Saturday, February 27, 2016
Deportation Attack Ad
The November election between Donald Trump and the Republicans and Hillary Clinton and the Democrats is going to be the most appalling and vicious in history. Look at the national polls, Clinton has a two-point lead. Trump is a "meta-candidate" who cuts across ideological and party lines. He upsets the Democratic advantage in the electoral college. He has messianic appeal. His followers respond to his anger and to his rhetoric and largely don't care about his policy prescriptions. It will be difficult for the Democrats to shake loose that strange fruit. Trump will acquire nearly all registered Republican support. That which he loses will be more than offset by the number of Democrats and Independents that respond to his messianic appeal. It will be a close election which Trump could win. If the Democrats do not match anger-for-anger, fear-for-fear.
The Democrats must attack Donald Trump and the Republicans as viciously and as relentlessly as they will attack them. If the Democrats attack they will turn a close election which they could lose into a historical rout.
First, the Democrats must lash Trump and the Republican Party together. They must not let Republicans distance themselves from Trump to save their party.
Second, Democrats must go right at Trump's appeal and lash him and the Republican Party to Anger, Fear, Meanness, Unfairness, Danger, Erraticism. The imagery must be vivid with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, George H.W. Bush lashed Willie Horton to Michael Dukakis.
Trump's "Bomb the shit out of ISIS!" begets a reprise of LBJ's daisy ad. Fear is met with fear.
Deport illegal Mexican immigrants begets real images of American deportations interposed with Nazi deportations of Jews. Meanness is met with meanness.
Trump's "Bomb the shit out of ISIS!" begets a reprise of LBJ's daisy ad. Fear is met with fear.
Deport illegal Mexican immigrants begets real images of American deportations interposed with Nazi deportations of Jews. Meanness is met with meanness.
10, 9, 8, 7...
After Trump captures the GOP, as soon as it is official and they can't turn back, the Democrats ought to air an updated version of LBJ's famous daisy-countdown-to-nuclear-armageddon attack ad and run it until the last dog dies. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k
Trump's anger and extremism have found a reinforcing, call-and-response reaction among the Middle Fingers Class. Use a boomerang strategy, attack Trump at his strongest points and throw them right back at him. Trump and the GOP are unstable, unfit to govern. Attacks like this will obliterate them both.
Put this question forefront in the public's mind: do you want this angry, erratic man with his short, stumpy index finger on the nuclear button? Because, "in the end you know he might."
Friday, February 26, 2016
The Times
Anger..."Tough Shit"...Ted Cruz is a "pussy"..."Fuck"..."We're voting with our middle finger"...Issues don't matter...Bernie Sanders!
Sounds like my kinda times!
Is that what really counts in these times? How else to explain Trump and a socialist? Bernie uses angry language. Bernie saw a compatibility between his supporters and Trump's. Bernie has gotten about half the Democratic vote and Trump is showing his ceiling is not at 30%-40%. The Republicans are going to unite behind Trump.
The only way to beat Trump may be by matching or exceeding his level of angry rhetoric. No Republican of less demented tongue has dented him. Ted Cruz has hit hard but not in an angry voice. No Republican will stop Trump. He's going to be the nominee.
The Democrats will have to stop Trump from becoming president. Sanders has the passion and fiery rhetoric to do it but he isn't going to be the Democratic nominee. Can Clinton? Boy. If angry, fiery rhetoric is the key to the times, I'm feeling squeamish about Clinton's ability to pull that off. Anger and fire are not associated as favorably with her sex as with males...Bella Abzug could pull it off, though! Maybe Clinton can. Maybe she doesn't need to. When she ran for the Senate she had some guy, pleasant enough young fella, but with the hatred for her that Republicans have, and in a debate, he walked over to her to present a petition or something. "It was like every man walking across the kitchen to confront his wife," one woman said. It came across as manly domestic intimidation. It was a turning point in the campaign which Clinton won. She should practice though. She may have to get all broke out with outrage.On the other hand Trump wasn't hurt by his sexist insults of Megyn Kelly.
Trump is a bully, a vulgar bully. Joseph McCarthy was a bully. Joseph Welch ended McCarthyism with a quietly emotional speech. There's more than one way to skin a Trump but the anger of the times, looks to me like the appeal of unreasoning anger is going to have to be dealt with if the Trump is to be skinned.
Sounds like my kinda times!
Is that what really counts in these times? How else to explain Trump and a socialist? Bernie uses angry language. Bernie saw a compatibility between his supporters and Trump's. Bernie has gotten about half the Democratic vote and Trump is showing his ceiling is not at 30%-40%. The Republicans are going to unite behind Trump.
The only way to beat Trump may be by matching or exceeding his level of angry rhetoric. No Republican of less demented tongue has dented him. Ted Cruz has hit hard but not in an angry voice. No Republican will stop Trump. He's going to be the nominee.
The Democrats will have to stop Trump from becoming president. Sanders has the passion and fiery rhetoric to do it but he isn't going to be the Democratic nominee. Can Clinton? Boy. If angry, fiery rhetoric is the key to the times, I'm feeling squeamish about Clinton's ability to pull that off. Anger and fire are not associated as favorably with her sex as with males...Bella Abzug could pull it off, though! Maybe Clinton can. Maybe she doesn't need to. When she ran for the Senate she had some guy, pleasant enough young fella, but with the hatred for her that Republicans have, and in a debate, he walked over to her to present a petition or something. "It was like every man walking across the kitchen to confront his wife," one woman said. It came across as manly domestic intimidation. It was a turning point in the campaign which Clinton won. She should practice though. She may have to get all broke out with outrage.On the other hand Trump wasn't hurt by his sexist insults of Megyn Kelly.
Trump is a bully, a vulgar bully. Joseph McCarthy was a bully. Joseph Welch ended McCarthyism with a quietly emotional speech. There's more than one way to skin a Trump but the anger of the times, looks to me like the appeal of unreasoning anger is going to have to be dealt with if the Trump is to be skinned.
"I Speak for the Morons!": America's "Moron Vote" Commentary Part II
Isn't that bizarre? After calling Trump's supporters morons four times in the first half he then says in his transition sentence "let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters." And James stands with the morons on the things about Trump's campaign that appeal to them! So how can he call them morons?
