The Conversation -- January 21, 2024
Marie: Ron DeSantis's dropping out of the presidential* race Sunday is the reason I have not knocked myself out for the past year cataloguing every development in the race. I'll admit I linked to some stories about the race, especially if these little episodes provided a window into the party of nihilists -- and I have spent a lot of effort following what Der Furor was up to. But if you woke up today and had never heard of, say, Doug Burgum or Vivek Ramaswamy, you would be okay. Anyhow, buh-bye, Rhonda. ~~~
~~~ So here are the New York Times presidential* race developments for Sunday, with terribly, terribly sad news:
"Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida suspended his campaign for president on Sunday and endorsed the race's front-runner, Donald J. Trump, as the primary race in New Hampshire enters its final 48 hours.... It marked a spectacular implosion for a candidate once seen as having the best chance to dethrone Mr. Trump as the Republican Party's nominee in 2024. His departure from the race leaves Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, as Mr. Trump's last rival standing.... Mr. DeSantis flew home to Tallahassee late Saturday after campaigning in South Carolina. He had been expected to appear at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Sunday afternoon, but one person familiar with the matter said that was no longer the case."
If you're an elected Republican, you lie. If you're a supposedly ever-so-Christian elected Republican, you lie:
Chris Cameron: "Haley said that Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina ... had lied when he said earlier on CNN that he had texted Haley to inform her of his endorsement of Trump before it was publicly announced. 'He didn't call, he didn't text, he didn't tell me that he was going to do this,' Haley said. 'Am I disappointed? Yes. But that's his decision to live with.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
Congress Majors in Recess, Aces Test after Test. Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Once the House on Thursday finished kicking the can on government funding until early March, lawmakers did what almost comes naturally at this point. They left town for a 10-day break, not returning until the night of Jan. 29. Exempting half-days that are scheduled for traveling into or out of Washington, the House has only five full legislative days on its calendar before lawmakers leave Feb. 16 for what is slated to be an almost two-week break from the Capitol.... Senators, for their part, have only a slightly busier schedule despite their very heavy workload.... All told, between now and late February, the House and the Senate will be in session at the same time just seven days, several of those coming on shortened fly-in/fly-out travel days."
Benjamin Weiser & Jonathan Bromwich of the New York Times: Judges set to oversee cases against Donald Trump may be studying his interactions with the judges in recent courtroom episodes to gauge how to treat him in their own domains. "What has made Mr. Trump's appearances challenging is that he may be making the calculation that disobeying a judge or perhaps even losing a legal argument could be politically advantageous. In [E. Jeanne] Carroll's defamation trial, Mr. Trump seemed almost to be goading Judge [Lewis] Kaplan into throwing him out of the courtroom."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Washington, D.C., bar investigators have filed disciplinary charges against three lawyers who aided Donald Trump ally Sidney Powell's campaign to mount discredited legal challenges to the 2020 election results. Filings made public Friday accused attorneys Juli Haller, Lawrence Joseph and Brandon Johnson of making knowingly false representations to courts about a slew of lawsuits they filed in the weeks after the 2020 election."
Presidential Race
The New York Times liveblogged developments yesterday in the Republican presidential* primary:
Nicholas Nehemas: "It is three days before the New Hampshire primary, but Ron DeSantis is spending the weekend campaigning in South Carolina, which doesn't vote for another month. It's a clear sign that DeSantis has basically given up competing in New Hampshire."
Jazmine Ulloa: "'Donald Trump has got to stop praising these dictators,' [Nikki] Haley says in one of her most confrontational attacks on Trump and his relationship with authoritarian leaders.... She goes on to say that she had to have a sit down with Trump 'because he was having too much of a bromance with Putin,' that he praised 'President Xi a dozen times after China gave us Covid' and that he exchanged 'love letters' with Kim Jong-un....'"
