If you want to know why I am worried about how the president will behave today in Las Vegas, all you have to do is look at the reaction he got after his trip to Puerto Rico.
His supporters applauded again, pointing to his authenticity and moments of empathy. Puerto Ricans already upset with him before he landed were infuriated.
“He takes two weeks to visit a disaster zone where 3.5 million American citizens live. He arrives with a smile on his face, makes fun of the situation, shows no empathy, lies and lies on camera as he does 24-7. And then throws paper towel rolls to people in need as if he was playing Go Fetch with dogs,” said Joel Isaac, 27, a New York actor who moved from Puerto Rico three years ago.
Most of Isaac’s family is still on the island. He said he had never felt humiliated as a Puerto Rican until he watched Trump’s visit.
“It’s the whole scene where the privileged white man comes to save the brown peasants after they’ve been begging, thirsty and hungry. It’s super disgusting to see, honestly,” he said.
Is Trump going to console and reassure people in Nevada or is he going to humiliate them? Will he say all the wrong things?
Based on his record, I don’t expect him to make people feel better. I doubt people will be glad he came.
And I know almost to a certainty that he won’t offer to do anything that might actually prevent a future massacre, let alone actually follow through on any proposals.
The fact that I know so many people, many of them family who, no doubt, will be among those applauding his “authenticity”, makes me sick to my stomach. The man is a walking, talking piece of human garbage. And anyone who watches these regular displays of ritual abuse and public derision of innocent victims, and still views this man in a favorable light, is not someone I can respect, at all. It pains me greatly to say this, as almost my whole family is tremendously supportive and admiring of Trump. And I don’t know that I will ever be able to regain what has been lost among those people I love. At this juncture I really do question their humanity. This whole Las Vegas thing is just the tipping point of my emotional despair. I don’t think I have ever been in as low an emotional state as I am right now. I want to just exit this whole drama, and go somewhere I can enjoy some little bit of emotional and psychological peace. I am exhausted, physically and mentally. I have pulled off social media for the last couple of weeks, and I’m not sure I will go back. This 24-7 din of insane Trump clamoring is fast becoming more than I can take. What is left of our national soul is swirling down the shitter more every day. How did we get to this point? I just want all of it to stop. I don’t want to hate the people I love. But I have a hard time convincing myself to not feel that way.
How did we get to this point?
I am seriously considering the so-called “digital revolution” as the prime mover. The people who made it happen didn’t intend to have things go this way, but then neither did the early atomic physicists. What it has done is further trivialize everything it touches…the arts, the media, the entire working culture including he economy and every body who uses…and misuses…it.
As the Beatles sang in another context:
Unconscious, well-meaning prophecy.
What to do about it? As I sit in an Apple Store in the midst of yet another episode of that very
unpopular song “Computer Hell?”Go as dark as possible, I’m thinking.
eally.
The “dropping out” of the ’60s contemporized.
Your truly…
Art Ludd
Arthur, you are approaching levels of self-parody that are almost sublime. Three days of people openly and precisely complaining about what you do, and you do more of it: a puerile and asinine observation (that “the digital revolution” is responsible for Trump) combined with, of course, what we all really need right now: John Lennon’s most obscure lyric. Thanks for weighing in.
And of course you’re having computer problems. I’m sure the blue shirts want to strangle you. “He doesn’t listen! He tells us to ‘bet on it’!”
Our minds can be hijacked: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
Read it, if you can still concentrate that long. Maybe your own mind has been hijacked already. That would explain a great deal about your posts.
Like I said…
Sound familiar?
It should.
For all of us.
I do not have a smartphone addiction…I answer calls and make calls on my smartphone, use messages to accept and offer gigs to other musicians, use it for directions when I travel and subway/bus alerts when I am using public transportation .And I stay in touch with my significant other. That’s about it.
I do not use Twitter, and although a do use Facebook page that is dedicated to what I do for a living.
I check my email about 3 times a day…morning, afternoon and night.
I scan three news aggregators on my computer at home when I have the time…left, right and center.
And I post here, in the hopes that at least a few people might understand what I have to say and be the better for it.
Dassit.