Alright, let's look at the Second Face of Bill in detail.:
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to,
[It is singular that the First Face of Bill decries Harry Truman and rejects Trump for mocking people, for being rude and vulgar in public but the Second Face applauds turns of phrase like "screw you" and later "whiners," and "tough shit" which are "what [Trump's] whole campaign is about.
These "rules" that James approves Trump disobeying are a big thing for James. What are these rules? They are a gentle man and woman's agreement in politics that you shalt not mock, personally insult and be rude and vulgar. They are gentlemen's agreements, nothing more! Nobody must obey them, Trump doesn't, apparently Harry Truman didn't, they are not laws, they don't even get you kicked out of a presidential debate, they're just implicitly agreed to codes of presidential conduct--which the First Face of Bill agrees with and the Second Face does not. ???]
but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...
[Mr. Data Based Baseball, could you give us your calculations on that statement, "almost all" of the morons "perceive" that America has become a nation of whiners? Could you give us SOME basis, even if anecdotal, like has a moron told you that? Why do you perceive that, Mr. James?]
The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about,
[Source? Even a basis in argument for that proposition? No...But let's think about that: "stand up for yourself." Olivia Nuzzi says Trump supporters "trust him as a leader who won't allow them to be fucked over."]
I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us.
[Okay, with that, I'll buy that as consistent with Ms. Nuzzi's statement of Trumpets. However, Ms. Nuzzi does not say "almost all" Trumpets perceive America as a "nation of whiners."]
I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point,
[So far James agrees with Trumpets that America is a nation of whiners, that non-whiners have to stand up for themselves and that we need a Leader who will stand up for us. James is batting a perfect three-for-three in simpatico with Trumpets. Why are Trumpets morons?]
and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit.
[Here is a direct contradiction between the First Face of Bill and the Second Face of Bill. #3 in James' Five Theses Against Trump in the First Face is Trump is a dangerous "hard-ass."
"Stand up for America," check, James and Trumpets are in agreement; "toughness," check. And, one of the Trumpets who responded to Ms. Nuzzi said "we love Trump for the tough sob he is." James is down with saying "without any concern whatsoever" for what the whiners and the rest of the world think, "tough shit." So...why are they morons again? Okay, whatever on that.
What about the substance? Pause: Bill, transition; style to substance, transition. Warrants a paragraph. Unpause. Let's adopt the posture James/Trumpets advance, that we are a nation of whiners and we need to stand up and get tough and ignore those who disagree with us. That is not democratic. That is advancing strong man rule. You cannot ignore the 50%-70% (by James' own estimate) of America that are whiners! They have stood up too (and whined) they have representatives in Congress who stand up and whine, they are on the Supreme Court, and no matter how big you feel when you stand up and get tough in a democracy you're not the only voice that counts, you have to get stand-up-and-get-tough laws passed by Congress, you have to make sure those laws are constitutional or the Supremes will cut you down to size and tell you to shut up and sit down. The United Nations is sort of democratic. The "Europeans" and "Asians" and "Mexicans" have voices at the UN too. You can't "ignore" them. So I think the Second Face of Bill and the Trumpets are morons.
What has Mexico done to deserve this abuse? Trump may as well have picked Finland. Until Trump brought this up, where was Mexico on our list of Americans' foreign policy concerns? America is, virtually and maybe literally, THE ONLY NATION ON EARTH WITH FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS ON BOTH ITS VAST BORDERS, NORTH AND SOUTH. Trump wants to build a Wall on the Mexican border. MORONIC. Why should we ignore Europeans "without any concern whatsoever for what they think?" What are they "whining" about? How have Europeans screwed us? "Asians:" That's broader than Chinese! Japanese, Koreans, what are the substantive complaints James and the Trumpets have about them? Pause: Is it not surpassingly weird that James never mentions Muslims? Never mentions the Middle East, Israel? Yes. Unpause. Or! Is posture everything. It doesn't matter the substance, it doesn't matter the target of "Tough Shit," whoever Trump says as long as Trump says "Tough Shit" we're down with. That is pretty close to what Olivia Nuzzi says. The Trumpets don't care for Trump's substance, they're all in on the "tough sob" posture.
Enough. Since they don't care about substance, since they don't care about their targets, since all they want is a tough sob I will randomly choose as my target, eenie meenie minie moe, Bill and the Trumpets, and I will say to them, FUCK YOU!]
That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying,
[I'm saying that too.]
mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion,
[Oh, right, you don't like Trump's self-promotion. You also said he was "insincere." About what?]
but that’s the kernel of it.
["Tough Shit;" Tough Shit is the "kernel" of "what Donald Trump is saying;" "FUCK YOU" is the kernel of what I'm saying to Bill James and the Trumpets, does "FUCK YOU" work for you? No? Tough Shit.]
I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something.
[Bill James: you're ON something. You're a fucking MORON. You've taken too many fastballs to the head and you're SCHIZOPHRENIC.]
Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
Alright, let's look at the Second Face of Bill in detail.:
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to,
[It is singular that the First Face of Bill decries Harry Truman and rejects Trump for mocking people, for being rude and vulgar in public but the Second Face applauds turns of phrase like "screw you" and later "whiners," and "tough shit" which are "what [Trump's] whole campaign is about.
These "rules" that James approves Trump disobeying are a big thing for James. What are these rules? They are a gentle man and woman's agreement in politics that you shalt not mock, personally insult and be rude and vulgar. They are gentlemen's agreements, nothing more! Nobody must obey them, Trump doesn't, apparently Harry Truman didn't, they are not laws, they don't even get you kicked out of a presidential debate, they're just implicitly agreed to codes of presidential conduct--which the First Face of Bill agrees with and the Second Face does not. ???]
but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...
[Mr. Data Based Baseball, could you give us your calculations on that statement, "almost all" of the morons "perceive" that America has become a nation of whiners? Could you give us SOME basis, even if anecdotal, like has a moron told you that? Why do you perceive that, Mr. James?]
The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about,
[Source? Even a basis in argument for that proposition? No...But let's think about that: "stand up for yourself." Olivia Nuzzi says Trump supporters "trust him as a leader who won't allow them to be fucked over."]
