And Another Thing!
While we're on the subject of commenting protocol . . .
Regarding Steven’s admonition to not be a troll, which I heartily second, let me add a gentle reminder to dispense with the silly nicknames for the President-elect or, indeed, any other person or groups under discussion. I understand the disdain but it does nothing to advance the argument. It simply signals unseriousness and lowers the tenor of the conversation.
You are absolutely right!
I’m unable to write that name. Would a description be ok? Like pile of garbage in human form.
Like all humans, I can’t help but host a little bit of hatred in my heart. I reserve it for this individual, lest it touch someone of any actual value.
It is not unserious.
@Kathy: If you’re somehow unable to write “Trump,” “POTUS,” “47” or some similar shorthand would be acceptable.
I apply this rule broadly. I refer to the Islamic State as “the Islamic State,” despite propagandists who argue that doing so somehow legitimates them and call for “Daesh” because it has insulting connotations in their language. It’s just juvenile.
As of yet, Hitler is a far worse historical figure than Trump and yet I manage to type “Hitler” without difficulty. Ditto, “Stalin,” “Mao,” “Pol Pot,” etc. It’s just not that hard.
Don’t call me chief!
Thank you, I agree.
@James Joyner:
I’ve a very different mind.
I hated to see the islamic state referred to as ISIS, as that was an affront to the anglicized name of the helenized name of a perfectly nice Egyptian deity named either Ist or Iset.
For the record, I can’t capitalize any of the names you typed out. Monsters shouldn’t be given the same considerations as people.
How about the execrable monster. That’s an accurate description. Or maybe the orange monster. Or perhaps the unmentionable, though that’s a chore to write over and over.
In the open forum I just quoted prospective U. S. attorney general Mike Davis calling Letitia James a “fat ass.” I hope that’s okay.
I like a dash of unseriousness, especially in serious times, but your site, your rules.
@Kathy: I believe the rule to be sufficiently clear at this point.
@CSK: I observe the use/mention distinction.
@Gustopher: Within reason, I’m fine with sarcasm, irony, and other forms of humor. I’ve seldom found insult comedy funny.
@James Joyner: Eh?
Mate, DAESH is simply the bloody acronym in Arabic, what are you on about? It is literally what we say, in actual Arabic…. I write DAESH [or my usual DAECH], and will do so because, well it is the Arabic and what we say for God’s sake. No idea what you are getting this from.
(الدولة الاسلامية في العراق والشام, ad-dawla al-islāmiyya fi-l-ʿirāq wa-š-šām, littéralement « État islamique en Irak et dans le Cham »))
Frankly ISIS is the Anglo acronym that is insulting to them as alignign with some heathen god….
@Kathy:
Or you could just call him, RIC, Rapist In Chief.
@James Joyner:
To be fair to Kathy, one has immediacy, the other does not. Temporal proximity plays a role.
I agree with you, in the end.
To be honest, I refer to his fans as “Trump supporters” or “Trump voters” because “Trumpers” is too pejorative for my personal tastes. I don’t cringe when I see it–just a preference.
@Michael Reynolds:
Well, per my personal rules that would be ric, see above. And I thin thug in chief would be more appropriate.
I do appreciate the suggestion. I don’t think James would like either one. I may just claim local custom, and use the Mexican press habit of referring to such beings by their initials. In this case, jdt.
Portillos’ first nickname, Jolopo, came from the press using his initials, JLP, in headlines.
@James Joyner:
To be fair to Kathy, one has immediacy, the other does not. Temporal proximity plays a role.
In the end, I agree with you.
To be honest, I refer to his fans as “Trump supporters” or “Trump voters” because “Trumpers” is too pejorative for my personal tastes. I don’t cringe when I see it–just a preference.
@Lounsbury: I’m aware of the origin of Daesh but the movement to popularize it in English wasn’t to honor the original Arabic (which we never do in any other context with acronyms) but rather because was supposedly a clever insult.
ISIS was a weird mistranslation (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham), which the Obama administration tried to get changed to ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) with minimal success. The latter made more sense, in that the former was a half translation.
So lèse-majesté is a bannable offense now?
@Kathy: I will accept DJT.
@Gustopher:
So, I have no idea how many of my attempts at humor land with people here. But I know I have made myself laugh a few times with turns of phrase or asides in the middle of otherwise serious posts.
As Joyner points out, there are other paths to humor. Insults are most often only funny within family or close friend groups. It usually requires a familiarity beyond what OTB regulars have with each other.
And even among family and friends, it requires some care, because it can go wrong easily for a host of reasons.
@James Joyner: Well I am telling you we use it Arabic and even French without 2nd thought – that English comment on the supposed sense in Arabic… maybe to Iraqis in their dialect but it does not come into mind for me. American Uni academics aside.
This is more American over-correction like the Latinx barbarism.
