I Question The Timing
News outlets are suddenly finding out that Trump was a cad in 2005. Film at 11.
The New York Times has posted a story of two women accusing Donald Trump of inappropriate touching, one “more than three decades ago” and the other in 2005. The same day, a People magazine writer says Trump touched her, too, also in 2005. Also, Miss Washington 2015. And a Miss USA 2001 contestant. And a Florida woman 13 years ago.
Given what we already know of Trump’s character and demeanor, I’m inclined to believe all of them. But the man has been running for president for sixteen months. He’s been the presumptive Republican nominee for most of the year. Why, all of a sudden, are all of these charges hitting the news, years if not decades after the fact?
Presumably, part of the answer is that the scandal that ensued from the release of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” outtakes—and Trump’s insistence that they don’t reflect who he really is—have made it safe for these women to go public. There’s safety in numbers, after all.
But we’re now learning that NBC had the “Access Hollywood” tapes long before they were released and were specifically holding them to maximize damage to Trump’s campaign. And we’re suddenly hearing things that Trump said on Howard Stern’s nationally-broadcast show years ago. This certainly seems like a coordinated strategy rather than a happy coincidence.
While they would have less access to some of this information than major media outlets, it’s rather baffling that none of Trump’s primary opponents uncovered any of this. The Stern show material was certainly out there and, while I doubt John Kasich, Jeb Bush, or Marco Rubio were regular listeners, there are surely younger, New York-based Republican operatives who were. That Trump was a regular guest on the show and that Stern (like Don Imus and a handful of others) is amazingly adept at getting famous people to let down their guard and say outrageous things doesn’t take great detective work to figure out.
I had the same thought, but I wonder if it would have mattered to Republicans if all of this had come out in the primary season. They seem to be willing to overlook anything and everything. I left that party because of Trump. But a lot of people are willing to pretend he is not insane. They might well have held back on all of this because they felt they had to either release it or ignore it. Time is running out.
You’re choosing to accept the TMZ version over the Washington Post version of why the release was delayed? That’s a bit strange.
It sounds to me like what has happened here is that Billy Bush has supporters and friends within the show/on NBC who are upset he got dragged down in all of this, and they’ve decided they’re going to run with an alternate theory of events. It might be true, but might not. The media doesn’t voluntarily give up a scoop to another outlet–that’s not how competition works.
In any case, when Cruz started his whining about how this was all coming out now (instead of in time to save him) I noted in another thread that every single one of the Republican candidates thought this clown would flame out on his own, and that they could keep the mud off their coats and not upset his supporters, so they would have a shot at bringing them on board. Cruz’s campaign manager–look him up–has a very long record of leaving no stone or pebble unturned. Let’s stop the pearl-clutching about the timing, because the reasons for it are very, very apparent.
Trump once said that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue (or some NY street) and the deplorables would still vote for him. The deplorables changed their Twitter handle to Deplorable So and So and said, “Damn right I would. LOCKERUP. LOCKERUP.”
On the other side, after months of pushing the sleazeball narrative and finally getting some steam, someone (probably not in Clinton’s campaign, but on Clinton’s side) decided to test this theory.
So, in other words, it’s science.
If you’re looking for a possible explanation, here’s the Clinton campaign saying that they wanted to “elevate” Trump (along with Cruz and Carson) as the candidates they thought they could most easily beat.
You might also recall that Hillary spoke of Trump “not paying taxes for 20 years” about a week before parts of his tax returns were leaked. Another example of “excellent” timing in her attacks on Trump.
No question NBC News blew it, but wanting to hold a story a few days so it has maximum viewership seems fairly routine. Their mistake was thinking this was just another Trump
story and they could keep control of it.
I really doubt the of the news media is deliberately holding huge stories to maximize political impact. For a few days to maximize readership/viewership? Sure. But not for an extended period of time. And the Clinton campaign? Of course, as that’s part of campaign strategy. I would say that everyone does it but Trump and his campaign staff does not have the discipline to work the timing of anything. They can’t distinguish between big stories and nonsense and just retweet and broadcast whatever comes in front of them, instantly.
@Jen:
Again, brava, Jen. You are absolutely right
@Jenos The Deplorable:
So I guess you are saying the gOP didn’t do the same to Bernie Sanders? They never laid a glove on him and many praised him during the campaign.
Question? Do you really hold this up as an example of Clinton mendacity? Or are you really so naive that you wouldn’t believe this is pretty much SOP fpor all campaigns? Better yet, are you really so clueless that you don’t think Trump isn’t doing the same damn thing (but failing miserably becase they are bush league amateurs)?
God look what the professionals did to John Kerry.
@Jenos The Deplorable: Oh my god…they acted just like…every political campaign ever!
*yawn*
“October surprise” has been a thing for awhile. Yeah, maybe some of the media was complicit, they always are.
None of these are actually a surprise with Trump, that’s the thing. Unless somebody can prove he did something as bad as Cosby (for example), my mind won’t change. I don’t mean to sound dismissive of groping and interest in young women, but I think you’ll find it’s pretty common for rich people who own beauty pageants.
In this short attention span election cycle, right now is the only time you can release material and actually have people remember it. During the primary people would have publicly cheered the Donald for his macho attitude.
@Mu:
During the primary? My Trump-supporting friends are doing that now!