Nehemas: At a MAGA-friendly rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C., DeSantis twice dodges a question on whether or not Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Ulloa: "Nikki Haley on Saturday escalated her attacks on Donald J. Trump, directly criticizing his mental acuity for the first time a day after the former president appeared to confuse her for Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, during his Friday night rally in New Hampshire. In a news conference with reporters after her campaign event in Peterborough, N.H., Ms. Haley stopped short of calling Mr. Trump mentally unfit. But she did question whether he would be 'on it' enough to lead the nation. 'My parents are up in age...,' she said. '... when you see them hit a certain age, there is a decline. That's a fact -- ask any doctor, there is a decline.'" MB: No, Trump didn't appear to confuse Haley with Pelosi several times (see Mediaite story linked below); he did confuse Haley with Pelosi. And Haley's comparing Trump with her parents is a mighty mild criticism of an opponent by someone about to lose a primary to a daffy old codger.
Jonathan Swan: "It's hard to overstate the difference between a Nikki Haley New Hampshire event and a Donald Trump New Hampshire event.... [At an event I attended this afternoon:] A couple of hundred people, no crude shirts, neat sweaters and glasses, very little Haley paraphernalia, and I couldn't see anybody wearing American flag gear.... Here at Trump's event, people were stuck outside in freezing temperatures, blocked from getting in. Inside the arena, are probably 5,000 people.... There was a chant of 'Let's Go Brandon' (a code for a slur against Joe Biden). One of these politicians leads a movement. The other doesn't."
Reid Epstein: "Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, a Democrat running a long-shot primary challenge to President Biden, said on Saturday that he would consider running on the ticket of No Labels, a centrist group exploring an independent bid, if it appeared the general election would be a rematch between Mr. Biden and Donald J. Trump."
Maggie Haberman: "'It's nice to have a strong man running your country,' Donald Trump says of Viktor Orban, the strongman prime minister of Hungary."
Michael Gold: A protester "interrupted Donald Trump as Trump was accusing Biden of being a threat to democracy. After he was taken out of the arena, Trump suggested -- without evidence -- that the protestor and other 'troublemakers' were being paid by George Soros." MB: No, not "without evidence." Trump made up a false charge out of whole cloth.
** Donald Trump Has Lost What Little Was Left of His Mind. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump blamed his Republican presidential opponent and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot during a rally on Friday. Speaking in Concord, New Hampshire, Trump confused his former ambassador to the U.N. with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Trump has previously blamed Pelosi for the security breakdown that enabled the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to take place. During his speech, Trump repeatedly said Haley's name before claiming she was behind the lapse. 'You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know they -- do you know they destroyed all of the information and all of the evidence?' Trump told the crowd. 'Everything. Deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it because of, lots of things. Like, Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people.'... However, the speaker [MB: who never has been Nikki Haley] is not in charge of the National Guard." Thanks to RAS for the link. Update: The New York Times has a story here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: We already knew that for Trump, blonde women were interchangeable: During a deposition, Trump also couldn't tell E. Jean Carroll from his wife. So we now know that for Trump, brunette women are interchangeable, too. Still, you have to be pretty daft to confuse Haley with Pelosi. ~~~
~~~ Update. Dylan Wells of the Washington Post: "Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley on Saturday aggressively questioned ... Donald Trump's mental fitness, seizing on a flub at a rally in which Trump repeatedly called Nancy Pelosi by Haley's name when attacking the former House speaker.... 'Do we really want to go into an election with two fellas that are going to be president in their 80s?' Haley said at a stop Saturday in Keene, N.H., referring to Trump and President Biden. 'We see that Biden has changed so much over two years,' Haley said. 'But last night Trump is at a rally, and he's going on and on mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn't [handle] security during the Capitol riot, why I didn't handle January 6th better,' Haley said. 'I wasn't even in D.C. on January 6th. I wasn't in office then.... The concern I have is, I'm not saying anything derogatory, but when you're dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can't have someone else that we question whether they're mentally fit to do this,' Haley added." That's a little better. Haley has some Susan-Collinsish "concern" over poor ole Trumpty-Dumpty. ~~~
~~~ The NBC News story on Haley's pushback is here. ~~~
~~~ Now, let us pause to enjoy Trump veep-hopeful Elise Stefanik's read of Trump's obvious confusion. Ali Vitali & Alex Rhoades of NBC News: "Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., balked at the idea that Trump has 'lost a step' in an interview with NBC News, insisting that despite the former president mistakenly referring to [Nikki] Haley instead of Nancy Pelosi at a rally last night, it 'wasn't a mix-up' at all. 'The reality is Nikki Haley is relying on Democrats, just like Nancy Pelosi, to try to have a desperate showing,' Stefanik said. Pressed by NBC News that Trump was talking about Jan. 6 when he misspoke, Stefanik doubled down: 'President Trump has not lost a step. He is a stronger candidate' now than in 2016." This is way down the page in NBC News' liveblog of campaign developments.
