The review begins:
You saw them. You probably read a few. Maybe you even wrote one.Lozada is fed up with reading stuff like:
Seething political takes. Overwrought open letters. Emotional manifestos. They began invading our inboxes and Facebook feeds in the early hours of Nov. 9, 2016, and continued for days and weeks. They frothed from keyboards across the country, countless renditions of what became an instantly recognizable genre: the How I Felt on Election Night essay.
‘Overwhelmed by grief.” “Brokenhearted.” “Hopeless.” “Something inside me died on Election night.” “I woke up that morning and everything felt f—ed.”And:
“I am not ashamed to admit I am more afraid than ever,” writes novelist Meredith Russo. For novelist Mira Jacob, the moment evoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: “At four [a.m.], I bolted awake with a surge of fear I have not felt for fifteen years.” And writer Nicole Chung recalls how, that evening, she and her husband “would remain up for hours, alternately swearing and reaching for each other’s hands in bleary and increasing panic.”The moment evoked the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001... That sounds awful, but I can relate to the sense of disbelief. The kick in the head — that really happened — over and over again. On and after 9/11, I remember experiencing that kick, first multiple times within each minute, gradually decreasing to perhaps once a minute or 10 times an hour, on and on, until I fully absorbed the reality. It happened.
There was a slightly similar feeling about Trump, but it was much, much milder. 9/11 happened suddenly one day and the pictures vividly confronted us with the reality. Election day was a known date, and the polls only made it something like 80% likely that Hillary would win. We'd been seeing Trump's success and survival against all odds for months, and even on election night the reality crept up slowly. The news media deliberately slowed it down, performing the strange theater of imagining how it could still be possible for Hillary to find a path to victory and delaying calling Michigan.
When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
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396 comments:
1 – 200 of 396 Newer› Newest»I felt something similar in 2012. When I woke up and realized that the American people had rejected a perfectly decent man who had been maligned unfairly by a complicit press, and re-elected one of the most destructive and ineffectual jerks ever to sit in the Oval Office, I was shocked and appalled at my fellow countrymen.
So, while 2016 was a surprise to me, it wasn't that much of a surprise.
My reaction to 9/11 was that we're going to have to bomb the shit out of somebody.
Not every like the election, smaller or larger.
Just when I had (happily) forgotten my Facebook friends talking about Trump's election being their 9/11. Perhaps the problem is it took this many months for the books to get published, and now people aren't talking like that any more.
Do people still talk like they are terrified of Trump putting them in camps and such? That doesn't seem to be en vogue right now.
One must have a heart of stone to read of their hysteria without laughing.
pious agnostic- yeah, after the 2012 election I had an uncomfortable realization that the American electorate was maybe never again going to elect the best man for the job.
I'm sorry, but the election of Donald Trump is NOTHING like the attacks of 9/11 that killed 3,000 people - many in horrible ways - burned to death, plunging to death, wounded thousand more, destroyed three major buildings and indirectly led to the debacles that are the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. These people complaining about Trump nightmares are pathetic, delusional and effete weirdos living in an echo chamber.
Excellent post.
I got a series of emotionally wrought letters from high school friends. Several of whom broke off 40+ year friendships because I was insufficiently distressed about Trump's election. It was shocking to me.
I remember the morning of election day, I thought to myself "I wish Hillary had won in 2008." If that had happened we'd be done with her. Obama wouldn't have happened, with all the damage he's done to the culture and the country, pushing as hard to the left as he did. Hillary 2008 was probably a lot less radical than Obama, or an even worse Hillary 2016. So as the election progressed I felt a sense of exhaustion and relief. So yeah, I can see how people reacted emotionally. Now move on, everybody.
I think the 2000 election burned me out for good. I didn't have a dog in the fight, really. Voted third party. But that was the last time I stayed up late to watch the results.
"When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens."
Bingo.
The obsessive scab-picking is very childish. I keep waiting for the Kubler-Ross process to advance, but so far not much luck.
One quibble: "This is democracy" applies both to the election and to the whingeing and blubbering that it produced. A direct democracy would consist of little more than tidal waves of sentiment. These people keep telling us that HRC won "the popular vote."
Oso Negro: "...Several of whom broke off 40+ year friendships because I was insufficiently distressed about Trump's election." That happened to me also. And some intrafamily relationships have taken a beating as well. I have had to bite my tongue a lot.
We still await Hillary's explication "what Happened" for the definitive analysis.
Expect more gnashing of teeth and cries of misogyny and Russia!
I will never stop delighting in the pain Trump's election wrought upon the left and certain lifelong Republicans. I've laughed about it every single day since the election. One of the pleasures in life is pulling up at a red light next to a car with a Hillary! sticker and flashing a huge grin to the distraught occupant. It's my way of giving back.
Meanwhile, Germans are still fascists -
Chinese tourists arrested for giving Hitler salute outside Reichstag building in Berlin
The cartoonish notion of hysterical Obama-deifying liberal nutcases as the avatar for opposition to Trump is a non-starter with me. I'm sure there are people out there like that; they were there during the Bush 43 administration. The Cindy Sheehans. The FireDogLakes. The New Yorker and the New York Times editorial board. Seymour Hersh. MSNBC. The, uh, Congressional Black Caucus.
They are all just facts of life. They can't end a Trump presidency. But Robert Mueller, the federal courts and a sizable number of unhappy Trump-hating Republicans in the House and Senate could.
The real response hasn't been book writing. The true response has been the Resistance. First the slow walking of nominations and now the frenzy of the fake Russia story. Paralysis is the near term goal and the ultimate goal is impeachment. Mueller's appointment was a disaster.
From the article:
One parent even suggests that he might stop teaching honesty as a value. “As much as it pains me to admit,” writes filmmaker John Ziegler, “it is now clear that in order to best prepare my children for life in this new ‘post-truth’ era of America, they need to be educated that a well-executed lie will beat an unpopular truth every single time.”
"Evil people hate the light because it reveals themselves to themselves. ... They will destroy the light, the goodness, the love in order to avoid the pain of self-awareness."
Dr. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
Before I went to bed Election Night, I practiced saying 'President Hilary Clinton' three times and then slept soundly. I got news of the unexpected result when I got up at five and checked my phone.
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
It's all so reminiscent of the games we played in college, way back in the 1960s. Then too, we loved pretending that fascism was descending, that we were the heroic vanguard of resistance, that our play-acting at being terrified meant something. It was an interesting time, more interesting than today, but we were just as mistaken in our belief that we should be taken seriously. Perhaps each generation needs somebody to validate their particular struggle to be taken seriously. That seems to be the function of these stories.
Due to the stock market rally, I'm a little richer since Trump won, but, other than that, my life is pretty much the same as when Obama was president. Nor do I think that my life would be radically different if Hillary had won......In our democracy, there's only about a ten to twenty percent tilt, left or right, among politicians........Trump has a radically different personality, but he's not so different in policies than a standard issue Republican. I like him better than Hillary, but he's not my savior.
My low opinion of Barak Obama hasn't changed much in 9 years and I was extremely sorry to find out he was elected. My response was to pay less attention to politics for a while as it only made me angry and I didn't want to feel like that constantly. It's not good for you.
Question. If Hillary would have won would conservatives have acted in the same manner? Books written, demonstrations, freaking out?
"But Robert Mueller, the federal courts and a sizable number of unhappy Trump-hating Republicans in the House and Senate could."
Put your tiny cock back in your footie pajamas, Chuck. You know how mad your mommy gets when you masturbate to political fantasy.
Let us see : post 9/11 the country's policy has been formulated by people who are never-Trumpers or anti-Trumpers for whom Trump is now their equal to 9/11. I doubt very much that they grasp Trump or 9/11.
The worsts aspect of the Trump Derangement Syndrome is the degree to which it has occurred on the right.
Patrick Frey, a blogger with an excellent blog that I read and commented on for years. has gone over the edge on TDS. I don;t care that some conservatives dislike Trump's manners or his tendency to shoot off his mouth when it harms him.
He was elected President and there is no alternative to his presidency until 2020. The fact that he was elected suggests that a lot of voters liked his election issues.
The Congress has been promising for seven years to repeal Obamacare. Trump has waffled a bit on that issue, several times suggesting he would support single payer but he has also promised to sign legislation repealing the Obama law.
He has talked about immigration, especially unlimited immigration for radical Muslim areas. The Left, weirdly, has adopted the idea that Muslims are a protected class even though Islam is antithetical to most of the cultural matters that also seem important to the Left.
Now, we have what looks a lot like an attempted coup d'etat. This is another manifestation, not of hysteria by the Left but a quiet attempt to take over the government by a cabal of insiders in the bureaucracy like fired assistant AG, Sally Yates.
Charles Krauthammer who masquerades as a conservative after an early career as a speech writer for the left and Jimmy Carter, has come out for the The Resistance.
At five separate junctures, the sinews of our democracy held against the careening recklessness of this presidency. Consequently, Donald Trump’s worst week proved a particularly fine hour for American democracy: 1) The military says no to Trump on the transgender ban. Well, not directly — that’s insubordination — but with rather elegant circumspection. The president tweeted out a total ban on transgender people serving in the military. It came practically out of nowhere. The military brass, not consulted, was not amused. Defense Secretary James Mattis, in the middle of a six-month review of the issue, was reportedly appalled.