An hour or two , tops, and I would have used that time on TV before the info revolution. TV? Only good sports, when I am unwinding from work.
And I am spending less and less time in places…like this one…where I encounter massive…not stupidity so much as sheer, eyes-wide-shut blindness.
You?
AG
I’ve had serious disagreements with you, but on the deleterious impact of the Internet, and how it trivializes everything, there’s no daylight between us. It’s been, in many ways, WORSE than Ztn.
Ridiculous. Read (just as a start) Jay Rosen on how the internet was the only counterforce to an entrenched and calcified press corps, forcing them to engage in self-recrimination (to a limited degree) and revolution. Josh Marshall’s Booker Prize and Glenn Greenwald’s Pulitzer were milestones in journalism.
(And please leave out any rebuttalvattack on latter-day Greenwald; you may as well be talking about a different person.)
Not ridiculous. Pluses and minuses that add up to different and overall so far not better or worse.
He’s saying it’s a net negative. (Or rather, Arthur Gilroy is saying it’s a net negative, and he’s saying there’s “no daylight” between their positions, so any nuance vanishes.)
To another historical figure, Helter Skelter was prophecy. Did not end well. Not sure I’d be eager to read too much into a rock lyric.
Might help to recall GWB on Karla Faye Tucker and GWB making a joke out of looking for the WMD. Ronald Reagan on Cadillac welfare queen (another false racist dog whistle). The difference isn’t substance but style. Trump crudely lets it all hang out; others wear a mask and censor their speech.
Seeing/hearing ugly honesty from a politician keeps most of the flock in the fold (because it reflects their real views), but those in the flock that can’t hear/see racist and cruel dog whistles and authentically aren’t racist and cruel will resign from the congregation. So, too soon to despair.
I never use the phrase “piece of shit” to insult someone, since I find it distasteful, but I’ve been making an exception in Trump’s case. He’s a piece of shit.
I totally understand how you feel, Mike. Because I am capable of empathy, unlike Trumop, I know how you feel and I feel the same way.
It’s overwhelming. Hang in there!
Hey Mike, really sorry that you’re feeling such despair.
I have this theory that Barack Obama broke the character judgments of republicans. For eight years, Fox News told them that this decent, well-meaning, hard-working, fair-minded, big-hearted, loyal family man was evil incarnate. Not just misguided or wrong on policy, but an evil man. Once you twist your mind to have such an obviously false assessment of a person, then you’re so out of whack that you can fall for an obvious charlatan like Donald Trump. Despite the fact that practically everyone who has ever interacted with him knows that he is a con-man and a grade-A asshole.
I will soldier through this. There is too much at stake. We have to defend Sherrod Brown here in Ohio, and I know I will be up for that task.
Your Obama assessment is so spot on. I spent 8 years listening to everyone in my family spout totally non-sensical, irrational, race-based vitriol about him that they had lapped up in their right wing bubble of lies and misinformation. And nothing would convince them they were wrong. Nothing. So many times I was the only one in the room not clinging to some fantastical view of him. They looked at me like I was some delusional kid, clinging to a Santa Claus fantasy well beyond an appropriate age. I thought they would eventually get better, that this whole insane period would pass, and we could get back to disagreeing and arguing on evidence. But it has only continued to get exponentially worse.
And now they are Trumpistas. Oblivious to his cruelness and inhumanity, because he is not attacking their white tribe. The madness continues unabated.
Right there with ya, Mike. What I tell myself is that if you spend many waking hours drinking Republican puke, out of the bottomless fonts of talk radio and Fox News/CNN, it changes you. It would change ANY of us, if we put ourselves in that situation willingly, because that’s how it goes with human beings: you become what you think about, or listen to. All the extreme behavior we’re all witnessing and had not seen before from people we’ve thought we were close to–stupendous insensitivity and wanton cruelty, rabid desire to hurt and maim and punish minorities and those seen as deviant or ‘weak’, taking pleasure at harm or punishment inflicted on those they see as their enemies, it’s all out in the open, and amplified manyfold, because it’s been publicly modeled and encouraged for a couple of decades by the media these folks saturate themselves in.
