December 9, 2017

Low-class fake news: "Outcry erupts after Trump reportedly calls pets ‘low class’ and the Pences ‘yokels.'"

The Kansas City Star is certainly preserving its ability to deny that it's part of the fakery, because "outcry" really did "erupt" at a "report" that actually existed.

And I'm participating too, by passing this along. Why am I doing this? The high class explanation is that I want to shine light on the way the press gives itself permission to print poorly sourced, scurrilous material that's amusing to read and seemingly bad for Trump. The low class explanation is that I actually enjoy the low material and laugh about it whether it's true or not.

And the middling explanation is I think I get Trump's style of humor and would guess that he probably did say something like this, but in a fun-loving way, and I want to circulate the idea that it's legitimately funny to say that living with 2 cats, a rabbit, and a snake is "low class." It's even funny to paint a "Beverly Hillbillies" image of the family that took over the Vice President's mansion. Yokels! It's not material for a public speech, but if I were there, in a small group, listening to Trump riff about the Pence family like that, I'm sure I'd laugh a lot. Pence has such an extremely sober, dignified, wholesome demeanor that it's asking for puncturing.

This topic has a lot of potential: 1. Trump's sense of humor, 2. the inability of Trump's haters to get his sense of humor, 3. the gaping difference in style between the President and the Vice President as a ripe source of humor, 4. the plausible idea that it really is bad to bring certain animals into your house to live with you as pets, 5. the blindness of pet-owners to how gross their way of life looks to some people with high standards of cleanliness, 6. Trump's connection with working-class people that makes it possible for him, a rich guy, to use the insult "low class."

57 comments:

exhelodrvr1 said...

The left does' understand deplorables. They are breathlessly waiting for Pence to use this in the Article 25 proceedings

Darrell said...

He called the Press low class.
America agrees.

FIDO said...

Another move to try to undercut Trump support. I know he is a boor. Highlighting it doesn't make me hate him more. It makes me hate THEM more. The dislike of Trump's personality is already baked into the support.

Darrell said...

Who gave the paper the litter scoop? An unnamed Gypsy woman? The bunny? One of those Left-Wing golf reporters? Chuck?

Merny11 said...

I picture him saying this with a slight smirk, giving away his underlying affection for the Pences. Don’t we all tease family and friends about themselves and ourselves now and then? My gosh my sons in law are constantly poking fun at each other - it’s what guys do!
This constant nit picking is just so tiresome. No one takes anything the press says seriously anymore

Sydney said...

It supposedly happened last January. And it's hilarious because the whole piece reads like a National Enquirer or Weekly World News story. I guess they are trying to convince people Trump hates animals. We all know there is nothing more despicable than someone who hates animals.

FIDO said...

I am shocked SHOCKED that a urban person like Trump may have an odd impression of semi Fundy Fly Over State Types like the Pences.

However, unlike the Left, the Right knows how to work with those who believe differently. We do not run our institutions like reeducation camps.

Expat(ish) said...

Well, BLOTUS is super cute and I am loving that.

But I was struck by how much the Pence women look alike. If you saw them in different aisles of the supermarket you'd know there was a mother/daughter grocery trip going on.

I love that too.

-XC

Michael K said...

The press has no idea of how these stories make people laugh at them, not with them.

The Lendowski book is pretty good, especially now that it is into the general election campaign.

tim in vermont said...

Steve Forbes kept a flock of chickens in his house. But it wasn't low class because he had a uniformed maid to clean up after them.

Darkisland said...

Pets or meat?

Has anyone considered that he is just fattening up the rabbit for the stewpot?

Cats and snake too, for that matter.

John Henry

tim in vermont said...

Not all smart people are funny, but all funny people are smart, someone said.

traditionalguy said...

A star running back says stuff like that about the animals called his offensive linemen. But he knows that without them, he is nothing.

And DJT seems to run his new material off Broadway first just to see how it goes over with a live audience in New Haven.

And the competitor in Trump raises its head too. He is being told continually that a coup d'etat by impeachment or by the 25th Amendment is starting in the morning. That means Pence is the replacement chosen by Trump's scheming opponents...and ole man Pence, he don't say nuthin.

Phil 314 said...

There was a time when everything the President said and did was deeply true and meaningful. Now everything the President says and does is horrible.

Where shall I go for truth and leadership?

Phil 314 said...

And I'm not a cat person.

tim in vermont said...

Just to show you how redneck my roots are, I had a neighbor as a child who kept a crate full of live rattlesnakes that he had personally caught, for the purpose of barbecues.

Quayle said...

I have a suspicion that in closed rooms in the White House, certain people in the administration including some cabinet secretaries frequently have a big laugh at how they are able to make the press dance, virtually at will.

