Trump Condemned ‘The Squad’ For Doing Exactly What He Does
President Trump attacked four Democratic Congresswomen for engaging in exactly the same rhetoric that the President himself has over the years.
Over at The Washington Post, JM Reiger points out is demanding that people leave the country for doing something that, before he became President, he did on a regular basis:
On Friday, President Trump was asked again about his racist remarks aimed at four minority congresswomen. He again doubled down.
“I’m unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman, in this case a different congresswoman, can call our country and our people ‘garbage,’ ” Trump said, falsely asserting that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called Americans “garbage.”
But with Trump, there’s always a tweet.
“If we don’t clean up OUR COUNTRY of the garbage soon, we are just going to do a death spiral!” Trump tweeted Sept. 17, 2013, one day after a government contractor killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
That Trump’s latest controversy again centers on a paradox — in this case, defending the right to criticize the United States, but only when it suits him — is not surprising. Indeed, much of Trump’s presidency is a paradox, and this week was no different.
Trump has spent years criticizing the United States, often praising foreign dictators and himself in the process, examples of which you can watch in the video above.
According to Trump, the United States has long had “stupid” leaders that the world “laughs” at. When Trump launched his presidential bid, he said the United States is “becoming a third-world country.” During his inauguration, Trump condemned the condition of the country, referring to it as “American carnage.”
Trump has also repeatedly questioned the idea of American exceptionalism.
“Other nations and other countries don’t want to hear about American exceptionalism,” Trump said on Fox News in September 2013. “They’re insulted by it, and that’s what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was saying.”
In his book “Crippled America,” Trump wrote, “The idea of American Greatness, of our country as the leader of the free and unfree world, has vanished.”
Trump’s attacks on America aren’t limited to these examples, of course. During his very first speech as a candidate in June 2015, Trump started out with the theme that “the American dream is dead.” Throughout his campaign, he painted a picture of an America that was falling apart, on the verge of collapse, and overall sounded like a place that almost made Somalia sound like a paradise by comparison. His Inaugural Address was one of the darkest ever given, and indeed making those given by Lincoln on the eve of and during the Civil War or by Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression and the dawn and height of World War Two sound positively Pollyanna-ish by comparison. If one believed this rhetoric from the President, then the United States was a pretty dark and dismal place. Indeed one wonders why he bothered staying here.
This kind of hypocrisy isn’t new for Trump, of course. He has frequently attacked critics and those on the other side of the political aisle for doing and saying things that he has said himself in the past. This is just another example of that hypocrisy and it deserves to be called out as such by any decent American.
Of course, I am not suggesting that Donald Trump should have left the country because he was criticizing it. Such an idea is fundamentally un-American and, to the extent that Trump is a government official, an attack on the First Amendment rights of the people that the President is attacking. Speaking out when we believe the country or its leaders is acting incorrectly is not just a protected right, it is part of the very essence of being an American. In that respect, while I may not agree with many of the policy positions of someone such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or other members of the “the squad,” I can honestly say that they are better Americans than Donald Trump and his supporters can ever hope to be.
We, the general public, need to have a critical thought exercise on what is the logical conclusion of all this. My opinion is that Trump will be reelected and we will endure far worse, because the man is incorrigible.
What will we do AFTER Trump? I ask this because I attended a wedding rehearsal dinner for the daughter of a good friend yesterday. He is Irish-Mexican mixed race, and the ex-wife is Mexican; the daughter is clearly mixed race. The groom’s family is the current archetypal iteration of MAGA, which leaves me confused about this upcoming marriage. The reception we received at the dinner party was, well … let’s just say we left earlier than expected. This marriage will definitely violate their white purity ideal, and I wonder at the dissonance that is surely playing out in their heads. It must feel like non-stop vertigo.
That aside, what do MAGA whites expect to happen? That all us PoC are going to ship back to the countries of our ethnic origins? That Trump will use the arm of government to “put us in our place?” That the U.S. will return to a pre-’64 CRA state of politics and community? That scenario raises three questions:
1) Why do they think this is possible?