"Our Demagogue." Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "It is not hard to find, throughout American history, Trump-like demagogues with loyal followings. And these men tend to represent, most often, the popular expression of a certain will to power -- the freedom to dominate.... [George] Wallace was a smart, clever and intellectually agile man. We are probably lucky that our demagogue, dangerous as he is, lacks those particular attributes. Even so, if Wallace has a legacy in national politics, it is very clearly Trump."
Marie: I suppose Maureen Dowd of the New York Times likes to show how totally, impartially both-sider she is, but she makes a ridiculous dig at the Biden family in this week's column: "[The TV series] 'Succession' is a scorching dynasty drama -- the kind we have seen in both the Trump and the Biden clans." There is no Biden dynasty; there's just Joe. Joe more than likely hoped son Beau would follow in his footsteps, and Beau probably would have done had he not been cut down by a brain tumor. Moreover, neither Joe nor Beau was in business; "family business" is public service. Hunter's assorted endeavors & diversions are on no way part of that picture. Then Dowd knocks MSNBC for refusing "to carry Trump's [Iowa] victory speech at all.... Rachel Maddow said her network's decision was 'not out of spite.' It's not personal -- it's strictly business, as Michael Corleone said. MSNBC's business model, after all, is flaying Trump 24 hours a day." What Maddow actually said, and has said more than once, is that MSNBC won't carry Trump's speeches live because there's no way to keep up with his lies, a genuine journalistic problem that Dowd herself acknowledges.
Since this was a topic of discussion in yesterday's Comments, let's see what the NYT says about it: ~~~
Julia Jacobs of the New York Times: "Now that a grand jury has indicted Alec Baldwin on a charge of involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film 'Rust' in New Mexico in 2021, the contours of the looming legal battle are coming into focus. If the case reaches trial, the challenge prosecutors face will be convincing a jury that Mr. Baldwin was guilty of either the negligent use of a firearm or of acting with 'total disregard or indifference for the safety of others' -- even though investigators found he was told on the day of the shooting that the gun he was rehearsing with contained no live rounds, and even though the film set was not supposed to have any live ammunition at all.... The outcome of the case at trial ... would hinge on how jurors view two key questions: Should Mr. Baldwin have known of the danger involved in his actions that day? And, using a term of art in criminal law, did he act with a 'willful disregard for the safety of others'?" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Were I an actor in a film (I was in a real movie once!) in which I was supposed to shoot a gun, I would not know how to do a chamber check. Even if I figured that out, I would have no idea how to distinguish between blanks & live bullets. It's true Baldwin has been in dozens of movies, a few of which may have required him to handle a prop gun. But still. Based on what I know now, I would not convict Baldwin.
~~~~~~~~~
Colorado. Ryan Grenoble of the Huffington Post: "Hundreds of copies of newspapers in Ouray, Colorado, were stolen from around town this week, the day the paper published a story about an alleged rape at the police chief's house. Ouray County Plaindealer co-publisher Erin McIntyre acknowledged the apparent theft of almost all the papers in an email to readers Thursday and encouraged them to connect the dots on their own.... The front-page headline on the January 18-24 edition of the paper in question reads, 'Girl: Rapes occurred at chief's house.'"
