As I watched President Trump’s news conference today (transcript here), I discovered that I was becoming more and more sick to my stomach. At a certain point, I had to repress the impulse to actually go loiter around my toilet just in case I actually needed to vomit. And I started to think about why it is that the man makes me physically ill.
It really gets to a core value I have about truthfulness. That can seem trite, and it’s hard to explain. I certainly don’t have the expectation that politicians or anyone else will always tell me the truth. Perhaps I can get closer to the feeling Trump gives me by using an analogy.
If you’ve ever witnessed some one, say a child, make a bad mistake that you know will cause them difficulties and you’ve felt a pang of empathetic regret on their behalf, that’s the closest thing I can find to the nauseous feeling I get when listening to Trump lie.
The difference is that we normally get that feeling when we feel like the person has made an innocent error or that we sense that consequences will be far out of proportion to the actual sin. We may feel like wrapping that person in a protective blanket even if we recognize that they are largely responsible for making the bed they will now lie in.
And if we sense that we’re helpless to shield them from the consequences of their actions, we may get the sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach that I’m trying to describe.
Of course, I don’t have any empathy for Trump. I don’t want to shield or protect him. I would relish it if it suffered the appropriate consequences for his actions.
Yet, that sensation is there nonetheless, like seasickness or the early signs of stomach flu.
Part of it, I think, is a deep psychological desire, or need, to purge what I’m hearing from my reality. I want to get rid of of those words. I want to take away their power to do mischief. I want to decontaminate everything they come into contact with.
Because what he’s saying isn’t just untrue. It’s untethered from anything we can hold on to. It does actual violence to not only objective reality but the very idea that there is an objective reality.
What I realized about myself is that while I may have strong political beliefs and that I am incensed when powerful people attack the weak and vulnerable, what really drives my ideological disposition is a belief in the importance of empiricism. The Republicans keep moving farther and farther away from this value system that they derisively refer to as the “judicious study of discernible reality.”
I could go line by line to explain each and every lie and obfuscation in Trump’s press conference, but something is lost when you look at the trees rather than stepping back and beholding the forest. Trump is planting a veritable tree farm of outright bullshit. That it’s in the service of a malevolent and dangerous set of policies is obviously a massive concern for me, but it’s not what makes me want to retch.
I share your concern for the truth. So, doubtless, do most if not all of the participants in this forum.
But we are the 1% .
Could not agree more
TPM take
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/about-the-press-conference
Worth reading the whole piece
Here is the ending
But the man who just appeared before the press for a free-ranging airing of grievances looked tired, sullen and half broken. His bracing insistence that everything is going perfectly in his White House sounded desperate and bizarre.
He’s coming up on one month down and 47 to go
Sullen? yep. Half broken? Please call me when he is altogether broken.
BooMan, this is extremely astute. I wouldn’t have recognized the feeling had you not described it so well.
I’m reminded of the “embarrassment” we all feel when watching people make fools of themselves on stage — bad actors; unfunny comedians; MoCs who misread the crowd — and how comics like Ricky Gervais have built this sympathetic reaction into a whole branch of comedy (“cringe comedy,” I think it’s called). What you’re describing is a more morally and psychologically sophisticated version of the same thing.
I think there’s also an element of shame — to see that podium and that room (and, of course, that job) besmirched in this way is almost physically painful.
The national disgrace/embarrassment element is very strong.
The sense of protectiveness is sorta reversed here for me. It’s not that I want Trump shielded from the consequences of his actions; it’s that I want the country shielded from the consequences of its inaction against him.
It also makes me feel borderline insane that this plainly observable reality is invisible or irrelevant to so many people, especially powerful people in Washington.
I hope the spooks drop an anvil on this guy’s head, and soon.
I hope the spooks drop an anvil on this guy’s head, and soon.
And get what, Pence? He’d enact all the same awful shit(ICE, anti-worker DoL, awful legislation, you name it), he’d just do it without all the Trumpian drama.
Maybe but perhpas he would not lie and just make shit up all the time, and…. O nuts.
Well, honestly, I hope Pence gets implicated, too. But we’re not going to get a happy outcome here even if Ryan ends up the guy. But we don’t necessarily have to worry about a president deliberately weakening the country in the service of his foreign master if Trump goes.
No one, at least in this group, wants Pence but at least we will have removed the foreign policy danger of a blackmailed President. Also consider that Pence’s reputation will have been seriously besmirched by this whole affair. Meanwhile the Party of No still has to figure out how to pass legislation that won’t (again) make them totally toxic to the 2018 voters.
Cnn’s Trapper to Trump stop whining
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tapper-to-trump-youre-president-stop-whining
I wish for everyone, including the president I dislike so much, to get a firm grip on reality before making any decisions. I just don’t think this is a likely scenario for Mr. Trump.