Would it have anything to do with trying to seat 4 ladies in your family enclosure at the second debate at the weekend: four ladies who are there to question your opponent’s involvement in alleged sexual misconduct (all before 2005). That might focus the media after Trump’s bombshell video, bragging about his sexual assaults, emerged 7 days ago.
I see a market in new ball caps – Make America Grope Again
There is ample evidence that this is more about attention focused currently than any ridiculous scheme by the media to sit on this info.
Buzzfeed, in February, posted a comprehensive collection of gross Trump/Stern exchanges.
February. His primary opponents didn’t even need to DO opposition research, Buzzfeed was doing it FOR them. They still didn’t use it. Why?
From today’s Washington Post:
Emphasis added.
This was all out there already. That it’s just being collected and reported in multiple outlets has less to do with some nefarious plot on the part of the media than focused attention being brought to bear because of a hot mic, and the fact that the general public is just now paying attention.
@ James
Maybe because Trump has made Bill Clinton’s bad behavior “years if not decades after the fact” an issue re Hillary Clinton’s fitness for the presidency?
This simply proves how incompetent the supposed deep Republican bench was…if any of those people couldn’t beat Trump in the primary season how would they have ever defeated Hillary in the general election…
Well, you and your pal Scott Adams seemed to think that Trump would be able to somehow win this election…so much for that idea…
The Clinton oppo research team is good and they had a LOT to work with.
FWIW, I don’t believe the NBC version of how the Pu$$y gate clip was released. That sounds like a lawyerly version of what happened. They just happened to be looking at the Trump footage after all this time and just happened to quickly find this clip among hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of footage? I think not. And then the source shares this not with the local paper but anti Trump hero David Farenthold, who lives and works 3000 miles away? Nope.
I sense the hand of Clinton oppo. I believe that this clip was found and given to the Clinton team a long time ago and shared at the opportune moment. The NBC version is about deflecting litigation. James instinct about timing is spot on. Coincidences happen-once. Two or three times is a plan.
That is rather amazing.
The rest of it? I have my doubts about massive strategizing by the media on this issue. Indeed, hasn’t part of the criticism of the media on the more leftward side of things been that they haven’t been digging enough? The fact that it took the video to start to bringing out this particular angle may validate that thesis.
Plus, with Trump it has been one thing after another–to the point that it has appeared difficult for the media narrative to focus on one aspect of his story for very long.
As a friend of mine quipped on FB yesterday: “Remember when we were shocked to learn about Trump University? That was quaint.”
Keeping up with all the problematic stories related to Trump is nearly impossible.
“it’s rather baffling that none of Trump’s primary opponents uncovered any of this”
There’s the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
Once somebody sets the precedent and takes the gloves off, it becomes a free-for-all and everyone becomes a target, which would make for some pretty ugly primaries and party discord.
And to be fair, the Democrats aren’t likely to go there, either, for the same reason. Nobody wants perpetual conflicts of that sort within the family. The real nastiness is left to the opposing party.
I am not surprised GOP did not get any of this. They need Assange and Russia to get Hillary emails…Their ineptitude extends beyond the walls of congress. That and as Jen said above, they basically have no courage to attack due to fears…even though their opponent attacked them all mercilessly throughout the GOP primary season.
Best summary goes to Jen:
So ‘splain to me why I should really care whether it was held by NBC (if it was) or HRC’s campaign?
He’s a proud serial abuser of women who is running for president. A group of his victims have come forward after he outed himself to confirm that he is indeed a proud abuser of women. Rather than fretting over when the news came out, the fact that it has come out is reason for praise not suspicion.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Oh, I’m sure they were fully aware of it, as Jen says; they just didn’t want to use it for fear of alienating the Trumpkins. And they assumed that a buffoon like Trump would flame out on his own.
Maybe you have to live in the northeast, but all this stuff about Trump was well-known long before this year.
@Stonetools: I have only one small caveat.
Given that Farenthold was literally the ONLY person (for some little time) with a national platform who was getting any headway at all, if I had been in possession of such a tape, I would have thought of him first too. Because then I would know it had a chance of getting out there.
And you have only to see the response of the Trump campaign (threatening to sue) and the StormTrumpers (calling the women fakes) to know why they waited so long. The one thing we’ve learned in politics is that people will tolerate sexual assault if it comes from their candidate.
Right now, Conway is threatening to out other Republicans who’ve groped women. Good. Let’s have it all out. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Anyone of any political stripe.
But you would think that when Trump violated that rule like it was a beauty show contestant, when he threw it down on the floor and stomped on it, that rule would be lifted. No, they thought Trump would implode on his own. So they did LOTS of oppo research … on each other. We heard lots about Rubio non-scandals and Heidi Cruz’s mental breakdown. And it never occurred to them that Trump wasn’t going to fall on his own. You had to actually take him out.
(And of course Clinton wanted Trump. She knows him. Everyone in New York does. I don’t think she could have imagined it would be this bad, but she knew he was garbage.)
Why’s all this an issue suddenly, you ask? Simple James. The media’s finally realized their driving need to have a horse race and the almighty ratings game has lead to a point where Donald Effing Trump could conceivably be the leader of the free world. The damage they’ve done this election in terms to false equivalency will be studied ad nauseam for the next few decades. I pity pol sci and history majors for all the crap assignments this will generate…..