Connecticut. Amelia Nierenberg of the New York Times: The last mayoral election in Bridgeport, Conn., is headed for a do-over after a judge ruled that rampant voter fraud in the Democratic primary put into question whether or not the declared winner Joe Ganim actually won the primary. "The judge pointed to videos showing 'partisans' repeatedly stuffing absentee ballots into drop boxes.... In Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city, ballot manipulation has undermined elections for years. In interviews and in court testimony, residents of the city's low-income housing complexes described people sweeping through their apartment buildings, often pressuring them to apply for absentee ballots they were not legally entitled to. Sometimes, residents say, campaigners fill out the applications or return the ballots for them -- all of which is illegal.... In both the 2019 and 2023 races for mayor, the beneficiary of questionable acts in the initial Democratic primary vote was Mayor Ganim, the incumbent, who once spent seven years in prison on federal corruption charges, then regained the mayor's post in 2015." MB: He seems qualified. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Donald Trump claims that he did nothing wrong when he tried to overturn the 2020 election because part of his president* job was to ensure that elections were free and fair. Yet in Connecticut, where there is known fraud, he did not order any investigation or challenge the results. Could it possibly be because he lost to Biden 59% to 39%, and no amount of fraud in one city could make up the difference in the total state vote for president*? Why, it's almost as if his lawyers lied in court papers about his motive for the insurrection.
Pennsylvania. Dog Saves Home, Neighborhood. Sydney Page of the Washington Post: A Philadelphia family's 4-year-old husky, named Kobe, repeatedly dug a hole in their home's front yard to expose a dangerous gas leak. When resident Chanell Bell put a gas detector to the area, it "'went off like crazy,' she said. Bell called Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW), and staff ... told Bell the leak -- which was caused by a rusting pipe -- was 'really serious,' and even flipping on a light switch could have blown up her house, she said.... After PGW workers repaired the pipe in front of her house, they discovered that other pipes were also leaking.... Gas leaks can increase the risk of a fire or deadly explosion, and can also lead to carbon monoxide poisoning in people and pets."
~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Gaza's Health Ministry said the number of people killed in the Strip during this war has passed 25,000, a grim marker reached in just over 100 days of devastating conflict. The Biden administration is planning a sustained military campaign targeting the Houthis in Yemen after several days of strikes failed to halt the rebel group's attacks on maritime commerce, The Washington Post reported.... U.S. troops were being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries after Iranian-backed militants in western Iraq attacked the Ain al-Asad Air Base, U.S. Central Command said. The base's air defenses intercepted most of the missiles, but others hit the site, Centcom said, as fears of a regional escalation mount. A Palestinian American teenager was fatally shot in the West Bank, a family member told The Post. Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, 17, grew up in the New Orleans area. The State Department confirmed the death of an American civilian in the West Bank, and Israeli police said they were launching a 'comprehensive investigation.'" ~~~
~~~ CNN's live updates for Sunday are here. The New York Times' live updates are here.
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Reader Comments (32)
A long and hardly edifying read:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/20/us/dei-woke-claremont-institute.html
That is mostly a list of some of those white folks with a lot of money and little sense and of what scares them about the world.
In short, DEI.
@Ken Winkes: Nikki Haley's assertion last week that the U.S. is not -- nor ever has been -- a racist nation got me to wondering what defines racism.
Let's forget what color I am -- because it doesn't matter in this hypothetical -- and let's say I believe that white people are inferior because the color of their skin, unlike everybody else's, doesn't do much to protect them from sunburn and skin cancer, even deadly skin cancer. I don't dislike white people, I just think they're inferior.
I wouldn't want my daughter to marry a white person because my grandchildren would be more likely to develop skin cancer than if she married and had children by a Black person.
I wouldn't go to the beach or to other sunny destinations with a white person because they'd either cut short our excursion OR the white person would turn an ugly shade of red, and disgust me the same way I am disgusted when I see pictures of the Orange Jesus.
I wouldn't go to a darkened theater with white people because they kind of glow in the dark and might interfere with my concentration on what's happening on the stage or screen.
It's not that I'm against having white neighbors, but they do have to stay inside all day so they don't get exposed to the sun and get sick. And that means they will likely have to neglect maintenance of their house and yard and cause a blight on the neighborhood, lowering my property values. So no white neighbors. As a practical matter.
