"Plotters like Miller attach their agendas to his mood swings, but they’re not his agenda, as is shown by his incoherence when he’s called upon to explain them. He’s just doing what he feels like doing."
This is the heart of it -- if you can use the word "heart" when describing anything about Trump --and it always has been. The response from some of his supporters has been interesting, and their social anxiety shows that apparently there *IS* still a quiet part you're not supposed to say out loud.
As someone noted on Bluesky, we are accustomed to regarding Trump as one of the worst presidents to ever hold the office. His remarks about Reiner show he is also one of the worst human beings to ever become a public figure.
Somewhere long ago ( and I am old , so when I say "long ago" I ain't talking early spring or 2022 or even 2003. I'm talking sometime in the last century. Late last century, but still, last century) I read, maybe in a John D. MacDonald book , (I say that because he could really say what's what when it came to evil motherfuckers) that you should never, ever trust anyone that refers to himself in the third person.
That's good advice!
"He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump."
"“He was a deranged person, as far as Trump is concerned,”
Don't forget Gauleiter Roberts, and his toadlike henchman Tony Johnson. Just the other day I got a missive from Heritage about how they wanted money to deport as many human beings as possible before the new year, because something something midterms treasonous Democrats argle bargle. Celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace by helping purge the contamination from the blood of the Homeland! I am STILL angry about it.
"Even if you hadn’t heard about it you probably could have guessed Trump would say something disgusting."
TBH, it was shocking even for him and/or it's just we--nigh impossibly, even me--are unable to imagine the sickness that can exude from him.
"He is observably content to see millions of Americans lose their insurance as revenge for having signed up for something called “Obamacare” in the first place."
Maybe. But a lot of it is that a bully that needs to shit on people regularly so he can feel like he has any strength that matters.
"Revenge is a big part of what fills in for policy in Trump governance."
That and his need to be a bully and his implementing policies based on decades-old talk radio delusions and fantasies and pandering--which is exactly what Venezuela is.
"The reason he doesn’t back down is" because that per se implies at the least he was wrong. The great example is of course the Central Park 5. Proof of innocence isn't enough for him.
"If you were to ask him and he were somehow compelled to be honest for once in his life, his answer would be simple: Why should I?" The profound infantilism of a monstrous narcissist.
"People are repulsed by his Reiner remarks..." One of this morning's bete noires: The libs' claim that MAGAts find the remarks repellant. I'll believe that, as ever, when I see it affect anything to any significant degree, re which I am not holding my breath.
Thanks to management for triggering the healthy venting. Or not, I don't know.
"a bully that needs to shit on people regularly so he can feel like he has any strength that matters"
Indeed. It's the basis of the cruelty being the point - if he's not inflicting pain on someone, he's not projecting strength, and if he's not constantly projecting strength, he fears that someone will do unto him what he does unto others.
Which is why fascism is so hard to define, because Roy's right - it isn't a coherent ideology, it's bullying writ large. Lashing out, punching down, laughing at the guy on the floor.
Yup. It’s like he had someone on his staff print up a poster board of every grievance phoned in by long-time-listeners-first-time-callers (“we got Marv in East Pigsbreath on the line”), from the Birchers in the 70s down to the Q-Anon quacks of today, and Trump is now reveling in his lameduckedness, determined to check off each and every one.
The lead story from Talking Points Memo this morning is Susie Wiles claiming der Führer is not nohow on a retribution path, while admitting that, yes, he will be doing the occasional light revenge but only as a special treat, ignoring his declaration of Revengefest 2025 the second he took office and everything he *has* done.
I saw and to say I’m underwhelmed is in turn an understatement.
I’m sick of this crap reporting. Instead of doing journalism to consider the issue of whether Trump’s a psychotic bully, for example, they rather leaving it at asking a paid liar for a series of lies. So fuck Wiles and fuck Vanity Fair. It’s the kind of shit that’s done a lot to sink the country into the state it’s in.