This is bullshit. At the recruit center in June we had a briefing on the transgender matter and everyone was appalled. How in the world was the military going to deal with this ? Trump, with his tweet, solved the problem. Generals did not have to go before Congress and get browbeaten by grandstanding Senators like Kirstin Gillibrand. Trump took the hit and they are able to pretend they are annoyed.
The President is attacked form both sides and the debt bubble keeps growing. Patterico is upset that entitlement reform has not happened on Trump's watch.
But President Trump isn’t talking about what it would take to make a dent in the debt. That would take entitlement reform, frankly — and that’s the least popular topic on the planet. Indeed, preserving ObamaCare, our newest and shiniest entitlement, seems to be the top priority for our elected officials these days. Actually reforming entitlements is out. Get with the times, man!
Yeah, it's all Trump's fault you fool. As if Congress that won't keep a promise to repeal Obamacare in spite of 7 years of promises, would tackle the "Third Rail of Politics.."
See, if prog comedy writers really want new material, prog hysteria gives them a lot to work with.
"There was a slightly similar feeling about Trump" Well, OK. Very slightly.
"why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy?" Faux questions, right? Why, oh, why? Sure, even in the context of the war they are fighting, from the point of view of a moderate midwestern retiree, it would make sense to understand the opposition. But their MO is not to understand but to vilify, to bludgeon, to destroy the opposition, and to count on numbers--millennials, the coasts, single women, illegals--to prevail. The left isn't about acceptance or democracy or the people or their own country. They're about power. Accept it.
"You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens." So? Fellow citizens are strictly tools--OK if they deliver prog victory, deplorable if not. Similarly, democracy is a tool. Always has been for the left--a formal bourgeois institution, to be left behind when the train arrives at the right station, as non-prog Erdogan has informed us.
Except that for the time being there are still a few nice Althouses to supplement the deplorables and keep the system going. The left is waiting for us to die so history has can march on.
“Despite months of looking, I never managed to meet a liberal New Yorker who thought of Trump supporters as anything other than an undifferentiated bloc of subhuman troglodytes,” writes Princeton University lecturer Boris Fishman.
Pre-election Trump supporters kept their allegiance to themselves because of they did not want to be labeled a deplorable. A conservative friend of mine refused to attend a party in New Orleans with her newspaper editor husband in honor of Maureen DOWD because she did not want to be called out. I remember cautioning my sister-in-law to keep her Trump support to herself.
No wonder Election Day was such a shock—the cognoscenti did not know of anyone with a brain who supported Trump.
2016 election should have come with trigger warning for left wing types, that's for sure.
And it's not just Americans who have hard time with President Trump, I am Canadian and progressives up here are having mental breakdowns as well. Left wing people belong to secular religion and they most certainly did not appreciate the heretic winning the White House.
I remember thinking, "I can't believe this asshole really won!" But I felt no existential dread or fear or panic. I knew we'd be fucked whoever won. It was just the disbelief any rational being would feel on seeing something beyond one's ken, such as a dog playing Beethoven's 5th on the piano, or a 700 lb man dancing ballet on a tightrope over a lake teeming with ravenous alligators. These writers who express shock puzzle me: weren't they paying attention while Obama was President? Did they think--after eight years of his smoothly-delivered liberal pieties, accompanied by the crackdown on whistle-blowers, his ramping up of the drone assassination programs, his extension of the military into more areas of the middle east, his servile accommodation of the Wall Street and the financial elites, the criminals who crashed the economy, his coordination with city mayors to crack down on the Occupy Wall Street protests--did they really think Obama had done a wonderful job in advancing the peaceful, prosperous, and egalitarian America they presumably want?
I assume you're "Mike K" at Patterico? Patrick has come undone, I agree. Sad!
The consequences of the women's vote is different from the consequences of democracy.
You can buy one without buying the other.
"My reaction to 9/11 was that we're going to have to bomb the shit out of somebody."
Which, as has been proved and is still being proved, 16 years on, was an incredibly stupid reaction.
did they really think Obama had done a wonderful job in advancing the peaceful, prosperous, and egalitarian America they presumably want?
Robert, these are the people, like Barney Frank, who said they would keep the real estate bubble going a little longer in 2006 when they took over Congress. The 1990s internet bubble was making people rich. Bill Clinton got out of town ahead of the crash and Bush took the blame. In 2008, Bush was gone and guess who got blamed ?
I was hoping Trump could sign a couple of pieces of legislation before the crash but the GOP Congress has no intention of doing anything but collect the bribes they get from foolish donors who also have no vision of what is coming.
At least I got out of California.
"I assume you're "Mike K" at Patterico? Patrick has come undone, I agree. Sad!"
Yeah and I have known Patrick personally for ten years. We both went to Cathy Seipp's funeral.
He's like "chuck" and has nothing but hatred driving him.
If you allow yourself to get that upset over an election, you are a weak, pathetic creature.
I never watch the election returns, or else I would be up all night. I steeled myself for Hillary's election, which I was assured by the left was both inevitable and rapturous. The glee I felt at 4am the next morning upon opening up Drudge can be barely be described.
I was reminded of the last line in Stalag 17, where the barracks tough guy, grinning yet bemused, observes "Well, whattaya know ... the crumb did it"
When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy?
It's the flip side of those internet fora where people are convinced that any moment now, Trump (or Assange or whoever) is going to crack the worldwide pizza pedophile conspiracy wide open and all the princes of the political establishment and the civil service in all their glittering finery are imminently going to be clapped in irons and thrown in gaol to rot. You spend enough time in a bubble competing to see who can whip the rest up into the maddest frenzy, and eventually you will experience a genuine, unforced, ludicrously disproportionate emotional reaction to the smallest stimulus. They aren't "struggling to absorb the reality" -- they are rejecting it in favour of an absurd fantasy.
In fairness to them, Trump is the political figure who is perhaps least sympathetic when it comes to this sort of thing since he promoted this sort of hysteria, albeit on a much less histrionic scale, by claiming Obama was really born in Kenya. So there is a certain amount of "unclean hands" here, even if two wrongs don't make a right. Other than in a court of equity, I suppose.
I can see a lot of people emotionally invested in Obama, the Great Black Hope. But Crooked Hillary? The most corrupt major party candidate in probably better than a century? How do you get emotionally invested in her? In that? Which is why I suspect that a lot of this is just virtue signaling. A lot of these people would probably have melted down even if any other Republican had beaten her - even if they had been a Black transgendered Muslim cleric, etc. They are throwing temper tantrums, and expect to get applauded by all their friends for such.
"Well, whattaya know ... the crumb did it"
The term was "the crud" a term that has probably gone out of common use.
Stalag 17 is still great and was a successful play before Wilder made the movie.
Which is why I suspect that a lot of this is just virtue signaling.
Bingo.
>>Before I went to bed Election Night, I practiced saying 'President Hilary Clinton' three times and then slept soundly.
A few days before the election, I came to the realization that Hillary was inevitable.
So I went out to the garage, and with some help from the good folks of Grand Island Nebraska, I loaded up about 1000 rounds of what was surely going to become very scarce again, if not banned outright.
Thank God for "evitable".
Funny.
Lozada is fed up with reading stuff like:
‘Overwhelmed by grief.” “Brokenhearted.” “Hopeless.” “Something inside me died on Election night.” “I woke up that morning and everything felt f—ed.”
Funny.
I went to bed early expecting Hillary to win and our government in the hands of a wholly corrupt figurehead. It was a sick feeling in the pit of my core. The Podesta-Clinton axis of evil. Free speech - gone.
"I was reminded of the last line in Stalag 17, where the barracks tough guy, grinning yet bemused, observes 'Well, whattaya know ... the crumb did it.'"
STALAG 17...a great movie, one of my favorites! However, Trump is no J.J. Sefton. Sefton was a cynical wheeler-dealer who actually had personal integrity, intelligence, and bravery. Trump? Hahahaha!
If Trump's ethical and intellectual character could be physically realized on film, it would very much like the corrupt police captain Hank Quinlan in TOUCH OF EVIL or Kenneth McMillan's Baron Harkonnen in DUNE.
(But then, this is true of a number of our presidents.)
From the article:
"...in an open letter ( from Aaron Sorkin) to his teenage daughter and former wife in which he pledged to “f—ing fight” Trump"
What was not excerpted in that letter to his ex-wife
" and by the way I'm not paying for your spa weekend with the kids"
“I am not ashamed to admit I am more afraid than ever,” writes novelist Meredith Russo. .
You go, Fearless Girl!
"I can see a lot of people emotionally invested in Obama, the Great Black Hope. But Crooked Hillary? The most corrupt major party candidate in probably better than a century? How do you get emotionally invested in her? In that?"
By the same sort of willed blindness or self-delusion that allows presumably rational people to see Trump as any less corrupt or bankrupt of concern for the American people. We don't have choices between good and bad candidates for president, but only between bad and bad.
