Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[pbrower2a]

We have seen one of the greatest living theoretical physicists rip Donald Trump and his ideology apart as if Stephen Hawking were a black hole devouring some wayward light or matter that got past the event horizon.

Now how about one of the greatest chess masters?

Garry Kasparov sees Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in much the same light.

Here's the tweet.

Quote:I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years and trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian.

Quote:Historical comparisons involving Russian leader Vladimir Putin are usually directed toward the distant past. A one-man dictatorship invading and annexing a neighboring country on specious ethnic claims while rallying his people with hateful and vengeful propaganda, well, it doesn’t leave much to the imagination. When I referred to Putin’s invasion of Crimea with the term Anschluss it was not done casually. I was criticized for exaggeration at the time and hailed as prescient a few months later, a painful pattern in my life regarding the dark events in Putin’s Russia over the last sixteen years.

Lately the Putin comparisons have moved in the other direction—into the present and across the ocean to the United States. The presidential candidacy of celebrity millionaire Donald Trump has caused chaos in the American election cycle. His campaign of constant outrage has drawn a solid minority in the GOP primary, and combined with massive media coverage he has transformed from an alarming joke into a legitimate threat to reach the general election.

When equating political figures and movements past and present, it is easy to go off the rails. Superficially, Putin and Trump have little in common. A KGB spook who quietly rose to power versus a bombastic tycoon. Putin has little of Trump’s showmanship. A dictator with total control over every aspect of society has no need for that sort of populism. Russian television is obligated to fawn over Putin 24/7—while American networks do the same for Trump by choice.

http://www.newsweek.com/putin-and-trump-...rov-436556

Oh by the way -- Russian can be a very beautiful language. How good? I once heard the opera Yevgeny Onegin, and it sounds like a great Italian opera except for being sung in Russian.

I doubt that Trump's speeches would sound good translated into French, either.

[John J. Xenakis]

(07-22-2016, 03:29 PM)taramarie Wrote: > I will believe it only when Eric says you are right. It is after
> all HIS life, not ours. He knows the life he has lived best. We do
> not.

He's lucky to have you --- his knightess in shining armor.

(Just joking)

[Eric the Green]

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats...=3&theater

[Eric the Green]

(07-22-2016, 04:53 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: He's lucky to have you --- his knightess in shining armor.

(Just joking)

Just laughing

[Bob Butler 54]

Hillary's campaign says they are not intending to answer Trump insult for insult...

Tim Kaine Wrote:It is beneath the character of the kind of dialogue we should have, because we've got real serious problems to solve. And look, most of us stopped the name-calling thing about fifth grade.

Fact check.  Have most people really stopped "the name-calling thing" around the fifth grade?  I'd never guess that from the conversations we have here.  Is Senator Kaine really that uninformed?  Or are many of us still emotionally young?  

[Anthony '58]

The name calling etc. is why there is a huge opening for a moderate independent candidate - not an Ayn Randist like Gary Johnson or a Marxist-Leninist like Jill Stein.

Come on, Reform Party.  Think BIG!

[pbrower2a]

(07-22-2016, 01:39 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(07-22-2016, 11:43 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: >   When you say "using sexuality," do you mean sex appeal, sexual
>   harassment, etc, or just their gender? If you use the word
>   "sexuality," you imply the former.

>   And political advantage? Feminism seeks equality. An "advantage"
>   in this case means to achieve equality, instead of the strong
>   advantage that men now have in politics.

>   Hillary for example is "playing the woman card," meaning she touts
>   her would-be status as the first-ever would-be US president. She
>   says "deal me in," which means she supports family leave and equal
>   pay. I don't see anything unfair there. What IS unfair is that
>   there has never been a woman president, women get less pay, and
>   women (and men) don't have paid family leave.

>   I probably have nothing against more rights for fathers in family
>   disputes. Traditionally mothers may have more rights in dealing
>   with family and children issues, custody battles, etc. By the same
>   token, then, women should have more rights in spheres
>   traditionally dominated by men.  

An example of using sexuality to gain a political advantage is for an
incompetent woman who doesn't get a job to say, "I lost the job to a
man because I'm a woman."  Pretending to be a female victim is
extremely common.

The usual employer seeking a new hire for a non-throwaway job wants several competent candidates. The losers of the competition will often have no idea of why they came up short. 

Quote:Here's another common example.  I heard variations of this many
times from men that I interviewed for my book, and from women as well.

By the way, there's one group of women who, generally speaking,
vitriolically hate feminists: Second wives.  That's because
when the ex-wife screws her ex-husband, she screws his second
wife as well.

