Sometimes, you see or hear a person say something so dense that it seems like it could suck all the sentience in the universe into its black hole of stupidity. This is one of those times.
The irony of an ABC reporter (whose parent company Disney has profited nearly half a billion dollars on the movie “Pocahontas”) inferring that the name is “offensive” is truly staggering to me.
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 28, 2017
In Eric Trump’s universe, stupid and evil play the same role as matter and anti-matter in ours. We need to find the portal that allows this kind of nonsense to seep into our world, and we need to destroy that portal. Perhaps it is located in a darkened Trump Tower closet where the only sound is the hum of a repurposed hotel spam server.
Surely, multitudes will explain all the ways in which Eric Trump’s tweet misses the mark, but I consider that job beneath me. I obviously don’t assume that no one needs to be edified on these points, but there’s a certain minimal level of honest thought I require before I’ll deign to try to communicate with someone or change them in their opinion.
And I’m not really kidding about this. This kind of discourse is absolutely akin to an alien invasion. At some point, we can’t treat it as anything we can respond to or rebut. It’s too inane and morally vacuous for that. We must resolve to defeat the things that empower this kind of talk, and that means all hands at their stations, each doing their part.
We can’t wrestle with this pig. We have to take it down to the studs.
There are days I want to just give up on this world.
I refuse. Not because I have any idealistic faith in humanity or some bullshit like that. I’m jaundiced as fuck at this point. Just ask most of the community members here. I refuse to give up simply because I have to in order to survive from day to day. That’s the bare minimum. I’ll work on a better game plan later. Right now – it’s as good as it gets.
I’m not down on life itself. Just on politics. Find myself losing hope that the cesspool of greed and power will be reformed anytime soon. That’s probably too pessimistic, and retreating into time with my wife and son as well of pursuit of meaning in other endeavors around work and community. To me, the core of life is the search for meaning.
In truth, we’re living in a moment of enormous possibility, when a little effort can lead to huge results. It’s just hard to get over how many of our fellow citizens are profoundly ignorant. The world is a very troubled place. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We really are fighting forces of darkness.
Which is why I have resolved simply to cease communication with Trump supporters about anything remotely related to the current political circumstance. Convincing arguments and rational, evidence based discussions and observations are worthless tools when dealing with these people. I have tried, time and time again, to reel my family and friends back into the folds of humanity when it comes to this. And I have decided that it is hopeless. There is only one way to deal with this. You don’t reason with a rabid dog. This whole thing has taken on a cult-like feel with Trump supporters. Things like “honest thought” are simply not even in their universe now. They are gulping this poisonous kool-aid by the barrels full, every day. They are gorging themselves, round the clock, at the trough of Trumpism. And daily they are sliding more and more into a place where anyone who is not in their tribe is a sub-human mongrel. I am done with trying to dance around this whole thing, acting as if it’s simply another, albeit more polarized than normal, political disagreement. The world they inhabit is irreducibly unhinged. It is beyond reclamation or repair. They need to be told this, again and again, because it is the truth. There is a narrow line between humanity and inhumanity. They have crossed so far beyond this line, that it long ago disappeared over their horizon.
A revisit to Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free might be a useful guide to how the illness unfolds. Something that 20 years ago a German colleague and I talked about in the context of my Confederate ancestors and his voluntary and the voluntary and involuntary relationships of his relatives to the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.
There is a sense in which that connection is what the Alt-Right seems to be picking at.
Mueller must remember Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “When you strike at the king, you must kill him.” – metaphorically anyway. The backlash of failure is sure to be harsh.
Pocohontas escapse serious censure for seeming so mild and being easily evadable with stupid.
He can only win politically because impeachment is a political matter. Hes not going to.
I agree with you, Mike in Ohio. There’s basically NO way to reach out to conservatives anymore, unless one of them comes to you and sincerely expresses some notion of concern about what’s going on.
The issue, for me, however, is not to get caught up in the latest Trump “outrage du jour” (or should that be indignation de l’heure??
Trump has effectively found a way to throw out daily b.s. which riles up his base in a positive way and can generally be riled on to make liberals mad.
THEN behind the scenes, the real damage is done.
We need to focus our energeies on what’s going on behind the scenes to the best of our capabilities.
How many in Big D actually supported Leandra English’s law suit? I’ve heard next to nothing from the Big D party about this. Why is that so? What have they done for us TODAY???
Yes, I agree. And this is essentially the same observation I made in a thread this morning.
“How many in Big D actually supported Leandra English’s law suit? I’ve heard next to nothing from the Big D party about this. Why is that so? What have they done for us TODAY???”
It’s
NOT
so.
What
shit:
The judge who refused English’s legal filing today was nominated by Trump.