The US press has devolved into such a a bunch of sausage-making, formulaic hacks, for the life of them they themselves can’t stop dancing. The serious-toned, breathless, sanctimonious copy and headlines just keep spewing forth. It was the news story-framing structure they were taught, it’s the one their professors showed them from history made hard-hitting reporters unassailable before the internet, and it’s the only thing they know how to do. They’re all one trick ponies. Meet the publishing deadline with whatever you have, and give it plenty of that old news speak arrogance.

And Trump knows how to make them dance. And they dance and dance and dance.

tim in vermont said...

You know how a beekeeper keeps the hive from getting organized and attacking him for taking all of their honey, Phil? He blows smoke into the hive. That's how our leaders have always done it, 'til now.

tim in vermont said...

However much money Trump has, he is one of us. He lives like a lottery winner from the wrong side of the the tracks would, if he could.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Get Trump Squad is pretty humorless. They do have a sense of misguided tenacity, I'll give them that.

tds said...

rabbit is not really a pet. It's just there waiting until the snake gets hungry

traditionalguy said...

Every culture must get stoned. In Georgia we look down on Mississippians. I remember meeting a nice guy from Mississippi and tried to be friends with him until one day he bragged in public about cooking squirrel in a Crock Pot. That did it for me.

Ray - SoCal said...

Related, sigh... TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) gets tiring.

Newsweek Mocks Loss of Mike Pence’s Cat Pickles.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/282890/

Fernandinande said...

Some of my best imaginary friends are snakes.

Snakes never say things like:

Whoops, that's an error.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Try refreshing the page to see if things are back in order.


Because
- they don't talk kiddie-talk.
- they don't apologize for anything, ever.
- they don't suggest refreshing a page while preventing you from getting to it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I think that Trump is the first Presidential family in a really long time, like half a century?, to not have any family pets. The media wants to make a BFD about it. As if there is something nefarious about not wanting to have pets.

Personally, I think it is refreshing. Not everyone has the lifestyle to have pets, especially those animals like cats, dogs and even bunnies that require attention, stability, and human companionship. (snakes, not so much)

If you are traveling, working all the time, don't have regular schedules, you just don't have the time to give your pets what they need and in fact it is cruel to have animals you can't care for properly.

Obama's dog was just a prop for show and tell. "See how ultra cool we Obama's are....we have...A DOG!!!" A dog we don't spend time with and who other people walk, feed and groom. Take Bo out for show and then stuff him back into a kennel somewhere. That is not being a pet owner, that is cruelty.

Trump is honest enough and compassionate enough to recognize that a pet does not fit into his lifestyle at this time.....or maybe ever.

I doubt that Trump ever made those disparaging remarks about Pence and his children's pets. Just another instance of the media trying desperately to find something that can stick to Trump's apparently Teflon persona.

**** Our last cat is now 17 yrs old and frankly, I am looking forward to being CAT FREE!! Will I miss her. YES. Will I miss cleaning the stinky litter box, having a cat constantly underfoot whining for 'treats', cat hair everywhere, having to make arrangements for cat babysitters when we leave for more than 2 days....NOT ..AT... ALL. No more pets for us........ (or at least until the next cute stray shows up at which time my husband is going to hit me in the head with a 2x4 and stop me from adopting. He has my permission!)

mockturtle said...

DBQ, my dog is 15-1/2 years old and still healthy, for which I am grateful. He's my best friend and easily the sweetest dog in the world. While I will be devastated when his time comes, the freedom will be a nice change.

Francisco D said...

Here is the plan for returning the White House to the Democrats:

1. Make Trump seem like such a monumental boor that he gets impeached and convicted for farting in church.

2. Make Pence seem like such a religious yokel that he resigns (undo pressure) for farting church.

3. On his way to church, Paul Ryan gets the Seth Rich treatment before he has a chance to fart

4. The nation is outraged, elections are called for every existing national office. Hillary becomes POTUS!!

5. There is joy in Mudville tonight as Michele Obama becomes proud of America again.

Francisco D said...

undo = under

Damn spellcheck or damn fingers.

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sebastian said...

"This topic has a lot of potential" For prog outrage at a deplorable president yukking it up for other deplorables. Progs don't do humor, except as a political tool.

"it’s what guys do!" Hence the MSM will try to use it to outrage their sensitive female audience.

mockturtle said...

Trump's rally at Pensacola yesterday was a real love fest. It was so obvious that the people loved him and he loved the people. There was nothing in his speech that any reasonable person could take issue with and yet half the country is apoplectic at the mention of his name. There is no closing this divide. It is a civil war.

Bob Boyd said...

A story about a politician with an actual snake is refreshing after endless stories about trouser snakes.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Mockturtle.

While I will be devastated when his time comes, the freedom will be a nice change.

I know! We love our pets like children (who never grow up or get a job!) and we will dearly miss our cat when the time comes for her to go, which doesn't seem anytime soon as she is still quite healthy and spry for her age. The responsibilities of being a pet owner are huge and a commitment you can't just flippantly change your mind about.

