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Re: US Politics Thread
Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor
Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn.
The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.
He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing, on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically, of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump must remind people of their first wife. Actually his wife, Melania, is tougher than he is with her stoicism and grace, her self-discipline and desire to show the world respect by presenting herself with dignity.
Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.” The brutes. Actually they’ve been laboring to be loyal to him since Inauguration Day. “The Republicans never discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr. Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the press, he complained: “Every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting.” They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”
It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me. Why don’t they appreciate me?
His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong, cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery. “Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he tweeted this week. Talk about projection.
He told the Journal’s Michael C. Bender he is disappointed in Mr. Sessions and doesn’t feel any particular loyalty toward him. “He was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the endorsement.” Actually, Mr. Sessions supported him early and put his personal credibility on the line. In Politico, John J. Pitney Jr. of Claremont McKenna College writes: “Loyalty is about strength. It is about sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is costly, difficult or unpopular.” A strong man does that. A weak one would unleash his resentments and derive sadistic pleasure from their unleashing.
The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th century films—Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs. They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger.
But he was a comic. It was funny. He wasn’t putting it out as a new template for maleness. Donald Trump now is like an unfunny Woody Allen.
Who needs a template for how to be a man? A lot of boys and young men, who’ve grown up in a culture confused about what men are and do. Who teaches them the real dignity and meaning of being a man? Mostly good fathers and teachers. Luckily Mr. Trump this week addressed the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia, where he represented to them masculinity and the moral life.
“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts, right?” But he overcame his natural reticence. We should change how we refer to Washington, he said: “We ought to change it from the word ‘swamp’ to perhaps ‘cesspool’ or perhaps to the word ‘sewer.’ ” Washington is not nice to him and is full of bad people. “As the Scout Law says, ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal—we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that.” He then told them the apparently tragic story of a man who was once successful. “And in the end he failed, and he failed badly.”
Why should he inspire them, show personal height, weight and dignity, support our frail institutions? He has needs and wants—he is angry!—which supersede pesky, long-term objectives. Why put the amorphous hopes of the audience ahead of his own, more urgent needs?
His inability—not his refusal, but his inability—to embrace the public and rhetorical role of the presidency consistently and constructively is weak.
“It’s so easy to act presidential but that’s not gonna get it done,” Mr. Trump said the other night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. That is the opposite of the truth. The truth, six months in, is that he is not presidential and is not getting it done. His mad, blubbery petulance isn’t working for him but against him. If he were presidential he’d be getting it done—building momentum, gaining support. He’d be over 50%, not under 40%. He’d have health care, and more.
We close with the observation that it’s all nonstop drama and queen-for-a-day inside this hothouse of a White House. Staffers speak in their common yet somehow colorful language of their wants, their complaints. The new communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci, who in his debut came across as affable and in control of himself, went on CNN Thursday to show he’ll fit right in. He’s surrounded by “nefarious, backstabbing” leakers. “The fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don’t stink, and that’s me and the president.” He’s strong and well connected: “I’ve got buddies of mine in the FBI”; “ Sean Hannity is one of my closest friends.” He is constantly with the president, at dinner, on the phone, in the sauna snapping towels. I made that up. “The president and I would like to tell everybody we have a very, very good idea of who the leakers are.” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus better watch it. There are people in the White House who “think it is their job to save America from this president, okay?” So they leak. But we know who they are.
He seemed to think this diarrheic diatribe was professional, the kind of thing the big boys do with their media bros. But he came across as just another drama queen for this warring, riven, incontinent White House. As Scaramucci spoke, the historian Joshua Zeitz observed wonderingly, on Twitter: “It’s Team of Rivals but for morons.”
It is. And it stinks from the top.
Meanwhile the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it’s a good time to cause some trouble?
-WSJ
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: US Politics Thread
Some people wonder if you even served.
You posted this just to get a rise out of me. You won't. I don't need accolades from strangers on the internet. Check my IP address on any post from august 2008 to august 2009 on yours or this forum. I don't care.
This is what I mean. You can't defend your position. So you post something completely antagonistic and crude to deflect your own ignorance/inaccuracy.
Anyone who doesn't call you out on this nonsense is supporting willful ignorance. That's all I have to say on the subject.
Re: US Politics Thread
lol, so now it seems The President himself spoonfed Donnie Jr into saying the Russian lawyer meeting 'Was supposed to be about adoptions'.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics … 01112842d3
Remember when Jr first tried to sweep it under the rug, then the actual emails came out the next day with his & Jareds names on the emails.
