A Two-Bit Poseur

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Josh Gerstein, for Politico:

Licking their wounds after a stinging appeals court defeat, President Donald Trump’s aides went into triage mode Friday as they considered options for salvaging his contested travel ban for citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries.

In two different venues Friday afternoon, Trump suggested that the White House is trying to redraft the order to strengthen it against legal challenges, which he expects the administration to continue to fight in court.

It would seem obvious that simply scrapping the former Order in favor of a new one would be the most efficient means of getting various intended restrictions into place. This is not, after all, the sort of thing where you can make headway simply thrashing and hammering over and over and over until judges grow weary of hearing about it and give over, anyway. Then again, this is the Trump administration, so, we ought not be surprised if they try. Meanwhile, among the various running theses out there chattering about what the Trump administration is actually up to, we should probably maintain some space to work a proposition of basic antisocial inclination. That is to say, this isn’t really about national security or even undocumented immigration. This is about taking satisfaction in cruelty, so as many times as the Trump administration can denigrate and offend the people they hate, they will.

And then there is always the countdown until someone says something to the effect of thinking about future presidents, and does anyone actually know the earliest in a term we’ve ever heard the line?

And remember, when the pieces don’t quite add up because, you know, why would any president so denigrate himself as Donald Trump does? Oh, right. Never mind. Could have had her, but uneducated, seething, simpering, terrified, brutish incompetence is #WhatTheyVotedFor. No, really. Remember that this ain’t over until it’s over, and in the meantime, given the range of options under the sun for an American president, it shouldn’t be hard for the handlers to convince a two-bit poseur to keep it up.

And every time someone suggest that sort of indifference to policy failure doesn’t make sense, remember every human being these policies spit on. Because that is the point, to simply spit and piss and yowl and hiss in order to offend and hurt as many people as they already don’t like or can find any excuse to add to the list. And if they get to stomp every once in a while, in between court dates and injunctions, all to the better. They know they cannot win over the long run; this president and his administration just want to hurt as many people as possible while they have the chance.

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Image note: Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters.

Gerstein, Josh. “Trump team plans a new executive order”. Politico. 10 February 2017.

The Donald Trump Show (What the ‘Thug’ Said)

So you might have heard something or other about how Donald Trump denounced a black supporter as a “thug” and ordered him removed from a rally. Sophia Tesfaye of Salon notes that the supporter, C. J. Cary, later came to Trump’s aid via Twitter. In truth, the result might seem one of the stranger things you read this season, but it isn’t so unusual for internet discourse:

^[1]Consider the One called Jesus of Nazareth. Who suffer unimaginably for a dying & in many cases a dead but walking people. Embarrassed? ^[2]That was not what I felt, being escorted out. I felt joy. God asked if I would I did. Mission accomplished. And please do not think the ^[3]hardship that came out of this mission was not anticipated or described before hand, please do not think I cowered at the chance to get ^[4]Donald’s attention. U can see I did not. In fact, take a look. I still support Donald J Trump 4 president. By the way, i was probably the ^[5]only Black at least at the front. It’s not his fault he did not know who I was at that moment. He has been so traumatized by Black hate.. ^[6]What would he have thought I was doing? We have never met. But yelling C.J. seemed to have stunned him for a second. Black guy with ^[7]sunglasses at night? (document sensitivity to light). Medical. I am lucky I wasn’t thrown under the jail. So U ha(te) ha’ers carry on.See! ^[8]I stand with Team Trump. Thus my prayers shall account & ad to their safety. My friend in Russia said: I am very proud of you. ^[9]You are a brave man. Because they could have mistaken you for a bad guy. She is so correct. Go Team Trump!!!!

(qtd. in Tesfaye)

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Image note: Top ― Donald Trump makes a mean face in uncredited photo. Right ― Donald Trump supporter C.J. Cary was ejected from a rally for the Republican nominee, ostensibly for being black, but defended the game show host afterward. (Image via Twitter).

Tesfaye, Sophia. “Black Donald Trump supporter, mistaken for protestor, gets escorted out of rally and called a ‘thug’ by Trump”. Salon. 28 October 2016.

A Reflection on History, Standards, and the Establishment

“Hillary Clinton is indeed, as her critics claim, part of the “the establishment.” Like all women of lofty ambition, she is keenly and woefully aware that in 2016, less than a century out from women’s suffrage, pioneering into a space formerly only occupied by men requires an acceptance that gender constrains one to work within the system, rather than from outside of it.”

―Katie Massa Kennedy

Two generally grim thoughts arise and insist:

• The nagging feeling that my fellow liberals are about to blow our best opportunity in generations, and seemingly because the GOP has decided to run dangerously out on a limb, and we want a little bit of that spectacle for ourselves.

• The nagging feeling that it isn’t blindness toward history driving the liberal need to endanger this chance, but, rather, the proposition that some will do anything to keep a woman out of the White House.