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-   -   Charles Pierce - "...and the audience of equally vicious buffoons..." (http://www.politicalchat.org/showthread.php?t=12554)

Ike Bana 10-15-2018 03:21 PM

Charles Pierce - "...and the audience of equally vicious buffoons..."
 
Esquire - This Vicious Buffoon Is a Vessel for All the Worst Elements of the American Condition

Quote:

And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides.
Charles P. Pierce gives us the most accurate description of the Trump base to date...the audience of equally vicious buffoons.

bobabode 10-15-2018 06:04 PM

"We have had good presidents and bad—a Buchanan is followed by a Lincoln who is followed by an Andrew Johnson, and so forth. But we never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president* as currently occupies the office. We have had presidents who have been the worthy targets of scalding scorn, but James Callender went after giants. We never have had a president* so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it almost seems a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

Watch him make fun of the woman again. Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut the fuck up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.
Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now." Esquire

https://www.esquire.com/news-politic...exual-assault/

Mr. Pierce pretty much nails it. It seems like we're living in the end times so bleakly and cynically described by H.L. Mencken.

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken


Call me naïve but I have to believe we will survive the era of Trump, it's going to take an enormous amount of work and a huge investment in education going forward.

In the meantime, I'm waiting to see what happens in the upcoming elections before despairing completely of the American experiment. s/?

Chicks 10-15-2018 10:28 PM

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Chicks 10-15-2018 10:30 PM

Roll up your sleeves...

bobabode 10-15-2018 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chicks (Post 375581)
Roll up your sleeves...

Yessir.

Pops served in the 10th Armored Division under Patton, Bronze Star. He fought racists his whole life. Though he missed President Obama's tenure, I'm kind of glad he's gone. The era of Trump would've given him a stroke.

donquixote99 10-16-2018 06:26 AM

I know it's wrong to dehumanize people, but I just about can't resist reading that headline as 'vicious baboons.'

Ike Bana 10-16-2018 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by donquixote99 (Post 375583)
I know it's wrong to dehumanize people, but I just about can't resist reading that headline as 'vicious baboons.'

Vicious buffoons (baboons, even). So much more accurate than "deplorables" dontcha think?

As an addendum...I posted this on another forum in response to the story of the altercation at The Metropolitan Club in NYC.

Quote:

This latest incarnation of The Metropolitan Club is just more proof of where American conservative Republicans are, at this point in time, and where they are headed.

We have several people running for local offices here in Illinois who come straight out of this mindset. The most vile is 2003 Miss America Erika Harold who is running for IL Attorney General (Lisa Madigan is retiring after 15 stellar years in the job). Harold is most famous for her comments on adoption while in the Miss Illinois pageant in 2002. At least four witnesses reported that when she was asked about placing a child in foster care and the choice was loving gay parents or a heterosexual couple who were known child abusers, those four sources reported hearing Harold choose the abusers. Harold has never denied making the comment. At one point she stated that her views on gay adoption were "transitioning", and now, in the current campaign, she has stated that she supports gay adoption and gay foster parenting. How nice...nobody who ever held Erika Harold's allegedly former beliefs is ever going to get a vote from me.

This is where this country is now, and where it is headed.

And we have Rep. Senator Ben Sasse's new book "Them: Why We Hate Each Other And How We Heal." I just heard Ben Sasse interviewed on NPR yesterday. Hmmm.....

Quote:

Sasse sees what’s gone wrong and suggests how we might make it better. The remedy is at home: in our neighborhoods, our communities, and our houses of worship. Most of our modern encumbrances don’t require arguments—or Facebook posts or tweets—but associating, accepting, and knowing “the other”—knowing them. This isn't the kind of book that’s likely to light up cable news and set the talking heads aflutter. But his book is a serious one, and we hope its author will consider leading, not just our national conversation at a dangerous moment, but the country itself. - The Weekly Standard 10/16/18
Yeh...sure Ben. How nice...."associating, accepting, and knowing the other." This shit is on your people Ben. This is on the 80% of Republican voters who support the multigenerational criminal enterprise that is the Trump administration and who support the co-conspiratorial criminality of your own goddamn party, Ben. This is about the half of the country that applauds our democratized gun carnage. This is about the half of the country that thinks it's fine to have their noses up American women's reproductive organs. This is about the half of the country who have had all the advantages of their christianity and their whiteness since the founding and still want to point their gnarly stink finger of blame for their shitty lives at brown people, black people, red people, yellow people, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and anybody else who isn't a white christian. Fuck them and the horses they rode in on.

It's a culture war, Ben. And you're on the wrong side. Your platitudes about healing aren't going anywhere with your own people...and they're not going anywhere with me.

And guess who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS justice...Ben Sasse.

Practice what you preach, asshole.

Ike Bana 10-16-2018 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobabode (Post 375579)


Call me naïve but I have to believe we will survive the era of Trump, it's going to take an enormous amount of work and a huge investment in education going forward.

Well...I dont know about that Bob. I believe the problem is less Donald Trump than a country half full of assholes who support DonaldnTrump.

Dondilion 10-16-2018 10:47 PM

It is perplexing to read so many supporters of the Clintons ravaging Trump.

The Clintons are the forerunners of Trump.

The Clintons are the windows through which Trump climb.

I imagine Trump saying to himself before he made his run: Well Clinton did it, I can too.

Oerets 10-17-2018 07:07 AM

There is no argument to put forth, that will ever convince those who think such other nonsense. Nothing will change the mind of someone who still supports Trump.
Other then the old one, If Johnny jumps off the roof.....
So there for if what you imply were true, does that make it then right what Trump is doing? If it was so outrageous for the Clinton's then why the acceptance, excuses and defection for another now?


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