I’ve lost a few friends over Trump, including a former high school sweetheart who I’d been in touch with recently again after 50 years. These people may conduct themselves like the rest of us in many ways, but somehow they’ve decided it’s ok to destroy (literally and figuratively, via their vote) the people they’ve been taught to hate viciously.
Places like Booman’s, Gene Weingarten’s chats at the Wash Post, and a few other venues where the moral flame still burns bright, are where I like to be.
Victims mostly white CW fans. And they’re not demanding federal funds. So, he’ll mouth the appropriate words — including how much he loves CW music and that CW fans love him and guns.
A decent percentage of the victims I saw profiled in the Washington Post last night were Latinos, and the majority of victims appeared to be from California.
This idea that the crowd was all-white episode of Hee Haw is inaccurate.
Don’t be hating on Hee Haw. The cast was made up of spectacular musicians.
I didn’t mean to disparage Hee Haw. I apologize.
When did the word mostly change to exclusively?
(As the Hispanic/Latino population of Nevada is 28.5%, AA 9.6%, and Asian 8.7% and CW music crossed ethnic lines decades ago, it would have been extremely odd if there weren’t large numbers of non-whites at the concert.)
If you want to dispute the political lean of CW fans implied in my comment, we can discuss that. Other than that, there’s nothing in my comment that reflects my view or opinion of CW fans; so, it’s exceeding rude of you to claim that it does and to ascribe a stereotypical negative opinion to me. That’s an annoying habit of yours.
But he always fucks it up (and in always the same way) by saying “Have a good time” or “it was a beautiful crowd.” It’s like Imelda Marcos leaving the NYC courthouse and waving placidly at screaming demonstrators: he doesn’t know any other way to converse with people but to treat them like “fans.”
True, but only for those that already view him as a shallow nincompoop. And they aren’t in the cheering and applauding crowds that he addresses.
Remember GWB’s post 9/11 injunction? Go shopping.
I think crowds at a rally — signing “loyalty oaths” etc. — imagining a future president Trump or engaging in collective magical thinking about his current performance (with him reading his clippings etc.) are very different from shocked, bereaved disaster survivors specifically wanting emotional support.
Is that who will be attending his photo-op today?
People look to family and friends for emotional support in times of personal tragedy and distress. A few words from a president or celebrity – even when delivered one-on-one – is a photo-op. Concerning that in our celebrity culture people mistake the latter for the former.
So why are we even having this discussion?
Come on; a President coming around and hugging people and listening to their stories is a big deal. Obama was particularly good at it.
We’re having this discussion because the claim is that Trump can’t console victims.
Would you like to change it to claim that President Trump coming around and hugging/listening wouldn’t be a big deal? That event advance aides wouldn’t vet the potential recipients of the “big deal?” Would disagree with such claims.
What troubles me is that “big deal” gets equated with consolation and that these “big deals” have become an expected ritual duty of a POTUS. “Hey sorry about your personal tragedy, but a photo/selfie of you with the POTUS will make you and lots of other people feel better.”
Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody but himself and his. But if you haven’t noticed that he can fake it, then you haven’t been paying attention for the past two years. Perhaps Obama does have more natural empathy for stranger individuals or perhaps he’s just a better actor. No way for the public to know which one is correct and probably doesn’t matter.
“He can’t even fake it,” according to Josh Marshall (and I agree):
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/he-cant-even-fake-it
(From September 2)
Anyway, come on. The president (any president) goes to a disaster site and does whatever they do, and either it provides consolation or it doesn’t. BooMan argues that Trump can’t provide consolation (whereas, I’m adding, Obama could; Clinton could). But you’re now saying that no matter what it’s always just a “photo op” so the question is moot…in which case, what are we even discussing? (The conversational logic is pretty clear.)
And of course you had to gratuitously bash Obama (“a better actor.”) I understand that you dislike him for various reasons but can’t you allow that he was good at this part (as well as acknowledging that it’s a legitimate part of any president’s rôle)?
That wasn’t a gratuitous criticism of Obama. It was a criticism of those that read into photo ops what they want to see/believe was in the head/heart of the subject and objects. As if a photograph or video is reality.