[...] a well-executed lie will beat an unpopular truth every single time.”
That's been obvious ever since election day 1992.
From the article:
"...in an open letter ( from Aaron Sorkin) to his teenage daughter and former wife in which he pledged to “f—ing fight” Trump"
If ever an Oxford Comma was called for....
Bruce Hayden
A lot of these people would probably have melted down even if any other Republican had beaten her - even if they had been a Black transgendered Muslim cleric, etc.
Indeed. A black transgenedered Muslim cleric with an (R) after her name - the left's reaction would be the same. Total. melt-down. They are blinded by bizarre belief that the D-party will give them all sorts of free stuff and protect them from the big bad mean world with a government hug.
Blogger Fernandinande said...
One must have a heart of stone to read of their hysteria without laughing.
Yep. Actually reading their hysteria is my happy place
Cook - I can name and list Hillary Clinton and John Podesta's corruption. Democrat party corruption.
Can you name and list Trump's corruption? You know - with actual facts?
Nowadays and I guess since the 2000 election, presidential coming and goings and doings are in our face 247 plus the media slant has come out of the closet so they bash and demean Repubs endlessly.
But nothing really good seems to comes out of the Imperial City since at least the 1990's we have had 911 followed by a big recession, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Obamacare, 2008 crash, Benghazi lies, Hillary's email stupidity, now the bogus Russia investigation, growing ginormous Federal government, nonstop deficit spending.. So why do we all [including me] get overwrought about who the president is? Whoever it is, it would be a shock if he or she did something overwhelmingly positive. I mean really what has any presidential admin fixed or improved in the last 25 years?
All of these chicken shit progressives, scared and shaking- they promised to move out of the country.
We're waiting.
Cookie at 9:14: Very well said. You have my respect.
Didn't George Clintonopolis and his wife promise to leave?
Waiting.... waiting... Go on - get out, Clinton Corruption supporting media hack.
All of these chicken shit progressives, scared and shaking- they promised to move out of the country.
We're waiting.
Yeah, we are. Whoopi? Cher? Are you living in Canada yet? If not, why not?
"She's my daughter. (slap) She's my sister! (slap) She's my daughter! (slap) my sister (slap) my daughter................"
What I find ironic about this is that it worked backward for me. I was absolutely not a Trump supporter: I thought he was the worst of all the Republican candidates, I saw his taking the nomination as a disaster, and indeed I suspected him of running as a spoiler candidate on Clinton's behalf, with the intention not of winning but of leaving the Republicans without a credible candidate. And then the election night returns came in, and as one state after another came up red, I realized that I felt as if I had been buried under tons of rocks for months, and now they were being lifted off—I couldn't predict what Trump would do, and I still didn't like him, but at least we weren't going to have Clinton in office. Or Clinton nominees on the Supreme Court, which was probably more important. So that was kind of the converse of what all those people talking about their election night shock were feeling. And I don't think it says anything more about American political culture than their reactions do—but it revealed something to me about myself that I hadn't realized.
And part of my reaction was a streak of anticipatory Schadenfreude. But you know, we've been seeing liberal reactions for nine months now, and I 've had all the Schadenfreude I want, thank you.
The right thinks the left is wrong. The left thinks the right is evil. Paraphrases, IIRC, President Reagan.
Thus, the hard left believes evil has prevailed and must, just must, be fought.
The difference may be that the right has come to believe that the left is not just wrong, but is evil.
The counter punch may sting the leftists a bit.
As I was traveling through several western states last fall I saw more than a few Trump signs but NO Hillary signs. This surprised and pleased me. This was no fluke, after all. This was America speaking.
I've said it a million times but... I know he's a jerk and supposedly we are all supposed to hate the guy - but I wanted to see Ted Cruz take down Hillary.
The media sucked all the air out of the room and handed it to Trump because they thought he would be best suited to lose to their corrupt political meal ticket.
If Hillary would have won would conservatives have acted in the same manner? Books written, demonstrations, freaking out?
Considering that Hillary lost and conservatives are still demanding her head and the president is advocating a special counsel to investigate her I think the answer to thisquestion is an unequivocal "yes".
and I do love to see the media get it wrong.
Cultural segmentation, personal interactions turning virtual, the problem of media monoculture explains a great deal, including much of the personal depression. There is also the likely result of self-selection of personality driving much of this.
If the range of acquaintance is narrow only certain ranges of opinions are heard, only certain people are heard out.
This used to be so socially and geographically, but one did get differences of POV among ones neighbors. It does take all kinds to make even a small world, and they are around and have to be dealt with in the flesh.
It gets worse as people limit or abandon IRL connections for virtual ones, even their families, and intensely select whom they want to deal with socially. Ones neighbors and even ones relatives become strangers.
And then there is the monoculture of the mass media, which has a distinct skewing effect on perceptions and reactions. This has been commented on ad nauseam of course, but it is also a factor here.
The right, the populist/conservative factions, even as they also narrow their social range in the same way as liberals, at least have the advantage of being unable to avoid the MSM. This gives them perspective, the result of exposure to a vast range of opinion. They even develop the habit of seeking it out. Even hard-right sites like Freerepublic take most of their topics as MSM items, nearly all of them contrary to their world view. The "Unknowns" here who post MSM items are not injecting unheard points into the conversation, the right rather obsessively does that already.
They are difficult to surprise or shock, they can see things coming as well as anyone can these days.
The liberals contrarily not only can coccoon themselves, but have their world view reinforced by the immense power of the MSM. They dont hear anything else for the most part. Liberal sites do not link or publish conservative news or opinion, or very rarely.
Its easy to see that this can lead to incomprehension, and being surprised or shocked by events, to a great degree because of a lack of perspective. Some people like to wrap this all up as "cognitive dissonance".
None of this is new, its been building up over the last century, as the MSM and cultural enterprises and institutions have progressively consolidated, centralized and narrowed into their own castes. Pauline Kael's famous reaction was about Nixon after all. Its just much more of the same now, and much worse.
The other bit, on differential psychology of populations, is speculative but there is some support for it. Its likely that certain personality types gravitate to certain ideological positions (culturally determined and contingent of course) by nature. There probably is a relative difference in how these self-selected populations (who after all get to choose their "sides" and "tribes" these days) react to cognitive dissonance, with quiet seething say, or public hysteria.
Mrs Althouse, thank you for you continued strong support of our president and those of us who voted for him.
Trump is doing what's politically possible.
Until the national debt gets press time, nothing will happen in entitlements. The press is too busy chasing their tail on trump to report anything else.
did they really think Obama had done a wonderful job in advancing the peaceful, prosperous, and egalitarian America they presumably want?
Yes. And there were people who felt Ms. Clinton was the most experienced, accomplished candidate ever. And there are people who believe that Trump is wonderfully advancing a strong, secure, job-creating America.
Why don't you write something about a president so in-hock to a hostile foreign power that the Senate has to vote 98-0 to sanction them and tie his hands on their behalf on how to deal with them, blatantly against his will?
What kind of a derangement does it take to be blind to the statement made by that?
That seems kind of unprecedented. Isn't that worth writing a bit more about? Or do you have a personal reason for instead focusing on the reactions of the majority of Americans who feel that the blind trust you encourage in a most-powerful-in-the-world crazy man is a bridge too far to ask of them?
Cook,
Re Stalag 17 -
The character of Sefton is just that, a fictional character, that has to reveal his nature in a drama within 90 minutes, or actually a fraction thereof. Within the scope of the piece Sefton has to be all this for a while, and then all that, and is never both-this-and-that in some complex mix. That simply wouldnt work within the constraints of the form.
Reality of human character is never as pat, as neat, or as unambiguous, and the form in which they operate is unconstrained.
Stalag 17 was my favorite movie as a child. Maybe because there were no love scenes in it. Still a good movie.
I've said it a million times but... I know he's a jerk and supposedly we are all supposed to hate the guy - but I wanted to see Ted Cruz take down Hillary. [Sorry but your new screen name is too long for attribution]
Yes, he is a jerk but he is not a GOPe stooge. I'd like to see him on the SCOTUS or as a Federal Prosecutor. Smart guy and vicious. We need him.
"Trump and Self-Worth: the Story of a Broken Man" (excerpt)...
When Trump was elected I did not feel despair. Okay, I DID feel despair, a little. But I mostly felt an overwhelming hatred for myself: hatred for living in this country, hatred for sharing air with the mouth-breathing cretins who made Trump happen...
I am not ashamed to say that Trump's election brought out the worst in me. Excessive drug use? Yeah, I did that. Unprotected anal sex with sketchy guys in the bathrooms of seedy bars? Yeah, I did that, too...
It was like Trump turned me into a Crack Whore. I sucked cocks for drug money, then I used the money to buy drugs so that I wouldn't feel ashamed of sucking cocks for drug money. There were days when I woke up and didn't know where I was, and there was blood in my underwear...
I tried to vent my anger by writing on the Internet. Indeed, you may have seen some of my comments: the avatar "Trump Is a Cocksucker"? That was me. "Fuck Fuck Fuck Trump"? That was me, too. It would feel good for a moment, but then that moment would pass, and I'd find myself in the bathroom of a seedy bar again, having unprotected anal sex and waking up with blood in my underwear...