I completely agree with the analysis in this piece, and will add that David "Dr Volts" Roberts had another take on Trump that I thought was pretty accurate here: https://bsky.app/profile/volts.wtf/post/3ma2eq4wuqk2p
I’m on the record as maintaining that the one thing Tubby has said that could sum up the whole fucking thing is when he was bragging about some event at Mar-A-Lago and he said “Everyone else got one scoop of ice cream but I got two.” Engrave it in marble.
Personally I hate that one single scumbag walking this earth can plumb the depths and churn my bile with such alarming regularity. Serenity now! Insanity now! I'm at a loss.
Some vile people have the cursèd ability to make me a worse person by contemplating some kind of Dantean retribution for them. It takes a lot of effort to keep those shitbirds from doing that. Deep breaths and Serenity Now! indeed.
I reread the Ciardi translation of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰, with its helpful annotations, a couple of years ago. I’d forgotten what a vindictive character Dante was: pretty much everyone who’d ever looked crosseyed at him was, if dead by then, enduring gruesome torments or, if still alive, was mentioned with assurances that his place on a rotating spit was reserved. You can sort of understand why the Florentines were in no hurry to recall him from exile, although seven hundred years later, after tempers had cooled, the city fathers did rescind it.
All very true, and as always eloquently stated. Still, Trump will at some time disappear, if only through mortality. At which point we're left with a much bigger problem, which is the entire Republican party plus the Supreme Court, and the billionaires/fascists/religious maniacs that they serve. I haven't the slightest idea how that ends.
Trump awakes from a terrible dream in which Death stands at his door, beckoning him to the Beyond. He grabs his phone and calls Kash Patel: "Kash! I want you to find me the greatest fortune teller in America!"
The next morning, the fortune teller is dragged before Trump. "Tell me," he demands, "when will I die?"
The fortune teller gazes into his eyes and pronounces "You will die on a national holiday."
"Which holiday?" asks Trump, now terribly excited. "President's day? The Fourth of July? I hope it's the Fourth of July! Which holiday?"
"Any day you die will become a national holiday," says the fortune teller.
like literally happened 'all across this great land' when he lost to Biden. (but that was a long long long time ago, and so brief. when he daid, the party will be measured in weeks if not months.)
I myself was dancing in the street outside the Convention Center in Philly when PA was called for Biden. But that only lasted a couple of hours. When Trump buys the farm I'm packing a lunch and maybe a sleeping bag.
yeah, i was dancing in my head, you know, like today with Roy and Heather... uh, i mean a cognitive experience such as that, "just a thought" like Jimmy Durante "a kiss is just a kiss" and, yeah, Rob Reiner was there, in Seattle. ok, i'll rest now.
i'se just moved to Eugene that summer (Had to explain to the U-Haul dude that the two "Obama '08" stickers on his trailer that i rented in Grinsboro NC, 'maybe' someone slapped them stickers on it in Oklahoma somewhere, and i had just left 'em on there). At the election (& inauguration, too) i wept with joy in Cosmic Pizza, him on the big screen. ("A little embarrassed at that these days, Barack.")
My fabulous wonderful amazing 95 year old uncle is dying. He had a great run, and he’s ready to go, but I’m so so sorry he’s gonna miss that party. He’s been looking forward to it.
I may go about finding some fireworks. At very least I will go do a sideshow in front of the person in my neighborhood who has had a rotating cast of giant flags emblazoned with Trump shit. Okay, maybe ruining a set of tires is a poor (expensive) idea, so making multiple passes in front of his place while blasting "Ding dong, the bitch is dead" on repeat...
You have to wonder if somewhere inside that man's sick head and stone-cold soul he has some inkling of the great cheer that will erupt around the world when he meets his own demise, and all of the shitposting that absolutely no one will find objectionable save for a few diehard dickheads. That reminds me, I need to have some champagne at the ready.
That’s why I live in vain hope that he gets packed off to prison before he kicks. I demand they put a large screen TV in his cell, locked to a cable news channel with no off switch, turned up nice and loud, so he sees full well the eruptions of relief and joy worldwide that will make VE Day look like a family picnic.