Feminists also vitriolically hate second wives, because they destroy
the whole feminist mystique that all men are batterers.  If an ex-wife
claims that her ex-husband is a batterer, then why did some other
woman marry him?  If an ex-wife uses the children as leverage to screw
the father (and the children), then the second wife suffers as well.

That could be the basis of Cinderella.  The story has a moral: the worst thing that could ever happen to a girl is that her mother dies and her father remarries. Then comes the wicked stepmother and the girl's hostile step-sisters who get all the advantages. (Sorry -- I forget the source).

For all their alleged hyper-modernity, feminists still cleave to the idea that men must show some loyalty to their first wives. Men with economic advantages often end up dumping their first wives for younger, sexier women. Part of it is a primitive desire to have progeny that a forty-something wife might not be able to or might not want to do again. The forty-year-old wife has graying hair, she is losing her figure, and she may be losing her sex drive. Besides, a younger woman might be a fountain of youth (or so goes the myth). So ditch her for a younger model. Maybe a literal model fifteen to twenty years younger than he!

I doubt that any feminist has a problem with a 40-something widower re-marrying, ideally a 40-something  widow with children. Maybe this is the sort of family that blends well.  

Quote:So here's the kind of story that I heard many, many times, from
both men and women (second wives):

An ex-wife beats the shit out of the kids, or her new boyfriend
beats the shit out of the kids, or her new boyfriend sexually
abuses the kids.

She gets stuck with the kids and a white elephant of a house. She has no career, so she probably ends up working at a store or a restaurant for near-minimum-wage work. She finds a sex-hungry man and can't be choosy enough to run a criminal background check upon him. After all, she is likely to lose the white elephant of a house to taxes. She may end up with a boyfriend (perhaps eventually a husband) with some problems, and we know who gets victimized. He gets drunk or on drugs, and he gets impatient with children to whom he cannot bond, and he beats them. Or while she is hustling for tips at some low-end restaurant he rapes and impregnates her twelve-year-old daughter whom he has coached to 'dress sexy'.

Quote:Feminists LOVE this situation because they stand to make so much
money from it.  The father, of course, is extremely distraught
by this, and is devastated by how his kids are being beaten and
molested.  So he turns to the courts.

Well. finally -- but perhaps too late to quash the emotional damage -- the sire of his recently-cast-off children takes some responsibility. But wouldn't it be better had he not exchanged the 1973 model (who has become a hag to him) for a 1991 (literal!) model as if he were trading in a five-year-old sedan on a new one? Maybe his 1991 model can finally soften to a sob story.

So here is what can happen: ex-wife and child-abusing boyfriend go to prison and lose custody, he for direct abuse and she for enabling it. The original husband gets the children back, but the 1991 model will have a difficult time relating to a stepchild eight years younger than she. 

There's no feminist defense for child abuse, something that no women can accept as either traditional or feminist.

Quote:The situation is turned over to the feminist social workers, who are
some of the most vile people on earth.  They couldn't care less if the
mother is feeding the children to a meat grinder, as long as they get
their money.  So when the father complains that his ex-wife is beating
the children or that her boyfriend is sexually molesting them, then
the father is sent from one social worker to another and to another
and to another.  Each time a social worker sees the father, she gets
another fat fee, either from the father or from some grant.  Either
way, nothing happens, and the children continue to be beaten and
sexually molested.

American society, traditional or feminist, is becoming increasingly intolerant of sexual or physical abuse of children. There are ways to test whether a putrid expression of masculinity has molested a child. Most social workers are either government employees (so they get paid whatever they discover about a sordid relationship) or some non-profit entity (likewise). Free-lance social workers? In such a case that is practically a private detective, a character commonplace on television and not in real life. 

Social work is not a lucrative vocation.

Quote:This is what feminism is really about.  If you go into a divorce
court, there is only one person there who cares about the welfare of
the children, and that's the father.  In addition, the only person
there who actually works for a living in a productive job is the
father.  Everyone else in the courtroom is there to extract as much
money from the father, or to get as much money as possible in grants,
etc.

Which may reflect that he has done everything possible to ensure that his wife become a stay-at-home mom.

Quote:One more example:

In 2001, a man in Texas came home one day and found that his wife,
Andrea Yates, killed all five of her children.  The mother had
planned the crime for weeks.  She beat each of the children into
submission and drowned them.  Bruises on some of children indicated
that they had struggled as their mother was drowning them.

This became a nationwide story.  In my book (which you really ought to
read) in chapter one, I quote several feminists who said that she was
a victim, and that it was society's fault (or her husband's fault)
that she killed her five children.  Katie Couric led a nationwide
feminist drive to raise funds for her.  In actuality, this gruesome
murder was used by feminists to raise funds for their own
organizations.

Once again, that's what feminism is all about.