I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us.
[Okay, with that, I'll buy that as consistent with Ms. Nuzzi's statement of Trumpets. However, Ms. Nuzzi does not say "almost all" Trumpets perceive America as a "nation of whiners."]
I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point,
[So far James agrees with Trumpets that America is a nation of whiners, that non-whiners have to stand up for themselves and that we need a Leader who will stand up for us. James is batting a perfect three-for-three in simpatico with Trumpets. Why are Trumpets morons?]
and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit.
[Here is a direct contradiction between the First Face of Bill and the Second Face of Bill. #3 in James' Five Theses Against Trump in the First Face is Trump is a dangerous "hard-ass."
"Stand up for America," check, James and Trumpets are in agreement; "toughness," check. And, one of the Trumpets who responded to Ms. Nuzzi said "we love Trump for the tough sob he is." James is down with saying "without any concern whatsoever" for what the whiners and the rest of the world think, "tough shit." So...why are they morons again? Okay, whatever on that.
What about the substance? Pause: Bill, transition; style to substance, transition. Warrants a paragraph. Unpause. Let's adopt the posture James/Trumpets advance, that we are a nation of whiners and we need to stand up and get tough and ignore those who disagree with us. That is not democratic. That is advancing strong man rule. You cannot ignore the 50%-70% (by James' own estimate) of America that are whiners! They have stood up too (and whined) they have representatives in Congress who stand up and whine, they are on the Supreme Court, and no matter how big you feel when you stand up and get tough in a democracy you're not the only voice that counts, you have to get stand-up-and-get-tough laws passed by Congress, you have to make sure those laws are constitutional or the Supremes will cut you down to size and tell you to shut up and sit down. The United Nations is sort of democratic. The "Europeans" and "Asians" and "Mexicans" have voices at the UN too. You can't "ignore" them. So I think the Second Face of Bill and the Trumpets are morons.
What has Mexico done to deserve this abuse? Trump may as well have picked Finland. Until Trump brought this up, where was Mexico on our list of Americans' foreign policy concerns? America is, virtually and maybe literally, THE ONLY NATION ON EARTH WITH FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS ON BOTH ITS VAST BORDERS, NORTH AND SOUTH. Trump wants to build a Wall on the Mexican border. MORONIC. Why should we ignore Europeans "without any concern whatsoever for what they think?" What are they "whining" about? How have Europeans screwed us? "Asians:" That's broader than Chinese! Japanese, Koreans, what are the substantive complaints James and the Trumpets have about them? Pause: Is it not surpassingly weird that James never mentions Muslims? Never mentions the Middle East, Israel? Yes. Unpause. Or! Is posture everything. It doesn't matter the substance, it doesn't matter the target of "Tough Shit," whoever Trump says as long as Trump says "Tough Shit" we're down with. That is pretty close to what Olivia Nuzzi says. The Trumpets don't care for Trump's substance, they're all in on the "tough sob" posture.
Enough. Since they don't care about substance, since they don't care about their targets, since all they want is a tough sob I will randomly choose as my target, eenie meenie minie moe, Bill and the Trumpets, and I will say to them, FUCK YOU!]
That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying,
[I'm saying that too.]
mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion,
[Oh, right, you don't like Trump's self-promotion. You also said he was "insincere." About what?]
but that’s the kernel of it.
["Tough Shit;" Tough Shit is the "kernel" of "what Donald Trump is saying;" "FUCK YOU" is the kernel of what I'm saying to Bill James and the Trumpets, does "FUCK YOU" work for you? No? Tough Shit.]
I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something.
[Bill James: you're ON something. You're a fucking MORON. You've taken too many fastballs to the head and you're SCHIZOPHRENIC.]
Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
America's "Moron Vote" Commentary Part I
Below is the incomplete draft of the post. It is also sic. I got tired and stopped at the last bracketed entry. I was working on it when it just got too long. I decided to publish Mr. James' post uncorrupted by me. I will finish up the commentary manana in a Part II.
After reading it through this morning and beginning to write I was struck by how schizoid it was. As I think back on it now it strikes me as even more schizoid. It really is like two posts and the halves written by different people. And yet, it is not even paragraphed. There is no compositional transition. Haven't encountered that much. I have written some long paragraphs and almost always go back and break them up even if there really is no natural break, just as convenience to the reader. And I excerpted James' post! I didn't publish the whole thing. But it is not just a big run-on sentence or run-on paragraph. The writing is good. The thoughts flow. The thoughts flow until the break and then without a compositional break he really does undo in the second half so much of the first half. It is difficult to reconcile the two as part of one man's thought, it really is! This very long post is reduced, as I say immediately below in the draft, to making what should have been a very short point: treasure the message but kill the messenger. That really does not follow!
.......................................................
This is from Bill James, baseball analytics pioneer. It is sic, there really are no paragraphs. I have underlined the transition and bolded his main points.
Mr. James has important things to say about Trump's appeal which he styles in the alternative as "Trump supporters," the "morons" of the first half, and James says in the second half that he wishes to speak "for Donald Trump or at least Trump's supporters," the "morons." Which is odd. James point devolves to this: applaud the message, despise the messenger. Which is odd.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;
[Sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that pass. Trump is a bully and a bully is not courageous.]
not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President.
[1. James conflates courageous and outrageous. It is not courageous to insult John McCain, Megyn Kelly, the handicapped, or Mexicans, it is outrageous. James rebukes Harry Truman for mocking people but finds "courage" in Donald Trump's mocking. Weird. 2. James equates courage with rule-breaking, "doing things people tell him he can't do." There can be courage in rule-breaking, courage even in insulting, if those you insult are more powerful and if you knowingly accept the consequences but to insult the less powerful is mere bullying. 3. James approves of this Trumpian "courage," elevating it over wisdom. Not every act of this kind of courage is wise: "Donald, you CAN'T touch a hot stove." Donald touches a hot stove and gets burnt. Stupid, not courageous. "Donald, you cannot run through a stone wall headfirst." Donald runs through a stone wall headfirst, gets paralyzed from the neck down. Stupid, not courageous. It is rule-breaking for the purpose of rule-breaking that James finds courageous in Trump. That is stupid. 5. Sometimes, there is wisdom is rules, sometimes there is morality. "Thou shalt not kill." is a rule, something we are all told we "can't do." Donald kills. That is immoral as well as stupid and is frequently cowardly, the ultimate in bullying. 6. "We need that in a president." We must not have that in a president. James did not want that in President Harry Truman. WEIRD.]
