Today has been a day of ‘Duh moments’ for me. My reading began here, in a CNN article by Dean Obeidallah, on our ‘deserving better than Trump.’
And while it may be fun to watch (Obeidallah is referring to recent ‘developments’ in the freak show), it's a travesty for our nation. We deserve a president who is thoughtful, informed and focused on working for all Americans. Instead we have Trump, who seems preoccupied with creating a televised spectacle.
Umm … no. I don’t find it ‘fun’ to watch. The stakes are too high. Too many lives are in play. All of them, really.
More below.
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Obeidallah concludes with this:
This political drama would be entertaining summer fare if the stakes weren't so high. But our nation faces countless threats from ISIS to North Korea. Trump's antics may make for great TV on a reality show, but they are terrible for the safety, security and prosperity of this country. And, in the end, the "Biggest Loser" in all of this may end up being we, the people.
No, ‘we, the people’ have been losers all along, since our QUALIFIED candidate, with the great majority of the votes, lost to this abjectly unqualified one.
That was followed by a Washington Post article from FRIDAY, by Paul Waldman, about what you ‘get’ when you elect Republicans. (That article provided the capital D in today’s Duh moments.)
It had some good passages.
This has been quite a week in Washington, a week full of terror, intrigue, suspense, backstabbing and outright chaos. While we might not have been able to predict the particular contours of the catastrophe that complete GOP rule has been, we should have known it would turn out something like this.
Guess what, America: This is what you get when you elect Republicans.
I know, duh, right?!
Then …
It goes much further than their repugnant and disastrous effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but all the contemporary GOP’s pathologies could be seen there: their outright malice toward ordinary people, their indifference to the suffering of their fellow citizens, their blazing incompetence, their contempt for democratic norms, their shameless hypocrisy, their gleeful ignorance about policy, their utter dishonesty and bad faith, their pure cynicism, and their complete inability to perform anything that resembles governing.
Duh.
Here’s my question. How is it that so many Americans can be so phenomenally BLIND to such a clear reality? How is it that that party and its minions can avoid accountability for what they’ve wrought? For their missteps and bungling and lies and cheats and thefts?
If the past six months of crap and shit and screwups can’t provide their supporters a ‘lightbulb moment,’ what ever could?!
Later in the day I read another CNN article (by Timothy Stanley) about why the Mooch had to go.
The start is inauspicious.
Donald Trump has had three communications directors since May. If the President's goal was to communicate utter chaos, it's working. Our only hope now is that the chaos is coming to an end.
(Only a fool could believe that, Timothy. It isn’t coming to an end. It’s the only fruit so unqualified a tree could ever produce.)
This fast turnover is highly unusual: it tells us many things. That Trump can be hard to work for, perhaps. That his unusual election victory left chaos behind, certainly. It has necessitated improvisation and unsustainable balancing acts.
Well, I don’t think improvisation has appeared yet, I think this is pure, scrambling desperation. I haven’t seen the first trace of ‘balance’ anywhere in these six months, because it has never been there. (A USA Today article on 7/17 asked: Can Trump Revive His Struggling Presidency? My answer is that it’s impossible. You cannot revive something that has never been vived.)
But the fast turnover and all of the OTHER drama tell us the clearest truth of all. He has doubled down on the lack of qualification he brought to office. Worse, he has done no remedial work designed to eventually build qualification. The seat of his pants, which has betrayed the American people from moment one of this catastrophic ‘presidency,’ is ‘flying’ worse by the hour. He can’t try to build qualification because he lacks the honesty and integrity to admit that he never had it to begin with. It’s his greatest coverup, even if it only deludes himself and those like him.
No, it isn’t funny or entertaining. And no, it isn’t going to stop. There is no way to stop it, and it reflects terribly on General Kelly’s judgment that he thinks it can. Only a fool could think that. (In an ever growing LINE of fools.)
On to tonight’s comments, formatted by brillig!
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From Mike The Liberal:
In The Atlantic connects all the dots, derleider highlights this comment from alamancedem, which is a response to another good comment from Kerry Conservative on the distraction factor.
Aw, hell, we’re entering Inception territory here, where there are TCs within TCs within TCs.
Still in The Atlantic connects all the dots, Clio2 points out that there’s media, journalism, and info-tainment. More importantly, he or she implies that we need to do our part, and bring forth pressure on our MOC to stop the march towards ongoing distraction.
From Zen Trainer:
This one by WillowTCollie is my kind of political comment; starts out all serious like and ends with "We should be promoting this shit like crazy". I agree, we should be promoting this shit like crazy in all 50 states. Aleurophile’s diary title is great too: How We Fight: Building an Unbreachable Firewall in Virginia (or Defeating El Loco by Going Local)
"Defeating el Loco by going local", we need to promote that shit in all states as well.
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I know that you print comments that you don't necessarily agree with. I'm submitting this one by treesrock because even though I don't agree with all of it, it still reads like poetry. Especially, this part:
"And yet, quietly committing mass suicide is not obliging enough for our enemies in the Propertied Classes, not by a long shot. As long as there is still a breath in our bodies the borg of the entitled will simply froth with frustration if they can’t find one last filthy way to inflate themselves at our expense. So they stand at our deathbeds and accuse us of their crimes."
From brillig:
Zen Trainer interjected a bit of humour in a pie fight diary by responding to this comment by Quicklund.
From Northern Pol:
The Wall Street influence on Trump's hiring and firing decisions, as commented by minidriver.
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