2) Do they think PoC will just roll over and submit to this?
3) What makes them individually think that they will survive the outcome of their coveted, oh-so-longed-for race war?
We need a critical thought exercise on who we want to be and in which direction we want the country to go once Trump is out of office. You know; after the USSS has to drag him out of there when he refused to leave. He’s that type of guy.
@dennis:
Good questions, and I suppose there’s an outside chance Guarneri/Paul L/etc. will answer them, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
By now it should be obvious hypocrisy is a feature in Dennison’s methods, and his base loves him for it.
It’s what I was saying before that he lacks any sense of shame or decency or fairness. He very explicitly states rules are for others, not him.
It’s tempting to just give up, but this is the kind of thing that should be used in election campaigns against him. It won’t sway the base, perhaps, but it will sway others.
It’s probably safe to say that every single insulting comment Trump has ever made about any other human being has been pure projection.
@Kathy:
Agreed, Kathy. Let’s hope the Dems end their circle jerk quickly, and get back to the serious work of campaigning for the strength of our institutions.
Cannot believe Doug is using WhatAboutism (“rooting out hypocrisy and naked partisanship”) to defend the squad.
It is a lazy dishonest Russia cold war tactic used by the Trumpstans.
@Teve:
I am expecting Trump shifting the narrative to make Open Borders/Everyone in the world is a US Citizen as toxic, insulting and hurtful as the rape apologists made the credibly accused Duke Lacrosse/UVA Frat Gang rapes.
Something progressives believe but have declared the subject highly verboten to mention.
Hypocrisy is the right’s strong suit.
@Paul L.: You don’t understand the difference between whataboutism and calling out hypocrisy. Whataboutism means responding to a criticism of one’s own side by bringing up some complaint about the other side–like attacking Obama in response to every criticism of Trump. It does not mean calling out a politician for displaying the same traits he derides in others.
Whataboutism is fundamentally about deflection. That’s why you use it all the time: you’ve demonstrated again and again that you’re incapable of defending Trump and prefer to simply attack Obama as if all “points” scored for your “team” are identical. Doug and the WaPo writer weren’t deflecting anything; they were sticking entirely to the topic, and unlike you their argument isn’t limited to charging hypocrisy, they’re also fully capable of defending their own side.
@Kylopod:
Dismissed as WhatAboutism.
Trump correctly tweets that Democrats mistakenly tweeted photo of child migrants being held in 2014
@dennis:
Dude, if this is POC vs. white people, POC lose. Period. 30% does not beat 70%.
So, I propose as Thing 1 for the Left that we recognize that identity politics is a fcking stupid idea when you’re in the minority and dangerous when the majority take it up, as they have. I thought it was stupid when people like Stokely Carmichael and Farrakhan were talking separatism 50 years ago, and it’s no smarter now. This is a white majority country. Not only do whites have the numbers, they have the money and the position. None of that is going to change any time soon.
Nothing good happens for POC without a great deal of white support. Simple math. We have made identity politics legitimate, and in the process made it equally legitimate for whites. That is a dangerous mistake. Continuing to talk about reparations is so politically idiotic it just leaves me speechless. I don’t know what planet people are living on that they imagine it’s a good idea.
I’ve been pushing back on nonsense ideas like ‘cultural appropriation,’ ideas like the bizarre notion that only a gay actor can play a gay character or only a black writer can write a black character. I’ve pushed back against casual recklessness and indifference to due process in #MeToo because it was absolutely inevitable that carelessness would produce injustice and injustice would subvert a necessary reckoning with widespread sexual abuse. I am heartily sick of intersectional this and that and the other thing and all the nasty, squabbling infighting that naturally results. These are divisive, identity politics ideas that just shovel ammunition into the hands of our enemies.
So, thing one for our side, I would suggest, is to stop shooting ourselves in the foot just because we are impatient with the speed of change. Stop validating our enemies’ most pernicious ideas. Stop the empty virtue signaling and the ‘more woke than thou’ bullshit.