Nobody wanted to discuss how scummy Trump was because they felt he was a useful idiot for airtime and would dissipate on his own. Why waste time on the clown? Much more interesting to discuss Hillary or Sanders or even Cruz et al’s foibles since clearly one of them would be Pres and they wanted to be the first to dish dirt. Now, it’s less then a month to go and people are waking up to realize “$@&#&^, it’s possible he could really win this”. Not a joke anymore, not even worth it to do a factious both-sides-do-it segment. They’ve had their fun. It’s get serious time which means reminding the general public of the obvious: this man’s a thin-skinned raging egomaniac with a laundry list of unacceptable attributes rending him unfit for anything except being a walking tabloid.
Aut vincere aut mori. With him at the helm, mori is the more likely end. The media’s smart enough to realize all that money they’ll make on their precious horse race won’t mean crap if Trump tanks our economy. Add in that Republicans never wanted Trump, they wanted the Presidency and power that goes with it. He was just the delivery method. Now that he’s bad mojo, it’s better to conquer the Senate and anything other down ticket items they can. Dogpile on Trump, remind everyone the sky is blue and save what they can.
@Franklin: I don’t mean to sound dismissive of groping and interest in young women, but I think you’ll find it’s pretty common for rich people who own beauty pageants.
He walked around backstage while contestants for the Miss Teen USA pageant were getting changed, some of those girls were as young as 15.
Trump was in his 50’s at that point, he wasn’t a 16 year old boy. He’s a degenerate.
@Hal_10000:
Trump’s inability to play nicely with others is one of the primary reasons that they want him gone. Trump isn’t trustworthy and shows no respect for the party hierarchy.
So, Republicans chose to nominate a rancid, scat-covered baboon, and we Democrats should have warned them earlier? Is that about the size of this particular whine?
Republican candidates didn’t get any of this stuff because it never occurs to a Republican mind to find out whether a candidate is a pig to women. Do I need to explain why that is?
Now, does my Spidey sense tell me this is oppo? Of course it’s oppo. This is the big leagues, and competent candidates – candidates who don’t spend their days grabbing ’em by the pussy – have a good oppo organization. Hillary has her oppo people, and Trump has Putin and Assange. It’s just that Hillary’s people have better, sexier stuff and way better planning and timing. That’s the difference between a professional and a KGB thug.
This will be less of a problem in the future if the GOP would learn not to choose the candidate most likely to stir up hate. But hey, they wouldn’t be the GOP then, would they?
(a) you have an ingrained idea among the elite (media or otherwise) of something called an “October Surprise,” where the most eyeballs can be caught with the most salacious takedowns
(b) you have reporters on both sides mining whatever data they can find, for professional and ideological reasons, to take down either of the presidential candidates
(c) you have newsroom economics where if a competitor gets a story up, you follow the next day with the same story or other info similar to it that piles on
There’s no need for a conspiracy or coordinated strategy to explain this. The story that Donald Trump would sexually assault women was apparent as far back as April. The story didn’t catch on then because his Republican rivals for the nomination were idiots, and given the monomaniacal breeziness of the base this year it’s entirely possible they wouldn’t have cared even if it was brought up.
That´s from June:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/why-the-new-child-rape-ca_b_10619944.html
Lisa Bloom has saying for months that she has a client claiming sexual harassment claims against Trump.
Or it’s not, and you’re both engaged in “Obama 12th dimensional chess” fluffing.
Bringing up Alicia Machado’s name at the tail-end of the first debate was oppo. Relatively obscure, hits the women and Latino demographics, establishes Trump is a pig. This is closer to an “inside the media” story that spun out, like Jen notes at the top of the thread. It makes better sense of the timing than positing David Farenthold would be passed up because of the distance involved in sending a video file over the Internet in favor of a podunk local newspaper, and it has the benefit of relying on office politics for explaining power instead of a vague sense that a higher tier of importance necessarily implies greater competence.
@Pch101:
But to his supporters, that sounds good. To anyone who knows how politics actually works, it’s horrifying.
Something to consider is that Trump supporters are known to throw around death threats to anybody who dare criticize him. And on top of that, Trump is known for wanting to sue people just to make them pay even if he does not care about a win in the courts.
Newspapers have really been the anti-Trump media. Their endorsements are so much in favor of Hillary, even during the primaries. At some point, they refrained a little when Hillary was being bombarded and Sanders was catching up, Otherwise, the newspapers have been on her side.
NBC is not a newspaper though. From the articles that I had been reading on the NBC site, they would often cheer for Trump or take the side of the Wall Street, for smaller tax and regulations. So to some extent, the NBC was trying to be neutral. Until recently perhaps, after they had hosted the first debate.
So I do think that they had been waiting, waiting, waiting… But somebody had made a copy of the video and did not want to wait any longer. That’s the version that I’d prefer to believe in. It was a leak. Perhaps the leaker didn’t trust the NBC to carry through. Also we have to consider that the Access Hollywood show was a property of the NBC apparently. And they would not like to be viewed as bigots. So it was not just political interest. It was also “shareholder” interest. See for example how The Apprentice show has not tipped their hands.
What, other Republican candidates and virtually all media evidently did not do any opposition research on Trump in the 15 months preceding the debates? I think we’re all shocked.
Frankly, I feel bad about the current disclosures that Trump apparently is the arrested-development-greaseball that many people suspected he was. And, yes, that’s the smell of schadenfreude in the air.
