Category Archives: Politics

Trump Should Triangulate

Business, Economy, Elections, Free Markets, Government, Politics

“Trump Should Triangulate” is the current column, now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

Working people warm to Donald Trump. He appeals to a good segment of real Americans. The circle jerk of power brokers that is American media, however, lacks the depth and understanding to grasp the fellow-feeling Trump engenders in his fans.

THE MEDIA STRUMPETS

Amid sneers about Trump’s “crazy, entertaining, simplistic talk,” the none-too bright Joan Walsh, Salon editor-in-chief, proclaimed (MSNBC): “I look at those people and I feel sad. That is really such a low common denominator. They’re all Republicans … they really don’t have a firm grasp on reality.”

For failing to foresee Trump’s staying power, smarmy Michael Smerconish (CNN) scolded himself adoringly. He was what “Mr. Trump would call ‘a loser.’” Smerconish’s admission was a way of copping to his superiority. From such vertiginous intellectual heights, Smerconish was incapable of fathoming the atavistic instincts elicited by the candidate. Nevertheless, the broadcaster “quadrupled down.” The country would be delivered from Donald by Mexican drug lord El Chapo, who’d scare Trump away.

Campbell Brown, another banal bloviator, ventured that Trump resonates with a fringe and was fast approaching a time when he would, like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, “max-out the craziness” quotient.

Trump supporters were simply enamored of his vibe, said a dismissive Ellis Henican.

As derisive, another Fox News commentator spoke about the “meat and potatoes” for which Trump cheerleaders hanker. I suspect he meant “red meat.”

National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein divined his own taxonomy of the Republican Beast: the “upscale Republicans and the blue-collar Republicans.” The group of toothless rube-hicks Brownstein places in Trump’s camp.

Pollster Frank Luntz provides his own brand of asphyxiating agitprop: The little people want to elect someone they’d have a beer with.

A British late night anchor—a CNN hire!—offered this non sequitur: Trump painting himself as anti-establishment and, at the same time, owning hotels: this was a contradiction. In the mind of this asinine liberal, only a Smelly Rally like “Occupy Wall Street” instantiates the stuff of rebellion and individualism. (Never mind that the Occupy Crowds were walking ads for the bounty business provides. The clothes they wore, the devices they used to transmit their sub-intelligent message; the food they bought cheaply at the corner stand to sustain their efforts—these were all produced, or brought to market by the invisible hand of the despised John Galts and the derided working people.)

I know not what exactly the oracular Krauthammer said to anger Trump, but it was worth it: “Charles Krauthammer is a totally overrated person … I’ve never met him … He’s a totally overrated guy, doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was totally in favor of the war in Iraq. He wanted to go into Iraq and he wanted to stay there forever. These are totally overrated people.”

Even media mogul Rupert Murdoch moved in on Trump, calling him an embarrassment to his friends and to the country.

Inadvertently, one media strumpet came close to coming clean about the serial failures of analysis among her kind. Wonkette, or Wonkette Emerita, aka Ana Marie Cox, spoke of “the superfluousness of the media’s predictions and its inability to perform the service of making sense of events.” Like Smerconish, Cox is hoping against hope that the little people are having fun at her expense and “are in some way in on the joke” that is Trump. …

… Read the rest. “Trump Should Triangulate” is now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine.

‘What Would Beau [Biden] Do?’ Who? And Who Cares!

Democrats, Elections, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Politics

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel. In this case, the death of a political son has prompted one of the worst columnists in this country—nevertheless, Maureen Dowd sits atop a lucrative perch at the New York Times—to launch yet another Joe Biden run for president by weaving a soppy, cloyingly saccharine yarn (I’ve copied and pasted it; you read it. It’s too disgusting for words):

… As a little boy, Beau helped get his father through the tragedy of losing his beautiful first wife and 13-month-old daughter in the car crash that injured Beau and his brother, Hunter.

When Beau realized he was not going to make it, he asked his father if he had a minute to sit down and talk.

“Of course, honey,” the vice president replied.

At the table, Beau told his dad he was worried about him.

My kid’s dying, an anguished Joe Biden thought to himself, and he’s making sure I’m O.K.

“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.

Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.

Hunter also pushed his father, telling him, “Dad, it’s who you are.”

It could be awkward for President Obama, who detoured from the usual route — supporting your vice president — and basically passed the torch to Hillary. Some in Obama’s circle do not understand why he laid out the red carpet for his former rivals. “He has no idea how much the Clintons dislike him,” said one former top White House official.

But the president has been so tender and supportive to his vice president ever since learning that Beau was sick, it’s hard to say how he will react. Since the funeral, Obama has often kept a hand on Biden’s back, as if to give him strength.

When Beau was dying, the family got rubber bracelets in blue — his favorite color — that said “WWBD,” What Would Beau Do, honoring the fact that Beau was a stickler for doing the right thing.

To borrow from Camille Paglia (who was once interesting, but no longer), Maureen Dowd is a “catty, third-rate, wannabe sorority queen; empty vessel. One pleasure of reading online is that one never has to see anything written by people like Maureen Dowd [Kathleen Parker, Eugene Robinson, Thomas Friedman, Cynthia Tucker, on and on]. I ignore their hypertext like spam for penis extenders.”

Ditto, but Dowd is, nevertheless, powerful.

Politically, White Lives Don’t Matter

Democrats, Politics, Race, Racism

White lives are unworthy of being compared in their sanctity to black lives. That’s the political position to adopt if one is a good Democrat politician, unwilling to alienate his liberal base. Martin O’Malley, Democrat for president, furnished an example of just how sickening the politcal mindset is—and why Donald Trump, who is unfreighted by such a mindset, appeals.

Activists at the Netroots Nation conference, in Pheonix, chanted at O’Malley, “Black lives matter, black lives matter.” O’Malley responded appropriately: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.” He repeated this catchy phrase, the reaction to which prompted an O’Malley apology:

The demonstrators, who were mostly black, responded by booing him and shouting him down.

Later that day, O’Malley apologized for using the phrase in that context if it was perceived that he was minimizing the importance of blacks killed by police.
Meet the progressives who want Hillary to 'feel the Bern'

“I meant no disrespect,” O’Malley said in an interview on This Week in Blackness, a digital show. “That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect. I did not mean to be insensitive in any way or communicate that I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”

UPDATED (4/27/021): Caitlyn Jenner’s Greatest Achievement: She Still Loves Women

Celebrity, Gender, Politics, Pop-Culture, Sex

I watched a little of Caitlyn Jenner’s acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at Wednesday’s ESPYs. It’s hard not to feel oodles of sympathy when one watches the awkward gait and masculine stride and hears that still-booming voice of Bruce Jenner. Many transgender people I’ve seen on TV truly look their new gender part. Having “transitioned,” you can see they are indeed more comfortable in their new skin. But not poor Caitlyn. I hope for her sake that she knows what she’s doing. There is no going back. (And if only he/she did not feel the need for the plastic pout that made her diction so hissy. Why must “transitioning” be accompanied with that much silicone and plumping agents?) I do believe that Caitlyn will still love women.

And that is a true achievement, given the women—Kardashians—who surround him.

UPDATE (4/27/021): This. The GOP show goes on.

*Image courtesy here