“Donald Trump — as he’s prone to do — he didn’t build the building by himself, but he slapped his name on it and took credit for it.”
That was President Obama last week, rightly pointing out that the GOP can pretend that Trump does not share their positions and that he is not really one of them, but the fact is that they built that Building of Deplorables that allowed Trump to move in and declare himself their king.
“The problem is not that all Republicans think the way this guy does,” Obama said. “The problem is that they’ve been riding this tiger for a long time. They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years, primarily for political expedience.”
It’s not like the warning signs weren’t there. It’s not like there weren’t plenty of us (and even plenty in the GOP) who predicted that this would happen. They could have done more to prevent this, and now it appears they’re going to lose the Presidency as well as the Senate (and maybe even the House).
And it’s their own damn fault.
So when some Republican says that they can’t support Trump and they act all surprised that such a terrible man could have ever grabbed the support of a majority of their members, take it with a grain of salt. The warning signs were there all along, and they just continued to drive off that cliff.
I have had clients who grabbed women when they didn’t want to be grabbed. You can read all about these clients on the Megan’s Law website, listing sexual predators.
Donald Trump’s statements about how, as a star, he can “grab women by the pussy” and kiss them and get away with it are upsetting, but he and his supporters don’t get why it’s upsetting. He defends himself by saying it’s just “locker room talk” and other defenders are saying “Oh, yeah, well worse things are said by rappers!” (None of whom, it should be noted, are running for President of the United States.)
Look, It’s not the word “pussy” that is objectionable — it’s the word “grab.”
Trevor Noah pointed this out on the Daily Show:
You tell me which is worse: “Yesterday, I escorted a young lady back to her residence and proceeded to caress her genitals despite her lack of invitation.” or “I was rolling with this bad bitch and asked, ‘Yo, you gonna let me smash that ass?’ When she said no, I was like, “OK, no pussy for me!”
Which one is worse? While neither is ideal, one is crude and the other is against the law.
“Oh, yeah?” the Trumpettes scream. “Why are all the women who read 50 Shades of Grey getting all upset?” Well, maybe it’s because they can tell the difference between fiction and reality. I mean, come on, I liked the movie Mad Max but that doesn’t mean I’d like to live there.
And even so, as I’ve said before, 50 Shades is a BDSM fantasy that many people have. In real life, there would be a safe word there but having the characters in the movie use a safe word would ruin the fantasy. It would be like having James Bond turn to the audience and say “You know we’re not using real bullets, right?”
But you know what’s worse? Many Republicans don’t seem to care about this. Billy Bush, the guy who did the interview with Trump that led to these quotes, was just as bad and he lost his job because of it. It’s a shame that the standards for a TV show host are higher than those for the Republican candidate for President.
“Hillary does not look Presidential because she doesn’t have stamina” – 1st debate
“What I admire about her is that she never gives up and works hard.” – 2nd debate
Trump will claim a win. Then Hillary’s team will have the new ads showing all the lies he said. Like last time, he denied saying things he actually said and there will be videos showing him saying those things. (I mean, really, do Republicans even understand how technology works?) Pence did the same thing during his debate, using the old Stalinesque tactic of “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”
Trump played to his followers, who still cheer when he claims, like a dictator, that he will jail his opponent. I don’t think he widened his base at all, and probably scared away potential new voters.
He has no clue about what Americans want, and does not know how to talk to anyone who isn’t a white male. When a black man asked him a question about bringing people together, he immediately started talking about inner city crime because, of course, all black people live in the inner city, right? When a Muslim asked how Trump could fight against the prejudices Muslims face, he talked about terrorism, because Muslim = terrorist, right?
As the spoiled man-child, he once again whined that everyone was against him and that any time he doesn’t win, it means someone else cheated. He protested the mean questions he got (because, you know, Presidents never get asked tough questions) and claimed he was not getting as much time as Clinton (even though he actually ended up talking more than her).
Even worse, he was being questioned by two women and a gay man with a woman opponent. You could see his anger as he lurked behind Clinton as she spoke and paced nervously. He just can’t stand not being the center of attention and losing it to a woman? Unthinkable.
The bar was set so low that all he had to do was not throw up and some people would declare him the winner.
This is the saddest election I have ever seen. I am embarrassed for my country. While many of us had predicted this sort of thing happening over the years as the Tea Party radicals on the right controlled the GOP, I don’t think we ever expected it to get this bad.
In an announcement that shocked the world, Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate William Weld today made a statement that acknowledges that yes, the real world does exist out there.
Libertarians are a strange cult that believes that government is the root of all evil. “All taxation is thievery” they are fond of saying. “Any law we don’t like is the same thing as tyranny.” They think that if the government would just stop regulating everything, we’d all live in peace and harmony and ride unicorns and the Invisible Hand of Capitalism would make sure that no one in the world would ever take advantage of someone else ever again and they all lived happily ever after.
This, of course, is contradicted by the fact that such a thing has never happened in the history of the planet for any society ever. However, the reality of the real world has never stood in the way of hardcore libertarian philosophy.
Weld has acknowledged that there is no way his ticket can win, and despite all the libertarians who want to “send a message,” he is aware that this message will be meaningless and that Trump such a huge threat to the country that stopping him is more important than any message one could send.
In other words, even he thinks that voting 3rd party is wasting your vote.
It is unclear whether Weld had an epiphany of insight or if he was secretly not a libertarian after all. This columnist proposes that the second option is true. In fact, I actually voted for William Weld back in the ’80s when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts because, despite being a Republican, he was the more liberal candidate. While I disagreed with many of his positions, he always seemed reasonable, rational, and willing to compromise — traits rarely seen among the more rabid libertarians, who tend to carry around Ayn Rand books and argue for the morality of selfishness.
So this is indeed a banner day, and it provides hope that perhaps, in our lifetime, with your help, we can find a cure for libertarianism.
Don’t be fooled by the calm demeanor Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence may present during the debate. The man is a radical extremist, holding positions that are often much more harmful to our society than anything Trump may say. Remember: this is the man who gained fame a while ago for passing Indiana’s so-called “Religious Freedom Act” legalizing discrimination against gays and lesbians. He believes that “God’s law trumps America’s laws” (and only his god, and his interpretation of his god, of course). He is dangerous.
Pence believes:
source: http://www.ontheissues.org/IN/Mike_Pence.htm
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