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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Tossed Salad

Der Drumpf finally sat down for an interview with the WaPo kids, and....well, let's just say that if you've seen any lengthy excerpts from the rallies, and thought to yourself, this really is a guy who cannot communicate extemporaneously, because he cannot compose a coherent thought on the fly, then you are in for a treat here. Half the time you can't cut through the thicket of nonsense Drumpf is babbling on about, and the other half you can only tell that he's trying to either evade or spin the question. It's like he has some sort of weird bet with Sarah Palin as to who can sound like the biggest fucking moron.

To be as generous as possible it is tremendously depressing to realize that a 70-year-old man who has had the best of everything for his entire spoiled existence, attended the finest schools and has had everything he's ever wanted in life, conveys his thoughts with about as much articulation as a middle-school dropout. But then, this is the same guy who thinks his large-print self-love manifesto is on a par with the Bible.

Like everything else, the interview will not change any minds -- the people who worship him will love him more, and the people who detest him will find another reason why. But the real upshot here is that, despite his bullshit claim to be an outsider, Drumpf is the literal definition of an elite. And for someone who again has spent their entire adult life at that elite level, has met countless movers and shakers and conveyors of power and privilege, and demonstrates zero knowledge of basic foreign policy and economic principles, and has no coherent thoughts on any of them, is just bizarre.

The truly scary part of it is, I don't think it's because Drumpf's an idiot. I think it's because he's the type of narcissistic personality who genuinely believes that something is true -- empirically, verifiably, irrefutably true -- simply because he says it is, when he says it. If he tells you 2+2=5, and then a few minutes later that it equals 6, and then a few minutes later that it equals 3, it's important to realize that to Drumpf, all of those things were true, for him, at the time he said them.

Situational ethics are one thing, situational reality quite another. Up to about a month or so ago, I had tempered my distaste for Drumpf with the caveat that, as bad as he was, Cruz or Rubio would be even worse, just because of the things we knew about them. I no longer believe that to be the case. Drumpf's decision-making process appears to be not merely unpredictable, but utterly volatile. Coupled with what seems to be a complete ignorance of the precepts underpinning the projection of American military power post-World War 2, and the results could be at least as catastrophic as what we got with Fredo Arbusto and his failed wars.

Cruz is an insufferable asshole, but he also prides himself on his intellectual ability and stability; you may not agree with anything he says, but you understand the consistent intellectual undercurrent whence it originates. The more you hear Drumpf try to formulate coherent policy, the more you realize he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, and has no desire to learn. He's three pounds of shit in a hundred-pound bag, bullshitting his way through this process with nothing more than guile and bluster. He's basically Greg Stillson.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Contempt

Apparently a couple of the National Review thinkerati have gone full retard and decided that the best thing to do is describe exactly why their base are complete morons who just don't get it. Kevin D. Williamson takes a baseball bat to it:

Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.

He's not entirely wrong, mind you, but what Williamson seems to gloss over in his rather poetic rant is just how roundly screwed-over these folks were, by politicians of both parties. You can't just yank them along with false promises their entire adult lives, and then abruptly say, "Ah well, fuck you." But that's exactly what happened.

It's gotta be frustrating for movementarians and orthodox conservatards and such like to agonize over the belated discovery that their salt-of-the-earth base, who are defecting to Drumpf -- who is neither truly Republican nor conservative, mind you -- have no regard whatsoever for the "conservative" principles, as codified by Williamson and other keepers of the flame at the think-tank net-rags. Most of this simply boils down to the old trope that conservatism cannot fail, but only be failed. Therefore, these losers are losing because they did not heed the ministrations about bootstrapping and constancy, sweet constancy.

This would probably be more catastrophic if any of Drumpf's flock actually read National Review, but I'll bet you my next paycheck that less than half of them could even tell you what it is. They're missing out; Williamson deserves credit for merely saying what the owners and donors have been thinking and saying among themselves all along. Hell it's what Drumpf is thinking of them when he's not shilling his infomercial to them. He's going to use them and toss them, and they'll love him for it. Which is why, at the end of it all, they really are getting exactly what they deserve.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Fucking Barbarian

Out of all the disgusting things we now about Hair Fuhrer, this may be the most disqualifying factor yet:  he likes his steaks well-done. I mean, I knew something was wrong with the guy, but Jesus H. Christ.
[Note to Sunglasses Guy:  Next time make your sign so people can read the fucking thing.]

You're Not Helping

As pure political theater, the protest/cancelled Drumpf rally in Chicago last Friday was entertaining enough. Never mind the small detail that Drumpf never even showed up to chicken out, strongly implying that he knew what was coming, and understood the larger political implications, and the opportunity to solidify his base, and perhaps even expand it in some areas.