If I were an employer, I would definitely discriminate against white people. For instance, I would hire or promote a person of color over an otherwise equally-qualified white person because the person of color, in my estimation, would be less likely to take time off for skin problems than would a darker-skinned person. If the job required outside work, I wouldn't even interview white people. Again, I don't dislike the white employees; I feel sorry for them because they're inferior.
When I'm not doing my regular day job, I volunteer as a teachers' aide at the local elementary school, where I teach the kids not to associate with white kids because of the white kids' inferior skin color.
So am I a racist? Is Nikki Haley right?
I lived in a community of racists (suburban Grand Rapids Mi) but
didn't actually realize it until I sold my house there to a black family.
They were really great people, in my opinion. Bought us lunch after
the closing and wanted to buy some of the decor in the house.
That was in May. In June the community pool was closed by a vote
of the membership and the pool was removed and the lot sold to a
developer for building a house.
I often wondered if there was a connection there. I stopped to chat
with them a few times over the years whenever I would be in the area
and, yes, none of the neighbors would have anything to do with them,
but they were happy in the house and close to work (she was a teacher,
he was an executive with an office furniture company).
@Hypothetical Marie
Sorry, but the Britannica thinks you're a racist.
"Racism, also called racialism, is the belief that humans can be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called “races"; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others."
And so do I. Just as are all those who make up the anti DEI, woke and CRT networks.
BTW, an organization my wife works with calls it JEDI, the J being Justice. Kinda like that version. And the Claremont Institute doesn't yet seem to have JEDI in its sights.
Speaking of homicide -- negligent, involuntary, etc...
What do you call this:
"Every booster you take, you're more likely to get Covid as a result of it."
-- Gov. Ron DeSantis
Of course anyone who listens to Rhonda Santis must be suffering from an often fatal precondition -- what we serious students of human behavior refer to as SFB (Shit For Brains). But still, does Rhoda deserve any consequences for the high rate of Covid fatality in The Sunshine State of Fla-De-Dah?
Received my Michigan presidential primary ballot in the mail
yesterday.
Am I the only one who had to go to Wickipedia to find out who
Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips are?
Marianne began her professional career as spiritual leader of the
Church of Today in Warren Michigan. She's and author, speaker,
politician and activist. The rest of her bio sounds like she could be
the female Hunter Biden. Drugs, hippie lifestyle, first marriage
lasted one and a half minutes, she says..
But then she saw the light and wrote approx. 17 self help books. I
haven't read any of those and probably won't.
Dean Phillips is a U.S. Representative from Minn and a businessman
with a rather dull bio.
Nikki (I played with a black kid once) Haley has been too long embedded in the alternate world of MAGA unreality. She has ingested the right-wing beliefs that even mentioning race is a dangerous thing, inimical to the ideology of white supremacy that underpins the entire project.
Even suggesting that there is racism in America (never mind pointing out how existential it is to the MAGAts) makes those people “uncomfortable*”, and we can’t allow that.
Haley is able, at long last, to question the validity of Trump as a candidate, but asserting that racism is a real thing in America is an Edmund Pettus Bridge too far.
The constant screaming about woke this and woke that, and CRT, and the banning of books that refer to race even tangentially, has created an atmosphere so dense with the toxic fumes of fear, hatred, and self-righteousness, that no candidate on the right can safely address that topic. The solution? Pretend it doesn’t exist.
Just like John Roberts! See? Racism…gone! Yay.
Now where’s my pointy hat?
*Thinking about how vital it is to these people to not feel uncomfortable, I have to wonder how comfortable it feels to always feel put upon, attacked, as the Dear Leader is always shouting at them. How comforting can it be be constantly outraged, to feel seething hatred every day, and to be told it’s your right to take up arms against those who piss you off? Just askin’.
And got a spam mail this AM from ??? (I didn't look) telling me the banks are going to cancel me if I'm a MAGA....