Have we had in living memory any other powerful politicians who seemed so angry, so vindictive, so unmoored from reality? Richard Nixon was certainly angry and vindictive, but I think he had a clear grasp of reality. (Why else engage in a conspiracy to obstruct justice?)
Whether intentional or not, what Trump has been doing ever since he began his campaign is to promote Big Lies. I think he’s so far out there on the sociopathic spectrum that he lies automatically, not necessarily maliciously, although the consequences are the same as if he did.
Election 2020: “It’s the untreated personality disorders, stupid!”
I noted a week or two ago that Lyndon seemed to be a bit bonkers during frequent periods in the 1964/early 65 period, so much so that two of his top aides sought outside expert advice.
They got back answers in the “classic paranoid” area.
One of the aides, Dick Goodwin, decided not to press forward when he concluded that given how Johnson operated, Goodwin himself would soon be in the hot seat and probably fitted for a straightjacket (amusing but not entirely a stretch — people were put away by TPTB back then for expressing truthful but unwelcome thoughts).
Trump is planting a veritable tree farm of outright bullshit. That it’s in the service of a malevolent and dangerous set of policies is obviously a massive concern for me, but it’s not what makes me want to wretch.
Trump didn’t plant it. The GOP did. He’s just watering it and sprinkling it with more fertilizer. It started with Ray-gun and maybe goes as far back as Nixon.
“Trump is planting a veritable tree farm of outright bullshit.”
I’ll take another tack. He’s not growing trees. He’s growing mushrooms–poisonous ones.
This is probably the thing that most gets to me when so many people I know tell me, “Give Trump a chance”. And any time I point out the same types of concerns that you have here, it simply does not register with these people as a credible concern. They simply are incapable of understanding how far out in the stratosphere of unreality that this man is living, and dragging all of us further and further into his own quicksand. When I try to point out how historically unprecedented all of this is, and that the evidence is so overwhelming that this is NOT NORMAL, it simply flies over their head. They don’t get it, or don’t want to get it.
“Trump won. Get over it!”, they say. There are no words to describe how dumbfounded I am at the lack of understanding of how grave a danger is posed by this man and the people with whom he has surrounded himself. They like the notion, whatever they think that might be, that he’s going to “Shake things up”. But what he is trying to do well beyond shaking things up. He is wanting to dismantle the balances of power that have existed from day one and replace it with rule by fiat, with the other two branches simply window dressing to rubber stamp the whims of the ruler. I’m beginning to think that this what a lot of people actually want to happen. I am really having a hard time coming to terms that the vast majority of people who I know are simply stupid people. They are stupid and ignorant of the ramifications of all of this. But it really should not surprise me. These are the same people who criticized and berated me as an “unpatriotic, troop hating, terrorist loving appeaser” when I was the only voice they knew who told them Bush’s Iraq folly was going to be an overwhelmingly disastrous exercise.
I have tried to talk sense to my friends and family, who are almost all Trump supporters. I am afraid I am destined to be witness to the actual realization of my Frog Pond signature, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”. We are just about to find out how dangerous that is.
I think we have the same kind of friends. They keep telling me to “get over it and relax”. It makes no difference what Trump or his idiot appointees say – no matter how outrageous or divorced from reality it may be. My friends like it all, even and maybe mostly, the ban on Muslims and the fence. They quote the Quran about killing infidels to prove they are right. And today, I couldn’t watch all of the news conference. All I see when I look at this man, and now many of his supporters, is his hate and lies, for almost everything. It makes me nuts.
Last week I had a long interaction with a relative about all these unprecedented actions Trump is taking. I didn’t do any name calling of anyone. I have tried, more than you can imagine, to keep my conversations based in empiricism and rational thought. I am not taking their emotional bait anymore. I simply cited historical fact and historical precedent to support my argument. And I challenged her to demonstrate to me how Trump’s actions are within the ranges of normal behavior. Convince me, please, I said.
She stopped, looked at me and said, “You know what, I think you’re just trying to make yourself seem intellectually superior by asking questions like that.”
For a moment I was simply speechless. And I said, “Let me make sure I understand. So what you are saying is that asking someone to support their point of view with facts and evidence is an attempt to make ME seem superior”? “Yes”, she said. “You probably don’t realize it but you do that a lot, and that’s how it seems to me”.
She then proceeded to tell me that “God put Trump in there and that we should all pray for him that he succeeds and does the best for our country and puts God first. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to save the country.”
I just don’t know what a thinking, breathing human being does with thoughts such as those. I am living in a perpetual nightmare, where the brains of most people I know have apparently been eaten by zombies.
