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Freaking out over Trump's use of a metaphor that others have already used.
In the realm of criticizing Trump for everything, this takes the cake. Have you heard that expression used before? I mean, I know people know there are cakes and cakes can be taken, but I just came up with it to refer to this particular type of an event.
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This is of a kind with construing "ask the Russians where Hillary's emails are" as an invitation to interfere with the elections.
Once again Ann, if Obama said such a stupid thing you would go on about it for weeks. But Trump always get the benefit of the doubt defense from you.
When Trump said last year that he could murder someone in the middle of 5th Avenue during broad daylight and his followers woundn't care, he was referring specifically to Ann Althouse.
Sorry, the cake has already been taken.
Trump is such an egomaniacal ass that he thinks he has invented the phrase "priming the pump" in relation to economics. Trump is Michael Scott from The Office.
And Ann is incapable of writing critically about him.
I mean, the freakout seems to be more about the complete lack of knowledge about economics and its history that Trump's statement betrays. If the President were talking about baseball and said "I just invented the term 'batting average' to refer to what percentage of the time a guy gets a hit", people would think he knew nothing about baseball.
And if that same President had made a point of what a baseball expert he was, and how that expertise made him qualified to be President--and if he was literally talking to a magazine called "Baseball" when he claimed authorship of the phrase--he'd look like a buffoon. And he does.
Good explanation OG.
But Ann is so blinded in her support of Trump that it will completely go over her head.
And if Hillary said something even one-quarter as dumb as this Ann would go on a week about it.
I think people are missing the bigger story. Did you realize that Trump has 2 scoops of ice cream when his guests only get one**?
** unless they ask for it.
That metaphor has been used in 57 states.
And Hillary, who once made it a big point that she didn't sit around baking cookies all day, deleted 30,000 emails about recipes, and you guys swallowed it without even a burp.
The bigger picture is that throughout this week Trump got more and more out of control of himself. The New York Times did a masterful job documenting that. That is what Ann has a problem with.
Trump is making the likes of Ann look more and more that of the fool. Thanks for doubling down Ann!! This is hilarious!!
This is why the freakout occurs. It's based on the false notion that reduced redistribution of capital and labor are equal to progressive debt. There is a congruence, but they are not equivalent. It is actually caused by anti-capitalist practices including monopolies and liberal expropriation of tomorrow's supply and demand that cause recurring economic misalignments which are often sever and even catastrophic. This is why, in part, Obamacare penalizes preexisting conditions, specifically birth, and why they need to replace lost demand and Planned Americans through excessive immigration. As well as trade deals in insourcing (e.g. [class] diversity) and outsourcing (e.g. environmentalism) to sustain their unviable conception.
Looks like they caught Trump with his pants down this time.
Do you like that? I just came up with that expression to refer to this particular type of event.
It's now time to turn the outrage up to 11. Oh wait....
>> The bigger picture is that throughout this week Trump got more and more out of control of himself.
Maybe you should try out another Ebonics insult to our hostess. Just to demonstrate who is really out of control.
Did you ever retract and apologize, or do you imagine your comment defensible somehow?
Frankly, if I were the media, I'd be a lot more concerned about the last straw, that somehow Trump will not only find it, but use it.
Then what? And worse, what if the last straw has no effect at all? I thought Comey might be the last straw, but the forced hysteria rendered that possibly moot almost immediately.
Now I'm thinking bombing North Korea might be the last straw, even it doesn't result in the annihilation of half the world. But even then I suspect the media will rise from the ashes and declare with smug conviction: "This is the last straw!"
No, we are not freaking out about Trump's use of the phrase, we are freaking out about Trump's claim that he coined the phrase.
How dense are you?
The NYT jumped the pump.
Trump's got the NYT's number.
The irony challenged are out in force tonight. Have you ever heard anyone introduce something obvious with "here's a thought" or "here's an idea"?