We have lost the plot. We know what ‘they’ want. They want it to be a romanticized, never-was 1950. They don’t have a vision for the future, the future just scares them. They know in their hearts that they’ve got nothing. They know their ideas are bankrupt. They’ve joined a cult of personality.
What do we want? What is our vision of the future? The answer is that we can’t paint a picture of the future so long as every idea advanced has to run the gantlet of eternally inflamed interest groups with 100 times more grudges than ideas.
@Paul L.: Thank you for proving my point. In response to an explanation about the distinction between whataboutism and calling out hypocrisy, you ignore my argument and simply proceed to engage in whataboutism.
Let me present a challenge to you. It’s incredibly simple: Defend Trump without bringing up some complaint about Democrats, and without cribbing from some other site. That’s it, that’s all you have to do.
But I know you won’t do it. You lack the nerve to defend Trump on his own terms, and you lack the brainpower to come up with an original argument of any kind.
I could spend pages explaining my support for Obama and the Democratic Party without once doing a “whatabout Republicans.” You can’t even get past a sentence without resorting to this tactic, and even that’s generous because you can barely even write a complete sentence.
@Paul L.:
You are mistaking “whataboutism” for pure “political projection”.
These are complex ideas, which you are incapable of grasping.
Go away, the adults are talking.
@michael reynolds:
Good morning, Michael. Agreed on all. My “race war” point was not that the majority white won’t win; only what makes each race war proponent think HE/SHE will individually survive it. That seems to be their idea, that they will prevail without a single casualty. Sort of the same mentality Bush II admin had when going into Iraq.
Also, although the U.S. is 70% majority white, that doesn’t mean the entire 70% white population is down with this MAGA shyt, just like all of us PoC are not clamoring for reparations. My opinion is that most of us think it’s a hideously divisive proposal.
You are correct, though: we always swing the pendulum to the extremes, only occassionally settling in to a reasonable center. And the extreme voices always get the most coverage. Ginned-up outrage sells, you know …
@Kylopod: It’s also very telling that all of Trump’s insults are couched in juvenile language.
You think they are confused about this, dennis, wait till they try to make sense out of their own grandchild. I can only hope that holding their grandchildren will bring them around.
@Joe:
Yes, it’s been discussed. That’s the main source of confusion.
@dennis: It’s illustrative if you look at the five states with the highest AA population:
Mississippi (37%)
Louisiana (32%)
Georgia (31%)
Maryland (30%)
South Carolina (28%)
Notice that with the lone exception of Maryland, those are all solidly red states. The vote in those states is as polarized along racial lines as you can get: AA voters are almost unanimously Democrat, but white voters are almost unanimously Republican. What enables a state like Maryland to be solidly blue (and also what may cause Georgia to head in that direction) isn’t that the black residents are more Democratic, it’s that more of the white residents are. (The restrictive voting in the Deep South, a relic of Jim Crow, also plays a role in suppressing the AA vote.) Bill Clinton carried Louisiana twice because he was able to thread the needle by appealing to white Southerners in combination with strong AA support. Since that time, Dems have retained the latter but lost the former, and it’s become a pure zero sum game.
Trump and the rest of Republicans do all this, because they believe the U.S. is for whites only. Rich, wealthy, whites only.
Do as they please, say as they please.
When confronted about hypocrisy, they resort to whataboutism because they see the lower cast of people as justification as to why they deserve to act the same or worse.
The entitlement, the narcissism, and the cluelessness of those who have never had to suffer.
It’s ruining this county and world. And those that believe whites are the superior race, or think they may be wealthy one day, or those that have a fetish for the strong, dictatorial, sugar daddy…
They are the ones eating this up from the Trump Ass Shaped Trough called FoxNews and the right wing propaganda machine.
@Kylopod:
Indeed. It makes one wonder how we’ve managed to make it this far, lo these 135,000-200,000 or so years. Spacefaring aliens are, indeed, a patient bunch.
@CSK:
I watched only one debate against Clinton. It struck me his style was pretty much “Oh, yeah? I am rubber and you’re glue!”
