I think precisely such a thing was foretold in the Book of Revelation but I’d have to go back and check my notes.
“…And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats …”
Gotta be honest, I thought Donald Trump was a garden variety grumpy old man racist, the kind who won’t go to certain parts of town and uses embarrassing language at the Thanksgiving dinner table. I didn’t think he was an out-and-out Nazi-sympathizing white nationalist.
…maybe they all are? I don’t know, this is sort of eye-opening for me.
But, of course, he never has condemned them by name or singled them out for criticism or rebuke. The closest he gets is to condemn conduct or beliefs very generally and equate all groups with the most hate-filled extremists in the country. If you can’t call them out by name and condemn their terrorism when they murder peaceful Americans, then of course you do not condemn them - you continue to welcome their support and their fulfillment of your promises to (dog whistle) “take back our country” and"make America great again."
♫ ♪ Because you know I’m all about that base,
'Bout that base, no trouble
I’m all 'bout that base, 'bout that base, no trouble
I’m all 'bout that base, 'bout that base, no trouble
I’m all 'bout that base, 'bout that base. ♫ ♪
Well, I’d say there’s a point to pushing hard on this one and not letting him off the hook – not even one little bit. When you hook a big fish, that’s just the beginning. You still have to reel him in – and that takes both skill and determination. It’s a game. That’s why they call it “playing the fish”. The fish will yank hard trying to pull out the hook…and that’s when you let it run a bit. Then the fish will play dead and that’s when you reel him in a bit more. Then he’ll suddenly jerk sideways and you have to manage that as well. It can take an entire day to reel in a big fish and you’ll be exhausted afterwards. Each of us has to decide – is the fish worth the effort it will take to reel it in.
As far as I’m concerned, Trump is a murderer. He brought us this and I’m not letting go of that.
I can. Kristol’s been in the NYC area for decades. He knows exactly what a spineless blowhard Trump is, and if there’s one thing Bill Kristol likes more than a war in the middle-east, it’s someone more cretinous than himself to pontificate against.
We’ve been told to not take his words literally but seriously, along with don’t listen to what he says but what he does. Here is the prime example of what his character is made of.
Remember when Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Ave and he wouldn’t lose his base, so now it is a supporter with a car and the outcome is the same.
I should clarify that with Trump’s squid ink you need to dismiss and ignore his efforts to reassure the non-base, reality-based public that he’s kinda sorta normal even as he sends a coded and very different message to that base. Taking the more soothing denials seriously just leads to talk of pivots and becoming President today and acting like a President and all that nonsense. I’m not talking about letting him off the hook. You can point to many actions and analyze much of his speech to see that there’s nothing normal about this administration. It caters to the white supremacists to a degree that I hope continues to shock the rest of society. It’s just unprecedented. I’m not suggesting we ignore that.