, because at their stage of emotional and cognitive maturity, that's their only means of communicating their thoughts and feelings.
Mares eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you ?
Feeling his oats is of course a reference to the behavior of horses. For some reason I don't understand a diet of oats is supposed to make a horse frisky, impetuous, and perhaps dangerously ungovernable. Personally I've never noticed it. Today's commercially blended feeds for performance horses far exceed the protein and caloric content of good quality oats. They make a horse feel good, but not nuts. Nevertheless old time horsemen paid attention to these things, so the odds are acceptable that there's something to this truism.
Breakfast cereals have oats in 'em, and they're supposed to make you frisky. At least that's what the TV says. I'm old enough to remember that certain breakfast foods were guaranteed to transform Lil' Quaestor into... well, a Pentathlon medalist at least ( The Vitamin A in Cap'n Crunch will let you shot the eye out of any pesky baby brother at 50 paces!), so what goes for a kid goes for a horse, right? General Mills is still at it. The last time I looked they had Michael Phelps on the Wheaties box with his rubber skullcap and teensy goggles. Eat Wheaties (more precisely BUY Wheaties, we don't give a fuck after that) and win every fucking Olympic swimming medal (of which there are far too many) there is! Which is odd considering there's little nutritional value in Wheaties that isn't also in Count Chocula, so you might as well enjoy what you're eating for breakfast. I think they even had a TV spot that showed some major leaguer clobbering one over the center field fence while the voiceover said "He's feeling his WHEATIES!"
Worthless
Harridans
Eternally
Attacking
Trump
Implies
Extreme
Sexism
To " Make America The Greatest Show On Earth Again" we were in need of a leader who could talk to us in hyperbole (exaggeration for emphasis) and repeat truths over and over again until teachable moments happened.
Hating the teachers who can put on a dramatic show to teach us where we are going next is a dumb reaction. We need to relax and enjoy the ride.
eric said...
I hope the Democrats "fight" like Republicans. It means they'll be running away and surrendering a lot.
It is so funny, to be in the middle of the Rush Limbaugh Gang all saying that Republicans caved to every demand of Obama, and the MSNBC Gang all saying that Republicans did everything legal and even illegal to block Obama.
Chuck said...
Althouse, have you seen the Dahlia Lithwick/David Cohen op-ed in the Times, all about how "Democrats should fight like Repubicans"?
She posted about it here/
You commented on that post here.
Well, here's what we did about Barack Obama:
First, we gave him a chance. We didn't think he would work out, but everyone deserves a chance to prove himself. Then came "I won," "the police acted stupidly," the bailouts, the stimulus and Obamacare. So, we organized at the grassroots level (the genuine grassroots, not Axelturf) and had lots of local gatherings across the country and one big march in the Capitol. Meanwhile, we worked hard to send people who would oppose his policies to Washington and methodically built a conservative base at local and state levels.
You are more than welcome to do the same if you think you're up to it.
gnorance is Bliss said...
Chuck said...
Althouse, have you seen the Dahlia Lithwick/David Cohen op-ed in the Times, all about how "Democrats should fight like Repubicans"?
She posted about it here/
You commented on that post here.
Now, that's funny.
Ignorance is Bliss @ 1:57:
Too funny.
(Maybe it's Chuck's also lifelong Republican twin, also named Chuck.)
Eat your Wheaties kids! And become so desperate for attention you'll want to cut your pee-pee off!
OMG, IiB; that is either funny or scary. You got me!
I have no excuse for that brain-fart, other than that the post-blogpost news was seeing the two of them last night on MSNBC, specifically calling for lawfare, using the influence of Obama-nominated federal judges. My angle in that other story was simply about the two sides professing that they always fight clean, and the other side always fights dirty. Neither Althouse nor any of the commenters touched upon the lawfare threat and indeed it wasn't a big part of the op-ed.
The Lithwick/Cohen appearance on MSNBC is worthy of an Althouse follow-up.
My thanks and acknowledgement to you, IiB.
That this Cassidy article was written and published is disturbing. It is alarming that half the country, over the course of less than a year, has been led to believe that Trump is the devil himself and that those leading this belief believe it themselves.
As you watch the team being built by Trump and the process he has engaged in to make his selections I would think that people would calm down and see that there is nothing weird or abnormal about what is going on
I now believe that Democrats do not give one shit about the country.
You put OATS in hot water (they are boiling with self inflicted indignation, or "stewing in their own juices") and you wind up with oatmeal mush. Which they can use to substitute for their brains. Thereby increasing their IQ.
Look kids, the country has survived a lot of Presidents--a few great ones, a slightly larger number of simply good ones---and a number who would be called dolts and buffoons by today's progressive pundits. We are still standing. The center left, the far left, and the lefty wackobirds (to steal a phrase from one of the buffoons in the Senate) need to get over themselves. Take a deep breath and settle in for what you fear will be pure political hell. You'll get through it.
