The Carpentariat

In politics, the word "tweet" should be abandoned

Nancy Pelosi's remark on the House floor today (which was fascinating C-Span viewing) that the president has delivered "disgraceful, disgusting and racist" words were instantly denounced by House brownshirts, and they demanded that her words be stricken from the record. (They weren't.) Pelosi was referring, of course, to Trump's recent "tweets."

I have always recoiled from the word tweet in political contexts. Tweets are gentle, melodious, avian warbles; Trump's, especially, are foghorns — loud and obnoxious.

As a replacement word I suggest, among other possibles, comcrap, tintinnabulation, klaxon, bellow, broadside, croak, squall, screech, howler, squeal, whinny, gripe, or bellyache.

Anything but "tweet."

An apology

OK, I'll man-up and apologize for my ill-considered belittlement of Walmart shoppers as nearly uniform Trump supporters. From people's whose opinion I respect, via email and the comment section, I have learned I polemically overreached.

My intent was not to denigrate all such shoppers as ill-kempt, intellectually lazy reactionaries. That, or so I believed, would have been too unbelievable, thus no one would have taken it that seriously. My intent, rather, was to use Walmart symbolically; only that. I could have chosen instead, as a symbolic target, any congregation of Southern Baptists or other Christian fundamentalists who pray so piously for this demonic president. I then would have heard that I'm virulently anti-organized religion (which I am).

Nevertheless, I was wrong in writing what I wrote. I won't pull the political ruse of saying I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Clearly I did. So, I apologize.

Republicans preview their 2020 strategy

On national television Republicans' Ministry of Truth leaders convened this morning and the outcome was as predictable as when Goebbels accused Poland of having initiated offensive military actions against Germany.

Their outrage was directed not at the presidential perpetrator of monstrously racist remarks, but at the "Squad" in particular — Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar — and far more generally the Democratic Party of which they are members.

The RNC chair led off by saying this controversy "has absolutely nothing to do with race or gender." Those are purely coincidental; the four Democratic lawmakers all just happen to be women of color. Rep. Virginia Foxx went after them for wanting to "abolish ICE and destroy Medicare" — the latter being a historically sacred Republican program. Rep. Steve Scalise later added unintended humor: When Republicans differed with President Obama, "We expressed our disagreements in a respectful way."

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, after praising (Obama's) economy, asserted the party's fundamental assault: that this conflict is not about racism, it's about ideology. All of which explains Trump Inc.'s 2020 strategy: painting all Democrats red, determined to convert America into a quasi-communist state, rather than the Putinlike authoritarian hellhole it's already becoming.

The principal takeaways from Republicans' playbook and defense of the indefensible are almost too familiar to rehash. But rehash I shall. They never apologize and invariably dissemble, they never show shame, they always double-down, they always attack, attack, attack. And now the party of the Great Emancipator is officially America's party of white nationalism as well.

"DARVO"

Historian Heather Cox Richardson has introduced me to the term "DARVO" — "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender."

One of Trump's latest tweets: "If Democrats want to unite around the foul language & racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular & unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out."

Now, a sampling of the Prince of DARVO, pre-presidency:

"Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up!"

"Should be public execution for all to see-you will end this bullshit fast!"

"This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop."

"I don't know how much longer I can take this bullshit." [We're with you there.]

"Come on @DannyZuker [who?], take the bet, show your friends and family (& your bosses on Modern Family) that you're not 'chicken shit.'"

"@dannyzuker I hope you pick up a lot of twitter followers by this so people can see what a total asshole you are!"

"'@johnnyhabit: @realDonaldTrump why the fuck do I even follow you?' Because you're addicted to genius, asshole!"

"'@JefePinal: @realDonaldTrump is a fucking genius.' TRUE!"

"'@twitt_be_cray: @realDonaldTrump go fuck yourself you dumb fuck' When was the last time you had a date-such terrible language."

News coverage of Trump's (most recent) racism

CNN's media correspondent, Brian Stelter, took a look at how major news organs covered Trump's "straight up racist" tweet yesterday. "Did the news media accurately describe it that way?"

Stelter's network was solidly overt, as was most of MSNBC's programming. "On Fox News … the word was only used by guests or attributed to critics," thus covering not the news but perpetuating hyperpartisanship and the culture/race wars, which is Fox's sole raison d'être.