@Kathy: I’m not sure if he uses the childish insults because they’re all he’s capable of, or because he’s convinced his fans won’t understand anything more sophisticated. Possibly both.
@michael reynolds:
My problem with the “#MeToo movement” is the absolute hypocrisy of liberals and Democrats. Any time a Republican is accused of sexual conduct, the woman must be believed without question and the Republican should immediately be punished.
Accuse a Democrat? Just ask Virginia Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who has spent months threatening and disparaging his victims while Democrat allies go around saying, “we don’t care what happened in a bar in 2004.” (No bar or even alcohol use was mentioned in the statements of either of his victims.)
@Kylopod:
Do not hold Democrats/Progressives to their own standards or criticize them. You do not get to limit the terms of the debate for your advantage.
Like NeverTrump Republicans demanding fighting by the rules that progressives ignore without penalty.
Bet the word Justice (Social/Reproductive/Economic) makes multiple appearances.
@Timothy Watson:
Sitting Senator Al Franken would agree.
@Paul L.:
Dude, you’re the one who’s limited your entire commentary to responding to attacking Democrats in threads that aren’t about Democrats. You haven’t said one word–one word!–defending Trump on his own terms. I was just checking to see whether you were capable of expanding your repertoire beyond its very, very limited scope. I see you’ve answered that question very firmly.
I’m capable of defending my own side, critiquing the other side, and even critiquing my own side, and I can do it all on my own, not just by linking to someone else’s arguments. What does that say about your ability to make a case for your positions, as contrasted with mine?
@Kylopod:
The same Al Franken, who admitted to wrongdoing when he resigned, and now gets fawning puff pieces in the New York Times and the Washington Post where every Democrat quoted says he shouldn’t have resigned? Oe Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the few Democrats that hasn’t flip-flopped on calling for him to resign and is constantly attacked by Democrats for it?
@Timothy Watson: I didn’t know Harvey Weinstein was a Republican, but according to you he must be.
@Kylopod: Beat me to it.
@Timothy Watson:
Democrats are unable to define and prioritize. Virginia Democrats can’t decide which is worse: a student wearing black face decades ago (the gov), or sexual assault (the lt. gov.) When all bad things are equally bad, all deserving of the identical punishments of dragging by Twitter mob, loss of employment and permanent exile, it makes it impossible to prioritize.
If you can’t prioritize you can’t effectively oppose. You end up like an army whose only instructions from the general are: kill the enemy. Which enemy? Where? When? How? All of them, all the time, everywhere with equal ferocity is not a sound strategy. It’s waaaay premature triumphalism.
It is the job of Democrats to protect the powerless, to help the needy, to defend liberty, to stand for a better future. Those are the things that make us strong and effective. When we let ourselves be bogged down in the Jesuitical parsing of grievances, each faction effectively in competition for victim status, everyone playing a game of King of Woke Mountain, we become defined by college kids and residents of Park Slope.
If racism is defined as whatever bruised some overripe peach’s feefees, then it is nothing. Racism isn’t impoliteness, or a failure to use this week’s newly-anointed right word, it’s evil. Evil. It kills people. Millions and millions of people have been murdered because of racism. It’s the Ebola of the human mind. It is Satan walking around swinging a fcking machete.
Sexual assault is violence, sexual intimidation is violence, it is evil. It’s not a mildly off-putting joke from some club comic. It’s not Aziz Ansari being a creepy date.
We have trivialized racism and misogyny. Who does that help? Racists and misogynists. We’ve empowered the worst people by trivializing the worst deeds.
@Timothy Brian Watson: The Case of Al Franken by Jane Mayer.
@Timothy Brian Watson:
But that isn’t the argument you made. You said that Democrats always believe the accuser when it’s a Republican, and never do when it’s a Democrat. That’s clearly not the case.
Of course some Dems are now defending Franken. It was a far more ambiguous case than most of the other examples, including Trump himself (who has been accused of rape three times, once by someone who was 13 at the time, and more general assault by over a dozen women) or Kavanaugh (accused of attempted rape). Yet the majority of Democrats called on Franken to resign. Please remind me of a single Republican who has called on Trump or Kavanaugh to resign over the assault allegations against them.
