July 7, 2018

"This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain."

Oh! The Trump haters are having a great time with this passage from Trump's Montana rally. One of the many, many topics Trump touched on and skittered across was that the elite media won't admit he's a great speaker — "They never say I’m a great speaker" — and "Why the hell do so many people come? It’s got to be something. I guess they like my policy?"

An ordinary person, speaking spontaneously, would take that idea and run with it. Just off the top of my head, here's what I'd say: The media cannot deny the size of these crowds, so if they don't say I'm a great speaker, the only other explanation is that the people must love my policies, but they won't say that either, which proves they won't give me any credit for anything, even when pure logic requires it. They're so biased and dishonest.

But Trump seems to trust that he's already got that point across. No need to belabor it. And he's got something more fun to leap to. Look, it's Elton John! He has a thing to say that includes Elton John, and he doesn't even use the idea that he called Kim Jong-Un "Rocket Man" as a segue. He just plunges into it with this:
I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.
If you hate Trump, that's a huge, insane word salad — especially if you go with the transcript and don't get into the flow of the performance. Here's the top-rated comment on that passage at Reddit:
I really would like to know what people get out of listening [to] him at these rallies. I mean, my brain hurt just trying to read that transcript. How can people listen to that? Do they even understand what he's talking about? Does he? Christ, he really needs to be psychologically evaluated because there's something seriously not right.
Note the assumption that a verbatim transcript should give more of a sense of coherence to spoken word. That's not true. On this issue, I always go back to this passage from Janet Malcolm's great book "The Journalist and the Murderer":
When we talk with somebody, we are not aware of the strangeness of the language we are speaking. Our ear takes it in as English, and only if we see it transcribed verbatim do we realize that it is a kind of foreign tongue. What the tape recorder has revealed about human speech — that Molière’s M. Jourdain* was mistaken: we do not, after all, speak in prose — is something like what the nineteenth-century photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies** revealed about animal locomotion. Muybridge’s fast camera caught and froze positions never before seen, and demonstrated that artists throughout art history had been “wrong” in their renderings of horses (among other animals) in motion. Contemporary artists, at first upset by Muybridge’s discoveries, soon regained their equanimity, and continued to render what the eye, rather than the camera, sees. Similarly, novelists of our tape-recorder era have continued to write dialogue in English rather than in tape-recorderese, and most journalists who work with a tape recorder use the transcript of an extended interview merely as an aid to memory—as a sort of second chance at note-taking—rather than as a text for quotation. The transcript is not a finished version, but a kind of rough draft of expression. As everyone who has studied transcripts of tape-recorded speech knows, we all seem to be extremely reluctant to come right out and say what we mean—thus the bizarre syntax, the hesitations, the circumlocutions, the repetitions, the contradictions, the lacunae in almost every non-sentence we speak. The tape recorder has opened up a sort of underwater world of linguistic phenomena whose Cousteaus are as yet unknown to the general public.
Quoting that passage in 2013 — before the ascendency of Trump — I said:
Now, I think some people do speak in unbroken, well-structured sentences that are free of grammatical errors that could be transcribed directly into excellent writing, but I don't think those stuck listening to them are very happy with it. We need the backtracking and disfluencies to feel comfortable....

I'd tend to be suspicious of anyone who seemed to be trying too hard to speak like writing or to write like speaking. I'd wonder what's up? What's the motivation? A speaker who strains to sound like writing might have an inferiority complex or a pompous, arrogant nature.
Reverse engineer that and you can see many things that could be true and appealing about Trump: He's talking straight from his head like me and my friends.

For someone who thinks like that, the mockery from Trump haters — like that " How can people listen to that?" at Reddit — is personally insulting, like being put in the "basket of deplorables." That only bonds Trump's fans more closely to Trump and makes them more likely to go to the next rally, where it's fun and funny and the stiffs can't laugh and don't understand.

Which brings me back to the subject of rock and roll. Let's look at the substance of the Elton John riff. I think that this is a riff he's done in private and he just can't do the whole thing in public. The pauses in the audio version makes this false start even more apparent.
I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. 
So that's a great set up for talking about male genitalia. There's no reason to bring up an organ unless that's where you want to go. Elton John does sometimes play the organ, like here, on my favorite Elton John song, "Daniel"...



... but he's far more closely associated with the piano. Trump chose to say organ because it's penis-y. In that view, it's hilarious to say "I don’t have... an organ. No organ." He pauses at that point. I laughed. Here's this man who was mocked during the presidential campaign for having a small penis (because, we were told by Marco Rubio, he has small hands), and now, he's riding so high he can have fun with saying he has no penis at all. This is a man who loves to have fun. And he talks like me and my friends. If only we could hang out with him, we'd hear a much, much funnier, dirtier version of the me-and-Elton riff.

Since he can't do the full "no organ" riff, after the pause, he adds another idea. It's just him and his mouth and his brain doing the whole act that the big crowd came to hear. There are no instruments and no other people doing the performance.
We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments.
Notice how fiercely he avoids saying "I." It's always "we," even when the point he's making is that he's alone on the stage, doing the entire performance:
This is the only musical: the mouth. 
He's speaking so impetuously that he just says "musical" for "musical instrument." You know what he means. If you like him, that is. If you don't then it's ridiculous insanity: The only musical, The Mouth??? Now, opening on Broadway, the new musical — The Mouth!

I think Trump knew at this point that he was getting a little ridiculous. He couldn't follow through on that "organ" stuff and switched to nattering about the size of the room and all the people in it, so he finished off the topic with a little self-deprecation:
And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.
I'm sure that if Trump were in private and he could work blue, he'd have opened up the subject of the brain as an organ that's "more important" than the other organ, the one he would have joked about earlier, but he just can't do it here... because his connected-to-his-mouth brain is telling him he can't say that, but he can show us enough to get into our brain-connected-to-our-ears that we can imagine what it would be like to hang out with Trump after the show. And then we are groupies.

__________________________

* Malcolm refers to the famous line in the play "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme": "My faith! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose while knowing nothing of it, and I am the most obliged person in the world to you for telling me so."

** Muybridge's The Horse in Motion, 1878:

194 comments:

clint said...

It's amazing how much the transcriber can influence the reader's perception of a speech. Edit out all the "ums" and "ahs" and a mumbled mess of a speech can sound like great oratory.

President Trump's casual-conversation style of oratory demands a different kind of punctuation than just periods and commas. It needs parenthetical asides to be set off with dashes and visual indications of the pauses in speech that make his meaning clearer to a listener. This isn't rocket science, it's basic writing.

It's almost like the transcribers intend for his speeches to read like "insane word salad" -- which is kind of his point.

Chuck said...

The Presidency as reality show. Trump as cable news star.

It would be fine with me, if Trump chose to speak as a nonstop salesman, as long as he wasn't president, speaking for the executive branch of the federal government.

Has there ever been a post that more clearly exposed the Althouse double standard when it comes to Trump? Althouse parses and dissects the words of NYT reporters and WaPo columnists and others. All others. But when it comes to Trump, its all just a matter of feeling.

Freder Frederson said...

You really don't believe in Occam's Razor.

To believe that he plans these outbursts and that every word is carefully chosen really demonstrates how far down the Trump rabbit hole you have gone.

HT said...

Once again the president is talking about his penis and people are paying attention.

"Notice how fiercely he avoids saying "I." It's always "we," even when the point he's making is that he's alone on the stage, doing the entire performance"
I've known a person or two - putative neighborhood leaders - who favor using we over I to convince people of the soundness of their terrible ideas. It's disgusting and often is a cover for their lies. He also tends to refer to himself in the third person.

His disgusting fish mouth reminds me of those robots in that Woody Allen film with the orgasmatron.

iowan2 said...

This was identified during the campaign. The Presidents enemies always take the words of President Trump literally, not seriously. No one else is treated the same. The Presidents enemies do this because they think that it will peel off the Presidents supporters.
Normal people would try to figure out why the President was elected, but the leftists, and swamp denizens think the solution is to rid themselves of the President, not address the issues that Elected President Trump. The Presidents actions are a hint as to why the establishment got Trump, but they are to ego driven to see it.

rhhardin said...

and demonstrated that artists throughout art history had been “wrong” in their renderings of horses (among other animals) in motion. Contemporary artists, at first upset by Muybridge’s discoveries, soon regained their equanimity,

A Tom Swifty

rhhardin said...

German mouth Mund
French world monde

Saint Croix said...

Woody Allen use to joke that the brain is a very overrated organ.

narciso said...

He is an effective speaker, it's clear what he is saying, exactly how he says something is immaterial. This coming from every twit that celebrated Obama's foolishness like scripture, while he tore every institution down.

stlcdr said...

I use to have to *read* Shakespeare in school. I didn't get it. 'A comedy of Errors': why was this funny?! Until I saw the plays. There isn't a lot of visuals [in such plays] but it was a way for actors to play out the words.

These are words to be said and listened to not words to be read.

iowan2 said...



Our host just wrote a whole explanation of how communication works, any you refuse to admit what you know. That is blind ignorance.

rhhardin said...

Trump isn't talking about records but tweaking the MSM, which is the whole attraction.

People absolutely hate the media, something you never heard about in the media. The people flock to somebody who puts it on the air via mandatory coverage. It's really a message from the Trump people to the media: you people are idiots.

roesch/voltaire said...

Yes Trump likes to toot his own organ which he finds so special. While in Wisconsin he claimed he was the first republican candidate to win the popular vote in the state since Eisenhower’s victory in 1952, which of course was another lie and more of the fake news he spouts everyday.. I suppose Althouse and others could consider this a great speech, a great riff on how much winning he’s doing, as long as you ignore facts, it works.

Narayanan said...

Professora,

FBI does not tape interviews. Agents write their report 302? from memory/notes.
OTOH ... Lying to FBI is evidenced with NSA capture electronically.
Discuss, apply insight.

exhelodrvr1 said...

The comments here are a window into the ability of the commenter to actually think.

AllenS said...

@rv -- If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

narciso said...

Like eickenrode and the Libby matter (He list the notes btw that was the basis of the indictment.

Bill Peschel said...

"a great riff on how much winning he’s doing, as long as you ignore facts, it works."

The economy has improved. We're out of the Paris Climate Accords. We're putting pressure on Iran instead of paying them cash. That's just the high points.

You have a right to your opinion, you don't have a right to your facts.

rhhardin said...

I'm not attracted to Trump as a conversation partner. I want his Don Rickles act against the media and those in business with the media.

Do that in public where the media have to cover it.

rhhardin said...