Are we still allowed to insult ourselves? Like if I refer to myself as a demonic pervert whose degenerate genes are poisoning the blood of America, is that okay?
If I quote one of the President’s spokespeople calling me that, is that okay?
@Michael Reynolds: @Kathy: I’ve taught middle school and know how annoying and tiresome the vituperations of pubescents can become, so I understand and empathize with our hosts on this point.
All the same, you will be who you are no matter what.
And I’ll miss you when your gone, but not much
@Stormy Dragon: Oh, you’re free to call Trump a fascist, a rapist, a felon, or whathaveyou if it’s relevant to the discussion at hand. I’d prefer people did so in the context of making an argument rather than as an epithet. Just refer to him by his name when you’re doing it.
@James Joyner:
Trump is the only politician I have “name called” – and I have done so precisely because HE introduced it as his way of doing politics.
At the time I felt like “Little Marco Rubio” and “Lyin’ Ron Desanctimonious” would approve of doing that.
But I see your point and will stop with the misspellings and memefication of him.
If this norm had been implemented prior to the election, I might have been supportive. But now? This would not be hard for me to comply with, but it signals giving in to autocracy. Do you plan any other pivots toward normalizing Trump?
I do realize that you are employed by a military school and must adhere with military protocol in your work. But compared to the swill dished out by Trump’s entourage, I don’t believe the names have been an issue. (Threats of violence, yes, but not names.)
@Skookum: Dr. Joyner makes this request every three months or so, and we comply for a few weeks, and then slide back into our old habits bit by bit. 🙂
It is not normalizing Trump, but simply our host’s longstanding pet peeve.
(Is orange-painted president-elect an insult or a description?)
Can I continue to call then “GOPs”? It’s about as respectful as I can manage.
@James Joyner:
Normalizing him is a step toward helping him easily mimic his depotic heroes (dead and alive). Are you sure you want to go down the road of making our free speech a bit less so in this way? Are we now turning into Russia, China, Iran, North Korea?
Sorry to be a fly in the ointment.
@Skookum: This is a site policy going back to the Bush presidency and one repeatedly re-emphasized since, most recently (on the front page at least), in my July post on “The Trump Assassination Attempt.”
It’s also a longtime practice on the front page. As noted in my April 2019 post, “Capitalizing President,”
@Gustopher:
Ah…autocracy’s icy grip really can’t happen in America?
I’m a long time follower, myself, and I’d rather tell him what I believe in my heart than ignore.
We all had better start resisting autocracy in the every small way we can. And here I do.
@Skookum: I support the policy, which is a policy I have followed personally for quite a while. I do this for a reason that is pretty much the opposite of what you propose.
I do it because I don’t want to fan the flames. I do it because I don’t want to be like Donald Trump. I do it in quiet defiance. I do it to reinforce my sense of compassion, which enables me to have some agency.
I think this sort of behavior does not make anything better. It doesn’t make things better for me, it doesn’t make things better for people who would read me saying (or writing) it.
I have this policy because the “cute” pejorative nickname followed me around for a long time. I made the mistake once of telling a group of new friends about the old nickname that I hated, and they immediately started using it. Ouch. I’m sure they thought, “Oh, that’s not so bad” and also, “It sure is fun to tease him about that”.
So I won’t do it. I feel certain that Trump will never read anything I’ve written, or notice what I call him. It’s just a thing I do.
I suppose for some, they might feel a bit less helpless by doing this. I suggest that while it may give some short term relief, it doesn’t last, and puts you on a treadmill. Perhaps some other meaningful task that makes the world better, even in the smallest way, would be more effective.
These are reasonable asks.
I’ve got to say, given the current state of many political opinion blogs, you guys (the Landlords) here at OTB run a fundamentally decent blog. The content is consistently good and there’s very little flame-throwing here, people are pretty damned reasonable in their interactions with each other.
I hope it keeps on in that way, in that style.
@Gustopher: As a general rule, references to personal appearance are ad hominem, not argument. Even as humor goes, it’s rather lowbrow.
@Skookum: “Are you sure you want to go down the road of making our free speech a bit less so in this way? ”
Seriously? If you go to a dinner party and the host asks you to stop saying “fuck” around his five year-old, is that making your speech less free?
This isn’t the government controlling what you say. This is the owner of a private site asking his guests to maintain a certain — minimal! — level of decorum.
If you can’t live without calling Trump names, there are plenty of other places you can do that…
Can I still call Sir Keir Starmer “Mr Boring”, from time to time?
Also: “Mr Boring who won the election with a massive majority.”
Personally, I seldom do scatological name-calling. It seems generally rather pointless, apart from letting off a bit of steam. I think my disdain for certain leaders comes across nonetheless.
The true art of insult is to do so while being formally polite.