@Kylopod:
You overlook the Al Franken smear was based on a doctored picture from a GOP honeypot hussy who shamelessly posed for pictures almost naked.
#MeToo is made up of the Democrat’s feminist base and attack groups.
The GOP is just full of Rape apologists.
Trump’s not being a hypocrite. In America, it has long been possible to be a patriot who loves the memory of the Confederacy, hates uppity black people, and wants to get rid of traitors. Anyway, anyone who has known actual immigrants or black people knows much they love this country. Real love, not the fucked-up version where America is exceptional and can do no wrong and where there’s also usurper behind every closet door about to schtupp your wife and daughters and brainwash your sons with post-modern gender ideology but one where people can actually live together and build something. The last thing Trump’s base wants is to build something or to live like normal people. They want Fox and cheating on their taxes and forcing everyone to smile at church while dad stays home and watches gay porn in front of a gun collection.
The nuts have left the asylum.
@Paul L.: Your President pals around with pedophiles
@Teve: Guarneri will accuse dennis of being hysterical (and maybe call him a snowflake for the irony) and Paul L will say something incoherent, but I don’t see either of them having the acuity to answer dennis’ question intelligently.
ETA: There are days that I miss Superdestroyer (he may have been before your time). At least he was good for comic relief.
@Kylopod: and the governor of Puerto Rico, who is a Democrat, just got kicked to the curb by Democrats in part for sexist and homophobic text messages.
@Paul L.: @Teve: I should have waited 3 more clicks to post. I could have started my comment about Paul L with “As you can see…”
@Teve:
Who cares what goes on in another country? /s
@Paul L.: So basically, your point is “I can’t argue Trump’s virtues; he doesn’t have any.” Got it! Thanks!
(I promise I will not feed the troll again this thread.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I miss Superdestroyer. Sure, he was a racist idiot, but he was our racist idiot. He wasn’t mean or spiteful, and he meant well, but good lord was he racist.
He was 14 right? He should be in college by now.
I’d like to think that he turned out mostly ok, puttering through life, getting to know people of different races and always just somehow categorizing them as “one of the good ones” and never quite noticing that “the good ones” comprise about 75-90%.
@Kylopod: I believe Lindsey Graham had many stern words to share about Donald Trump’s behavior and language. Before he went all in for Trump, he was quite the Never-Trumper.
@michael reynolds:
Your premise is bullshit.
Al Franken deserved to lose his job*. Harvey Weinstein deserved to be sued into oblivion and jailed. Different behavior, different outcomes.
Trump deserves awful things to happen to him, and other than waking up every day and realizing that he is still Donald Trump, he’s likely not going to get those awful things, because Republicans protect him. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be better than that.
You’ve got a bug up your ass because you’re viewing the whole world through a kid-lit prism (where apparently people are dependent upon the good will of the clinically insane). But, that’s not the rest of the world. You’re usually smarter than this.
*: And all he got was scorn. He chose to give up his job. And he would have gotten much more muted scorn if Minnesota had a Republican Governor.
@Gustopher:
Gotta disagree with you here. I view the world as a person born in Los Angeles, raised in NYC, and who has lived for extended periods of time in Lousiana (3 years), Georgia (8 years), S. Florida (4 years), Texas (2 years). I’m just this side of a socialist, literally. Yet… when I hear talk of reparations, I think “Ridiculous”. When I hear talk of cultural appropriation, I think “Ridiculous”. When I hear talk of “Me too”, I shudder at the men who will be wrongly accused because “we must believe ALL accusations”. And I say all that as someone who is sympathetic to the entire MeToo movement. Franken, based on the available evidence, was not treated justly BY DEMOCRATS. He made the mistake of resigning, but only after DEMOCRATS made it untenable for him to stay.
Liberals are too often too smug to realize there MIGHT be another point of view that DOESN’T have to do with racism and/or sexism and/or bigotry.