I’m motherfucking sick and tired of self-styled liberals blaming the Democratic Party for what this radical conservative movement and this disgusting President are doing. Sick of it!
This factually false bitching about “Big D” does not “focus our energies” productively.
Lots of Elizabeth Warren, who worked to bring the legislation into being.
“Schumer said on the Senate floor that the Dodd-Frank law, which he helped to write, set up a “clear” succession process for the CFPB that made English the acting director.
Schumer said Mulvaney was chosen by the Trump administration simply to “rock the agency from the inside.”
The drama over the CFPB came as the Senate was preparing to consider a bill that would significantly ease rules on some banks for the first time since the financial crisis.
Moderate Democrats and Republicans have come out in support of the package, aimed primarily at smaller and mid-sized banks, but analysts warned the CFPB fight could imperil that compromise. The Senate Banking Committee is supposed to take up the bill next week. [Moderate Democrats are negotiating to ease rules. That is the expected Democratic moderate behavior. Kow tow.]
In a show of support, top Senate Democrats met with Consumer Financial Protection Bureau interim director Leandra English, who is fighting for control of the financial watchdog agency.
English met privately with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Before the meeting, they allowed photographers in, but none of the officials commented on the escalating political fight over the bureau’s future.
Pelosi makes a statement.
Twenty-five current Senate and House lawmakers filed a friend of the court brief arguing that English, who was elevated by the CFPB’s director on his last day, should serve as acting director of the consumer bureau until a permanent director, nominated by the president, is confirmed by the Senate.
Among some of the Democratic lawmakers to sign the court brief include Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn).
There are 240 Democrats in Congress.
That looks like at least 200 MIA.
What is this dispiriting chin-stroking bullshit?
How hard is it to lay the blame where it belongs? Extraordinary bad faith here. You know who holds the legislative power here, yet you wish to elide that fact. Remember the vote in the Senate which took away the CPFB’s arbitration policy? No. Fucking. Democratic. Votes.
Here’s an alternative HOT TAKE from a journalist who blames the Democratic Party for being too partisan in the creation of the CPFB.
Me?
I think both of you can stuff your absurd critiques. Hard.
Unless every single democrat reacts exactly how I think is appropriate for that situation, then no democrats are worth supporting.
It’s an addendum to the basic principle of Whataboutism…..
Unless every democrat condemns every democrat who has committed a blunder, then all democrats are guilty of that blunder.
.
It all comes down to a basic premise – elections have consequences. Nothing more. Nothing less. When one of your major parties has become little more than a white nationalist death cult, the party that contains all the sane people is the choice we’ve got. And if those sane people just happen to be flawed human beings like the rest of us? Who cares. The sane people in office vote like sane people, and when they actually have some influence, they actually do some good. Doesn’t get any simpler than that for me. I’ll take sanity any day of the week. The purity bullshit? Forget about it. The whataboutisms (and counterfactual thinking in general)? Forget about it. Doesn’t count for shit. In the meantime, I’ll keep hanging with sane people who want to do sane things. I’ll vote for ’em too, while I’m at it. Won’t always work, but we all know the expression – you can’t win if you don’t show up.
Is the Democratic Party going to be an opposition party that protects what the Obama administration positively put in place or is it going to continue to sit on its hands.
That’s the question.
If it’s going to sit on its hand, what are people going to be voting for in 2018. The party serves its constituents, not the reverse.
Thanks for your opinion. It and mine are neither here nor there when it comes to what political power can shape events. Only the people with the votes in Congress matter any more. We can cast one vote to send them back or send them home. Are they even going to try to earn that vote or are the going to send out whippers-in to keep the constituents spouting their line.
It fricking doesn’t matter at this point where the blame lies. What matters is the actions going forward.
David Price is one of the MIA. Having his advocacy within his district can spill over to adjacent districts, which are GOP.
But keep trying to keep those hounds in line.
I understand now completely. Politicians choose their voters and expect their voters to parrot the talking points and wave their pom-poms.
I’m sorry, but democracy didn’t work that way 50 years ago. Glad to see that the Democratic Party has lost its democratic aspirations.
Your false assertion of “facts” not in evidence and the either/or of your proposition here is what is so very poisonous, in my view.
You propose that hundreds of members of the Congressional Democratic Caucuses have not weighed in on the CPFB leadership issue this week. You do not know this to be true. Yet you level the claim that the entire Democratic Party is “sit(ting) on its hands”.
That’s at minimum an irresponsible mischaracterization, since the leaders of the House and Senate Democratic Caucuses have weighed in strongly, Senator Warren has used her enormous credibility on the issue to take to the airwaves frequently to lead Congressional Democrats’ media responses, dozens of Congressional Democrats have officially supported English’s lawsuit, and almost certainly many other Congressional Democrats have made their own statements.
