I had a friend who had this amazing ability to instantly recognize a person's weakest point and rapier rhetorical ability to exploit it. He left his victims bleeding to death on the floor before they felt the thrust.
I was at a professional basketball game with another friend, Ron. Far down below us in the cheap seats sat Greg in the expensive seats. Greg was only about seven rows from the court. It was a wonderfully exciting game that went back and forth, back and forth. With about two minutes left one of the officials made a "block" foul call on one of the home team's players. It was a terrible call, a truly egregious refereeing error, it was clearly a "charge" on the opposing player and 15,000 people saw it. The arena roof practically blew off with outrage from the fans (It really was a terrible call). That was the most outraged I ever remember hearing a sports crowd. It was momentarily scary.
Moments later there was a timeout and predictably the arena calmed down noticeably. Some people resumed their seats. As NBA refs do during timeouts one stood near the foul line by one basket and one stood near the foul line by the other basket. The ref who made the egregious block call stood at the end of the court where Ron and I, and Greg below us, had our seats.
In the quieting arena as people were sitting back down, I saw Greg stand up and begin pointing and screaming at the official. He leaned forward as he did it. "Look at Greg!" I nudged and yelled to Ron. Maybe five seconds after I had first noticed the harangue, the official...turned his head toward Greg.
Now, understand: The officials are trained to ignore the fans. If they reacted to every fucking drunk (Greg had a beer in his other hand.) fan going nuts on them, there would never be a completed game!
But Greg was different. He wasn't just a drunk, outraged fan, he was drunk, outraged Greg. And he had gotten to the official. What you are thinking now, I thought for a brief instant then: Drunk, outraged Greg had dropped a multitude of f-bombs on the official, the officials can and have in the past had similar drunk, outraged spectators ejected from the arena.
But this was Greg. Greg had not f-bombed the ref. And the ref did not eject Greg.
"That's right, it's ME! They teach you in zebra school to ignore the fans but you KNOW you blew that call! How do you think Grant Long's glasses got knocked into the second row! Now you've got A MINUTE AND A HALF to call a make-up!"
Everybody had seen the erroneous charge. What Greg had instantly recognized in his opponent, the ref, was that the ref also saw that his call was erroneous. And Greg had appealed, loudly and aggressively, to that, to the ref's reason, to his ability to perceive, and to the ref's conscience.
After 2-3 seconds the ref turned his eyes away from Greg and resumed his stoic pose and the timeout ended. The other team inbounded the ball. The ball-handler advanced the ball to mid-court, there were some hometown defenders within his zip code but no closer and...TWEET! The ref, the same ref, pointed at the innocent offender, put his hand on the back of his head to signal a charge and pointed the other way to indicate change of possession.
After the game, Ron and I went down below to find Greg. He told us what he had said to the ref, verified by a third friend who had invited Greg to the game, and verified by other spectators who had come up to Greg to congratulate him. One man had said, "Sir, I would like to thank you for personally winning this game."
That story is 100% true. In my car yesterday I was having an imaginary conversation with Ron. In this imaginary conversation we were talking about Donald Trump and I said "Trump has this sixth sense, like Greg, to instantly see a person's weakest point and to hit it." and then reminded him of the game and other Greg stories.
I have been reading, on fivethirtyeight and other places, how professional pencils do not understand the Republican establishment's passivity toward Trump. They hate Trump, they fear lasting damage to the party from Trump, but they,-Mitt Romney, the Bushes, the RNC head, other Official
Republicans-have not uttered a discouraging word.
There are various theories. That there is a, or a continuation of a, populist revolt within the GOP, either solely Trump-centric or a mutation of the Tea Party movement; that Official Republicans don't want to anger Trump into making a third-party run which would doom the official Republican candidate in the general election; that they think the professional pencils are overrating the Trump danger, that not one ballot has been cast yet; that they don't know what to do, nor what to make of Trump, they just don't know. And today, maybe previously, I don't remember, but today it sunk in, on fivethirtyeight, somebody threw out that maybe Official Republicans are afraid of Trump, they see what happened to John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ben Carson, what is happening to Jeb Bush, Trump has poked his rapier at Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, too, and they don't think it's such a great idea to take Donald Trump on head-on! From a purely political point of view, can't blame them for that. They don't want to be left bleeding and dying on the floor.
But there is also the theory of centrifugal force, that the GOP establishment doesn't have the power to prevent a Trump nomination, it is too fragmented, there are multiple loci of power-evangelicals, the Tea Party, libertarians, the establishment-and the idea that the party can just turn on an auxiliary power source is, today, a myth. There's no there, there.
The undersigned does not have a comprehensive Theory of Trump to present, I am a bit puzzled, too. I have not been as nonchalant about Trump as Nate Silver has been, I have written that there is something going on with Trump that is unusual, that cannot be explained by analogies to George Wallace or Pat Buchanan, there are somethings, plural, going on, only a few that I am confident about, that are not explained, nor are they explainable in my opinion, by historical analysis. They are ahisotical and Trump is sui generis.
I do think that the one theory that best explains the passivity of the GOP establishment, official and unofficial, is fear. The most unbloodied candidate so far is the one who from the beginning has refused to go after Trump, Ted Cruz. And, my God, Trump has skeletons in his closet! So did my friend Greg! I don't think anything explains people not rattling Trump's skeletons as well as does fear. You attack Trump, just like if you wronged Greg, not only will you be left for dead by his counter-punch, but, magically, he will also develop an exosleleton of Teflon.