Andrea Yates was a member of the cult Quiverfull which holds that one of the highest achievements of a true Christian family is to have as many babies as God blesses them with. (On the other hand, sterility of one of the spouses indicates that God in His Infinite and Inscrutable Wisdom has other plans with the couple -- go figure).

[John J. Xenakis]

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > The usual employer seeking a new hire for a non-throwaway job
> wants several competent candidates. The losers of the competition
> will often have no idea of why they came up short.

One thing that's becoming increasingly apparent, as I talk to more and
more people about this, is that most people over 40 are summarily
rejected. Age discrimination is becoming rampant. Last week I talked
to someone who works at a Catholic school, and she said that she was
lucky to get her job because the nun in charge liked older people and
liked her. But she said that no one is willing to hire anyone over 40
even in a Catholic school. In the IT field, I've spoken to people
about age discrimination in companies like Harvard Business School,
Amazon, and IBM. In California, there's a pending lawsuit against HP.
This discrimination is blatantly illegal, but it doesn't matter.
After all, Gen-Xers weren't punished for knowingly creating and
selling tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime mortgage
back securities in order to screw Boomers, so why would anyone care
about age discrimination? One interesting part of this is that it
applies to anyone over age 40, which means that Gen-Xers are screwing
each other as well as Boomers, and that's a little bit of
Schadenfreude that we Boomers can watch and enjoy.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > For all their alleged hyper-modernity, feminists still cleave to
> the idea that men must show some loyalty to their first wives. Men
> with economic advantages often end up dumping their first wives
> for younger, sexier women. Part of it is a primitive desire to
> have progeny that a forty-something wife might not be able to or
> might not want to do again. The forty-year-old wife has graying
> hair, she is losing her figure, and she may be losing her sex
> drive. Besides, a younger woman might be a fountain of youth (or
> so goes the myth). So ditch her for a younger model. Maybe a
> literal model fifteen to twenty years younger than he!

This is most emphatically not what's happening. Statistics show
that the vast majority of divorces are initiated by the wife and
opposed by the husband.

From my book: In 1994, I had lunch with three friends, all divorced
women, and they were all absolutely bubbling with excitement about a
new book, called _Flying Solo_. "The authors interviewed a lot of
single and divorced women," I was told. "The women were miserable
when they were married, but now they're perfectly happy living by
themselves or just with their kids. And if a woman wants to have sex,
she can have a date or spend the weekend with her boyfriend. But for
the rest of the week, she's much happier being on her own."

My book quotes Danielle Crittenden as saying: "The habit of viewing
marriage as a raw deal for women is now so entrenched, even among
women who don't call themselves feminists, that I've seen brides who
otherwise appear completely happy apologize to their wedding guests
for their surrender to convention, as if a part of them still feels
there is something embarrassing and weak about an intelligent and
ambitious woman consenting to marry."

About half of all marriages end in divorce, and the vast majority
of divorces are initiated by women. Here are the top five
reasons given for seeking divorce:

• Gradual growing apart, losing a sense of closeness (57%)
  
• Serious differences in lifestyle and/or values (54%)
  
• Not feeling loved or appreciated by spouse (45%)
  
• Spouse not able or willing to meet major needs (41%)
  
• Emotional problems of spouse (38%)

Beyond that, a "husband's extramarital affair (38%)" appears sixth on
the list, and "violence between you and spouse (20%)" doesn't appear
until position 16.

In interviewing divorced fathers and second wives, here's a story
that I heard frequently:

A man is a good provider and loves his family. One day he comes home
and sits down to dinner with his family, and the doorbell rings. It's
the sheriff. The father has five minutes to grab some things and
leave the home. Following feminist advice, the wife had decided to
get "personal fulfillment." Following feminist instructions, she had
gone to the police statement a file phony battering charges against
her husband, and now the sheriff was coming to get him. Nothing
he says makes any difference, because he's automatically assumed
to be completelly guilty, even with no evidence at all.

Her "personal fulfillment" means that she gets the home, the kids,
and most of his salary. His life is destroyed, he's lucky if he
lives in a trailer, and he never sees his kids.

By the way, I'm going to take this opportunity to offer a little
fatherly advice to "playwrite": I get the impression from your
postings that you think you have women all figured out. With all due
respect, that's laughable. So my advice is: Take care.

