Well, I figured this Facebook post from last night, copied and pasted verbatim below, would ruffle a few feathers. So far it has ruffled only a few. It reflects my exasperation at the jaw-dropping and breathlessness people of various political stripes have exhibited in response to something our Dumpster-Fire-in-Chief said and/or did in Helsinki. Per the US Constitution: UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald takes to Twitter to resurrect a 2006 blog post of his that examines the problem of applying loose definitions to words like "treason."
Donald Trump says that he takes the word of Vladimir Putin over that of the US intelligence services. Trump is a habitual liar—and yet people are taking him at his word. The US intelligence services have a documented history of lying to the people and Congress to manufacture consent for wars and capitalist excesses abroad and domestically—and yet people are taking them at their word that Russia is up to the same old Cold War tricks (which, of course, the US has also played). To quote the Worst President Ever, "Sad." Even sadder is the dichotomous thinking I'm seeing among Democratic voters of my acquaintance: There are only two electoral alternatives, and anybody who votes for a third party is just a dangerous weirdo siphoning votes from the only two parties that actually exist. Everyone who voted for Johnson or Stein would have voted for Clinton in their absence. We can't talk about the greater numbers of Obama voters who switched to Trump. We can't talk about the even greater numbers in the big swing states who didn't vote at all. If you're getting whipped into a lather over talk of treason, please stop, drop, and roll. Then take a few deep breaths, tell your lizard brain to calm the fuck down, and let your neocortex take over. As bad as Trump is, and as much as we'd like to see him gone, treason cannot be proven (yet). An impeachment process launched from some dipshit comments made at an international meeting of two elected tyrants will be a waste of time, money, energy, and human resources. If the Mueller probe ever produces any actual evidence of actual malfeasance worthy of impeachment, I'm ready and willing to see it. Then it's just a matter of whether Republicans in Congress are willing to believe it. Meanwhile, if we must refresh the Tree of Liberty with the blood of this tyrant and his crew, let's make sure we're acting on something provable in a court of law. Acting on mere accusations is a recipe for decades of deadly ugliness. If there's any "good" news to be found in the whole Shocked! Shocked, I say! kerfuffle, it's that establishment Republicans are turning on The Donald in greater numbers. It's no longer just the George Wills and the Bill Kristols, but Republicans who have run interference for him in the past, including his enablers on Fox News. All narcissists lack emotional empathy and are, to some extent, anti-social. Many narcissists are somewhat psychopathic and, therefore, sadistically prone to violence. They get a high and derive an almost sexual gratification from wielding power and inflicting pain and humiliation on others. It sustains their grandiose fantasy of omnipotence (that they are Godlike, all-powerful). That's why many narcissists are litigious, threaten "their enemies" incessantly, seek to embarrass and humiliate them in public, stalk them, and harass them recurrently. Narcissists have a black and white view of the world: if you are not 100% with me, you are 110% the enemy (this is known as "splitting" in the psychological jargon). Trump strikes me as this type of narcissist. Saturday afternoon, as a fellow Green was excoriating Donald Trump from the stage of the Last Concert Café, another fellow Green leaned over and said something like, "Trump is sick, you know. He has a mental illness, and he needs treatment."
She didn't specify Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but that's where my brain went. That's what of thought about Trump for years. I nodded and kept listening to the speech. We all need mental health care, even those of us who suffer from no recognized mental illness. We need to break the stigma surrounding mental illness and seeking treatment. We need to make mental health care affordable for everyone, or society will continue to pay the price (e.g., in mass shootings). We also need to recognize when someone like Donald Trump is manipulating the public for his own self-aggrandizement, or when the Democratic Party and its operatives are gaslighting voters. This week, somebody on one of the Green Party Facebook pages posted a link to this little item (content warning: Language) from Yale University's not-as-famous-as-the-Harvard-Lampoon satire magazine. It is worth a giggle or two. However, I disagree with "James fucking Madison" regarding the utility of the Electoral College. Unfortunately, the real James Madison was too busy protecting the Republic from the excesses of the majority to see the wisdom of the Ranked Choice or Approval Voting methods. In his time, Madison had no reason to fear that the majority of the population would pick some raving yahoo to be president. It was left to the several States to determine who was allowed to vote, and they mostly limited the franchise to white male property-owning US citizens 21 or older. As it was, the white landed gentry chose plenty of racists, misogynists, xenophobes, and Indian-killers to be their leaders and representatives. Speaking of raving yahoos, the NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released yesterday contains some a few interesting questions regarding "Pussygate." Sorry the print is so tiny. [Insert clever joke about Donald Trump's fingers here.] To sum it up, only 3% of the likely voters polls are now more likely to support Trump following the release of the 2005 conversation with Billy Bush; 39% are less likely, and 56% say it makes no difference (as it would in my case, since the chance of my supporting Trump was already zero).
As to whether Trump should drop out of the race because of his comments, 39% said Yes, 59% said No. This question has more nuance than you would think: You can't just drop out of the race when millions have voted for you, your name is already on all the states' ballots, and early voting has already begun in some states. So I wouldn't mind seeing Trump drop off the face of the earth, but I would answer that question No, I don't think he should drop out of the race. For the moment, I will enjoy the Schadenfreude of watching Republicans squirming with buyer's remorse—especially Ted Cruz, who, just two weeks before, very reluctantly drank the red Kool-Aid and endorsed Trump. Maybe after the election I will begin to feel sorry for them for being so thoroughly duped. One of the exasperating aspects of reading poll results is seeing how professional pollsters leave ambiguous questions in their surveys—sometimes intentionally, mostly because they genuinely don't know. It's amazing, and a little disturbing, how a slight change of wording can produce a different result. It would have been more precise to ask if Trump should concede the race. Rep. Paul Ryan has already disinvited Trump and his running mate Gov. Mike Pence from campaign events in Wisconsin. It won't be the last place where influential Republicans will tell Trump and Pence that they are not fucking welcome. |
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