I was at a professional basketball game with another friend, Ron. Far down below us in the cheap seats sat Greg in the expensive seats. Greg was only about seven rows from the court. It was a wonderfully exciting game that went back and forth, back and forth. With about two minutes left one of the officials made a "block" foul call on one of the home team's players. It was a terrible call, a truly egregious refereeing error, it was clearly a "charge" on the opposing player and 15,000 people saw it. The arena roof practically blew off with outrage from the fans (It really was a terrible call). That was the most outraged I ever remember hearing a sports crowd. It was momentarily scary.
Moments later there was a timeout and predictably the arena calmed down noticeably. Some people resumed their seats. As NBA refs do during timeouts one stood near the foul line by one basket and one stood near the foul line by the other basket. The ref who made the egregious block call stood at the end of the court where Ron and I, and Greg below us, had our seats.
In the quieting arena as people were sitting back down, I saw Greg stand up and begin pointing and screaming at the official. He leaned forward as he did it. "Look at Greg!" I nudged and yelled to Ron. Maybe five seconds after I had first noticed the harangue, the official...turned his head toward Greg.
Now, understand: The officials are trained to ignore the fans. If they reacted to every fucking drunk (Greg had a beer in his other hand.) fan going nuts on them, there would never be a completed game!
But Greg was different. He wasn't just a drunk, outraged fan, he was drunk, outraged Greg. And he had gotten to the official. What you are thinking now, I thought for a brief instant then: Drunk, outraged Greg had dropped a multitude of f-bombs on the official, the officials can and have in the past had similar drunk, outraged spectators ejected from the arena.
But this was Greg. Greg had not f-bombed the ref. And the ref did not eject Greg.
"That's right, it's ME! They teach you in zebra school to ignore the fans but you KNOW you blew that call! How do you think Grant Long's glasses got knocked into the second row! Now you've got A MINUTE AND A HALF to call a make-up!"
Everybody had seen the erroneous charge. What Greg had instantly recognized in his opponent, the ref, was that the ref also saw that his call was erroneous. And Greg had appealed, loudly and aggressively, to that, to the ref's reason, to his ability to perceive, and to the ref's conscience.
After 2-3 seconds the ref turned his eyes away from Greg and resumed his stoic pose and the timeout ended. The other team inbounded the ball. The ball-handler advanced the ball to mid-court, there were some hometown defenders within his zip code but no closer and...TWEET! The ref, the same ref, pointed at the innocent offender, put his hand on the back of his head to signal a charge and pointed the other way to indicate change of possession.
After the game, Ron and I went down below to find Greg. He told us what he had said to the ref, verified by a third friend who had invited Greg to the game, and verified by other spectators who had come up to Greg to congratulate him. One man had said, "Sir, I would like to thank you for personally winning this game."
That story is 100% true. In my car yesterday I was having an imaginary conversation with Ron. In this imaginary conversation we were talking about Donald Trump and I said "Trump has this sixth sense, like Greg, to instantly see a person's weakest point and to hit it." and then reminded him of the game and other Greg stories.
I have been reading, on fivethirtyeight and other places, how professional pencils do not understand the Republican establishment's passivity toward Trump. They hate Trump, they fear lasting damage to the party from Trump, but they,-Mitt Romney, the Bushes, the RNC head, other Official
Republicans-have not uttered a discouraging word.
There are various theories. That there is a, or a continuation of a, populist revolt within the GOP, either solely Trump-centric or a mutation of the Tea Party movement; that Official Republicans don't want to anger Trump into making a third-party run which would doom the official Republican candidate in the general election; that they think the professional pencils are overrating the Trump danger, that not one ballot has been cast yet; that they don't know what to do, nor what to make of Trump, they just don't know. And today, maybe previously, I don't remember, but today it sunk in, on fivethirtyeight, somebody threw out that maybe Official Republicans are afraid of Trump, they see what happened to John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Ben Carson, what is happening to Jeb Bush, Trump has poked his rapier at Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, too, and they don't think it's such a great idea to take Donald Trump on head-on! From a purely political point of view, can't blame them for that. They don't want to be left bleeding and dying on the floor.
But there is also the theory of centrifugal force, that the GOP establishment doesn't have the power to prevent a Trump nomination, it is too fragmented, there are multiple loci of power-evangelicals, the Tea Party, libertarians, the establishment-and the idea that the party can just turn on an auxiliary power source is, today, a myth. There's no there, there.
The undersigned does not have a comprehensive Theory of Trump to present, I am a bit puzzled, too. I have not been as nonchalant about Trump as Nate Silver has been, I have written that there is something going on with Trump that is unusual, that cannot be explained by analogies to George Wallace or Pat Buchanan, there are somethings, plural, going on, only a few that I am confident about, that are not explained, nor are they explainable in my opinion, by historical analysis. They are ahisotical and Trump is sui generis.
I do think that the one theory that best explains the passivity of the GOP establishment, official and unofficial, is fear. The most unbloodied candidate so far is the one who from the beginning has refused to go after Trump, Ted Cruz. And, my God, Trump has skeletons in his closet! So did my friend Greg! I don't think anything explains people not rattling Trump's skeletons as well as does fear. You attack Trump, just like if you wronged Greg, not only will you be left for dead by his counter-punch, but, magically, he will also develop an exosleleton of Teflon.