Trump is misogynist in the sense that he's against the MSM and therefore its soap opera woman audience. They're the eyeballs that the MSM sells to advertisers.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

Ann, you are truly great on the subject of Trump's word salads. His speeches always threaten various experts: people with a degree or two who write speeches for politicians to read, staffers who vet speeches for "gaffes," lawyers who add another layer of vetting, journalists who somehow really know better than politicians what to say and how to say it. It's amazing and refreshing to see and hear Trump ditching all this, and speaking like a human being. The false fact is that no one can possibly understand this stuff, it doesn't read like an essay; the obvious truth is that Trump revels in the reality of spoken speech. From his Korea summitry to "I've broken more records than Elton John," meaning the number of people who have come out to see and hear him. It doesn't even matter if someone can look up attendance figures, etc. That would be more nerds missing the point.

rhhardin said...

I used to do transcripts of good Imus segments, playing them over and over to get every disfluency in, ahs, restarts, ums.

It is very hard to do that because, even replaying it over and over to get it right, you simply don't hear them.

Which is why you don't hear them.

Mr. Groovington said...

I’m surprised you didn’t use one of the Muybridge series of the naked guy running with his dick flapping all over the place. Will cheer the Althouse ladies.

Original Mike said...

”Woody Allen use to joke that the brain is a very overrated organ.”

I though it was his second-favorite? I suppose it’s possible he wasn’t being truthful.

Mr. Groovington said...

Or the hilarious baseball man-at-bat naked guy one. More swinging dicks.

Ann Althouse said...

As transcript, it should be compared to a play, which is written but only works properly with a great actor. Some plays are in a literary prose style, so I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about something like a Mamet play, where the actor makes it come alive.

Is this word salad:

"...all train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don't mind it. That's the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time. When you die you're going to regret the things you don't do. You think you're queer...? I'm going to tell you something: We're all queer. You think that you're a thief? So what? You get befuddled by a middle-class morality...? Get shut of it. Shut it out. You cheated on your wife...? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it there's an absolute morality? Maybe. And then what? If you think there is, then be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don't think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes. I won't live in it. That's me you ever take a dump made you feel you'd just slept for twelve hours...? Or a piss...? A great meal fades in reflection. Everything else gains. You know why? Cause it's only food. This shit we eat, it Keeps us going. But it's only food the great fucks that you may have had. What do you remember about them? don't know. For me, I'm saying What is is, it's probably not the orgasm. Some broads, forearms on Your neck, something her eyes did there was a sound she made...or me, lying, in the, I'll tell you: me lying in bed; the next day she brought me café au lait. She gives me a cigarette, my balls feel like concrete. Eh? What I'm saying what is our life? It's looking forward or it's looking back. And that's our life that's it. Where is the moment? And what is it that we're afraid of? Loss. What else? The bank closes. We get sick, my wife died on a plane, the stock market collapsed...the house burnt down...what of these happen...? None on 'em. We worry anyway. What does this mean? I'm not secure. How can I be secure? Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what's beyond all measure? That's a sickness. That's a trap. There is no measure. Only greed. How can we act? The right way, we would say, to deal with this: "There is a one-in-a-million chance that so and so will happen...Fuck it, it won't happen to me..." No. We know that's not the right way I think We say the correct way to deal with this is "There is a one-in-so-and-so chance this will happen...God protect me. I am powerless, let it not happen to me..." But no to that I say. There's something else. What is it? "If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it, just as I do today with what draws my concern today." I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself. And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day arrives that I need a reserve, [a] odds are that I have it, and [b] the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear. According to the dictates of my mind. Stocks, bonds, objects of art, real estate. Now: what are they? An opportunity. To what? To make money? Perhaps. To lose money? Perhaps. To "indulge" and to "learn" about ourselves? So fucking what? What isn't? They're an opportunity. That's all they're an event. A guy comes up to you, you make a call, you send in a brochure, it doesn't matter. "There're these properties I'd like for you to see." What does it mean? What you want it to mean?..."

https://genius.com/David-mamet-all-train-compartments-lyrics

rhhardin said...

Elton John Blue Eyes would be my favorite, where he turned into a crooner. Harmonically interesting.

Grystal Gayle Donuts Make My Brown Eyes Blue

Eric Clapton (acoustical) Layla, used by Rush for his Shalala parody.

mezzrow said...

Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping.

"Then let's see how he does, up there, without all the assistance!" (classical reference)

Ann Althouse said...

Don't mix up the Woody Allen quotes!

From "Manhattan": "You rely too much on the brain. The brain is the most overrated organ."

From "Sleeper": "My brain? It's my second favorite organ!"

Chuck said...

narciso said...
He is an effective speaker, it's clear what he is saying...


Really! You say it is clear? What has he said clearly, lately?

Did we ever get a "complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States"?

Are we getting a "replacement" for Obmacare?

Is there a deal with North Korea? What are the terms of such a deal?

Are we in a trade war, or not? Should we be in a trade war? Would such a war be good, or bad?

Does Trump want to separate children from the parents of aliens who enter illegally and away from a recognized border crossing where, if they intended to request asylum, they could? Or not?

What is a single example, of a policy argument that was advanced in large part by the articulation of Trump? Just one is all I am asking for.

Trump dabbles in a lot of stuff. He says a lot of stuff, and much of it is wrong, or outright lies. And of course Trump fans claim that Trump is in ongoing negotiations through his speeches and statements. And that by making big claims that may be divorced from reality, Trump is attempting to get to a goal. I think that is all bullshit, but that is another unresolvable fight.

But you, narciso, claim that with Trump "it is clear what he is saying." I think Tump's language may be a lot of things; but "clear" isn't one of them. "Clear" is what Trump speech never is.

Ann Althouse said...

"It's almost like the transcribers intend for his speeches to read like "insane word salad" -- which is kind of his point."

I talk about this in "Trump's speech would look a lot more coherent if the transcripts were properly punctuated", a November 15, 2016 post that also quotes the Janet Malcolm passage.

"Some speakers might end up looking clear and coherent in a verbatim transcript cranked out with no intelligent effort at punctuation, but Trump has all these phrases within phrases. The transcripts make the speaking look like a mess — changing his position from the beginning to the end of a sentence as Maher put it and with no punctuation as Axelrod quipped fancifully but aptly. Or... I should say: Axelrod's quip is aptly applied to the transcript but not to the live speaking, which does have the voiced quality that good punctuation would capture — at least in the ears of a sympathetic listener. If you don't like Trump, when you hear him speak, you might think Ugh! Word salad!"

Ann Althouse said...

"You really don't believe in Occam's Razor. To believe that he plans these outbursts and that every word is carefully chosen really demonstrates how far down the Trump rabbit hole you have gone."

You really don't believe in reading!

Quote something I said that at all means that I believe he plans these outbursts and that every word is carefully chosen.

I await your abject apology.

Breezy said...

Trump, the regular guy - like me - billionaire president. How great is America!

Ann Althouse said...

"Yes Trump likes to toot his own organ which he finds so special. While in Wisconsin he claimed he was the first republican candidate to win the popular vote in the state since Eisenhower’s victory in 1952, which of course was another lie and more of the fake news he spouts everyday.. I suppose Althouse and others could consider this a great speech, a great riff on how much winning he’s doing, as long as you ignore facts, it works."

Find yesterday's post where I talk about the Wisconsin mistake.

Narayanan said...

@chuck... Have you considered that Trump could be trolling you, et al !!¿?

As an exercise try some trolling yourself ... Maybe you already are.

Narayanan said...

Troller ... Trollee
How to tell apart....

Big Mike said...

Chuck asks whether we are in a trade war. Perhaps if he had enough working brain cells he could take a look at the trade deficits that the US has been running and realize that we have been in a trade war for decades, and losing badly. But he’s comfortable, so to Hell with people who have been out of work or underemployed for years. What does he care?

Trump and his “Trumpkins” get what Chuck doesn’t — any country foolish enough to get into a trade war with the US is going to lose, and very rapidly.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm not attracted to Trump as a conversation partner. I want his Don Rickles act against the media and those in business with the media."

Trump does not deserve the compliment "Don Rickles act," because he compliments his adoring fans and attacks people who are not his audience. Trump deserves the criticism I made against Kathy Griffin, whose 3 hour show I sat through in Chicago the other night.

I said that I admired comedians who make their own audience uncomfortable. I mentioned Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman. I didn't say Don Rickles, but I thought about adding him. He attacked the very people who were his own audience, sitting there up front in the good seats. They even paid to see him. Trump's people get in free, but, more importantly, they know he's not going to say they are lazy, racist assholes. I would love to see a "SNL" with Alec Baldwin playing the role of Trump where "Trump" has decided to adopt the Don Rickles approach to entertaining the crowd. That will never happen... not enough people remember Rickles.

AllenS said...

Watch Obama speak very clearly --

LINK TEXT

Sebastian said...

"An ordinary person, speaking spontaneously, would take that idea and run with it"

Problem is, progs aren't ordinary persons, and of course, what an ordinary person "would" do is irrelevant when they have an opportunity to vilify.

You are right about disfluencies. Linguists study that stuff.

I thought O's disfluencies were distracting, and showed a marked gap between his labored reading of texts and his actual verbal skill.

But Trump's segues and jumps mostly aren't "disfluencies" in a traditional sense, as the post's fisking makes clear.

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

I listened to the speech live and knew exactly what he was talking about the whole time. He speaks in short-hand sometimes and it's totally intuitive to me. In the Elton John comparison, he sets all kinds of attendance records in arenas eclipsing Elton John's attendance records at some of them and he doesn't even play music, he just talks. Of course, he doesn't needs as much room as Elton John and his band since it's just him so there is more room for people, etc. I find Trump very amusing and I think the frivolous attacks on him for his speaking style are helpful to him. He doesn't lose a single person with his freewheeling speaking but he gains support, and the media is steadily losing support, due to the constant frivolous attacks. I think Trump is very aware of this and that's why he doesn't become more formal in his speaking style.

Sebastian said...

"Trump deserves the criticism I made against Kathy Griffin . . . I admired comedians who make their own audience uncomfortable"

A great post, and then this.

Uncomfortableness is not a criterion for good art or comedy.

Even if one admires artistic discomforting, the nature of the discomfort requires separate judgment.

Yeah, yeah, Trump uses comedic techniques, but, blah blah blah, he is trying to bolster his political support.

And an ordinary person, visiting a show or a rally, would prefer to be entertained.

Phil 314 said...

RV said “Yes Trump likes to toot his own organ which he finds so special. While in Wisconsin he claimed he was the first republican candidate to win the popular vote in the state since Eisenhower “

AllenS replied “@rv -- If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”

Well one is a statement about the past and one is a promise for the future. Is a promise you can’t keep a lie?

I believe many people are more forgiving of the incorrect statement about the past than promise of the future.

BUT you promised!

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

What we need is orderly crafted tested screw-speak from Hillary and the democrats.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

These are words to be said and listened to not words to be read.

Exactly. Shakespeare is a good metaphor. I’m not surprised Chuck doesn’t get it. He still can’t admit after all this time that Trump is an effective communicator. And that parsing extemporaneous speech as though it went through “layers of editors and fact checkers” before being published is a fool’s errand. I for one am sick of poll-tested focus-grouped sound bites. I'm sick of “normal” political speech and politics. Trump is refreshing in his approach and happy warrior attitude.

