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neonvincentNormally, I'd post something else today and post the saved comments tomorrow. However, National Day Calendar says tomorrow is National Presidential Joke Day, so I moved tomorrow's planned post to today to clear out tomorrow. Good lord, how meta!
My comment on Mistakes Were Made:
"The effects of all this fundamental dishonesty have thundered through our national life to the degree that American society is now divided into the swindlers and the swindled, loosing the monster of collective Id known as Trump on the public."
A lot of people in the media are still mystified by Trump's rise. They think they're looking at "The Producers" happening in real life. Instead of a couple of producers trying to run a scam by promoting the worst possible musical, it's the political class trying to run the worst possible candidate. Unfortunately for the schemers, their guaranteed flop is a wild success. The result is Springtime for Trump.
It looks like someone else had the same idea and succeeded in their original intentions. Ben Carson left the contest after raising a lot of money from small donors and using it to pay more to his consultants than actually running for office. It's not just because he thinks the Pyramids were used for grain storage that I call him "Doctor Pyramid."
My comment on Bull Run
I was wondering if you'd make this particular connection between events on campus and last Friday's unrest; I was not disappointed. After all, the incident did take place on a college campus. So far, that's a more astute observation than anything Trump has made, despite his constant decrying of "political correctness," which bit him in the butt, and he still didn't recognize it.
I made a couple of other connections about the torches and pitchforks coming out for Trump on Friday. One of them was about how the protest and its aftermath changed the media coverage. That's because the violence at Trump's campaign events has expanded beyond the protesters to the media itself. Added to Trump calling for a loosening of the libel laws so that Trump could sue the news media more easily, it ended up being the last straw. As Mark Twain has been credited with saying, "never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel," and Trump has.
The other connection was that this looked as much like a Weimar moment with ideological gangs fighting each other than it did the first battle of a new Civil War. The press would prefer comparing it to the summer of 1968. That's both less frightening and more familiar. Besides, it presages a very newsworthy Republican convention in Cleveland in July. The media would like that.
One could see this coming, as hundreds of people carried signs reading "Dump Trump" and "Arrest Snyder" at the Detroit Republican Debate. They were also at the Democratic Debate in Flint, but the protesters where neither as hostile to the candidates nor as well covered. As I wrote, the press has turned against Trump.
Trump isn't ignoring Bernie. He's blaming Bernie for the protesters and threatening to send his supporters over to Bernie's events. He thinks Bernie organized the protests, a claim Bernie has denied. In fact, Bernie called Trump a liar and tweeted back that his supporters would be welcome to see "an honest politician."
On the one hand, this could lead to a whole series of Weimar moments like last Friday's. On the other, the best way to attract a crowd is to start a fight. On top of Sanders winning Michigan, this direct conflict could help Bernie. Unfortunately, it will also draw more people to Trump. Sigh.
They didn't take him seriously enough to be this hostile. After all, he's been good for their readership/viewership. I moonlight as a political reporter, and stories about Trump have been my most read. My summary of last year's reporting was Donald Trump is Facebook's most popular Washtenaw County election story of 2015. Now they've decided he's dangerous enough to try to kill off the goose that lays the golden eggs.
My response to .
"Personally, I am tortured by the question: why him? Why this vulgarian who can’t string together two sequentially coherent thoughts?"
I understand why you didn't attach the usual "short-fingered" before vulgarian. The last person to do that was Marco Rubio, who found out that there was nothing deficient about either Trump's hands or the other part that is usually associated with their size. Rubio got his ass handed to him as a result. Poor "Little Marco," all those endorsements couldn't save him.
"Are there in this land of 320 million-plus people no other men or women with comfortable fortunes and better minds bold enough to take on the matrix of mafias running our affairs into the ground? Apparently not."
I'll let the other Bernie supporters dispute that on his behalf on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, the answer is indeed "apparently not." Instead, we have the Trumpenstein Munster taking on the system. It makes for great comedy. Too bad the stakes are so high.
My comment on “The Great Nausea”
What we're likely to get is Trump or Cruz vs. Clinton. What people seem to want, at least based my experience, is Trump vs. Sanders. Instead of a putative outsider (a Senator or billionaire as outsiders--yeah, right) vs. an obvious insider, the U.S. would get what it wants, two insurgent candidates. Too bad we're likely to get what we deserve instead.