How far did I descend? Was it the yellowy sore-riddled cock I sucked in the alley for ten bucks? Was it the anal sex with the transsexual who bit my testicles and stole my wallet? Oh, no: the descent went further down than that...
I am Laslo.
How come they don't write about how great we Trump supporters feel?
How much more enjoyable life is?
The burden lifted from our shoulders?
Thy joy of waking up every day without President Big V?
Why don't they write about us? Huh?
Ritmo,
It would be interesting to us, and probably beneficial to you, to examine your weltanschauung, whence you come and by what route you have become what you are.
My favorite comic books back in those days were those issues that had "the origins of", both heroes and villains. I think my favorite Marvel comic of all was "the origins" of Doctor Doom (Fantastic Four Annual#2 - 1964 - I wish I still had that!).
You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins.
To the Left, democracy is coming up with the answer the Left wants.
This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
The Left doesn't consider Trump voters fellow citizens.
Like 9/11, I do see Trump as something that happened to America that carries the seeds of existential threat. I've been impressed thus far with the institutional ability and willingness to check Trump, but America is only one black swan event away from the full bloom of his authoritarian desires and malignant self interest. If that were to happen the most overwrought reactions would suddenly seem prescient.
"I do see Trump as something that happened to America..."
Why?
"that carries the seeds of existential threat."
How?
Roll in the fake news. Russia!
Snowflakes from top to bottom. Missing their participation trophies, no doubt.
You can believe in democracy and a free and open society and still be realistic about its weaknesses. Resisting a democratically elected demagogic sociopath is simply another expression of democracy, no?
On election night I sat with a friend up here in Canada with three screens going, so we could follow it from different angles. I had two bets placed, one with our local lottery organization, and one privately. I bet on Trump. I thought he was going to win by more than he did. As you'll remember there were internet polls after the first debate which showed viewers thought Trump won massively. TIme magazine in particular showed Trump favoured by a over million viewers. Then for the second debate Time had no poll, obviously. Made up my mind then.
Resisting a democratically elected demagogic sociopath is simply another expression of democracy, no?
From 2008-2016, I was told by my betters that it was racist to do so.
Emanuel Derman
"One of the most useful things a person can know about himself is where he or she begins and where other people end. If you don't know where you begin, you will perceive yourself as being pushed against when you're not. If you don't know where you end, you will push on other people without realizing it."
When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
Bingo.
Also, don't forget to add that to cope with all this faux pain and faux anxiety, these leftists conjured up a fake "Russia-collusion" narrative to explain Hillary's loss, fueled by illegal anonymous leaks of confidential NSA taps.
That's how these dangerous idiots roll.
"If Hillary would have won would conservatives have acted in the same manner? Books written, demonstrations, freaking out?"
Absolutely yes. They did after Obama was elected, hence the Tea Party. Trump himself was trumpeting that it was a "rigged election" even before he won and if he lost there would be riots in the street, per his henchman Roger Stone. Delegates who said they would not vote for Trump were getting threats.
He is now trying to convince his supporters that the investigations are only to remove him illegally from office. He may be the President now, but he has very likely broken several laws, or colluded with a foreign government. That is why he is being investigated.
He is so incompetent that his own White House is leaking like a sieve. Ask yourselves why, because they are patriots.
It would be interesting to us, and probably beneficial to you, to examine your weltanschauung, whence you come and by what route you have become what you are.
It doesn't take a "weltanschauung," you pretentious prick. It takes not wanting to hire a free-lancer who's using the job to enrich an agenda of his own that's hostile to your country's. It's no more complicated than that. If you prefer to hire people who just want to use your organization - in this case, the country's power - to enrich themselves at its expense and yours, then maybe it's your own compliant, slavish "weltanschauung" that needs examination.
But you wouldn't do that. You just inherited it from your conquerers and swallowed it whole, as you believe your own people have long had it within them to do. Like a French whore, but on the level of an entire society.
Did Imelda Marcos' thousands of shoes smell really nice? I bet you got really close to them - even learning the inside details. You knew every sequin, every strap and every sole - didn't you?
I can see the imprint of those soles of hers on your uninspiring face.
Snark,
Your perspective needs adjustment.
The other side sees the power imbalance here as the precise opposite, in that both Trump and his supporters, however numerous, are the underdogs.
The other difference in POV is in the American trajectory, in which the other side sees the previous trajectory as a near-inevitable slide into ruin.
Given that worldview, Trump as simply an event doesnt make sense. Trump is not a man, but a manifestation of "the general will", if you like Rousseau. Its like blaming the French Revolution on Danton.
Have you read Codevilla for instance? You may benefit from alternative views.
"Resisting a democratically elected demagogic sociopath is simply another expression of democracy, no?"
From 2008-2016, I was told by my betters that it was racist to do so.
Only a racist idiot would have been warped enough to perceive that Obama was a sociopath. Either that, or they just didn't know the meaning of the word. As usual.
"A few days before the election, I came to the realization that Hillary was inevitable.
So I went out to the garage, and with some help from the good folks of Grand Island Nebraska, I loaded up about 1000 rounds of what was surely going to become very scarce again, if not banned outright.
Thank God for "evitable"."
My bid to elect Trump was to buy a new handgun the day before the election. Almost one of those Murphy's Law sort of things -if I didn't buy the gun then, I wouldn't be able to later, so buying the gun before the election meant that I wouldn't have this problem in the future. Very circular logic. And, of course, Trump won, so I can continue to purchase handguns in the future, even though I don't need another one (though a nice 10 mm would be nice as a bear gun in MT - but I can't decide between the Glock 20 and 40). Funny thing is, though, that I am very happy that I bought that new gun - it shoots much better than my Glock 17, and is much better as a concealed handgun.
Conservatives/Republicans think Liberals/Democrats are wrong and misguided on policy/governance.
Liberals/Democrats think Conservatives/Republicans are evil.
Not much middle ground for compromise there...
"When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens."
It's because Americans believe in democracy that they are resisting the Trump regime. Yes we are Americans. We don't want a Russian Asset as President. We don't want a criminal as President. We want an intelligent competent person who doesn't suffer from pathological narcissism. America is better than Trump, more than half of America knows it. The other half is still hypnotized...or deplorable. We understand you Trumpers alright, that's why we know that the country needs to be saved from you and the unsuitable dangerous person you have hoisted upon us. No, we won't just sit down and shut up.
"Why?"
Because of the number and combination of things that overwhelmed the system. The foreign social media influence, the fact that the very success of America itself has insulated citizens from understanding that history didn't end in 1989 and that democracies can reverse and recede, and because the average person doesn't have the ability to distinguish sociopathy and pathological narcissism from charm and refreshing "honesty", nor the profound nature of the malignant self interest therein.
"How?"
Because democracies can reverse and recede. Before Scott Adams et al, there were Russian and Ukrainian journalists sounding the alarm that Trump was going to win, because they recognized the patterns.
Lotta cosmic humor here today.
I thought election night was the best night of comedy that I'd seen for a while. Watching the news stations hold off on calling Florida for Trump because the Panhandle might go blue this time was hilarious. I switched among different stations, but NBC was the best. You could see the hope fade as what was actually inevitable hit them.
There wouldn't have been anything funny about it if they hadn't spent months lecturing us on how a Hillary win was a given. I can't say I think much of their ability to report news, but they sure know how to set up a punchline.
I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
Go ahead and ask, Professor, but you won't get a straight answer. In 2016 I moved an hour and a half west of the Washington Beltway, and after talking to neighbors and the men working on my house, I have begun to grasp how utterly, utterly fed up normal people are. The people who are whining and wailing and gnashing their teeth need to understand this: IT'S YOUR OWN DAMNED FAULT! And if Mueller succeeds in removing Trump, it's only going to get worse.
"We don't want a Russian Asset as President. We don't want a criminal as President. We want an intelligent competent person who doesn't suffer from pathological narcissism. "
Yep, that's why we got Trump.
Conservatives/Republicans think Liberals/Democrats are wrong and misguided on policy/governance.
Liberals/Democrats think Conservatives/Republicans are evil.
Not much middle ground for compromise there...
In other situations logic might be a way to achieve reconciliation, but not here because conservatives don't believe in it. So the battle stays confined to the emotional, and too riven with drama - real and fake - to get on with something better.
Yes we are Americans. We don't want a Russian Asset as President. We don't want a criminal as President. We want an intelligent competent person who doesn't suffer from pathological narcissism.
Neither does anyone else. That's why we didn't elect Clinton.
Ritmo,
I, personally, am of the mighty conquerors (or of the evil colonialists, choose your POV). Otherwise our lot are "citizens of the world", scattered these days from Europe to Australia. This is whats happened to those who operated the old empires.
And even so, your comments and implications against the Filipino people are plain racism. Its not for me to forgive you that, but whatever. To a degree I think you can't help it.
Thats understandable coming from you, as you have a need it seems for an emotional outlet. There is always something boiling away in you that needs to come out and scald someone. Whats interesting is what, and why.