Look how dour Clinton was, Pocahontas is and Kamala will be. Meanwhile Trump is putting out better stand up than professional lefty “comics” and communicating better than poll-tested focus-grouped Schumer and Pelosi and talking heads arrayed against him. Sputter on Chuck. Nitpick the syntax. Heckle the host. Bitch about the lack of examination Trump’s diction garners. We’re still WINNING.

Chuck said...

...In the Elton John comparison, he sets all kinds of attendance records in arenas eclipsing Elton John's attendance records at some of them and he doesn't even play music, he just talks. Of course, he doesn't needs as much room as Elton John and his band since it's just him so there is more room for people, etc...


That, and it's free. It costs nothing to put on your MAGA hat and your NRA vest over your Savage Nation t-shirt and go see Trump.

Tickets for Elton John are $50 to $1500.

Fernandinande said...

Contemporary artists, at first upset by Muybridge’s discoveries,

I'd bet that almost no artists were "upset" and that most appreciated the photographs.

"Also, anyone who has experienced the horror of seeing his spoken words transcribed knows that speech is meant to be heard, not read. Even among the articulate, verbal give-and-take is filled with false starts, garbles and statements that make no sense out of context." -- pinker

Michael K said...

Has there ever been a post that more clearly exposed the Althouse double standard when it comes to Trump?

Chuck, I won't post my first thought after reading this. You just don't get it. You and Max Boot, whose books I like.

I rarely watch a Trump speech. I like his results better than his speaking style.

You know who else I could not stand to watch speak ? Bush.

When the press asked him to list one mistake he had made, and he could not come up with anything was the stupidest moment I've seen in presidential speeches.

Bush was as bad a stiff as Hubert Humphrey and both were supposed to be warm and funny in private.

Bush could have disarmed everyone by saying something like "My worst mistake was not talking about my DUI in the 2000 campaign."

Trump would probably have said something like that and it would have been a joke.


Bush was a stiff and his father sometimes sounded like a pansy,

Roy Lofquist said...

Well, he does have our lovely hostess (and us) paying inordinate attention to a bit of a throwaway riff.

Michael K said...

"Tickets for Elton John are $50 to $1500."

chuck still doesn't get it. I doubt you ever will.

Bob Boyd said...

Althouse leads horses to water. Some drink, some don't.

Rory said...

When I moved to Washington from the great unwashed, it struck me that most of the people I met seemed to think that they were perpetually auditioning for the McLaughlin Group. Thoughts themselves didn't matter, what was desired was to express the standard arguments* in a very competent manner.

*Could be either the conservative or the liberal argument, back then.

Carol said...

I really can't stand to listen to speeches, or any read text for that matter. The pastors and deacons at my church often read canned homilies..I mean think anything that starts like "As the great theologian Karl Barth wrote,...." it's probably not something Deacon Mike came up with.

Why can't a seasoned politician just get up on the stump and talk off the cuff? Yeah gaffes and stuff, but it really is outrageous how structured everything was until Trump came along.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Obama had to read his speeches. Without the TelePrompTer he was lost and lousy. He set the world record for more “sums” than actual words, while president. His style and his verbal ticks turned me off. His attitude was arrogant. Somehow a billionaire loudmouth from Queens is able to reach people with his extemporaneous verbal excursions. And like his actual policies, this skill drives all the right people mad. Chuck is left sputtering about the lack of a “total Muslim ban” because he didn’t recognize the focus-grouping that Trump does live, right in front of us. That the actual EO came out written by lawyers later somehow twists Chuck’s panthers into a knot. Because he misses the point. Trump is continually testing the waters in these appearances. Feeling the reactions, allowing us to participate. It ain’t your daddy’s GOP. That’s for sure.

Original Mike said...

Looks like the Iranians don’t have any difficulty understanding Trump.

Iranian harassment of U.S. warships:

2015: 22
2016: 36
2017: 14
This year: 0

Source: U.S. Navy

Chuck said...

You know, when it comes to Trump and transcripts, the best ones by far are the deposition transcripts of Trump in some of his many civil lawsuits.

When Trump is under cross-examination by a competent litigator, he is transformed; into a dumb, useless, turd.

I say that as someone who is used to preparing witnesses for depositions, and used to taking depositions. A good witness does not volunteer information; a good witness keeps answers short; and to some extent, Trump does a bit of that. But Trump is a truly crappy witness. His arrogance and his ignorance are the hallmarks of his testimony and to the extent that Trump would ever represent anything other than himself, he'd be the nightmare of anyone who acted as his lawyer, or especially a corporate lawyer for any entity with which Trump was associated.

Here's a searchable transcript of Trump's deposition in the Trump University case, which Trump said he'd never settle, and that no one should ever settle such suits. Because settling invites more lawsuits.

Then, Trump settled, for $25 million.

https://americanbridgepac.org/searchable-transcript-of-donald-trumps-trump-u-deposition/

iowan2 said...

That, and it's free. It costs nothing to put on your MAGA hat and your NRA vest over your Savage Nation t-shirt and go see Trump.

90% of the counties in the United States are inhabited by knuckle dragging rednecks, hillbillies, hicks and retards. (according to the author of the above quote)This is how you get more President Trump ( I do so relish when my betters expose themselves as bigots)

President Trump repeats the Reagan landslide victory in 2020 (because ego has blinded the self identified betters of the nation)

traditionalguy said...

DJT uses words like Annie Oakly shot her rifle. People come out to be amazed at his next trick shot. Bullseye...bullseye...bullseye....Doesn't he ever miss a shot? Over the shoulder with a mirror, riding a horse, five tossed targets, etc.

I can understand how his targeted enemy hates him. They hated Chris Kyle too.

Original Mike said...

”Well one is a statement about the past and one is a promise for the future. Is a promise you can’t keep a lie?”

He never intended to keep it. That makes it a lie.

Big Mike said...

Well one is a statement about the past and one is a promise for the future. Is a promise you never made the slightest effort to keep a lie?

@Phil, FIFY.

HT said...

Bob Boyd said...

Althouse leads horses to water. Some drink, some don't.
7/7/18, 8:44 AM

_________________

Because it’s water from a retention pond on a superfund site.

etbass said...

Some here would prefer that we had a Bush III in office.

Unremitting criticism from the media and no rebuttal. Even blame for a hurricane.
No change in unmitigated immigration until we have a Muslim community like Europe's.
Federal judges who are soft on constitutional interpretation.
More wars in the middle East without victory.
Continued unemployment and pathetic economy.

But.... a scripted voice that communicates little and sounds great. More of the same establishment apathy.

Bob Boyd said...

On her blog Althouse makes a good faith effort to understand things she sees and reads, then concisely and clearly walks us through her process and explains her conclusions. She is so good at this. She makes it look easy, but just try it sometime.

wildswan said...

Trump always explains his current goals in these speeches and his audience hears what he is saying but the media and the left do not. It's been that way for several years now. They don't learn. This may be because Trump likes to mention his "ratings" and every member of the media is concerned with ratings because the media is steadily shedding jobs and people. So when Trump mentions his great ratings this causes a massive anxiety attack among the fake-newsies. They think their owners will want to fire them for incompetence if Trump has great ratings. (And he does. And the ratings are climbing, despite the non-stop lying. People know whether or not they can get a job. And don't forget that pollsters over-sample Democrats and that a percentage of Trump supporters never answer pollsters on principle while others lie on purpose to confuse.) So, to return to the original point, while the news-fakies think about losing their jobs, they lose track and don't know what was said or done or heard by others. Then, like the class dummy, they report their distraction as what Trump communicated.

Quaestor said...

The only musical, The Mouth??? Now, opening on Broadway, the new musical — The Mouth!

There were a few Broadway stars who were noted for being mostly mouth — not very musical, but mostly mouth. Ethel Merman, for example. And there was this other mouthy lady who did not seem to be able to sing or act at all. What was her name? Carol Channing, yes. My parents saw Carol Channing perform "Hello Dolly!". They must have left me with a sitter because I didn't know anything about until I found the autographed LP years later. I remembered seeing her as a rather uninteresting guest on the Johnny Carson show, then I listened to the album... Jesus Christ on a stick.

Reading a Trump transcript is much like reading Joyce. That's literature, ladies and gentlemen. With a capital L. The stuff you read as a sophomore between Antigone and Baudelaire. Unless you're Chuck. Chuck doesn't read like someone who read Finnagans Wake. Neither do I. Mostly. Except when I make a typo. Joyce made a typo when he typed his MS of Finnegans Wake because Finnegan is Finnegan, not Finnegans, or was since he's dead or is because he was invented dead. But it's his wake so why lose the apostrophe? Ye plummet from a ladder yer like to lose morin dat, bucko. Joyce made no sense to me until I read it aloud like a script. Then it clicked.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Great Chuck! We tell you how live extemporaneous speech is better than transcripts and you pull out the dullest, most useless kind of transcript, the deposition, and prove our point. Are you really this clueless? It’s established: you like mellifluous lies more than extemporaneous honesty. Noted.

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

...In the Elton John comparison, he sets all kinds of attendance records in arenas eclipsing Elton John's attendance records at some of them and he doesn't even play music, he just talks. Of course, he doesn't needs as much room as Elton John and his band since it's just him so there is more room for people, etc...


"That, and it's free. It costs nothing to put on your MAGA hat and your NRA vest over your Savage Nation t-shirt and go see Trump.

Tickets for Elton John are $50 to $1500"

It doesn't cost anything if you put on your blue blazer over your Bob Dylan shirt and slide your ray-bans onto the top of your head, either. But politicians don't charge to get into big rallies so it's not really a good comparison. That's an excellent example of the type of frivolous attacks that help Trump, though, and which many of us find so amusing.

Quaestor said...

HT wrote: Because it’s water from a retention pond on a superfund site.

Oh, that's witty.

Paul Mac said...

People treat Trump as if he is a fool or a genius, evil or otherwise. I think these are both wrong, he is one of those men not as noticed or talked about now who if unsavory deserves a certain respect for performing without a net, eating what he kills. The used car salesman who must sell what is on his lot or the carnival huckster, the professional gambler. Even without liking them these characters deserve a form of respect for being good at a job many don't appreciate and at which the weak and witless can't long survive.

Fernandinande said...

Fernandistein said...
I'd bet that almost no artists were "upset" and that most appreciated the photographs.


Now I'd bet that I was right and the authorette was wrong:


"Muybridge essentially invented the idea of working in series, a critical idea in Modernism,” says Idris Khan, one of many young British artists who express a debt to Muybridge and who has recreated the photographer’s sequence of a man rising from a bed, transposing the frames into a single image."

+

"Muybridge is best known for his demonstration that movement could be broken down into fluid sequences of individual moments. That insight was made use of by a succession of artists, from Auguste Rodin to Francis Bacon."

Brian said...