We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.”
[That is surpassingly weird. Anarchic, narcissistic, amoral, frequently immoral.]
I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy
[That is truth in that. Trump is advocating direct democracy, mob rule, "voting with our middle finger," rather than representative democracy, which the Constitution constructed. Trump does not seem to feel subject to the Constitution, it may be just another set of rules to him that were made to be broken by him and him alone. Ideas of checks and balances, separation of powers--Trump doesn't give the sense that he wants his power as president checked and balanced, that he wants governmental power separated, he gives the sense of wanting all governmental concentrated in him as president.]
in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand.
[There is truth in that too. I don't think the Talking Head class saw this strain of the "authoritarian personality" as such and I don't think they saw it as appealing as it is in America.]
We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations. . . .
[Totally right. I stand foursquare with James on that.]
we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules.
[Query. Besides all of the above, query: If we have all been forced to comply by the rule-making do-gooder class, how has Trump not been forced to comply?]
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
After reading it through this morning and beginning to write I was struck by how schizoid it was. As I think back on it now it strikes me as even more schizoid. It really is like two posts and the halves written by different people. And yet, it is not even paragraphed. There is no compositional transition. Haven't encountered that much. I have written some long paragraphs and almost always go back and break them up even if there really is no natural break, just as convenience to the reader. And I excerpted James' post! I didn't publish the whole thing. But it is not just a big run-on sentence or run-on paragraph. The writing is good. The thoughts flow. The thoughts flow until the break and then without a compositional break he really does undo in the second half so much of the first half. It is difficult to reconcile the two as part of one man's thought, it really is! This very long post is reduced, as I say immediately below in the draft, to making what should have been a very short point: treasure the message but kill the messenger. That really does not follow!
.......................................................
This is from Bill James, baseball analytics pioneer. It is sic, there really are no paragraphs. I have underlined the transition and bolded his main points.
Mr. James has important things to say about Trump's appeal which he styles in the alternative as "Trump supporters," the "morons" of the first half, and James says in the second half that he wishes to speak "for Donald Trump or at least Trump's supporters," the "morons." Which is odd. James point devolves to this: applaud the message, despise the messenger. Which is odd.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;
[Sorry to interrupt but I cannot let that pass. Trump is a bully and a bully is not courageous.]
not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President.
[1. James conflates courageous and outrageous. It is not courageous to insult John McCain, Megyn Kelly, the handicapped, or Mexicans, it is outrageous. James rebukes Harry Truman for mocking people but finds "courage" in Donald Trump's mocking. Weird. 2. James equates courage with rule-breaking, "doing things people tell him he can't do." There can be courage in rule-breaking, courage even in insulting, if those you insult are more powerful and if you knowingly accept the consequences but to insult the less powerful is mere bullying. 3. James approves of this Trumpian "courage," elevating it over wisdom. Not every act of this kind of courage is wise: "Donald, you CAN'T touch a hot stove." Donald touches a hot stove and gets burnt. Stupid, not courageous. "Donald, you cannot run through a stone wall headfirst." Donald runs through a stone wall headfirst, gets paralyzed from the neck down. Stupid, not courageous. It is rule-breaking for the purpose of rule-breaking that James finds courageous in Trump. That is stupid. 5. Sometimes, there is wisdom is rules, sometimes there is morality. "Thou shalt not kill." is a rule, something we are all told we "can't do." Donald kills. That is immoral as well as stupid and is frequently cowardly, the ultimate in bullying. 6. "We need that in a president." We must not have that in a president. James did not want that in President Harry Truman. WEIRD.]
We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.”
[That is surpassingly weird. Anarchic, narcissistic, amoral, frequently immoral.]
I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy
[That is truth in that. Trump is advocating direct democracy, mob rule, "voting with our middle finger," rather than representative democracy, which the Constitution constructed. Trump does not seem to feel subject to the Constitution, it may be just another set of rules to him that were made to be broken by him and him alone. Ideas of checks and balances, separation of powers--Trump doesn't give the sense that he wants his power as president checked and balanced, that he wants governmental power separated, he gives the sense of wanting all governmental concentrated in him as president.]
in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand.
[There is truth in that too. I don't think the Talking Head class saw this strain of the "authoritarian personality" as such and I don't think they saw it as appealing as it is in America.]
We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations. . . .
[Totally right. I stand foursquare with James on that.]
we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules.
[Query. Besides all of the above, query: If we have all been forced to comply by the rule-making do-gooder class, how has Trump not been forced to comply?]
These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
America's "Moron Vote"
This is from Bill James, baseball analytics pioneer. It is sic, there really are no paragraphs. I have underlined the transition and bolded his main points. This is excerpted but extensively excerpted. Commentary in a separate post.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President. We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.” I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand. We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations...we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules. These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
Trump, as in Rump.