I join those who are puzzled at this coming out now rather than during the primaries. Trump turned the primaries into a fourth grade schoolyard insult contest. He belittled McCain as a non-hero, called Rubio “little”, and heaped truly scurrilous remarks on Cruz. They responded by endorsing him! They could have brought this stuff out then.
The Hillz team waited till Trump went after Bill Clinton for several weeks.
What conclusions can be drawn? Either the GOP insiders wanted Trump no matter what, or they are spectacularly incompetent. After watching Hillz give her testimony before Congress, I came to the conclusion that she is a pretty tough nut to crack, and this counterpunch proves it again.
Talk about Bill Clinton and women? Please don’t throw me into the briar patch, Bre’er Trump.
I don’t share James’ cynicism about why this story is coming out now. But there is a more interesting part of this: what made this story the big one? Over the years I’ve seen a lot of comments from editors and reporters about their puzzlement of why some stories blow up and similar stories a few years before didn’t. And after all, there has been a lot of these types of stories about Trump. As I read the roundups published today of the women who have accused him of this type of behavior it goes back for more than a decade. There was at least one ten year old lawsuit that tracks very closely to what Trump said to Bush about his behavior. Trump has admitted to this much and worse on Stern and other shows. So why did this tape make such a big impression? FWIW, here’s my 5 cent analysis:
1) Timing. We are closer to the election and the interest is suddenly greater
2) Victim. It is sad, but if the victim is poor or ugly or dumb, their is less sympathy and interest. The women whose stories are catching hold are good looking, white and middle class or higher, because that is who Trump preyed upon.
3) Tape vs. he said, she said. People have an amazing ability to push aside things that can be categorized as he said, she said. But once you had Trump on tape describing how he behaves, these stories suddenly become more credible because they match how he described his own behavior.
4) Reinforcing the stereotype. Reporters and readers both are attracted to stories that reinforce the stereotype. Right now, the (justified) narrative is that Trump is a sexual sleazebag and stories that reinforce that are going to attract more readers than Trump’s business dealings. In past elections this held true for narratives about McCain having a temper, or Kerry not really deserving his purple hearts, or Gore’s accomplishments not being ‘real’.
@michael reynolds:
Have you forgotten the great Clenis hunt? Dredging up fabulists like Paula Jones?
They think this stuff is stuff only Democrats care about, and they are right, too.
@Tillman:
The deplorables are making it plain they do not care even now. If this had come out during the primaries, it would just be normalized by now.
I think Jen pretty much laid it out, but let me add one bit you’re missing: Trump’s claim – both via surrogates and live on national tv during the debate – that it was “only talk” and he never ever actually did any of the things went on about with Billy Bush.
Many, many women heard that. Women who had in fact been assaulted by Trump. Gee, I wonder why that straw broke the camel’s back and got so many of them to come forward…?
@MarkedMan:
The Alicia Machado story prepared the stage for this.
You left out :
5) Trump was already sliding in the polls. Rats and ships, sharks and bloody water etc.
All I am going to say is that if the Clinton campaign wasn’t involved in this every step of the way, then I am very disappointed in them.
@bookdragon: Yeah, I don’t think men understand how infuriating that was to women.
We get groped/sexually assaulted/raped. And then we’re told “oh, boys will be boys.” Or “you’re crazy, he wouldn’t have done that.” “You must have done something to lead him on.” “What do expect, if you wear such a short skirt.”
As Rod Dreher says, the saddest comment on this whole affair is that made by the 74-year old woman Trump molested on the airplane: “We accepted it for years. We were taught it was our fault.”
@Hal_10000:
The establishment wants Trump gone because he isn’t trustworthy. I don’t think that it’s a secret that Trump’s diehard supporters aren’t part of the establishment.
@charon: And one more thing: I don’t think anything turned the press against Trump as much as his “press conference” renouncing birtherism. He had every network broadcasting live as he pitched the wonders of his new hotel for an hour — and then said two sentences about Obama.
He played the networks for chumps. And yes, it was entirely their own fault for falling for his schtick once again — but I suspect that just made them angrier and wiped out any trace of good will that might have been left.
Well, the Democrats do want to relive the 1960s. Mad Men, all the way
Much better than the Republicans, who want to relive the 1950s. Jim Crow, all the way…
@grumpy realist @bookdragon: :
Agreed. I’d also toss in how hypocritical it is that suddenly the whole catcalling/”locker room” language is suddenly a THING due to his word choice when it’s been brought up forever as a ignored concern. Women talk about how men use degrading language to address them and how it pervades thinking and culture to the point of normalization. You get men like Brock Turner because of men like Trump. We get judges who dismiss sexual assault in favor of the attackers’ future because they grew up hearing how women are slutty/asking for it and there’s no reason to hurt someone’s prospects over a slut, amirite? We get PUAs, MGTOW and the cesspool that are RedPillers because respectful language and actions towards women somehow diminishes men.
Mention this and you’ll get some variation of “Oh God, not this rape culture shite again” or #NotAllMen. Words have tremendous power. Trump’s extreme but the whole concept of “locker room talk” means that this exists out there frequently enough to name. Nobody said a word to shut him down or tell him to stop. Bush was giggling through the whole thing. How many others rant in the same way only for the guys around them to just keep their mouths closed… or worse, smirk? But OMG, Trump said pussy. Stop the presses, it’s horrific!!
@grumpy realist: Yeah, I don’t think men understand how infuriating that was to women.
