Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/16/trump-makes-it-easy-to-forget.html
…
2 Likes
What was Graham’s comment on the choice between Cruz and Trump? Oh, yes: Like a choice between being poisoned and being shot. I’d add to that the rest of the GOP potentials were akin to being strangled, dismembered, exsanguinated, or nibbled to death by rats.
22 Likes
23 Likes
Which makes it easy to understand why all the GOP insiders who were saying “Donald Trump is an abomination!” while their favored candidate was still in the race are now whole-heartedly behind him. Partly it’s party loyalty (instinctive or coerced), but partly it’s that one garbage fire looks much like another. If you’ve been backing one genuinely horrible candidate, then you must have lowered your standards to the point where switching to support another is relatively easy.
I still can’t decide if any of the also-rans were less horrible than Donald Trump, or if they were each equally evil and inept in their own special way.
Tom Stoppard once wrote “It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.” He might also have added “It’s the choices that you’re offered.” 2016 seems to have touched a new low when it comes to the choices we’ve been given.
15 Likes
Or, in other words, he’s an orthodox unexceptional 21st century Republican.
7 Likes
32 Likes
Your statement assumes that many people have standards for themselves.
I can say with some confidence that is a terrible assumption to make, and will lead you to assuming things like everyone has a conscience and they would never, which many thousands of years of civilization might be admitted as evidence to the contrary.
Some of us are just selfish unreconstructed assholes. These days the (R) next to their name is a great signifier of this condition.
6 Likes
Samantha Bee’s tweet: “Breaking the mattress of America.”
3 Likes
It’s fun to see what both primary processes this year say about their respective parties.
The Right wants a racist authoritarian dictator who will be cruel to people who aren’t white. All other concerns fall by the wayside. Small government? Economic conservatism? Chicago-school economics? Who cares, this guy WANTS TO KICK BROWN PEOPLE OUT! The bald appeal to people’s basest fears and insecurities lets a huckster sell them a bill of goods for his own profit and power. When the Right is afraid, they want immediate and viscerally satisfying action.
The Left primarily seems to want someone safe. All other concerns aren’t as important. Who cares if she’s a corrupt insider who sold out to the rich and powerful before she was even in a capitol building? She’s our corrupt insider, and on the social issues that make us seem nice, we’re pretty sure she’d do the right thing, sooner or later. She’s also a fear response, though less of a belligerent one and more of a known quality. She’s “safe.”
I like Hillary much better. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, and I think she’s more loyal to her rich and powerful buddies than to me, but if we fill Congress with a few more Bernies and a few more Warrens in 2016, I do trust her to not stand in the way. Generally, she’s on the Right Side of Stuff, we just need a congress that gives her laws that are very much steps in the right direction. With that, she’ll probably get more done than Obama did, what with the stonewalling he got for a decade.
27 Likes
Roger That!
12 Likes
I’m telling people to write me in. My motto: “I can’t be any worse!”
9 Likes
Most… no, ALL of those quotes are just…
//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boingboing/original/3X/b/a/bab43446b689dcd9413db8dc3a8e486aeff02ec6.gif
100% satire proof.
6 Likes
…but he has a haircut you could set your watch to.
2 Likes
According to an Indiana state employee I know, Pence instituted state contract bidding rules that decree any job under $150,000 must be done by using prison labor, thereby effectively crushing all the small businesses that relied on small bid contracts. Haven’t fact-checked this yet but my source seemed pretty bent about it…that’s not a good sign for me. As far as the article goes, Trump rising to the top of the heap seems perfectly appropriate - ostensibly the system is set up to bring forward the best choice - he seems like the best of that lot, and the Republicans are closer to enacting the actual “will of the voters” than the Dems with their super-delegates and the like. Neither choice is good, but that’s not news.
1 Like
Trumppence sounds like it might be some sort of contagion.
It also sort of rhymes with comeuppance.
5 Likes
When anyone with daddy issues is afraid, the outcome is the same.
7 Likes
Back when you could actually say the two parties were not so different, they both represented the entire American public, warts and all. It’s a little harder to say that now; the Democrats haven’t changed that much, still as a group preferring conservative changes if any (for instance implementing a health insurance mandate instead of nationalizing the entire health insurance industry) and instead of pushing for social change merely endorsing public opinion (and some fears). Republicans on the other hand represent a smaller and smaller group of people and businesses but enjoy widespread support.
More generally, Democrats represent everyone and support the status quo. Republicans represent bigots and barons and push for extremist, regressive changes. Thanks to the status quo not being widely popular and the Republicans having more passionate supporters due to actually standing for something, the Republicans can still compete.
It’s too bad our elections don’t allow for more than two choices, 'cause “No Change” and “Undo” aren’t particularly exciting. Though being a cis hetero white male with a BS, a comfortable job and a not-small apartment, I’m a solid Hillary voter. Life is good (subtext: I have something to lose), so I wholeheartedly confess that thinking Hillary is a safe choice drives my vote.
8 Likes
My hypothesis is that Trump is the Wizard of Oz. Big, booming voice, smoke and fire - but it’s all a distraction to keep everyone’s attention away from what’s going on behind the curtain. It’s not just Trump, really - it’s the whole republican primary slate of buffoons. They don’t care WHO their candidate is. Their focus is on the Congressional and Senate races. They want Democrats to expend all their energy fighting for the Presidency. In that respect, the worse their candidate is, the more attention he draws. And if an idiot wins, well that helps the neocon agenda of ruining the Federal government.
I sincerely hope that’s not what’s happening. I’m just throwing it out there to think about.
7 Likes
Or tuppence, which is about how much they’re worth.
3 Likes
