"He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. The politician I'm referring to is Mitch McConnell.... He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact that he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief. Despite his opposition to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol — McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021...."
I'm not agreeing with this, just calling attention to it for its harsh language and for Reich's drawing of Mitch McConnell, which is quite nice.
And then there's "furor-in-chief." Did he mean Führer-in-chief? "Führer," which means leader, is strongly associated with Hitler. "Furor" refers to an emotional state, not to a person. It means "fury, rage, madness, anger, mania" (OED). Maybe saying Trump was the "furor-in-chief" is like calling Aguirre the "Wrath of God"...
Democrats are suing their political opponents wherever they can, but it is Republicans that worship at the altar of authoritarianism. Sure. We all remember when it was also Republicans appealing to authority during the covid shutdowns. Reich is a clown.
McConnell is a product of an institution itself in need of deep reform.
The Constitution gives to each legislative chamber the right to write its own rules but the Senate rules from the beginning because of slavery have been antidemocratic in an institution already structured as nondemocratically representative. The Senate should remove all non-Constitutional supermajority provisions and always provide that a simple majority vote on the Senate floor can move a nomination or a bill to an up-or-down floor vote.
Another reform that should be considered would be to make the non-representative Senate more representative. Congress should pass legislation expanding the Senate by an additional 100 or 200 members elected by population-apportioned districts. That would also give you an even more representative electoral college.
Senor status for federal judges and justices on all courts should be legislatively defined and provision for the addition of an additional seat for each senior judge or justice on the respective bench.
A new tribunal called the Court of Constitutional Appeal should be established with exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases from the federal courts on the constitutionality of laws and other provisions. Decisions of this court would be subject to nullification by legislation passed by the Congress and signed by the President. Let the highest elected officials of the Republic decide the ultimate governance of a democratic government.
We need to rein in all these children of the institution of slavery that are running wild in today's Washington. Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?
"Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president?"
Another failure on McConnell's part.
Will never miss McConnell. And I won't have to. He may not be Minority Leader, but he's staying around as a regular old RINO senator for at least another two years. Drat the luck.
A poisonous little toad, and not just because he's short; He's 'little' in all the worst ways.
Substitute 'Obama' for 'Trump' and 'Schumer' or 'Pelosi' for 'McConnell' and see if the objective actions of these characters, over the past 10 years, don't match up better with the sly allusions to Führer and literal, societal furor.
..."consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland"
Well.. we've had a good, considered look at Merrick now, haven't we?
… just calling attention to it for its harsh language and for Reich's drawing of Mitch McConnell, which is quite nice.
No, it’s not a “nice” drawing. I’m not a fan of Mitch McConnell, who seems slow to comprehend that he’s not a party leader of he’s going in one direction while the rest of the party is going in another, but that caricature seems pretty low and unkind.
Reich has a way with words. I think he's right. That Mitch didn't defend his wife, in the face of the ridicule of her by Trump, infuriates me. But... Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. J D Vance? The worst of the worst.
If you don't want to send your children to fight wars for the billionaire clients of the President's son, you might be in a cult.
If you don't want your wages suppressed by a massive and uncontrolled torrent of cheap workers. you might be in a cult.
If you think that elections should be conducted in a transparent manner, and that all voters should be verified, you might be in a cult.
If you not happy with a jobs report that shows that full time jobs actually dropped, but part time jobs rose by so much that it looked like "strong gains," you might be in a cult.
If you are unhappy that high paying jobs for working people have been shipped overseas and replaced with Door Dash and Uber jobs, or hamburger flipping, where the value trickles up to billionaires, you might be in a cult.
If you think that it's absurd for a man convicted of violent sexual assault to be able to declare himself a "woman" and be sent to a women's prison, while completely intact, just to commit more rape, you might be in a cult.
Vickie, did if infuriate you when liberals mocked his wife in actual newspapers by putting her quotes in a mocking Chinese accent? Because it happened.
And then there's "furor-in-chief." Did he mean Führer-in-chief?
That’s pretty obvious.
”Führer," which means leader, is strongly associated with Hitler.
We kind of knew that.
What a dilemma for American Jews! Side with the party of which they’ve historically been a critical component, but which today has made the conscious decision to support people who think “dirty” is the natural adjective for “Jew” and who yell “Death to Jews,” or side with the party whose leader is a “furor.”
Reich is a nasty little weasel afflicted with a bad case of the "short man's disease". It doesn't afflict most of them, but the bad ones think they are Napoleon and expect everybody to kowtow to them. As to Mr. Reich Just Go Away! You've had your moment in the sun.
He meant furor in a mocking tone as in a poor player, who struts and frets his hour upon the stage... then takes a knee, begs, donates to the Democratic cause.
I first saw Aguirre the Wrath of God in May 1982 at the Arlington theatre on State Street in Santa Barbara. The scenes of the rafts shooting the rapids were terrifying.
@Icky Vicki, the original little old lady from Pasadena, you might try reading Hillbilly Elegy with an open mind. Available via the Althouse Amazon Portal.
Rich said "Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?" I'm betting that, yes, you are the only one to notice this. Hallucinations are always confined to the hallucinator. I noticed the 'furor in chief' and thought it was a clever way to describe Trump in a way that reinforces the view of Trump that Reich wants to encourage in his audience. On further review, I think it's a typo because I don't think Reich is that clever.
I'm as open as the next man to criticism of McConnell, but Reich--he thinks he's being clever by hurling a bunch of tired empty insults and then, surprise!, I don't mean Trump!
So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger? Is he saying Trump has been the embodiment of anger?
Someone else called it a pun. What are the 2 possible things? A Nazi leader plus the embodiment of anger?
My old friend Ed Roland played the black slave in Aguirre. He was wandering around South America and he encountered the film crew. They wrote him into the script.
" Congress should pass legislation expanding the Senate by an additional 100 or 200 members elected by population-apportioned districts. That would also give you an even more representative electoral college."
Take your time Rich. Rewrite the entire Constitution to serve your fevered fantasizes of fairness. That way we can laugh at you for your complete misunderstanding of a Republic. It has the advantage that we can laugh just once and get over it.
Thanks, Big Mike. i read it when it came out... Too bad J D has become such a syncophant. His quest for power has blinded him to reality, in his own state. So he is a good replacement for Moscow Mitch... Cares more for his own power than the needs and wants of his constituency, and the USA as a whole. Trash.
BTW, I suspect that the furor-in-chief comment was deliberate. Genius.
McConnell was Machiavellian in the true sense of the word: realistic and able. Like Lyndon Johnson before him — a "master of the Senate" — who fought his corner superbly well.
As for any claimed impairment of the Senate as an institution, attribution to any one specific individual is not the way to see the matter at all.
Think instead of "Murder on the Orient Express" — "they all did it."
"He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism."
So says the guy [with a straight face no less] that is of the political party that says:
- no one is illegal - men can be women and women can be men - the government can spend the country out of debt - my "lived" knowledge is better than your actual facts - 2020 was NOT stolen but the 2000 election was - Biden is full of vitality and a great statesman - we are killing the planet so have to switch off of fossil fuels BUT no nuke power - we have to pass the bill to see what is in it - stop putting criminals in jail AND defund the police - antifa are just unaffiliated peaceful protesters but J6 was the worst insurrection EVER - Hunter's laptop is fake but the Trump piss tape is real
Reich has been over the top for years, a precursor to today's deranged Democrats. He is a disgrace to whatever "profession" he may be engaged in at the moment.
Let me add, I am no fan of McConnell. By now, it appears that the unprincipled Merrick Garland will do immeasurably more damage to the Constitution and country as AG than he could have done as an SC Justice. Not that McConnell could have foreseen that, but so much for his legacy.
"Der Furor is an old pun in the history department."
Link to something showing a credentialed historian using this pun, something to convince me it is intentional and not a misspelling.
Googling, I get a few hits on the phrase "Der Furor," but what I'm seeing looks more like misspelling than an intentional play involving Hitler plus a word that means anger. Hitler already seems to convey the idea of anger, so I don't see what is achieved. And Hitler-related "play" is generally in bad taste, so you'd need a good payoff for this sort of thing. I'm not seeing it.
Please cue up some historians for me to check out. Mere assertion that historians have historically done this falls flat with me.
Please cue up some historians for me to check out. Mere assertion that historians have historical done this falls flat with me.
A LOT of the arguments on here fall flat, but some people just argue for their teams, not to make articulated points one can ponder. Did you see the Plessy v Ferguson take? WTF was that!