I don’t think its possible for a man to completely get it. I think of it as similar to a white person not entirely getting how a black male reacts to being stopped by the police.
I’m a 57 year old white male. I can empathize and sympathize but there is no way I can truly understand the way someone feels when they are in this position.
I have been very close to four women I work with in the last 15 years, close enough that they told me some of the workplace harassment that they were subjected to in the past, mostly back in the 80’s and 90’s. All four have pretty horrific stories from the managers that liked to lightly brush up against them to outright sexual assault from co-workers.
That we now have candidate for POTUS who acts in a similar way is horrifying. And possible even more horrifying is that he is still polling ahead of Clinton among males. Don’t these men have wives/sisters/mothers/daughters?
@JKB:
The ad exec characters in Mad Men were chauvinistic, chain-smoking JFK-hating Republicans.
You must reside on an alternate planet on which all of the internet bandwidth and TV signals are scrambled.
This just in: Steve Bannon has told Bloomberg News that “We’re going to turn Bill Clinton into Bill Cosby.”
He claims that dozens of women have just come forward to claim that they were sexually assaulted by Clinton.
@An Interested Party:
You are aware that the Republicans tried to pass the Civil Rights act in the 1950s, don’t you? Jim Crow was a Democratic Party operation. The Northern Democrats didn’t move off of Jim Crow until they saw the cultural shift. They then moved on to destroying Black Americans via the pernicious effects of welfare.
@SenyorDave:
And are you actually surprised he did this?
BTW, I re-read my comment and I almost sound like I’m defending him. My apologies, I did not intend that! My point was that none of this is a surprise (to me). He obviously acts like he thinks he is above rules or standard social protocols. Add to that his constant interest in sex and beauty, and you get a guy that looks where he wants to look and touch what he wants to touch.
Ane yet, so many Democrats yearn for that time?
@JKB:
You rely heavily on your backside for your “facts”..
Okay, so this probably does Trump in. But that’s boring
Let’s look at the Black Swan. What if Trump still wins? The MSM, most of DC have gone all in to against Trump and he’s still President? The bloodletting inside the Beltway will be epic. Sure, Trump will need some cowed DC crowd to run his administration, but they will be known to be enemies and many will simply have to wait until Trump decides to do them in.
Now, let’s look at Trump having lost. Here is a man with lots and lots of money, and free time. A man who enjoys the tabloids. With free time, and tons of money for litigation. Unrestrained by Congress, the courts, the day to day crises.
Buy popcorn futures!
@MarkedMan:
Eh. He was an equal-opportunity asshole.
@CSK: The great irony being Trump says all the accusations against him are phony but the accusations against that other guy are totally legit.
Hey, I know! Let’s make internal criticism verboten! That’s sure to lead to great outcomes. That won’t guarantee unchecked stupidity accumulating over years and decades, eventually producing crisis!
@Tillman:
Oh, of course. Ask any Trumpkin. All the accusations against Trump are totally false, a conspiracy created by the Clintons and the lamestream media, who are paying these women to accuse Trump.
On the other hand, all of Clinton’s accusers are totally one hundred percent legit, especially any Bannon digs up.
James Joyner
.
Women
You Don’t Own Me
.
If only republican voters had realized Trump was a cad who wasn’t sensitive to womens’ issues and sexual assault, surely they wouldn’t have voted for PPPPMMMMMFFFFFTTTTTT sorry I tried to keep a straight face.
“I question the timing.” Really? You don’t just look at a watch and observe there must be a watchmaker? And it seems unfair or unseemly to you? Really? Your feelings are so easily hurt?
That is just how big league politics is done, Dr Joyne.
Similar but smaller example of the Trump campaign stupidly running up their negatives: Everywhere one looks there are pictures of a lurking, scowling, menacing Mr Trump overshadowing Sec’ty Clinton during the 2d debate. Very bad, related to the campaign’s deficit among women-folks. So they whine that that the pictures are just from selected camera angles, that Sec’ty Clinton moved right into Mr Trump’s space, that Bill Clinton did much worse stuff.
But they never stop to reflect that even if everything they say is true — ESPECIALLY if everything they say is true — it just shows that they got played on their own turf. If Hillary was clever enough to draw Donald into committing errors involving ‘blocking’ of a stage and lighting and camera angles she was destroying him IN THE TV GAME. And they are the one’s saying so.
Fools. Just damn fools. They deserve everything they’re going to get.
There are none so blind, as those who will not see.
@JKB: How much of that “money” is tied up in real estate? How much of it is inflated estimates of the value of his “brand”? How much damage has he done to traffic to his properties during this…ill-advised escapade, which I still strongly believe was to pump up his brand, specifically his new hotel?
How much is he going to have to spend on the lawsuits in which he was already embroiled (Trump U, trial date Nov. 28–you know, the day he reminded people to get out and vote on)? How much for new defense in the issues that have come up with his Foundation (which will likely be settled, those are small potatoes, but still, lawyers bill by the hour…)?
He’s going to be a very busy man for quite a while, and I don’t think it’s going to be making inaugural ball invitation lists.
A news organization sat on something juicy until the moment they figured it would make the biggest splash? I’m shocked shocked there’s business strategy going on in here!
Look I have no doubt the dem oppo research people are doing everything they can to get this story to shape up into a complete disaster for Trump but looking at what’s happened it’s very easy to ascribe events to normal behavior patterns.
