DL Open Thread: Tues., Dec. 24, 2019
How Amazon Placed Speed Over Safety Every Single Time. Today’s must-read. If we can only break up one corporation, let it be this one. Even Trump likely agrees. Because he hates Bezos, but still…
Rudy: ‘I’m More Jewish Thank Soros’. Soros is a Holocaust survivor, but never mind.
Trump Attacks Green New Deal By Going After Wind Turbines, Low-Flow Toilets, And LED Lighting. More bunkum for the carnys.
Mental Health Professionals On Trump’s Impeachment Letter: He’s mentally-unstable. And President.
How Trump’s Ukraine ‘Offensive’ Grew Out Of Manafort’s Downfall. See above.
What do you want to talk about?
I’m taking tomorrow off. Which leaves you to ponder the following existential question: If you write a column, and nobody reads it, did you really write it?
Happy Holidays!!
I was trying to figure out what it was about Trump’s schtick – his cringe-worthy attempts at humor – and thought of it as a Howard Stern wannabe in his Noo Yawk-ish delivery. I ran that by my Jewish sis and B-I-L and they were puzzled. Nope, didn’t see it.
Then NC’s Lambert Strether posted yesterday about Trump’s borscht belt delivery related to the Pelosi letter. I googled Trump borscht belt and found items dating back to 2015. Strether had offered: “One tip to make reading Trump more tolerable is to hear him as a borscht belt comedian like Rodney Dangerfield or Henny Youngman.”
Also
“I don’t take all this medicalizing seriously, since I don’t accept armchair analysis of Donald Trump by liberal Democrats any more seriously than I took armchair analysis of Terry Schiavo by conservative Republicans. Anyhow, the Democrats have been calling their opponents crazy and stupid since at least the Bush era, and it hasn’t really gotten them anywhere, so who’s crazy and stupid, anyhow?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/12/trumpian-rhetoric-the-case-of-his-letter-to-pelosi-and-foreshadowing-2020.html
The disgust with Republicans began with Nixon, whose own mental illness and domestic policy decisions made him anathema to centrists and the left, those he wasn’t busy incarcerating.
“I don’t accept armchair analysis of Donald Trump by liberal Democrats any more seriously than I took armchair analysis of Terry Schiavo by conservative Republicans.”
Really bad case of apples and oranges there. Mental health professionals are the ones most worried about Trump’s mental health, while doctors tried to explain to Republicans that Terry Schiavo was brain dead.
His whole argument is specious bullshit, as he attributes to Trump passages that clearly were written by someone else, reportedly Stephen Miller.
As for Trump’s shtick, all you have to do is watch him at a rally to realize that he thinks he’s a comedian. That’s hardly an insight, your slow-witted relatives aside.
wow Al, don’t hold back on my account.
My “slow witted” relatives were reflecting that Trump wasn’t going after a Howard Stern “thing”. Stern is not a comedian by trade or is that your claim here? Confusing.
Also – Lefty’s typically hate Strether. I don’t ascribe to every word but find his commentary refreshing. With your level of venom, maybe consider joining the Blue Delaware team where this kind of vicious attack is the norm. I read your hateful spewing over there enough to know how much you enjoy it. You and Cassandra make quite the pair.
This comment, along with Jair Bolsonaro’s timely accident and hospital trip, has absolutely made my Xmas!
#SantaIsReal 🎅
And I found his commentary precious, preening and not deep enough to be shallow. Wanking, basically.
I wasn’t attacking you, but rather him, for the reasons laid out above. They ought to be enough for any sentient being to realize how full of shit he is, talking about Trump’s rhetoric when it’s clearly Miller’s and comparing liberal anger it to anti-science bullshit.
What is Howard Stern if he’s not a comedian? Another utterly witless guy who passes for a wit in this society. He’s mellowed into a decent interviewer, but the shock-jock shtick is going for laughs.
Sorry you don’t like the venom, but I see no reason to hold back when this Strether person — I had never heard of him, so maybe I shouldn’t judge him by one feeble piece of witlessness — is pushing horseshit.
And maybe deal with the substance instead of wringing your hands over my venom.
He was a pretty good character in that Henry James novel.