Otherwise, in battles between yearning candid reporters and cowering editors and publishers, straightforward honesty lost. The story was subsumed as a partisan squabble.

"Democrats are calling the remarks racist," said ABC's anchor Tom Llamas. On NBC, Kate Snow said Trump's tweet was "inflammatory, with many decrying it as racist." Her colleague Hans Nichols "quoted various condemnations from Dem lawmakers and said 2020 candidates 'piled on' with criticism." Other NBC correspondents said merely that "some have branded his comments as racist."

It seems CBS removed the word "racist" altogether. "Trump took aim at a familiar target today, Democrats. This time, though, he aimed at four progressive lawmakers, all of them women of color," said anchor Elaine Quijano.

The Washington Post simply referenced Nancy Pelosi's remark that Trump's tweet was "racist and divisive." The LA Times said "it's usually considered a racist taunt." The AP's story mentioned Trump's "'long history of making racist remarks,' but left it to Democrats to say."

This morning's NYT's above-the-fold headline? "Trump's Tweet Was Condemned as Racist."

The Fourth Estate is far from being the enemy of the people. But it must be more than gentle acquaintances of the people.N

Trump and his 160 million racist gang

And so they go on, the quisling cowards and collaborators of the once-Grand Old Party. The Times:

"Republican lawmakers, by and large, did not rush to the president’s side on Sunday..., but neither did they jump forward to denounce him…. They worry about offending the base voters who cheer on the president as a truth-teller taking on the tyranny of political correctness."

To acknowledge that four Democratic lawmakers, three born in America and one naturalized, is somehow the scourge of political correctness has to be the apotheosis of tyrannical imbecility.

The former president of one of Trump's failed casinos said yesterday: "Trump has not only always been a racist, but anyone around him who denies it, is lying. Donald Trump makes racist comments all the time.

"Trump, he said, regularly trafficked in racial stereotypes — Jews were good with money, blacks were lazy, Puerto Ricans dressed badly."

Well, for the racist yahoos who put this despicable president and his poltroonish congressional defenders in office, here's some rancid political incorrectness you claim to so adore. Have you ever been at a Walmart on a Saturday afternoon? Of course you have. And there you witnessed a sea of white families who looked as though they just got off the boat fleeing from the Irish potato famine: sartorially offensive parents with sniveling spawns who will mature into the same ignoramuses as their, ahem, guardians.

Trump goes full racist meshuga

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

Trump's insufferable racism is surpassed only by his ineffable ignorance. His four Democratic targets are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.

Cortez was born in New York,; Pressley, in Cincinnati; Tlaib, in Detroit. Only Omar was born overseas — in war-torn Somalia — from which her family emigrated to the U.S. in 1992.

I doubt it, but Trump may actually know this, and all he wanted to do was serve up more raw-meat racism to his equally ignorant base. 

Backup Bennet

Should Joe Biden ever fail to overcome his Democratic opponents' gangbanger assaults on his Senate, veep, and toilet training years, we can always take heart that there's another moderate rather likely to assume his leading status of political maturity, for those who prefer winning elections instead of going down with idealistic tambourine rattlers.

He's Colorado's Sen. Michael Bennet, who has so far faltered in the polls — but that could change. Here's a cursory look at his record, and proposals:

He helped negotiate the 2013 comprehensive immigration proposal.

He advocates a citizenship path for undocumented workers with a clean record.

He supports extending DACA.

He is a strong voice for education reform; he once served as Denver's schools superintendent. "There’s no public good that’s more important than education," he says, which is so patently true, Republicans cannot understand it.

He is a supporter of larger Pell Grants, another commonsensical position that aggregates the GOP's obscurantist brain.

He is has denounced Citizens United.

He is a proponent of rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and rescinding Trump's vindictive destruction of President Obama's clean energy regulations.

He endorses natural gas and backs job retraining for those losing their coal-and-oil livelihoods.

He has committed to an expanded earned-income tax credit.

He is politically invested in infrastructure upgrades, rural high-speed broadband, and artificial intelligence projects.

He has prioritized a public option in health care and opposes the unworkable measure of Medicare for all.