Of course, claiming that Mitch turned the GOP into a cult--Mitch! the anti-Trump schemer hated by the actual base!--is weirdly absurd, but it is a useful indicator of prog willful ignorance and contempt. They can afford to blather with impunity. On the left, it sells.
By the way, Bob, buddy, what was Barry O doing, not long ago, with his "we are the change that we seek," and his "moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal"? Building a proper church rather than an uncouth cult?
Having lived thru their times in power, I see nothing to support a claim that Mitch is any more an authoritarian cult leader than was Harry Reid. Mitch used Harry’s actions as a precedent for a few of the things he did. Just more partisan babbling.
I assumed his use of furor was a pun. To support this I will cite a tweet from Robert Reich in July 15, 2021 in which he tweets,
"The US came closer to a coup d'etat after the 2020 election than most of us even feared. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, described to aides Trump's "stomach-churning" lies about election fraud as “a Reichstag moment,” calling them “the gospel of the Führer."
I did. My memory of that very pun, used by the late Donald W. Ellis, PhD., in a class on German history at Memphis State, probably about 1973 or 1974.
I'm not vouching for any intent on the part of Reich or his editors, just recognizing an old joke, whether they meant it as such or not and whether it's a good pun or not.
"Mere assertion . . . falls flat with me."
Lots of things here fall flat with me, but do I complain?
Well, something-in-chief refers to the American commander-in-chief. You would not say Führer-in-chief because according to the Führerprinzip that the Führer was the law it would be redundant, like the chief-in-chief. So I think Reich was replacing commander with furor to claim that Trump was a furor and thought it was an additional benefit that furor rhymed with Führer, even though it’s kind of dumb.
He probably was so exited writing his piece that his language exceeded his brain power, and we end up with a weird poetic word salad that can’t be understood.
rabid munchkin says what, turtle is still moving at a snails pace, yes he kept scalia's seat from going to a prog, but he rubberstanped many of the worst appointees
Howard: I first saw Aguirre the Wrath of God in May 1982 at the Arlington theatre on State Street in Santa Barbara. The scenes of the rafts shooting the rapids were terrifying."
AWoG was a nice piece of fiction.
Ann Althouse: So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger?
Personally, when I saw furor-in-chief I assumed it was word play. Reich is a know-nothing idiot, but its an obvious pun. Liberals seem to think that Trump is always angry and that he is worse than Hitler.
If Mitch truly believed that Obama would be a bad President, why WOULDN'T he say his most important goal was making him a one term President? Why are anti-Trump people allowed to say the same thing but not Mitch besides a blatant double standard?
Although "furor" is on the page you link to, the text you quote is under the definition of "fury."
I've independently checked the etymology of "furor" (in the OED) and it does not contain anything about a person who is angry. I'm familiar with the Greek "Furies," but that relates to "fury," not "furor."
From 2018 But, so far, no-one has come up with one that’s stuck to him. Now that’s not to say many people don’t have names for Donald Trump, but most are unprintable in a family newspaper.
“So, gentle reader, let me suggest one that reflects Trump’s Germanic ancestry, describes his behavior, and is easy to remember: Der Furor.
It suits him perfectly, with Webster defining “furor” as, “An angry or maniacal fit; furious or hectic activity; a sudden outburst;” all traits that fit Trump and his mercurial policy shifts and vicious, unpredictable tweet storms to a T.
So instead of saying, “President Trump today signed a third executive order banning people from predominately Muslim countries from coming to the U.S.,” or, “President Trump’s new zero-tolerance policy was designed to separate children from their parents as a deterrent,” or “President Trump unilaterally declared a trade war against China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union;” we could say Der Furor declared a trade war, Der Furor banned Muslims, and Der Furor mandated splitting families apart.”
furor (n.) "rage, madness, angry mania," late 15c., furour, from Old French fureur (12c.), from Latin furor "a ravaging, rage, madness, passion," which is related to furia "rage, passion, fury" (see fury).
Webster's Unabridged: pg 777, col 3. 1. A general outburst of enthusiasm, excitement, controversy or the like. 2. A prevailing fad, mania or craze. 3. fury; rage; madness.
“Blogger Leland said... Democrats are suing their political opponents wherever they can, but it is Republicans that worship at the altar of authoritarianism. Sure. We all remember when it was also Republicans appealing to authority during the covid shutdowns. Reich is a clown.”
Much like with QAnon, it's Democrats who are fixated on cults in politics. Of course, when you consider they're the party of St. Obama (PBUH), it's not really a surprise why they think they see that in others.
What do you suppose he means by "authoritarianism"? Granted, F. Joe Biden can hardly be considered an authority. He doesn't even know what he had for breakfast. But more and more, I get the feeling that the hysterical Left just hurls these words, without any consideration of what they mean.
Joe Biden is the most reckless American president ever. I am happy to listen to other nominations, but I can't think of one. He throws around trillions like they are the pennies in cardboard wrappers that Bobby Kennedy used to throw out from his motorcade to little boys in Upstate New York, who had gathered with their families along the road to watch him go by, back in the early '60s.
“President Trump today signed a third executive order banning people from predominately Muslim countries from coming to the U.S.,” or, “President Trump’s new zero-tolerance policy was designed to separate children from their parents as a deterrent,” or “President Trump unilaterally declared a trade war against China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union;” we could say Der Furor declared a trade war, Der Furor banned Muslims, and Der Furor mandated splitting families apart.”
That's an amazing number of lies for such a small space.
""stomach-churning" lies about election fraud as “a Reichstag moment,” "
That's a very telling quote, since it is well known that the Nazis used accusations about the Reichstag Fire to throw away the rights of the accused and create the Gestapo, to get rid of freedom of assembly, and to shut down opposition newspapers.
Every accusation is a confession, with these people, or as we used to say as kids, "he who smelt it, dealt it."
Very few people I hold in lower regard than Robert Reich (Hi Paul Krugman). Make an argument. Back it up with non-biased data, and convince people on your ideas. So sad those days are gone, or likely never really existed.
"Perfectly describes Alinsky-driven standard operating procedure of the Democratic Party."
Their problem is that the truth is out there, and they know it, so they know it has to be dealt with, and being the first to know it, since they are the once who did it, they make pinning the stink on the other side part of their original plan. See Russiagate and Ukraine, which really did interfere in the 2016 election.
BTW, that New York Times article about the 12 CIA bases in Ukraine that have been fighting Russia since the coup we backed in 2014, gives them credit for smearing Trump by trying to pin him at the hip to their arch enemy pUtIN, with faked up evidence about the DNC hack.
I have had the pleasure of hearing (overhearing, to be honest) a Robert Reich lecture, delivered on home ground (UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science).
At first, I did not know who was speaking. I thought, "What a vacuous pile of words." Amazingly, after I noticed the poster in the corridor, giving his name, it did not make any more sense than before.
I don't think it has been mentioned yet, but even for a partisan prog it's just a bit rich to complain about Mitch after the reign of Harry Blackeye Reid, you know, the guy who on the floor of the Senate falsely accused Mittens of not paying taxes. Then again, the standard is D or R, not actual conduct measured by general standards. The double standard is the standard.
His drawing is good. A nice caricature. I've always thought McConnell looks like a mole. The rage-filled rhetoric made me shake my head, though. Reich is Furor Itself.
I couldn't figure out why Reich is so angry at him. All he accuses McConnell of is being loyal to his own party and working to advance its interests. Sounds pretty normal.
It's as if Reich is full of rage that an opposition party exists at all. And using the imagery of religion to vilify enemies is pretty ugly. But Reich's followers must love it.
Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?
@Rich, you are the only one noticing that, mostly because it isn’t true.
yes that executive order was based on 2016 omnibus language, the only children separated were those that weren't a genetic match, btw what about the 800,000 children who have gone missing,
Its easy to laugh at him, bur Riech is quite intelligent and quite vicious. One could easily see him as one Yagoda's assistants helping to murder Russian peasants or helping Stalin draw up lists of "counter-revolutionaires" to be executed in 1937.
Go back to 2017 where he was publicizing a plan to destroy Trump through lawfare and other means.
Well, now I feel bad. I went over to have a look at the drawing, and it's not bad, although nothing special, either. Better than I could do, I suppose. But then I noticed that his post was addressed to "Friends". So, I should not be reading it. I am not a friend of Robert the Fourth. If he were on fire, I might piss on him, but not enough to put him out. Just enough to prolong the agony. Leave 'em beggin' for more, as we say in showbiz.