There was an odd twitter exchange today. Trump called Schumer a lightweight, and in response Steve Rattner noted that Schumer had gotten 1600 on his SAT’s.
In some many ways it speaks to the divide. To the educated class, we see 1600 and say well he is really smart. But to most others it reeks of condescension. How DARE you question someone with good SAT scored!
See Chris Arnade about the front row and back row kids: he speaks to what you describe, and why us front row kids can’t seem to get through to the back row kids.
I understand the divide. But here’s the thing. I am not a “front row kid”. Sure, I went to college. But I lived at home virtually the entire time I was going to school. Never stayed on campus. I drove a delivery truck my entire college life, worked summers on a horse farm and even spent some time driving screws in washers at the local Frigidaire factory to pay my way through school. I grew up on a street where the most “professional” head of a household was a Real Estate agent. Others were prison guards, steel workers, a grocery store manager. And for my entire adult life I have lived within a 12 mile radius of where I was raised. This is a heavily Republican, very conservative area, and has been for a very long time. I know these people. I understand these people. I can talk their talk. I have lived in their world my entire life. I am not coming at them as some coastal educated, big city liberal with a bunch of fancy book learning and a circle of stuffy, highly educated elitist friends. I love to read. I love history, science and philosophy. But so did my eastern Kentucky grandmother with only a high school education. But I have come at all those things from the confines of my various residences right in the heart of Trump country. Sure, I have been able to do some travel with my work, and I have been privileged to be exposed to a bit of the world that some have not. But I do not talk down to them or minimize their views, or try and overwhelm the conversation with fancy words.
It is just the simple fact that it is now not at all necessary to justify ones belief or point of view with empirical facts. Maybe it’s always been this way, but in today’s world, with so much riding on what is being done and so much emotion tied up in people’s tribal ideologies, if those of us who have known each other all our lives can’t look each other in the eye, right here in middle America, and at least agree that facts and what is true really do matter, then we are absolutely and truly fucked.
I was a Prosecutor for some time (brought there as a result of a group cases) in a rural county north of Columbus. I was struck at the time by how different their entire frame of reference was. I knew people who had seldom left the state.
What was important to them was the ability to live in the same area as the rest of their family. They were not ambitious: they wanted enough to pay the mortgage and that was about it. They were far from stupid and they were surely religious.
Maybe I am projecting – I did have a hard time relating. The gulf seem pretty wide. One rich kid college – Kenyon – sat amidst all of this like an island.
The problem is that we ran in 2016 with excuses. The economy would be better IF. I think over time people have gotten tired of the excuses, and they feel, and I think they are right about this, that they are not being heard.
“What was important to them was the ability to live in the same area as the rest of their family. They were not ambitious: they wanted enough to pay the mortgage and that was about it.”
Easy to understand.
Further down you note we should have beaten him by 20.
Trump is the one that promised (he lied of course) that if elected these folks could live near their family and pay their mortgage – our side did not.
So how can you be befuddled? That befuddles me.
Oh BTW, I still hate Reagan more.
Why am I befuddled that we lost to the most disliked presidential candidate in American History?
If you can make sense of the 2016 election, and predicted the outcome before, then you are in very slim company.
My mom tells me this all of the time, but it is in no way specific to politics. It’s life in general. When I was home for holiday police fatalities and danger of being a cop came up and I told her that it’s almost never been safer to be a cop than in present day America. She didn’t believe me. Even with FBI statistics. The citation of the FBI statistics themselves is seen as an entire attack on their worldview because “why do you have to be right all the time?” And in questioning why do I have to be right all of the time is a projection. They’re right. You’re wrong. Fuck your facts
I got into an argument with someone who turns out to be a Trumper I guess. Told him I was worried about climate change, which was very upsetting to him. There’s a back and forth, but I get to the point of trying to establish any standard of empirical evidence, at all. Like what would be evidence? I try to use example of a burning house. Say you’re looking at a house. How do you know it’s on fire?
Response: “I’d know it’s on fire because I’d be running in to save the occupants (not mentioned, how he knows there is anyone inside), because that’s just the kind of guy I am.”
I’m speechless. Like, what do I say to that?
I don’t have a big theory about this kind of thing, it’s just an interesting example of how people are very much more attached to their stories (myths) than to empirical facts. In this case, there is whatever the big story is about why climate change is a hoax, but also the immediate appeal to a specific story about himself in what I’m trying to frame as a purely objective question, “how do you know?”
I’m try not to be totally dismissive of this attitude. I think a part of is shown by statements like “all these celebrities whining about climate change but they’re still flying around the world all the time.” Which, I mean, there is something there, some kind of moral reality to that point. At the same time, I feel quite confident in drawing a bright line between that and what the facts are. But a whole lot of people, probably a large majority, don’t.