Your mischaracterization here is so extreme I’d call it a lie, frankly.
We see here Rep. Price’s support for President Obama’s 2012 recess appointment of Cordray as CPFB Director. Read the strong language Price used to support the Bureau. That ended up getting held up in the courts, and it took a deal in the Senate 18 months later to finally get Cordray in the seat.
I couldn’t disagree more with this bizarre assertion of yours: “It fricking doesn’t matter at this point where the blame lies.” IT MATTERS. You are wrong.
It is the Republican Party and its elected leaders, the oligarchs who fund their campaigns, and the dupes who have been fooled by the oligarchs’ work who have refused to accept the CPFB strong protections. The CPFB has returned $12 billion to consumers from the financial institutions which have ripped them off.
The conservative media Wurlitzer blames Democrats for things they’re not responsible for. And Democrats like you are also blaming Democrats for things they’re not responsible for. At the very fucking least we could blame Republicans and conservatives for the destruction they are solely responsible for, and credit liberals and Democrats for good policies they are solely responsible for.
Here’s the meat of Congressmember Price’s 2012 statement: “…With a full-time, highly qualified director, the Bureau will have the leadership it needs to combat schemes that take advantage of consumers, to keep financial institutions honest, and to prevent the kinds of abuses that led to the financial crash. It’s time every American had consumer protections they can count on, even if Senate Republicans want to deny them these protections to score political points.”
If it is true that Congressmember Price has failed to issue a statement within 48 hours of this week’s crisis at the Bureau, and you want to conflate this failure into a claim that he is “sitting on his hands”, and that you are justified to further conflate this claim to indict the entire Democratic Party, knock yourself out. I disagree. I disagree strongly. I think that it’s this sort of irresponsible shit which misinforms voters. It’s framing which does the oligarch’s work for them. It makes me very angry.
Have you contacted Congressmember Price’s office? I think it’s likely that he could be easily be persuaded to place another CPFB-supportive statement with minimal contact from constituents. I can say that Congressmember Price has has taken more responsibility than you on this issue. He has expressed interest in correctly assigning “where the blame lies.” Unlike you.
Probably because the legal consensus is shes wrong.
. . . that the fundamental divide dividing us isn’t political ideology (Dem/Repub, left/right, progressive/regressive, lib/con . . . pick your taxonomy)
. . . it’s the fundamental divide between the Reality-Based Community (h/t Karl Rove!!!) and the Reality-Denying Community.
Once you let go of Reality in pursuit of getting your way, you’ve lost your way.
It’s as simple as that . . . or nearly so.
We are seeing the end game of two generations of relentless propagandizing by the far right. None of which could have happened at the rate which it did without the complete co-opting of corporate media.
It’s not a new phenomena. Voltaire nailed it over 250 years ago. “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Once you become conditioned to accepting what you are told, without question, no matter how absurd it might seem to be, you lose the ability to understand the difference between what is good and what is evil. The day where you stop questioning what people tell you, the very moment where you stop morally evaluating the implication of the words you are hearing, you will do things simply because someone tells you. And you will do it that easily and without a second thought, because they will also tell you that “it’s the right thing to do.”
History is flashing a fiery red warning light to all of us right now. The parallels are undeniable and inescapable. Only a fool would ignore them, unless one is an accomplice to the evil.
There are lots of fools befuddled by the confusing transformation of references and norms in the GOP election process.
Fortunately, even most of them never let Trump get the proverbial holiday or the acceptance of non-conditional legitimacy.
Indeed. It is akin to Chewbacca speech. Except for the fact that it seems to signify to the faithful cultists. Take the nonsense that has brought Roy Moore back to even (and likely 4%-5% margin. Only massive turnout of black voters in Alabama can bridge the currently stated gap. I hope those networks are busy and doing election protection as well. I don’t often do this, but Doug Jones could use support right now.
And WaPo’s coverage is beginning to look like releasing the issue timed to make it peak too soon (unlike how Comey”s statement was timed).
All of us are still too slow in imagining the most outrageous.
I don’t know how Pocahontas works to destroy the Consumer Finance Protection Board, but that is how it has been used from the beginning — 10 minutes of Warren hate because she is sufficiently a Native American (how many in Oklahoma are) to get education benefits at Harvard, which Trump finds illegitimate because his dad stole the money he went on fair and square, the old-fashioned landlord way.
Now explain how to take it down to the studs without taking the US government down to the studs.
The best defense: how many days after Moore blew up did Roger Stone tweet about Al Franken?