I believe the Dems are giving alternating days in the sun to each one of the fanatical fractions that make up their coalition of crackpots centered on Marx. They probably spin a Wheel of Misfortune to choose the Commissar's Campaign of the Day. One day we have "Let them Eat Bugs"; another, "Let them drive EV's in winter in northern states without charging stations"; anon, we find the Dems supporting cannibalism; later, we find that, according to the Dems the Jews are not indigenous to Judea though the Arabs are. And so on. Today, Reich is calling Trump "authoritarian" though yesterday his fellow leftys were calling for "common sense censorship" by which they mean sense common to leftys on a given day. The day before a Dem judge fined Trump $454 million rising to over $500 million with add-ons. This with add-ons will exceed the amount the EU fined Apple for anti-trust infringements against Spotify. That was a crime which caused a real company to lose real money. The Dems are just indulging their spite because they can. So far.
"No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work."
He called Trump a furor, that is a fact. It does not make sense according to the definition of furor, but he said it anyway. Any pun is implicit, unspoken, he did not explicitly say fuhrer that I saw. So we can only infer a pun, it is imaginary, a guess.
Obviously, I get that there are 2 words involved (if it's not just a stupid misspelling). I don't see what value can be seen in saying "rage-in-chief." Trump isn't rage. So "furor" just looks like a misspelling of Fuhrer. I can believe that Reich thought he was being humorous in some way, but that is a failure as far as I can figure out.
Josephbleau's effort at explaining the pun just makes my point.
Even if you could understand Trump as rage personified, what could "in-chief" add to that? And Fuhrer-in-chief doesn't make sense either, because what could "in-chief" add to Fuhrer, which already refers to the person at the top of the power structure?
Douglas B. Levene: "9The hatred that Sen McConnell receives from both Democrats and Trump loyalists is proof positive that he was a great man."
Mind your own business: "McConnell put neither country nor party first. He put himself first, and his CCP paymasters. Good riddance."
I believe the evidence over these past decades strongly supports the assessment provided by MYOB.
Recall Douglas Levene is a very passionate advocate for the policy of party elites selecting the party nominee in a literal smoke filled back room without any input from the great unwashed deplorable bitter clinger listless vessels.
Little wonder Doug is all in on the laughable premise McConnell is a "Great Man"
It's all a simple twist of fate, Robert Reich met Bill Clinton at Oxford when they were both Rhodes Scholars (kudos for that). From that start, Mr. Reich wormed his way into the public ken and few people in the last quarter century have been as partisan, divisive, harmful and just plain bad. We would all be so much better off if that meeting had not occurred.
I think you're giving 'half-pint' entirely too much credit for intelligence. He's always thought of himself as being clever and witty, even though he's rather tiresome. When he's on television, you can see him self-preening. By using 'furor' in this kind of, (what?) semi-alliterative way, he's hoping the reader will think of Trump simultaneously as Der Führer in the worst Nazi-like tyrannical way, as well as being a chaotic, confusion-causing, threat to the general order. Yes, it's the wrong use of the word. No, it doesn't make any 'literal' sense when analyzed. It's doesn't even qualify as a double-entendre. Reich probably repeated it to himself a few times and decided it would be a devastating imaginary riposte, because that's the way that tedious fool's mind works. Stupid grammar tricks.
Riech was obviously trying to be funny and insult Trump. I sure his libtard audience chuckled.
"it sounded better in the German" "His dog was a German Shepard" "His father died in WW II, he fell out of a Guard tower"
The number of "Jokes" where dumb libtards like Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Robert Riesssssh, try to insinuate or insult some Republican is a Nazi are legion.
Its all gets back to the American (mostly boomer) obession with Nazis. Ive been hearing it my entire life (almost 60 now) and I got tired of it about 30 years ago. But boomers? they never tire of Calling each other nazi or raciss or joking about nazis . Y'know that Putin? Just like Hitler... Pelosi and biden will be saying that on their death bed.
Riech was obviously trying to be funny and insult Trump. I sure his libtard audience chuckled.
"it sounded better in the German" "His dog was a German Shepard" "His father died in WW II, he fell out of a Guard tower"
The number of "Jokes" where dumb libtards like Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Robert Riesssssh, try to insinuate or insult some Republican is a Nazi are legion.
Its all gets back to the American (mostly boomer) obession with Nazis. Ive been hearing it my entire life (almost 60 now) and I got tired of it about 30 years ago. But boomers? they never tire of Calling each other nazi or raciss or joking about nazis . Y'know that Putin? Just like Hitler... Pelosi and biden will be saying that on their death bed.
"So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger? Is he saying Trump has been the embodiment of anger?
"Someone else called it a pun. What are the 2 possible things? A Nazi leader plus the embodiment of anger?
"To me, if just looks like he misspelled Fuhrer."
Could be. I don't know, of course. But if he did intend it as a pun, you ask, "How can a person be anger?" Well, Trump is popular among his zealots--and part of the reason he has zealots--because he intentionally plays on their angers and resentments, telling them that all they hate about the world they see around them is the direct cause of a specific political party, (and particular people, as he finds reasons to trash and name-call those who he sees as enemies to him, which could mean they just don't agree with him, among many other reasons.)
Trump creates demons for his audience, he calls names, casts blame, lets his audience know they're superior to those entities who they believe (or whom he tells them are at fault) for whatever unrest and alienation and dissatisfaction bedevils them and lets them feel justified to hate, which is more exciting for them than the drab (or difficult) norm of their lives. In a world changing so swiftly, with economic and social turmoil and disequilibrium, Trump gives his disaffected followers clear villains at whom they can vent. He is your classic demagogue.
So, I'd say the "furor-in-chief" pun, if that is what it was, is applicable, though admittedly clumsy. If it was intentional, he's trying to hard to apply a snappy tag on Trump.
Fuhrer furor isn't funny if who you are trying to make fun of has no history totalitarianism. Two word jokes are notoriously hard to make. Unless Dwarf shortage
I can believe that Reich thought he was being humorous in some way, but that is a failure as far as I can figure out.
This. If it was intentional, it was clumsy. And juvenile. And apparently not even original. All in all a faceplant. Fortunately, Reich doesn't have far to fall on his face. (Ok, that's a bit juvenile too.)
No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work.
Not every pun — nor every joke — works. Why would you assume that an attempt at a pun by Robert Reich would necessarily work? Because he once was a cabinet officer for Bill Clinton? Because he’s a university professor? Aha! That must be it! Everyone knows that every professor knows everything about everything.
Robert Cook said: "Trump creates demons for his audience..."
Oh come on, Cookie. You know darn well Trump doesn't need to create demons when the progressives spawn so many all on their own.
For instance: Bidenflation, uncontrolled immigration through impotent border enforcement, a disastrous idiotically executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, blocking US energy independence (canning LNG terminals and pipelines), and letting in millions of "undocumented immigrants" with no plans for the feds to supply the food, housing, and healthcare they require for basic survival.
I could go on: How about commercial real estate collapsing in big cities, ridiculous crime levels in big cities, record fentanyl overdose deaths, nasty wars starting in Ukraine and Gaza on Biden's watch, and China threatening to invade Taiwan, Putin threatening to use nukes on Ukraine and NATO, not to mention nukes in space.
Good times, good times with our brilliant "return to normalcy."
The progressives created all of these demons, not Trump. Take some responsibility for your side's policies, bro.
Ann Althouse said... "I'm only testing between 2 options: misspelling or poor figure of speech."
I go with intentional; he seems to reach a lot. Also, I think short jokes are acceptable in Reich's case; I've read a lot of his columns where he seems to hit below the belt.
In my circles, I have heard him called Reichsführer.
Ann Althouse: I've independently checked the etymology of "furor" (in the OED) and it does not contain anything about a person who is angry.
Both definitions of furor I provided explicitly refer to fury: "rage, passion, fury" (see fury) ... 3. fury; rage; madness.
Fury refers to a person who is angry. Sorry if your OED doesn't, my WB does as does the etymologist. If you don't want to accept it, fine. All I was doing was showing that "furor" and "fury" are related. I did so.
How can a person be anger?
Via metaphor. So I'll toss out another:
Since furor also = 1. A general outburst of enthusiasm, excitement, controversy or the like. it could also reflect on Trump's rallies which are enthusiastic, excited and most certainly controversial. These are things he also has been called. So, as he's directing the rally he could be called the furor-in-chief.
