Democrats went all-in on Donald Trump in Virginia this year — but the far more nuanced game played by the former president and his Republican allies appeared to be on track to carry the day late Tuesday in the commonwealth’s race for governor.…That's the first sentence of a WaPo article, "Youngkin’s balancing act with Trump pays off in Va. governor’s race."
I have a tag for "nuance" — going back many years — because I thought it was a funny buzzword, used by Democrats to express their sense of superiority. It's such absurdly vague praise: John Kerry was nuanced. And of course, George W. Bush was a simpleton. But the nuance on the left has faded.
Looking back at my "nuance" tag, I see this from June 2020, reacting to "Defund the Police": "Liberals love to present themselves as the People of Nuance. But if you're going to do slogans and chants — and especially if you're going to do vandalism and looting — you're not doing nuance. And if your knee-jerk reaction for everything you do wrong is to flip it into ORANGE MAN BAD, you are not doing nuance."
It was un-nuanced to reflexively denounce Trump, but he was, it seemed, so crude that the crudeness of calling him crude was hard to see. If he comes to be seen as nuanced, the inadequacy of the un-nuanced denouncements might flummox his antagonists.
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38 comments:
Serious Question
What, exactly, do the democrats HAVE to work with now?
Jo Biden?
"The Squad"?
Nancy Pelosi?
Seems like their bench is pretty sparse right now? Other than calling Trump 'nuanced';
what DO they have to work with?
Kamela Harris?
Beta O'Rourke?
When you close your eyes, and think 'democrats', what to you see?
Fun last paragraph...you do subtly snarky (or is it snarky subtleness?) so well.
This is the standard "the current Republican is literally Hitler, but the prior Republican is reasonable." Just a way of criticizing the Republican that is there now.
Nuance is a dog whistle to imbeciles.
John Kerry was nuanced.
"Nuance" is saying, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
In other words, "nuance" may mean trying to please both sides or saying nothing in such a way that people who agree with you think you are saying something. Pretty much everyone in politics nowadays speaks in slogans and soundbites when they are on the campaign trail. Nuance is rare when politicians are on the stump.
Trump was a performer. He came out of real estate promotion and show business, so everything he said was a performance. The more biting criticism of him wouldn't be that his rhetoric was less nuanced than that of other politicians, but that he didn't understand the nuances of DC politics. Not being a Washingtonian got him elected, but it also gave him problems dealing with the bureaucracy that other politicians usually avoid.
Trump is living rent-free in the heads of so many sad assholes.
"flummox"
I love that word. :)
When you close your eyes, and think 'democrats', what to you see?
People who hate America, and call Americans RACIST and WHITE SUPREMACISTS if we don't tow the Progressive line....
I wonder if there is a correlation between ebb of nuance and the flow of cancel culture.
This election was not about Trump. But the media and the Democratic Party seem to think everything is about Trump. And while Donald J. Trump continues to live rent-free in their heads, the world continues to spin, and change, and the curtain has been pulled back on the Left and 'Progressivism'- such as it is- and what the public sees is...nothing. Their cupboard is bare. They literally have nothing to offer other than calling people racists, white supremacists, or...Trump!
So while the rest of us are moving forward, and in these serious times focusing on serious matters, the Left walks around with Trump in their heads like a parasite, allowing them to function, but controlling their minds.
He (Trump) really is a genius.
The left have silenced Trump - but they still want him around to use as a punching bag.
That's not nuance - that's ASSHOE.
By the time the next Republican presidential candidate is nominated, he will be compared by the MSM unfavorably to the elder statesman Trump.
When I closed my eyes and thought "Democrats" I saw Post Turtles all the way down---and aged Post Turtles at that.
Tell me Donald Trump is running the Republican Party without saying "Donald Trump is running the Republican Party."
Nuance is a fancier way of saying “it’s a [insert category HERE] thing, you wouldn’t understand.” It’s a deeply useful term, since it coveys self-regard and dismissiveness at the same time. If you have nuance, you’re in with the in crowd, to borrow from Dobie Gray.
Victor Davis Hansen has recently argued that the social media bans against Trump have essentially increased Trump's nuance in the public mind.
In the absence of Trump's immediate reactions to daily events, Trump's successful policies gain prominence.
The WaPo and it's readers are shocked to learn that the old dog Trump can learn new tricks. Or has Twitter done Trump a favor forcing him to be more nuanced?
Nuance has been explicitly replaced by Nuage (cloud), if it was ever any different.
Work, in progress, by Biden’s DOJ to give (up to $450K per person, $1M per family) to any illegal immigrants that were “separated from their families” while sneaking into our country and he isn’t even aware of it? He calls these reports “garbage”.
Democrats can shove their nuance right up their insane, inane asses.
gilbar - you left out Schumer, who deserves very much to be seated on that shallow bench.
The "nuanced" argument from Dems was meant as an insult to those ignorant Rethuglicans who couldn't see how wonderful Obama's ideolgy was, "despite" all the foreign policy failures, domestic racial strife and anti-constitutional misbehavior his administration exhibited.
The point of the media and elite reaction to Trump was to turn off a particular subset of gullible people who really want to be accepted in the intellectual classes, are very attached to their tribal biases and value their feelings of superiority over the icky people that support Trump.
rastajenk said...