At any rate, when you say, "For all their alleged hyper-modernity,
feminists still cleave to the idea that men must show some loyalty to
their first wives," that's not the real world at all. The real world
is that half of all marriages end in divorce, that overwhelmingly the
divorce is initiated by women, and it's almost always for a trivial
reason, like "I wasn't being fulfilled," or "My mother died," or "I'm
tired of serving the needs of a man." So she gets the house, all the
money, and the kids, and she no longer has to "serve the needs of a
man." It's a good deal, and it's what "hyper-modern feminism" is all
about.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > She gets stuck with the kids and a white elephant of a house. She
> has no career, so she probably ends up working at a store or a
> restaurant for near-minimum-wage work. She finds a sex-hungry man
> and can't be choosy enough to run a criminal background check upon
> him. After all, she is likely to lose the white elephant of a
> house to taxes. She may end up with a boyfriend (perhaps
> eventually a husband) with some problems, and we know who gets
> victimized. He gets drunk or on drugs, and he gets impatient with
> children to whom he cannot bond, and he beats them. Or while she
> is hustling for tips at some low-end restaurant he rapes and
> impregnates her twelve-year-old daughter whom he has coached to
> 'dress sexy'.

You've been watching too much "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" on
TV. Or you've been listening to too many feminists.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > There's no feminist defense for child abuse, something that no
> women can accept as either traditional or feminist.

You've got to be kidding. Feminists do not care at all about
the children, and do not care at all if the mother or her
boyfriend beats the crap out of the children, or if the
boyfriend sexually abuses the children.

When the mother or her boyfriend abuse the children, typical feminist
excuses are:

• The mother didn't beat up the children at all. It was really the
  father (even if the father wasn't even present).
  
  
• The father was beating up the mother, and the children were
  collateral damage.
  
  
• And the all-time favorite excuse: The mother knows that the father
  is going to beat up the kids, so the mother beats them up first in
  order to satisfy the father, so that he won't beat them up worse. The
  crap that comes out feminist mouths is amazing.

If a man is frustrated, he goes to a bar and gets into a barfight. If
a woman is frustrated, she beats the crap out of the kids. If a child
is sexually abused, it's almost NEVER the biological father; it's
almost always the mother's boyfriend or an uncle or other relative.

One thing you'll never hear from feminists is that battering and child
abuse are just as common in lesbian relationships as in hetero
relationships.

Here's another thing that I like to quote that feminists will NEVER
tell you: Feminists like to say that boys who grow up in families
where battering occurs are more likely to become batterers themselves.
What feminists don't tell you is that what the statistics really show
is that boys who grow up in families where the MOTHER is violent are
more likely to become batterers themselves. The reasons are obvious:
When a man hits a woman, a boy viscerally knows that it's wrong. But
when a boy sees his mother becoming violent with his father, he learns
that women like violence and find it erotic, especially if her parents
have sex after the mother has been violent. This is just one more
example of: Don't believe a single word of the crap that comes
from feminists.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Social work is not a lucrative vocation.

But if you're a woman who hates men and children, it can be
a very fulfilling and satisfying vocation in the divorce field.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Which may reflect that he has done everything possible to ensure
> that his wife become a stay-at-home mom.

A woman who is looking for "self-fulfillment," and is planning to dump
the husband to get the house, the kids, and all his money, will be
told by her feminist lawyer to quit her job so that she'll get as much
money as possible from the father. That's the way the world really
works. All this is well-documented and well-sourced in my book.

(07-25-2016, 08:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Andrea Yates was a member of the cult Quiverfull
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull

There you go - the perfect excuse. Mom may have killed the kids, but
the fault is with the men who run Quiverfull. She was just a helpless
victim.

[Eric the Green]

John Oliver reviews the RNC! YOu know that's got to be fun!

[Eric the Green]

(07-25-2016, 08:19 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: The name calling etc. is why there is a huge opening for a moderate independent candidate - not an Ayn Randist like Gary Johnson or a Marxist-Leninist like Jill Stein.

Come on, Reform Party.  Think BIG!

If Jill Stein is a "Marxist-Leninist," then bring it on!

But good luck; keep trying to find a candidate!

[The Wonkette]

(07-25-2016, 12:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-25-2016, 08:19 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: The name calling etc. is why there is a huge opening for a moderate independent candidate - not an Ayn Randist like Gary Johnson or a Marxist-Leninist like Jill Stein.

Come on, Reform Party.  Think BIG!

I wonder why our Marxist poster, Kinser, who was so enamored of Bernie Sanders, isn't supporting Jill Stein?

If Jill Stein is a "Marxist-Leninist," then bring it on!

But good luck; keep trying to find a candidate!

[pbrower2a]

John Xenakis -- I do not fault the Quiverfull cult for Andrea Yates for killing her children any more than I could blame a heat wave. I just can't see her as a model of feminism even without her inexcusable crimes. Quiverfull is practically the antithesis of feminism.

[Bob Butler 54]

I was watching a clip of Newt Gingrich trying to create a reality out of feelings.  The interviewer kept presenting him with FBI crime data showing crime sharply declining since the 90s, but Newt kept pushing that there was a 'feeling' otherwise, that the people felt unsafe, and this feeling somehow made the hard data irrelevant. These feelings justified continuing a campaign based on suppressing crime, latinos, muslims, blacks.