And after eating a diet of greens for the first time in his life, his health goes through a full recovery, even changing his brain chemistry in such a way that he suddenly realizes the error of his ways and repents everything with such sincerity that President Ocasio Cortez grants him a full pardon and, with the adulation of an adoring press pumping this miracle for all it’s worth, he goes on tho win the 2032 election in a landslide.
Coda: After a rousing victory speech at campaign headquarters, walking away from the podium, he casually turns his head and, breaking the fourth wall, gives the camera a lascivious wink.
Remember the end of A Man for All Seasons? "Richard Rich became chancellor of England and died in his bed." Even the middlebrows knew it: Don't expect justice in this life.
The fascists who developed Project 2025 knew that Trump, if elected, would go along with their plans to destroy democracy and degrade the citizenship of over half of Americans, partly because he hates everything including himself but also because, at the end of the day he doesn’t give a shit about anything that doesn’t purport to burnish the image of “Donald Trump, Successful Businessman, Best President Ever and Huge Cocksman.” The image his MAGA dweebs buy, the image posts like his Reiner screed make apparent to all but the most MAGAty of those dweebs, that he is none of that. A petulant three year old’s psyche in the body of a decaying petulant asshole. The most miserable man on Earth, emitting a penumbra of misery that encompasses the whole world, including the miserable fucks, big and small, who put him back in power. I am comforted by the knowledge that I will never be as miserable as a Trump, a Musk, a Theil or a MAGA cultist because I don’t live in a world of bullshit and self-deception and pretend it’s fine.
If there's anything motivating Trumpov (not his sadministration) it's Get The Money, No Matter How, No Matter From Who. There's no succession plan because he thinks he'll live and be President forever, and if it drowns the GOP and America, well, "you knew I was a scorpion when you let me get on your back".
His contempt for his own voters as suckers is hugely apparent. They have to be breaking a sweat on a daily basis to keep their self-delusion afloat, despite the gratification they receive from seeing him hurt the people they want hurt.
Some might be breaking a sweat, but the few MAGAts of my acquaintance whom I still monitor seem effortlessly capable of prodigies of cognitive dissonance.
Hear, hear. And I don't for a second buy that his supporters are truly shocked and surprised by his Reiner remarks. It's only marginally worse than many other things he's said. What they probably mean is they personally enjoyed This Is Spinal Tap or The Princess Bride, so they consider THIS SPECIFIC display of boorishness as out of bounds.
Someone must have said this before I thought it, but: there IS a "Trump Derangement Syndrome," and it's NOT an affliction of his detractors.
I'm tired of his bullshit, and I'm not even American.
Sick and fucking tired of it.
Recently see anti-immigrant shit in Japan. Who do I blame? Americans; both at home in their shithole country and here spreading their general bad fucking manners; and the Chinese, they're kinda ill-mannered abroad as well.
True story: One night I was walking home drunk here in Miyazaki and, as I walked by a drunk Japanese guy, he muttered in my direction (in Japanese), "fucking American piece of shit." I instantly turned around and corrected him: "I'm a Canadian piece of shit, idiot!" He actually bowed and apologized.
Anyway, I wish you guys would get this sorted out sooner rather than later. We grow weary.
As to the “ill-mannered” Chinese, I have encountered tour groups from the PRC both stateside and abroad on perhaps half a dozen occasions, and have been—I must choose my words carefully here—struck each time by how at odds with my own were their notions of queues and of personal space. Made me a little nostalgic for the good old Cold War, when they would have stayed home in their blue boiler suits. Related: in 1990 the flat above mine was rented out to a family of recently arrived Soviet émigrés with strident voices, feet of stone, and a screaming five year-old. “Mister Gorbachev,” I would mutter, shaking my fist at the ceiling, “𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳! And while you’re at at, throw in some minefields.”
To be fair to the Chinese, I was just riffing on a general Japanese complaint I've heard/read. Also generally, I've quite liked Russians/Eastern Europeans I've met in my life; excellent drinking companions.
More generally, I think it's fine for us to tease each other/joke around about our ethnicities/nationalities. We all just have to trust each other
We could do a (long) thread on that. I lived in Germany twice, once as a kid, and I can tell you (for just one example) that Americans, in crowds, are peculiarly unaware of others around them ("Oh! You're here too?")