It's hilarious that people can be so pwned by Trump so easily as Freder or Once. I guess it takes a certain humility to think your first reaction might have missed the point, but they are ranting on even after Althouse's cue!
Here's a thought Freder: measure twice, cut once. Bet you've never heard that one before. Where would you be without me? That's just me, full of bright ideas.
Tell me if you've heard this one before Freder, look before you leap. Aren't I a big help?
And in the meantime, while you've been exhibiting your pursed-lip pwnage to the world, you've been helping the "just like FDR" meme go viral. Congratulations, nothing spells political death like being compared to FDR.
Impressive work.
My understanding is that the expression is much funnier in the original Austrian. I didn't even know Austrian was a language, but our Harvard educated, and most literary of presidents assured us it was.
Others hold that it originated among the workers on the intercontinental railroad. I never knew such a thing existed, but Obama let slip its existence. Just like he, possibly inadvertently, exposed the fact that the US has a zombie army of "corpse men"! I didn't go to Harvard, or even Columbia, so I wouldn't have known about any of this.
Thanks God for setting such a lofty standard of erudition with Obama that Trump can only drag his knuckles and grunt in comparison!
Considering the current state of Turkey and its position in Europe and the Islamic world, you would think that Pres. Trump's White House meeting with Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would get a headline or two above the fold.
You would be wrong.
Instead, CNN dedicated air time to two scoops of ice cream on the President's dessert plate.
LOL! Thanks to God that the metaphor police are on the case!
Yeah, all those emails about yoga Hillary deleted. And all those phones Huma had to carry around because Hillary didn't want to have two devices, one private, one official. And then there was the decision not to investigate the connection between State Department personnel and Clinton Foundation staff until 2018. But I digress.
Trump's problem is that he is not an academic, a politician or a trained lawyer. We grew accustomed to Obama having a lawyer's rhetorical skills where he was careful and measured about each word. In his "extemporaneous" comments Obama punctuated his remarks with copious uh, uh, uh's, to give his brain a chance to evaluate what he was saying and demonstrate how careful and measured he is. Even so Obama made a lot of gaff's and told flat out lies. He spelled out "R-S-P-E-C-T" while honoring Aretha Franklin, but got a pass. "If you like your plan you can keep your plan," was a deliberate lie from the get go. Obama knew that those plans would be cancelled in order to comply with the ACA rules, but he was given a pass, because? He stated that Hawaii was in Asia, that the US built the intercontinental railroad, that Austrians speak a language called Austrian, etc. His mistakes were noted but never mocked the way Trump or even George W. Bush was mocked.
Of course if you said anything critical about President Obama you would have been labeled a racist because only racists wanted to criticize Obama. Even now. Google "dumb Obama statements," there are lots, but of course they are all racist right wing websites.
Presumably Althouse is really busy re brain power allotment. So there's not time for the blog.
Until this changes we get: you're a freak if you notice DJT is a freak, and everyone is the same as everyone re health care, and supporting racism isn't racist.
https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/
Presumably supporting evil is it's own reward (for a certain type), I can't believe that this blogging gig pays enough for such.
@Frederson,
"No, we are not freaking out about Trump's use of the phrase, we are freaking out about Trump's claim that he coined the phrase."
Suggest you not freak out about abstract things. Further suggest, instead of reading NYTimes hoping to find the elusive missing evidence to finall prove the Trump/Russian collusion, you take long walk in meadow.
It's a Nixonian massacre.
AA, I am so sad about the poor quality of your trolls lately. You deserve better.
This is the interview with the Economist magazine in question. It is beyond me how anyone can read this and not feel some genuine concern for the country. This is not a man up to the task of governing. No one on this blog writes at this level of understanding. Even Crazy April has a better command of the facts than this. It is shocking. From this I seriously doubt that Trump understands how you prime an actual pump, much less when this metaphor might be useful in thinking about economics.
EM: But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
Trump: It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll . . . you understand the expression “prime the pump”?