Reminds me of the fog machine in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
Only the Right's cuckoo nest machine is also a fear machine. Can't have enough fog or fear.
I dated a black woman back in the mid 70’s. Interracial relationships were still pretty edgy back then. We didn’t encounter much unpleasantness here in the DC area. But when we traveled and checked into a hotel, it was often pretty obvious that the person behind the desk assumed she was a hooker. It helped if we had made a reservation well in advance.
I truly wonder if things are much different today.
@Ken Winkes: The Britannica definition you cite seems to positively refute your premise that the hypothetical me is a racist. It requires that I believe there "is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features." And hypothetical me doesn't believe that at all. The "physical trait" I cite that makes white people inferior is scientifically valid, and I don't think it links one way or the other to other traits, like "personality, intellect, morality," etc.
I think you've proved that hypothetical me is not a racist.
Akhilleus writes, "I have to wonder how comfortable it feels to always feel put upon, attacked, as the Dear Leader is always shouting at them. How comforting can it be be constantly outraged, to feel seething hatred every day, and to be told it’s your right to take up arms against those who piss you off? Just askin’."
I've thought of that, too. I see the Constant Outrage and Hatred syndrome as one of the many disadvantages Donald Trump has imposed on millions of people. And, like so many of the hardships he imposes on others, he does it because it is to his personal advantage.
Wouldn't it have been something if one of the other GOP candidates for president* had pointed that out? What about a campaign based on "I don't hate people who disagree with my inchoate understanding of microeconomics"? I don't hate people because they look different from me? I don't hate people because they were born in Guatemala? And so forth.
I think such a campaign might have succeeded. And it could have rid us of Trump. Now it's all up to Joe Biden, and the people with the syndrome are very unlikely to listen to him, even though his message is similar to the ones I've suggested.
D,
I had a similar experience in college in the 70’s. The professor I had for Hum 3, Classical Greek Lit, John Finley, was telling me how surprised he was when he met the girlfriend of one of his section leaders. I got the impression that he was about to say that she was “black as the ace of spades” when my girlfriend, also black, walked up to say hello.
I never thought Finley was actively racist, he was pretty much a product of his time, being born around 1903 or so. He was a generally congenial chap, known for stalking the stage of our lecture hall, quoting from a Homeric Hymn, with a lit pipe smoking in the pocket of his tweed jacket.
My aunt used that expression occasionally, but neither of my parents did. I think change has come in some places and to some people, but not so much to others. And in some cases, it may even be worse. Even back then, the old professor knew enough to pull up. Nowadays, we have senators (Potato Head, for one) going on TV yapping about lazy blacks as if everyone must think like he does.
Re the question of race in daily life: I think we have been giving people permission to be "uncomfortable" forever. It's because, no matter what, it is not ON to talk about it. And we give everyone permission to join the discomfort and admit to no more by enforcing the silence. How can we move beyond uncomfortable?
The Dumbbunny was totally out of it in that clip where the foghorn was sounding as to his unhinged brain being in charge. He had no solid basis for whatever he was trying to say; he was fighting his way through the underbrush and his brain brought up all the mutterings that run through his head on a minute-by-minute basis--and people buy it!!!! That is the insanity of this moment. WHO deleted all the whatever?? Nothing makes sense in his speeches, and brings up the question of: who attempts to write his speeches? Apparently no one! It's just a fever dream from start to finish. Nikki Haley is right about something: he is a clear and present danger. What if he goes into that spiel and DOES order a nuclear attack? He brought that up the other day as if it could just happen... He is plainly going or already gone around the bend and how can the idiot press keep rewriting his crap and bothsidesing us to death? There is no comparison with Biden.
My husband says the Sunday newspaper letters are almost all anti-Biden. How do we combat this?
The news of Fatty’s clogged cognition, as he mixed up Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, has gotten some media attention. It should be getting more. A lot more.
Everyone has momentary brain farts, I find myself occasionally grasping for the right word, or a name, now and then, and we all misspeak on occasion. My mother used to call one of us by another’s name, “Mike, Joe, Bob…whatever your name is…get in here!” But that was in moments of stress or distraction. She was otherwise sharp as a map pin, right up to the end.