They have shit the bed, and either don’t know it or are proud of it…what’s worse?
If I had to bet, it would mostly on the latter: they don’t want to get it. A lot of motivated cognition going on, I’d guess.
There are no words to describe how dumbfounded I am at the lack of understanding of how grave a danger is posed by this man and the people with whom he has surrounded himself.
THIS. A 1000 TIMES THIS. What makes me sick isn’t Drumpf at all. It’s the knowledge that something like half of us (or minimally tens of millions, like that’s better!) thought this was just fine. And still do.
The day after the election, I read about a woman in a suburban neighborhood whose neighbor, who had made no secret of her affinity for Drumpf, came up to her and said, “I hope you won’t hate me after this.” And the woman’s haunting reply: “Of course I don’t hate you. But now I am afraid that you hate me.”
What makes this so frightening is that the real “Other” to these people are everyone but themselves. And we live side by side. We’d like to think this is sectional, like Civil War I. But in Civil War II, it’l be so very much worse since we are not in fact as separate as our worldview would have us believe…
You are not alone. This is what I hear at work, and from my right winger acquaintances/relatives (not necessarily the God part – some of them are freethinkers LOL). So, I have adopted the tactic of just going in there and reciting the Trump catastrophe of the day – and including “Russian puppet” or “traitor” while doing it. They are impervious to facts, history, reality, whatever, so I don’t bother. 30 years of Fixed News and talk radio are almost impossible to undo overnight.
The Trumpster worldview is one that was cultivated over a very long period of time. Been watching it unfold for a good three decades. Forget any quick fix. After decades of that drivel, all that matters are their “alternative facts.” That’s it. Can’t hold a conversation under those circumstances.
appeal to other authoritarian-submissives.
Ignorance (often willfully self-imposed) magnifies the effect.
Occurs to me authoritarian-submissive personality is pretty much the same thing as “kiss-up/kick-down” syndrome.
In Trump’s case, kiss up (Putin’s ass) – kick down (everybody else).
I also have been feeling nauseated since the moment I heard that Trump won. The feeling has lessened a bit since then, mainly because I see people all over the country pushing back against Trumpism.
Reality is complicated. Politics used to be about those aspects of reality one decided were most important, and a conversation could be had. But with Trump and the modern Repub. party, reality just recedes into the distance and disappears. Facts and Fake News are interchangeable depending on the mood of the God Emperor.
A certain amount of BS in politics is normal, maybe even necessary. But we’re drowning in it now; except that roughly half the country seems happy to breathe it in. In coal country, in rustbelt Ohio, in redneck Texas, shit is what’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s all I can stand to just scan the Times front page in the morning; the stench of BS turns my stomach.
I can deal with people lying: I am a lawyer and a former prosecutor. I have seen clever lies let people get away with horrible crimes.
It is a grade school knowledge of the world that is ignorant of the fact that lies work far too often.
What troubles me is I LOST to him. I am pretty good at oral argument. This guy just meanders and wanders. And yet people saw that and LIKED it.
We should have beaten him by 20.
I hated Reagan much more. But this guy befuddles me because I can’t even begin to understand what drew people to him.
And yet he took on both party establishments and won.
Showtime has a pretty good special: Trumped. In it there is a point after PA is called and we know its over that John Heilermann basically cries on camera. I talked to him and Halpern and couple of times in the last cycle: they seemed to me to be the precise definition of DC pundits. Hacks, albiet with Harvard degrees. Hell Halpern told me Obama should have gotten GOP support for Obamacare (which was impossible in my opinion).
But as election night develops it is pretty clear what the two of them thought of Trump. And it is clear that something far deeper was at risk than just another election.
At its core the basic truth is the world is a far less fair and reasonable place than many people understand.
I think that is why Trump upsets them so much. They had some basic idea of goodness. And Trump destroys that.
On election night we sat on the sofa with my son and sister on the phone in stunned silence and disbelief.
I was at a Party of a Congresswoman – who damn near lost.
It was a wake.
One of my parents emailed me the day after urging me not to blame them. Like I would. We’d all talked as an extended family earlier that year and the consensus was Clinton was the sane choice. I think they were worried that since their state was even redder than the one I live in that they’d be lumped in with all the Trumpsters who make up most of the electorate in their community. I assured them they had nothing to worry about as far as I was concerned. The felt blindsided by the results. In the back of my mind, I held on to the possibility that Trump could win the electoral vote, given how close the polling numbers had been. And with that in the back of my mind a gnawing concern for the future being created for my children. Obviously that concern continues to gnaw at me more than anything else. My daughters in particular have to live in a country where just enough people voted for a man who has so much as admitted sexual assault to give him the keys to the White House. We all have to live with the reality that many of our neighbors, many of whom are “nice” people, are perfectly comfortable excusing the transgressions of this particular SCROTUS. That’s something that will gnaw at me as well – nice people can excuse awful actions.