I now believe that Democrats do not give one shit about the country.
Not if they're willing to tear down our system of government for the sake of .... Hillary Clinton ?
Had Hillary become President, she would have been quite vulnerable to attack from her Left, as a tin-eared, entitled, rich white woman. But that probably describes a lot of the readership of The New Yorker ( our Den Mother excepted, of course).
Comanche Voter said...
Look kids, the country has survived a lot of Presidents--a few great ones, a slightly larger number of simply good ones---and a number who would be called dolts and buffoons by today's progressive pundits.
There is definitely overlap between your first and third category.
Trump is Bart Simpson to Hillary's Lucy Van Pelt.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Lucy. I didn't mean to kick you."
For some reason I don't understand a diet of oats is supposed to make a horse frisky, impetuous, and perhaps dangerously ungovernable.
Oats provide much more energy than do grass and hay.....
Blogger Chuck said...
eric said...
I hope the Democrats "fight" like Republicans. It means they'll be running away and surrendering a lot.
It is so funny, to be in the middle of the Rush Limbaugh Gang all saying that Republicans caved to every demand of Obama, and the MSNBC Gang all saying that Republicans did everything legal and even illegal to block Obama.
I have facts on my side. Republicans never had to pass a budget. Senator Cruz demonstrated that with the government shut down. They surrendered. Gave up. Walked away. Quit.
Little known fact -- P. T. Barnum was a successful politician after getting out of show business.
Little known fact -- P. T. Barnum was a successful politician after getting out of show business.
P.T.Bridgeport was a successful character in Pogo.
Phineas T. Bluster was a successful puppet on Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.
eric said...
...
I have facts on my side. Republicans never had to pass a budget. Senator Cruz demonstrated that with the government shut down. They surrendered. Gave up. Walked away. Quit.
You have one fact one your side.
On the other side, the Republican congress kept us out of any climate change treaty. They foiled anti-fracking laws, and a new assault weapons ban. They stopped the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. We'd very definitely have a national union card-check system, and we'd almost certainly have a single national healthcare system. That's just for starters.
Charles C.W. Cooke, at NRO, rips the guts out of your argument:
...the idea that [the Republican Congress] hasn’t effectively and consistently opposed President Obama’s agenda is little more than a dangerous and ignorant fiction. Had the GOP not been standing in the way — both from 2008, when it was in the minority everywhere, and from 2010, when it regained the House — the United States would look dramatically different than it does today. Without the GOP manning the barricades, Obamacare could well have been single payer, and, at the very least, the law would have included a “public option.” Without the GOP manning the barricades, we’d have seen a carbon tax or cap-and-trade — or both. Without the GOP manning the barricades, we’d have got union card check, and possibly an amendment to Taft-Hartley that removed from the states their power to pass “right to work” exemptions. Without the GOP standing in the way, we’d now have an “assault weapons” ban, magazine limits, background checks on all private sales, and a de facto national gun registry. And without the GOP standing in the way in the House, we’d have got the very amnesty that the Trump people so fear (it’s fine to oppose Marco Rubio for his support for the “Gang of 8″ bill, but it’s not fine to pretend that it didn’t matter that the Republicans ran the House when the reform bill left the Senate; it did).
A similar truth obtains at the state level. Had the GOP not taken over the vast majority of the country’s local offices since 2010, we’d have seen significantly less progress on right to work, the protection of life, school choice, and the right to keep and bear arms; we’d have seen a whole host of new sanctuary cities; we’d have had considerably fewer attorneys general rising up against Obama’s executive overreach; and, perhaps most importantly, we’d have seen Obamacare entrenched almost everywhere as state after state chose to expand Medicaid.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/435078/
He's right isn't he? You might have a prejudice about Barnum, but isn't Trump right that Barnum, who started in the circus business quite old btw, achieved a great deal, and did it by understanding people and providing them with something they want? Trump's answer is a good, thoughtful, informed one.
As you watch the team being built by Trump and the process he has engaged in to make his selections I would think that people would calm down and see that there is nothing weird or abnormal about what is going on
Well, not entirely true. There appears to be something really weird and abnormal going on. By the appointments he's announced so far, looks like Trump is planning on keeping campaign promises and make drastic changes in the way things are done in DC. That's weird and abnormal. It's also good weird and abnormal.
Trump's response re Barnum seems truthful and very perceptive and self-aware.
I could really use the perspective of Rhythm & Balls right now ...
Chuck:
We can agree that the GOPe did not score any own-goals while Obama was president.
Please suggest a standard of judgment that is no ludicrously low!