What Trump did had nothing to do with distraction. He didn’t misspeak. He used Haley’s name three times, confusing her with a completely different person. And he knows them both personally. That indicates a truly serious problem. And it’s not like he was talking about something inconsequential. He was talking about his attempted overthrow of the government and looking for someone else to blame.
Maybe, as Marie suggests, that women are interchangeable for Trump. I don’t think that’s at all unlikely. But making this kind of mistake—three times!—in a public forum designed to showcase his genius and his command of “all the best words” should be ringing alarm bells all across the country. The guy isn’t losing it. It’s already lost. His rambling, incoherent speechifying is another sign of cognitive decline. Even if he weren’t a vicious, lying traitor, even if he were an average sort of politician, such clear indications of brain malfunction should take that person out of the running and into a home. And not the one on Pennsylvania Avenue.
TFG's biggest fans dearly want Affirmative Action, only the kind they want is the old-fashioned kind that affirms that people who reject education and science will be favored over those who are more educated and respect reality, as long as the latter group is not grandfathered (i.e., white) in. The Great Replacement is actually happening, although not in the way the conspiracists imagine. Rather, aggressively ignorant people are being shunted aside, Darwin style, by those who might be equipped to deal with the myriad of existential issues coming generations will face. It reminds me of the board game "Life," in which one can choose to eschew education and do better economically for a few years.
I'm told that one of the tests for Alzheimers is to ask the subject if he knows today's date. My answer is: "No. I'm retired. I don't care. If you tell me I'll try to forget."
@Hypothetical Marie
OK, I'll give. you half, some of the "personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features" parts, but it would seem to me that the inferiority HM ascribes to whites, including their fear of bright sun, is still based on their race.
Have been watching NFL football, whose athletes are predominantly Black. Wonder what that means?
Is the mere observation racist? Or does it simply acknowledge physical and cultural differences that actually exist, which as I understand her, HM would not see as racist?
A thorny issue, all around.
I'd go out on a limb tho' and assert white MAGA are definitely an inferior subspecies.
Up above, Akhilleus listed some of the things that make the red hat people "uncomfortable": DEI, woke, CRT, etc.
It reminded me that "woke" is really about race. In the past year or so, the term has been used in so many ways as a generic slur against (liberals? historians? yomama?) "things the redhatted don't like", that I was perceiving it as a thing itself, like "whigism" or "antidisestablishmentarianism." It had lost its racist meaning in my perception.
Now it's back, in my head anyway. "Woke" is about race. And not just race, it's about black people. And not just black people, but black people in America. And not all of them -- the black people you personally know are all OK. It's the others that are "different", right?
Thought experiment: you are walking down a town street, sidewalks on both sides. Coming towards you are three large, boisterous Black male teenagers. On the other side of the street, walking parallel to them (but coincidentally) are two White male militia cosplayers "constitutionally carrying" banana-clipped AR-15's with tack-on tactical gizmos.
You are visiting from out of town.
Do you:
- keep moving down the sidewalk toward the Black kids
- cross the street in front of the cosplayers and walk toward them
- turn around and walk the other way
- walk into the nearest store or house you can
and do you
- keep your hands where everybody can see them
- put one hand inside your coat, maybe conceal carrying
- pull out your cell phone and pretend you're talking
There are no wrong answers.
Perhaps I should have already known all this, but I didn't. A harrowing read.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/tim-scott-quoted-fannie-lou-hamer?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1783367&post_id=140878162&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=rd5o&utm_medium=email
A few years ago, walking on Capitol Hill, I was stopped by three young black men. They were totally blown away by my Maryland State Flag necktie
They thought it was the coolest tie they’d ever seen.
It pays to be well dressed.
D,
The design looks vaguely like something you’d see on a race car. Fast times in Maryland, I guess. Pretty cool, nonetheless.
AK,
see:
New word!
