Sunday, April 09, 2017

Backfire

AmCon's Daniel Larison concisely nails why Clownstick's Syria sideshow fails even as a temporary distraction:
Launching an illegal attack on another government doesn’t communicate seriousness or strength. It is something that someone desperate to be taken seriously will do, and in so doing he reminds everyone how ridiculous he is. The attack on Syria hasn’t impressed people in China, and insofar as it was intended to “send a message” to North Korea it will likely just confirm their determination to continue developing their nuclear and missile programs.
The only thing I would (mildly) disagree with is the implication that Clownstick ordered the missile launch because he is "desperate to be taken seriously." Obviously, everything he does and says has that as a prime factor; the man's entire life is an eternal cry for help.

It's some sad shit to consider the literal fact that at this point, there are at least a few human beings who would still be alive if Fuckface Von Clownstick Senior had given his son a hug once in a while, told him that he loved him, anything to keep him from inflicting his lifelong ego trip on a hapless citizenry. But that is where we are right now.

It's difficult to imagine the sort of diehard rube who, barely forty-eight hours removed from the missile attack, still buys into the idea that it had any strategic or even humanitarian purpose. I asserted the other day that he may have had "sincere motives" in initiating action, and he may even think that he does, but given the subsequent Twitter droppings of his that emanated in 2013, after Assad had used chemical weapons for a much higher casualty count, I can't in good faith stick to that assertion.

It's frequently difficult with this guy to tell in a given instance if an action or quote is driven by stupidity or cynicism. It's easy to forget momentarily that those things are not mutually exclusive. Clownstick no doubt sees no disconnect between his 2013 backseat-driving of Obama's foreign policy decisions, and Clownstick's own actions four years later. When Nixon said that if the president does something, it's not illegal, people understood this instantly as an excuse proffered by one of the most nakedly cynical politicians we've ever had. But that has always been Clownstick's operational standard. It's literally how he thinks. I'm, like, a really smart guy, and I did this, therefore it was, like, a really smart thing to do. It doesn't matter if someone else did the same thing previously, they're dumb because he thinks they're dumb.

This is the sort of a priori cognition one normally finds in children and animals, creatures of limited sentience but enhanced solipsism. A child sees the rest of the world as a milieu for his own volition, making excuses and rationales as he goes along. For most of us, socialization smoothes those edges early on; assholes learn pretty quickly that they won't have any friends if they persist in being assholes.

But when you're wealthy enough from birth to insulate you from the real world, and you hire people to suck up to you, and your natural tendency is for self-aggrandizement, to the point where you are never wrong about anything, the smartest and best at everything, etc., you never have to grow up. Which is fine when people can choose whether or not to watch the show. But now we're all stuck with this schmuck.

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