Chuck says:
On the other side, the Republican congress kept us out of any climate change treaty … [etc., etc.] … That's just for starters.
Chuck, you are beginning to kind of convince me on some of your points. I’m almost ready to believe that the eGOP asshats who eagerly joined up with the Democrats to oppose their own party’s presidential nominee during this past campaign aren’t really the incompetent, unimaginative, dull suck-ups that they seem to be. Almost.
For most of the items listed as evidence in the NR article the eGOP fuck-ups had no political choice. They had to make good on at least some of the promises they made on issues popular with Middle America that got them elected to Congress, otherwise their constituents back home would have stayed home next election cycle.
Take, for instance, “the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.” Mitch McConnell heard from the grassroots loud and clear. He’s timid but he’s no fool. And if they had gone along with the Democrats on gun control it would have been fucking political suicide. We both know that.
Now these dolts are siding with the Democrat liars on the hacking issue and lamely attempting to lend credibility to this Russian hacking bullshit. This, even after the CIA has refused to tell them what the CIA knows about the hacking. Jesus! Could they suck the Democrats dicks any better?
… seeing the two of them last night on MSNBC, specifically calling for lawfare, using the influence of Obama-nominated federal judges.
It’s what they did to Sarah Palin and it worked beautifully. I guess it’s one of their “go to” plays nowadays.
Chuck said...
Charles C.W. Cooke, at NRO, rips the guts out of your argument:
"block quote full of the usual garbage."
It is going to be interesting watching all of you cowards and d-bags spend the next 30 years comparing every republican presidential nominee to Trump the way we compare them to Reagan now. You will all be pretending you were behind Trump all along just like they pretended they were behind Reagan all along. Most of the douchewads at NRO didn't even vote for Trump. We know how the blue bloods and WASPs did with Reagan.
Seriously fuck all y'all. We stopped Hillary without you. Trump is going to turn things around despite you. And all of you people are going to pretend you are the real conservatives and act as if you are useful and worthy of respect.
Ritual Seppoku. Accept your shame. At least have some respect for the people who actually got in there to fight Hillary and disappear from public commentary.
It’s what they did to Sarah Palin and it worked beautifully. I guess it’s one of their “go to” plays nowadays.
Palin made the mistake of thinking there were other people in Alaska that also wanted to address corruption.
The lawfare thing is going to be much harder to do at the federal level.
What Chuck and maybe Charles C.W. Cooke don't understand is "fighting" is a full time job not a sometime job. Democrats never stop fighting -- witness history unfolding before you! -- and even when the cause is futile and the party appears to be insane, they don't care. They keep fighting. Harry Reid bottled up everything that came out of the House, had Obama's back from day one and never relented until they pried the gavel from his claw. Ted Kennedy killed a woman and din't let it dissuade him from his appointed perch in the Senate.
Republican bide their time. They wait for a majority. They let their presidents swing in the wind, battered by liberal lies day in and and day out. They don't produce a unified front like Democrats, they don't hew to the same message to get their points across, hell they don't even coordinate half the time.
So I don't want to hear Chuck defend the eGOP. Even freaking California passed Prop 187 back in the day, sending the message that illegal immigration was out of control. During evcery prim ary we'd get the promises to toughen up the border but then Republicans would fight FOR amnesty not against it. The Tea Party movement sent another strong signal: bring back fiscal sanity! The Party ignored us. McCain grumbled that he'd "build the damn wall" but then again he didn't do it. Romney? He was the perfect illustration of the party man not willing to fight. Hell he came after Trump much stronger than he ever went after Obama, even in 2012!
THAT is our longsuffering experience with the eGOP. They didn't FIGHT Obama, they procedurally opposed some things. Why didn't we change things with reconciliation when we got power in 2014? Because we don't fight like we're really in it. They do. And Trump came along and fought like they do.
Why can't Chuck appreciate that?
I will never forget how outrageous the first question to Trump in the GOP Primary Debates was from John Harwoowd of CNBC asking Trump if his campaign was a "clown show".
He asked, “Let’s be honest, is this the comic book version of a presidential campaign?”
I think that's about when I started to really consider that the Obama loving, Dem infiltrated Palace Guard media was so in the tank for Hillary that he really might pull it off.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnbcs-harwood-to-trump-are-you-proposing-comic-book-version-of-a-presidency/
"Trump is Bart Simpson to Hillary's Lucy Van Pelt."
But instead of following Charlie Brown's lead (see McCain, Mitt) Bart kicked Lucy in the arse when she tried to pull the football away.
Good times.
The New Yorker's editor has turned it into a The Nation with (unfunny) cartoons.
He's like entertainers (S Colbert the prime example) who find entertaining insufficiently ego-satisfying so turn into hack commentators and tiresome performers.
My decades-old subscription will soon die a natural death.
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