At the very next event, the hippie-punching quota got ramped up, as some hairy schmuck tried to bum-rush Drumpf at the podium. It doesn't matter that Drumpf incorrectly characterized Thomas DiMassimo as an ISIS sympathizer, partly because Drumpf was correct in pointing out that DiMassimo had been photographed dragging an American flag along a sidewalk at another protest, and then standing on the flag, and partly because Drumpf's lies are easily documented and verified as such, and his moron audience still doesn't give a shit.

The protesters have made their point, in Chicago and elsewhere. Further protests are just going to be choir-preaching stunts, and worse yet, completely useless. Ninety percent of success in politics lies in persuading people. Sometimes it's persuading people who oppose you to see the light and join their cause. This is likely to be a fool's errand; the electorate is simply too polarized at this point in time, and it's only going to get worse.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Lolwut

Remember Mark Burns, the huckster teevee-angelist hitching his pelf-powered gawwwd wagon to Drumpf's hair-don't? Well, apparently Burns was the opening act for the short-fingered vulgarian today, and took the time to implore well-known Christ-killer Bernie Sanders to convert to the one true belief, since everyone knows that we cain't haz a J-O-O fer preznit.

But wait, that's not the funny part of the story. This is the funny part:

Pastor Mark Burns, who spoke before Trump sat down for an interview with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that the Vermont senator needed to be saved.

[emphasis mine]

Ahahaha. Oh, this is too good. All his life, Chris Christie has thought of himself as an alpha dog, and comported himself as such. He's the sort of shameless pol who makes every backroom deal he can, fucks people over out of spite, yet consistently bills himself as the most honest person in whatever room he's in. And he seems to sincerely believe it.

But he cast all that aside, doubling down, throwing his lot in with Fuckface Von Clownstick. It's fuck-or-walk time for Fatboy -- if Drumpf loses, Christie is done, as done as Rubio. Hell, even if Drumpf wins, there are no guarantees. Christie's doing this for an AG or cabinet appointment, but Clownstick's ethics are entirely situational. He expects loyalty from others, but promises none in return. If someone with more standing gives Drumpf an endorsement, and wants the same thing Christie does, then too bad for Christie.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, or be more hilarious to watch. You could see it in Christie's eyes the day after he declared his endorsement, looking like Drumpf had Christie's family squirreled away somewhere on a private island.

No more alpha dog; Christie is now basically Reek from Game of Thrones. You can just imagine the mewling, cringing "interview" between them. Hope Chris brought the extra-strength kneepads, and maybe a roll of breath mints for afterward.

Which in turn reminds me of something interesting that Jonah Goldberg (for realz, yo) said the other day:

I’m losing the will to rebut Donald Trump’s “arguments” because he really doesn’t make any. First of all, most of his interviews are rapidly becoming as journalistically adversarial as the infomercial host asking, “Mr. Foreman, is it really true I’ll lose weight and save money by using the George Foreman grill?”

This. You can't help but wonder what sort of befuddled retard waits in line to be herded into an arena, only to be treated to this bullshit -- some holy-roller Jew-baiting snake-oil huckster, followed by a live infomercial. They might as well have stayed home and watched a Honey Boo Boo marathon.

That's the power of the orange beast -- he turns relatively moderate politicians like Christie into soulless, emasculated butt-boys, while career hacks like Goldberg suddenly realize what they've been a part of all these years, and what it's culminating in, and are finally beginning to grow a pair.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Plumb the Joker

If the media weasels are still wondering why so many folks across the political spectrum loathe and lampoon them, I humbly submit Exhibits A-Z:

"Joe the Plumber,” the Ohio workingman who came to symbolize U.S. taxpayer frustration in the 2008 presidential election, is still angry. And like many angry voters, he likes insurgent Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — in part because the New York billionaire dated attractive women.

“He's a winner. He's made billions. He's dated beautiful women. His wife is a model. That's not to sniff at. And a lot of people believe he can bring that kind of success to the White House,” said Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 42, who shot to prominence during the 2008 campaign after then-Republican nominee John McCain seized on a confrontation Wurzelbacher had with then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Sitting in his Ohio house, a Ruger handgun on a table next to him, Wurzelbacher told Reuters he has yet to decide who to support but says he understands why so many people are drawn to the caustic Trump, a real-estate developer and former reality TV show host, and is unhappy with the Republican Party establishment lining up against him.