— All the world’s a stage —
Reagan had B movie acting chops; not good enough for Broadway or the Hollywood A-list but a ticket to the WH. Could the general public perceive that he was playing a role? My actor friends could because it was so obvious to them but never met anyone else that even had an inkling.
Trump’s acting chops are only slightly better than that of the average politician. Just good enough that he was able to quickly adapt to appearances on a live stage with a large audience and engage in debates. Neither of which he had ever done before. And slightly beat the gaggle of his GOP opponents on the authenticity dimension and that had to have trumped the favorable/unfavorable dimension because on that several of his opponents scored higher.
AG and (to a lesser extent) I perceived that early on. My own biases precluded a clearer perception on that — at a visceral level, men like Trump repulse me. But at least I wasn’t blind. I don’t think my perceptions on this matter have deteriorate or I’ve adjusted them to compensate for my biases in the past two years. (Recall that I only projected that Trump would do better in the general election than the consensus expectation but couldn’t see the one state he needed to win and therefore, expected a Clinton win.) As Trump barely won, my biases are close to negligible interference.
Have your perceptions on this matter improved since last year?
My perceptions are just fine, thank you very much, and I stand by everything I believed, commented and wrote about Trump going all the way back to 2015, and furthermore as a lifelong New Yorker of a certain age I’m deeply familiar with Trump going all the way back and have no trouble at all understanding him (and “viscerally loathing” him).
Again, this is a typical Marie3 unnecessary altercation, because we don’t necessarily disagree (and, as I’ve said more than once, I admire your intelligence, perception and thinking) but you’re so infuriatingly didactic and confrontational that you can’t calm down and acknowledge that your position makes it impossible for you to recognize the rhetorical, psychological or political value of any U. S. President appearing in the wake of a disaster/tragedy and making the right noises — it’s all “a script” because nobody’s going to catch you entrapped in any sentiment; you’re too smart — which means that BooMan’s entire topic (“The President Can’t Console”) is rendered moot and you shouldn’t even be commenting on it at all.
And like the huckster he is, he tossed in a goodie:
Yesterday he said he would wipe out the PR debt. Today, open invites to the WH. Does the donald enjoy digging in his empty hole or just issuing empty promises?
It’s one of his ticks — never missing an opportunity to make himself look like his notion of a big shot. Common among hustlers. The empty promise — particularly those that wouldn’t even cost him a penny if some promisee forced him deliver — is a standard stock in the trade.
Wouldn’t put much credence in Trump’s report of his offer and the response. Very few promisees don’t recognize an empty promise for what it is. Like, “We’ll do lunch; I’ll call.”
OTOH, supporters/fans are less discerning. They buy that the empty promise is genuine and that makes them like the promisor. And maybe just a bit envious that they aren’t the promisee.
“If you want to know why I am worried about how the president will behave today…”
And you are worried about this because…? Being the asshole that he is might be the only way that his base gets the message that his is in fact, an asshole.
As much as his base likes that he “says it like it is”, that sentiment is skin deep. The sooner he mocks the victims of this attack, the better. These people don’t get the message until it effects them personally.
I expect him to take the opportunity to praise the 2nd Amendment and to say how this is not a real tragedy like the bombings in Paris and London.
Why not if it’s good enough for Steve Scalise….
He wins Republican Bingo if he blames Godless liberals and Hillary Clinton.
Wrong! You forgot the most important Bingo Square: blaming Obama!! Who is so divisive that everything bad that happens now and forever is Obama’s fault.
BINGO!!
He can’t console people because he lacks the ability to process emotion. He lacks empathy, the ability to understand feelings that other people have. Whatever his history is, whatever happened to him in his youth, he’s broken.
The man cannot even offer simple, sincere statements about anything. He sees everything through some selfish, distorted frame that fractures feelings like a prism refracts light. What troubles me about Trump is that he’s been granted the keys to not just the White House, but the entire world, and he’s emotionally and intellectually incapable of handling it. Nothing will make him better at it. And his team of advisers, chosen to take government apart, are doing their best to make that happen, because Trump’s lack of empathy allows all of them to destroy lives with no regrets.
But he’s perceived as a successful dealmaker, so who are we mere mortals to question his abilities?
sigh