"Fury refers to a person who is angry. Sorry if your OED doesn't, my WB does as does the etymologist."
But we are not talking about "fury." The word in question is "furor."
"All I was doing was showing that "furor" and "fury" are related" — well, that's completely ceding my point. We're talking about usage. You've got to be precise, or this is completely pointless.
"Via metaphor."
Well, please reread my post. I acknowledged *that* there. If you want to disagree with me, you need to actually disagree with me.
Please note exactly what I've already said and stop fake-disagreeing with me.
A pleasant concession is your best move. Seriously.
Furher fury. Doesn't make sense either. Furher furor. Leader passion? Leader rage? "Rage" as in all the rage. Is Reich trying to make Trumps point? Via Oli's post above. Anyway 'Dwarf Shortage' is funny. Brad Williams would tell you. But it isn't mine. It's a Jimmy Carr one liner. I just thought it was apt in this case.
@Althouse, in that case please consider the possibility that he was using speech to text software, that the software didn’t have “Fuehrer” in its dictionary, and that he did a cursory job of proofreading.
Your litany of demons spawned by Biden--to the degree they exist--are completely or to a great degree completely out of the powers of the POTUS to prevent. Russia invading Ukraine? The war in Gaza? China threatening to invade Taiwan? Collapsing commercial real estate in big cities? Putin making threats? How can the president--any president--be responsible for or prevent any of these events? The inflation that began in early 2021 was the result of events that happened while Trump was President, the global COVID pandemic and its effect on global economic activity being a large cause. Crime in the cities? Really? What possible connection is there between that and the president? What cities are you referring to, btw? How can one even understand the rise in crime without knowing where it is happening, and compared and contrasted with other parts of the nation, and reviewed over the past 10 or 20 or 30 years. I know it's fashionable today to grouse about the epidemic of crime in NYC, for example, but, while crime in NYC has ticked up a bit in the last few years, NYC is one of the safest big cities in the country, and the crime rate is dramatically lower than it was when I moved there in 1981.
My point, though, is not that there are no problems about which we should be concerned, even angry, as there are always problems about which we should be concerned. However, the nature of our problems are complex, not reducible to one person or one party, or one simple cause, and our problems cannot simply be swept away in a fortnight because the right person suddenly became POTUS. Wall Street collapsed at the end of Bush's term. Was he responsible for it? I can't say that. Were there policies during Bush's presidency that to a greater or lesser degree contributed to the crash? Possibly. I really can't say without looking into it. But it would be facile and dishonest to call it "Bush's Financial Collapse." It happened while he was president, but independently of him. During the eight years of Obama's presidency, the economy improved and rose steadily. Was Obama responsible for this improvement. One might assume that policies enacted in his presidency had some positive affect on the economy, but I can't say it was all simply a result of the "magic of Obama." That rising economy flowed into the years of Trump's presidency. He didn't create the good economy, he was fortunate to walk into office in a good economy. He was unfortunate to be POTUS when COVID exploded around the world. There is nothing Trump could have done to have prevented the pandemic or the global economic impact of the pandemic. Could he have handled the pandemic better, or in a way that might have mitigated the economic impacts. Perhaps. Perhaps not. It occurred in the last year of Trump's term, too little time to really do very much. However, if Biden had been president during COVID, and Trump succeeded him, one can be certain Trump would have opportunistically pinned it all on Biden.
This is my point: for the purpose of aggrandizing himself, he incites anger in his followers directed toward "the other guy(s)." Trump boils down a complex reality into cardboard children's stories, reducing persons and events to, essentially, "ME GOOD, ME BEST EVER; OTHER GUYS BAD, OTHER GUYS WORST EVER!"
Robert Cook said... "... Russia invading Ukraine? The war in Gaza? China threatening to invade Taiwan? Collapsing commercial real estate in big cities? Putin making threats? How can the president--any president--be responsible for or prevent any of these events? The inflation that began in early 2021 was the result of events that happened while Trump was President, the global COVID pandemic and its effect on global economic activity being a large cause. Crime in the cities? Really? What possible connection is there between that and the president?"
Robert Heinlein responded... "This is known as 'bad luck'."
Your litany of demons spawned by Biden--to the degree they exist--are completely or to a great degree completely out of the powers of the POTUS to prevent.
So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?
"So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?"
Uh, some did: the economic decline and losses of jobs and failure of small businesses due to COVID, and the many consequent losses of life in America (not to mention globally) from COVID. That continued into Biden's term. Trump can't claim credit for all the good things that happened during his term, just as all the bad things that have subsequently occurred cannot all be blamed on Biden.
Correlation does not always mean there is causation, as is well known.
Much of what Trump "accomplished" is true only as boasts, not in fact, for instance: Trump never did bring back jobs from abroad, and he didn't stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country, though he will claim he did. On the contrary, he did reduce legal immigration.
"So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?"
Don't you see? He says they did happen, just that it didn't happen then but it's still Trump's fault. A pretty clueless and ignorant take to be sure, but consider the source.
"Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? "
Yes, I remember. I thought the Democratic reaction was humorous. They expect the legislative leader of the opposition party to ensure that their party's presidency was successful? The anti-Trump crowd would be shocked to learn they should have acted in that manner. In fact, I can't think of a single opposition legislative leader who did everything he/she could to hinder the agenda of an opposition party's president.
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Democrats are suing their political opponents wherever they can, but it is Republicans that worship at the altar of authoritarianism. Sure. We all remember when it was also Republicans appealing to authority during the covid shutdowns. Reich is a clown.
The Half-Reich and Mitch are both garbage people.
McConnell is a product of an institution itself in need of deep reform.
The Constitution gives to each legislative chamber the right to write its own rules but the Senate rules from the beginning because of slavery have been antidemocratic in an institution already structured as nondemocratically representative. The Senate should remove all non-Constitutional supermajority provisions and always provide that a simple majority vote on the Senate floor can move a nomination or a bill to an up-or-down floor vote.
Another reform that should be considered would be to make the non-representative Senate more representative. Congress should pass legislation expanding the Senate by an additional 100 or 200 members elected by population-apportioned districts. That would also give you an even more representative electoral college.
Senor status for federal judges and justices on all courts should be legislatively defined and provision for the addition of an additional seat for each senior judge or justice on the respective bench.
A new tribunal called the Court of Constitutional Appeal should be established with exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases from the federal courts on the constitutionality of laws and other provisions. Decisions of this court would be subject to nullification by legislation passed by the Congress and signed by the President. Let the highest elected officials of the Republic decide the ultimate governance of a democratic government.
We need to rein in all these children of the institution of slavery that are running wild in today's Washington. Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?
I say to the Party propagandist Reich: "It takes one to know one."
"Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president?"
Another failure on McConnell's part.
Will never miss McConnell. And I won't have to. He may not be Minority Leader, but he's staying around as a regular old RINO senator for at least another two years. Drat the luck.
"furor in chief" could be an admission that Trump is the leading cause of fury, anger and blind rage in Democrats and Never Trumpers.
A poisonous little toad, and not just because he's short; He's 'little' in all the worst ways.
Substitute 'Obama' for 'Trump' and 'Schumer' or 'Pelosi' for 'McConnell' and see if the objective actions of these characters, over the past 10 years, don't match up better with the sly allusions to Führer and literal, societal furor.
..."consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland"
Well.. we've had a good, considered look at Merrick now, haven't we?
Go away Mr. 'one-third' Reich.
I'm not agreeing with this, …
Of course not.
… just calling attention to it for its harsh language and for Reich's drawing of Mitch McConnell, which is quite nice.
No, it’s not a “nice” drawing. I’m not a fan of Mitch McConnell, who seems slow to comprehend that he’s not a party leader of he’s going in one direction while the rest of the party is going in another, but that caricature seems pretty low and unkind.
Robert Reich. A small man with an even smaller intellect. When he looks at the world through his socialist lens everyone becomes a fascist. poor man.
Reich has a way with words. I think he's right. That Mitch didn't defend his wife, in the face of the ridicule of her by Trump, infuriates me. But... Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. J D Vance? The worst of the worst.
Vicki From Pasadena
Robert Reich has always been an angry dwarf
Furor, fuehrer, it's an old pun.
Both Mitch and Reich are shitstains on the body politic.
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.
If you don't want to send your children to fight wars for the billionaire clients of the President's son, you might be in a cult.
If you don't want your wages suppressed by a massive and uncontrolled torrent of cheap workers. you might be in a cult.
