The Loyal Opposition

[sexobon]

... They looked in the mirror and did not like what they saw; they felt ashamed and insecure at home and abroad.

That's like what they said about Hillary supporters after she disgraced them by losing to the likes of Trump.

[BigV]

Please read this to help innoculate yourself from TRUMP-20.

It's an interview with the author, Texas A&M communications professor Jennifer Mercieca, of "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump."

Here are six of terms I learned:

ad populum "appeal to the crowd"

"American uniqueness" — as in, America is just a different place, with a different history and values — not necessarily better or worse, just different. --snip-- Trump uses it differently. He claims to be the apotheosis of American exceptionalism mean[nig] "America winning"

(my favorite)
paralipsis, which you translate colloquially as "I'm not saying/I'm just saying." It's a signature way for Trump to communicate, typified by retweeting outrageous tweets — particularly from white nationalists and conspiracy theorists — and then disavowing responsibility. But he does it so continuously ("seriously, not literally")

ad hominem attack ... with ad hominem Trump is avoiding the central issue of debate and redirecting our attention

Trump is also known for ad baculum tactics, which means "appeals to the stick," threats of force or violence.

reification — in this case, meaning treating people like objects. Perhaps the best example of this is his treatment of women, whom he treats very differently depending on whether or not they are useful to him.

My hope is that readers of my book will learn how and why Trump's dangerous demagoguery works so that they can defend themselves from it. But that will only do so much. The bigger picture is we need to remake our political and economic culture to prevent demagogues like Trump from ever gaining power in the first place. We need to figure out how to create trust. We need to figure out how to end polarization. We need to figure out how to end frustration. We need an economic and political system that works for the people and not for the elite. The political project of our time is to defend democracy.

Amen sister.

[sexobon]

I heard that in the interest of mankind, Trump will be donating his ego to medical science.

[BigV]

.... and I quote:

"A glaring double standard that exists here is nothing short of incredible."

From Hannity's lips to Trump's ears.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by sexobon

I heard that in the interest of mankind, Trump will be donating his ego to medical science.

Speaking confidently on behalf of all mankind, thanks, but no thanks, we have all had enough already.

[tw]

Originally Posted by BigV

... thanks, but no thanks, ...

They can't get it through any laboratory doors, anyway.

Maybe it could be used to fuel a nuclear power plant? No. Bad idea. We don't need any more meltdowns.

[BigV]

Maybe we could take it to that beach in Oregon where the whale was beached!

Or, maybe we could bring Mohammed to the mountain.


EW.

[sexobon]

Nawww, they're going to make a vaccine from it so the weak will be immune to it in the future.

[xoxoxoBruce]

George Will... yeah, that George Will.

June 02, 2020

George Will is a famous and highly respected conservative political commentator, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former editor of William F. Buckley's National Review in the 1970s, and a former contributor and analyst for ABC News, NBC News, and Fox News. Here are excerpts from his op-ed piece today in the Washington Post.

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed...

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting...

Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come...

[sexobon]

George Will... yeah, that George Will.



From Wikipedia:

... Rape victimization comments

Will's June 6, 2014, newspaper column about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape" was widely criticized, with Democratic U.S. senators and feminists highly critical of the article. Will wrote, "...when [colleges and universities] make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate." Will's column sparked an outcry on Twitter, with professed rape victims recounting their stories of sexual assault and violence. "It takes a particular kind of ignorance to argue that people who come forward to report being raped in college are afforded benefits of any kind," wrote Jessica Valenti in The Guardian." In an open letter to Will, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey wrote, "Your column suggests that we — including some of us who have worked on this issue for many years – all have missed a subculture on college campuses where survivors of sexual assault are inducted into a privileged class. The culture you described is so antiquated, so counter-intuitive and so contrary to anything we heard that we hope you will make an effort to hear the stories survivors bravely shared with us about the struggles they face in addressing what has happened to them — often with little meaningful assistance from authorities expected to help them." The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dropped Will's column from its pages as a result of the column. "The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it," editor Tony Messenger wrote. Will responded to the senators in his blog, saying his article was based on "simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports," and that sexual assault "should be dealt with by the criminal justice system, and not be adjudicated by improvised campus processes."

2014 Ebola spread claim

In 2014, Will claimed that Ebola could be spread via sneezing, contrary to widely accepted evidence which says that Ebola can only be spread by direct contact with infected bodily fluids. The comments occurred in a context of Republican criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. PolitiFact rated Will's claim as "False."

Bill O'Reilly

In 2015, following the release of Bill O'Reilly's book Killing Reagan, Will opined that the book contained poorly sourced, inaccurate information that disparaged President Ronald Reagan. Describing the book as "...a tissue of unsubstantiated assertions," and O'Reilly as "...an opportunistic interloper," Will concluded, "O’Reilly’s vast carelessness pollutes history and debases the historian’s craft." The feud escalated when Will appeared on O'Reilly's show, The O'Reilly Factor, during which O'Reilly accused Will of libel. The interview ended with O'Reilly calling Will "...a hack and a liar."...

More fun reading about crazy Will, 79, at the link.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Better option?

[Diaphone Jim]

Originally Posted by sexobon

I heard that in the interest of mankind, Trump will be donating his ego to medical science.

He doesn't have a superego, but plenty of id to make up for it.

Can we get this taken care of today?

[Griff]

So the unidentified cops are at it again. Trump needs rioting, we don’t.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/18/o...tis/index.html

[sexobon]

They defunded their nameplates, badges, and vehicle markings.

[Griff]

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/18/89261...st-enforcement

Protests in Portland, Ore., continued through early Sunday morning, following the Oregon Department of Justice's announcement it would be suing several federal agencies for civil rights abuses in the state. Demonstrations have taken place in the city for weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in May.