EM: Yes.
Trump: We have to prime the pump.
EM: It’s very Keynesian.
Trump: We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?
EM: Priming the pump?
Trump:Yeah, have you heard it?
EM: Yes.
Trump: Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just . . . I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.
EM: It’s . . .
Trump: Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.
Even though he said "came up with it", he meant "came across it".
I just coined a phrase--go fuck yourself. I throw it out to all our Lefty friends here.
RE: https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/ and the claim that voter id laws suppressed the vote in WI by 200K votes:
"It’s important to note that this study was conducted by a Democratic Party–affiliated group and has not been peer-reviewed or gone through the typical academic vetting process. While some studies have shown big reductions in turnout among minority voters because of voter-ID laws, others have not. "
An alternative interpretation of the decline in African American voters in 2016 is simply that Hillary was not Obama, the first black President. Voting for the first white woman president didn't inspire the African American community.
Furthermore, the example cited in the article of an African American man who was denied voter registration in WI because his name was different on his birth certificate is so bogus -- since he also had a drivers license and social security card he would have been able to register to vote with any one of those documents.
One of my pet peeves is when people cite articles to gain legitimacy and the article is either bogus or refutes their claim.
Or this little gem:
Trump: You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don’t use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air."
It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be–"Sir, we’re staying with digital." I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.
Of this:
The state governments are in much better position to, you know, help people. In terms of, you know, just the size, the mere size of it. But we’re putting in $8bn and you’re going to have absolute coverage. You’re going to have absolute guaranteed coverage. You’re going to have it if you’re a person going in…don’t forget, this was not supposed to be the way insurance works. Insurance is, you’re 20 years old, you just graduated from college, and you start paying $15 a month for the rest of your life and by the time you’re 70, and you really need it, you’re still paying the same amount and that’s really insurance.
RJC,
Re HRC v BHO, it woulda made sense to compare 2016 v 2012 years and then look at differences in state w/ the R's voter suppression laws re those that didn't add such over that four year period.
As this study did.
Re that dude, it was the WI DMV that rejected him, resulting in him going through tons of hassle and expense and then leaving White WI. So, I guess that's a real win win for Meade's man. Not only steal the black man's vote, but kick him out of white WI.
Sick.
Obama's biggest lie was that Hillary was "likable enough."
The best thing about a blog is that it time stamps the supporters of racist-sicko-pols, in print (until Althouse sweeps the record).
Once written, twice... said...
Once again Ann, if Obama said such a stupid thing you would go on about it for weeks. But Trump always get the benefit of the doubt defense from you.
I'm not so sure. I don't recall Althouse hammering Obama all that much. She might have deconstructed the Times a bit, but I'm not so sure how she'd go about Fisking this particular column.
Once written, twice... said...
Trump is such an egomaniacal ass that he thinks he has invented the phrase "priming the pump" in relation to economics. Trump is Michael Scott from The Office.
And Ann is incapable of writing critically about him.
I hate to agree with you, but I must. I think you have got it right. I think it's a thing with her now. Not necessarily any real support; but since so much of the rest of the literate world is criticizing Trump, she's happy to just stand apart. And look for little examples of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
What we weren't given was the usual Althouse takedown of the Times with particulars. I read the column, and I am still wondering what Atlhouse finds objectionable. This wasn't the lead editorial. It wasn't a Page One news story. It was from a features section called The Upshot. Its an edgy, fast-paced, viewpoint section.
It boils down to, "Trump actually said that 'priming the pump' is a phrase he came up with... WTF?" I have the same question. If there were a good, clean, clear answer to that, I'd be happy to go back to laughing at the New York Times. But this isn't even an unusual linguistic stumble from Trump. Somehow, I imagine that Trump knows very well he didn't invent the phrase "priming the pump," but since he hadn't heard it from anyone else lately (or only from someone who works for him and who knows she'd get fired in an instant if she said to a reporter, "I briefed him on some Keynesian topics Wednesday evening, and it sounds like that stuck with him..."), it just sounded good to Trump to toss out the conversational line that he just came up with it. It is a brain that is slightly unhinged from reality and veracity.