Thinking about the casual expressions of racism in, say, the Seventies, and how to some extent it was different than now because there was less of a hateful mind behind it. I pointed out the cringe in "The President's Analyst" the other day, and god knows even Firesign did some cringe bits in the day, but, fuck, it doesn't seem to have the vileness behind it that present day racism does.
Since we're off to the movies, I'll digress a bit. Aside from '70s cringe, pop culture started to acknowledge racism more. I have other examples, but it's something that impressed me when I watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. It largely depicts a working class setting, where people have to pull together despite bigotries and frictions. There are a couple of scenes where Matthau's character is casually racist, and the people on the receiving end get to note it. No speeches; it's done through the interactions, and Matthau's knowing he has been seen. It doesn't change the character's attitudes, but I think it gives the audience a sense that this stuff doesn't fly anymore. That, and the Black woman dispatcher rolling her eyes at the loudmouth transit police mysogynists.
That kind of acknowledgement was one of the countless things inspiring the war against pop culture.
My first watch was on Criterion a couple years ago, and I got hooked for the re-watches. Despite the more dated parts and the city having OK'd cooperation as long as trains had no graffiti, it's a great NYC movie.
Slice of life style, with wonderful character parts. Tom Pedi's blowhard! As Conrad Yama* watches Matthau dig himself the hole in his first scene, I knew I'd see Lt. Garber put in his place with a twinkling eye and mischievous smile.
* A member of the original Broadway cast of "Pacific Overtures," filmed in 1976 for Japanese broadcast and surviving on YT. Yama wasn't in a lot of scenes, but he stole those.
We have "The French Connection", and I've seen it a couple of times but my partner has not. But now that you've mentioned it, I think a revisit of "Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is on order.
I worked DC's I.T. community for a very (VERY) long time. It's easily one of the most internationally diverse groups of people anywhere, and they're generally awesome people to get to know. I knew lots of Chinese and Vietnamese expats and they were always wonderful
He is such a disgusting, garbage human being it hurts my brain to contemplate the depths of it.
Elaine in firstest with the shortest and bestest
"Plotters like Miller attach their agendas to his mood swings, but they’re not his agenda, as is shown by his incoherence when he’s called upon to explain them. He’s just doing what he feels like doing."
This is the heart of it -- if you can use the word "heart" when describing anything about Trump --and it always has been. The response from some of his supporters has been interesting, and their social anxiety shows that apparently there *IS* still a quiet part you're not supposed to say out loud.
As someone noted on Bluesky, we are accustomed to regarding Trump as one of the worst presidents to ever hold the office. His remarks about Reiner show he is also one of the worst human beings to ever become a public figure.
Yup!
Somewhere long ago ( and I am old , so when I say "long ago" I ain't talking early spring or 2022 or even 2003. I'm talking sometime in the last century. Late last century, but still, last century) I read, maybe in a John D. MacDonald book , (I say that because he could really say what's what when it came to evil motherfuckers) that you should never, ever trust anyone that refers to himself in the third person.
That's good advice!
"He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump."
"“He was a deranged person, as far as Trump is concerned,”
Donald J. Trump
“Access Sallys” is the sort of piquant phrasing that keeps me coming back to REBID.
I liked that one too.
Access Sally, huh huh, guess you better tone them beat-sweeteners down, oh Lord
Oo-rah!
Demo Man tearin' down more than the bleached House, is the thing. In that mode he is the catspaw of Miller&Vought, LLS*.
*LowLifeShitheads
Don't forget Gauleiter Roberts, and his toadlike henchman Tony Johnson. Just the other day I got a missive from Heritage about how they wanted money to deport as many human beings as possible before the new year, because something something midterms treasonous Democrats argle bargle. Celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace by helping purge the contamination from the blood of the Homeland! I am STILL angry about it.
Hey, speaking of Heritage, get a load of this guy and his "fertility cults." Start pumpin' out those babies, ladies, IT'S THE LAW
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/15/heritage-foundation-thinktank-scott-yenor
"Even if you hadn’t heard about it you probably could have guessed Trump would say something disgusting."