Speaking of disasters, today is the 37th anniversary of Three Mile Island. Between the history event and the election, my advice is to drink heavily to celebrate both meltdowns.
My comment on Mistakes Were Made:
"The effects of all this fundamental dishonesty have thundered through our national life to the degree that American society is now divided into the swindlers and the swindled, loosing the monster of collective Id known as Trump on the public."
A lot of people in the media are still mystified by Trump's rise. They think they're looking at "The Producers" happening in real life. Instead of a couple of producers trying to run a scam by promoting the worst possible musical, it's the political class trying to run the worst possible candidate. Unfortunately for the schemers, their guaranteed flop is a wild success. The result is Springtime for Trump.
It looks like someone else had the same idea and succeeded in their original intentions. Ben Carson left the contest after raising a lot of money from small donors and using it to pay more to his consultants than actually running for office. It's not just because he thinks the Pyramids were used for grain storage that I call him "Doctor Pyramid."
My comment on Bull Run
I was wondering if you'd make this particular connection between events on campus and last Friday's unrest; I was not disappointed. After all, the incident did take place on a college campus. So far, that's a more astute observation than anything Trump has made, despite his constant decrying of "political correctness," which bit him in the butt, and he still didn't recognize it.
I made a couple of other connections about the torches and pitchforks coming out for Trump on Friday. One of them was about how the protest and its aftermath changed the media coverage. That's because the violence at Trump's campaign events has expanded beyond the protesters to the media itself. Added to Trump calling for a loosening of the libel laws so that Trump could sue the news media more easily, it ended up being the last straw. As Mark Twain has been credited with saying, "never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel," and Trump has.
The other connection was that this looked as much like a Weimar moment with ideological gangs fighting each other than it did the first battle of a new Civil War. The press would prefer comparing it to the summer of 1968. That's both less frightening and more familiar. Besides, it presages a very newsworthy Republican convention in Cleveland in July. The media would like that.
One could see this coming, as hundreds of people carried signs reading "Dump Trump" and "Arrest Snyder" at the Detroit Republican Debate. They were also at the Democratic Debate in Flint, but the protesters where neither as hostile to the candidates nor as well covered. As I wrote, the press has turned against Trump.
Trump isn't ignoring Bernie. He's blaming Bernie for the protesters and threatening to send his supporters over to Bernie's events. He thinks Bernie organized the protests, a claim Bernie has denied. In fact, Bernie called Trump a liar and tweeted back that his supporters would be welcome to see "an honest politician."
On the one hand, this could lead to a whole series of Weimar moments like last Friday's. On the other, the best way to attract a crowd is to start a fight. On top of Sanders winning Michigan, this direct conflict could help Bernie. Unfortunately, it will also draw more people to Trump. Sigh.
They didn't take him seriously enough to be this hostile. After all, he's been good for their readership/viewership. I moonlight as a political reporter, and stories about Trump have been my most read. My summary of last year's reporting was Donald Trump is Facebook's most popular Washtenaw County election story of 2015. Now they've decided he's dangerous enough to try to kill off the goose that lays the golden eggs.
My response to .
"Personally, I am tortured by the question: why him? Why this vulgarian who can’t string together two sequentially coherent thoughts?"
I understand why you didn't attach the usual "short-fingered" before vulgarian. The last person to do that was Marco Rubio, who found out that there was nothing deficient about either Trump's hands or the other part that is usually associated with their size. Rubio got his ass handed to him as a result. Poor "Little Marco," all those endorsements couldn't save him.
"Are there in this land of 320 million-plus people no other men or women with comfortable fortunes and better minds bold enough to take on the matrix of mafias running our affairs into the ground? Apparently not."
I'll let the other Bernie supporters dispute that on his behalf on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, the answer is indeed "apparently not." Instead, we have the Trumpenstein Munster taking on the system. It makes for great comedy. Too bad the stakes are so high.
My comment on “The Great Nausea”
What we're likely to get is Trump or Cruz vs. Clinton. What people seem to want, at least based my experience, is Trump vs. Sanders. Instead of a putative outsider (a Senator or billionaire as outsiders--yeah, right) vs. an obvious insider, the U.S. would get what it wants, two insurgent candidates. Too bad we're likely to get what we deserve instead.
Speaking of disasters, today is the 37th anniversary of Three Mile Island. Between the history event and the election, my advice is to drink heavily to celebrate both meltdowns.