And only then to tell your adversary to go f@ck themselves with a cactus.
(Also: Lounsbury is right about Daesh. Lebanese I know have way more insulting words for them. And for Hezbollah, come to that.)
We need a glyph.
@James Joyner: I offered no judgement as to whether painting oneself orange is a good or bad thing. You brought that judgement. It’s the same as my judgement mind you, and I was being fecituous when I asked…
Anyway, if Joe Biden donned cat ears and spent the next few months that way, and I referred to him as our catboy president, that would simply be a description (and I would think Catboy President would be awesome).
@Skookum: Really? Asking Dr. Joyner to relax his very, very barely enforced standards on his site is not standing up for freedom.
He allows a lot in this site, and if one of the rules is that he gets to periodically tell people to not wear cleats on his lawn (not even “get off my lawn”), that’s fine.
@James Joyner:
Eh, yes? Conceding that it’s lowbrow, an ad-hom, and appearances should generally be off-limits, this is a bit different.
It is not as if he was born with a cleft lip, and we are asking him to sing Mack the Knife.* No, he chooses to look like that.
*At most, I would ask him to show me that off-rhythm sway dance. Or that weird quasi-disco pointing thing he did that didn’t even make sense in context of the ballad being played. Then point and laugh.
@JohnSF:
Hey, he’ll become leader of the free world come January 20th.
I figure of Europe’s Big Three, UK, Germany, and France, he’s the one with a parliamentary majority. Macron doesn’t have one, and Scholz is more likely to be Germany’s former leader shortly.
You know the alleged Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times”? From a historical perspective, it makes perfect sense. Good governance and a placid, satisfying existence is great for those living through it, but makes for soporific reading of history.
Bad times are not a pleasure to read, but they are not sleep inducing. They’re interesting. There’s much to be said for boring leaders.
But I sense good natured ribbing on your part.
@Kathy:
Right now my ribbing is generally rather ill-natured.
I think I’ve said here before, I’m getting up to HERE with “interesting times”.
I really liked the 1990’s.
*sigh*
Macron remains, imo, the most strategically minded leader of the Western major Powers; along with Tusk.
Scholz is a German SPD machine politician dimwit out of his depth.
Starmer is a stolid, sensible, managerial type.
Churchill he ain’t. More like (from the opposite side of the political divide) Balfour.
Maybe he’ll surprise me on the upside.
I certainly hope so.
EUro-NATO may be facing a potential existential crisis.
The French may actually have gamed this out; the Germans almost certainly have not.
As for the UK: dunno.
Problem is, a lot of the Labour and Conservative elites are obsessively domestic-game focused, and continuity-biased.
They really should have let me run things, lol.
The Trolls (don’t have to mention their names) have succeeded.
I’ve heard that the actual goal of trolls is to undermine popularity and impact the future of blogs that they would like to kill.
Overreaction to the over the top remarks by trollers causes moderators to become more strict and demand just politically correct comments.
Just my reaction
@JohnSF:
Same here. I’m not sure whether the 90s ended in November 2000 when the late SCOTUS selected Bush the younger as president, or in September 11 2001.
As to Germany, given the first half of the last century, I’m content to have them as followers rather than leaders.
@Bobert:
I wouldn’t go so far. It’s more like an etiquette matter. I can’t recall whether James has ever complained about the content of comments, but about the manner in which such comments are expressed.
Content-wise, he may have complained, along with Steven, for comments that lack content or derail discussions.
I see no problem wit any of that.
The 1990’s imuho ended in 2014, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
An alternative date perhaps being 2001.
But what’s a decade between friends?
Also, by 2014 the music was on the downslide. 🙂
I, too, like a peaceably inclined Germany.
I’m from Coventry, after all.
But a little bit of realism would be nice.
I suspect former Chancellors from both sides of the Christian Democrat/Social Democrat divide, such as Adenauer, Schmidt, Kohl, would all have considered Scholz a dimwit.
@wr: @wr:
I don’t believe that you will find an instance where I called Trump a name. I have responded to Lounsbury twice. Once for sexism (for which my posts were banned) and once for sheer exasperation of his post content which I can never parse. I do regret that post, but oddly it wasn’t banned.
Are you so fragile that pointing out that submitting before being asked is a key part of accepting autocracy and asking Dr. Joyner to reconsider? Wow.
@Skookum:
Lounsbury’s first language, I suspect, is not English.
(Forgive my presumption here, Lounsbury)
Or at least, not American demotic English.
His syntax (if you will forgive me, el Louns?) is a demotic version of a formal English mode of the 1960’s, or earlier, as inculcated by British scholastic education.
I am familiar enough with it, but it probably comes across to American-English speakers as rather complex, and insultingly sarcastic.
(Not helped by the fact that Lounsbury is, quite often, sarcastic.)
(Hi, Louns!)