Trump really is a compulsive salesman. He wants a conversation with whoever it is he needs to sell to. It will be as nice a conversation as he can make it; but if anybody is going to screw up the sale, there is no limit to the sort of abuse he will deal out. Back to the sale; the nice parts of the conversation will just be about being nice. Tell them whatever they want to hear. Nothing needs to be real. Any promises will work, if they can make the sale. Anything goes.
I am still miffed that Althouse never blogged the John Dickerson interview. I can't think of anything that has been more revealing so far in the Trump presidency. Trump is used to nice conversations, and getting the politesse that normally goes with the position of CEO, or tv show host, or POTUS. And so when someone presses him on a flatly insufficient answer, Trump goes nuts and cuts off the conversation. That video was a real look into the Trump the hyper-defensive sociopath.
That's true, 3rd. It stamped Once's racist Ebonics comment from earlier today. Quite helpful.
it just sounded good to Trump to toss out the conversational line that he just came up with it.
Trump is playing the NYT. He wants the insane reaction.
Making the media show itself as ridiculous is the sand in the gears effect Trump voters wanted him for.
The mdeia always go for it.
Trump just found a way to get his tax plan back in the news in a way that is easy to understand and goes all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. Genius! It could only be more magnificent if he had said "a rising tide raises all boats."
I can hear Scott Adams now: "Trump is playing at the third or higher degree. Through what appears to first-order thinkers as a mistaken claim to the metaphor, and to second-order thinkers as a mistaken substitution of 'came up with it' for 'came across it', Trump has ensured that his critics in the media will dwell on it for days. This has two positive effects: first it distracts from the FBI situation. Second, many working-class voters will also have just 'came across it', thanks to Trump, and will therefore identify with him the more."
Something like that.
Rhhardin, good point. He's doing it without winking at them, so they take him literally. In a business meeting, most (the less gullible) would just chuckle and move on to the next topic.
Boxty woot:
Exactly. It's hilarious watching PB and the others tell us, po-faced and panicky, the dire consequences of irony they missed.
Jeez people, Trump has an economics degree.
Somebody up above cited this article from the radical-leftist "The Nation":
https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/
It is complete bullshit, from start to finish. Every single paragraph, and almost every single sentence, is risible garbage.
I 58 year-old man doesn't have a valid photo ID? If he doesn't have one, voting is the least of his problems. And with a right to vote or not, he needs to get that straightened out. And a photo ID voting requirement is quite beside the point. And... because he couldn't get his paperwork cleared up in time for the election, he did what? Moved back to Illinois? That is more bullshit because even without photo ID in Wisconsin he could have cast a provisional ballot. Not having a photo ID does not prevent you from registering to vote, and without a photo ID he could have cast a provisional ballot.
And on and on. The numbers purporting to show that black voters didn't turn out in Wisconsin had nothing to do with voter ID laws. That is a deceptive statistical trick. Not even a good one. Black voters didn't turn out in Michigan, either, where voter ID laws didn't change from 2008 and 2012.
The reason black voters didn't turn out in 2016 like they did in 2008 and 2012 is because they didn't have Obama to voter for in 2016.
Not voter ID laws.
That story in The Nation isn't even good as fake news.
Chuck,
Your reading comprehension is lacking. Skimming?
Maybe you'd like a second chance to respond to the actual info at the link?
Chuck, you know how it works. All requirements for voting are racist. Asking why is racist.
It's not a new strategy. It is a tired one.
Business, finance majors tend not to read Keynes. I majored in economics in the 60's and never read him either. Today's Econ majors probably read a lot of Marx but not enough Hayek. Most Americans are not familiar with Keynes. Moreover, it is very common for
people to think they invented a metaphor that has been widely used or even cliched. Majoring in business as Trump did is not
the same as majoring in economics. When I majored in economics, my focus was economic history; today's econ majors tend to stress
econometrics. How many commenters on this blog have actually read Keynes?