That, and it's free. It costs nothing to put on your MAGA hat and your NRA vest over your Savage Nation t-shirt and go see Trump

Yep free. Just can’t eat at a restaurant and you risk bodily injury being in public, but it’s totally free.

Trump settled for $25 million

He won the presidency. Probably felt his right to defend himself further was outweighed by the needs of the country to have a full time president. . Pretty selfless actually. But your reaction just codifies the “2 movies” paradigm.

etbass said...

The utter self immolation of the Democratic party should be sign enough that Trump is doing a great job. Only two years ago, we were about to elevate a criminal to the highest office in the land, moving to leftist control over every institution in America.

Trump is different, sure. He is braggadocios, sure. But he is getting results. And the left is spiraling downward. Their hate and venom is being displayed all over and confirming to most Americans that they did the right thing in putting Trump in office.

The deplorables understand Trump.

clint said...

Chuck said...

"What is a single example, of a policy argument that was advanced in large part by the articulation of Trump? Just one is all I am asking for."

I'd love to answer this question -- but it's not clear what standard you're asking for. "... advanced in large part..." is a bit vague. Do you want before-and-after public opinion polls?

If I give you an example of something President Trump proposed and argued for on the campaign trail which was actually enacted -- like the corporate tax cut -- would that count? Or would you just say that it was done despite his incoherent speaking style that couldn't possibly have persuaded anyone? That of course the GOP was going to pass a tax cut as soon as they had both houses of Congress and the White House, regardless of who was President? Or that even if he advanced the argument a bit, it wasn't a "large part"?

It would be wonderful if we lived in the (mostly mythical) era of Lincoln-Douglas policy debates, but we don't. Much of the opposition to the tax cuts consisted of (falsely) claiming that it would raise taxes on the poor, the middle-class, or the elderly. President Trump's biggest contribution to advancing the policy argument was in framing the tax cut as a part of bringing back American manufacturing jobs.

Here's Trump from his Convention speech: "Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules. While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate who has run for president this year— Democrat or Republican. Middle-income Americans and businesses will experience profound relief, and taxes will be greatly simplified for everyone. America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into our country."

Does that count?

Quaestor said...

You really don't believe in Occam's Razor.

Freder Frederson doesn't either.

Free hint (submit your GRE scores for the next one): Your use of the term reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Occam's argument.

Francisco D said...

Trump is the first POTUS in my lifetime to be inarticulate, disingenuous and/or mistaken in his speeches.

Glad you are there to point it out to us morons, Chuck.

Michael K said...

President Trump repeats the Reagan landslide victory in 2020 (because ego has blinded the self identified betters of the nation)

I think it will come this fall. The Democrats are going full communist with their DSA candidates.

I don't see that attracting voters over 25 unless they are black. Even there, I suspect the vote will drop off.
If not switch.

It will be interesting. What do they do if the November election is a disaster ?

Chuck said...

He is braggadocios, sure.

A word that Trump likes, big-league, but that even his most ardent fans can't spell. I'm not sure that I could spell it. I'm a bit more certain that I'd never use it.

Martin said...

Jordan Peterson says he has recently completed an audio version of his first book, "Maps of Meaning." He has always said that is a very dense and difficult read, and he is now saying that because the audio version gives pacing and proper inflection, he thinks many people will find it easier to understand than if they read the book in its original form.

Which is consistent with the idea that parsing the transcript of a Trump rally or even a prepared statement is pointless--he is ALL Queens inflection and gesture and facial expressions and playing off/with the audience. Only a small amount of the communication is in the text, separate from all that, and if you aren't "Noo Yawk" enough to assume some of that as you read, you're just wasting your time..

Chuck said...

If I give you an example of something President Trump proposed and argued for on the campaign trail which was actually enacted -- like the corporate tax cut -- would that count? Or would you just say that it was done despite his incoherent speaking style that couldn't possibly have persuaded anyone? That of course the GOP was going to pass a tax cut as soon as they had both houses of Congress and the White House, regardless of who was President? Or that even if he advanced the argument a bit, it wasn't a "large part"?


Yes, I'd say those things and more.

By your measurement, Obama was a great communicator. Because he got a bill that he liked -- the ACA (and Dodd-Frank and several others) -- through a congress where he had majorities and a senate super-majority, on a straight party-line vote.

Martin said...

"Trump is the first POTUS in my lifetime to be inarticulate, disingenuous and/or mistaken in his speeches."

What are you, like 2 years old? I remember all the laughs we had about Obama when he tried to talk without the TOTUS ("TelePrompter of the United States").

Just Google Obama teleprompter fails compilation.

John henry said...

Ann,

Great post with lots of interesting points. If anyone had told me I would be downloading any politicians speeches a couple years ago, I would have thought them nuts. But president trumpp is just FUN to listen to.

You say "and then we are groupies" perhaps you were trying to remind us that groupies are, mainly, women who will let celebrities grab them by the pussy. Or, in the case of m. Lewinski, let a celebrity shove his "organ" down their throat.

Did you really want to go there?

John Henry

John henry said...

Ann. You have a dirty mind.

The organ he was speaking of was his heart. He has a huge, loving, heart.

John Henry

n.n said...

Trump doesn't speak down, bur rather to the people.

If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?


Classists expect a serving of rhetorical spam. You'll like it, and eat it, too.

Yancey Ward said...

Here is the thing- not a single person who really hates Trump bothers to watch and listen to Trump's speeches- at best, they will read a transcript and, at worst, just read a description of the transcript taken out of context as much as possible. I have actually done both things in reverse order- read the transcript then watch the speech, and watch the speech and then read the transcript- the experience is enlightening. I often skipped watching Hillary's speeches, and I am sure I missed a lot from those by only reading transcripts, but I have watched enough of them to realize that she never engaged her audience the same way Trump does with his audience. In addition, Trump doesn't really appear to write a speech to give- he just does it off the top of his head. Hillary rarely gave such an impromptu speech- indeed, I can't remember a single such instance outside of Qs and As, and even those often were scripted because the audience was carefully screened beforehand.

The real problem as I see it is this- much is missed by reading a transcript of a public speech- things like tone, inflection, and facial expression are lost in the transcripts- also lost is the interaction with the audience since no one transcribes audience reactions. It really does seem to me we use very different parts of our brains when reading versus listening. I have the exact same problems with reading books versus listening to them being recited in recordings, however, in that case I get more from the reading than the recitation, and the reason is that the writer himself was producing for a reader, not a listener. Trump's speeches are the opposite- not intended for a reader, but a listener.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

This post is the biggest waste of pixels known to mankind.

Yancey Ward said...

Just to give an example- Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It was famously panned as inappropriate and garnered Lincoln no goodwill by the audience that listened to him giving it, and the reason is quite simple- Lincoln carefully composed and delivered it with apparently no desire to engage the audience in front of him for participation. However, Lincoln was writing for readers, whether he was aware of this or not. It is in the reading that one gets the points Lincoln was conveying. Of course, Lincoln did this because the only dissemination this speech would ever get would be the printed word. The only listening audience was in the field before him.

William said...

Records were made to be broken. That's why vinyl was such a big improvement. CDs were even better. No worries about scratches or smudges. I suppose Spotify is best. It exists in the ether. Records there can't be broken, scratched, or misplaced. This might be a metaphor for Trump. He exists in his own dimension........The two best communicators of my lifetime were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Obama was okay, but if you listened for more than a minute or two your eyes started to glaze over. That's not a problem with Trump. Can a sales pitch properly be considered an oration or art form? He's very good at holding your attention and making his points, even if he's sometimes crass and never elevated.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If she possessed the rudimentary scientific vocabulary to do so Althouse would write separate 10,000-word dissertations on every one of Trump's neurons and how each one is a wondrous testament to Einstein, Brahms and Picasso.

Francisco D said...

@Martin,

Perhaps my sarcasm was too subtle.

I'm 65 and have been following politics since Johnson versus Goldwater, although I was somewhat aware of Kennedy versus Nixon.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The deplorables understand Trump.

They identify with his narcissistic self-loathing.

dreams said...

This November is going to be great for Republicans and our country. Also, I'm looking forward to Monday and Trump's justice nominee.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh, that thing with pipes and keys is not the only organ Trump's missing.

Look at how much time I saved you with that much better summary of whatever it is he said.

rcocean said...

Actually the amazing thing about Trump is he gets up and speaks for 2 hours without a telepromter and all his enemies can attack his syntax or the occasional lapse in taste. Most of their attacks consist of deliberately misunderstanding what he says, or wrenching it out of context.

And his saving grace is he's funny. Definitely our funniest POTUS, since Reagan. Maybe funnier than Reagan.

pacwest said...

"Trump is the first POTUS in my lifetime to be inarticulate, disingenuous and/or mistaken in his speeches."

That would make you what? Less than 2 years old?? You really bought that stupid shit that every candidate who ever ran for any office in the land spouted? And suddenly now your eyes are opened. You don't believe there are going to be chickens in every pot anymore. Good for you. I figured that one out a long time ago. I can understand your dissapointment, but you'll just have to learn to live with it. It isn't going to change. Or...

Trump: "Muslim ban. Garble, garble. Some incoherent/contradictory shit."
SCOTUS:"Sounds good. You can do that."

Trump: "Conservative Judges. Garble, garble. Some incoherent shit he knows nothing about."
Congress: "Great picks! They're in."

Trump: "Illegal immigration. Garble, garble. We gotta do something."
The American people: "We agree."

Etc. Etc. Etc. Maybe it is time to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.

I share a lot of misgivings with you about President Trump's style and methods, but unlike you I believe the 'straight shooters' you so admire have been totally ineffectual in bringing about the changes necessary to the path we have been on. The man is trying to turn the ship of state on a dime. Let's just hope he doesn't run into an iceberg.

You have my promise it will all turn out bigly yugely wonderful, so rest easy.

Darkisland said...

Blogger Chuck said...

When Trump is under cross-examination by a competent litigator, he is transformed; into a dumb, useless, turd.

Statements like this make me wonder if you are really a lawyer or just play one on the internet.

IANAL as most here know and have never been deposed so perhaps depositions are different and I do not know.

As Manager, Facility Operations of a pharma manufacturing plant I had plenty of direct interaction with the FDA, its European equivalent, DEA, OSHA and a host of other federal, state and local agencies.

"Dumb, useless turd" was precisely the effect I was trained to go for in these interactions. Never volunteer information. Never answer with two words where one will suffice. Be absolutely sure that I understand the question before answering. Get the question as narrow and specific as possible. (Repeat it, have the agent repeat it etc) then answer only that question.

And so on.

The agents tended to be the same, acting incredibly stupid and for similar reasons.

If you read transcripts we would both look like we had 60 point IQs.

I would have thought that being deposed was similar and one should employ a similar strategy.

If so, I would say your characterization of Trump in depositions was a compliment. You (I think, apologies if not) have worried about President Trump being deposed by Mueller on the grounds that he will talk himself into trouble. If you are right about the depositions, it sounds like he knows exactly how to do this.