NBC released their bombshell when they could get the most bang (and thus the most money) from it. Journalists asked Trump to confirm or deny that he had assaulted women because that’s an obvious direction to go as a member of the press. Once he’s made a denial you can then look for victims who contradict his statement (no doubt helped by the oppo research people). These victims probably didn’t come forward before because of Trumps legendary litigiousness and usual feelings of being isolated.* The NBC story suddenly made them think they might be believed, not to mention his denial of assaulting women would have probably incensed them.
Everything makes sense by simply using typical motivations of greed, fear, anger. The only even mildly surprising thing is the demonstration of journalistic competence. It kind of seems like questioning the timing is the new ‘she was asking for it’, a way to discredit the victim rather than deal with the actual assault.
Also, I have to note there’s been a lot of coordination of the ‘questionable timing’ among Trump defenders (i.e. the questionable timing of ‘questionable timing’). The way this doubtlessly worked is the campaign brainstormed their response to the story. The message went out to the partisans (Breitbart, Hannity) who parrot it. It then spreads to sympathetic listeners some of whom aren’t particulerly on board with Trump but who find the argument compelling (Joyner). The net result is that a whole lot of people start saying the same thing at once. The exact same thing this argument tries to use as evidence of malfeasance. It’s not. It’s a simple result of having a lot of people who take direction from a central source (the campaign) and often with similar motivation.
* for the record I’m not saying I automatically believe them about the assaults. I’d very much like to see the matters move to a court where findings of fact can be made. That said having Trump bragging on tape about assaulting women does put a bit of a dent in his presumption of innocence.
@JKB:
Evidence not available.
Are you aware that civil rights laws were passed on a bipartisan basis with northern Republicans and Democrats in the affirmative?
Indeed…but the descendants of those Dixiecrats are now solidly Republican…and Jim Crow continues as these Republicans try to make it harder and harder for certain people to vote…
This is nothing more than a load of bull$hit, as northern Democrats overwhelmingly voted for civil rights laws…
Oh really? Why do blacks vote so overwhelmingly for a political party that has allegedly “destroyed” them? Perhaps you think they are just that stupid…
What if Martians invade our planet? What if an asteroid kills us all? What if you actually made any sense…
Oh, this is rich. Katrina Pierson, Trump’s frontwoman, said that Trump couldn’t have molested anyone on a plane because:
1. First class armrests are fixed in place
2. The kind of plane the woman said they were on didn’t fly to New York back then
3. Donald Trump had six planes of his own back then, so why would he fly commercial?
I swear I did not make this up.
A scientist I follow recently said this:
I was in the car when i heard it was farenthold, and honestly, my first thought was man, that guy has All the sources. But then I remembered that the NYT etc were all lost trying to vaguely allege that Muhammad Yunis was secretly conspiring with the Clinton Foundation to…idk, save people I guess, and David Fucking Farenthold is the only person I’d heard who was actually doing trump work, and if i’d had a tape he’s preZACTLY who I would have sent it to.
does anyone have a Pie Filter for this site? This guy isn’t a scamp, or a loki, he’s just a tiresome retard.
@JKB:
No. Have you evidence any of us do?
Well actually now we are learning that unnamed sources who amazingly chose TMZ as the “news outlet” they would leak to are claiming that.
I realize the Trump campaign has a ton of neophytes posing as political operatives but that you take for granted that was how it went down sort of lumps you into the same category.
@JKB:
You’re quite right. A President Trump would take revenge on the press, and anyone else that caught his eye. Which is another reason for the timing. The gutless careerists in the supposedly liberal MSM waited ’til Trump pretty clearly wasn’t going to win before they piled on.
I loved this:
@Tillman:
The LA Times is a podunk local paper? Dude…..
Maybe it’s all just a series of coincidences, then.
But that’s not the way to bet.
We will find out all eventually in the inevitable books that will come out on the campaign, so we will wait and see.
@Jenos The Deplorable:
So in other words, Hillary is, is… a politician.
A truly shocking revelation!
As for who a defeated Trump will take revenge on, there is this to think about, from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:
More breaking news: Trump has canceled his interview with Toady Supreme Sean Hannity tonight.
@SenyorDave: I don’t think its possible for a man to completely get it.
It’s not that difficult. Imagine Donald Trump grabs you without warming, sticks his tongue down your throat, and grabs your, er, package. Most men would consider this assault, and would react accordingly. Now, imagine Trump is your boss, has lots of lawyers, and your career depends on keeping him happy.
@Loviatar:
Asking “permisso” used to be the punchline in romantic comedies.
What I´ve read about the Access Hollywood tapes is that Billy Bush bragged about it in Rio, and then people on NBC News staff then went to search their archives. Access Hollywood is not produced by NBC News, and no one remembers everything that these shows have on their files.
(By the way, It´s pretty interesting what you can find even on these random TV recordings from the 80´s on YouTube. But news organizations have higher priorities then watching old tapes all day long).
Yeah, like the LA Times with the Obama speaking to Muslim’s tape. I’m sure they are just waiting for the moment when it will make the biggest splash.
The poor being duped by pandering politicians has a long and storied history. See the Irish in 1920s Boston
In 2010, when Meg Whitman was running for governor of California against Jerry Brown, a story broke in late September that she had hired an undocumented immigrant as a nanny/housekeeper. The Republicans were furious – at Jerry Brown. They were sure it was all his fault that this was coming out now, when it would hurt her candidacy the most. The timing made it clear.