Trump, As In Rump Let me begin by telling you, if the title does not make this clear enough, what I think about Donald Trump. I stress that I am not trying to tell you what YOU should think about The Donald; I am merely telling you what I think, how I react to him. I have despised Donald Trump for 35 or 40 years, however long he has been a national figure, and I don’t intend to give this up now, or after he becomes President. Of all of the people who are running for President or have now dropped out of the race, Donald Trump is absolutely the last one that I would vote for. I could summarize the reasons for this in five bullet points: (1) I believe that Trump is more interested in what is good for Donald Trump than in what is good for America, not that the same could not be said about many of the other candidates, but it seems to me that this has to be more of a concern in the case of a man who has spent 30 years plastering his name to everything he could put his name on, (2) I don’t think Trump’s background in business prepares him for the challenges of the Presidency, (3) I think Trump’s hard-ass approach to problems, in the Presidency, would be very dangerous for our nation, and might have terrible consequences for all of us, (4) I dislike self-promotion. I intensely dislike self-promotion. Donald Trump is the nation’s most notorious self-promoter—and was, before he decided to run for President. (5) I don’t believe that Trump is sincere in 99% of what he says. I think almost everything he says is either an outright lie, or something he is merely saying because it is convenient for him at the moment. We haven’t had a President since Harry Truman who mocked people, a President who was openly rude and vulgar, and I am not anxious to bring that back to the oval office. Also, although I stress that I don’t know, I doubt that Trump is likely to win the election. I would like to see the Republicans nominate somebody who could actually win, not that I necessarily am going to vote for him; I would just like to have better options, just as I would like to have better options in buying an automobile or a gallon of milk....I don’t think that Trump can win, frankly, because I don’t think there are enough morons to elect him. A certain percentage of the American public is just morons; that’s the way it is. When you divide the public in two and then divide the voters in one of those halves among five candidates or more, a candidate can win by dominating the moron vote because it only takes about one-seventh of the total population to take the “lead” under those circumstances. But when you’re talking about needing 51% of the WHOLE population, rather than needing 30% of half of the population, you run out of morons. I hope we will; I hope Trump will lose because I hope that he runs out of morons to vote for him...Now, having said all of that, having hopefully dispelled any notion that I am a closet Trump supporter, let me speak on behalf of Donald Trump, or at least Donald Trump’s supporters, for the rest of this article. What Trump is advocating, I believe, is courage;not that this is all that he is advocating, but this is a critical part of what he is advocating. I believe in courage. I am all for politicians displaying courage, and I think that Donald Trump has done a better job of displaying real courage than anyone else running this year. Donald Trump has had the courage to say things and do things that people tell him he can’t do. We need that, in a President. We need somebody who is willing to stand up and say “You don’t make the rules for me. I make the rules for me.” I applaud Trump for being that person. Also, Donald Trump is advocating real democracy in a way that the other candidates are not, and in a way that is too subtle for most of the Talking Head class to understand. We have in this great nation, blessed by God but not uniquely blessed by God, and not chosen by God to stand ahead of other nations...we have a class of professional do-gooders who have made a lot of rules for the rest of us, and who have, with the knowing co-operation of the media, forced the rest of us to comply with their rules. These rules were never voted upon, and were never agreed to by most of us. Some of these rules are good and proper, and some of them are useless and counter-productive. I will explain a little better what rules I mean in just a moment, but first my main point. Donald Trump is saying “screw you” to the professionally self-righteous, and he is saying “screw you” to those people who are trying to force him to obey these rules that the nation has never really agreed to, but has been forced to accept by leaders who lacked the courage to stand up to the professionally self-righteous...It is my perception—as it is the perception, I think, of almost all of the Trump supporters—that we are becoming a nation of whiners...The Trump campaign, I think, is telling these people that they don’t make the rules because we’re tired of following their rules, and we’re not going to take it anymore. And I second the motion. The basis of Donald Trump’s campaign is not “conservatism”; it is the principle that you have to stand up for yourself. That’s what his whole campaign is about, I think: you have to stand up for yourself. Our politicians have to stand up for us. I don’t believe that anyone has ever run a Presidential campaign before based on this principle, and I think that what Donald Trump has done is to demonstrate exactly how powerful this is as an organizing principle for a political campaign. Well, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the proposition that you have to stand up for yourself, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with making that proposition the centerpiece of your campaign. I think it is a completely valid point, and I think it is high time that somebody did this. Donald Trump tells us that he is going to make America great again. I am not voting for Donald Trump because I don’t believe that he has any idea how to make America great again, nor do I even necessarily believe that America, all things considered, was ever greater than it is now. It doesn’t appeal to me...But it appeals to other people, and I think that I understand why it appeals. The slogan “make America great again” has two parts: (1) It implies that America used to be something that it no longer is, and (2) It argues that the responsibility of the President is to stand up for America, and not to worry about what the Europeans or the Mexicans or the United Nations delegates think about this. Trump is implicitly saying that we have lost touch with certain values that used to characterize America, and I think that that is absolutely true...We have lost touch with the virtue of toughness. We despise toughness, not as individuals but as a collective, and we sympathize with whiners when we should ignore them. The consequences of this are becoming visible, and they will become more visible until we realize that toughness is a real thing, a real virtue, and that we need more of it. And I believe that it is true that the responsibility of our elected officials is to stand up for America, and I believe that we have had many failings in this regard...I’m not saying “screw the Europeans” or “to hell with Asia”; what I am saying is that the United States President needs to do what is best for America, without any concern whatsoever for what the Europeans or the Asians or the Mexicans think. I believe in the old phrase “Tough Shit”...You don’t like Guantanamo? Tough Shit. The rest of the world doesn’t approve of Water Boarding? Tough Shit. That, I think, is what Donald Trump is saying, mixed in with a lot of lies and half-truths and stupid self-promotion, but that’s the kernel of it. I’ll vote for anybody that you put up against him, but neither do I believe that everything he says is untrue or is without merit. He’s on to something. Hopefully somebody who isn’t The Donald will be smart enough to pick up on it.
Republican Hard-Wiring.
As Republicans occupy a lower branch on the human evolutionary tree we come to expect from them "thinking" such as this, from their 2012 standard-bearer Mitt "Wrong Way" Romney. This guy is hard-wired to go the wrong way, he can't help. Romney bitched about Democratic calls for the release of his tax returns in the 2012 campaign. Finally, long after he got the Republican nomination he released...one year's tax returns. Now, Romney is making the same calls on Donald Trump that he bitched were being made on him in 2012.
See, Republicans are hard-wired to do this, always to go the wrong way, they can't help it, they're brains are not highly evolved. We encourage Republicans in their chosen path but they really don't need assistance.:
“Frankly, I think we have good reason to believe that there’s a bombshell in Donald Trump’s taxes. I think there is something there,” Romney said on Fox News’ “Your World” with Neil Cavuto. “The reason I think there is a bombshell in there is because every time he is asked about his taxes, he dodges and delays.
“I think in Donald Trump’s case it is likely to be a bombshell. There are things that could be issues, and when people decide they don’t want to give you their taxes, it’s usually because there’s something they don’t want you to see.