Only a racist idiot would have been warped enough to perceive that Obama was a sociopath.
Ho hum. Must be sad to realize your incantations ("Racist!" "Islamophobe!") have lost their power to intimidate.
Mary Beth said, "Watching the news stations hold off on calling Florida for Trump because the Panhandle might go blue this time was hilarious."
I hope and think that that's one of the good things that came out of the 2000 election/press debacle. They called Florida for Gore before the panhandle voting booths were even closed. That's something the press long ago vowed it would never do.
"Must be sad to realize your incantations ("Racist!" "Islamophobe!") have lost their power to intimidate."
Not sad at all. It's empowering to tell the truth.
"the very success of America itself has insulated citizens from understanding that history didn't end in 1989 and that democracies can reverse and recede"
Interestingly, this sentiment drove a lot of Trump support, also.
The idea that the (primary) threat to democracy can come from the slow mutation of, and malign change in, its own institutions seems like the recognition of a more profound truth than just assuming a politician you don't like is Hitler 2.0.
Also – you really think that RT had an influence on the election? Personally, I find that incredible.
"Have you read Codevilla for instance? You may benefit from alternative views."
You had mentioned Codevilla before, and as I didn't know who he was I looked him up. I read only very briefly but was interested to learn that there is a sense of a an East coast/West coast struggle for the soul of conservatism. Reading very superficially about Codevilla's philosophy I realized how irreconcilable so many of his views would be with the equally intrinsic views of competing thought. In that way I understood your sense of an overarching struggle, and the general trajectory of greater and greater intractability.
Now Is the Time! said...
Mrs Althouse, thank you for you continued strong support of our president and those of us who voted for him."
I don't know that Ann is a Trump supporter. I don't know if she voted for him. She has been sharply critical of him from time to time.
But in today's political climate, anybody who doesn't condemn and hate Trump and the people who voted for him 24/7 is automatically "a Trumpist" in the eyes of the left. You can't ever, ever approve of something he has done or said. LLR's like Chuck will approve of things like the Goresuch appointment without giving any credit to the man who appointed him. The Never-Trumper Republicans are even more dishonest and weaselly than the leftists.
So Ann, who is pretty clearly not a "Trumpist" becomes one simply because she tries to be fair and has accepted what both the screaming brats on the left and the slimy GOPe establishment cannot - the fact that Trump's win was legitimate.
"Also – you really think that RT had an influence on the election? Personally, I find that incredible"
That's because you're an idiot. Russian bots and misinformation specialists are very real, per the FBI. Don't you read anything besides Breitbart?
"Only a racist idiot would have been warped enough to perceive that Obama was a sociopath."
Ho hum. Must be sad to realize your incantations ("Racist!" "Islamophobe!") have lost their power to intimidate.
Here's an example of a logic-fail so ludicrous as to basically constitute a mental pratfall.
Conservative non-thinker claims Obama was a sociopath, lest one be called a "racist".
Non-conservative thinker reminds everyone that there is no reason or evidence to call Obama that.
So conservative non-thinker doubles-down by saying that accusations of racism have lost their power.
Conservative non-thinker still fails to explain the primary objection - how it was that Obama gave any evidence of sociopathy.
Conservative non-thinker, in the meantime, does however seem to believe he is rescuing racism by denying its label of power. So maybe that is his real objective, anyway.
"Trump and Self-Worth: the Story of a Broken Man" (excerpt)...
There were times I cried. Not just from having a giant cock shoved in my ass without lube, but from the fear that I could no longer truly be myself under the Trump regime. I hated myself for feeling that way, and when I hated myself this way it was only a short time before I was back in the bathroom of the seedy bar, having a giant cock shoved in my ass without lube...
Yes, I understood the connectivity of this: in my heart it was TRUMP fucking me in the ass, it was TRUMP roughly grabbing my ears as I sucked his cock. Trump had broken me, and sometimes I would refuse to brush my teeth just to continue to taste the Semen of Shame I had swallowed...
The inevitable happened: I got ass herpes. Or, more correctly, TRUMP gave me ass herpes. He didn't do it with his own cock, but the result was the same: I had ass herpes, and yet I could not stop from having men fuck me in the ass in the bathroom of the seedy bar. Oh, the guilt that followed: YOU MADE ME DO THIS, TRUMP! ME GIVING THESE MEN HERPES WAS YOUR FAULT...!
I am Laslo.
I don't know that Ann is a Trump supporter
Perhaps she is a narcissism supporter.
Wherever these "sharp" criticisms of him are, I'd like to see. All I've seen however is her contempt for the majority of the country who are happy to express their dissatisfaction with the same excuse for a man that liberal socialist radical, George Will, "found lacking." (He said much worse, but with Will the understated conclusions are what leave the best impressions.
And even so, your comments and implications against the Filipino people are plain racism. Its not for me to forgive you that, but whatever. To a degree I think you can't help it.
I don't know that there is such a thing as a Filipino "race," let alone what that would mean.
But I'm more than happy to criticize any culture and especially one that you have so often described as being superior to our Western culture in its docility, passivity and - if the current leader is any example - contempt for due process and individual rights.
Well, there you go Snark.
Codevilla pretty much nails the world view, even if unconscious or expressed from a different angle, of Trumps supporters.
Where do you go in the dialectic? You have thesis and antithesis.
"I don't know that Ann is a Trump supporter"
"Perhaps she is a narcissism supporter."
I'm surprised that Trumpers are still trying to shut us up, tell us that we aren't respecters of democracy if we resist this president. How can one love democracy and support a president who shits on it?
Liberals have given racism a bad name, eh, Greg Hlatky?
It's time to rescue racism from the liberals. As with everything else, they've corrupted a good cause.
How can one love democracy and support a president who shits on it?
Because it's all about loving the narcissism and narcissistic delusions he embodies even more. WAY more!
Remember, he is "disruptive!" We however must somehow just be "deranged."
And oh yeah. All the psychiatrists are deranged too, apparently. It's necessary to widen the net on that enemies list way more than usual to defend this guy.
Laslo rules the comments.
Mary Beth said...
I thought election night was the best night of comedy that I'd seen for a while"
It truly was. I couldn't decide which station to watch - I kept flipping stations to MSNBC, to PBS, to CNN, to CBS. It was like being faced with huge banquet table laden with fine delicacies. It was difficult to tear myself away from David Brook's grim face, but turning to Rachel Maddow on the verge of tears or Van Jones' hysteria about a "whitelash" brought even more pleasure and laughter. It was so much fun!
It truly was. I couldn't decide which station to watch - I kept flipping stations to MSNBC, to PBS, to CNN, to CBS. It was like being faced with huge banquet table laden with fine delicacies. It was difficult to tear myself away from David Brook's grim face, but turning to Rachel Maddow on the verge of tears or Van Jones' hysteria about a "whitelash" brought even more pleasure and laughter. It was so much fun!
Trump's narcissism has a useful partner in his supporters' sado-masochism.
Ritmo,
Filipinos are a quite well defined ethnic group, or a cluster of ethnic groups, and a fairly unified polity. And, indeed, a "race" in that they have a particular genetic heritage (of admixtures) that is not identical to even fellow speakers of their branch of Malay tongues. For residents of SE Asia, there is a Filipino "look" that is distinct from, say, Malays from the Malaysian Penninsula or Javanese, though many can "pass" as one or the other. So "race", a fuzzy concept in several dimensions, is not wrong.
We colonialists are obsessive ethnographers.
Anyway, you are off the reservation, so to speak, on this matter.
Scott Adams has become the explainer in Chief and every twisted nutty thing he utters is taken as some sort of proclamation of truth. It's democracy that gives us the right to protest this president. It's reason that tells us there is something very very very wrong with this man.
I ask, what happened to you that you are able to squelch your better instincts about Trump? Or do you not squelch them, but instead embrace them. That would make you deplorable, un American, undemocratic and possibly just dumb in some cases.
I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
This is exactly what a "good German" would say in January, 1933.
Our democracy is broken. The minority party controls all three branches of the government and is bent on disenfranchising those who would stand up to them.
Snark: ...but America is only one black swan event away from the full bloom of his authoritarian desires and malignant self interest.
Years ago, when Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale first came out, one reviewer (can't remember who) observed that it read more like crypto-porn, an exercise in erotic wish-fulfillment à la The Story of O, than a work in the anti-authoritarian dystopian genre.
Snark's purple prose here just reminded me of that, particularly the hysterical and entirely incoherent use of the term "authoritarian". (One is tempted to say to the control-freak left, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means", but I'm pretty sure there's no "thinK" involved here.)
I suspect that that long-ago reviewer's observation, or a variant thereof, gives as much insight into extant crazy behavior as any of the other explanations being floated these days. There's got to be some dark id thing going on here somewhere - no way getting that unhinged over being stuck with Trump instead of Hillary Clinton has a conscious (even if stupid) cause. (Now, the people fomenting all the hysteria have rational, non-id motivations. But that's a different story.)
Too bad the White House press secretary isn't inclined to mimic a little baby crying. Which would be exactly the right response to virtually every press question.
"This is exactly what a "good German" would say in January, 1933."