I presume that if a Democrat finds a negative about their opponent in an election, they are morally obligated to either hide or release it in the way that will do the least possible damage to that candidate. Because it’s just not fair to wait until it will hurt them the most and give the Democrat the best chance at winning. Terribly unsporting. Of course, if places were reversed, it would just be “how politics work” and Democrats who complained would be whining.
There’s really only one person to be angry at in a situation like this: the candidate. They are the one who knew this was out there and didn’t release it themselves when it would hurt them least: in June, after the last primary and before the general election. It’s not like Trump (or Whitman) had no access to the media. They weren’t passive victims. It’s their own fault.
@MarkedMan:
I think it’s simpler than that — it’s video vs. print.
Video is visceral in a way that print is not. Seeing and hearing is believing; reading a testimony or transcript is not, even if there is no doubt about its authenticity.
Things I wonder about.
You know, 50 Shades of Grey, a total exploitation and poor depiction of women, sold 60 million copies and did $600mm at the box office. A chick flick. Gobbled up. Couldn’t get enough of it. When did women so willingly allow their exploitation? Why the sudden turn in recent days? Totally mysterious.
And why did Qatar, with interests in Haiti, give Bill Clinton a million dollars for his birthday? They must really, really like to celebrate his birthday. Can’t imagine any other reason…….
Well, back to chronicling Hillary’s good work on bimbo eruptions, er, I mean for women.
Seriously, this guy is just a deliberate asshole. How stupid would someone legitimately have to be to not understand the story here. Don’t bother explaining it to him again, he’s doing this on purpose.
@JKB: Actually, one of the most romantic experiences of my life was when a guy invited me “to see my etchings.”
You don’t have to be a molesting assh**** to get your way with a woman.
Unless you’re Donald Trump.
@Guarneri:
In other words “I can’t remotely defend my candidate, so I’ll just go off in a fit of pique instead.”
* yawn *
@anjin-san: So in other words, Hillary is, is… a politician.
Hillary is a shitty politician. That’s why you and yours are having to try to drag her across the finish line.
But she appears to be psychic. Way back when, in her one and only venture into the cattle futures market, she parlayed $1,000 into nearly $100,000. And this time, she “speculated” about Trump’s tax situation a full week before certain documents surfaced that confirmed her speculation.
If she had a well-established history of benefiting from a lapdog media, that might be suspicious, but that sort of thing would never happen, right?
A news org (if accurate) did something calculated to increase viewership. Color me shocked.
And spare me the pearl clutching …
@Guarneri: Look, dimwit–there’s a great difference between reading a book and wanting what happens in the book to happen in real life.
I like Wagner’s Gotterdammerung, but that doesn’t mean I want to see the world blow up.
@Jenos The Deplorable:
What’s your point?
Game of Thrones is more popular than 50 Shades.
That means Trump should beheaded for speaking ill of and organizing a political rebellion against the President of the United States, right?
Seriously? I thought you were smarter…but you are a Republican…so…
Before Friday it was he-said, she-said, and against Trump, who was ever going to win that battle?
Now, after Friday, it is…they both said. We have the Cheeto-Jesus on tape admitting he does this stuff. Bragging about sexually assaulting women. He has vindicated these women’s stories for them.
Now every single women he has ever groped is free to come out of the closet because there is audio of him admitting he did it to them.
He can threaten to sue the NYTimes with legal action all he wants. He has admitted to serial sexual assault.
And of course…as we see above…no surprise…Jenos enthusiastically supports sexual assault.
@Tlaloc: THIS!!!!
The outrage I’ve seen online and heard in person over Morning Joe ‘questioning the timing’ take ties directly to this.
For years, in some of our cases, decades women have put up with this crap. Why? Because the damage to the woman reporting a groper was not worth the slap on the wrist (if even that) that the offending man would receive. And we knew exactly what the response would be: Some variation of “Don’t be so sensitive!” and/or “You must have been asking for it”
I personally dealt with a boss who would come up behind me and stroke my hair while I was working. It was my first job out of college and literally every other woman in the office had experienced similar stuff and all of them advised me not to complain because I’d be the one with a ‘black mark’ as far HR and upper management were concerned. (But, hey, it was like that back then and “boys will be boys”, right, Mr. Joyner?)
Couple this accumulated but suppressed anger and resentment with the more than year long spectacle of seeing a female candidate for POTUS get all the other sexist sh!t we’ve had to deal with thrown at her. Then have the man running for POTUS brag about getting to do ‘whatever he wants’ to women because he was rich and powerful, and it was like tossing a match on a haystack soaked in gasoline.
Yes, women are coming out to call him on this. We are angry and offended and it is NOT because he used a mildly dirty word.
@CSK:
Ha! She must be taking her cues from Rod Dreher’s commenters. Arm rests!
I would like to get a sign on my dog that says Hump Trump
@slimslowslider:
I liked the headline at Red State: If the Armrest Doesn’t Lift, You Must Acquit.
@Jenos The Deplorable:
WTF?
538 has here at a 86.5% chance of winning the Presidency.
PEC has her at 97% chance.
Both of these, historically extremely accurate, forecasters have had Clinton ahead every step of the way.
Trump is currently polling behind Romney in almost every metric.
You’re a maroon.
Does it matter? The only question is if those charges are true or not.