He said Trump's position as an insurgent candidate who is willing to defy party leaders was a more important reason to vote for him than his wealth and the model-looks of his wife Melania. But he said he believed other voters were drawn to his larger-than-life image and glamorous lifestyle.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Fair Game

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- Hunter S. Thompson

The repudiation of Marco Rubio's attempted insurgency has been conventionally attributed to a mistaken strategy to fight fire with fire, as it were. While it was probably not the best strategy for Rubio, the fact is that he had to try something to remain viable in the race, and countering Drumpf's constant cock-punching actually was as good an idea as any other available option.

In other words, the reason Rubio's strategy did not work was not because it was the wrong strategy, but because it's a skill set not really in Rubio's wheelhouse. Rubio has time and again exposed himself as a rank amateur, politically -- he talks a good game, but that's only because he has memorized a sequence of plays from the playbook. He's solid at repeating stock phrases and platitudes, but cannot extemporize to save his life.

Drumpf, on the other hand, is an old hand at this sort of thing, is relatively fast on his feet, and is also adept at throwing out sheets of meaningless bafflegab, and making sound just enough like something to placate the maroons who are already on board with him. Rubio didn't have a chance. He's just not temperamentally suited to insult comedy the way Drumpf is, and he (Rubio) is also apparently too dim to realize where he actually drew a little blood and should have kept hacking -- at Drumpf's numerous business failures and scams, failed lawsuits, busted attempts at tycoon legitimacy, etc.

This is Drumpf's true Achilles heel:  the idea that he is some sort of business genius, a master of the impenetrable art of negotiation, a wizard of the dark science of manipulating others to your own advantage. Give me a fucking break. Drumpf's entire business career is a validation of the old saw that when you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem; when you owe the bank a billion dollars, the bank has a problem.

You know who's a good businessman? Warren Buffett. Hell, the Koch Brothers, politics aside, are good businessmen. They create tangible products that other human beings can use, they create value, jobs, material goods, etc. Drumpf is merely the figurehead of a brand, a brand whose value is whatever its comically spray-tanned face says it is, because the value created by the brand accrues only to its holder. There is no product, unless you think an asinine, played-out lump of reality-teevee shit is a product with intrinsic value.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Grumpy Old Men

This must be the part where they make 'murka great again:

The television program “Inside Edition” said it interviewed McGraw after the incident and asked him if he liked the rally.

According to the video posted online by the program (http://goo.gl/wFtXIl), he responded: “You bet I liked it ... knocking the hell out of that big mouth.”

The video shows the man going on to say: “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him. We don’t know who he is. He might be with a terrorist organization.”

After detectives reviewed the video, McGraw was also charged with communicating threats.

The man who was punched, Rakeem Jones, told The Associated Press that he and others went to the event as observers, not protesters. He says someone swore at one of their group, and by the time they tried to object, the police were escorting him out.

Or maybe it's the part where Trump's campaign manager thugs out on a reporter, because he thought she might ask Hair Fuhrer a question that hadn't been pre-approved. I can't believe that in a gaggle of reporters, someone didn't catch a video of that.

Idiomentary

Conservatives seem to be under the impression that some progressives, liberals, SJW types, etc., might be humorless prats. What would give them that impression?

The film's legions of defenders call it satire. Well, the overt argument of the film is that good breeding prevents social problems. The so-called satire proceeds from there, presenting the ridiculous consequences of what will happen if we don't rethink how society breeds. Satire isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card for all vulgar and illiberal ideas; it has to be pointed and targeting the powerful, not targeting vague notions of idiocy illustrated by Appalachia accents and trailer parks without consideration for what caused the idiocy in the first place.

The message is cheap and easy and doesn’t require us to meaningfully challenge power, much less ourselves. Instead, we direct our disdain at the pseudo-problem of not being adequately intelligent, as if such a problem operates independent of material factors.

I agree with the premise of Idiocracy -- and obviously, have used it here many times over the years -- serving as a convenient shorthand for the extreme dumbing-down of the culture at large, to such an extent that government and science are rendered useless, even harmful, by dumbasses so outnumbering intelligent people that they end up running everything -- straight into the ground.

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Shotenfreude

If it's wrong that I literally laughed out loud when I read this story, then I don't ever want to be right. Does it even need to be said that it happened in Florida? This fucking dingbat is too stupid to even be allowed to drive a car, much less own a gun.

More seriously, it will be no surprise at all when she recuperates and goes right back to spewing her dangerously moronic nonsense, without considering how lucky she was that the kid didn't shoot himself, or a passing car. Sooner or later he will, you know, and it will be labeled an "accident" or a "tragedy" and no charges will be filed. That's how these things always go.