If you think that elections should be conducted in a transparent manner, and that all voters should be verified, you might be in a cult.
If you not happy with a jobs report that shows that full time jobs actually dropped, but part time jobs rose by so much that it looked like "strong gains," you might be in a cult.
If you are unhappy that high paying jobs for working people have been shipped overseas and replaced with Door Dash and Uber jobs, or hamburger flipping, where the value trickles up to billionaires, you might be in a cult.
If you think that it's absurd for a man convicted of violent sexual assault to be able to declare himself a "woman" and be sent to a women's prison, while completely intact, just to commit more rape, you might be in a cult.
I don't remember Trump ignoring or trying to strong-arm the Supreme Court, or trying to put his opponents in prison when he was president.
Every accusation from these guys is a confession.
Vickie, did if infuriate you when liberals mocked his wife in actual newspapers by putting her quotes in a mocking Chinese accent? Because it happened.
When will this vile little man go away? I want to count the days...
Closing the border to illegal SI so.... AUTHORITARIAN!
Lowering taxes and helping small businesses thrive - that bastard!
Getting us out of BS globalist climate change crapola that does nothing to combat anything. That a-hole!
Teh real cult - the collective left.
And then there's "furor-in-chief." Did he mean Führer-in-chief?
That’s pretty obvious.
”Führer," which means leader, is strongly associated with Hitler.
We kind of knew that.
What a dilemma for American Jews! Side with the party of which they’ve historically been a critical component, but which today has made the conscious decision to support people who think “dirty” is the natural adjective for “Jew” and who yell “Death to Jews,” or side with the party whose leader is a “furor.”
Reich is a nasty little weasel afflicted with a bad case of the "short man's disease". It doesn't afflict most of them, but the bad ones think they are Napoleon and expect everybody to kowtow to them. As to Mr. Reich Just Go Away! You've had your moment in the sun.
CIA and war war war machine = the left.
arresting and jailing people who do not obey the corrupt left? The corrupt authoritarian left.
Mr. Third Reich says what?
He meant furor in a mocking tone as in a poor player, who struts and frets his hour upon the stage... then takes a knee, begs, donates to the Democratic cause.
I first saw Aguirre the Wrath of God in May 1982 at the Arlington theatre on State Street in Santa Barbara. The scenes of the rafts shooting the rapids were terrifying.
Spoiler Alert, the monkeys take over in the end.
Because of his slant, Robert Reich holds no interest for me. However, "furor-in-chief" is pretty clever. Kudos for that.
@Icky Vicki, the original little old lady from Pasadena, you might try reading Hillbilly Elegy with an open mind. Available via the Althouse Amazon Portal.
@tim in vermont, +1
Rich said "Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?" I'm betting that, yes, you are the only one to notice this. Hallucinations are always confined to the hallucinator.
I noticed the 'furor in chief' and thought it was a clever way to describe Trump in a way that reinforces the view of Trump that Reich wants to encourage in his audience. On further review, I think it's a typo because I don't think Reich is that clever.
I'm as open as the next man to criticism of McConnell, but Reich--he thinks he's being clever by hurling a bunch of tired empty insults and then, surprise!, I don't mean Trump!
In his world, that's called deep thinking.
Reich often has the truth go over his head unnoticed. This is example 7,492.
"However, "furor-in-chief" is pretty clever."
So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger? Is he saying Trump has been the embodiment of anger?
Someone else called it a pun. What are the 2 possible things? A Nazi leader plus the embodiment of anger?
To me, if just looks like he misspelled Fuhrer.
My old friend Ed Roland played the black slave in Aguirre. He was wandering around South America and he encountered the film crew. They wrote him into the script.
While I agree with some of the sentiment, Reich is such a non-entity.
He can only get affirmation by trolling know-nothing college coeds who think his socialist bullshit is cool.
The only way he'll ever be BMOC.
" Congress should pass legislation expanding the Senate by an additional 100 or 200 members elected by population-apportioned districts. That would also give you an even more representative electoral college."
Take your time Rich. Rewrite the entire Constitution to serve your fevered fantasizes of fairness. That way we can laugh at you for your complete misunderstanding of a Republic. It has the advantage that we can laugh just once and get over it.
Nothing Robert Reich has to say is worth reading, or spending any time thinking about.
Anyone getting Reich to froth at the mouth like that can't be all bad.
Thanks, Big Mike. i read it when it came out... Too bad J D has become such a syncophant.
His quest for power has blinded him to reality, in his own state. So he is a good replacement for Moscow Mitch... Cares more for his own power than the needs and wants of his constituency, and the USA as a whole. Trash.
BTW, I suspect that the furor-in-chief comment was deliberate. Genius.
Vicki from Pasadena
And yet, there are still Republicans who think they can go along to get along with people who hate us, and think this way about us...
"Is he saying Trump has been the embodiment of anger?"
Clearly.
Der Furor is an old pun in the history department.
McConnell was Machiavellian in the true sense of the word: realistic and able. Like Lyndon Johnson before him — a "master of the Senate" — who fought his corner superbly well.
As for any claimed impairment of the Senate as an institution, attribution to any one specific individual is not the way to see the matter at all.
Think instead of "Murder on the Orient Express" — "they all did it."
"He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism."
So says the guy [with a straight face no less] that is of the political party that says:
- no one is illegal
- men can be women and women can be men
- the government can spend the country out of debt
- my "lived" knowledge is better than your actual facts
- 2020 was NOT stolen but the 2000 election was
- Biden is full of vitality and a great statesman
- we are killing the planet so have to switch off of fossil fuels BUT no nuke power
- we have to pass the bill to see what is in it
- stop putting criminals in jail AND defund the police
- antifa are just unaffiliated peaceful protesters but J6 was the worst insurrection EVER
- Hunter's laptop is fake but the Trump piss tape is real
Unfortunately, I can do this all day...
Reich has been over the top for years, a precursor to today's deranged Democrats. He is a disgrace to whatever "profession" he may be engaged in at the moment.
Let me add, I am no fan of McConnell. By now, it appears that the unprincipled Merrick Garland will do immeasurably more damage to the Constitution and country as AG than he could have done as an SC Justice. Not that McConnell could have foreseen that, but so much for his legacy.
"Der Furor is an old pun in the history department."
Link to something showing a credentialed historian using this pun, something to convince me it is intentional and not a misspelling.
Googling, I get a few hits on the phrase "Der Furor," but what I'm seeing looks more like misspelling than an intentional play involving Hitler plus a word that means anger. Hitler already seems to convey the idea of anger, so I don't see what is achieved. And Hitler-related "play" is generally in bad taste, so you'd need a good payoff for this sort of thing. I'm not seeing it.
Please cue up some historians for me to check out. Mere assertion that historians have historically done this falls flat with me.
Please cue up some historians for me to check out. Mere assertion that historians have historical done this falls flat with me.
A LOT of the arguments on here fall flat, but some people just argue for their teams, not to make articulated points one can ponder. Did you see the Plessy v Ferguson take? WTF was that!
Midget fascist sez whut?
Like everything else involving Mr. Reich, it comes up short.
Rich - does everything have to be destroyed in the service of Democratic politics? At the very least you should have issued a spoiler warning.
Of course, claiming that Mitch turned the GOP into a cult--Mitch! the anti-Trump schemer hated by the actual base!--is weirdly absurd, but it is a useful indicator of prog willful ignorance and contempt. They can afford to blather with impunity. On the left, it sells.
By the way, Bob, buddy, what was Barry O doing, not long ago, with his "we are the change that we seek," and his "moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal"? Building a proper church rather than an uncouth cult?
Althouse, sometimes a clumsy pun is just a clumsy pun.
Having lived thru their times in power, I see nothing to support a claim that Mitch is any more an authoritarian cult leader than was Harry Reid. Mitch used Harry’s actions as a precedent for a few of the things he did. Just more partisan babbling.
"...he always put party above America..."
This from a political appointee? From where...Mars?
I assumed his use of furor was a pun. To support this I will cite a tweet from Robert Reich in July 15, 2021 in which he tweets,
"The US came closer to a coup d'etat after the 2020 election than most of us even feared. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, described to aides Trump's "stomach-churning" lies about election fraud as “a Reichstag moment,” calling them “the gospel of the Führer."
July 15th, 2021 Tweet
The u even has the umlaut.
One would think a man named "Reich" would be careful to get a word like "Führer" right. And no, I don't think the little guy was trying to be clever.