Color me dubious.  A rant based on media and politician based agitation and propaganda ought not to define the race.

But part of me noted a partisan flip.  Democrats pushing gun control do the same thing with the same crime data.  Something must be done about guns because the crime rates are so high.

While in a lot of ways the Democrats can try to present themselves as the party of reality, they too will go with feelings, fear and disregard for reality when they think they can score political points.

[John J. Xenakis]

(07-25-2016, 09:53 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > John Xenakis -- I do not fault the Quiverfull cult for Andrea
> Yates for killing her children any more than I could blame a heat
> wave. I just can't see her as a model of feminism even without her
> inexcusable crimes. Quiverfull is practically the antithesis of
> feminism.

The issue isn't that anyone considers Andrea Yates to be a feminist.
Nor should the Quiverfull cult be blamed for the independent crimes of
one of their members.

The issue is that feminists treated her as a victim instead of as a
murderer, after she killed her five kids.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-25-2016, 09:56 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I was watching a clip of Newt Gingrich trying to create a reality out of feelings.  The interviewer kept presenting him with FBI crime data showing crime sharply declining since the 90s, but Newt kept pushing that there was a 'feeling' otherwise, that the people felt unsafe, and this feeling somehow made the hard data irrelevant. These feelings justified continuing a campaign based on suppressing crime, latinos, muslims, blacks.

Color me dubious.  A rant based on media and politician based agitation and propaganda ought not to define the race.

But part of me noted a partisan flip.  Democrats pushing gun control do the same thing with the same crime data.  Something must be done about guns because the crime rates are so high.

While in a lot of ways the Democrats can try to present themselves as the party of reality, they too will go with feelings, fear and disregard for reality when they think they can score political points.

Bob, what you don't get is that there are a lot people who have completely lost faith in their government and the politicians who are supposed to represent them. Priorities, it' all about the priorities and the perception of where one fist in as far as the priorities of the current Democratic party. Trump recently changed the priority of the Republican party. The division is only going to get worse from here on. Democrats are to corrupt and to deep into big government to change on their own. What happens to Democrats down the road? Don't know and don't really care at this point?

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-25-2016, 11:00 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-25-2016, 09:56 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I was watching a clip of Newt Gingrich trying to create a reality out of feelings.  The interviewer kept presenting him with FBI crime data showing crime sharply declining since the 90s, but Newt kept pushing that there was a 'feeling' otherwise, that the people felt unsafe, and this feeling somehow made the hard data irrelevant. These feelings justified continuing a campaign based on suppressing crime, latinos, muslims, blacks.

Color me dubious.  A rant based on media and politician based agitation and propaganda ought not to define the race.

But part of me noted a partisan flip.  Democrats pushing gun control do the same thing with the same crime data.  Something must be done about guns because the crime rates are so high.

While in a lot of ways the Democrats can try to present themselves as the party of reality, they too will go with feelings, fear and disregard for reality when they think they can score political points.

Bob, what you don't get is that there are a lot people who have completely lost faith in their government and the politicians who are supposed to represent them. Priorities, it' all about the priorities and the perception of where one fist in as far as the priorities of the current Democratic party. Trump recently changed the priority of the Republican party. The division is only going to get worse from here on. Democrats are to corrupt and to deep into big government to change on their own. What happens to Democrats down the road? Don't know and don't really care at this point?

Well, you're repeating the basic Reagan memes.  The government is corrupt an inefficient.  Projects attempted by the government fail.  The culture should do more in the private sector, less in the public sector.  When in doubt, cut taxes as a short cut to force the government to do less.  The Republican base has been listening to these themes for decades.  They have embraced these concepts to the point that they are applying them of the very Republican politicians who pushed these ideas, who used these ideas to acquire and maintain power.

That's the feeling.  As with the problems of crime and violence mentioned above, the question is whether the feelings have any bearing in reality.  Trump is pushing to make America great again, to return to our heyday of power and plenty, the 1950s and 1960s, the time at the very apex of tax and spend liberalism.

I think there is a balance somewhere.  One can have too big a government, and too little.  FDR did much that had to be done.  LBJ was overly ambitious, and tried to do too much.  He burned out the mood of our peak era, the time when we would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."  That was the spirit that once made America great.  LBJ burned it out.  The fall of Saigon, Watergate, oil crisis, hostage crisis and national malaise buried it.  Reagan read well the mood of the country at the time and scaled back America's greatness.  We should not try to be great because America's government is inherently too corrupt and inefficient to be great.  We should cut taxes so that any possibility of the attempt to be great will be cut off early.