Stop thinking like an angry teenager, Freder. If you can.
Filipinos are a quite well defined ethnic group, or a cluster of ethnic groups, and a fairly unified polity. And, indeed, a "race" in that they have a particular genetic heritage (of admixtures) that is not identical to even fellow speakers of their branch of Malay tongues. For residents of SE Asia, there is a Filipino "look" that is distinct from, say, Malays from the Malaysian Penninsula or Javanese, though many can "pass" as one or the other. So "race", a fuzzy concept in several dimensions, is not wrong.
We colonialists are obsessive ethnographers.
None of which I said a single word about. You really are quite a poor reader, aren't you.
You often go on about how you find their culture to be superior to ours in its docility and passivity, however. Wonder what that's all about.
Seems it's something you're a bit quieter about today though, for some reason.
Our democracy is broken. The minority party controls no branches of the government and is bent on disenfranchising those who would stand up to them.
FIFY
"Trump and Self-Worth: the Story of a Broken Man" (excerpt)...
What hurt the worst about giving unsuspecting strangers my Trump Ass Herpes was that they no doubt hated Trump, too. We were all infected with the man's sour hate, and our assholes would remember this for the rest of our lives...
I gave thought to trying to give Ass Herpes to unsuspecting Trump Supporters so that they could feel MY pain, but none of them existed in my social circles. Sure, I could hang out at redneck bars and try to entice the patrons to ass sex, but -- in the end -- I couldn't do it: having a Trump supporter fuck me in the ass would mean that Trump really REALLY won, and from there I knew there would be no return...
So I would spend the countless mornings rubbing ointments on my Ass Herpes and wondering How I Got Here. Is this what America was, now? Sucking cocks for drug money and having strangers in seedy bars fucking me in my herpes-riddled ass? Surely this was not what Life was supposed to be. Surely this was a brief cosmic joke, and we would return to sanity. Oh Lord, I missed those golden days of Obama and Freedom and Not Having Ass Herpes, and not having strangers piss on me for money...
Oh yes -- having strangers piss on me for money: there were still depths that I would discover, depths that scarred my soul and made my dreams smell like urine...
I am Laslo.
Unknown,
"We don't want a Russian Asset as President. We don't want a criminal as President. We want an intelligent competent person who doesn't suffer from pathological narcissism."
You do realize that that very accurately describes Hillary, right?
Until the national debt gets press time, nothing will happen in entitlements. The press is too busy chasing their tail on trump to report anything else.
When it comes, the collapse will come from a clear sky and the left will be astonished. The haters in the thread here are examples.
The hatred and racism of Ritmo would be amusing but he and others like him will be rioting in the streets, when the welfare state collapses.
But in today's political climate, anybody who doesn't condemn and hate Trump and the people who voted for him 24/7 is automatically "a Trumpist" in the eyes of the left.
Not just the left. I offer "chuck" as an example.
The Republican Congress got elected by promising to do something they had no intention of doing.
John McCain in 2008 could not understand what was happening to the economy because he is an ignoramus about economics. He has never had any sort of job that required understanding how the world works.
Very few politicians know about anything out of government.
You had mentioned Codevilla before, and as I didn't know who he was I looked him up. I read only very briefly
Another one who will be astonished and has no idea about what it coming.
I had hopes that Trump might be able to deflect some of it. Getting the economy above 4% growth would do a lot for breathing room on the debt. There would be time to get Obamacare repealed and maybe even start something on Social Security,.
That is all gone now with the the growing defiance by the bureaucracy.
GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, a contributor to The Hill, attributed the blowback to a host of factors, from the political make-up of civil servants to the use of holdover officials in government offices that are still waiting for the Senate to confirm Trump political appointees.
The "Flight 93 election" has failed to stop the lethal pathway being followed.
Who exactly are Democrats disenfranchising, tcrosse?
Other than that however your comment was just as splendidly idiotic as always.
Bruce Hayden @9:27:
Which is why I suspect that a lot of this is just virtue signaling
Anti-Trumpers are the preeminent virtue signalers. The Chucks and Pattericos of the world screaming: "Look at me!! Look at me!! See how conservative I am? I'm the ONLY real conservative." What twerps.
"This is exactly what a "good German" would say in January, 1933."
"Stop thinking like an angry teenager, Freder. If you can."
What ignorance! There are very real correlations between the way Trump supporters behave and the way Hitler supporters behaved.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santaya
We've reached peak Hitler.
Hitler.
Hitler.
Hitler.
It's cosmic I tell ya.
The hatred and racism of Ritmo would be amusing but he and others like him will be rioting in the streets, when the welfare state collapses.
There are basically two paths a civilized modern country can take, AFAIK:
European welfare states or collapsed, failed states like Iraq and Somalia. Or autocratic states like China, and the hybrid between it and the latter: Russia.
It's pretty astounding that an educated man like Michael Kennedy, who even grew up with a nursemaid, is so stupid as to prefer to throw America's fate in with the latter rather than the former.
Maybe growing up with that nursemaid made him lazy. And entitled.
Like his president.
I love this one: "HOW DO I EXPLAIN THIS TO MY KIDS? Parenting in the Age of Trump."
I love it because it's completely gratuitous. Because "your" kids don't want to know, could care less. and wish you'd just go away. And wonder how they got stuck with such pansy-ass parents.
The "Handmaids Tale" is interesting propaganda indeed. It is of course a political novel meant for a purpose.
A traditional sort of dystopian fiction, and especially a political novel, would have given some sort of "this is how we got here", or usually anyway, as a cue towards "don't go there". Atwood didn't, or not that I recall, I read the thing when it came out, and that struck me at the time. Her dystopia simply was.
It reads somewhat like "Uncle Toms Cabin" as describing an existing situation with well known causes and antecedents. Its as if the audience was expected to see Atwoods world as one that already was, and to prompt resistance against this alternate reality in our own reality. The seriousness with which it was taken seemed bizarre, and still does.
"I had hopes that Trump might be able to deflect some of it."
And how was this to happen when Trump himself perpetuates the reality that he is incompetent, undemocratic and a pathological narcissist, just with his tweets alone?
Ever since November I've been seeing these screed's not just from leftists, but even more bizarrely from the so-called "conservative" #nevertrumpers.
What's annoying is that when you try to pin them down as why - specifically - they are so upset and hate trump so much, they sound like some teenage girl with emotional problems.
No doubt - at least for the Nevertrumpers - they hate Trump because they aren't really conservatives but globalist, open borders, big business, world crusaders. "Invade the world, invite the world". They'd give lip service to social conservatism, and minor issues "global warming", but that's what they really care about.
Needless to say that position won't win much support, so they hide behind, Trump is a "fool, con-man, authoritarian, populist, demagogue, secret democrat, etc.".
So a welfare state is what we want to avoid, but an autocratic Russian-style autocracy is what we should aim for - implies Trumpist Michael Kennedy.
Just think about that for a second.
He sees a country that functions like Germany or the Netherlands or Britain or France does as a fate more worthy of avoiding than becoming like Russia or China.
My fellow Americans, when the state of the country follows its obvious and inevitable course to 2020, as it did to 2008, you can look around at the Michael Kennedys for an explanation of how it go there.
An excuse for it - let alone a defense of it - however will be just as elusive as when they drove the country into the gutter 9 years ago.
Paul Ryan, McCain, George Will, Bill Kristol, Goldberg, Flake, Graham - all showing their true colors.
The US is a welfare state already, in most ways far more generous than any European welfare state.
The US (plus states and etc) pays far greater retirement and disability benefits than most Euros, and much larger PUBLIC medical expenses (The US, on a PPP per capita basis, could afford to pay for two(2) UK NHS systems simply from its existing revenues from Medicare/Medicaid collections) and on and on.
The Somalia/Iraq business is simply dishonest rhetoric.
Childish story and reactions. But what caught my eye was your statement that this is a democracy and that we should live by its rule. That is startling coming from a retired law professor who taught constitutional law and in light of the election results. We are a republic not a democracy. In a pure democracy the winner of an election is the one with the majority of votes and that would have been Hillary. But since we are a Republic we have an electoral college that determines the winner of the presidential election.
"the audience was expected to see Atwoods world as one that already was, and to prompt resistance against this alternate reality in our own reality"
This seems to be the M.O. of a lot of "progressive" writing – to allow the reader to pretend that they really truly are living in a right-wing authoritarian hellhole, such that the mere thinking and uttering (and writing, and tweeting, tweeting, tweeting) of their fuck you, Daddy! thoughts is a heroic act of Resistance! all by itself. "I tweeted 20 times Against Trump today – now I really know how the Maquis felt"
Robert Cook: By the same sort of willed blindness or self-delusion that allows presumably rational people to see Trump as any less corrupt or bankrupt of concern for the American people.
Rational people can most certainly look at two corrupt options and think "OK, which one of these assholes is likely to do less damage to my country or my interests? (And maybe, willy-nilly, do something positive along the way?)" And rational people may come to different answers, because they disagree on the ends as well as the means.
mockturtle: Cookie at 9:14: Very well said. You have my respect.