More heinous than the “evil resulting from good men doing nothing’? There were a lot of “good” Americans, not just trailer trash as is being posited over at LGM, who refused to see Trump for what he was for the year and a half ahead of the election.
I’ve lots of relatives and friends who aren’t red state rednecks but who are red state Republicans whose hatred of all things Democrat and all things Hillary pushed them to vote for the obscenity that is the Trump Presidency. They were gleeful on the morning of November 9.
I don’t know how many are still supporters as I don’t share political conversations with them, via Facebook or in any other manner. They all know I’m off email forward chains. Our salvation will come only when enough of them turn on Trump and let their Republican representatives know about it. I pray that this happens sooner than later.
A few more Trump initiated press conferences like today should do the trick.
For a while, more out of curiosity, if one of the few Trumpsters in my life tried to say something about Trump on FB, I would ask them why they voted for Trump. I wanted specifics, such as what they were hoping he’d accomplish. Never could get a straight answer out of any of them. I could actually avoid saying anything about the racist comments that asshole made on the campaign trail, or the damage some of his neo-Nazi followers (certainly a subset of his base) caused and would occasionally get some nonsense such as “I’m not a racist. I’m sick of being accused of that!” To which I would say, “Um…that was not the topic. Interesting you brought that up.” Get unfriended and blocked a bit that way. Turns out to be no great loss.
The Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief bragged about sexual assault!
RE:
“Good Germans” they were called at an earlier time in history.
I have a tendency to understate things. A bit of a character flaw on my part.
They held a romantic notion of the American electorate, that it had the ability to “figure it out”, to “do the right thing” to “see through the bullshit”.
That illusion is gone forever now.
Things for many in this country are not OK and they have been getting worse for a long time.
And they are very, very angry about that.
When the establishment fails, the door opens for demagogues.
For far too many the establishment has been failing.
And yet, of all the people who are very, very angry about the establishment’s failure to stop the murder of black men, very few voted for Trump.
Though it is worth noting that turnout in the African American Community was down significantly, and in two states decisively.
How much of that was antipathy to the candidate, and how much was rampant voter suppression such as what North Carolina gleefully rammed through in defiance of the courts?
Not talking about North Carolina specifically.
African American was down significantly in PA, WI and MI. In the last 2 one can say confidently it is why we lost.
I looked at the African American wards in Philly which were down 10%, and where Trump doubled Romney’s support (though at less than 5%).
Part of it was that Obama was not on the ticket, but it does look like beyond that we struggled with turnout. Perhaps it was Clinton. Perhaps it was a sense the economy was not recovering enough. Maybe it was BLM – though the polling I have seen suggests BLM was not as important in the African American Community as other issues.
Voter suppression may have had a role – though we did not have similar issues with the Hispanic vote in the some of these states.
Oh, it’s a grand stew of reasons why we lost, including, yes, a poor candidate (she’s much better at serving than at seeking to serve, alas), decades-long propaganda campaigns to destroy her and the Democratic Party in general, voter suppression, voter apathy, voter imbecility….
And here we are, staring into the abyss.
Where did you get that notion from? Nixon, Reagan, and GWB should have banished any romanticism. And Democratic primary voters haven’t been the sharpest tool in the box either.
…that voted for Trump paid little attention to him himself. Many, many, many, I’m going to guess most of them voted for Trump because he wasn’t Hillary the Democrat. And for way more than Trump’s minuscule margin of victory in the states that provided the electoral votes he needed to win, the Democrat part of Hillary the Democrat didn’t matter so much. It was just, simply, that he wasn’t her.
Your reference to the front row / back row piece by Arnade is funny to me. As I read it, each item, all I could think is how stupid those folks in the front row (the ones that insisted over and over and over again that Hillary was awesome) were; are. And it’s a fact. Don’t bet on it (because they’ll cheat and you’ll lose anyway), but most of them (and I counted myself among them though I always tried to sit, not just in back, but near the door) were brown-nosers, attention-seekers, and conformists. So fucking sure of themselves and almost always wrong: the 2016 Hillary campaign and so many of her supporters–in a nutshell.
Sickening yes, but Trump won because Hillary lost, not the other way around.
My wife and I are into Sufism. She’s very sensitive to energy and gets great gut-level reads about stuff. I know this can seem out there but on our path it’s called “guidance” when you just know something without knowing how you know it. It’s a kind of knowledge that enters not through the brain but through the heart. Women are generally more sensitive to this kind of knowing than men and she’s way more sensitive than me. I’m much more mind based.