Reagan wasn't entirely wrong.  He felt well the mood of his time.  Before Reagan, we were overly confident in our ability to do several impossible great but expensive tasks at the same time.  The GIs had been bearing too many burdens, paying too many prices for too long.  Reagan harnessed the cycles, made them work for him, taking the country away from the crisis values of working together for the common good to embrace the selfishness and indulgence of the unravelling.

To me, Trump makes a fine symbol of or personification of the unravelling spirit that fell out of Reagan's memes.  He embodies selfishness, greed, egotism, and a willingness to trample on the little guy to gratify his own desires.

So, yes, I believe I do understand the spirit of the Republican base, their distrust of America, their fear of greatness, their selfish desire to focus on themselves rather than consider the common good.  While they want the strength and plenty of the era of tax and spend liberalism, they aren't willing to bear burdens or pay prices.  They seem to think they can achieve greatness through wishful thinking.

But it comes back to feelings rather than reality.  The Republican base still feels the Reagan memes.  One can point back to the good old days, suggest that in fact government is not always inefficient and corrupt, that in fact our times of greatest strength are when we pull together for the common cause.  Alas, they aren't going to 'feel' it.  They will refuse to acknowledge that the time America was great was when the government brought us together to achieve great things.  They will try to ride America and the Reagan memes all the way down into the dust.  The selfish, corrupt and egotistical Trump is just the man to do it, just the man to lead them into ruin.

That's the core of things, specific issues aside.  Do we have a regeneracy and return to a crisis mood of problem solving with a healthy respect for the common good?  Or do we stick with the unravelling values of selfishness and greed.  In Hillary and The Donald we have two pretty good personifications of two positions in the cycle.  I can get the Republican base's hunger to see greatness again, but they shouldn't expect a free lunch.  Indeed, it is their unwillingness to trust the cooks that is making them hungry.

[Eric the Green]

Let's build the wall!

[Eric the Green]

Let's bash trump as often and as mercilessly as we can.... let's bash him so much we'll be sick of bashing!

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12218136/do...ion-afraid

Donald Trump’s nomination is the first time American politics has left me truly afraid
Updated by Ezra Klein on July 22, 2016, 12:03 a.m. ET @ezraklein

TWEET SHARE (271K) +

Tonight, Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States.

And I am, for the first time since I began covering American politics, genuinely afraid.

Donald Trump is not a man who should be president. This is not an ideological judgment. This is not something I would say about Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio. This is not a disagreement over Donald Trump’s tax plan or his climate policies. This is about Trump’s character, his temperament, his impulsiveness, his basic decency.

Back in February, I wrote that Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory. He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he's a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he's also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it's hard to know if he even realizes he's lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.

He has had plenty of time to prove me, and everyone else, wrong. But he hasn’t. He has not become more responsible or more sober, more decent or more generous, more considered or more informed, more careful or more kind. He has continued to retweet white supremacists, make racist comments, pick unnecessary fights, contradict himself on the stump, and show an almost gleeful disinterest in building a real campaign or learning about policy.

He has, instead, run a campaign based on stoking fear and playing to resentment. His speech tonight invoked a nightmarish American hellscape that doesn't actually exist. His promise to restore order made him sound like the aspiring strongman his critics fear him to be. "I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end," he said. "Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored."

Here is what we know — truly know — about Trump. Here is why he should not be president.

Trump is vindictive. So far, the unifying theme of Trump’s convention is that the leader of the opposition party should be thrown in jail. Trump didn’t like the Washington Post’s coverage of his campaign, so he barred its reporters from his rallies and threatened to use the power of the presidency to bring an antitrust suit against the Post's owner, Jeff Bezos.

He was upset that Ohio didn’t vote for him, so he sat its delegation in the cheap seats, even though the state is hosting the convention. He was angry about an interview his ex-ghostwriter gave to the New Yorker, so he sent his lawyers after him. He hates the protesters who interrupt his campaigns, so he said he would look into paying the legal fees of a supporter who sucker-punched one of them.

Imagine Donald Trump with the powers of the presidency. Imagine what he could do — what he would do — to those who crossed him.

Trump is a bigot. Donald Trump kicked off his campaign calling Mexican immigrants murderers and rapists. He responded to Ted Cruz’s surge in Iowa by calling for a ban on Muslim travel. He sought to discredit a US-born judge by saying his rulings were suspect because of his "Mexican heritage." Trump’s campaign is certainly the first time in my memory that a sitting speaker of the House has had to describe something his party’s nominee said as "the textbook definition of a racist comment."

This is not a man who should be put in charge of an increasingly diverse country that needs to find allies in an increasingly diverse world.