TBH, it was shocking even for him and/or it's just we--nigh impossibly, even me--are unable to imagine the sickness that can exude from him.
"He is observably content to see millions of Americans lose their insurance as revenge for having signed up for something called “Obamacare” in the first place."
Maybe. But a lot of it is that a bully that needs to shit on people regularly so he can feel like he has any strength that matters.
"Revenge is a big part of what fills in for policy in Trump governance."
That and his need to be a bully and his implementing policies based on decades-old talk radio delusions and fantasies and pandering--which is exactly what Venezuela is.
"The reason he doesn’t back down is" because that per se implies at the least he was wrong. The great example is of course the Central Park 5. Proof of innocence isn't enough for him.
"If you were to ask him and he were somehow compelled to be honest for once in his life, his answer would be simple: Why should I?" The profound infantilism of a monstrous narcissist.
"People are repulsed by his Reiner remarks..." One of this morning's bete noires: The libs' claim that MAGAts find the remarks repellant. I'll believe that, as ever, when I see it affect anything to any significant degree, re which I am not holding my breath.
Thanks to management for triggering the healthy venting. Or not, I don't know.
"a bully that needs to shit on people regularly so he can feel like he has any strength that matters"
Indeed. It's the basis of the cruelty being the point - if he's not inflicting pain on someone, he's not projecting strength, and if he's not constantly projecting strength, he fears that someone will do unto him what he does unto others.
"Undo unto him"
is my motto today
Which is why fascism is so hard to define, because Roy's right - it isn't a coherent ideology, it's bullying writ large. Lashing out, punching down, laughing at the guy on the floor.
“decades-old talk radio delusions”
Yup. It’s like he had someone on his staff print up a poster board of every grievance phoned in by long-time-listeners-first-time-callers (“we got Marv in East Pigsbreath on the line”), from the Birchers in the 70s down to the Q-Anon quacks of today, and Trump is now reveling in his lameduckedness, determined to check off each and every one.
He started in the early 2010s echoing the Obama birth bullshit.
Part of it is nothing more than pandering to MAGA vermin.
Subhuman by every decent measurement.
The lead story from Talking Points Memo this morning is Susie Wiles claiming der Führer is not nohow on a retribution path, while admitting that, yes, he will be doing the occasional light revenge but only as a special treat, ignoring his declaration of Revengefest 2025 the second he took office and everything he *has* done.
I saw and to say I’m underwhelmed is in turn an understatement.
I’m sick of this crap reporting. Instead of doing journalism to consider the issue of whether Trump’s a psychotic bully, for example, they rather leaving it at asking a paid liar for a series of lies. So fuck Wiles and fuck Vanity Fair. It’s the kind of shit that’s done a lot to sink the country into the state it’s in.
I completely agree with the analysis in this piece, and will add that David "Dr Volts" Roberts had another take on Trump that I thought was pretty accurate here: https://bsky.app/profile/volts.wtf/post/3ma2eq4wuqk2p
"Everything I concluded about him from the first time I saw him talk has held absolutely consistent in the ensuing 10+ years."
I’m on the record as maintaining that the one thing Tubby has said that could sum up the whole fucking thing is when he was bragging about some event at Mar-A-Lago and he said “Everyone else got one scoop of ice cream but I got two.” Engrave it in marble.
Oh, so THAT'S why Poker & Politics calls him "Donny Two-Scoops". Honestly, I thought it was some reference to Raisin Bran.
I can see the link between mushy milk-soaked Raisin Brain and whatever is between his ears.
OK, ok, but if somebody politely says "Raisin, Bern?" I'm all over it.
What if they're Amish and actually said "raisin' barn"?
Personally I hate that one single scumbag walking this earth can plumb the depths and churn my bile with such alarming regularity. Serenity now! Insanity now! I'm at a loss.
Some vile people have the cursèd ability to make me a worse person by contemplating some kind of Dantean retribution for them. It takes a lot of effort to keep those shitbirds from doing that. Deep breaths and Serenity Now! indeed.