At least for me, even though it’s apparently been in usage, chiefly in Britain, since Queen Victoria was taking in the latest modern marvels at the Crystal Palace. The word is fitment. And although context provided a general suspicion as to its meaning, I long ago gave up refraining from getting a definite definition, spurious and unchecked suspicions often leading to lifelong lexical misapprehensions, so off to the dictionary I go.
As you might guess, fitment refers to furniture, to permanent fixtures, cabinetry and the like, or such items designed for a specific room.
Which brought me to Donald Trump. I know, I know…it’s all Trump all the time, which got me thinking that he’s a sort fitment. He’s become such a ubiquitous element, he’s what we might in this country refer to as “part of the furniture”.
But to follow the analogy even further, he’s perhaps more like that odd curio cabinet you picked up at a yard sale 30 years ago. It was weird but somewhat amusing.
Over time, however, it became more of a visual nuisance, being much less useful and aesthetically pleasing than the other furniture in the room, pieces far better built and not nearly so tacky. In more recent times, the curio cabinet has become far more than a nuisance, and taken on a positively evil cast, debasing every other piece of furniture, picture, rug, and bric a brac in the room, having become home to cockroaches, rats, and other creepy crawlies, now exuding noxious smells, so much so that it threatens the whole house with condemnation.
Which in turn brings me to the realization that some things can be described as “fitment”. Other things as “unfitment”.
That’s Fatty, the Unfitment. He won’t go away but he stinks up the whole joint. With a nasty piece of furniture, you can toss it, take it to the dump, or bring it out in the yard, chop it up and set it on fire.
If only…
Thanks, Penelope!
D,
Hey, thanks. I can now win bar bets about the Calvert family and the Fifth Regiment of the Maryland National Guard.
That Penelope reference is a tad obscure since I neglected to mention that I ran across the word while reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s “The Bookshop”, full of wonderfully caustic observations of small town coastal life in 1950’s Britain. Oh, and fitments.
AK
Just be sure to pronounce everything correctly.
The name of my state is pronounced Merlin, and its largest city is Balmer.
My county is pronounced Culvert, and the county seat, Prince Frederick, is pronounced Prince Redneck.
"Another one bites the dust". After South Carolina they can cancel the rest of the GOP primaries.
And so DeSantis joins the bend the knee and kiss the ring crew.
People are sayin' that these are the five words in trump's cognitive
test:
Fat, Guilty, Rapist, Liar and Loser.
How on earth could he flub that test?
Re the Merlin flag: many people are confused when it comes to how the flag should be displayed, since its quadrants are apparently diametrically symmetrical.
But they aren't.
The mnemonic is "black on top", which means that the black patch at the corner on the Calvert yellow and black must be at the top of the hoist (i.e., upper left corner).
News you can use.
BTW, look at a roundup of all the state flags, and you can see that only a few have "logo impact". Texas, Merlin, Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, DC, etc. Many are really lame, a solid color with the state seal and some words. And, just after Iowa, we've all seen it's really French with an eagle and some words.
Vexing.
D,
Got it. Merlin. I recall learning from a friend in college that Oregon is not pronounced Ore-a-gon, it’s Orrgan.
So, Merlin. Okay.
Go-go boots and shoe lifts being retired?
Boo-hoo.
At least Rhonda didn’t forget to submissively kneel and kiss the Orange ass, like a good traitor. What a fucking loser.
So much for Trump 2.0, the smarter, craftier traitor.
Not that Ronda's loss is any loss at all. It only certifies what we already knew, that the Republican Party's standard bearer for 2024 will inevitably be the multiply indicted Pretender.
How is that a change from 2016?
I remember talking with a relatively thoughtful R in the run up to the 2016 election who thought he'd go with someone who promised change. Wonder what he thinks now.
He did get change. Just wonder if it's the change he anticipated.
I suspect it's not, but I'd guess he's still loyal to his tribe, even tho' the warts most of us saw in the rude, arrogant, empty-headed lying con man are now obviously more than skin deep and have come to define his entire party.
Wonder too if he ever thinks about what his loyalty to his party says about him, because it can't possibly say anything good.
He must be so darn proud.