Trump, for whatever reason, may have made the best choice to be pet free for both himself and any pets they may have had. It really isn't our place to wonder about or criticize as the choice to be pet free....or child free....is a personal and private matter.

Michael Ryan said...

Snakes are low class. The press is low class. Whatever.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I ate delicious rabbit in mustard sauce in Normandy and I was told there that many French people keep a rabbit hutch- and not because they are planning to let Bugs die of old age. I saw live rabbits sold in market towns - presumably for "food or pets."

But they're French and so they don't have Michael Moore or our media mocking them as hicks. hell, the French eat horsemeat, and I couldn't bring myself to go there. .Gray squirrels are served in London restaurants (the Brits are desperately trying to save their native -and much cuter- red squirrels. the grays are an invasive species and are basically taking over.). It's just fine to eat tree rats, I guess, if they're served up at the Savoy instead of in Granny Clampetts stewpot.

Big Mike said...

... "according to an adviser quoted in The Atlantic" ...

Is that the same anonymous source who said Tillerson would resign? Or a different anonymous source? Perhaps it's the source who had an off by ten days error in the date Trump Jr. got the heads up about Wikileaks (i.e., the day after they were released, not nine days prior).

Mary Beth said...

Newsweek mocked the Pences because their pets were older and several have died over the last year.

I'd rather have a "hey, Elly May, where's all your critters?" kind of joke than one that made fun of the death of my pets. They were all pets that the Pences had for over a decade. The most recent one to die was a rescue cat they had for 16 years.

It's not like they adopted a rescue dog, took a lot of photos of it, and then returned it saying it had behavioral issues even though the shelter says that this owner is lying. Lena Dunham, was a pet owner who now deserves mocking for using and discarding a dog.

FullMoon said...

Obama's dog was just a prop for show and tell.

Ted Kennedy gave them that dog. Obama did not ask for it. Obama was stuck with it.

Michael S. Kochin said...

Dedicated to Marlon Bindi Pence
https://www.amazon.com/Thump-First-Bundred-Timothy-Lim/dp/1682615227

mockturtle said...

I have certainly eaten rabbit. Didn't find it very tender or tasty. Maybe that's why sauce is required. IMO, people should be able to eat whatever nonhuman creature is available if they are starving.

eddie willers said...

Once heard:

"Life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies"

mockturtle said...

Once heard:

"Life begins when the kids move out and the dog dies"


The punch line to the following:
A priest, a Lutheran minister and a rabbi were discussing the question of when life begins.
Priest: Life begins at conception.
Minister: Clearly it begins at birth.
Rabbi: When the kids move out and the dog dies! That's when life begins!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

1. Trump's sense of humor, 2. the inability of Trump's haters to get his sense of humor...

Let's compare the number of laughs Seth Meyers got on Trump at the Correspondents' Dinner and the number of laughs Trump ever got against others collectively, let alone anyone individually.

Trump doesn't have a sense of humor any more than any sociopath has a sense of humor. Charles Manson said many things to amuse himself - and, one presumes, his "Family" of followers, as well. I'm sure they felt that many people didn't "get" them, too.

bagoh20 said...

" the blindness of pet-owners to how gross their way of life looks to some people with high standards of cleanliness,"

We pack animals find the prissy cleanliness-obsessed kind of creepy, cold, and anal. I bet the "classy" have no idea how unattractive that is as well. I'd say it's nearly an identical level of disdain for the lifestyle.

Moneyrunner said...

The Left has absolutely no sense of humor. Here is how the NY Times reported Trump’s wisecrack about Hillary’s deleted emails:

“Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

"Mr. Trump’s call was another bizarre moment in the mystery of whether Vladimir V. Putin’s government has been seeking to influence the United States’ presidential race."

They took his joke at Hillary’s expense as an honest-to-God call for Putin to hack Hillary’s server via a public speech. This is moronic. This is Forrest Gump stupid. And the NY Times was not the only one. Today it's generally assumed by everyone in the media that Trump was openly colluding with Putin. Here's how Snopes puts it:

"Donald Trump has challenged Russian intelligence to hack into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails server, while insisting that he has no relations with Russia as tossing aside suggestions that the foreign power was scheming to get him elected."

You can't make this stuff up!

But we know the truth. Trump sent George Bush to the Kremlin in a SR-71 asking Putin to steal Hillary’s emails. The "Blackbird" was used so that 41 could be back in time for dinner and grope a CNN cutie.

grimson said...

Pence has such an extremely sober, dignified, wholesome demeanor that it's asking for puncturing.

That reads like lefty contempt for the bourgeoisie.

Comanche Voter said...

So, since I'm a deplorable to the bone--I kind of like local yokels.

