How Anti-Trump Hyperbole Fosters Insanity
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
One the strangest features of our political life in the United States today is the reckless abandon of our rhetoric. “Oh, that’s because Donald Trump has debased political discourse,” you say. “He calls women ‘dogs,' he refers to Kim Jong-un as ‘Rocket Man,’ he says the press is ‘fake news’ and the ‘enemy of the people,’” etc., etc.
But that’s not the whole story, is it? Some diligent scribe should do a little historical digging and tabulate where, in each case of rhetorical Trumpery, the insults and opprobrium started. Did Donald Trump start the abuse? Or did his targets open hostilities?
In many, maybe most (maybe all) cases I suspect you will find that Trump’s invectives were rejoinders, i.e., responses to earlier provocations and expressions of contempt. Trump made fun of “low-energy Jeb,” but wasn’t that after Jeb said some pretty disagreeable things about Trump?
In any event, however the matter of precedent shakes out, there is also the issue of extreme rhetoric feeding extreme feelings and extreme actions. Simply put, the anti-Trump chorus has worked itself into a frenzy of trembling rage and hysterical overstatement. Trump is Hitler (literally); his behavior is “ treasonous ” (or, as The New York Times put it, he is a “ treasonous traitor ”); he is a “ fascist ,” a “ moron ," a “ tyrant ” who (as tyrants tend to do) is taking the United States down “ the path to tyranny .” Et very much cetera .
Now in one sense this is just business as usual when a Republican is in office. Every GOP president going back at least to Nixon has been compared to Hitler. If Hitler hadn’t existed, the Left would have had to invent him. Even squeaky clean Mitt Romney was Hitler for a Day, an evil man who (maybe) once bullied a classmate in high school and later put the family dog in a cage on the roof of his car. Horrors!
All this is well-trod ground. If you’re conservative, you’re evil by definition and its open season as far as the mainstream media is concerned.
But the reaction to Donald Trump, although it began by following this playbook, has mutated into something different and more toxic.
One expression of that toxic difference is the cabal of former high-ranking government officials who, in a marked departure from past practice, have embarked on very public campaigns against the president. One thinks of jabbering John Brennan, Obama’s head of the CIA, for example. Brennan’s incontinent ravings on Twitter and on MSNBC have been as embarrassing as they are alarming. James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, has not been far behind in his commentary at CNN. And then there is the smarmiest of them all, Obama’s FBI director, the moist James Comey, who wrote a bestselling book about how noble and high-minded he is and how horrible and misguided is President Trump.
Once upon a time, and it was not a long time ago, people who had been entrusted with such august responsibilities would have maintained a dignified silence upon leaving office. Donald Trump has catalyzed them (as he has catalyzed Hillary Clinton) into an embarrassing emunctory garrulousness. (There is also the little matter of lucre: those contracts with CNN and MSNBC, those book advances and royalties.)
But there is something else, something darker and more twisted, at work here. In the Republic , Socrates notes that while many people may lie with abandon, the one thing no one can countenance is the “lie in the soul” that makes it impossible to distinguish reliably between truth and falsehood.
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No. The insanity taking over discourse and truth was legitimized by Birtherism. It was permitted to exist although its basis was absolutely false and grounded in a 'not so subtle' vein of racism.
Yes, there is something in the water. And the right wing with the aid of Russian propaganda is responsible.
Capitalism? Bull. Capitalism is dead. Murdered by Supply Side Economics.
The 'real problem' for America is fear, hate, division and wealth concentration. All of them fostered by the right wing with help from Putin's oligarchy.
Yes, Trumpism IS birtherism, they are one and the same, based in the same alternate reality.
Particularly true since Trump is the King of the racist Birthers.
I wonder if any other presidents kept a copy of Hitler's speeches at their bedside or expressed the kind of fascist and despotic views that Trump has? Certainly we've had other presidents who were xenophobic and white supremacist but I doubt we've had any who so flagrantly ran on those issues. Heck, Trump has even retweeted neo-Nazis.
“Oh, that’s because Donald Trump has debased political discourse,” you say. “He calls women ‘dogs,' he refers to Kim Jong-un as ‘Rocket Man,’ he says the press is ‘fake news’ and the ‘enemy of the people,’” etc., etc. But that’s not the whole story, is it?"
All of those are facts that in any other Presidency would have been enough to question his competency.