Re: US Politics Thread
lol, so now it seems The President himself spoonfed Donnie Jr into saying the Russian lawyer meeting 'Was supposed to be about adoptions'.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics … 01112842d3
Remember when Jr first tried to sweep it under the rug, then the actual emails came out the next day with his & Jareds names on the emails.
This is a big deal.
ALSO it came out late last night that a lawsuit has been filed alleging that Trump colluded with Fox News to run that story about Seth Rich. Why? To distract from the Russia investigation. Trump's little bootlick Hannity, ran with that story 24/7.
We should just assume this now. Anything and everything that this man says or does, is to meant to mislead us. While we were talking about transgendered peeps in the military, an incriminating testimony was being given in regards to Russia. That's why the Pentagon was taken off guard by it. Trump was throwing red meat to the base while covering up the testimony.
Re: US Politics Thread
Trump is weak. How much longer until something happens?
Sen. Lindsey Graham: Trump Says War With North Korea an Option
There will be war between the United States and North Korea over the rogue nation's missile program if it continues to aim intercontinental ballistic missiles at America, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said President Donald Trump has told him.
"He has told me that. I believe him," the lawmaker said Tuesday on TODAY. "If I were China, I would believe him, too, and do something about it.
Graham said that Trump won't allow the regime of Kim Jong Un to have an ICBM with a nuclear weapon capability to "hit America."
"If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here. And He has told me that to my face," Graham said.
"And that may be provocative, but not really. When you're president of the United States, where does your allegiance lie? To the people of the United States," the senator said.
Military experts have said there are no good options for peacefully stopping North Korea, although the National Security Council has previously presented Trump with possibilities that could include putting American nukes in South Korea or killing Kim Jong Un.
Graham said military experts are "wrong" that no good options exist.
"There is a military option to destroy North Korea's program and North Korea itself," he added.
Ultimately, a conflict in the region that would likely ensnare China and South Korea could claim millions of lives.
North Korea first tested an ICBM on July 4, showing that it had a range of at least 3,500 miles — capable of reaching Alaska. The missile landed in the Sea of Japan.
North Korea state television heralded the test missile as a "major celebration in our history" and that they are "now a proud nuclear state."
The Pentagon announced Friday that the regime fired another ICBM, also landing in the Sea of Japan.
The U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called his South Korean counterpart to discuss "military response options" and to express "the ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance," a spokesman later said.
In response to the test, the U.S. and South Korea held a joint live fire exercise Saturday morning.
Pyongyang also confirmed the ICBM test launch, calling it a "stern warning" for the United States, Reuters reported.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy group, says estimates based on available information about the missile's trajectory showed it could "easily reach the U.S. West Coast and a number of major U.S. cities."
Trump tweeted Saturday that China has done "nothing" to rein in North Korea, and Japan's prime minister said he "fully agreed" that China should apply more pressure.
Ultimately, with North Korea showing no signs of slowing down its missiles testing, a military option can't be discounted, Graham said.
"I'm saying it's inevitable unless North Korea changes because you're making our president pick between regional stability and homeland security," he added. "He's having to make a choice that no president wants to make. They kicked the can down the road for 20 years, there's no place else to kick it."
Re: US Politics Thread
PaSnow wrote:lol, so now it seems The President himself spoonfed Donnie Jr into saying the Russian lawyer meeting 'Was supposed to be about adoptions'.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics … 01112842d3
Remember when Jr first tried to sweep it under the rug, then the actual emails came out the next day with his & Jareds names on the emails.
This is a big deal.
ALSO it came out late last night that a lawsuit has been filed alleging that Trump colluded with Fox News to run that story about Seth Rich. Why? To distract from the Russia investigation. Trump's little bootlick Hannity, ran with that story 24/7.
We should just assume this now. Anything and everything that this man says or does, is to meant to mislead us. While we were talking about transgendered peeps in the military, an incriminating testimony was being given in regards to Russia. That's why the Pentagon was taken off guard by it. Trump was throwing red meat to the base while covering up the testimony.
Does he really need to cover up the testimony at this point? They're holding their hands over their ears and saying 'nah nah nah nah, I don't hear it.'
As a couple members of this board continue to say, 'there's not evidence of wrong doing.'
Re: US Politics Thread
I think congress gave up on healthcare. The whole 'Kill Obamacare' was just to win the election. Honestly they could just take Obama's name off it, rename it 'MuricaCare and people would be thrilled.
I think they'll pick it up again next year, and honestly try to patch it up & legitimately fix what's going wrong with it. If they can't, it can then later be used as a 2018 mid-terms get out the vote bit.