"Link to something"
I did. My memory of that very pun, used by the late Donald W. Ellis, PhD., in a class on German history at Memphis State, probably about 1973 or 1974.
I'm not vouching for any intent on the part of Reich or his editors, just recognizing an old joke, whether they meant it as such or not and whether it's a good pun or not.
"Mere assertion . . . falls flat with me."
Lots of things here fall flat with me, but do I complain?
Robert Reich displaying classic short man syndrome.
“To me, if just looks like he misspelled Fuhrer.”
Well, something-in-chief refers to the American commander-in-chief. You would not say Führer-in-chief because according to the Führerprinzip that the Führer was the law it would be redundant, like the chief-in-chief. So I think Reich was replacing commander with furor to claim that Trump was a furor and thought it was an additional benefit that furor rhymed with Führer, even though it’s kind of dumb.
He probably was so exited writing his piece that his language exceeded his brain power, and we end up with a weird poetic word salad that can’t be understood.
Bitchy, not bitchin'.
It's wordplay. I can't see how you're missing it.
A guy name Reich should be a little more careful with the Hitler puns, IMO.
No h, much less an umlaut.
But, in reading... "including one with a likely history of sexual assault."
Right... Negates anything he has to say.
rabid munchkin says what, turtle is still moving at a snails pace, yes he kept scalia's seat from going to a prog, but he rubberstanped many of the worst appointees
Howard:
I first saw Aguirre the Wrath of God in May 1982 at the Arlington theatre on State Street in Santa Barbara. The scenes of the rafts shooting the rapids were terrifying."
AWoG was a nice piece of fiction.
Ann Althouse:
So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger?
Romans used Furiæ to translate Greek Erinyes, the collective name for the avenging deities sent from Tartarus to punish criminals (in later accounts three in number and female). Hence, in English, figuratively, "an angry woman" (late 14c.).
The furies.
Applying figurative words as titles has a long history.
Personally, when I saw furor-in-chief I assumed it was word play. Reich is a know-nothing idiot, but its an obvious pun. Liberals seem to think that Trump is always angry and that he is worse than Hitler.
The one-third Reich?
John Henry
The evil dwarf is upset because Cocaine Mitch did not cut him in on the action.
If you lick a poisonous toad you will get high and see visions of prince's and princesses. You may or may not have a happy experience
If you lick Robert Reich, you will not get high and the only vision you'll have will be of Robert Reich. E
Ewwww. Ick
John Henry
Narr
No disagreement here.
If Mitch truly believed that Obama would be a bad President, why WOULDN'T he say his most important goal was making him a one term President? Why are anti-Trump people allowed to say the same thing but not Mitch besides a blatant double standard?
@Oligonicella
Although "furor" is on the page you link to, the text you quote is under the definition of "fury."
I've independently checked the etymology of "furor" (in the OED) and it does not contain anything about a person who is angry. I'm familiar with the Greek "Furies," but that relates to "fury," not "furor."
From 2018
But, so far, no-one has come up with one that’s stuck to him. Now that’s not to say many people don’t have names for Donald Trump, but most are unprintable in a family newspaper.
“So, gentle reader, let me suggest one that reflects Trump’s Germanic ancestry, describes his behavior, and is easy to remember: Der Furor.
It suits him perfectly, with Webster defining “furor” as, “An angry or maniacal fit; furious or hectic activity; a sudden outburst;” all traits that fit Trump and his mercurial policy shifts and vicious, unpredictable tweet storms to a T.
So instead of saying, “President Trump today signed a third executive order banning people from predominately Muslim countries from coming to the U.S.,” or, “President Trump’s new zero-tolerance policy was designed to separate children from their parents as a deterrent,” or “President Trump unilaterally declared a trade war against China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union;” we could say Der Furor declared a trade war, Der Furor banned Muslims, and Der Furor mandated splitting families apart.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/burke-trumps-nickname-fervor-raises-a-question-whats-his/
I liked Reich better when he represented the Lollipop Guild. Maybe he's just cranky now that dwarf tossing is passe.
BTW, the wordplay was deliberate but not very clever (or, as commenters above said, came up a bit short, like a poorly executed dwarf toss).
"He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. The politician I'm referring to is Barack Obama".
Fixed it for him.
@Althouse 2:05
Same source:
furor (n.)
"rage, madness, angry mania," late 15c., furour, from Old French fureur (12c.), from Latin furor "a ravaging, rage, madness, passion," which is related to furia "rage, passion, fury" (see fury).
Webster's Unabridged: pg 777, col 3.
1. A general outburst of enthusiasm, excitement, controversy or the like.
2. A prevailing fad, mania or craze.
3. fury; rage; madness.
“Blogger Leland said...
Democrats are suing their political opponents wherever they can, but it is Republicans that worship at the altar of authoritarianism. Sure. We all remember when it was also Republicans appealing to authority during the covid shutdowns. Reich is a clown.”
Absolutely. But Mitch is a snake.
Much like with QAnon, it's Democrats who are fixated on cults in politics. Of course, when you consider they're the party of St. Obama (PBUH), it's not really a surprise why they think they see that in others.
What do you suppose he means by "authoritarianism"? Granted, F. Joe Biden can hardly be considered an authority. He doesn't even know what he had for breakfast. But more and more, I get the feeling that the hysterical Left just hurls these words, without any consideration of what they mean.
Joe Biden is the most reckless American president ever. I am happy to listen to other nominations, but I can't think of one. He throws around trillions like they are the pennies in cardboard wrappers that Bobby Kennedy used to throw out from his motorcade to little boys in Upstate New York, who had gathered with their families along the road to watch him go by, back in the early '60s.
“President Trump today signed a third executive order banning people from predominately Muslim countries from coming to the U.S.,” or, “President Trump’s new zero-tolerance policy was designed to separate children from their parents as a deterrent,” or “President Trump unilaterally declared a trade war against China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union;” we could say Der Furor declared a trade war, Der Furor banned Muslims, and Der Furor mandated splitting families apart.”
That's an amazing number of lies for such a small space.
Reich is grotesque by any measure.
I had no idea that one of the hillbilly housewives of Orange County posted here.
“Every accusation is a confession.” Well done Tim. Perfectly describes Alinsky-driven standard operating procedure of the Democratic Party.
""stomach-churning" lies about election fraud as “a Reichstag moment,” "
That's a very telling quote, since it is well known that the Nazis used accusations about the Reichstag Fire to throw away the rights of the accused and create the Gestapo, to get rid of freedom of assembly, and to shut down opposition newspapers.
Every accusation is a confession, with these people, or as we used to say as kids, "he who smelt it, dealt it."
BarrySanders20:
like a poorly executed dwarf toss
I like that best.
@ Oligonicella 2:27
You are confirming what I said quite exactly, so I don’t know what you think your point is.
The hatred that Sen McConnell receives from both Democrats and Trump loyalists is proof positive that he was a great man.
Very few people I hold in lower regard than Robert Reich (Hi Paul Krugman). Make an argument. Back it up with non-biased data, and convince people on your ideas. So sad those days are gone, or likely never really existed.
"Perfectly describes Alinsky-driven standard operating procedure of the Democratic Party."
Their problem is that the truth is out there, and they know it, so they know it has to be dealt with, and being the first to know it, since they are the once who did it, they make pinning the stink on the other side part of their original plan. See Russiagate and Ukraine, which really did interfere in the 2016 election.
BTW, that New York Times article about the 12 CIA bases in Ukraine that have been fighting Russia since the coup we backed in 2014, gives them credit for smearing Trump by trying to pin him at the hip to their arch enemy pUtIN, with faked up evidence about the DNC hack.
I have had the pleasure of hearing (overhearing, to be honest) a Robert Reich lecture, delivered on home ground (UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science).
At first, I did not know who was speaking. I thought, "What a vacuous pile of words." Amazingly, after I noticed the poster in the corridor, giving his name, it did not make any more sense than before.
It's not an original pun: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/philly-daily-news-likens-donald-846683/
I don't think it has been mentioned yet, but even for a partisan prog it's just a bit rich to complain about Mitch after the reign of Harry Blackeye Reid, you know, the guy who on the floor of the Senate falsely accused Mittens of not paying taxes. Then again, the standard is D or R, not actual conduct measured by general standards. The double standard is the standard.
It’s hard to imagine a more useless human being than Robert Reich, other than Krugman and James Carveille.
As usual, Reich is projecting.
