"And let's just be really honest. The Democratic Party in the weeks leading up to this election? Deeply unpopular."

"Our polling showed only 28% of voters were satisfied with the party. My colleague put it this way, the only people less popular than President Trump are Democrats. So did you win this election? Or did he lose it and you were just a receptacle and all these candidates you recruited were a receptacle for the fury?"

Said the NYT interviewer, Michael Barbaro, talking to Chuck Schumer on today's episode of "The Daily," "Chuck Schumer on Governing With (Or Without) Trump" (audio with transcript at Podscribe).

Schumer's answer is, as you will have predicted, evasive. What can he say? Yeah, Michael, I'm a receptacle. I'm a trashcan, a regular spittoon, a toilet, if you will.

How insulting is it to call a human being a "receptacle" of this or that? I see that T.S. Eliot wrote: "The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together."

So perhaps the Senator's mind is a receptacle to be filled up with the numberless feelings of the people — fury, etc. — and the various particles jitter about and recombine into some sort of legislative action. But what?

As with "dilettante" yesterday, I'm moved to search my blog archive for the word. Before today, it had come up 4 times — that's 4 times in 22+ years. The first 2 are quotes — from the NYT and Slate, respectively. Only ##3 and 4 are from me, and oddly enough, both name Hillary Clinton (though neither characterizes her as a receptacle. Here they are (click on the link for the context):

1. "Last May... the mayor opened a flagship welcome center for migrants in the old Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Since then, he has allowed the building, two blocks from Grand Central Terminal, to deteriorate in plain sight. Some ground-floor windows are blacked out, and mattresses hang from a huge metal trash receptacle in the street."

2. "Should you doubt the cup’s cultural significance, I would point you toward a brand new Toby Keith song titled 'Red Solo Cup.' The song opens with these lyrics: 'Red Solo cup is the best receptacle for barbecues, tailgates, fairs, and festivals. And you, sir, do not have a pair of testicles if you prefer drinking from a glass.'"

3. "Maybe you just sit there pleasantly and think: Isn't it clever for Hillary to use the 'Sopranos' scene as a device for informing us about her new campaign song and to include some cute business where she alludes to her concern about health care by having a nice bowl of carrots instead of the onion rings they had on 'The Sopranos'? If so, aren't you the good little voter, accepting the message Senator Clinton hoped to insert in your receptacle of a brain?" 

4. "And yet, whatever you think about Hillary, giving Bill Clinton a blow job doesn't connect well with present-day feminist values. Or is this the new thing, not giving a fuck about sex in the workplace? Could Monica Lewinsky ever emerge as a feminist heroine? 'Feminism' is a receptacle of whatever meaning it receives, and the recipients are the women of today, an ever-changing group...."