I don' t think Obama had much grasp of economics outside of cultural Marxism; plus he was a master of cliches and the
straw man argument. He seemed to live in a forest of straw men.
JAA,
I'll never deny that there'll always be a way to support racism and not leave fingerprints. Sure, the data says that the changes resulted in racist results, but ya can't read folks minds. So, that coulda been a coincidence. Oh well.
But, plausible deniability is not good enough for people w/ a conscience.
The good thing about such situations is that it sasses out who's who.
Not that knowing has any real world impact. But, better to know that not to.
Susses.
[WTF is suss a British word?]
ngram says takes the cake became popular around 1890...and ever since.
Chuck is entirely correct in his last. Good work.
In his previous, well, lets say that the "literate" critics dont impress, few have an education worth the name, beyond having been taught to write a decent paragraph. They usually strain to find anything worthwhile to put in said paragraphs.
The argument about steam vs electric catapults sounds very much like discussions we have every day, professionally. Management usually doesnt want to pay more for new tech of unproven reliability. Trump grasps the point quite well.
On the insurance matter, Trump advocates devolving medical insurance to the states, which is a very defensible position. Let each do what seems reasonable.
He also further describes traditional whole life insurance, with level premiums. I dont know if that is the best way to handle medical insurance, but that is the traditional approach to personal insurance.
Good news....Hillary is still not president.
So in other words when Trump's plan increases the deficit slightly and everyone starts shouting that Trump isn't a conservative or a Republican anymore, all Trump's supporters will say: "He's priming the pump." The media has underlined the point and shown how conventional the economic tactic is and explained it repeatedly. They did this for Trump because they thought they saw a way to get Trump.
Sometimes you have to put something in to get something out.
Trump has also put the Democrats in the position of saying that James Comey caused Hillary to lose the election but that this is no reason to fire Comey.
And the Democrats still have no plan to help the American workers. The party has still abandoned them. The party has still dropped its core value. Maybe that is why the Dems are so hag-ridden - Pelosi, Hillary, Waters, Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett are running the show. The men are just running. Obama does Palm Springs, Tahiti, Italy. Wanted: sycophants and foreign governments hoping to cash in on him in one way or another. Not Wanted: American workers asking where their jobs have gone and how to pay Obamacare premiums.
So, what I want to know is whether Once Written ever apologized to Althouse for saying that she accused Obama of racially tinged speech patterns, a statement that caused her to call him low scum. If he didn't apologize, he should be embarrassed to be seen around here.
Chuck said..."I am still miffed that Althouse never blogged the John Dickerson interview. I can't think of anything that has been more revealing so far in the Trump presidency. Trump is used to nice conversations, and getting the politesse that normally goes with the position of CEO, or tv show host, or POTUS. And so when someone presses him on a flatly insufficient answer, Trump goes nuts and cuts off the conversation. That video was a real look into the Trump the hyper-defensive sociopath."
Chuck, Ann blogs about things that interest her, and that is fine with most of us. Why don't you start the "Life-long Republican" blog? I'm sure Drago and a few others are waiting with baited breath.
Trump is not of sound mind. There are qualities he is showing to those who have had a family members who have suffered from altzheimer's disease. It may not be apparent to others.. yet.
All's for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
@ King Kane
When you repeat the Reagan lies on a board with older commenters, we giggle at you. Thanks for that.
Also, I do not know anybody with altzheimer's disease. Neither do you. Your credibility is shot.
Funny, in my 47 years on this Earth, I doubt I've heard the media refer to *tax cuts* as *priming the pump* even once in my life.
In a media completely dominated by leftists, when *they* say "priming the pump", they mean *higher government spending*.
I mean, yes, for decades, conservatives have argued that tax cuts are a way of "priming the pump" in the economy.