McConnell put neither country nor party first. He put himself first, and his CCP paymasters. Good riddance.
The same could be said of the evil little troll, Robert Reich.
His drawing is good. A nice caricature. I've always thought McConnell looks like a mole. The rage-filled rhetoric made me shake my head, though. Reich is Furor Itself.
I couldn't figure out why Reich is so angry at him. All he accuses McConnell of is being loyal to his own party and working to advance its interests. Sounds pretty normal.
It's as if Reich is full of rage that an opposition party exists at all. And using the imagery of religion to vilify enemies is pretty ugly. But Reich's followers must love it.
Am I the only one noticing that today's Supreme Court is markedly more reactionary than the Supreme Court that issued the separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896?
@Rich, you are the only one noticing that, mostly because it isn’t true.
Robert Reich. A small man with an even smaller intellect.
Reminds me of what Churchill said of Atlee: a modest man with much to be modest about.
Sparked a furor!
Did you ever hear the one about Catherine the Great and the origins of Stallionism in Russia?
yes that executive order was based on 2016 omnibus language, the only children separated were those that weren't a genetic match, btw what about the 800,000 children who have gone missing,
The Robert Reichzwerg furor.
Its easy to laugh at him, bur Riech is quite intelligent and quite vicious. One could easily see him as one Yagoda's assistants helping to murder Russian peasants or helping Stalin draw up lists of "counter-revolutionaires" to be executed in 1937.
Go back to 2017 where he was publicizing a plan to destroy Trump through lawfare and other means.
Well, now I feel bad. I went over to have a look at the drawing, and it's not bad, although nothing special, either. Better than I could do, I suppose. But then I noticed that his post was addressed to "Friends". So, I should not be reading it. I am not a friend of Robert the Fourth. If he were on fire, I might piss on him, but not enough to put him out. Just enough to prolong the agony. Leave 'em beggin' for more, as we say in showbiz.
No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work.
Screw that little Mickey! Cosmo Kramer was a much better actor.
I believe the Dems are giving alternating days in the sun to each one of the fanatical fractions that make up their coalition of crackpots centered on Marx. They probably spin a Wheel of Misfortune to choose the Commissar's Campaign of the Day. One day we have "Let them Eat Bugs"; another, "Let them drive EV's in winter in northern states without charging stations"; anon, we find the Dems supporting cannibalism; later, we find that, according to the Dems the Jews are not indigenous to Judea though the Arabs are. And so on. Today, Reich is calling Trump "authoritarian" though yesterday his fellow leftys were calling for "common sense censorship" by which they mean sense common to leftys on a given day. The day before a Dem judge fined Trump $454 million rising to over $500 million with add-ons. This with add-ons will exceed the amount the EU fined Apple for anti-trust infringements against Spotify. That was a crime which caused a real company to lose real money. The Dems are just indulging their spite because they can. So far.
Today - a journalist with The Blaze was arrested by Biden's KGB. ....er I mean - the FBI.
The journalist was not wearing a ski mask on Jan 6th - was only there to be a journalist.
(Lots of feds in ski masks - however)
"No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work."
He called Trump a furor, that is a fact. It does not make sense according to the definition of furor, but he said it anyway. Any pun is implicit, unspoken, he did not explicitly say fuhrer that I saw. So we can only infer a pun, it is imaginary, a guess.
Obviously, I get that there are 2 words involved (if it's not just a stupid misspelling). I don't see what value can be seen in saying "rage-in-chief." Trump isn't rage. So "furor" just looks like a misspelling of Fuhrer. I can believe that Reich thought he was being humorous in some way, but that is a failure as far as I can figure out.
Josephbleau's effort at explaining the pun just makes my point.
Even if you could understand Trump as rage personified, what could "in-chief" add to that? And Fuhrer-in-chief doesn't make sense either, because what could "in-chief" add to Fuhrer, which already refers to the person at the top of the power structure?
Douglas B. Levene: "9The hatred that Sen McConnell receives from both Democrats and Trump loyalists is proof positive that he was a great man."
Mind your own business: "McConnell put neither country nor party first. He put himself first, and his CCP paymasters. Good riddance."
I believe the evidence over these past decades strongly supports the assessment provided by MYOB.
Recall Douglas Levene is a very passionate advocate for the policy of party elites selecting the party nominee in a literal smoke filled back room without any input from the great unwashed deplorable bitter clinger listless vessels.
Little wonder Doug is all in on the laughable premise McConnell is a "Great Man"
It's all a simple twist of fate, Robert Reich met Bill Clinton at Oxford when they were both Rhodes Scholars (kudos for that). From that start, Mr. Reich wormed his way into the public ken and few people in the last quarter century have been as partisan, divisive, harmful and just plain bad. We would all be so much better off if that meeting had not occurred.
Well, EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
I think you're giving 'half-pint' entirely too much credit for intelligence. He's always thought of himself as being clever and witty, even though he's rather tiresome. When he's on television, you can see him self-preening. By using 'furor' in this kind of, (what?) semi-alliterative way, he's hoping the reader will think of Trump simultaneously as
Der Führer in the worst Nazi-like tyrannical way, as well as being a chaotic, confusion-causing, threat to the general order. Yes, it's the wrong use of the word. No, it doesn't make any 'literal' sense when analyzed. It's doesn't even qualify as a double-entendre. Reich probably repeated it to himself a few times and decided it would be a devastating imaginary riposte, because that's the way that tedious fool's mind works. Stupid grammar tricks.
MadisonMan said...Robert Reich displaying classic short man syndrome.
A true mental midget indeed.
Riech was obviously trying to be funny and insult Trump. I sure his libtard audience chuckled.
"it sounded better in the German"
"His dog was a German Shepard"
"His father died in WW II, he fell out of a Guard tower"
The number of "Jokes" where dumb libtards like Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Robert Riesssssh, try to insinuate or insult some Republican is a Nazi are legion.
Its all gets back to the American (mostly boomer) obession with Nazis. Ive been hearing it my entire life (almost 60 now) and I got tired of it about 30 years ago. But boomers? they never tire of Calling each other nazi or raciss or joking about nazis . Y'know that Putin? Just like Hitler... Pelosi and biden will be saying that on their death bed.
Riech was obviously trying to be funny and insult Trump. I sure his libtard audience chuckled.
"it sounded better in the German"
"His dog was a German Shepard"
"His father died in WW II, he fell out of a Guard tower"
The number of "Jokes" where dumb libtards like Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Robert Riesssssh, try to insinuate or insult some Republican is a Nazi are legion.
Its all gets back to the American (mostly boomer) obession with Nazis. Ive been hearing it my entire life (almost 60 now) and I got tired of it about 30 years ago. But boomers? they never tire of Calling each other nazi or raciss or joking about nazis . Y'know that Putin? Just like Hitler... Pelosi and biden will be saying that on their death bed.
"So you think he meant to write "furor," a word that means fury. Explain the cleverness. How can a person be anger? Is he saying Trump has been the embodiment of anger?
"Someone else called it a pun. What are the 2 possible things? A Nazi leader plus the embodiment of anger?
"To me, if just looks like he misspelled Fuhrer."
Could be. I don't know, of course. But if he did intend it as a pun, you ask, "How can a person be anger?" Well, Trump is popular among his zealots--and part of the reason he has zealots--because he intentionally plays on their angers and resentments, telling them that all they hate about the world they see around them is the direct cause of a specific political party, (and particular people, as he finds reasons to trash and name-call those who he sees as enemies to him, which could mean they just don't agree with him, among many other reasons.)
Trump creates demons for his audience, he calls names, casts blame, lets his audience know they're superior to those entities who they believe (or whom he tells them are at fault) for whatever unrest and alienation and dissatisfaction bedevils them and lets them feel justified to hate, which is more exciting for them than the drab (or difficult) norm of their lives. In a world changing so swiftly, with economic and social turmoil and disequilibrium, Trump gives his disaffected followers clear villains at whom they can vent. He is your classic demagogue.
So, I'd say the "furor-in-chief" pun, if that is what it was, is applicable, though admittedly clumsy. If it was intentional, he's trying to hard to apply a snappy tag on Trump.
Fuhrer furor isn't funny if who you are trying to make fun of has no history totalitarianism.
Two word jokes are notoriously hard to make.
Unless
Dwarf shortage
He meant furry.
Ann Althouse said...
No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work.
************
It's axiomatic that if you have to dissect a joke, it dies on the operating table.
....
"OK. I botched a joke, OK?"