“[Trump] likes to tell people how well he’s done, why isn’t he willing to let us look at the tax return? It was an issue in my campaign. That’s why I’m so sensitive to it. We’re going to select our nominee – we really ought to see from all three of these fellows what their taxes look like to see if there is an issue there.
“I think in Donald Trump’s case it is likely to be a bombshell. There are things that could be issues, and when people decide they don’t want to give you their taxes, it’s usually because there’s something they don’t want you to see.
“[Trump] likes to tell people how well he’s done, why isn’t he willing to let us look at the tax return? It was an issue in my campaign. That’s why I’m so sensitive to it. We’re going to select our nominee – we really ought to see from all three of these fellows what their taxes look like to see if there is an issue there.
"The voters have a right to see those tax returns before they decide who the nominee ought to be."
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
TRUMP!
"Among friends, sir!" repeated Mr. Micawber; and all he had reserved came breaking out of him..."What is the matter, gentlemen? What is not the matter? Villany is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is---TRUMP!"
"I'll put my hand in no man's hand," said Mr. Micawber..."until I have--blown to fragments--the---a---detestable---serpent---TRUMP!
I'll partake of no ones hospitality, until I have--a--moved Mount Vesuvius--to eruption--on--a--the abandoned rascal---TRUMP!
Refreshment--a--underneath this roof...--would--a--choak me--unless--I had--previously--choaked the eyes--out of the head--a--of--interminable cheat, and liar--TRUMP!
I--a--I'll--I'll know nobody--and--a--say nothing--and--a--live nowhere--until I have crushed--to--a--undiscoverable atoms--the transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer--TRUMP!"
...redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel--TRUMP!
...a---will expose intolerable ruffian--TRUMP!
...--upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor--TRUMP!"
"Approach me again, you--you TRUMPET of infamy and if your head is human, I'll break it. Come on, come on!"
"My object...was to take advantage of my opportunities to discover and expose the major malpractices committed to...grievous wrong and injury, by--TRUMP!
Alert.
This is a Public Occurrences ALERT:
I am writing this post late at night when I am tired and have taken my sleeping pill.
NOTICE: This is a Public Occurrences NOTICE:
I am considering registering as a Republican so that I can vote in the Florida primary and vote for Trump so that I can do my part to make him the Republican nominee and do my part to see the Republican Party FUCKED in November.
The motivation here is completely without the tincture of partisanship, I planned not to vote this year at all. My only interest is in seeing the Republican Party FUCKED. DESTROYED. RUINED BEYOND REPAIR. Utterly and forever.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Trump: "This guy is sick. There's something wrong with this guy."
I think Trump's right. There's something wrong with Ted Cruz.
Go Back to Sleep
I believe that the following is a true statement:
Women as a political force in America had more power in the Progressive Era than at any other time.
Progressive era activists, women in the forefront, were responsible for the passage of four amendments to the United States Constitution: the 16th, making an income tax constitutional, the 17th, providing for direct election of United States Senators, the 18th, in which women were particularly influential, prohibited alcohol sales,
Personally I quibble with the 17th, the 18th is widely regarded as an utter failure and is particularly painful for this writer, and the 21st I regard as Savior of the Great Republic.
On the whole I am, pun of course intended, constitutionally ill-suited to FUCKING with the United States Constitution and therefore consider the Progressive Era a distasteful and dangerous time.
And ladies? It gives me infinitely more pleasure for my lips, mouth, throat, stomach, and liver to touch and lovingly caress liquor than I can ever imagine would come from touching your lips. Yours would be quite safe from moi.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Acts of Jeb
From the New York Times. Lolol.
"Positive advertising:" $84 million.
"Clubbing:" $94,100.
"Valets:" $15,800.
"People:" $8.3 million.
"Branding:" $88,387.
"Vegas, Baby:" $48,544.
"The Consultants:" $10 million.
"Pizza:" $4,837.
Other
___________
$130 million spent.
HOOO-doggie.
"Positive advertising:" $84 million.
"Clubbing:" $94,100.
"Valets:" $15,800.
"People:" $8.3 million.
"Branding:" $88,387.
"Vegas, Baby:" $48,544.
"The Consultants:" $10 million.
"Pizza:" $4,837.
Other
___________
$130 million spent.
HOOO-doggie.
Thank you.
amp.twimg.com/v/6fc001a4-c30
Acts of God
While researching for yesterday's post I came across this memorial sculpture to the 1900 Galveston, Texas hurricane victims, 6,000-12,000. Right at water's edge on the beach where the hurricane came ashore! A man raises his right arm and looks skyward in appeal to, or to seek explanation from, God while he attempts to shelter his wife and child with his other arm.
It is perfect. A very moving sculpture.
It is perfect. A very moving sculpture.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Cambria County Style
Fifteen to twenty years ago I first became aware of a, to me, "strangeness" in the way Americans memorialize: in what they memorialize and how, if they do. I did an amateur's research on the matter, and even found a book, Shadowed Ground, written by a professor. The book, to me, did not aid in understanding and I could not make sense on my own of the differences in the events I looked into. I have written on this "looking into" before and will just summarize before getting to the points du jour.
There seemed to be a great divide. On one side of this great divide were the war dead. They seemed to be subject of an Iron Law requiring memorialization.
-War dead: memorialized everywhere, all the time. Iron Law. Includes 9/11.
On the other side of the divide from war dead memorialization was everything and everybody else, viz:
-Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Site intact after event. Not preserved. Reused not as memorial. Plaque.
-Cocoanut Grove fire: Site destroyed. Plaque.
-Beverly Hills Country Club fire: Site destroyed. Not reused. Road sign.
-Iroquois Theater Fire: Site intact. Not preserved. Reused. No memorialization marker.
-S.S. Eastland disaster: Intact. Reused. Marker.
-Texas Schoolbook Depository. Intact. Preserved as memorial.
-Individuals killed. Graves. Memorialized with tombstone.
-Individual mass killers. No memorialization, no graves (Except one. See? We're getting to our point.).
Oh, but see you can't lump those all together, they are all different. Of course they're different, that's owing to them being different! Yeah, one of them's even in Kentucky. Right? You end up making meaningless distinctions like that. I at least could not sub-group those off in a way that sensibly explained why some were memorialized and some not. For that matter, I do not understand why the great divide is so Great, why there should be an Iron Law for memorializing war dead but no psychological imperative applicable to those on the other side of the divide. It seems to me to be pretty ad hoc and arbitrary and yet there is huge loss of life and immense grief on the non-war side.
