Trump and the Wall
The pool has a thread about someone who doesn't want to visit his family because he finds their expressions of politics offensive and stressful. This shook an idea loose.
I believe that part of what drive the left nutty about DJT is that he denies them the leverage to which they are accustomed. How many times is a repub or conservative accused of sexism or racism only to respond that the accusation is unjust because the conservative works for equal opportunity and hires or works with lots of racial minorities, a list of good works that grants the legitimacy of the charge conceptually. DJT's dismissive quality amounts to responding "So?". People are so used to a grovelling response that acknowledges the leverage of the charge that they don't know what to do about being waved off with dismissal.
I spoke with Peter Kirsanow at an event last year and he thought that was the correct conclusion as well. It's an emotional explanation for the emotional quality of the response of the left.
In that Pool thread I recite an explanation by Jordan Peterson of the reason people become violent over philosophical differences. Primates have a sense of territoriality that drives them to violently
eject from their area an outsider or competitor for food or sex. People
abstract that sense of territory to include ideas. An idea from the
"outside" can give rise to that reflexive territoriality that demands
that we re-establish or confirm the boundary of our territory with
aggression or retreat to an area that is within the boundary.
eject from their area an outsider or competitor for food or sex. People
abstract that sense of territory to include ideas. An idea from the
"outside" can give rise to that reflexive territoriality that demands
that we re-establish or confirm the boundary of our territory with
aggression or retreat to an area that is within the boundary.
If you are a leftist who thinks DJT is like Hitler because calling the star of Chitty Chitty Gangbang II and Field of Wet Dreams "Horse Face" is exactly like Auschwitz, you take for granted a wall of social prohibitions that the left has been building around us for more than three decades. That wall is metaphorical, but the social prohibitions are certainly real. The language cops in the workplace and public spaces stand guard as the wall is built ever higher.
When DJT says that celebrity and wealth are great because you are up to your knees in trim, or that Carly Fiorina is a 4, his social transgression is real. These are rude observations, but we've become inured to them. When DJT calls Haiti a shithole the protest rises, not from haitians who know Haiti gives shitholes a bad name, but from girls like Katrina vanden Heuvel, who works for The Nation from the giant house her wealthy husband bought. When DJT calls the main character of Sorest Rump "horseface", normal people think "that wasn't kind" and move on, while the crazy people see a war on women, minorities and the poor. Maybe these people know they sound crazy, but are determined to fight the invader who topples a wall that was decades in the making.
Their reliance on that wall is illustrated in the weakness of their responses. The weakness and hysteria of the dem response to Kavanugh has been written about quite a bit. More striking to me is the response of the the woman given a Senate seat in gratitude for her husband's work. She went from ridiculing DJT for not pledging to accept the results of the election and warning us that this was proof of how very dangerous he was, to questioning the results of the election and advocating changing the Constitution in a way that would have increased her specific allotment of old white lady privilege, and warning us how very dangerous DJT is.
DJT's accomplishment isn't finding a way to build a wall, but finding a way to tear one down.
Comments
Dr. Phil or Dr. House?
Speaking for myself, I'm not bothered that people like him exist, but I am bothered that he was elevated to his current position.
I didn't say Trump is "crass," I said he's a pig.
It's telling that you think Trump's actions are equivalent to the other presidents you named. Americans are used to political figures being rough around the edges, at times, as long as it stays largely hidden from the public. We're not used to our presidents acting like pigs in the performance of their public duties.
Nobody believes that YOU believe your own bullshit.
Pretty big word to describe such a small gathering.
If what you say bothers you is that the exec is a pig, it's more than a little pretentious to suggest that sticking to your words is a sine qua non for intelligent discussion. Of course, you didn't actually mean that it is his porcine qualities that actually bother you, but that he doesn't conceal them. Your objection to him turns out to be his lack of pretense.
That's gold.
If you could take more people at their word about what bothers them, you wouldn't have to waste so much time cooking up crackpot theories to describe their "real" motivations.
So THAT'S all right then.
Hillary drinks like a fish.
We have pictures of Obama smoking joints. He admits doing coke in his autobiography.
Trump never drinks. Hasn't since childhood. Ditto no drugs.
But he's the pig. Cause being a teetotaler is clear evidence of a lack of discipline, or something.
And for all his supposed vulgarity, I've never heard him actually use a vulgar word, outside of the single use of "pussy" caught on tape in what was supposed to be a private conversation. We have more examples of vulgarities from Joe Biden.
Not that I would blame Trump for a daily profanity filled tirade, given the utterly amoral jackals he has to deal with among the Left.
Trump is a pig. He is also a disgustingly fat human. That said his attacks on others tend to be bizarrely humorous if only for the shock factor.
Most of the "pigs" I know act less-than-human. I don't care if they drink or do some drugs as long as it doesn't interfere with whatever function they're performing. That person "X" drinks and person "Y" is a teetotaler speaks nothing about their character.
Trump is a pig because he's a spoiled man-child who doesn't care what he breaks, who he hurts, or what number of lies he tells in order to 'win.' Whether he knows what he's doing or not, or if it's intentional, I don't care. He's sowing chaos and division because he can't tell the difference between being the President, and starring on The Apprentice. Neither, apparently, can many of his supporters.
is a harsh
mistress
So you’re arguing against the very purpose of this forum?