Do we have operatives in the Democratic Party who are willing to reveal the rumors, four days before voting, that Moore also pursued fourteen-year-old boys? Do we have a messaging infrastructure that will amplify that announcement? If not, how the fuck are we ever supposed to win?
There have now been two Democratic Senators, who’ve had big reveals about them.
And there have been Zero reveals about any sitting Repulican Senators or Representatives.
WHY? Does anyone believe that sexual harrassment is limited to only Roy Moore, Al Franken, and John Conyers?
Really?
Why have there been no reveals about any other sitting Republicans in Congress?
Is this all about how “we” aim “high”?
If so, let me just point out that it ain’t working.
Unless Big D is willing to get down and dirty, we are effectively screwed imo.
Conyers isn’t a Senator.
Anyone know where Roger Stone is?
That’s not strictly true. Joe Barton (R-TX) is in some hot water over a nude text/video he sent out a few years ago. It has been widely reported.
Do I think there has to be more out there that has not come out? You betcha. But people have to come forward, then the claims checked out (as the WaPo correctly did when O’Keefe’s merry band of liars tried to spoof them), etc etc.
And also recall that these only matter if the group’s constituents care about/believe the claims. The GOP as rule neither cares about GOP misconduct or believes anything not on Fox (and not even Fox if it might make TEH LIBS feel good).
This is already a win for Trump. Remember the context: Elizabeth Warren pointed out that Trump campaigned on helping the consumer, but now he’s out to destroy the Consumer Finance Agency, basically because bankers don’t like being regulated. SO, Trump is siding with bankers against the American consumer. That is not popular.
So, Trump flips everything by calling Warren “Pocohantas”. Liberals and the media react with outrage that he’s making another racist remark. But, now the debate is about race relations in America, not the fact that Trump is screwing the middle class by allowing banks to rip off consumers. Win for Trump. Elizabeth Warren made an important point and we cannot allow him to bury the lead on this.
Agree 110%.
It’s galling that Trump said what he did to the Navajo Code talkers while standing in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson.
As much we like to believe that Trump (and his spawn) are “that stupid,” I’ve long felt that they really are not.
Yes, they are white supremacist, bigoted, Nazi, racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic azzh*les. Most definitely.
But I see a definite method to the madness. Sure, Trump doesn’t give one flying f**k if he insults those Navajos, who Trump likely views as subhuman anyway. But his real goals are: a) control the narrative, which includes deflecting attention from the very REAL issue of screwing over consumers, while enriching the banks and the 1%, while b) sticking to Warren yet again, which both gives his BASE the jollies while annoying the Libtards.
But the main goal: control the narrative, deflect attention from the super damage he is doing DAILY, and get everyone riled up – for or against – over his racist nastiness. Trump doesn’t really care if liberals hate him, nor does he care if he’s perceived as a racist. He is getting his very bad agenda pushed through, all while the MSM and the proles are nattering away about what a racist jerk he is.
HOW do we actually stop the very real damage that’s being done daily more or less behind the smoke screen of racist crap?
I could give a stuff about Eric Trump. He’s a stooge. Of course, he’ll say nonsense like that, but he’s sent forth by dear old daddy bc it protects Eric’s finanical interests as well.
. . . are fine when appropriate. Which is certainly the case in your context.
No bowdlerization required.
Those paying attention know that as I write this, a tax bill might get a vote this week. If it somehow manages to fail, it’ll come down to GOP cold feet. Turns out that pushing through very unpopular legislation that redistributes wealth from…well…most of us to the very rich is much harder work than anticipated. Usually that shit requires bringing in the tanks and placing machine guns on every street corner. There may still be enough second thoughts to stall an awful bill long enough to prevent it from becoming law. In the meantime, the damage done to our agencies, our judiciary, and our international reputation is very real. Cleaning up that mess will easily take a generation. Unfortunately, when your party only has 48 votes in the Senate and a minority in the House, there is only so much to expect from those elected officials. The Trump crime family can only deflect for so long. Folks do catch on. Already happening. Won’t undo the damage done in the short term, but the tide is turning, and with it some opportunities.
I’m reading that Susan Collins has moved to yes.
Yeah…noticed that. We’ll see what happens, but it is looking like we’re going to see a serious taste of economic “shock therapy” in our near future. Recovering from that will be a daunting task, if the history of other nations that have undergone “shock therapy” is any indicator.
Very astute observation.
You’re surprised someone who lacks self-awareness and cultural sensitivity said something stupid?
Lots of mixed metaphors in your post but that’s fun too! Eric is the dumb vampire son of our hideous “President”. Ignoring idiots like him is the only way to go. Much more important issues to address, which you are doing very well.
Stupid? Or just a candid statement based on a viewpoint completely perverted by the love of money?