Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Donald Trump: Vulgar, Sensational and Buffoonish



Rational Nation USA has a post up on this article in The New Yorker by David Denby


The last paragraph of the article perfectly sums up Trump and why he's been so effective with the people who support him:



He lies all the time. But pointing out his lies, his contradictions, his illogical ideas, his nonsensical solutions—pointing out all of that, while noble and necessary work, is partly beside the point. 

Trump’s entire world picture, as he presents it to his voters, is an elaborate fiction—coherent in itself, like all such extreme fantasies, and therefore emotionally satisfying, but never required, either by Trump or by his audience, to meet the test of factuality and actuality. When he says that the country is in “terrible shape,” his listeners need only feel that their own situation is terrible to agree with him. 

In a similar way, the harrumphing attacks on him by such establishment Republicans as Jeb Bush, Tom Ridge, and Dick Cheney also miss the point. Those men are appealing to some common standard of allowable political discourse that Trump and his followers consider mere evasion. The movement’s standard of allowable behavior has been formed by popular culture—by standup comedy and, recently, by reality TV and by the snarking, trolling habits of the Internet. 

You can’t effectively say that Donald Trump is vulgar, sensational, and buffoonish when it’s exactly vulgar sensationalism and buffoonery that his audience is buying. Donald Trump has been produced by America, but I refuse to say, as some have, that he’s the demagogue that we deserve. 

He’s the demagogue the Republican Party deserves. The rest of us, including some Republicans, will resist him by holding on to whatever humanity and common sense we can command.






If Trump has "opened the windows" as some people believe, he's opened them to let out his toxic fumes of bigotry, racism, sexism, nativism, and all the other isms to stink up and pollute the common values our Founding Fathers gifted us in the Constitution. 

The angry, unhappy people who support him mistake vulgarity for plain speaking and bombastic bigotry for making America great again.  The only good thing that has come out of his deplorable candidacy is that we now know how many of his supporters there are who would sell out the ideals and values this country stands for for the cheap thrill of having a loud-mouth, short-fingered vulgarian speak for them.

11 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

Thanks for the link!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Thanks for posting that New Yorker piece.

skudrunner said...

I think that piece is spot on and that is the reason he will not be the nominee. Long way to the convention. -H- was beating the obama at this stage of the game in 2007 and we know how that turned out. The DNC moved the election to obama because -H- was so disliked and would lose plus obama could rally the seldom voting minority. Now the DNC is stuck with -H- even if indited.

The GOP will move the nomination toward someone electable and not Trump or Cruz.
-H- is trying to stay under the radar and scandals so Sanders stays a distant second.

Jerry Critter said...

"bigotry, racism, sexism, nativism" are alive and thriving in the United States, but they will not make "America great" as Trump trumpets.

Dave Miller said...

Sorry Skud, the DNC did not move the election to -H-... Obama beat her. He ran a better campaign, plain and simple.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Bob Dole, war hero and what used to be a "sane Republican," on the current TeaPublican Party:

Bob Dole: Obama Is A "Good Man," Cruz Is "So Extreme" And Trump is "Over The Top"


Former U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, like so many other Reagan-era Republicans, has sharply criticized the ignorance, bigotry, and extremism of this year’s rancid crop of Republican presidential candidates. In an interview on MSNBC today, Dole bemoaned the current state of the Republican party, which he said had become “an extreme group on the right.”

Dole joined the growing chorus of Republicans who have harshly criticized fascist front-runner Donald Trump in the wake of his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Dole called Trump “over the top” and set that he “couldn’t understand” how people supported him.


I can understand why people are supporting neo-fascist Trump. He plays to their fears and ignorance, and that is a winner for demagogues and charlatans. The TeaPublicans have devolved into a crowd of pant-wetters and xenophobes who'll listen to anyone who'll feed them lies.

PolitiFact
FactCheck.org
PunditFact

Have all exposed Trump as a liar. The TeaPublicans don't believe those fact-checking organizations because "they're supported by George Soros, and commies." So there it is, and there's the reason Trump has them in thrall to his b.s.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Donald Trump is NOT the problem. The problem is the Republican base -- an estimated 12 to 17% of the population that dominates every news cycle and seeks to dominate American politics -- and the Republican party itself. This GOP base is comprised of closet segregationists such Jeff Sessions, evangelicals seeking a de facto theocracy, hacks and hatchet men such as Steven King, and moral cowards such as John Boehner who has enabled and legitimized the very worst elements of American politics. The GOP has been trending in this direction for decades -- inherited from the DNA of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. This lust for power over principle must be discredited at all cost. Frankly, I hope Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination -- and the party goes down in flames. It's the only way to purge nascent neo-fascists from our political life.

Les Carpenter said...

Agreed (O)CT(0)PUS. Trump is just one of the more offensive outcomes of that which you describe.

slumpbuster said...



from the "you cant make this shit up category"... Trump got a full throated endorsement from Vlad Putin today.Among other things Putin called Trump "smart" and an "absolute leader" So The Trumper's got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis, the KKKers, and now the KGB Commie Big Ass on his side. WWhat's next? The Pederast Party? Why not? He's got all the swells rooting for him.

Sofa King Conservative said...



"Trump got a full throated endorsement from Vlad Putin today."

Game recognize game.

Dr. Brain Surgeon said...

Yeah. Trump's proud of getting praised by a guy who kills journalists who disagree with him and who invades countries because he can.

Imagine Ronald Reagan being proud of being praised by a Soviet leader. No neither can I, but Trump shows the world how far into the sewer the Republican Party has sunk: The leading GOP candidate loves a KGB Commie dictator and trashes the President of the United States. That might be worse than being in the sewer, that is sewage itself defined.