Trump is a sexist. Stories of Trump’s casual sexism abound, but during the campaign, it was women who questioned him who felt the full force of his misogyny. The first Republican debate, for instance, was hosted by Fox News and moderated by Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace. Kelly wasn’t obviously tougher on Trump than her colleagues, but she was the antagonist he focused on, retweeting a follower who said she was "a bimbo" and saying she had "blood coming out of her … wherever."

After Carly Fiorina challenged him in a debate, Trump said to Rolling Stone, "Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?" After Hillary Clinton needed to take a bathroom break during a debate, Trump told the crowd, "It's too disgusting. Don't say it, it's disgusting."

It’s not just during political campaigns that this side of Trump emerges. Trump once told his friend Philip Johnson that the secret to women was "[y]ou have to treat 'em like shit."

Trump is a liar. Trump boasts constantly that he had the judgment and foresight to oppose the Iraq War. But he didn’t. On September 11, 2002, Trump was asked by Howard Stern whether he supported the invasion of Iraq. "Yeah, I guess so," he replied. Trump has not sought to explain these comments or offer evidence of an alternative judgment he offered elsewhere. He just lies about this, and he does so often.

But that’s true for Trump across many issues. He says his health care plan will insure everyone, when it will do nothing of the kind. He says his tax plan raises taxes on the wealthy when it actually cuts them sharply. Trump has lied about his net worth, his reasons for not releasing his tax returns, and his charitable donations. He lies easily, fluently, shamelessly, constantly.

Trump is a narcissist. Trump’s towering self-regard worked for him as a real estate developer. His real business was licensing his name out for building, menswear, golf courses, steaks. A bit of a narcissism is necessary to become a global brand. But the trait is maladaptive in a presidential candidate.

The most recent example was the 28 minutes he spent talking about himself when he was supposed to be introducing Mike Pence, his vice presidential candidate, for the first time. The most grotesque example was when he responded to the deadliest mass shooting in American history by tweeting, "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism."

Trump admires authoritarian dictators for their authoritarianism. When MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asked Trump about his affection for Vladimir Putin, who "kills journalists, political opponents and invades countries," Trump replied, "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country."

But it’s not just Putin. Trump has praised Saddam Hussein because "he killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn't read them the rights." He said "you've got to give [Kim Jong Un] credit. He goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss. It's incredible." It’s not just that Trump admires these authoritarians; it’s that the thing he admires about them is their authoritarianism — their ability to dispense with niceties like a free press, due process, and political opposition.


Trump is a conspiracy theorist. Trump burst onto the scene as a leader of the absurd "birther" movement. He’s said that Bill Ayers is the real author of Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, explained that the unemployment rate in America is really over 40 percent, and suggested that both Antonin Scalia and Vince Foster were murdered.

Trump is very, very gullible. This is related to his conspiracy theories, but Trump has a habit of believing and retweeting bad information that sounds good to him at the time.

This has led to, among other things, Trump retweeting false crime statistics, Trump retweeting Mussolini quotes from a Twitter account called Il Duce, Trump promoting a fake video claiming a protester who rushed his stage was sent by ISIS, and Trump endorsing a National Enquirer report suggesting Ted Cruz’s dad helped kill JFK. When pressed about these sundry embarrassments, Trump said, "All I know is what’s on the internet."

That’s a reasonable response from your uncle who forwards you weird email chains, but not from a presidential candidate.

Trump doesn’t apologize, and his defensiveness escalates situations. On Monday night, it became very clear that Melania Trump’s 2016 convention speech had lifted two paragraphs from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. The error was an embarrassment, but it could have been dispatched quickly by simply admitting fault and apologizing.

Instead, the Trump campaign turned it into a multi-day story and a character issue by denying anything had happened and blaming Hillary Clinton. This is "an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down," said campaign chair Paul Manafort, in one of the most genuinely ridiculous comments in recent American history.

The campaign also tried to argue that Michelle Obama doesn’t own the English language, and that similar language was used by Twilight Sparkle, a My Little Pony (I’m serious). Finally, days later, the Trump campaign admitted there was plagiarism and blamed a miscommunication between Melania and her speechwriter.

1. Deny everything.
2. Blame Hillary Clinton.
3. Blame My Little Pony.
4. Deny everything.
5. Confess & apologize.

— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) July 20, 2016
A similar pattern played out when Trump tweeted an anti-Hillary meme that superimposed a Star of David atop a pile of money and accused Clinton of corruption. The image was obviously anti-Semitic, and the Trump campaign quickly took it down. But Trump himself went on a Twitter rampage, arguing that what was clearly a Star of David was actually just a sheriff’s star, or maybe just a regular old star, and that the campaign shouldn’t have removed the offending meme in the first place.