Cookie's a good guy, he's just a bit too long in the tooth for his utter lack of any philosophical detachment from politics. Like the teenager who thinks he's discovered sex, he thinks he's the only one in the room who knows the truth, man, about politics and politicians.
""This is exactly what a "good German" would say in January, 1933."
Fuck off with the Godwinning. Seriously.
For those of you who think the Resistance is undemocratic, remember the people of the WW2 Resistance, they were people like us who recognized the danger of authoritarianism. They pushed back against it at great risk to themselves during WW2, history sees them as the true patriots, the respecters of democracy and lovers of human decency. How will history see Trumpers, of Trump himself?
" In a pure democracy the winner of an election is the one with the majority of votes and that would have been Hillary. "
She is the president of California. Athens did not let non-citizens vote. One would think an advocate of "pure democracy" would know that.
IIRC,
Hitlers supporters put on uniforms, carried clubs, broke into communist meetings and killed people, started riots, smashed up Jewish places of business - oh, and to even start, they got involved in a failed military coup using a former military Chief of Staff, which was put down with fusillades.
The fantasies being invented by the "resistance" are beyond being simply self-serving propaganda, they border on insanity.
Coming into Election Day, I was looking forward to not hearing about Trump for a while. I didn't like him, and thought he was throwing away a promising year with an inept campaign. I wasn't happy to see him win, and I thought he'd be ill-prepared and bumbling in office. I think events have borne me out in my concerns.
But the thing about an election is, it's not my call. It's a collective decision, and sometimes the decision goes against you. If you're fortunate enough to live a long life, you'll probably end up favoring the loser in about as many campaigns as you favor the winner.
Looking back on it, I think it's clear that I didn't have the pulse of the nation last year. I ended up taking multiple long car trips across the country, and I don't think I ever saw a Hillary sign. Not even in Berkeley, which ought to have been one of her strongholds -- they were Bernie people through and through. Needless to say, I saw dozens of homemade Trump signs. I didn't pick up on their significance, because I wasn't really in tune with the electorate or the issues that were motivating voters last year.
Political insight is when you realize you aren't the deciding voter every year. Political maturity is when you realize you shouldn't be the deciding voter every year.
When Hitler got in, nobody was much alarmed. It was all talk about decency and family values. Stuff women vote for.
Only in 1938 did people see something was wrong. Okay, how crazy is this guy.
Trump is pretty much the opposite. Opposed by the society's feminized brain, favored by guys.
Ya know, all these unknowns revolutionaries and lefties here always equate the imaginary violent right with their peaceful left. Complete with anecdotes. None of them, including articulate, self loathing revolutionary, has the courage to display a Trump bumper sticker. We all know why, don't we? They are afraid of their fellow travelers. Afraid of being assaulted. Afraid of being vandalized. Self delusional hypocrites
""This is exactly what a "good German" would say in January, 1933."
"Fuck off with the Godwinning. Seriously."
No. Don't. It's apropos to what is happening to our democracy.
The Somalia/Iraq business is simply dishonest rhetoric.
Why, because it's Muslim/African/Arabian? Who's being racist now?
Somalia is absolutely the model outcome for removal of government in both the social welfare and due process spheres. Remember, it's not just essential anti-poverty services that Republicans want to deprive America of, but a law enforcement sector that is in any way accountable to anything. Municipal law enforcement essentially functions as the paramilitary gangs that patrol Somalia, and used to patrol Central America back 30 years ago when the Reaganites were working their magic on that part of the world, also.
The WW2 European (and Asian) "resistance" groups were fighting foreign conquerors.
The American "resistance" of today is fighting its own people. This is properly an insurgency, or a civil war.
"No. Don't. It's apropos to what is happening to our democracy."
Please. Illuminate me (with specifics) on the beer hall putschs in our midst.
America's civil was is about what would be nice against what would work. Female vs male.
Not because it is Muslim or African, but because the analogy is deliberately chosen for "failed states", an absurd characterization of the US situation, throwing out all facts.
It is a deliberate lie.
Some of you were so shocked because you're just not as smart as you think you are. Apparently, confession is good for the soul, I doubt it'll help but all you liberals have Robert Mueller and the corrupt media as a last resort. I'm still betting on Trump and the deplorables.
What would be nice has the news audience. What would work has the opposing audience.
> they were people like us who recognized the danger of authoritarianism.
BS, a lot of the French were Communists. They just wanted another form of murderous authoritarianism. Or maybe they weren't very good at the recognition thing, it is a common failing of the left.
OTOH, I do recall visiting the resistance museum in Paris, it was rather pathetic. My takeaway was that there wasn't very much resistance.
And at the same time that I realize I was out of tune with the electorate, I realize that Hillary was super out of tune with the electorate. Does anybody remember her saying anything that wasn't pablum about jobs, or the opioid epidemic, or immigration? They weren't on her radar.
The only issue that really was on Hillary's radar was who should occupy the Oval Office: her. Hence her slogan: "I'm with Her." Hence her ads, which either focused on her personal qualities or the personal qualities of Bernie or Trump. She wanted to be President, and she was willing to work hard to get it, but she had no real vision for the job that extended past the Executive Mansion and its future occupancy.
The US is a welfare state already, in most ways far more generous than any European welfare state.
This has to be the most astoundingly false statement ever written on this blog.
As for your statement that the U.S. spends more public money on healthcare than two nhs, I don't know what thisis supposed to prove other than how completely fucked up our healthcare system is. No conservative solution is going to make it better.
Ann,
You say:
why they do not accept the consequences of democracy? You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins. This is democracy, and these are your fellow citizens.
I hear this kind of thing a lot from a lot of people and have generally just it, figuring arguing is futile. "The US is a democracy" is something that has evolved into inarguable legend. As Jimmy Stewart said, "when fact and legend disagree, print the legend."
But you are a lawyer and constitutional law professor. You have an ethical and moral duty not to promulgate this hogwash.
There is nothing in the US Constitution that gives any individual any right to vote for anything.
President? Nope, elected by state electors selected in any way the state chooses.
Representatives? Nope. Must be selected in the same way that state legislators are. There is no constitutional requirement that these be popularly elected. If they are not, the Congressional reps don't need to be popularly elected. (I seem to recall that Rhode Island was a couple decades into the US before it began electing representives.
Senators? Nope. Originally appointed by states. Constitution amended 1913 to say:
The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures.
Same as for the House. So again, if a state does not elect its legislature, it does not have to elect it's Senators.
No Ann, if we take mass suffrage as the key to "democracy" a/k/a rule by the mob/many/people/masses then the US is not one.
States may be democracies. That is neither encouraged nor prohibited by the Constitution.
So please, stop with the US is a democracy BS. We are not, under the constitution. We are only a collection of individual democracies under state constitutions.
We deserve better from professionals like you.
John Henry
Blogger Freder Frederson said...
If Hillary would have won would conservatives have acted in the same manner? Books written, demonstrations, freaking out?
Considering that Hillary lost and conservatives are still demanding her head and the president is advocating a special counsel to investigate her I think the answer to this question is an unequivocal "yes".
8/6/17, 9:56 AM
What a classic and lazy response! Sorry Mr. Frederson, if Clinton won, the Republicans would not have a chance of being heard by the public. The MSM would've drowned out any conversations from Republicans, maybe with the exception of Fox, which only reaches a tiny fraction of the U.S. electorate. Try to put on a thinking hat the next time you bilge Democratic propaganda memes.
Not because it is Muslim or African, but because the analogy is deliberately chosen for "failed states", an absurd characterization of the US situation, throwing out all facts.
It is a deliberate lie.
Oh, my bad.
Conservatives want the American state to fail. They see as their failure the fact that America is not a failed state already.
Hysterical and Stupid Inga Unknown:
"No. Don't. It's (the Nazis) apropos to what is happening to our democracy."
We're not the ones shooting up baseball fields
Inga, Freder and Ritmo are everything - everything - they pretend to hate and despise.
Has it ever occurred to these nimrods that comparing Trump to Hitler diminishes and trivializes what happened in Germany, just as, say, comparing Right to Work laws to slavery diminishes and trivializes slavery?
Perhaps what our National Progressives should be doing is fighting to overcome state requirements for popular voting. Start with president.
If each state had a progressive governor and legislature, and they got to select the electors we could avoid mistakes like Presidents Trump, Bush, Reagan and so on.
Oh, wait. That would require them to actually gain power in enough states to be meaningful.
Trifecta: One political party holds the governorship, a majority in the state senate, and a majority in the state house in a state's government.
There are currently trifectas or variations of them in 32 of the 50 states.
https://ballotpedia.org/State_government_trifectas
Never mind.
Suck it, NaPros.
John Henry
Freder,
I suggest you compare even German social spending per capita PPP to the US.
And my point about the NHS is to show that the US level if effort in that area alone is vastly greater than Europes. That the US instance of public medical care provision is horribly mismanaged and tremendously wasteful is independent of the resources supplied.
It is interesting that the US argument is about a LACK of resources rather than the grossly inefficient use of them, which any honest international comparison would clearly show.
Freder Frederson said...