I've not read any of Trump's depositions so am basing the above on Chuck's characterizations. That could be a mistake.

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

This is the post where Althouse first suggested being one of Trump's groupies. Pretty gross, but very telling.

If he thinks his brain is so much more important than his mouth, then let's get that amputation underway immediately. Remove those repulsive lips and tongue, put his brain in a vat and have it re-attached to Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer, and see how many people respond to the intellectual firepower of his strong and mighty rantings and ravings.

He would lose crowds faster than Roseanne Barr lost her career. He could get even more racist like Tay the Microsoft AI bot, but the effect would be lost.

All you people respond to is Trump's projections. Without his helicopter, his mouth, his long blonde toupee locks, puffy suits and Queens lip (which doesn't impress any of us who've actually been within a 60 mile radius of Queens), he's nothing. You're shallow dupes easily reeled in with all the trappings of greatness he cons you into validating, without any real deal. This is how he got 5 chances to bankrupt himself on his daddy's money.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

A great moment in the Montana speech was seeing/hearing the President of the United States use the word "schmuck" in a public presentation.

I have always loved New York, and one of the things I love about Trump is that he is so ... New York. Also found it hilarious during the campaign when he said Hillary got "schlonged."

What a guy.

buwaya said...

You really do have to watch and listen to Trump.
Moreover, I think it is necessary to be in the venue, in the audience, to get the whole experience completely. He works dynamically with the crowd. It is a joint production, the audience and Trump, that makes the Trump show, and it seems this is something that Trump hit upon almost by accident, though of course he had decades of experience playing crowds. But not like this.

These are not at all ordinary political events. You all, love him or hate him, should try to get to one, they are unique and historic. This is an unusual moment that will be difficult to understand, entirely, without being there.

dreams said...

"Just to give an example- Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It was famously panned as inappropriate and garnered Lincoln no goodwill by the audience that listened to him giving it, and the reason is quite simple- Lincoln carefully composed and delivered it with apparently no desire to engage the audience in front of him for participation. However, Lincoln was writing for readers, whether he was aware of this or not. It is in the reading that one gets the points Lincoln was conveying. Of course, Lincoln did this because the only dissemination this speech would ever get would be the printed word. The only listening audience was in the field before him."

I recorded the movie Lincoln but I haven't watched it because I can't get past the phony beginning where two white ordinary soldiers are attempting to recite the Gettysburg address to Lincoln and they are followed by a black soldier who provides the finishing lines with such obvious conviction. Phony baloney!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Trump: "Muslim ban. Garble, garble. Some incoherent/contradictory shit."
SCOTUS:"Sounds good. You can do that."

Trump: "Conservative Judges. Garble, garble. Some incoherent shit he knows nothing about."
Congress: "Great picks! They're in."

Trump: "Illegal immigration. Garble, garble. We gotta do something."
The American people: "We agree."


You could apply nearly all these arguments to Hitler. Congress agrees with anything Trump does because without their Demagogue in Chief the Republicans have no appeal and are essentially nothing. People respond to demagogues - that's kind of how the name came about. The right and some cross-over votes went to Trump because of a horrible corporatist Democrat candidate and because Trump was the first Republican to dick around with the right in a different, more active and ethno-nationalistic way than the Republicans had been doing for the last 30 years. It was like he came along and flat-out said all the things they'd been hinting and intimating and tantalizing the rabid right-wing base with for 30 years while doing nothing.

buwaya said...

Ritmo is partially correct. But the trappings aren't really anything he mentions. Lots of politicians have had trappings, and much more so. Trump is on the whole minimalist.
This stuff is a collective phenomenon, the element that matters is the crowd, the mass, the mob if you like. And he got them, his crowds, the very first day, in his announcement speech.

Its the rock-concert thing.

It always seemed like a weird sort of detachment to read reviews of these, by someone who gets all technical about the guitar technique. Its almost autistic.

Darkisland said...

Blogger William said...

I suppose Spotify is best. It exists in the ether. Records there can't be broken, scratched, or misplaced.

Actually Spotify, and other similar services like I-Tunes and Amazon, is horrible in this regard. When my mother moved out of her house, she still had stacks of 78 RPM records that had been my father's in the 1920's. Also had an old windup Victrola that could still play them. Without internet, without electricity without even batteries.

Spotify can decide you don't exist or can delete your account for 100 different reasons.

At least with physical media you control the media and if it gets broken it is your fault, not some faceless corporations. You also can share it with a friend or sell it if you so choose.

I never pay for music where I can't download the MP3 file and back it up to each of my various backup drives (3 at present plus 2 computers plus CD-ROMs). If they get "broken" it is my own fault.

Which reminds me, I need to get more religious about backing up my Kindle library.

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

A great moment in the Montana speech was seeing/hearing the President of the United States use the word "schmuck" in a public presentation.

I have always loved New York, and one of the things I love about Trump is that he is so ... New York. Also found it hilarious during the campaign when he said Hillary got "schlonged."

What a guy.


Jesus Christ. If anything speaks to how culturally deprived the flyover gentiles are, it's this.

Honey, New York City will happily also export to you as many acts of public urination, sarcastic retorts, vulgar Yiddishisms and direct, in-your-face put-downs as it takes for you to feel as enlightened as you were by Trump's use of two words.

The flyover people are sedate, though. I think they realize these things exist, and are just tickled that an actual semi-human could fly over the country and use them personally while simultaneously pretending to lead it.

Either way, your post is informative. Trump-appeal, explained: Projecting NYC's most vulgar, real-life behaviors onto the most repressed parts of the country. Ok, I get it. He makes you people feel alive because of how culturally immaculate and mortifyingly stagnant your surroundings are.

pacwest said...

PP, I was just checked out by a doctor last week, and he said I didn't have rabies, but thanks for your concern. You are probably right though. Trump is exactly like Hitler. Should I emmigrate? I don't want to be put in a concentration camp, and it is one of my main concerns with our present President!

buwaya said...

The comparison with Hitler is apt, as far as the charisma goes, as far as the mutual sense of connection with the audience. It is the release of a preference cascade based on the articulation of suppressed opinions. What cannot be said, is said, what cannot be felt is felt. This is not however an ideological matter, but a human phenomenon.

I have been privileged to see this sort of thing in entirely different circumstances.
Many times in fact.

When Cory Aquino spoke, for the first time, after the murder of her husband. She was always a poor speaker, but the crowd made up for it, set off simply by the fact that she was in front of them. That instant it was clear that they would die in her cause.

Darkisland said...

Dreams,

I just watched Lincoln the other night and it was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Watch it tonight. Available on Netflix.

One of the things I liked about the movie was how it captured debate in the House of Representatives over the 13th Amendment. Based on what I have read about political debate within the House/Senate and outside, it seems to have captured it pretty well.

You think debate today is uncivil? Today is like Sunday school compared to debate back in the day.

It is not in this movie but I would remind everyone that in 1856 a Democrat senator beat a Republican senator to within an inch of his life, with a heavy cane, on the floor of the senate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Charles_Sumner

"Civility bullshit" indeed.

John Henry

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Even the mobys are mailing it in. Losers. Must have shorted the market when Trump was elected.

buwaya said...

Trump set it off in his announcement,
Listen to that, and consider what, that was avoided or suppressed, was released at that moment. This is a historic address.

Note that the first words out of his mouth were about the crowd.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Marco Rubio, I noticed during the campaign that when he's quoted he speaks in perfect sentences, commas, semicolons and all. Ted Cruz too but not as much. I wonder if it comes from growing up in a home where Spanish was the spoken language and English was learned in school.

Darkisland said...


Blogger pacwest said...

Should I emmigrate? I don't want to be put in a concentration camp, and it is one of my main concerns with our present President!

Good idea, Pacwest, emmigrate. President Trump's concentration camps will be awful. They won't even have free wi-fi!!!!!

The horror, the horror!

John Henry

Darkisland said...

poor Squeamish.

Bless her heart. She still tries but...

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

PP, I was just checked out by a doctor last week, and he said I didn't have rabies, but thanks for your concern. You are probably right though. Trump is exactly like Hitler. Should I emmigrate? I don't want to be put in a concentration camp, and it is one of my main concerns with our present President!

It depends. How big a threat to anything in this country do you really think that Mexicans are?

And how bad was the right's pretension to worrying about "gulags and reeducation camps" under Obama?

Trump doesn't have to be exactly like Hitler - (he's far less ambitious, for one) - but the paranoid style and rhetorical excess is all there - and to an extent that never existed in an American president before. The other factors are the same long neglected underclass/working class, and an appeal to international agreements that Hitler argued (correctly) were bad for Germany and that Trump argues (in a highly exaggerated way) are bad for America. And the constant lying and hatred for how journalism works.

The Treaty of Versailles needed revision. But if the post-WWII liberal international world order that preserves peace, strong democratic alliances and American hegemony is really bad for America then Trump had better have a better alternative in mind. But no one would know if he did because no such vision has crossed his fat lips. He'd sooner spout some shit about what some Hollywood celebrity should be doing.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh yes, and ethnic scapegoating.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

More benighted "but what about me!?"-isms from a dark and lonely island.

"Hey, can't I get into this conversation, also? Why doesn't anyone want to talk about anything I have to say?!!!"

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Hitlerian disregard for independent judiciary: "'Take the guns first, go through due process second'". -- DJT

Just the way he constructed that sentence alone speaks hilarious volumes about his political mindset.

Darkisland said...

Caught one

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If only everyone defined success as an old, bald, lonely expat vying for attention on the internet, then the world would look a lot different.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

On a dark, lonely island
Cool wind in his thin hair
Stalking others through his keyboard
And the stench of his despair
Up ahead in the distance
He saw a shimmering light
His head grew heavy and his sight grew dim
He had to pick a cyber fight

buwaya said...

The point of Trump, as a politician, is that he is himself, on his own, extremely talented, a showman, an effective demagogue. Others have depended on packaging and second-hand adulation, but he doesn't require it.

His public performances are rhetorical, because one really can't be otherwise, if you have to be your own salesman. There is no massive infrastructure of propaganda that will sing his praises while he recites boring boilerplate. There is no media space for boilerplate.

These are not the days of Lincoln-Douglas. The public is not that of 1861, accustomed to cognitive complexity. Ross Perot tried that with his flip charts, arguing in an intellectually impeccable style, making his case with facts and figures and logic, inviting a response on the same level of honorable, responsible discourse. The proper way to argue. That did not work.

Wince said...

Chuck said...
That, and it's free. It costs nothing to put on your MAGA hat and your NRA vest over your Savage Nation t-shirt and go see Trump.

Tickets for Elton John are $50 to $1500.


Whether box office or resale, EJ tickets reflect a market clearing price that reflects consumer value, certainty and convenience.

People who pay top dollar to see EJ are paying for the convenience of being able to walk to their reserved seats after work or dining out.