The 2018 midterms were a big win for Democrats because they chose MODERATES for moderate districts. The GOP is choosing to pick the most hardcore right wing clowns to run for offices across the country. That’s what the GOP is doing. If the left does the same, the GOP will win. However, if the Dems choose middle of the road Democrats for those middle of the road districts they will win. And you know what else? They’ll vote for NancyPelosi for speaker, which means a progressive agenda will follow.
AOC cannot win in Alabama. But Doug Jones could and did. Why? Because the GOP chose Roy Moore, an accused pedophile. And still Moore almost won. Think about that. The Dems can make big gains in GA, NC, and other states with high AA voters if they can find someone who can siphon off just enough whites and still push AA turnout to near max levels. You don’t do that in the center-right south or midwest districts by choosing liberal bomb-throwers.
If the Dems; don’t screw it up, they. have legitimate shots at NC, Maine, AZ and Colorado. If they flip those four and don’t lose any others, they control the senate. They might have to flip Iowa too. if the GOP doesn’t nominate a total whack job in Alabama, Doug Jones is probably toast.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I remember super destroyer posting when I was here earlier, but I don’t remember anything about them because I don’t read the trolls unless I’m extremely bored or somebody excerpts something. They’re usually tedious and predictable. There’s plenty of good intelligent disagreement here without having to listen to somebody barf up some gateway pundit talking points For Idiots By Idiots.
One tedious and predictable troll has been gone for like 2 months now, and the comment sections here have gotten like 5% better. 🙂
@Gustopher:
Yes, I’m looking at it through the lens of kidlit because kidlit is entirely dominated by Brown U editors and Park Slope residents. Canary in the coal mine.
The reality is that in 99% of these cases there is no court as there is in the Weinsten case. So in fact I am exactly right that the punishments for the overwhelming majority of accused are identical regardless of crime, which is ipso facto unjust and seen as unjust by everyone but fanatics.
Let’s talk about the 99%. Probably 90% of those 99% are guilty. But that’s not how justice is supposed to work. Any kangaroo court is probably right 90% of the time. Cops are right 90% of the time. We have process precisely to make that determination, we don’t just shrug our shoulders and say, ‘well, the cops are usually right.’
That injustice, and the callous indifference to it of people like you have already subverted the movement. Falling all over ourselves to burn the heretic is not a good look for Democrats. We believe in fairness. We believe in justice. We do not believe in justice by Twitter mob. The remorse expressed by a number of Senators – all Democrats – who turned on Franken is proof that this backfired.
The inability of Democrats to come to grips with the Lt. Governor Fairfax’s case owes a great deal to remorse over the moral panic that led to Franken’s ousting. That reckless disregard for justice gives people pause, as it should. Take a look at Google Trends, the interest in MeToo peaked in October 2018 and since then has dropped like a rock.
90% of the people accused in the 50’s of being commies probably were commies. But we don’t admire Joe McCarthy.
@michael reynolds: If Franken were innocent of all charges, he wouldn’t have resigned. The Democrats didn’t make his staying untenable, they made it uncomfortable.
We can quibble over the details of how the process was handled — there should be a more formal process, and I’m perfectly willing to believe that Franken, though guilty, got tried in the media, and unjustly. Perhaps sitting Senators should not call for the resignation of other Senators, but this happens with a lack of defined process.
I don’t feel sorry for Franken though. He’s guilty of sexual harassment, or (in the best possible interpretation) of being such a boorish ass attempting to be funny that it looks like sexual harassment. He’ll go on to be a pundit, and Tina Smith will be a Senator, and it will be fine.
I wish Franken went through the Ethics Committee investigation, and told Schumer to stuff it. Then we wouldn’t be dealing with the fallout years later. But, he didn’t.
The situation in Virginia has noting to do with this, save one thing — Northam realized that all people could do was make him uncomfortable. Plus, the Lt. Gov. was accused of much worse (and he learned the don’t resign lesson from Northam).