All of the above events, and on both sides of the divide, involved human agency. What of "Acts of God?"
-Individual natural deaths. Graves. Memorialized with tombstone.
-Chicago Fire. Memorialized-"commemorated."
-San Francisco Earthquake. Memorialized-commemorated.
-Galveston Hurricane. Memorialized-statue.
And now we come to our points:
-Johnstown Flood. "Act of God?" Hmm, Carnegie and Mellon and Frick weren't that powerful.
Human agency involved; similar in degree to that in the Eastland.
Site destroyed. Not rebuilt. Site memorialized. Victims-graves, tombstone memorials.
Human agents of death also memorialized-graves, tombstones. But their homes, too! Their homes right on the death-dealing lake! That they owned! That is different! The "1889 South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club Historical Preservation Society" is unique. That is Cambria County Style. It would be a little like Auschwitz being preserved and cared for to honor Heydrich.
Stella Elizabeth Williamson.
Proper Christian burial. Regular tombstone. Stella Elizabeth Williamson is the only serial murderer in the United States to be so memorialized. That is Cambria County Style.
Her home--the murder site, the babies' first, and still longest burial site!--reused. 'Nother family moved in. Lives there now! As if nothing happened. That is SOOO "1889 SFFHC HPS."
And here's the real Cambria County Style twist. Williamson's babies, her victims: NOT GIVEN A PROPER CHRISTIAN BURIAL! NOT GIVEN TOMBSTONES! I don't know if Cambria County even got them five little coffins. Maybe just put the bones in bags and "buried," disposed of more like it, gotteen rid of, dumped in the pauper's cemetery. Unmarked, un-grieved for, un-cared for, forgotten. Like nothing ever happened.
Human agency involved; similar in degree to that in the Eastland.
Site destroyed. Not rebuilt. Site memorialized. Victims-graves, tombstone memorials.
Human agents of death also memorialized-graves, tombstones. But their homes, too! Their homes right on the death-dealing lake! That they owned! That is different! The "1889 South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club Historical Preservation Society" is unique. That is Cambria County Style. It would be a little like Auschwitz being preserved and cared for to honor Heydrich.
Stella Elizabeth Williamson.
Proper Christian burial. Regular tombstone. Stella Elizabeth Williamson is the only serial murderer in the United States to be so memorialized. That is Cambria County Style.
Her home--the murder site, the babies' first, and still longest burial site!--reused. 'Nother family moved in. Lives there now! As if nothing happened. That is SOOO "1889 SFFHC HPS."
And here's the real Cambria County Style twist. Williamson's babies, her victims: NOT GIVEN A PROPER CHRISTIAN BURIAL! NOT GIVEN TOMBSTONES! I don't know if Cambria County even got them five little coffins. Maybe just put the bones in bags and "buried," disposed of more like it, gotteen rid of, dumped in the pauper's cemetery. Unmarked, un-grieved for, un-cared for, forgotten. Like nothing ever happened.
Hoo-doggie, Chelsea beat God's Righteous Team of Angels in Blue 5-1 today in the FA Cup. God DAMN! Obviously, there is no excuse for that. You know, I think this is right: City have not won a match since they announced that Manuel Pellegrini would not be returning next year. I'm pretty sure that's right.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Exit Jeb!
Only 7.9% in South Carolina today. Trump won, got 32.5%, See how he seems to have a ceiling, Rubio second right now with 98% returns in but just by a hair over Cruz, 22.5%-22.3%.
First time I've checked all night, have lost some interest, some "obsession," with Trump, so I haven't read the experts yet to get their spin. Let's see, what will the expert commentary be? Trump a hair or two, as I recall, beneath his finally polling average, slightly less than in NH, no? My spin anyway is that this is reinforcing that Trump has both a high floor and a low ceiling. I think the 'Xperts will say same.
I think the 'Xperts will also say this is a pretty darn good showing by Rubio and by Cruz, particularly by Rubio, he definitely beat his polls and is beating Cruz to second place right now. What jumped out at me most when I saw those numbers was how robust the anti-Trump vote appears when you have two candidates in the 20's. What my eyes did anyway was see, not a 10-point Trump win, but a 12-point Trump loss.
There is a window. The window will definitely close by April 26 but how long it is open for another candidate to beat Trump depends on, resources, surely, and where Bush's support now goes..Well, duh, Bush's financial resources are going to Rubio, I have to think his supporters too, I mean they're both from Florida, and it depends I guess on whether either of these guys, Rubio or Cruz, has a support ceiling. I don't think we can say that with them with the same confidence we, or at least I, can say that with Trump. I would think Cruz would have not quite as much "upside" as Rubio, Cruz is just so intensely disliked, I think Rubio was definitely helped by Governor Nikki Haley's endorsement, would have been helped more if Lindsey Scott had endorsed him and not Jeb:(. Cruz can expect next to zero endorsements and, from here on, Rubio can expect a ton it seems to me.
Will increased endorsements be enough for Rubio? Honestly, I don't think that is going to be enough. Somebody has got to start beating Trump and they've got to start doing it while this window is open and with both Rubio and Cruz in the race and both, in SC, scoring in the low 20's...I mean, look, I don't think we can plausibly say Rubio has got the Momentum thing, right? We're not going to go with Big Mo in a 10-point loss in the third voting state. Rubio had a plausible "3-2-1" strategy in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that has turned into a clunky 3-5-2ish...what exactly? The possibilities are tantalizing, It's right THERE! but there was a possibility I could have been born Einstein, you know what I mean? Rubio has got to win, like, finish first, and he hasn't come close yet. It seems to this non-Einstein that Marco Rubio has got to beat Cruz to beat Trump. That is, Rubio has got to take some of Cruz' supporters, not just add Jeb's. Rubio has got to take from Cruz. Tough take.
Now let's see what the 'Xperts say.