A good example is a scalper who will pay people to stand in line to buy tickets that can be resold at a profit to more affluent people unwilling/unable to stand in that line and are willing to pay for know where they will sit.

It is also reflected in the advent of dynamic price scaling that restricts box office supply to only those with the economic wherewithal and the willingness to pay the highest prices for the best seats.

Conversely, the DJT people are "paying" shadow price for those tickets by waiting in line themselves. Trump has eliminated the scalper/exchange factor from the transaction by implementing first come, first serve seating.

DJT has leveled the field by denominating the price of attendance in terms of the opportunity cost of his supporters' time rather than a dollar amount that the highest earners are willing to pay. All of which adds to his populist appeal.

Moreover, the DJT attendees are dedicating themselves and their time to the pilgrimage and the message.

cf said...

Some fine commentary here, guerillas aside.

I understand Pythagoras was alive in the time the Greeks were transferring their Oral Treasure -- like the Iliad and the Oddessey -- into written texts.

And he refused for his lessons be enscribed, because for him, Oral delivery interpreted/experienced directly was Key.

In our time, unlike any other moment in human history, through video and the world-wide-web, we get to experience directly the lessons President Trump wants to teach, aND not hAve to depend on the congealed dry abstract shapes of words and punctuation to experience this record.

The cowardly communists should Look Directly at this entire hour of this remarkable man.

Dad29 said...

I think some people do speak in unbroken, well-structured sentences that are free of grammatical errors that could be transcribed directly into excellent writing,...

There's an analogy. It is said that only Mozart could write music and NEVER correct it--it was ready to go out of the box.

All the rest erased, re-wrote, tore up, began again....

Yancey Ward said...

The always excellent Buwaya notes:

"His public performances are rhetorical, because one really can't be otherwise, if you have to be your own salesman. There is no massive infrastructure of propaganda that will sing his praises while he recites boring boilerplate. There is no media space for boilerplate."

Exactly right.

pacwest said...

"It depends. How big a threat to anything in this country do you really think that Mexicans are?"

I wish you had phrased your question a little better. Do you mean Mexico the country? In that case I would say minimal. I don't think we have to fear any military action from Mexico, although the countrywide corruption spillover (drugs, sex trafficking, poverty, etc) do present some problems for us. Or did you mean individual Mexicans who I consider to be natural allies due to the similarities in culture and values. But you might be referring to the wave illegal immigration across our southern border, in which case I would say it is a grave threat to the stability and prosperity of our country. But it was probably a disengenous question anyway. What does it have to do with Trump=Hitler?

"And how bad was the right's pretension to worrying about "gulags and reeducation camps" under Obama?"

I doubt anyone was worried about that. I personally didn't see any great hue and cry about it anyway.

"Oh yes, and ethnic scapegoating."

Good Lord. We have an immigration problem across our southern border due to the numbers, and an obvious problem with immigration from countries who's people won't assimilate once they are here. Because their skin color happens to be not white it is ethnic/racial scapgoating? Check your assumptions. It might affect your conclusions.

Molly said...

(eaglebeak)

Dear President Pee-Pee Tape--

I lived in New York when it was way more louche than it is now--from 1971 to 1985--so perhaps wave your patronizing whatsis somewhere else.

As to being a "flyover gentile," why yes, I am a gentile, but my husband was a Jew from The Bronx, born and bred, so, as they say in New York, geh kaken afen yam.

Yancey Ward said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
buwaya said...

Anyway, do yourself a favor, and go see Trump if you can manage it and can stand the wait. He will be campaigning much more in the next few months, so there should be opportunities.

It is in the same order of a historical moment, of an event, as attending one of those Lincoln-Douglas debates. Or, if that is your point of view, being there at a Nuremberg rally.

Yancey Ward said...

When Trump does one of these within 25 miles of me here in TN, I intend to go just to witness one from inside the crowd.

buwaya said...

Personally I don't think Mexico or Mexicans are a real problem for you.

Your real problem is that you have an inter-white caste war, where one caste is trying to use Mexicans, and others, as a weapon against the other, much as Blair's Labor deliberately used immigration as a weapon against the Tories.

Its like the Poles vs the EU.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What does it have to do with Trump=Hitler?

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Mexicans, documented or undocumented, are not more likely to to bring more crime but less. Trump's equating them to criminality was classic Hitlerian ethnic scapegoating, as was his insinuation that an American born judge of Mexican heritage could not unbiasedly decide his case. If he wanted to stick to the Pat Buchanan route and say they're competing for jobs that American born employees have gotten too lazy to do, that's one thing. But that's not what Trump did with his deliberate lies and ethnic scapegoating. There was a reason he did it.

And his Charlottesville comments illustrated a similar problem.

Nazis and haters are just part of his voting bloc that he doesn't want to alienate. This hasn't happened in American politics at the national level for some time - save the muted appeals of the GOP from the 70s onward. Trump is just more overt. He does want their votes, as well as the votes of people who just hate being outcompeted by an immigrant - which is at least a more legitimate concern. But flanking the economically fearful by going full Nazi demonstrator apologist shows his creds, it seems.

Immigration (by Muslims) is a social and criminal problem in Europe, not the U.S. If you want to say he's doing Europe a favor by the example of his behavior, then I'd say you have a stronger point.

Just admit that he willfully exaggerates to an absurdity what kind of a problem if any Mexican immigration is and then we can agree.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Gee Yancey, not willing to drive more than 25 miles for it? You must really expect him to do a LOT of venues.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As to being a "flyover gentile," why yes, I am a gentile, but my husband was a Jew from The Bronx, born and bred, so, as they say in New York, geh kaken afen yam.

Oh, Trump is full of plenty of shit. That I can tell you. And he's dumping and spreading it over much fertile ground for it.

Whatever you're missing from 1971 to 1985 - or never fully committed to - Trump is not reviving it. He's not bringing it back. That I can tell you. He's a con artist. If you lived there longer or didn't abandon it or the people you found there then maybe you'd learn to discern from con artists as well as they can. There's a reason why his own geographical orbit soundly rejected the guy.

He might end up doing a good thing or two, or turning a few things around in whatever moebius strip of a cultural-political manipulation he's out to perform. But I wouldn't count on it. Every marketing guy needs an audience. There are changes that need to be made in America, but its willingness to suspend disbelief should top the list.

buwaya said...

What is not absurd about Mexicans and immigrants as a problem -

- They expand the labor force, relieve labor shortages and thereby reduce wages. This was one of Ross Perots arguments and it has not been answered.

- They "dumb down" schools, which reduce and modify content to suit them, reducing the effectiveness and utility of both K-12 and university education, and undermining American cultural capital. This hurts you terribly because it is your productivity and creativity that makes you.

- their presence is an excuse, or rather a weapon, in the hands of the educational hegemonists to justify their propaganda line, which amounts to hatred of the US volk and of Western Civ. Despite the fact that Latin Americans are just as much parts of Western Civ as anyone in the "West", their "high culture" is erased as thoroughly as the Anglo one. The powers that be toss Shakespeare out the window, but Cervantes never gets in the door - common sense doesn't come into it, this is war.

Just some of the problems. All are true, demonstrable, visible for decades.
The trouble with these sound arguments is that they are difficult to make in a world of soundbites and a massive propaganda system in opposition.

pacwest said...

""When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.""

That's not even hyperbole. Now that we have occupied (and possibly overpopulated) the country, it might be a good idea to think of revising the whole send me your huddled masses thing.

"Immigration (by Muslims) is a social and criminal problem in Europe, not the U.S."

A minimal one so far. It is a civil disruption at the very least. If you are deriding Trump for his use of wording be careful of your own. If we do something about it now it will remain minimal. Kind of the point, no?

"Just admit that he willfully exaggerates to an absurdity what kind of a problem if any Mexican immigration is and then we can agree."

If you pull the phrase "to an absurdity" and "any" out of your statement then we are in agreement. I do believe, by the numbers, that unfettered (illegal) immigration is a problem. A large one. Your inclusion of willfully seems superfluous at best. Disclamer: I find myself exaggerating when trying to make a point despite my best intentions. I see that failing in almost eveyone. Yourself included.

Darrell said...

When I heard Trump speaking about a moratorium on Muslim immigration until a thorough vetting could be completed, I understood and supported it as simple common sense. After hearing about the thorough vetting the Obama administration had been doing, we find out that, in many cases, the vetting took 15 whole minutes. And their statements were rarely checked. Real people knew Trump was right.

When Trump settled that Trump U case, everyone knew his legal team advised him to do so independent of the merits of the case. His political advisers did as well. Chuck admitted that he lies when it comes to Trump and he is lying here. Lawyers often advise their clients to settle even when they are in the right. Lawyers often advise their clients to obtain Non-Disclosure Agreements from absolute liars a month before an election when the Media will surely put the accuser's lies on a loop. $150,000 is nothing when a single campaign commercial can cost $1-2 million with air time.

Watch Trump's speeches and rallies. They are effective and impressive. Few people in this world--even those half his age-- could do what Trump is doing. Your brain has to be controlled with your bile to not agree.

buwaya said...

A great part of your immigration problem is that the idea of the US as a "proposition nation" has failed. You are no longer integrating your immigrants into an American identity, because those parts of the system that did the integrating have collapsed due to sclerosis and overload, or have been subverted into doing the exact opposite, all in the name of cultural war.

I cannot overstate the disaster this is, and how evil those people are who have done this.

William said...

Who was the greater visionary, the more informed intellect, the more effective leader of their country--Vladimir Lenin or Warren G. Harding? The most interesting part of this debate is that such a debate has never taken place.......I wonder not so much why all the leading intellectuals were so effusive in their praise of the mass murderer nor so unstinting in their hatred of Harding's banality but why, in all the years since, they have never wondered why they got it all so wrong,......The adulation that Hitler received at his mass rallies wasn't a patch on the worship that Lenin received from several generations of artists and intellectuals........I'd rather follow a man of ordinary intellect who's right than a genius who's utterly wrong .

pacwest said...

"I cannot overstate the disaster this is, and how evil those people are who have done this."

Even buwaya exaggerates. My belief is that the proposition nation is not dead, and is able to heal itself by its very nature, despite the rends and tares. That is what is happening right now. Or, he's right and we are doomed. Been a fun ride while it lasted.

Jim at said...

The guy cracks me up. He simply doesn't give a shit what the left thinks, says or does.

It's very refreshing.

Jim at said...

Three of the first four comments on this thread are written by Trump Haters. About a simple speech in Montana where Trump is totally off-the-cuff.

It's perfect.

Enjoy your misery. You deserve it.

Darkisland said...

Immigration (by Muslims) is a social and criminal problem in Europe, not the U.S. If you want to say he's doing Europe a favor by the example of his behavior, then I'd say you have a stronger point.