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Everything's an Opportunity

The Ronnie Raygun hagiography heads into its epilogue with the passing of his widow Nancy, and of course her death, like everything that happens in our universe anymore, becomes a tedious cudgel with which to beat fictional apostates over the head.

Now, the predictable snark from smartass liberals focused on the well-known rumor about the deceased's talented mouth in her younger years, which may be a bit unseemly, but is not necessarily untrue. Near as I can tell, none of the people pushing that one around are motivated by hate or even dislike of Nancy Reagan. But given the incessant moralizing and slut-shaming of the Republican Party, it is at least humorous to note that the woman they insist was the classiest first lady since Jackie Kennedy was also renowned as an accomplished fellatrix. That's not necessarily an insult; maybe it's just me, but I tend to prefer women who enjoy giving blowjobs over women who don't.

More seriously, as first lady, Nancy Reagan did some indisputably silly and useless things:  ordered $200k worth of china for the White House in the midst of a recession; used an astrologer to run her husband's schedule; had a goofball teevee star serve as a flack for her nonsensical "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. Certainly nothing terrible or catastrophic, but also nothing meriting the worship and adulation that, to be honest, comes mostly from managing to hang around for so long.

Monday, March 07, 2016

If a Tiny Tree Falls in a Forest....

From the "who gives a shit?" file, Mike Bloomberg has informed his supporter that he will not, after all, be making an independent run for the presidency. I know, try to contain your grief. Ordinarily it wouldn't even be worth mentioning, as hardly anyone bothered to note that Bloomberg was "looking into" running in the first place, but it's noteworthy just for the sheer delusion of it. He'd have probably gotten more publicity -- and a fighting chance -- if he had changed his name to "Deez Nutz".

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Rental Property

Yeah, I can't imagine why some people might be less than enthused about HRC. Between the shameless pelf-grubbing (her itinerary looks like that of a band or a comedian, hopping town to town to town, sometimes within the same day) and the fucking 'tude of some of her supporters (check the comments in the linked post), it's a tough sell, and only getting tougher.

I'm tired of hearing the "changing the system from within" crap; once you suck up to them, they own you, and nothing changes. It has always been so.

Saturday, March 05, 2016

Demolition

Did I tell you or did I tell you that, aside from being an arrogant, off-putting asshole, Donald Trump is just plain fucking weird? I doubt if any of your political bookmaking sites had "insists during debate that dick size is sufficient" for any of the candidates. That in response to Rubio making fun of Trump's hands, which as we all know is an ancient Spy magazine joke that took up residence under Trump's amazingly thin skin over a quarter-century ago.

Only Trump could take a jibe about short fingers, and not only extrapolate it into a cock reference, but pretend he doesn't know whence the meme originated, as if a goodly number of people weren't aware that he's been obsessing about it all these years. Seriously, what's wrong with this fucking guy? He never gets tired of telling you how impossibly wealthy, intelligent, happy and perfect he and his family are, and yet he gets immensely butt-hurt over the slightest slights.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

In Other News (Sorta)

In non-Drumpf-related news, if there's anyone out there in Debbie Wasserman Schultz's district in Florida that wants to do the right thing, here's your chance. She's just fucking awful.

In the Tank

The only honorable thing for "journalists" and "news organizations" who openly and shamelessly support specific political candidates to do is to find another line of work. Just do the right thing and whore yourselves out as "political consultants" already. You can probably find velvet kneepads at The Sharper Image, right next to the Trump Steaks.

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Stupor Tuesday


Hopefully by now you have seen John Oliver's epic takedown of one Donald Drumpf; if not, I urge you to click on the video above and watch it now. I'll selfishly admit to some gratification at seeing many of the same themes I have been beating on since well before Scrooge McDick descended the golden escalator to speak to a rented crowd last June -- not just the boorish behavior, but the easily refuted lies, the thin-skinned overreactions, the stubborn fiction that Drumpf is some sort of genius businessman, and of course the much less cool ancestral last name.

But neither Oliver nor I nor anyone else engaging in these cheap shots have any particular insight. The one thing Donald Drumpf loves to do more than anything else is talk about himself. It's not like this information hasn't been publicly available and abundant for many years now. But the press chose not to do their jobs with any real vigor.

So now here we are, nine months into this bullshit, and this goofy motherfucker is the odds-on favorite to be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party. Two institutions -- the party and the media -- have failed utterly in their traditional roles. Part of this is because they are bloated and corrupt, but also it is because they were completely unprepared for the consequences of their bloat and corruption.