I was born and grew up West of the Continental Divide--and I moved to California some 60 years ago---before it filled up with the coastal elite trash--the Pelosis, the Steyers, the Hollywood crowd and all that.

Trump is an East Coast guy; Bronx,Brooklyn, Long Island whatever--I don't necessarily understand the distinctions between the various New Yorkers and other exotic mid Atlantic fauna.

But those folks are different; despite repeated business travel to the East Coast in the early part of my career, I was almost 30 before I was comfortable with any of the East Coast types I met. So if they want to call Pence a yokel--or think he's a yokel, I have to say that I am more likely to get along with the Pences of this world than I am with the Schumers, Trumps, and Christies (now that's a trifecta for you).

The Godfather said...

All day we have been discussing on this thread an anonymous claim by "a longtime adviser" to Trump that Trump made disparaging remarks about the Pence family for having pets. The "longtime adviser" was quoted in an article in The Atlantic titled "God's Plan For Mike Pence". Look at the drawing of Pence that leads The Atlantic article; this is obviously a hit piece against Pence. Even though Trump is Evil Incarnate, his (alleged) words can be used to damage Pence, who would be the successor to Trump if the Democrats' dream of impeachment comes true, or who could be Trump's successor after a successful two-term Trump Presidency. I give Althouse credit: She has succeeded in buiding a discussion out of nothing. Jerry Seinfeld would be proud.

Darrell said...

The Media has been trying to cause a rift between Trump and the Pences for a while now. Earlier this week they were pushing an unsourced story of how Mike Pence was ready to lead a revolt against Trump to replace him on the ticket after the Access tape was released, and how much Karen hated the Trumps. In other words, complete bullshit. This story reads as bullshit, too, made up out of whole cloth. There was a time when it would never see the light of day unless they (at least) had an audio tape to back it up. But the rules are out the window when it comes to Trump. The Journolisters just make up shit and laugh among themselves, before spreading it around.

FullMoon said...

The Toothless Revolutionary said... [hush]​[hide comment]

1. Trump's sense of humor, 2. the inability of Trump's haters to get his sense of humor...

Let's compare the number of laughs Seth Meyers got on Trump at the Correspondents' Dinner and the number of laughs Trump ever got against others collectively, let alone anyone individually.


Uh, doofus, Trump was laughing all the way to the Whitehouse. Watch the vid again. Trump decided that night that he was going to get the last laugh. And, he did.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Trump was laughing all the way to the Whitehouse. Watch the vid again.

I did. Did you? (Rhetorical question. You never know what you're talking about). He scowled like a psychopath.

And his presidency is a joke.

FullMoon said...

He scowled like a psychopath.

Yep, he was not happy. His presidency is the result. Winning!

Bad Lieutenant said...

He scowled like a psychopath.

Cmon man, I'm standing up for you... You couldn't tell that was an act?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

"He scowled like a psychopath."

Yep, he was not happy. His presidency is the result. Winning!


A psychopath's presidency. Exclaimed as such by his loser-follower's expressions when they repeat rallying cries made famous by waste-oids so filled with their own self-importance that they didn't even realize that amidst "banging seven-gram rocks," losing a lucrative Hollywood career and living with two porn actresses they took for sister-wives, that contracting HIV/AIDS just might be yet another unfortunate result.

The Charlie Sheen crash-and-burn presidency. Trump's the kind of guy to give America AIDS and then defend himself with yelps of caveat emptor!

Does your president drink tiger blood and have Adonis DNA, too?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You couldn't tell that was an act?

A narcissist's anger is never an act. It's one of the only genuine things about them... other than their fear and paranoia.

But everything else about them is as fake as a three-dollar bill. Their very personality is a constructed image, after all. It's why they lie so naturally. Trump's supporters are happy to enable this and admit that whether what he says is true or not doesn't actually matter to them. It's all about the feels!

An emotional little bunch they are. Just like him. A child president for the fellow ungrown-ups!

FullMoon said...

"What we found, after testing adults from all over the world and using various other measures of health and pathology, were three distinct pattern of behavior, all related to narcissism (or the lack of it):

(Ritmo)Echoism, in which people never or rarely feel special, focus on others too much, at the expense of their own needs, and might even feel depressed or anxious.

Healthy Narcissism, in which people are empathic, ambitious, confident, and capable of giving and receiving help.

Extreme Narcissism, in which people are manipulative, argumentative, approval- seeking, and suffer from fluctuating self-esteem.

We found something else, too. Something that took us a little by surprise.

(Trump)1 percent of the people who took the NSS scored below average on extreme narcissism but extremely high on healthy narcissism. What we found, in other words, were healthy narcissists: people who light up the room, inspire instead of undermining others, and view themselves, the world, and the people around them through extremely rose-colored glasses"

Unknown said...

Just when you think there's no more room for insult, he finds it!