I reread the Ciardi translation of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰, with its helpful annotations, a couple of years ago. I’d forgotten what a vindictive character Dante was: pretty much everyone who’d ever looked crosseyed at him was, if dead by then, enduring gruesome torments or, if still alive, was mentioned with assurances that his place on a rotating spit was reserved. You can sort of understand why the Florentines were in no hurry to recall him from exile, although seven hundred years later, after tempers had cooled, the city fathers did rescind it.
Eh, it's Florence. They're probably on the same timeline for building permits.
All very true, and as always eloquently stated. Still, Trump will at some time disappear, if only through mortality. At which point we're left with a much bigger problem, which is the entire Republican party plus the Supreme Court, and the billionaires/fascists/religious maniacs that they serve. I haven't the slightest idea how that ends.
Repurposed old joke:
Trump awakes from a terrible dream in which Death stands at his door, beckoning him to the Beyond. He grabs his phone and calls Kash Patel: "Kash! I want you to find me the greatest fortune teller in America!"
The next morning, the fortune teller is dragged before Trump. "Tell me," he demands, "when will I die?"
The fortune teller gazes into his eyes and pronounces "You will die on a national holiday."
"Which holiday?" asks Trump, now terribly excited. "President's day? The Fourth of July? I hope it's the Fourth of July! Which holiday?"
"Any day you die will become a national holiday," says the fortune teller.
Dancing in the streets.
like literally happened 'all across this great land' when he lost to Biden. (but that was a long long long time ago, and so brief. when he daid, the party will be measured in weeks if not months.)
I myself was dancing in the street outside the Convention Center in Philly when PA was called for Biden. But that only lasted a couple of hours. When Trump buys the farm I'm packing a lunch and maybe a sleeping bag.
might be weeks and months — we need a plan, like a full national sabbatical or sumpin'
I wasn't dancin', but I waved a hearty "So Long!" to his helicopter. That felt...well, maybe not good, but at least a little relieving at the time...
yeah, i was dancing in my head, you know, like today with Roy and Heather... uh, i mean a cognitive experience such as that, "just a thought" like Jimmy Durante "a kiss is just a kiss" and, yeah, Rob Reiner was there, in Seattle. ok, i'll rest now.
Oh, to be in Madison on the day of the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
i'se just moved to Eugene that summer (Had to explain to the U-Haul dude that the two "Obama '08" stickers on his trailer that i rented in Grinsboro NC, 'maybe' someone slapped them stickers on it in Oklahoma somewhere, and i had just left 'em on there). At the election (& inauguration, too) i wept with joy in Cosmic Pizza, him on the big screen. ("A little embarrassed at that these days, Barack.")
The elementary school where we vote is on land that used to be part of Frederick Douglass' farm. It was quite a moment going over there that morning.
My fabulous wonderful amazing 95 year old uncle is dying. He had a great run, and he’s ready to go, but I’m so so sorry he’s gonna miss that party. He’s been looking forward to it.
Sorry in advance for your loss...and his. He will join us in spirit!
Thanks. Do an extra jig for him.
I may go about finding some fireworks. At very least I will go do a sideshow in front of the person in my neighborhood who has had a rotating cast of giant flags emblazoned with Trump shit. Okay, maybe ruining a set of tires is a poor (expensive) idea, so making multiple passes in front of his place while blasting "Ding dong, the bitch is dead" on repeat...
The old ones are always the best.
Well said.
Amen.
You have to wonder if somewhere inside that man's sick head and stone-cold soul he has some inkling of the great cheer that will erupt around the world when he meets his own demise, and all of the shitposting that absolutely no one will find objectionable save for a few diehard dickheads. That reminds me, I need to have some champagne at the ready.
That’s why I live in vain hope that he gets packed off to prison before he kicks. I demand they put a large screen TV in his cell, locked to a cable news channel with no off switch, turned up nice and loud, so he sees full well the eruptions of relief and joy worldwide that will make VE Day look like a family picnic.
And feed him only salads.
"Kale AGAIN?!"
No, no - arugula!
It's bitter, like him
Kale CAESAR!