"Some diligent scribe should do a little historical digging and tabulate where, in each case of rhetorical Trumpery, the insults and opprobrium started. Did Donald Trump start the abuse? Or did his targets open hostilities?"
Yes, Trump started all this mess by being such a piece of shit husband (cheated on all 3 of his wives), a piece of shit business man (ran at least 4 companies into bankruptcy), a piece of shit political figure (push a BS racist narrative of questioning President Obama's legitimacy) then called women "dogs" tweeted "fire & fury" and "rocket man" at an unstable authoritarian with newly acquired nuclear weapons, was caught on tape admitting to grabbing women he was attracted to by their pussies without "even waiting" for consent, had to fire his choice for National Security Advisor because of the lies about Russia, had his choice for Attorney General recuse himself over the same, the head of his campaign has been arrested, charged and found guilty on 8 counts of fraud and tax evasion, had nearly a dozen other campaign and transition members plead guilty or been indicted of lying to investigators, had his personal attorney turn States evidence and implicate Trump as an unnamed co-conspirator, tried to delay the implementation of bipartisan sanctions against Russia for almost 6 months after a super majority bin the house and senate passed them, continues to deny that Russia was behind the hack and propaganda campaign to get him elected despite every intelligence agency concluding they were and even Putin himself when asked “President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?” said “Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.–Russia relationship back to normal.” If this gun had any more smoke it would still be on fire.
Where there is smoke there is fire. Trump is a traitor to US interests.
You're forgetting:
Record tariffs.
Record deficit.
Record indictments.
Record lies.
Record ethics violations.
Record Russian support.
Building up the US military is being a traitor?
increasing Veterans rights and choices is being a traitor?
Increasing oil and gas exports is being a traitor?
more than doubling GDP is being a traitor?
promoting pride in America is being a traitor?
record number of federal Constitutionalist justices confirmed is being a traitor?
reducing the amount of money the government steals from individuals and businesses is being a traitor?
we can go on and on about all the great things President Trump is accomplishing for our country.
There aren't record deficits.
Just another false statement by the left to attack Trump. Funny how they whine about lies, but rarely are offer honest attacks.
It lasts.
You are correct since anyone that thinks this works has no brain. We are losing the tariff war to China, not to mention that tariffs are just taxes on American companies that want to import from China.
Obama's was for the stimulus package that moved us out of the recession instead of into a depression, and adding Bush 2's war onto the books. Trump's deficit increase was just to give more money to the already wealthiest.
See the difference???
They were all for people hired by Trump and part of his campaign team or administration. Outside that you are trying to move the goalposts to cover your lack of explanation/spin.
He has left every other politician in the dust, he has lied more in his 1 1/2 years than any other did in a full 8. But I see you are condoning his lies...
There is this thing called "the internet", inside "the internet" you can go to this place called a search engine (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Goose), from these search engines you can type in the words "Trump administration ethics", and you will get pages and pages listing every official investigation that has occurred during his administration. You can also get a list of news stories listing the multitudes of ethics investigations.
But since I don't think you'll put out the effort: Ethics Report On Trump Administration: The Most Unethical Presidency
My best response to that is.....
True, the current $833 billion annual deficit has nothing on the records set by the last Republican in the white house leaving President Obama with a $1.4 trillion annual deficit. But $833 billion is still over $200 billion worse than the $585 billion deficit Obama handed Trump.
Annual deficits by year:
Jan 2009 (when Obama was inaugurated): $1.413 trillion
2010: $1.294 trillion
2011: $1.295 trillion
2012: $1.087 trillion
2013: $679 billion
2014: $485 billion
2015: $438 billion
2016: $585 billion
2017: $665 billion
2018: $833 billion
Notice how it was dropping almost every year under Obama while the Republicans railed against any deficit spending, now that they're controlling the white house it's jumping up. More proof that Republicans only care about deficits when the Democrats are in office, as soon as they're in control they start spending like there's no consequence. Trump and the republicans have already added nearly $2 trillion of new debt and with his tax cuts that aren't seeing the claimed jump in GDP that number is going to grow exponentially in the next 2 years. Economists project our debt to reach $24 trillion by the end of Trumps presidency in 2020.
To bad neither political party actually has the will to get the deficit under control and start paying down the debt, but the insincerity, lies and faux outrage by Republicans truly takes the cake when it comes to political slime.