My wife and I were driving around New England a few weeks ago NYC to Augusta Maine and back. We stopped at a Hometown Buffet in Portland for an early dinner. It was packed at 5PM with the exception of a few tables everyone was Muslim. Not a problem, I was just surprised there were so many in Maine. So I looked in Wikipedia (Of course it has an article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Somalis_in_Maine

I can't find current population but in 2005 Portland (Pop 67m in 2017) had over 5,000 Somalis.

Lewiston also has a large population of Somalis, about 5,000 (2013 population @36m)

Results seem to be a bit mixed. The Somalis are opening new businesses and such, which is positive, but they also seem to be involved in gangs which is not.

The real question, for me, is whether they eventually become Americans, with all that means, blending into the great American melting pot. Or whether they will try to remain separate and apart.

John Henry




Jim at said...

This post is the biggest waste of pixels known to mankind.

Ritmo actually wrote that. Without the slightest hint of irony.
Ritmo. Of all people.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Ritmo actually wrote that.

Unlike you, I'm actually capable of responding to what it is that people write.

My pixels are either my own thoughts or direct responses to other people's pixels. Because right-wingers are so numerous here and write so much easily disproven crap, my responses to them are necessarily sometimes long and frequent.

But I don't extend by 15 paragraphs things which don't exist, like the idea that a "mouth and brain musical" inspired by Trump's impressions of Elton John is in any way interesting or bloggable at that length. A terse response by Instapiffle would have been much more appropriate.

Darkisland said...

Blogger cf said...


The cowardly communists should Look Directly at this entire hour of this remarkable man.

Is a cowardly communist the same as a Squeamish (fascist) Revolutionary?

John Henry

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you pull the phrase "to an absurdity" and "any" out of your statement then we are in agreement.

I said "if any" though, not "any" in the sense that no form of Mexican immigration could ever be a problem.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

An entirely dark lonely island and one fat bald loser expat in either his seventh decade (or earlier through premature aging) is obsessed with whether a single person on an internet chat board is around, and whether he can provoke negative attention from him.

Talk about someone who revels in his lack of self-importance. I wonder how little one has to accomplish, personally, in life to be so motivated and obsessed.

MountainMan said...

"Now, I think some people do speak in unbroken, well-structured sentences that are free of grammatical errors that could be transcribed directly into excellent writing, but I don't think those stuck listening to them are very happy with it."

I had this very experience one morning this past week when I ran into an old friend from work. He speaks with unbelievably perfect diction and cadence, much like an old English lord, without the accent. It's almost as if he is reading from a script all the time, with every word and phrase perfectly selected and printed out in perfectly aligned, proportionally-spaced paragraphs, from which he reads without error. You'd think he gets up in the morning and practices the day's speech in the mirror so it can be delivered with perfection. He has always been this way. It is really creepy. And when he is delivering a compliment it makes it sound insincere, as if he is just parroting something. I like the guy a lot, but I wish he could move more in the direction of Trump!

pacwest said...

"I said "if any" though, not "any" in the sense that no form of Mexican immigration could ever be a problem."

Saw that after. At any rate we cannot come to an agreement on your statement then.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I can come to agreement that unfettered (Mexican) immigration is a problem if you can objectively identify and quantify the harms. Can you do so?

Bilwick said...

Basically ninety per cent of "liberal" Trump hatred can be boiled down to, "Let's get rid of Trump so we can get back to picking your pockets unimpeded."

HT said...

Yes and no William Chadwick. If I were, like you, to be so bold as to characterize what I presume to be "liberal" hatred, I would say that most libruls think the likes of the average president, minus one or two are just your garden variety corrupt, but Dump is something else there again. IOW, libruls know Democratic presidents like Republican ones are and can be corrupt. But they think each is going to be true, according to their party's philosophies, to the principles of our founding. Dump, no.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Basically ninety per cent of "liberal" Trump hatred can be boiled down to, "Let's get rid of Trump so we can get back to picking your pockets unimpeded."

LOL. It's always the poorest of Republican bastards who think they're getting ripped off by the government. I'll bet a gourmet 5-star luxury restaurant dinner that William Chadwick makes less than $50k annually and has never been anywhere near the Trump-like income brackets that will benefit the most (and the most permanently) by the newest deficit exploding tax cut. It's an internal character flaw of the rank and file right-wing to do the bidding of the super-rich, just as it is an internal character flaw of the richest Republicans to place no value on themselves other than what they have in material assets. A closed loop of empty, narcissistic virtuelessness, where no value is placed on the individual person, just on the material things they have (if rich) or the material things that those richer than them have (if poor). Very empty people.

pacwest said...

"I can come to agreement that unfettered (Mexican) immigration is a problem if you can objectively identify and quantify the harms. Can you do so?"

Yes, objectively and numerically. Thanks for the open mindedness. On my phone, which isn't conducive to quoting numbers, and it is a pretty large topic with interrelated statistics. I'm running errands and then a night out, but you can hold me to it. Harms (civil and economic) and benefits (as related to a growth economy) and comparisons. I would tend to discuss it as not just Mexican nationals but any traffic through the southern border if that is acceptable. Hard to separate the two.

I do want to stay on the larger point of Trump's speaking style (exaggeration) though.

Bilwick said...

Basically ninety per cent of "liberal" Trump hatred can be boiled down to, "Let's get rid of Trump so we can get back to picking your pockets unimpeded."

"LOL. It's always the poorest of Republican bastards who think they're getting ripped off by the government. I'll bet a gourmet 5-star luxury restaurant dinner that William Chadwick makes less than $50k annually and has never been anywhere near the Trump-like income brackets that will benefit the most (and the most permanently) by the newest deficit exploding tax cut."

Another brillianly Aristotelian post by the Toothless State Fellator. True, I have been of modest means most of my life. (Most people in the arts don't get rich. The wealthy actors, singers and bestselling authors are exceptional.) Does that mean I should not oppose statism and support liberty? If you read--and I know you never will--Jim Powell's TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY, you might be surprised to see that most of libery's defenders have been of modest means, if not outright poor. Since you seem to be a Neo-Tory (after all the State finances most of the nuthouses, and you have to get your meds, your bunk for the night and computer access somewhere), I can just see you telling Thomas Paine, "Hey, Paine, you know that Jefferson and Hancock are rich guys? You need to get rid of that false consciousness and start letting King George hump you. That's what I do, and it's great!"

Limited blogger said...

The comments section should be recorded audio snippets instead of text.

Now you would get some real gibberish.

buwaya said...

There are several approaches to quantifying immigrations effects on wages.
This is a controversial topic and there are tons of studies, you will not resolve them here. One problem with this is that there are lots of other variables in play, getting down to ceteris paribus is tough.

Best to read all you can get online.

If you want an argument for, the go-to guy is Jorge Borjas.

Long story short, large scale immigration is effectively an income transfer from low income people to higher-income people. A tax on the poor for the benefit of the middle class and especially the wealthy.

Effects not usually included in crude calculations of income and very under-studied, are the long term decline in the labor force participation of working-age men and youths. The mechanism, in the case of youths, is very visible. They have been largely supplanted in the old part-time/summer job category by adult immigrants.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

True, I have been of modest means most of my life.

Knew it!

They always are. Just like the serfs of yore, the Chadwicks of Bumblefuckstan are serving their aristocratic lords in ideological and economic servitude, demanding that the state yield in its supposedly harsh treatment - not of fellow poverty cases like himself, but of the Warren Buffets and Bill Gateses of America. Hilarious. But hey, he read a book and heard about a manifesto having to do with a dispute between America and Britain so superimpose those ideas onto how he has to fellate the 1% he must! It makes his wretched poverty feel more justifiable and dignified to him - as if it's a choice and not a shortcoming. Hilarious.

No doubt he also fully supports the biggest state project in history - American military intervention all over the globe and a budget and structure supporting it to the tune of something greater than the next eight nations combined. If that isn't statism I don't know what is. Chadwick of Poverty-stan just prefers the warfare state to the welfare state.

I also don't doubt that he fully supports whatever the current Trump state is doing, as well as whatever he is told to do by it through its official state tv party apparatus mouthpiece - FOX News.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

In the meantime, I get to keep my 5-star luxury dining accommodations on account of correctly guessing the status of Chadwick's economic sado-masochism. Good to know. Even when it comes to what he induces his economic betters, like myself, to wager, he remains a loser. The philosophy he supports is one designed to forever maintain his status as a loser. That's fine. There are enough poor folks with dignity to support a less unbalanced set of priorities and we don't need slaves like Chadwick for that. The folks who support me have dignity, which is something that he is unfamiliar with and will always be unfamiliar with. I've never seen someone spout so much politically philosophical gobbledygook simply for the sake of rationalizing how wretched he'd like to remain.

Chadwick is a lost cause, a plank to be amputated from every movement except the most cynical and self-defeating ones.

buwaya said...

Its interesting I think to consider some of the cultural aspects of the "principles of the founding".

The American Revolution was a complex thing. It was caused by and operated through multiple channels and manifestations. One was the sort of high-minded philosophy with which the honorable gentlemen with excellent penmanship rationalized their actions. Those are the "principles" one gets in schoolbooks.

Another is Yankee Doodle.

Revolutions are not made by philosophers. They are made by mobs, and then justified by philosophers. They come from, mainly, low, fundamental motives, which are then dressed up to seem noble.

A "yankee", note, was an 18th century way of saying "deplorable". Yankees were yokels. The song was, in its original form, the sort of thing sung by British soldiers about Americans. It was similar in spirit to when American soldiers sang "The monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga".

The American Revolution, like the French, would have been nothing without a general, low resentment, in great swathes of the population. People who get no respect, and are fed up. And take to "Yankee Doodle", turning it on their enemies, and turning the world upside down. The words on parchment and marble come later.

In this essential respect the appeal of Trump is exactly that of the American Revolution, in its guts. Nothing is more American than that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

If you read--and I know you never will--Jim Powell's TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY, you might be surprised to see that most of libery's defenders have been of modest means, if not outright poor.

You're not and never knew how to defend liberty; you're committed to defending the economic supremacy of others over you.

I can just see you telling Thomas Paine, "Hey, Paine, you know that Jefferson and Hancock are rich guys? You need to get rid of that false consciousness and start letting King George hump you.

Um, no. There was just as much economic intercourse before as after. That conflict was about political independence, and how you lack it. You are committed instead to doing someone else's bidding.

Now get off the internet and go cut my taxes, slave! That's it! Find a way to better MY economic circumstances - because surely yours will never improve and you are as committed as ever to keeping them that way while you focus instead on ways to make people like ME - your economic superior - even better off than before.

Thank you for your political service to me and your other economic betters, Chadwick. Most appreciated. You didn't even need any convincing!

buwaya said...

In the same way you can see the core of the French Revolution was in the "ca ira".

Les aristocrates a la lanterne
Les aristocrates on les pendra

Not in any declaration of the rights of man.

Francisco D said...

Does anyone else recall Ritmo posting before sundown?

I guess he's not a vampire.