And I don’t believe that Kid-Lit, with a tiny number of gatekeepers, is the canary in the coal mine. Or, if it is, then the rest of us aren’t in that coal mine. Maybe all of publishing will go that way, what do I know?
My experience with the publishing world was that they were all a bunch of foul mouthed cynics who drank way too much and then great parties where everyone hooked up with someone, but that was, admittedly, the romance department, and might not be representative. Suggestive readings of the terrible sex scenes in bad unsolicited submissions were commonplace, like even more ridiculous karaoke.
Maybe that changed in the past 25 years. But I don’t think that environment was the canary in the coalmine, nor do I think the current kid-lit environment is either.
@EddieInCA: I’m not sure how you make the jump from “SJW extremists drove Franken out” to “we need to run moderates in moderate districts”.
I agree with the latter.
@Gustopher:
You wrote:
I disagree. I think Michael’s position is spot on. Democrats are/were the driving force of Franken’s exit from the Senate. It was an overreaction created out of fear. It was unnecessary. Additionally, your quote…
…shows naivety. You’re smarter than this. People “take one for the team” all the time. And that’s what Franken did.
Lastly, your other comment…
…shows a complete lack of understanding context and priorities. Franken was a comedian. A damn good one. If you think THAT was sexual harrassment, I hope you never ever experience true harassment.
@Teve:
I think it’s unfair to call him a troll: he argued in good faith, seemed like a decent guy, and every now and then had a point. I hope he’s just taking a break and will come back after a bit of soul searching.
@Kit: if you miss him, you could always train a parrot to say “I sure am a Democrat, yessiree, but these black people and women sure are wrong about everything.” because that was literally all he ever said, usually masked enough for deniability. I’m enjoying the vacation, but sadly I’m sure he’ll be back, to tell us about how black people and/or women are wrong about something.
Al Franken was on the judiciary committee, I wonder what he would have done during the kavanaugh hearings.
@Kit: @Teve: If you’re referring to who I think you’re referring to (and I don’t think he was banned, so it’s not like his name is verboten), I would definitely disagree with the premise that he was arguing in good faith.
My only regret in seeing him leave is that if Kamala or Warren wins the presidency, besides the fact that I really like both candidates and seeing Trump lose to either of them would be tremendously cathartic, I would take great pleasure rubbing it in his face after the many, many times he has said it would never happen.
@Kylopod:
I always felt that he was trying to think for himself, as opposed to simply regurgitating the latest taking points. And he did engage. That put him head and shoulders above our real trolls. And he would post non-political thoughts on the open thread, which, for me, is a sign of someone who just wants to take part in the little OTB community. I only replied to him once, and that was to complain about the quality of his posts, but his reply was gracious.
Kamala is both black and a woman, so I’m sure he’ll be back telling us how wrong she just happens to be on every issue every day, in his more in sorrow than in anger camouflage.
Alas, Liz Warren’s getting the nomination, so he’ll tell us she’s wrong too. And he’ll be very regretful about it. It’s such a shame that whatever she just did, it was the wrong thing. 🙁
Whatever, I’m just enjoying the brief break which’ll no doubt be over all too soon.
@Teve: And don’t forget how He Who Must Not Be Named would always conseil Democrats to do nothing, no matter the situation. Maybe a short break isn’t a bad idea…
@Kit: I think there is such a thing as an unintentional troll. The nature of the online world is such that it sometimes encourages trollish behavior from people who may not consciously realize that’s what they’re doing.
Pearce (that’s who we’re talking about, right?) may have not been trying to be a troll, but he was getting too caught up in the image of himself as an independent thinker, which led him to refuse to back down even after being shown the flaws in his arguments very clear, and even after predictions he made totally failed to ensue. He would simply adopt a new argument that contradicted what he had stated earlier, without acknowledging any change in his position. He gave the sense it was a debate exercise to him, and he wasn’t taking the underlying issue seriously. He was heavily into the fallacy of the Texas sharpshooter (who fires a gun and then draws a bullseye around wherever it happens to land). His persistent belief that Dems are doing everything wrong wasn’t a conclusion for him, it was a starting point that he would hold as an article of faith and then go scrounging around for evidence to justify it.