Sure, it wasn't the years of fiscal mismanagement and two unfunded wars started by Republicans that led to the financial crisis and great recession, it's all the Democrats fault who had to clean up the mess and start putting the quagmire wars on the books. /s
The repeal of glass steagall was written by and passed by the Republican majority who then used their leverage from the impeachment to essentially force Clinton to sign it. Then they gave away trillions in tax cuts during the first Bush term to the wealthiest Americans ballooning the deficit and kept it rising for 6 years till Democrats gained control just prior to the financial meltdown. It's like a drunk bus driver speeding toward the edge of a cliff and just before going over the edge he jumps out of the drivers window leaving the passenger to try and slow it down and turn it around, then blaming the passengers for the inevitable damage and injuries.
How Anti-Trump Hyperbole Fosters Insanity
IMO: Too far from center either way fosters a form of insanity in people’s brains.
I don’t pay much attention to either Left or Right radicals nor do I give either much credence.
It would be interesting to see the similarities of these two groups compared I’ll bet they actually have a lot of personality traits in common.
Anti-Trump Hyperbole Fosters Insanity
Verses
Pro -Trump Hyperbole Fosters Insanity
............................................................
O The Insanity of it all !!!
No hyperbole. Trump is actually scum of the Earth.
Anyone who actually subscribes to this theory is part of a very core fundamental problem with our society. i.e., a total lack of personal responsibility combined with the practice of generating self-esteem through false victimhood. (that was a mouthful)
I don't like a lot of things Trump says, but every person is responsible for the way they speak. "Discourse" is a communication between two or more people. Trump does not make anyone lower the dignity levels of their own speech. They do that all on their own.
In these times, everyone is a victim. Whatever failing they have personally or professionally is someone else's fault. And everyone who speaks now can be as nasty as they wanna be and it's ok because it's Trump's fault. That is extremely sad and pathetic to me.
I'm just glad that we finally have a president who retweets neo-Nazis memes and gets banned from funerals.
At least he knows how to work a computer - apparently.
Apparently he doesn't even know how to use email. All he can do is use his phone and his thumbs to tweet racist memes.
I sense you're not even trying to see the bright side.
The bright side? I suppose the fact that he keeps a copy of Hitler's collected speeches by his bedside might indicate that he's not completely illiterate, but maybe Melaria reads them to him before she goes to bed in her room.
There is no bright side when it comes to Trump. Trump embraces all that is negative in our social discourse.
Yeah in a way it is. From what I remember America has always looked out for and helped other countries. I think it was part of the strategy of promoting and spreading democracy.
It's probably too late anyway, many other countries probably don't want a government like ours is now any longer anyway. They are probably seeing all the internal problems and infighting we have with our government officials that is dividing our citizens and want no part of this shit themselves.
Can't say as I would blame em !
IMO: Make America great at the expense of ignoring the needs and wants of other countries and we'll have a huge target on our back for as long as it lasts.
Good Luck America !!
No, I actually see that attitude as the attitude of our president. America first.
I see this attitude as an extension of trump's winning at all cost attitude and I doubt it goes over internationally very well. While we may "conquer" the world for a time we will like I said have a huge bullseye on our back from then on.
Good Luck with this America.
There is a cost to winning at all cost, we just haven't seen it YET !
I agree, I always wondered why we thought we had to be the world's police force to begin with. Why do we care what the rest of the world does unless or until they come here we are an island.
I never thought we were much better than other countries that push their kind of government like communism but I was just glad we seemed to be winning and didn't end up surrounded by a bunch communists style countries.
If we do manage to scrap our way to the top of the heap though and little consideration is given to those we deal with, I sincerely doubt all goes well or lasts.
IMO: Houses built on sand dont last the president should know that and care this president and his winning at all cost doesn't seem to consider there really is always a cost, even if it just hasn't materialize as of yet.
It will be interesting to see where president trump leads us and where and what condition he leaves this country in when his time is done.
Will we rise to the top ? If we do will we be despised and have everyone want us gone ? or will we rise and be respected for how we accomplished it ?
Like I said it's gonna be interesting.
Roger Kimball is a talented writer. Talented... but slimey... dishonest... cheater...