Just this morning, she mentioned how she’s been having a hard time for the last four weeks or so because there’s an energetic contraction that’s impacting the whole country; maybe the whole world. She’s aware of Trump and is very intelligent but she makes a point of not following politics because it really gets her down. She’s too sensitive to watch a scary movie or anything containing violence (it would give her nightmares and more). She’s yet more adverse to focusing on politics. So her sense didn’t come from watching the news. Just on what she’s feeling in our space.
Perhaps we’re all impacted by this and Booman can’t quite find the words for the feeling because it’s not just an intellectual reaction to specific events.
The reaction is very existential – one of essentially facing death or potential death. In this case the potential loss is one of a particular set of values.
Like so many others, I was gobsmacked by the election and to be honest there are moments still when I see him in the Oval Office and feel a sense of other-worldness. My brains simply refuses to believe this has happened.
I remember very clearly that by Bush’s second term that the sound of his voice sent me into a rage. Every stupid thing he said grated on my nerves. But Trump is a thousand times worse. I totally agree about the feeling of nausea every time I see him or hear his voice. I loathe him and everyone who surrounds him. Mitch McConnell comes to mind. Ugh.
It’s one thing to distrust or dislike a person, but he causes a visceral response simply by opening his mouth. I’ll never accept him as our president and I’ll never stop trying to make him resign. He’s mentally ill and a threat to not just our country, but to the whole world.
the English language: “President Trump”.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the effect is even worse than that of “President-elect Trump”.
I can’t watch Trump on TV at all. Nada. Not one bit. I feel bad for you that your job makes you obligated to do so.
Like you, I hold empirical thought as the highest value, and for this reason, Trump physically disgusts me. My gut reaction is a little different than yours, though. I don’t get the feeling of watching a helpless child make a mistake. I feel the repulsion one gets in response to a person who uses their language entirely to manipulate rather than to communicate. Eventually, you learn to reject all of their words and focus entirely on their actions.
I view him the way I view other abusers. He’s just another perp. And yeah, best to watch the actions and pay less attention to the words.
Reluctantly, and only because Martin urged it, I pulled up the video of Trump’s press conference. Fully expecting my autonomous and visceral “I got to get out of here” response to big lies to kick in after five minutes. And either turning it off or force myself to sit through all of it as I had GWB’s “Shock and Awe” speech and ’04 debates against Kerry. (More than that of GWB I couldn’t take.) But neither happened and I’m afraid others here aren’t going to like much of what I have to say.
First, Trump’s presentation style is obnoxious. He constantly adds evaluation opinions, adjectives, to everything and everyone mentioned. His and his own are always great and anyone not on his team or side is a disaster. He must have long ago memorized a list of positive and negative adjectives and keeps them in separate compartments in his brain that he opens for “me/mine” and “them” as he speaks. His opening remarks were scripted and read but were fully consonant with his general speaking style if he were naturally more fluid. That colors much of what he says, but isn’t exactly lying.
For example, he said that he had made “incredible progress” so far. Every new POTUS claims to have made progress on something or other in the early weeks, but they leave it to the spinmeisters, media, and public to evaluate the progress. Trump always provides the first and very glowing review of himself and whenever possible the first and very negative review of his opponents. This is highly problematical for objective and oppositional observers or critics because then they have to refute not only “progress” but also “incredible.”
He does lie a lot but so many of those lies are such stupid stuff that a ten year old can fact check him. These are his, what I’d call, personal enhancement lies to both bolster his self-esteem and impression management with the public rubes. Such, the size of his inauguration crowd and his EC win. Also crap such as “people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before.” A continuation of his campaign hyperbole. No need to waste time refuting this stuff — roll one’s eyes and laugh about his inability to accept reality.
However, there was more serious stuff in this that should concern the opposition. First, he was in control of that presser. And he wasn’t a one-note pony because the press there was at best second-rate. They lacked sharp and pointed questions and fell into the trap of allowing Trump to legitimately call out the media trading for fake news.
Why nobody there that could point out that Trump’s appointees were slow to be named and really slow in submitting the paperwork required in advance of confirmation hearings and votes? And that none so far have been subjected to the delays for no reasons that Republicans subjected many Obama appointees to, included his last Supreme Court nominee. Trump gets away with whining because the press spends time working on “gotcha” stuff instead of exposing how he operates — blaming others for his own failings.
This is really hard to say because Flynn is an odious creature, but Trump didn’t throw him under the bus as unmercifully as other recent presidents have thrown some under the bus. I personally don’t buy that it was Flynn not telling Pence the truth for his resignation because Trump adequately stated the case that Flynn had otherwise only done his job.