Like Biden's, Bennet's record could attract millions of moderates and swing voters. It's something to keep in mind. For the future.

The Dems' two parties

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll suggests, quite unsensationally, that in the Democratic presidential primary race, there are two principal camps.

"There’s the primary between candidates and Dem voters who want big, bold change" — 54 percent — with Elizabeth Warren in the lead, reports NBC News. "And there’s the primary between those who simply want to defeat Trump" — 41 percent — led by Joe Biden.

Among the former group, the consensus is for a nominee "who proposes larger-scale policies that might cost more and be harder [read: impossible] to pass — but could still result in major change." The opposing camp prefers a presidential nominee "who pushes for smaller-scale policies that cost less and might be easier [read: nearly impossible] to pass — but that bring less change."

Now I'm all for change, big change, even that privileged progressive cliché, bold change. Regrettably, we'd need a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and a supermajority Democratic Senate to achieve anything like it.

And Democrats will never get there as long as they campaign on big, big changes, such as Medicare for all.

Because here's the problem.

Whole armies of voters may harbor enthusiasm for big change, and that, they will tell pollsters without equivocation. But then they learn of the price tag in terms of increased taxes, and their enthusiasm shrivels like George Costanza's pecker after swimming in a cold pool. So they vote instead for the "safer" option, such as some Republican blockhead from the Middle Ages.

A return to advocating something more incremental, such as a public option, would be politically wiser and more fiscally attractive. But bold progressives just can't seem to grasp that. It lacks a revolutionary spirit, and that's the most withering accusation one could ever level against Trotskyite progressives.

Presidential strategery II

I remember it well, the morning of June 3, 1944, when Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower tweeted to world that Allied forces would be invading Normandy three days later. Some of our friends thought Eisenhower's heads-up tweet was injudicious, but the supreme commander was a sporting man: Let's even the odds.

Following in Eisenhower's large footsteps, Trump has likewise tweeted his mass deportation plan, three days before deployment, which has "blindsid[ed] ICE agents whose safety officials feared would be compromised as a result," writes the Times.

It gets worse. "[ICE] authorities might detain immigrants who happened to be on the scene, even though they were not targets of the raids…. Undocumented parents could be separated from any of their children who are American citizens." On the other hand, the arrest of innocent family members of suspected ideological outlaws has been common practice in other authoritarian states. One must be vigilant and uncaring, if one wishes to be a first-rate authoritarian thug.

Our internal, modern-day outlaws have devised an ingenious defense against Trump's jack-booted transgressors. This isn't laugh-out-loud funny, but it is imbued with a certain comical element: "The agents have also noted that the operation might have limited success because word has already spread among immigrant communities about how to avoid arrest — namely, by refusing to open the door when an agent approaches one’s home."

I bet Willie Sutton never thought of that.

 

***

p.s.: I'm mending, and I hope to be back up to speed by Monday. Thanks for your indulgence.

A bad moon rising

One of the enduring peculiarities of Democratic politics is that so few wish to set the course of the many, against their will. I'm at a loss as to how that can work.

I may be (and I am) a proponent of Medicare for all, but millions of Americans content with their private coverage are not — and there's no way I can make them more contented by their dropping it. The same with tax increases; they're a political killer — just ask 49-state loser Walter Mondale — even if I can prove that taxpayers will spend less for health care through those increased taxes. I may advocate greater integration in public school systems (and I do), but again, there's no way I can convince millions, both white and black, of the hoary virtues of busing.

You may call that a defeatist attitude. I call it realism. If FDR couldn't figure a way to sell national health care as a component of Social Security, I sure as hell can't.

WaPo's Richard Cohen may be a too-fair-and-balanced pain, in pretentious proof of his objectivity. But two days ago, he got this right as rain: "The Democratic Party has a possibly fatal inability to prioritize. The urgent challenge is to rid the nation of Trump, not to mollify this or that identity group or wrestle over issues that could not be solved when they were relevant — such as busing. They pander to the extremes of the early caucus and primary states."

From there they believe they can modify their positions and aim for the middle, but their extremes are all on video tape. Which Trump & Super PACs will air again and again. And that's how Democrats blow it, wrote the Times' Bret Stephens a couple weeks ago: "The left is flailing in the face of a new right that is increasingly nativist, illiberal, lawless, and buffoonish. It’s losing to losers…. It’s a recipe for nonstop political defeat leavened only by a sensation of moral superiority."