So far, these examples are farce, but as Tim Lee writes, this tendency in the Oval Office could lead to tragedy: "[Trump’s] behavior on the campaign trail suggests that he would be unlikely to admit mistakes and defuse tense situations. Instead, his first instinct would be to escalate every conflict in an effort to bully foreign adversaries into giving him his way. That might work in some cases. But in others — especially against powerful countries like China or Russia — the results could be disastrous."

Trump surrounds himself with sycophants. It's tradition for presidential candidates to release a note from their physician testifying to their fitness to fulfill the duties of the presidency. On December 14, Donald Trump submitted his entry to this quadrennial custom.

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," Dr. Harold Bornstein writes. "His blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were astonishingly excellent. … His physical strength and stamina are extraordinary."

This is … not how most doctor notes read. "Reached for comment regarding this, a spokesperson at the American Medical Association just giggled," reported the Daily Beast.

There are many positions where one might accept a pliable crony. But "personal physician" should not be one of them. The fact that Trump would entrust his health to a doctor who would sign off on a note like this should terrify his family and friends. But more than that, it should disqualify him from the presidency.

Trump has proven too lazy to learn about policy. Trump didn’t know much about policy when the campaign started, and as far as anyone can tell, he hasn’t made any obvious effort to rectify that.

The latest and most damaging example is his interview with the New York Times, in which he said he would not automatically defend NATO countries against attack from Russia. It’s not obvious Trump meant to say that, or even knew what saying that meant, as Manafort immediately began denying Trump had ever said it. (The Times subsequently released a transcript showing that, yes, Trump had said it.)

But this is a pattern for Trump, who doesn’t bother to come up with convincing answers even to obvious questions, and definitely has not put in the time to develop a deep understanding of the issues he might face as president. As Matt Yglesias wrote, this is very much a choice Trump has made. "Trump is now the GOP nominee, and there are hundreds of professional Republican Party politicians and operatives around the country who would gladly help him become a sharper, better-informed candidate. It doesn’t happen because he can’t be bothered."

Trump has run an incompetent campaign and convention. As brilliant as Trump has been in securing media attention for himself and channeling the anxieties of conservative voters, he hasn’t bothered to build a real campaign organization, and his convention has been a festival of unforced errors.

This is the context of Melania Trump’s plagiarism, of Ted Cruz’s anti-endorsement, of the night that was supposed to be about jobs and the economy but was actually about Benghazi and jailing Hillary Clinton. In isolation, these are gaffes, mistakes, bad luck. Together, though, they tell a damning story of organizational incompetence.

The most generous interpretation of this is that Trump is capable of running an effective organization, but he’s just not interested in conventions and field operations in the way he is interested in golf courses and condos. Others have certainly testified to the trouble Trump has focusing on tasks that don’t engage him. His former ghostwriter says, "He has no attention span." Unfortunately, the president actually needs to focus on all kinds of dull and unpleasant tasks.

Trump is a bully. Trump won the Republican nomination by proving that even adults can be bullied with schoolyard taunts. There was "low-energy Jeb," and "Little Marco," and "Lyin’ Ted," and now we’ve got "Crooked Hillary." Trump made fun of Rand Paul’s looks and Chris Christie’s weight and Carly Fiorina’s face and a New York Times reporter’s physical disability.

It seems like this shouldn’t have to be said, but it’s better to be kind than cruel, and there’s a deep, instinctual cruelty in Trump — he finds people’s weak spots, their insecurities, and he exposes them in front of crowds.

Trump has regularly incited or justified violence among his supporters. At a rally in St. Louis, Donald Trump lamented that "nobody wants to hurt each other anymore."

Yes, lamented.

The topic was protesters, and Trump's frustration was clear. "They're being politically correct the way they take them out," he sighed. "Protesters, they realize there are no consequences to protesting anymore. There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."

Earlier in the campaign, two of Trump’s supporters attacked a homeless Mexican man and told the police, "Donald Trump was right — all these illegals need to be deported." Trump’s response? "I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again."

The simple fact of it is that Donald Trump should not be president of the United States. That is not because he is too conservative, as some Democrats would have it, or because he is not conservative enough, as many Republicans would have it. It’s because the presidency is a powerful job where mistakes can kill millions, and whoever holds it needs to take that power seriously and wield it responsibly. Trump has had ample opportunity to demonstrate his sense of seriousness and responsibility. He has failed.

It is said that the benefit of America’s long presidential campaigns is they offer the candidates time to show us who they really are. Trump has shown us who he really is. He is a person who should not be president. That he is being brought this close to the presidency — that he is one major mistake by Hillary Clinton away from winning it — should scare us all. It certainly scares me.

[pbrower2a]

As in 1964:


















Same person (John Bogert) fifty-two years later.

America has changed:






 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

[Dan '82]

Trump confuses Clinton's running mate with former New Jersey governor