He also fell into a toxic pattern I’ve seen in a lot of online political discussions, of someone who acts like he’s some kind of ultimate authority on the political landscape, and is given to bold statements thst are repeated as if they’re obvious to anyone with any sense, such as declaring that candidates like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren will never beat Donald Trump.
I’m a bit of a hypocrite about this, because I can be pretty arrogant, and I’m definitely a pedantic know-it-all. But it’s a tendency I’m aware of and which I try to keep in check. Predicting electoral events is like predicting the weather: there are certain statements that are so absurd they can be dismissed at the outset (there will be a tsunami in Florida tomorrow; the Green Party nominee will win the presidency next year), but beyond that there’s a great deal of uncertainty, and I have a real aversion to claims that elections come down to simple formulas, like no candidate with X characteristic will ever win. And I get really peeved when people try to dismiss a candidate’s chances on the grounds of their being a woman or minority or some other underprivileged group. Part of it is that I see it as a way of reinforcing the country’s prejudices by preemptively surrendering to them.
It’s true that I’ve expressed skepticism of Pete Buttigieg’s chances on account of his being gay. But I made clear that I don’t think he can’t win. I just think it’s a bigger obstacle than Obama’s being black was. I don’t think the same is true of a woman candidate—but I can respect someone who thinks otherwise, as long as they aren’t resorting to some sweeping, simplistic declaration that they can’t possibly win.
Concern trolling is by far the most subtle and elusive form of the genre. You often see pundits say things like “I don’t mean to be a concern troll, but….” And I think a lot of people become concern trolls without being aware of it. I was at least once called a concern troll when I was on Daily Kos, and while I thought the charges were unfair at the time (the site is dominated by some very hardcore lefties who don’t tolerate dissent), when I thought about it later I realized they had a point. A lot of people shut their brains down when they get too hooked up on the image of being the reasonable person in the room where everyone else is being mindlessly tribalistic. What’s the point of seriously debating one’s claims if they’re reasonable by definition? This is a seductive tendency that it’s easy for otherwise rational people to get pulled into. When I criticize bothsiderism, I’m partly criticizing myself in the past.
@Kylopod: That was such a long and thoughtful post that I feel a bit guilty about only being able to say that I agree. I can add, however, that the whole subject about why we post, and what we expect out of it, is certainly ripe for reflection.
@Teve: He’ll wait until after the election and then contextualize whatever happens as
Any hopes of a glorious race war evaporated when the military integrated in the 40s.
I’ve mentioned before that the Civil Rights movement of the 60s was buttressed by Black WWII and Korean War vets who understood how to use weapons and were not afraid of your Garden variety racist–particularly those with no military background. These were attributes their Fathers and grandfathers did not possess.
It’s one thing to be gung ho about inflicting violence on people with no aptitude for self defense nor courage. It’s a completely different proposition when those people can fight back.
MLK has his place and played a role in legal change…but make no mistake. The appetite for violence against blacks was blunted by the prevalence of black men walking around with the Malcolm X mentality. Self Defense by any means necessary.
My father (WWII vet) would often tell a story of breaking down on a unfamiliar highway in Alabama and noticing a car full of white men slow down while passing him. They went down the road a piece and started a U turn to come back…upon which he immediately got his pistol out and put in on the engine block next to him. He was deliberate in being sure they could see him get the weapon and place it next to himself. They stopped for a second then made another u-turn and continued on.
There are now millions of veteran POCs. The race war rubes are *virtually * all emotionally under developed, beyond military aged has-beens. These people dont want any risk or personal threat that comes from targeting people that will fight back. Therefore all they have are grievances and political mouthpieces to verbalize things they’d personally be shunned for if they said in public. In this way, I think Fox News serves a purpose…it helps them cope with new realities they can never change.
Are there some young true believers that are real and present threats? Absolutely, I also believe they know they are vastly, vastly outnumbered.