Were all the Democratic presidential candidates speaking to America — not just interest groups and identity conclaves — they'd all be leading Trump by Biden's 10 points.

My gastrointestinal problems are back, and the cure — which can cause repeated vomiting, and it has — is worse than the disease. I'm stopping said cure today, and with luck I'll be back on my feet by tonight. My apologies for this unscheduled interruption of our regular programming.

American diplomacy, Trump-style

This makes you proud, no? Such poetry. Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln aspired to these literary heights, but they lacked Trump's gift of eloquence, surely God-given. Even my political hero, FDR, was unable to summon Trump's genius as he battled the Great Depression and world fascism. 

...handled. I told @theresa_may how to do that deal, but she went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done. A disaster! I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool. Tell him the USA now has the best Economy & Military anywhere in the World, by far...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2019

Jeffrey Epstein and the ultimate solution

Were I a federal judge overseeing the Jeffrey Epstein case on charges of sexual assault and other gruesome acts of male aggression, I would not, after a jury finds him incredibly guilty, have him hauled off to the hoosegow for the rest of his life.

Absolutely not. I would instead consult the old Cherokee code of criminal justice, which, since prisons weren't an option (and would have been a rather unmanly conclusion, anyway), allowed personal revenge against wrongdoers. If, for instance, a fellow Cherokee murdered your father, you were permitted to exact punishment — sort of an eye-for-an-eye thing — with no consequences from the elders.

Which is to say, I would sentence Mr. Epstein to one hour of incarceration in a secure room, inhabited by all the fathers of the wronged young women.

And that would be the rest of Epstein's life.

Somehow, I doubt my federal authority to assign such a punishment would pass muster with higher legal minds. You think? Nevertheless, the sentence would have been justice served. (Clean up in aisle four!)

One little Indian

President Eric Swalwell is no more, having reincarnated as a mere congressman.

Now if only John Delaney, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, Beto O’Rourke, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Ryan, Pete Buttigieg, Seth Moulton, Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Bill de Blasio, and newbie Tom Steyer would drop out, the party just might be able to unite behind one voice.

Another wee bit of a problem

Women, as I have professed more than once, are more superior to men than God Himself, but that means not that I always agree with their judgment (which, not being male-linear, can be a trifle skewed from time to time). 

To wit, my daughter, who's 20 now, which means she knows everything, has been telling me all day to go to the hospital, merely because of a "slight" fever and (or so she says) screams of pain from my bedroom in my sleep.

Ha! We men are made of stronger stuff. I'll wait this out. 

And that's why we men are idiots. 

Let's hear it for strategic annihilation!

Now let's see if we understand this ...

"Iran has breached a crucial limit ..."

… set by an international nuclear accord, negotiated by President Obama …

"… on the level of uranium enrichment …"

… which, when it reaches 90 percent, could be used to ignite a westward population-annihilating weapon (hello Bebe) …

… while …

"… China … accused the United States of 'bullying' Tehran with crippling economic sanctions."

Although China, being the authoritarian hellhole that it is, should go hang itself, didn't Obama's nuclear accord successfully cap Iran's uranium enrichment? Wasn't that the whole idea? And what nitwitted moron withdrew from the accord, which has now authorized Iran to piss on it?

Now, do we understand? I don't. Not even the remarkably inept James Buchanan would have been this foolish.

 

***Sorry, having internet troubles. I would say help is on the way, but my provider is Mediacom. 

But they didn't get sloshed until their work was done (which Trump is undoing)

"It was a Friday night" after completing writing the U.S. Constitution in 1787. "And delegate George Washington promptly went on the bender that began America."

I love this story.

"At City Tavern, the framers’ unofficial watering hole four blocks from Independence Hall, Washington was the guest of the Light Horse of Philadelphia, a volunteer cavalry corps that had crossed the Delaware with Washington and wintered at Valley Forge. The First Troop, as the unit came to be known, could fight. And, boy, could they drink.

"From the archives, the republic’s founding bar tab:

-54 bottles of Madeira wine.

