Saturday, October 08, 2016

On Trump

Thoughts on the latest scandal scandal scandal SCANDAL SCANDAL! SCANDAL!!

  • If Donald Trump had any wit, he'd start referring to his penis as Quemoy or Matsu.
  • It took 32 years beyond the predicted date, but the Junior Anti-Sex League is here. For people who are obsessed with sex as much as modern liberals, they sure are a bunch of intermittent Puritans.
  • It personally took me a while to realize this, but a gentleman doesn't discuss his sex life. For the most part, people who discuss their sex lives in detail don't actually have one. Trump would be an exception on both scores. Extreme narcissists are a breed unto themselves and are rarely gentlemen.
  • For months, certain commenters here have asked me why I still consider myself #NeverTrump. It's because of crap like this. Defending the indefensible is a mug's game.
  • I'm not particularly offended by what he said; back in the day, I heard worse on a daily basis. Although I don't remember saying anything as foul as what Trump said, I wouldn't swear I didn't, especially after I'd had a few adult beverages. But I stopped acting that way a long time ago. Trump never did and he's spent most of his adult life in proximity to microphones. He's probably said worse and we're likely to hear it before Nov. 8.
  • A comment on Althouse's blog sums up the current state of play accurately:  "Any girl with a story to tell about Bill Clinton knows by now to keep her mouth shut. On the other hand, any girl with a story to tell about Donald Trump will be honored and richly rewarded. They're both players but the game is rigged in Clinton's favor." As usual, you can complain about the double standard all you want, but your complaints won't make the double standard go away. 
  • So what is the actual standard? Republican sexuality is bad -- it's pretty much axiomatic. No one really gave a damn about Trump's horndogging, except in a Page Six, do you believe what Trump did this time? sense, until he began describing himself as a Republican. Trump likely didn't understand that when he was running his mouth 11 years ago, but he understands it now. Back in 2005, it wasn't disgraceful. It was marketing. Not any more.
  • As always, the tape hit at the same time as another revelation of Clinton perfidy arose, but this time one that implicates St. Barack's minions. Can't have that, so we need to have the locker room banter on Page One. At some point, the historians may tell us some of the stories we really need to understand, assuming we still have historians in the future. We will only get glimpses of the truth for the moment.
  • Unless the biochemical engineers in her employ screw up the titration and she dies onstage tomorrow at Washington University in St. Louis, Hillary Clinton is going to be president. The only consolation is she's going to reap a hell of a whirlwind. Everyone knows she's a monster and the Gods of the Copybook Headings will be visiting in due course.

6 comments:

W.B. Picklesworth said...

I've always heard that the 70s were a miserable time for America, but I was too young to know one way or the other. Can they hold a candle to this decade? What endemic rot. What hypocrisy. Can we either get a revival or a Visigoth horde to end it already?

John said...

I don't recall the 70s being a miserable time for America, although we did have a President, who despite ending an unpopular war, was hated by the the press and the youthful agitators of the day. The President was impeached when the number of scandals rose to an unacceptable level and he lost the support of his own minority party. He resigned before the Senate could convict him. His successor was best known for falling down stairs and hitting spectators with golf balls, but he helped bring the turmoil of the Nixon years to an end.

Then, like now, we had experts in the government telling everyone how to fix an economy that suffered from the first OPEC oil embargoes, inflation, and increasing unemployment that rose despite the election of President Carter. He attempted to micro-manage everything and only made matters worse. For example, home mortgage rates hit 12% at one point and unemployment went up to about 10%, and the interstate speed limit (nationwide) was 55 mph. The climate change crowd was still warning about the impending ice age, but I don't recall the government calling it the #1 problem.

The big difference, I think, was we were not constantly at each others throats being spurred on by the 24/7/365 cable news and opinion cycle.

Mr. D said...

That's a pretty good synopsis of the 70s, John. Government was a problem; one of the largely forgotten parts of Carter's term in office is that he belatedly recognized how problematic regulation had been and started to pare back some of the more onerous regulations, especially in transportation. It made a difference, although Carter was gone by the time the changes really took hold.

WBP -- what was tough about the 70s was the national mood, which was foul. A lot of people on the Left thought forcing Nixon out would usher in a great new era, but the Democrats didn't have any answers for the larger issues. The 70s were the also the decade when the Japanese and the Germans, who were largely on the mat following WWII, both saw their economies kick into high gear. I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was a joke. By the end of the 70s, no one was laughing.

Bike Bubba said...

I grew up near Gary, Indiana. Nobody was laughing in the late 1970s when Nippon Steel started taking it to Bethlehem, LTV, U.S. Steel, and the like. Had a bunch of friends whose dads were intermittently out of work as a result. Dared to drive a Japanese car? Be careful where you drove, 'cause in some places that "sin" would get your ride keyed.

We really forget a lot about what was wrong about the 1970s. 10% inflation and high unemployment to boot. All the roads around Chicago would start cracking, seemingly, a few weeks after the concrete was poured--we all joked the mob and unions had paid off the politicians. We were probably right. 55mph on vacations out to Wyoming, Montana, and Arizona. Federal car regulations that pushed (like today's) changes in technology much faster than they could be made well. Remember the V4? Figured you could clear the roads with salt....and suddenly getting 60k miles out of a car seemed pretty good.

Disco. Need I say more?

3john2 said...

At some point, the historians may tell us some of the stories we really need to understand, assuming we still have historians in the future. We will only get glimpses of the truth for the moment.

The burning of the memory hole furnace will be the greatest cause of global warning in two years.

Good reference to the Gods of the Copybook Headings, btw. I'm sure Rudyard approves.

3john2 said...

To save some Googling, here's Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"


AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!