Our democracy is broken. The minority party controls all three branches of the government and is bent on disenfranchising those who would stand up to them
This is actually hilarious. Republicans hold substantial majorities in state legislatures, in governorships, in both houses of Congress, and-- need I mention-- the presidency. Oh, and, of course, the Supreme Court. Majorities.
In 1903 Russian socialists split into two factions. One party, though in the minority, claimed the appellation "Bolshevik", or "majority" party. The other faction, though more numerous, accepted the name "Menshevik", or "minority".
You will find American conservatives in 2017 are not so easily led by the nose.
You don't believe in democracy if you only believe in it when someone you like wins.
Oh they know this. They were on TV preaching it hour after hour when they thought Hillary couldn't lose.
Ritmo just won the award for the Stupidest Comment Ever: "Conservatives want the American state to fail."
Like I said, you are everything -everything - you pretend to hate and despise.
Now, I'm off to enjoy a lovely summer afternoon with my friends. I leave you to choke on your own snot and bile.
"My takeaway was that there wasn't very much resistance."
I have to agree with chuck again. The Resistance in France was mostly the communists.
In Holland, the Resistance was probably taken over by the Gestapo and that is still a controversial subject there. Read "Between Silk and Cyanide" for the argument.
The level of French Resistance was probably exaggerated by the British. Patton wasn't very impressed with it in Morocco.
Has it ever occurred to these nimrods that comparing Trump to Hitler diminishes and trivializes what happened in Germany
I wasn't comparing trump to Hitler, I was comparing Althouse to the passive Germans who did nothing to stop him and considered criticism unpatriotic.
"Don't you read anything besides Breitbart?"
I've read Erica Jong.
"Hence her slogan: "I'm with Her." "
Interesting to see how "She's With Me" would've resonated.
"When I see the continuing shock and struggle to absorb the reality of Trump's presidency, I want to ask these people why they did not understand the people of their own country and why they do not accept the consequences of democracy?"
That's a good question. Mine is this: why do you invest so much of yourself, emotions, and psyche in politicians and election results.
"Blogger Unknown said...
For those of you who think the Resistance is undemocratic, remember the people of the WW2 Resistance, they were people like us who recognized the danger of authoritarianism. They pushed back against it at great risk to themselves during WW2, history sees them as the true patriots, the respecters of democracy and lovers of human decency. How will history see Trumpers, of Trump himself?"
8/6/17, 11:51 AM
My friend, you are a sick political puppy! To compare the election of Trump, in a free country, to the "WW2 Resistance" is astounding. Please see your doctor ASAP!
Has it ever occurred to these nimrods that comparing Trump to Hitler diminishes and trivializes what happened in Germany, just as, say, comparing Right to Work laws to slavery diminishes and trivializes slavery?
No, because they know no history.
For an example of someone who is determined to learn history, read this.
Visiting Poland, ten-time NBA all-star Ray Allen followed up his interest in the Holocaust with a visit to the house of a family that hid Jews from the Nazis in a small space under the floor. Allen writes:
When the Skoczylas family was risking their own lives to hide people they barely knew, they weren’t doing it because they practiced the same religion or were the same race. They did it because they were decent, courageous human beings. They were the same as those people crouched in a hole. And they knew that those people didn’t deserve what was being done to them.
Allen reflects: “I asked myself a really tough question: Would I have done the same?” And again: “Really, would I have done the same?” Read the article he wrote.
This is actually hilarious. Republicans hold substantial majorities in state legislatures, in governorships, in both houses of Congress, and-- need I mention-- the presidency. Oh, and, of course, the Supreme Court. Majorities.
And that is exactly my point. In aggregate Democrats receive more votes than Republicans.
I look forward to spokeswoman of the conservative cause, exiledonmainstreet's, explanation of how her playful, lovely friends intend to make that administrative state (the one they call "deep state") in America succeed.
Of course, she can't. But can run away from any responsibility and throw vulgar corporeal insults in the way of anyone who assumes she believes in having one-tenth the sense of accountability that her boyfriend Donnie Trump embraces.
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Bonhoeffer.
"I wasn't comparing trump to Hitler, I was comparing Althouse to the passive Germans who did nothing to stop him and considered criticism unpatriotic."
Two sides to the same coin, really. Without Hitler (and his future), what would the context be for the Good German?
As for criticism, I welcome serious criticism of Trump and his policies. I think Jeff Sessions is a terrible AG so far. However, the abject hysteria whipped up in resistance overshadows any substantive examination of Trump and his policies.
Inga-bot3000v?: What ignorance! There are very real correlations between the way Trump supporters behave and the way Hitler supporters behaved.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santaya
(Those who've never actually read the thinkers they quote are condemned to misspell their names.)
One of the entertaining aspects about The Current Year is watching the lefties huffing and puffing about like old-school caricatures of stuffy reactionary blowhards. Muh patriotism! Muh foreign subversion! Colonel Blimp and General Bullmoose, waving the rainbow flag...
(Hitler, the French Resistance, obligatory shout-out to Santayana...Ok, bot, you've exhausted your history Cliff-notes for the day, better run back to Bromide Central to get a fresh supply.)
"And that is exactly my point. In aggregate Democrats receive more votes than Republicans."
Which is meaningless in a constitutional Republic.
"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."
Bonhoeffer.
To put it another way re the US welfare state - the US has one, a hugely expensive one, and does it horribly.
Its extremely inefficient in every way, medicine, pensions, education, poor relief, disability, and etc. ad infinitum. Just do European comparisons and it can't be missed.
And this hurts the US populace above all, both because they are excessively taxed and because they get worse services.
To give a topical example - the California "train to nowhere" already incredibly costly and with a doubtful business plan, has just been very expensively held up by environmental lawsuits citing Californias own legislation. Why werent these waived for the railroad?
This and a slew of oncoming lawsuits will probably add billions to the cost of this already questionable endeavor. Do you think the equivalent project (of which there are many), in France, Germany, Japan or Spain, would have the government absurdly fighting itself over a strategic state project? This sort of thing is normal in the ridiculous American way of governance.
"I have to agree with chuck again. The Resistance in France was mostly the communists."
The French have embellished the Resistance because of their shame of being collaborators.
Ray Allen is a mensch, but in an article about Auschwitz, it's strangely disconcerting to see his terse byline of 'shooting guard.'
Remember all the screaming and yelling from Clinton supporters in October 2016 when Trump said something to the effect that he might not accept the results of the election--he said it "depended".
The gnashing to teeth and wailing in horror at the thought, the very thought! that this bronze haired buffoon might not accept the results of the election was awesome.
And not we realize that these twits were just projecting what they would do if they lost.
Well suck it up buttercup. It was an election. Your side lost. Saddle up and get ready to do better next time. But the tsunami of dreck you buttercups continue to spew makes it even less likely you will win the next one. Tough times make tough people. And if the country is headed for tough times, you buttercups won't make the cut as being able to deal with adversity.
"The Handmaid's Tale" is the exact Leftist equivalent of "The Turner Diaries". That the Left takes it seriously tells you everything you need to know about what pathetically unserious people they are.
Naturally, I was delighted at the defeat of the criminal scum Clinton, yet it was the defeat of media that was so historic. Never had they been so in the tank and it was all for naught. Rave on, Lefties.
You rave on, too Cracker Emcee. And get on with all those Seth Rich conspiracies, while you're at it.
"And that is exactly my point. In aggregate Democrats receive more votes than Republicans."
Which is meaningless in a constitutional Republic.
And of course my point about Athenian citizenship was ignored.
Remember, it was the democracy that put Socrates to death,
And this hurts the US populace above all, both because they are excessively taxed and because they get worse services.
You are so consistently wrong and such a liar I don't know why I take the time to correct you.
"In 2014, US taxes at all levels of government represented 26 percent of GDP, compared with an average of 34 percent of GDP for the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)." And that is from the tracy policy institute.
~
“.. and sometimes I would refuse to brush my teeth just to continue to taste ..”
Don’t move. Hold it right there. I want to move my painless, disposable, robotic colonoscope plumb up your canal, all the way through your gasping, undulating throat, yes, I want the come-up-from-behind–the-teeth angle, just to see what your gummy-bear pearly whites really look like now, a pic, from the inside shooting out. Open wider! - I want the whole Google Earth Streetview, I want to see out between your two gummed-up central incisors, the whole wide world is out there. Ah!
" .. the Semen of Shame I had swallowed..."
No! Now, you’ll have to report that as taxable incum.
You should have spit it out!
Spit it “right” into all those “shovel ready” infrastructure programs that will trickle down your throat, albeit programmatically, and as fluidly as these seminal infrastructure programs go, the trickle down will ooze just too slowly to help you much, at least in your "excited" condition, but you would have made your contribution to social welfare, up against the wall, since the Mexicans won’t swallow it.
"Conan! What is best in life?"
"Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women."
Freder,
The relevant number is spending PPP. Not tax collections. Per capita GDP is lower in nearly all countries, so a tax burden as % of GDP comparison is misleading.
Add social spending + public education + public medical care, PPP.
Then you have your comparable number.
Until OJ and the democrats find the real killers - we will never know who killed Seth Rich, and why.
Media right on it.
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