-60 bottles of claret

-22 bottles of porter

-12 bottles of beer

- 8 bottles of cider and 7 large bowls of punch (both of which were probably alcoholic)."

The "55 gentlemens" [sic] attending this drunken blowout consumed almost a gallon of hooch apiece. "The nine musicians and seven waiters ran up their own liquor bill (21 additional bottles of wine)."

The tab came to nearly 90 pounds, about $15,000 in today's currency.

I wish Trump would start drinking. Perhaps that would lighten him up.

The Biden-Harris charade (emphasis on Harris)

Although, as others have expressed here, I'll support any breathing presidential nominee of the Democratic persuasion, I strongly lean toward Joe Biden because of his age, and his maturity, his years of experience, and because of President Obama's confidence in him. His competitors are kids in comparison — largely inexperienced climbers who are screamingly desperate to prevail, at any cost — and no one has better exemplified these traits than Kamala Harris.

"I’ve always supported voluntary busing," Biden recently explained to reporters in Iowa — and which Harris knew. But in a rehearsed show of self-righteous pomposity, she has leveled a Biden-is-segregationist-friendly and Oh-I-don't-know-maybe-a-racist-as-well assault on this fine man.

And here's where Biden's maturity comes in: "But he resisted the opportunity to return fire at Ms. Harris for voicing a position similar to his on school integration," writes the Times. "One day after she said local school districts should determine whether to bus students, effectively the argument Mr. Biden had made in the face of Ms. Harris’s attack at a debate last week, the former vice president simply said that she was 'absolutely right.' Biden called Ms. Harris … 'a good person, smart as she can be.'"

Well, unlike Biden, I don't have to be kind and complimentary. That's not my job. Neither is it the New York Times'.

"After Ms. Harris found success confronting the former vice president on busing, she has appeared uncertain how to characterize her own views on the matter." But she knows how to attack. Said Harris: “He has yet to agree that his position on this, which was to work with segregationists and oppose busing, was wrong." (We repeat: "I’ve always supported voluntary busing," said Biden.)

Harris then pulled out an Al Gore golden oldie, saying that busing is just one item in "the toolbox" to desegregate schools, apart from a federal mandate, which, again, was and is Biden's position.

What isn't Biden's position is the stripping of extant health care plans held by millions of Americans. That is, however, or maybe it isn't, Harris' position. "This is not the first issue on which Ms. Harris has muddled her response — she has also struggled to articulate whether she thinks private health care should be eliminated — but the California senator dismissed questions about her consistency. 'I have not changed my position,' she said. 'So, we can talk about other issues if you’d like.'" But what in God's name is her position? In pandering to the progressive crowd, she's tripping herself up. And that's not the sign of a clear thinker.

Yet here's the Times passage I've been itching to get at. "Several of Mr. Biden’s allies and aides said privately that they were surprised by Ms. Harris’s criticisms of Mr. Biden’s civil rights record. Some even said they found her words hurtful."

Yes, "hurtful." Harris was the first to deploy that emotional demagoguery, and now it's a boomeranging insincerity. As a former political operative, I can assure you that no one in the racket takes this shit seriously. But others do. So I've got to hand it to Biden's "allies and aides." Well played.

Women are strange creatures

Nonetheless, I adore them. They're my ruination but I adore them. I've been chasing them since my gonads matured, but more than that, I love 'em for the loving creatures they are. Still, I don't understand them. They're my bane, my hope, my everlasting futility, and yet these are the creatures I adore. I've met only one worthy of my puzzlement, and she died.

H.L. Mencken wrote "In Defense of Women," and I give you Wikipedia's esteemed judgment: "While Mencken did not champion women's rights, he described women as wiser in many novel and observable ways, while demeaning average men." And there you have it. My Menckenite sympathy. While I don't regard myself as average (do you?), most men are blubbering idiots who would prefer watching a bad football game to increasing their IQ by even one measly point. Shakespeare? Are you joking?

This is now considered sexist, for reasons in opposition of which I quite frankly find "hurtful," so there, you can't criticize. You know, my feelings. Women are superior to men. Period. They're smarter, they're more human and caring (well, most are), and the women I've known have more balls in an ugly confrontation than any hoodlum friend I've ever had.

So here's to women, whether they like it or not. You're superior to men, and it's about time we men accepted that.