--John F. Kerry
Good movie. Herzog's newest book is good too.
career politicians make me sick.
JD Vance is fine with me.
You know who sucks? Every corrupt left-wing democratical in power across the nation.
I can believe that Reich thought he was being humorous in some way, but that is a failure as far as I can figure out.
This. If it was intentional, it was clumsy. And juvenile. And apparently not even original. All in all a faceplant. Fortunately, Reich doesn't have far to fall on his face. (Ok, that's a bit juvenile too.)
AnnAlthouse said...
No one has been able to explain the pun, so I’m convinced it doesn’t work.
Not every pun — nor every joke — works. Why would you assume that an attempt at a pun by Robert Reich would necessarily work? Because he once was a cabinet officer for Bill Clinton? Because he’s a university professor? Aha! That must be it! Everyone knows that every professor knows everything about everything.
Right.
Robert Cook said: "Trump creates demons for his audience..."
Oh come on, Cookie. You know darn well Trump doesn't need to create demons when the progressives spawn so many all on their own.
For instance: Bidenflation, uncontrolled immigration through impotent border enforcement, a disastrous idiotically executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, blocking US energy independence (canning LNG terminals and pipelines), and letting in millions of "undocumented immigrants" with no plans for the feds to supply the food, housing, and healthcare they require for basic survival.
I could go on: How about commercial real estate collapsing in big cities, ridiculous crime levels in big cities, record fentanyl overdose deaths, nasty wars starting in Ukraine and Gaza on Biden's watch, and China threatening to invade Taiwan, Putin threatening to use nukes on Ukraine and NATO, not to mention nukes in space.
Good times, good times with our brilliant "return to normalcy."
The progressives created all of these demons, not Trump. Take some responsibility for your side's policies, bro.
"Why would you assume that an attempt at a pun by Robert Reich would necessarily work?"
I never did. I'm only testing between 2 options: misspelling or poor figure of speech.
The worse the figure of speech the greater the likelihood that it's a misspelling.
Ann Althouse said...
"I'm only testing between 2 options: misspelling or poor figure of speech."
I go with intentional; he seems to reach a lot. Also, I think short jokes are acceptable in Reich's case; I've read a lot of his columns where he seems to hit below the belt.
In my circles, I have heard him called Reichsführer.
Ann Althouse:
I've independently checked the etymology of "furor" (in the OED) and it does not contain anything about a person who is angry.
Both definitions of furor I provided explicitly refer to fury: "rage, passion, fury" (see fury) ... 3. fury; rage; madness.
Fury refers to a person who is angry. Sorry if your OED doesn't, my WB does as does the etymologist. If you don't want to accept it, fine. All I was doing was showing that "furor" and "fury" are related. I did so.
How can a person be anger?
Via metaphor. So I'll toss out another:
Since furor also = 1. A general outburst of enthusiasm, excitement, controversy or the like. it could also reflect on Trump's rallies which are enthusiastic, excited and most certainly controversial. These are things he also has been called. So, as he's directing the rally he could be called the furor-in-chief.
Metaphors are pretty lax.
"Fury refers to a person who is angry. Sorry if your OED doesn't, my WB does as does the etymologist."
But we are not talking about "fury." The word in question is "furor."
"All I was doing was showing that "furor" and "fury" are related" — well, that's completely ceding my point. We're talking about usage. You've got to be precise, or this is completely pointless.
"Via metaphor."
Well, please reread my post. I acknowledged *that* there. If you want to disagree with me, you need to actually disagree with me.
Please note exactly what I've already said and stop fake-disagreeing with me.
A pleasant concession is your best move. Seriously.
Furher fury. Doesn't make sense either.
Furher furor. Leader passion? Leader rage? "Rage" as in all the rage.
Is Reich trying to make Trumps point? Via Oli's post above.
Anyway
'Dwarf Shortage' is funny. Brad Williams would tell you. But it isn't mine. It's a Jimmy Carr one liner. I just thought it was apt in this case.
@Althouse, in that case please consider the possibility that he was using speech to text software, that the software didn’t have “Fuehrer” in its dictionary, and that he did a cursory job of proofreading.
Amending my comment at 9:26 — or Reich might have caught the mistake but left it because he thought that it was cute.
Moondawggie:
Your litany of demons spawned by Biden--to the degree they exist--are completely or to a great degree completely out of the powers of the POTUS to prevent. Russia invading Ukraine? The war in Gaza? China threatening to invade Taiwan? Collapsing commercial real estate in big cities? Putin making threats? How can the president--any president--be responsible for or prevent any of these events? The inflation that began in early 2021 was the result of events that happened while Trump was President, the global COVID pandemic and its effect on global economic activity being a large cause. Crime in the cities? Really? What possible connection is there between that and the president? What cities are you referring to, btw? How can one even understand the rise in crime without knowing where it is happening, and compared and contrasted with other parts of the nation, and reviewed over the past 10 or 20 or 30 years. I know it's fashionable today to grouse about the epidemic of crime in NYC, for example, but, while crime in NYC has ticked up a bit in the last few years, NYC is one of the safest big cities in the country, and the crime rate is dramatically lower than it was when I moved there in 1981.
My point, though, is not that there are no problems about which we should be concerned, even angry, as there are always problems about which we should be concerned. However, the nature of our problems are complex, not reducible to one person or one party, or one simple cause, and our problems cannot simply be swept away in a fortnight because the right person suddenly became POTUS. Wall Street collapsed at the end of Bush's term. Was he responsible for it? I can't say that. Were there policies during Bush's presidency that to a greater or lesser degree contributed to the crash? Possibly. I really can't say without looking into it. But it would be facile and dishonest to call it "Bush's Financial Collapse." It happened while he was president, but independently of him. During the eight years of Obama's presidency, the economy improved and rose steadily. Was Obama responsible for this improvement. One might assume that policies enacted in his presidency had some positive affect on the economy, but I can't say it was all simply a result of the "magic of Obama." That rising economy flowed into the years of Trump's presidency. He didn't create the good economy, he was fortunate to walk into office in a good economy. He was unfortunate to be POTUS when COVID exploded around the world. There is nothing Trump could have done to have prevented the pandemic or the global economic impact of the pandemic. Could he have handled the pandemic better, or in a way that might have mitigated the economic impacts. Perhaps. Perhaps not. It occurred in the last year of Trump's term, too little time to really do very much. However, if Biden had been president during COVID, and Trump succeeded him, one can be certain Trump would have opportunistically pinned it all on Biden.
This is my point: for the purpose of aggrandizing himself, he incites anger in his followers directed toward "the other guy(s)." Trump boils down a complex reality into cardboard children's stories, reducing persons and events to, essentially, "ME GOOD, ME BEST EVER; OTHER GUYS BAD, OTHER GUYS WORST EVER!"
Robert Cook said...
"... Russia invading Ukraine? The war in Gaza? China threatening to invade Taiwan? Collapsing commercial real estate in big cities? Putin making threats? How can the president--any president--be responsible for or prevent any of these events? The inflation that began in early 2021 was the result of events that happened while Trump was President, the global COVID pandemic and its effect on global economic activity being a large cause. Crime in the cities? Really? What possible connection is there between that and the president?"
Robert Heinlein responded...
"This is known as 'bad luck'."
Your litany of demons spawned by Biden--to the degree they exist--are completely or to a great degree completely out of the powers of the POTUS to prevent.
So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?
"So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?"
Uh, some did: the economic decline and losses of jobs and failure of small businesses due to COVID, and the many consequent losses of life in America (not to mention globally) from COVID. That continued into Biden's term. Trump can't claim credit for all the good things that happened during his term, just as all the bad things that have subsequently occurred cannot all be blamed on Biden.
Correlation does not always mean there is causation, as is well known.
Much of what Trump "accomplished" is true only as boasts, not in fact, for instance: Trump never did bring back jobs from abroad, and he didn't stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country, though he will claim he did. On the contrary, he did reduce legal immigration.
"So why didn't they happen when Trump was President?"
Don't you see? He says they did happen, just that it didn't happen then but it's still Trump's fault. A pretty clueless and ignorant take to be sure, but consider the source.
"Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? "
Yes, I remember. I thought the Democratic reaction was humorous. They expect the legislative leader of the opposition party to ensure that their party's presidency was successful? The anti-Trump crowd would be shocked to learn they should have acted in that manner. In fact, I can't think of a single opposition legislative leader who did everything he/she could to hinder the agenda of an opposition party's president.
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