He repeated a lot of lies that every POTUS I can remember has said. Or even those I don’t remember — like JFK’s “missile gap.” He reiterated a promise for “a massive rebuilding of the military”. If we’d have had one-tenth of that “massive rebuilding” of the US infrastructure of the past five decades we would have dams, sewers, bridges, etc. beyond their intended life and ready to collapse.
Then some truths. Oddly ones that Republicans have long rejected and liberals/Democrats would have once welcomed. Why was it that Nixon went to China?
Trump doesn’t know enough, and half of what he knows is wrong, and he isn’t hiring competent people that know enough to run an administration, but he’s poking some sticks in the eyes of those that deserve it. Not that it means more than scoring a win for himself and at which point he’ll drop it because he’s not a warrior or truth, light, justice, etc. But he knows how to hold a press conference and we should probably expect him to do more of them than any previous POTUS.
Thank you for this. I’m having a somewhat different reaction to this situation than Booman and I think this is getting to some of the why.
While, to repeat myself, I find Trump personally disgusting, one has to set aside one’s personal feelings (or as much of those feelings as possible) when objectively viewing a person or event that is important. Otherwise, one is only projecting.
I would like to think that’s what I did in viewing the first GOP debate and warning that as improbable as it seemed, he would be a tough candidate. Doubt I got it wrong in viewing the first Clinton-Trump debate; he was awful after the first fifteen to twenty minutes and hadn’t been more than serviceable in those early minutes. But perhaps this time, that first debate played a much smaller role than usual.
I think I understand why someone that was fully invested in electing Clinton and clapping for a coup or impeachment could view this presser and feel revolted and physically nauseous. In front of a camera, Trump really knows how to pull it off. In that way he’s like Reagan or some would say Bill Clinton. That suggests that it won’t be easy to take him down. Enough to make anyone not in the Trump camp nauseous.
I couldn’t do it – thank you for watching it.
A friend calls it verbal diarrhea and I guess that is as good a description as I can find. I think liberals hope that the shame of this guy being president and doing crap will convince his supporters to abandon him. That for the most part hasn’t happened yet, and probably won’t until you can link it to things with real world impact.
Palin’s word-salad could be described as “verbal diarrhea.” During this presser that description isn’t apt. Trump jumps around among topics/issues when he speaks off the cuff, but it has the quality of everyday speech when someone is going to make a few points and that we’re all familiar with. Reminds me of how many people speak in office meetings when they have the floor. It meanders and doesn’t get too precise or even well articulated, but it doesn’t lose an audience of ordinary people.
Compare that with politicians that talk and talk as the eyes of the audience glaze over assuming that a clear and comprehensible point will never be made.
The MSM isn’t going to take down Trump by offering false narratives. For example, describing his presser as a disaster when it wasn’t. That leaves the door open for Trump to claim the MSM is engaged in “fake news.” Then who is going to listen when the media plays it straight and calmly lists Trump’s lies or falsehoods?
What gives me heartburn is the knowledge that those who have the legal ability to remove a man who has severe personality disorders from the presidency will refuse to do so in order to advance their agenda.
It is just a matter of time until the only check on congressional and presidential malfeasance, by the judiciary, will be removed if this continues.
Absent any check on unconstitutional actions by congress and/or the administration, the result will be civic disorder of a magnitude not seen since the 1960’s, perhaps since the lead up to the 1860’s. The thought of that reaction is as distressing as watching the country dissolve due to massive corruption.
those who have the legal ability to remove a man who has severe personality disorders from the presidency will refuse to do so
Nobody has that legal authority. (If PD were an impeachment criteria, several presidents would have been removed from office.) An incapacitating stroke and obvious senility weren’t even acted upon.
The 25th amendment section 4 gives the legal authority to the vice president and “a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” to begin the process of removal if they believe the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
This is usually read as physical disability, however Oregon Rep. Blumenauer is proposing a working group to “clarify and strengthen” the amendment in case of mental or emotional incapacity.
“The flaw, Blumenauer says, is that the Cabinet may be fired by the president, “undermining this ostensible check on an unstable president.” He notes that the “some other body” is undefined, and there is no guidance for how it should operate. Blumenauer says he believes that living former presidents and vice presidents could form that body.”
http://katu.com/news/local/blumenauer-wants-to-strengthen-25th-amendment-due-to-erratic-behavior-in-
white-house
The fact that a stroke and senility were not acted upon caused grave consequences and in any case, unlike today’s daily manifestations, were not known at the time by the public or the rest of the world – friend or foe.
He said that he would win the election because the public could not stop watching him and wondering what will happen next.
That nausea is knowing that you are being played by someone so intuitively manipulative that they have little self-consciousness of how they play people. It is a “skill” that has become engrained, no doubt just like the strategic use of rage.