First time I've checked all night, have lost some interest, some "obsession," with Trump, so I haven't read the experts yet to get their spin. Let's see, what will the expert commentary be? Trump a hair or two, as I recall, beneath his finally polling average, slightly less than in NH, no? My spin anyway is that this is reinforcing that Trump has both a high floor and a low ceiling. I think the 'Xperts will say same.
I think the 'Xperts will also say this is a pretty darn good showing by Rubio and by Cruz, particularly by Rubio, he definitely beat his polls and is beating Cruz to second place right now. What jumped out at me most when I saw those numbers was how robust the anti-Trump vote appears when you have two candidates in the 20's. What my eyes did anyway was see, not a 10-point Trump win, but a 12-point Trump loss.
There is a window. The window will definitely close by April 26 but how long it is open for another candidate to beat Trump depends on, resources, surely, and where Bush's support now goes..Well, duh, Bush's financial resources are going to Rubio, I have to think his supporters too, I mean they're both from Florida, and it depends I guess on whether either of these guys, Rubio or Cruz, has a support ceiling. I don't think we can say that with them with the same confidence we, or at least I, can say that with Trump. I would think Cruz would have not quite as much "upside" as Rubio, Cruz is just so intensely disliked, I think Rubio was definitely helped by Governor Nikki Haley's endorsement, would have been helped more if Lindsey Scott had endorsed him and not Jeb:(. Cruz can expect next to zero endorsements and, from here on, Rubio can expect a ton it seems to me.
Will increased endorsements be enough for Rubio? Honestly, I don't think that is going to be enough. Somebody has got to start beating Trump and they've got to start doing it while this window is open and with both Rubio and Cruz in the race and both, in SC, scoring in the low 20's...I mean, look, I don't think we can plausibly say Rubio has got the Momentum thing, right? We're not going to go with Big Mo in a 10-point loss in the third voting state. Rubio had a plausible "3-2-1" strategy in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that has turned into a clunky 3-5-2ish...what exactly? The possibilities are tantalizing, It's right THERE! but there was a possibility I could have been born Einstein, you know what I mean? Rubio has got to win, like, finish first, and he hasn't come close yet. It seems to this non-Einstein that Marco Rubio has got to beat Cruz to beat Trump. That is, Rubio has got to take some of Cruz' supporters, not just add Jeb's. Rubio has got to take from Cruz. Tough take.
Now let's see what the 'Xperts say.
Cambria County Style
Yes, they were. And the Fenn children too. Drowned by:
They skedaddled. Frick, Carnegie, Mellon: three of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world. They never went back. No member ever went back.
There were some on the mountain that day.
Lewis Semple Clarke, aka Louis Semple Clarke, aka Simpson Clarke, aka LS, was a member, and he was at Lake Conemaugh when it became Lake Johnstown. Last seen of Louie was his asshole and elbows as he made for Altoona just as fast as he could get there. Never went back. In fact, denied to a reporter that it was Lake Conemaugh that broke.
There were some on the mountain that day.
Lewis Semple Clarke, aka Louis Semple Clarke, aka Simpson Clarke, aka LS, was a member, and he was at Lake Conemaugh when it became Lake Johnstown. Last seen of Louie was his asshole and elbows as he made for Altoona just as fast as he could get there. Never went back. In fact, denied to a reporter that it was Lake Conemaugh that broke.
Louie was young, sort of out going, hadn't the necessary...circumspection for the situation, was prone to run his mouth. It was the last time and Louie was the last member to ever speak.
Just days after the 2,209 had been killed by them, members of the South Florida Fishing and Hunting Club met at the Pittsburgh home of Louie's father, Charles J. Clarke.
And one can instantly assess that Charles J. Clarke was indeed a man who had the "necessary circumspection" for the situation, and if one hesitates to make that assessment Charles J. Clarke's lawyer, the Club's also, and fellow member Philander Knox made that assessment instantly clear to the other members present at that meeting at Charles J. Clarke's house. MUM'S THE WORD. And mum it was. Thereafter mum was so much the word that some members' descendants didn't know their forefathers had ever been members. Knox and his law firm successfully prevented the Club and its members from ever having a nickel collected from them in any judgment for liability.
Thus this Style, the top-hat and shining leather shoe style of Charles J., the sailor suit young-man-on-the-make style of LS, the ENORMOUS bloomer style of the virgins, this style of fabulously wealthy gentility that never before existed in Cambria County, departed Cambria County. And never went back.
But...Oh friends, I am sorry, but there is one more, I promise the last, "but." That's about what you'd expect, isn't it? All of that stuff is about what you'd expect from the Gilders and the Gilded Age, no? It is. And one might expect that all that stuff did not sit too well with those left behind in Johnstown who the Gilders did not kill, the X.J. Swanks and all. And one would be right about that too! It left a sore spot.
It made the undersigned a little sore when he got over his momentary befuddlement when he visited Johnstown some years ago, went to the Johnstown Flood Museum, went to the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and was then directed to the "1889 South Florida Fishing and Hunting Club Preservation Society" and walked around and walked into the clubhouse and looked around and..."What is this place? You're not part of the...What is the name?"
"I grew up in St. Michael. My uncle [Ed Schwartzentruver] was the only one who saw the dam break. He had been employed by the fishing and hunting club," Mr. Costlow said.
A retired aircraft maintenance mechanic for Boeing, Mr. Costlow is nostalgic about his boyhood in St. Michael, which was a heady stew of Italian, Polish, Germans, Eastern Europeans and Russians.
"Nostalgic?" Indeed!
"It was probably the nicest coal mining town in the world.
"It was probably the nicest coal mining town in the world.
Well, there you go! 'Nuff said.
"Every year, they painted the houses red, green or yellow. If you broke a picket fence, all you had to do was call the mine office and they sent one of their carpenters out there to repair it. On Friday nights, there were fights between ethnic groups down at the clubhouse barroom. It could get pretty wild down there," Mr. Costlow recalled.
Okay! Well, that's two things it had going for it.
Don't you find that all a little weird? I do! And I did. Once I was master of the case on where I was and who they were I got out of Dodge, St. Michael, in this case.
I didn't like preserving monuments to the perpetrators, preserving and restoring and caring for the houses, right there on the edge of where the lake used to be, of the perpetrators. But that is Cambria County Style, another example of which we shall see next time.
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