And after eating a diet of greens for the first time in his life, his health goes through a full recovery, even changing his brain chemistry in such a way that he suddenly realizes the error of his ways and repents everything with such sincerity that President Ocasio Cortez grants him a full pardon and, with the adulation of an adoring press pumping this miracle for all it’s worth, he goes on tho win the 2032 election in a landslide.
Coda: After a rousing victory speech at campaign headquarters, walking away from the podium, he casually turns his head and, breaking the fourth wall, gives the camera a lascivious wink.
Fade to black.
I'd see it.
Aw, nuts. I was hoping this would end a la Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
Why, I'm gonna grab me some nurse and... oh, we don't do that any more?
Remember the end of A Man for All Seasons? "Richard Rich became chancellor of England and died in his bed." Even the middlebrows knew it: Don't expect justice in this life.
What about death? Can I wish for this in death?
You can IMAGINE there's justice after death and that's good enough for most folks.
Do you know my sister in law? She has an EPIC middle brow.
Richie Rich is DEAD? 😱
The fascists who developed Project 2025 knew that Trump, if elected, would go along with their plans to destroy democracy and degrade the citizenship of over half of Americans, partly because he hates everything including himself but also because, at the end of the day he doesn’t give a shit about anything that doesn’t purport to burnish the image of “Donald Trump, Successful Businessman, Best President Ever and Huge Cocksman.” The image his MAGA dweebs buy, the image posts like his Reiner screed make apparent to all but the most MAGAty of those dweebs, that he is none of that. A petulant three year old’s psyche in the body of a decaying petulant asshole. The most miserable man on Earth, emitting a penumbra of misery that encompasses the whole world, including the miserable fucks, big and small, who put him back in power. I am comforted by the knowledge that I will never be as miserable as a Trump, a Musk, a Theil or a MAGA cultist because I don’t live in a world of bullshit and self-deception and pretend it’s fine.
If there's anything motivating Trumpov (not his sadministration) it's Get The Money, No Matter How, No Matter From Who. There's no succession plan because he thinks he'll live and be President forever, and if it drowns the GOP and America, well, "you knew I was a scorpion when you let me get on your back".
His contempt for his own voters as suckers is hugely apparent. They have to be breaking a sweat on a daily basis to keep their self-delusion afloat, despite the gratification they receive from seeing him hurt the people they want hurt.
His Beautiful Christians, et al.
Some might be breaking a sweat, but the few MAGAts of my acquaintance whom I still monitor seem effortlessly capable of prodigies of cognitive dissonance.
Plus absolutely staggering amounts of ignoring. So much ignoring.
"oh, he just talks that way."
"What way? What did he say?"
"Oh, I dunno, I didn't check, but you know... THAT way he talks."
This is where "you won't need to vote anymore" came from.
He's more like "Apres-moi, I don't give a shit."
ObamaCare
TrumpDon't
Adding here the above will be my sign at the regular Thursday Ladies of the Eveni...er, Afternoon*, Schmooze 'n Yell At Cars Club meeting
*The wintry days dwindle down, and the wind chill dwindles up along about 5pm...
"Get The Money, No Matter How, No Matter From Who"
You might call this the ultimate expression of American Capitalism.
Hear, hear. And I don't for a second buy that his supporters are truly shocked and surprised by his Reiner remarks. It's only marginally worse than many other things he's said. What they probably mean is they personally enjoyed This Is Spinal Tap or The Princess Bride, so they consider THIS SPECIFIC display of boorishness as out of bounds.
But, upon reflection, they now see that they did NOT enjoy Princess Bride.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father – prepare to ... ah, never mind, this movie sucks. I mean, six fingers? Who's ever gonna believe this?
“Access Sallys” - brilliant.
Someone must have said this before I thought it, but: there IS a "Trump Derangement Syndrome," and it's NOT an affliction of his detractors.
I'm tired of his bullshit, and I'm not even American.
Sick and fucking tired of it.
Recently see anti-immigrant shit in Japan. Who do I blame? Americans; both at home in their shithole country and here spreading their general bad fucking manners; and the Chinese, they're kinda ill-mannered abroad as well.