Maybe he just forgot to put down the bong and crash last night. :-)

buwaya said...

Another, very common historical mistake, is to assume that a leader convinced the people to do x.

More likely is that a critical mass of people built up, prompted by some long-running process, ripe for a leader to release their desire, or consciousness of their desire, for x.

bridgecross said...

After talking about organs, and then size, he missed a perfect segue. He just left it hanging there.

(so to speak)

Michael Fitzgerald said...

LMAO@ all the progs and Democrat party members drawn to this post as sure as shit-flies. Trump's rule, you drool. Suck it, losers.

buwaya said...

As for the "ca ira", check out Youtube for the Edith Piaf version.

pacwest said...

"Knew it!"

Dammit pp, you were being all civil and stuff for awhile, and then you are off the meds again. I'm going to a mere 2 star joint tonight to mix with the yokels btw, but the music is really good.

Buwaya said: "This is a controversial topic and there are tons of studies, you will not resolve them here."

Nor are we going to resolve any issues on an Internet board that are as complex as immigration, economic distribution or balances of power. Nonetheless civil discourse is fun, and *nearly* everything I have found puts controlled immigration at a net positive and uncontrolled immigration as a net negative when you take the humanitarian aspects out of the equation. And I'm always looking to check my premises. What better place?

John Pickering said...

Ann, running rings around herself to defend her love for her brilliant comic genius of a president, misses or chooses to ignore the point of the Malcolm item, about how an interview subject being tape recorded speaks, in snatches and patches. This is the standard that Ann holds the President of the United States to when he gives a Speech. It's a low bar.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Daniel and Saturday are the E.J. songs Rush probably liked the least at his most recent wedding reception, but I'd not be one to know about spending $1,000,000 for an hour of Elton.

Too inferior.

My liking of Daniel probably outs me as such.

Michael K said...

In this essential respect the appeal of Trump is exactly that of the American Revolution, in its guts. Nothing is more American than that.

That is why "The Last of the Mohicans " movie is so good and such a good version of history, It shows that.

HT said...

I don't know, it sounds an awful lot like he’d like trying to suck his own cock, literally and figuratively. He’s trying to bring the presidency down to his level so he can manage it better.

The comments here are a window into the ability of the commenter to actually think.

Ok!

not a single person who really hates Trump bothers to watch and listen to Trump's speeches-

He doesn't lose a single person with his freewheeling speaking

Normal people would try to figure out why the President was elected, but the leftists, and swamp denizens think the solution is to rid themselves of the President, not address the issues that Elected President Trump


-sounds like you are living in a bubble of your own.

Michael K said...


Blogger buwaya said...
In the same way you can see the core of the French Revolution was in the "ca ira".


La Marseillaise is much more violent.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I downloaded Kid Rock and Nickelback (or just the singer witb Rock's band) plzying Saturday Night Is Allright , fer the dern fightnin' 'n allz.

I hope the disgust caused pukes.

Also, Tolkien usex the sord "bedewed" after the word brfofe or because or be.....?

Bedewed.

Brambles.

Michael K said...

They have been largely supplanted in the old part-time/summer job category by adult immigrants.

Fewer and fewer of the "Millennial" generation ever had summer jobs or after school jobs. They don't know what we are talking about.

The problems that employers have with new employees, showing up on time, etc, are a mystery to them.

Thats's why this video is so effective.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Their loakd and their hats became bedewed" isn" t rigjtbut I cannot in this $29.99 Blsck Friday Fire by Azon erite more productive cisely.

rcocean said...

BTW, I Love Moliere - especially the Richard Wilbur translations. Unfortunately, all the theater productions usually just do "Tartuffe". Because it attacks those nasty Christian hypocrites - and nothing else.

One could do a modern Moliere on the hypocritical Bourgeois of today. Proclaiming their love of the "working class and poor" while supporting cheap labor policies and cheap nannies and pool boys. Not to mention their hypocritical attacks on Trump for "authoritarianism" while they try to impeach him.

A satirist could have a field day in 2018. But he couldn't get his play produced.

rcocean said...

Instead of satirists, we get "edgy" Establishment Lackeys who mock those who afflict the comfortable.

Jeff Vaca said...

Someone may have already said this, and it is probably a minor point, but for what it's worth that's not an organ on "Daniel" - it's Elton playing electric piano and "flute" mellotron.

buwaya said...

It is a bit of a judgment call there of course, as far as the symbolic value of political songs. The differences between the ca ira and the Marseillaise, both bloodthirsty, both not a bit philosophical, as I see them -

- The ca ira preexisted the Marseillaise, pre-existed the foreign interventions or the threat thereof, etc. It was the song of the storming of the Bastille in 1789, of the collapse of Royal authority, of the actual revolutionary moment. The Marseillaise was the patriotic "formez vous bataillons" of defense against foreign reaction, in 1792.

- the ca ira is a genuine folksong adapted for its political purpose, with adaptable, mutating lyrics, much like "La Cucaracha". The Marseillaise was composed, written, (and rearranged, by professionals) with deliberate intent.

The later history of the Marseillaise of course, as THE European revolutionary anthem through the 19th century, is something else. Its got a fascinating history.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Their cloaks and their hats became bedewed. etc. Tolkien

!

How in vain/vein are my hopes?

Guildofcannonballs said...

Achieving perfection is tough, but to self-deny (myself*) is tougher.

Perfection-wise.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Watching the last waltz I agree everyone but robbie ought made a Jew ton more money singing 'bout them dead Southerners and their dead ways.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Repeated through ages: Tom Bombattle or Tom Bamba-dill?

Latter must-be.

Think a.onsgt yo'selves y.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Eltin Limehouse

Darkisland said...

"Expat" Squeamish? Really?

You do realize that I am a US citizen born and living in the USA. Could you let me know what country you think I am an expat of? Maybe I'll learn something.

As for "bald". Nope. Got a full head of hair. I wear it short but it is all there with no bald spots.

https://www.smedworks.com/john-henry

John Henry

Darkisland said...

There are a number of things I know to be true. The sun will rise in the east tomorrow, President Trump will continue MAGA and Squeamish will shit all over any thread.

Something else I know to be true: Whenever I throw a hook over the side of my 98' Feadship, Squeamish will go for it like a rabid sunfish with PMS. I don't even have to bait it.

She'll complain about me making her do it but she will never stop making it fun.

Sad.

John Henry

Chuck said...

Blogger Yancey Ward said...
Here is the thing- not a single person who really hates Trump bothers to watch and listen to Trump's speeches- at best, they will read a transcript and, at worst, just read a description of the transcript taken out of context as much as possible. ...
...

That is untrue. You cannot say that “not a single person who really hates Trump bothers to watch and listen...”

I really hate Trump; and I watch and listen to him live quite often. And as proof on this blog, I refer you to the number of times (a dozen, probably) that I have interjected into an Althouse “cafe” post comments page a comment along the lines of, “Is anybody else watching Trump live right now? You almost cannot believe this shit unless you are witnessing it live...”

I think that only Trump fans could claim that the media somehow got Trump “wrong,” when it is Trump himself, in his own words, on video and with a transcript.

Darkisland said...


Blogger Squeamish Revolutionary said...

you're committed to defending the economic supremacy of others over you.

Spoken like a true fascist. "Please, Daddy State, save me from all these economic actors. Protect me from Walmart. Don't let them force me to buy from them. Yadda, yadda, yadda etc."

The only ones who have any economic power over you are the state and those working in conjunction with the state via licensing, state requirements, state favors and so on.

And like any good fascist, you want more state because you are too stupid to see that the answer to this economic supremacy is less state, not more.

It's OK, Squeamish. We've finally got a president who gets it. Who gets that the key is getting the state out of the economy.

Even if you were not to squeamish to do anything more than shit all over conversations between adults, you will never be able to get any power to actually change anything. You probably thought Obama would increase state power. He wound up, by design or incompetence, decreasing it. He showed the American people the folly of the fascist way and we rejected it. We got President Trump.

And it looks like we will be getting a Supreme Court with his imprint that will be there for the next 30-40 years.

Thank you President Trump.

Suck it.

John Henry

rcocean said...

I post about Moliere - and get freak city.

2018 in a nutshell.

God help the USA.

Guildofcannonballs said...

If I'm gonna cook non-sepsis,
I've gotta have bacon in the hand.

Good guitar,
Loisiwnw amwn-hot

Beldar said...

I'm very late to this thread, but:

Those of Prof. Althouse's students who have become trial lawyers have had to learn how to speak unambiguously and clearly for the record themselves, and indeed, to be merely adequate at their profession, they must learn how to insist that witnesses do so as well. One develops this skillset through practice, like any other, which must include a lot of reading of transcripts. It's also useful if you've been involved in at least a few appeals, in which you will see the importance of making a clear record at trial, lest possibly winning appellate points be waived and lost forever.

A skilled, as opposed to merely adequate, trial lawyer can do all this while also communicating vividly, in a way that doesn't lose the reader's attention.

Of course Trump isn't a lawyer speaking for the record. But any lawyer who does what Trump does — with his word salad — while speaking for the record is likely to be committing malpractice.

Beldar said...

When I say "insist that witnesses do so as well," you may wonder what I mean. Here's an example, a very simple one:

When questioning a witness, and the witness says, "uh-huh," or "nuh-uh," I reflexively, immediately say, "Are you saying 'yes' to my question?" if it's been an uh-huh, or "You were saying no just now, is that correct?" This is so habitual that it's very nearly subconscious on my part. But if I don't do this, the "uh-huh" or "nuh-uh" I've just gotten is a complete waste of everyone's time, because it's inadequate to actually pin down the answer, on the record, in a way that I can use later, e.g., in impeaching the witness if he changes his story at trial.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Check out who thinks he's got a "full head of hair."

Does that look like a "full head of hair" to anyone?

"No bald spots?" The whole front is as bald as a baby hedgehog.

Fascists are the ones who can't call anything by its actual name.

Economic deprivation and enhanced power to the aristocracy always follows deregulation. That's the point. That's why they're for it. It happened in the 1920s, it happened in all the decades after the Republican state started deregulating again in the 1980s. And increased all through the late 1800s. You'd have to reject all economic political history to pretend anything otherwise. It's not a bunch of poor folks trying to deregulate and stop taxing the industries that they don't own, but the lobbyists owned by the owners of those industries. Dumbass. They're not doing it to decrease their power and clout.

But then, that's what a guy with a cancer patient's haircut (who believes he's got a "full head of hair") says. There's no fooling delusion now, is there?

Yep, I don't doubt that you suck your president when thanking him. He's good with you that way.

Rusty said...

Chuck said...
"He is braggadocios, sure.

A word that Trump likes, big-league, but that even his most ardent fans can't spell. I'm not sure that I could spell it. I'm a bit more certain that I'd never use it."

The funny part, Chuck, isn't that you think you're smarter than the average Trump voter. It's that you think you're smarter than most of the people here.