But liberals have never agreed to that. They think only the government can prime the pump of the economy, not the people. They think that idea is laughable. And they never, ever gave conservatives enough credit as to represent their point of view honestly and without bias.
No. Forever, "priming the pump" has only meant "spend more" to liberals. And now they want to claim that "priming the pump" means "tax less", which is what Trump was talking about, as if they ever gave that idea the slightest bit of respect.
Now, everyone's ALWAYS been saying that *cutting taxes* primes the pump of the economy, don'tcha know! DUH!
Tell ya what, lefties. If you agree that cutting taxes acts as priming the pump of the economy, and you're willing to use your Orwellian Historical Rewrite Powers to go back and erase the last 70 years where you've denigrated that idea as nothing but "a sop to the wealthy", get back to me and maybe I'll listen to your claims that Trump didn't use the term in a way that the media hasn't deigned to admit could even be a legitimate thought to have once in all that time.
Till then, go fuck yourselves.
No one really knows where the truth lies with Trump, which was is just the way he wants it. One thing we do know is he likes to sprinkle his conversation with shiny baubles to distract his critics and make them seem stupid and mean-spirited. We also know (though this is not about Trump, precisely) that his critics fall for it every time.
Unless and until they develop the humility and maturity to stop falling into his traps, they will never coalesce into an effective opposition.
"Trump is such an egomaniacal ass that he thinks he has invented the phrase "priming the pump" in relation to economics. Trump is Michael Scott from The Office."
The TV series "The Office" ran for 8 years so I guess you should get used to having Trump around for quite a while.
I checked the internet (Al Gore invented it) and found the phrase pre dates Trump.
Sorry President Trump. You're behind the curve, this time.
Why James Comey Had to Go
The FBI head’s sense of perfect virtue led him to ignore his own enormous conflicts.
behind a paywall.
Heh. Point and laugh at the corrupt assholes - Obama, Holder, The Clintons.
All's for the best in this best of all possible worlds - readering
As long as we are recycling old quotes, hows about remembering this beauty from the choice that Democrats offered us?
"We came! We saw! He died! [chortle, guffaw]" - HRC
Remember this is describing an action that unleashed an unprecedented in the post war world refugee crisis on Europe that led to Brexit and the popularity of LePen.
I'm sure Drago and a few others are waiting with baited breath.
If you have "baited" breath, don't swim with sharks, it's like putting blue cheese on the celery! "Bated breath" on the other hand, is probably fine.
Sadly, this is about what I expect from the once great NYT.
J2 said...
Even though he said "came up with it", he meant "came across it".
Yeah. I've learned here that's the key with Trump. Sometimes, you have to take him seriously but not literally. Other times you should go ahead and take him literally, but of course not seriously. Or not literally and not seriously. Also literally and seriously. Occasionally it can be necessary to painstakingly hyper parse his words and skiffle off through something as tangential as it is beneficent, but thankfully just as often you can just never mind and delightedly watch the elite squirm. It's not always easy with his plain spoken fourth level three dimensional chess games, but none of that is quite the right fit, you can, as you note, just pick some new words he meant.
Someone left the cake out in the rain.
Trump trolls the media and they swerve off into foolishness. Again.
DannoDanno: "Chuck, Ann blogs about things that interest her, and that is fine with most of us. Why don't you start the "Life-long Republican" blog? I'm sure Drago and a few others are waiting with baited breath"
Hmmmm, I don't think so.
Too much of a "good" thing is....too much.
Personally I'm still waiting for Ben Rhodes to expand on his pronouncement that the obambi admin tape recorded every conversation in the oval office.
That presents some interesting possibilities.
I wonder if Trump knew that and purposely threw the "tapes" comment out there to hook all the lefties who immediately demanded congress subpeona those "tapes".
Why don't we start with obamas? That should make for some interesting reading regarding unmasking and election/domestic surveillance.
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