I wonder if there is a correlation between ebb of nuance and the flow of cancel culture.
A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports and The National Pulse finds that 72% of American Adults believe cancel culture – a form of censorship that harms the careers and reputations of public figures for doing or saying things that are considered offensive – has gotten out of control. Only 15% disagree
mikee i Thought about adding Schumer; but, i'm not sure he'll get through his primary
“gilbar - you left out Schumer, who deserves very much to be seated on that shallow bench.”
FFS… Schumer deserves to be energetically seated on a pike as a warning to others.
The greatly nuanced authoritarian appears in Western culture in Genesis 3:"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."
As if "nuance" were a good thing.
When you close your eyes, and think 'democrats', what to you see?
I see power mad hateful people who embrace racism, eugenics and a culture of death. The opposite of people of good will.
This, too, nuance?
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/579935-judge-orders-jan-6-defendant-with-cancer-freed-after-deplorable
What would Cher Do?
Not sure Our President Emeritus ever need nuance. He got along just fine without it. "Nuance" to me means obfuscation. A statement that can be read to mean more than one thing may be nuanced but it is also useless.
Donald Trump, President Donald Trump and President Emeritus Donald Trump have always been clear about what he meant. You might not like it (I generally did) but you could not claim that you did not understand what he meant.
Not truthfully, anyway. The media and their buttboys tried to do it all the time, quoting him out of context. Some dummies even believed them. Or at least pretended to.
As far as a voice, he has been holding rallies and speaking and we have a pretty good idea what he thinks and what he is up to. He hasn't been and won't be silenced.
What's the old line about "you can cut me down and I'll come back twice as strong."? PDJT and PEDJT have been banned from Twitter. I suspect that Twitter is not going to like what comes next.
What comes next is Truth.social Does anyone think it will fail? Does anyone not think it will become a powerful competitor to Twitter? Definitily in the political sphere and also, more gradually, in the social sphere.
remember how the media tried to brand Donald Trump with "fake news"? How did that work out for them? Donald Trump has always been a master brander.
He is going to OWN the word "truth"
And the media is going to have the equivalent Robert Woodward whining at the now defunct Nauseum "Mr President, We are not fake news."
Nobody believed that.
When he whines "we are truth" nobody will believe that either.
John Henry
Above should be the now defunct Newseum, not nauseum though some might contest the point. I blame spellcheck.
John LGBTWBNY Henry
In the absence of Trump's immediate reactions to daily events, Trump's successful policies gain prominence.
I agree with this. Trump undiluted was a bit rough. This is better. The contrast with sleepy Joe is also extreme.
"Well, I wasn't expecting this: the Washington Post calls Trump 'nuanced.'"
The WAPO Daily Trump Article Generator Algorithm was bound to include that word from its dictionary.
The editors are supposed to catch these things before approving.
BUMBLE BEE said...
This, too, nuance?
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/579935-judge-orders-jan-6-defendant-with-cancer-freed-after-deplorable
Read the comments. You will become a Republican immediately, because if the comment section is what Liberals have become...GOD HELP US. They really do want half the country dead.
What happens if Trump goes into a slumber until 2024 and then comes back into the world as "nuanced"?
Will the press scream 24/7, "THAT'S NOT THE REAL DONALD TRUMP!!!!" until the voters put them nicely into their metaphorical straitjackets?
Democrats are subtly (it came up in spell ck so it must be right) closing us all into little airless boxes w/their over-regulation and inane laws… at least where I live. You can’t do this- you can’t do that unless… architects of a perfect little diorama w/trees here, roads there. All in the name of preservation and environmental protection.
It won’t work, you know. Never have so many who know so little about the underpinnings and machinations of life …. A plane who’s pilot has been forcibly pulled from the pit-
Well, they break it. They own it. I’ll stand by and watch.
Idiots.
Also, what IS the media blathering on about? Admittedly, I view media only through the videos or articles referenced and clipped on a handful of blogs- I like my life best like this. But, c’mon man! Let’s go Brandon is a telling meme. There is no truth a 1/2 truth for truth’s sake-
"In the absence of Trump's immediate reactions to daily events, Trump's successful policies gain prominence."
I think it's more of a situation that without Trump as a distraction, the consequences of the failed policies of his opponents becomes embarrassingly clear. In the end, that's what happened in Virginia. Instead of wondering about the latest stupid thing Trump tweeted today, suburban moms had to worry about little Sally getting sodomized in the girl's bathroom by some young predator in a skirt. In comparison, Trump's over the top personality doesn't matter quite so much.
"In the absence of Trump's immediate reactions to daily events, Trump's successful policies gain prominence."
Chris Lopes: "I think it's more of a situation that without Trump as a distraction, the consequences of the failed policies of his opponents becomes embarrassingly clear."
Hey hey you two. Take it easy. It's a floor wax AND a desert topping..........just look at that shine.....and it tastes great!
This is all quite deliberate. He is being rehabilitated into an “eminent retired Republican icon” showered with “strange new respect”, so the enemy news media scum can compare him favorably to “LITERALLY HITLER” DeSantis or Youngkin in 2024.
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