True story: One night I was walking home drunk here in Miyazaki and, as I walked by a drunk Japanese guy, he muttered in my direction (in Japanese), "fucking American piece of shit." I instantly turned around and corrected him: "I'm a Canadian piece of shit, idiot!" He actually bowed and apologized.
Anyway, I wish you guys would get this sorted out sooner rather than later. We grow weary.
xxxooo
As to the “ill-mannered” Chinese, I have encountered tour groups from the PRC both stateside and abroad on perhaps half a dozen occasions, and have been—I must choose my words carefully here—struck each time by how at odds with my own were their notions of queues and of personal space. Made me a little nostalgic for the good old Cold War, when they would have stayed home in their blue boiler suits. Related: in 1990 the flat above mine was rented out to a family of recently arrived Soviet émigrés with strident voices, feet of stone, and a screaming five year-old. “Mister Gorbachev,” I would mutter, shaking my fist at the ceiling, “𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘳! And while you’re at at, throw in some minefields.”
To be fair to the Chinese, I was just riffing on a general Japanese complaint I've heard/read. Also generally, I've quite liked Russians/Eastern Europeans I've met in my life; excellent drinking companions.
More generally, I think it's fine for us to tease each other/joke around about our ethnicities/nationalities. We all just have to trust each other
We could do a (long) thread on that. I lived in Germany twice, once as a kid, and I can tell you (for just one example) that Americans, in crowds, are peculiarly unaware of others around them ("Oh! You're here too?")
Also: never, ever confuse a Ukrainian for a Russian. I learned that in the Oughts.
Sadly, the ruskis ignored me when I told them "Ought not!"
Thinking about the casual expressions of racism in, say, the Seventies, and how to some extent it was different than now because there was less of a hateful mind behind it. I pointed out the cringe in "The President's Analyst" the other day, and god knows even Firesign did some cringe bits in the day, but, fuck, it doesn't seem to have the vileness behind it that present day racism does.
Since we're off to the movies, I'll digress a bit. Aside from '70s cringe, pop culture started to acknowledge racism more. I have other examples, but it's something that impressed me when I watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. It largely depicts a working class setting, where people have to pull together despite bigotries and frictions. There are a couple of scenes where Matthau's character is casually racist, and the people on the receiving end get to note it. No speeches; it's done through the interactions, and Matthau's knowing he has been seen. It doesn't change the character's attitudes, but I think it gives the audience a sense that this stuff doesn't fly anymore. That, and the Black woman dispatcher rolling her eyes at the loudmouth transit police mysogynists.
That kind of acknowledgement was one of the countless things inspiring the war against pop culture.
Damn, here's another movie I need to rewatch. Thanks.
It's on Tubi if you can deal with advertising every 20 minutes or so.
I NEVER get tired of that movie! Saw it when it came out (with a Staten Islander for company).Criterion has it every now and then and I always rewatch
Matthau's little smile at the coda delights me.
My first watch was on Criterion a couple years ago, and I got hooked for the re-watches. Despite the more dated parts and the city having OK'd cooperation as long as trains had no graffiti, it's a great NYC movie.
Slice of life style, with wonderful character parts. Tom Pedi's blowhard! As Conrad Yama* watches Matthau dig himself the hole in his first scene, I knew I'd see Lt. Garber put in his place with a twinkling eye and mischievous smile.
* A member of the original Broadway cast of "Pacific Overtures," filmed in 1976 for Japanese broadcast and surviving on YT. Yama wasn't in a lot of scenes, but he stole those.
We have "The French Connection", and I've seen it a couple of times but my partner has not. But now that you've mentioned it, I think a revisit of "Taking of Pelham One Two Three" is on order.
Note: I hadn't realized there was a remake.
So now I'm wondering this: I first saw that on late-night teevee in the 70s, and I swear they cut most of Godfrey's initial couch session out...
I worked DC's I.T. community for a very (VERY) long time. It's easily one of the most internationally diverse groups of people anywhere, and they're generally awesome people to get to know. I knew lots of Chinese and Vietnamese expats and they were always wonderful