The nausea is watching for the break when everyone realizes they are being played and takes him down. How will that happen and what will be the consequences?
I just don’t think that will happen because what we see as being played, Trump supporters see as the reason to vote for him. Most won’t come to any kind of “scales off the eyes” moment because there are no scales to fall off.
system”; though perhaps you could call valuing Reality and its “judicious discernment” that.
A caution. While you are very justified feeling this way, it can cloud your judgment. Please keep examining your ideas closely!
We’re deep in the Kali Yuga, man.
I can picture my dad sitting in front of the television back in the McCarthy days, yelling “Ahh, ya fulla shit!” at the screen.
I’d still be doing that myself, if I bothered to watch television.
Anyway, I am still doing that.
Trump is the evil avatar of this age of crap.
Think of it this way. Every time Trump opens his yap, our collective nausea testifies to the eternity and omnipotence of Love, Beauty, and Truth. If Trump makes you nauseous you are already part of the burgeoning age of spiritual renewal.
Trumpery
a : worthless nonsense
b : trivial or useless articles : junk
2
archaic : tawdry finery
From Old French tromperie “deceit”, from tromper “to cheat.”
You can’t make this stuff up. You don’t have to.
My dad was a college student during the McCarthy days. Republicans turned him off after that. Had no use for the USSR, but that McCarthy witch hunts were too much. Lately my advice has been to tune out (the fake news, hatemongering, and so on), turn off (TV, social media, and so on), and drop in (to my local community events). I can say that alone has done me a world of good. Would recommend the same to just about anyone. I see some use for internet groups and whatnot. Their utility is somewhat limited. Real time interacting with real people? May not lead to any spiritual renewal, but might actually be the wakeup call a number of folks need. Just my two cents.
Interesting, because I am intensely involved with my community groups. We have a lot on our plate right now.
I’d been plugging in to some things in my local community this last year. Much of it may not seem overtly political, but it might as well be. In particular getting involved with the local atheist group – that’s been a thing for me. Out in the Bible Belt, it’s good to know one is not alone. Our group has been plugging into the local community – sponsoring speakers and so on. I’ve started branching out a bit beyond that as work schedule and fallout from last year’s family crisis permit. Ours is one of many local Democratic Party affiliates across the country that went fallow. It will take a long, long time to rebuild. I’ll do what I can on that front, although I reckon I’ll be more a bit player behind the scenes. Still, if someone had told me that I’d be posting Clinton yard signs last year or that I’d be attending protests this year, I’d have wondered what planet they were on. Yet here we are.
Interesting reading everyone’s thoughts on this post that seem to agree with the reasons for feeling sick-to-stomach, or expanding on the idea, that no one’s mentioned feelings of guilt. Not that it matters; admitting guilt never comes easy.
The feeling of sickness that I have though, when I admit to myself how powerless I feel, and have since Reagan, to effect positive change politically, locally or nationally, is guilt. I’m a smart guy, like everyone else here and so many others I meet every day. Why couldn’t I have thought of something to prevent this? What did I do wrong? And how badly is my failure to prevent Trump and the general rise of Republicans over the past 35 years hurting not just friends, but all those less well off, less capable of dealing with the consequences. I feel like it’s my fault, not alone of course, but as a citizen, a voter, as a Democrat. I can comfort myself by telling myself I was a proud BernieBro and am in no way responsible for the failures of Hillary and the Clintons (and it’s no small comfort). Still, the guilt gnaws and nauseates.
What makes me queasy is the fact that I once thought voters were coming to their senses, but that it’s now obvious that voters would rather fantasize than realize. Two steps forward and one step back, same as it ever was? I am no longer the optimist I used to be. Or as my wife says, we should be extinct by now.
I often find myself asking the opposition why, after 30 some years of trying to sideline the Clintons, they have failed to do so. I never really get any answer for that beyond “The system is rigged, man!”, which is no answer at all.
Any rational analysis would conclude, that if they’ve dodged the bullets for that long, and no one is THAT lucky, then maybe, just maybe, one can entertain the thought that perhaps they haven’t done anything wrong. Which leads me to my next conclusion: the opposition is not rational…
Because once you get passed the baggage, there is no there there.
He’s incapable of shame. And he’s incapable of being accountable for anything that-in his mind-doesn’t make him look good. So he’s incapable of learning anything on a moral level.
He’s in the most accountable position on earth.
Things will only get worse. We’re just getting started.
Booman
In your opinion why has the Democratic party lost so many state houses and state legislatures under the Obama leadership?
You know that the Republicans are one state away from calling a constitutional convention on their own.
Somehow I think the Democrats are not engaging in the self critiques & analysis sufficient to understand why they are faring so poorly in the states.