He starts with a sentence that everyone will agree with
... and then proceeds to recklessly abandon journalistic decency:
links to an article in the Sacramento Bee ( As Trump consolidates his power, the history of 1930s Germany repeats itself ) that documents the parallels between the US today and Germany in the 1930s. The article does not say that Trump is Hitler .
links to a quote from John Brennan: "Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???"
links to a piece by Charles M Blow - not the NYT Editorial Board - detailing the President's "aid and comfort" to a hostile nation.
links to an article that is three years old. That's pretty old - I'm sure Kimball could find more recent uses of "fascist". I'll be glad to use it, because it is accurate.
links to a guy who is specialized in nuclear affairs and more precisely to East Asian nuclear affairs , in the context of Trump's handling of the North Korean problem. "Moronic" is about as kind as one may be when describing the way Trump has made both himself and the USA ridiculous.
links to an article on "CBS3 in Philly":
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney called President Trump a “tyrant” who “is trying to turn this country into a dictatorship.” The mayor made the comments on CBSN on Tuesday morning after the White House disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles from a celebration for the team’s Super Bowl victory.
“Cities need to stand up in this country, and many mayors have stood up in this country against this tyrant,” Kenney said. “He is trying to turn this country into a dictatorship by ignoring the courts and by saying and doing what he wants, by ignoring the Department of Justice … and in the end this will all come to a conclusion, and it won’t be a good ending for him.”
There's an excellent video.
Yup! Kimball is resurrecting the White House's "disinvitation" to the NFL champion Eagles, and quoting an angry mayor completely out of context.
This is crap journalism.
This crap is what right-wing hacks produce every day.
This ( I can't say it again because it might be a CoC violation ) is what HA seeds every day.
What would we ever do without our daily edition of "Liberals Are Stinky"?
ok.. so we have the "but Mommy !! he started it first !" defense for the conservative minded who are enamored with President Trump ? Let's just pretend that there was no opposition to Obama and no negative stories about Obama -- or any other prior President, shall we ? this way the conservative minded and their beloved President, with whom they are enamored, can play the "victim card" repeatedly and try to gain sympathy.
This section does , depressingly, discuss the crux of the matter. If you say something "disagreeable" about Trump he will lash back with much worse in most cases. He considers it effective. Most reasonable people think he is a ridiculous and frankly idiotic bully.
If there has ever been anyone who deserves to have hostilities opened on him, it is Donald Trump. He lies constantly, belittles everyone in sight, and is a complete dumbass about most things connected to his job, but insists on calling himself a "stable genius" and says that if he leaves office the country will face economic disaster.
Anyone who voted for Trump or supports him today should be completely ashamed of themselves.
why? we are having the time of our lives...
more manufacturing jobs, lower taxes, working on better trade deals (didja know nafta just died?)
a president doing what we asked him to do is nothing to be ashamed about.
an interesting tid bit about todays demise of nafta.
by doing what he did with mexico trump basically told canada we will make this deal without you.
so get on board or your out... LOL
I’m proud of what President Trump is accomplishing for our country. You leftists can just keep stomping your feet while you suck your thumbs and whine. At least you’ll be acting your emotional age
So you're proud that he's increased deficit spending by over $200 billion a year and added nearly $2 trillion more to the debt? You're proud that he's set the example of cheating on all three of his wives and secretly paid at least a quarter of a million to keep a porn star and playboy playmate quiet about his shameful adultery while his wife was at home taking care of their 18 month old child? You're proud of Trumps statement that he doesn't "even wait" for consent and just grabs women he finds attractive by the genitals? You're proud of his narcissism, his petulant tantrums, his disrespect for our global allies while praising authoritarian leaders? You're proud he's lied over 4,000 times since taking office? You're proud that over 60% of his tax cuts will go to the wealthiest Americans while causing the debt and deficit to balloon? You're proud that in his first 365 days as President he had an unprecedented 43% of the staff and cabinet picks leave, been fired, are under investigation for fraud or had been arrested? That's double any prior administration since the National Journal started keeping track.
I really can't imagine how anyone could be proud of that kind of horrid record.
And here's how he's doing on the deficit that all his sycophant followers claim they elected him for in order to get the supposed "out of control Obama spending" reduced. Apparently when they said "reduced", they really meant "increased by $200 billion a year".
Annual deficits by year:
Jan 2009 (when Obama was inaugurated): $1.413 trillion
2010: $1.294 trillion
2011: $1.295 trillion
2012: $1.087 trillion
2013: $679 billion
2014: $485 billion
2015: $438 billion
2016: $585 billion
2017: $665 billion
2018: $833 billion
Not at all, it's there in the deficit spending numbers and was necessary to stabilize our financial markets that were at risk of collapse that would have led to an actual depression instead of a recession if we hadn't.