Though it is interesting that his GOP opponents couldn’t find things like the tape during the primaries – doesn’t say much about their competence. Arguably not people you’d want running the country.
For those who have some interest in the facts, there were 432 House votes cast for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 117 in Southern states (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,NC,SC,TN,TX,VA,WV).
In the Southern states, 14% of Republicans (one out of 14) and 13% of Dems (13 out of 103) voted yea. All of the other Republicans voted nay, while all of the other Dems but three voted nay.
In the rest of the states, 88% of the total House voted yea, 8% nay. Of those, 82% of Republicans and 91% of Democrats voted yea.
It should be obvious that this was a matter of the South vs. everyone else, not D vs.R.
@DrDaveT:
That’s pretty much what I meant. I think even an audio tape would be equivalent. In fact, up until they came out of the bus, it was an audio tape. When we see them, it is Billy Bush that looks bad. If you hadn’t known what Trump said a moment before you wouldn’t think twice about his behavior.
Here’s an article from February that explains that no one took Trump seriously enough to do oppo research until it was too late.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-research_us_56cf2c6de4b03260bf75b395
With his new moniker he’s deliberately calling himself racist and sexist, so it’s not surprising.
maybe in 2024 we can talk Michelle into running. Her husband has been the best president of my lifetime, and she seems awfully smart and capable too.
Trump was done weeks ago. The question is who will 40-45% of the electorate be voting for? Will it be the Trump of mid-September? A bully and an idiot? This week’s Trump–a guy who likes to grope and assault women? Or maybe the Trump of a few weeks from now–someone who raped a 14-year old doppelganger of his daughter that he had his butler drug? Anything is possible–right now it’s just what he bragged about to another person.
That’s why James is so distraught. He’s a Republican and these are his people. And they will vote for a guy who would have raped a reporter from People without caring. What does it mean about him that these are his people?
And at the rate we’re going, the GOP nominee by 2024 will probably be an illiterate skinhead in prison for hate crimes, so it might not be hard to win.
@C. Clavin:
And, apparently, he forbade his staff from doing self-oppo research on him.
Ohh, so you’re saying the overwhelming majority of black people are poor? Or are you saying they’re stupid?
Not mysterious at all…I’m sure plenty of women, and men, for that matter, don’t mind “exploitation” when it is only a fantasy (with someone they consider attractive) that they can control…exploitation by a troll like Donald Trump is something else entirely…
It’s a real shame (for you and your ilk) that Bill Clinton isn’t running for office right now…
Be sure to watch how Hillary swamps Trump with the female vote…
Oh really? Funny how she led Sanders throughout the entire primary season and how she’s led Trump throughout the entire general election campaign…not bad for a “shitty” politician…
Awwww…those sour grapes taste so sweet…
@dxq: Second. Caught a few bits and snatches of her speaking a few minutes ago, don’t know where she was. Very genteel, very heartfelt, going high, and cutting Trump a new one. Should motivate women to vote and maybe even peel off a few more R women.
@JKB:
I am very aware that the votes to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act fell predominantly along regional lines – that is, Southern Democrats and Republicans voted against it, while most non-Southern politicians, Democrats and Republicans, voted for it.
I am also very aware that following passge of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts White Southerners began to move to the Republican Party, where, beginning in 1972 Richard Nixon used a ‘Southern Strategy’ as the key to significant electoral success in presidential elections from 1972 to 1990 and 2000 and 2004.
So, yes, in terms of race relations, Republicans were the party of Lincoln until 1965, thereafter they became the party of race resentment, and Blacks came to vote over 80% Democratic. I’m aware that Republicans view Blacks as being ‘on the plantation’ and that Blacks distinctly unaware of understanding that their self-interest would be served by voting Republican (whih goes a long way toward explaining why Republicans get far less than 20% of the Black vote.
@dxq:
She will be too busy on the Supreme Court
@Jenos The Deplorable:
If anyone has benefited from the media it’s Trump, who wouldn’t be here if:
1). he hadn’t gotten millions of dollars in free advertising (airtime) from the media that his opponents didn’t get.
2). the media had actually done it’s job and called out this misogynist, racist, bigoted, lying, ignorant, incurious, incompetent lout for what he is from the beginning.
i’m watching her speech right now:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/189490-how-to-watch-michelle-obamas-speech-on-donald-trump-which-you-should-stop-everything-to-view
more people need to hear more women like Michelle Obama speak.
@al-Alameda:
In 1964, Goldwater ran on an anti-civil rights platform and with strong support from the base. Meanwhile George HW Bush had begun the process of turning disaffected white conservative Texas Democrats into Republicans and Strom Thurmond switched parties prior to the presidential election.
So I would say that Lincoln had left the building prior to 1965.
Trump Jr has just been quoted as saying that the videotape just proves Trump is a “regular guy”. For me, when I was in my teens and early twenties, I heard lots of lewd comments. Trump’s comments aren’t offensive because they are lewd. They are offensive because they are perverted. He didn’t say “Hey how about them hooters on that waitress!” He said he forces himself on women and grabs them and fondles them without asking. It’s the difference between saying “I like to look at them hot babes! Va-Va-Va-Voom!” and “I found this great staircase that I can hide under and look up the skirts of women when they walk up and down!”. The first might get a chuckle (or, more likely, a lot of other guys thinking ‘what, is this guy 14 years old?’) But the second would get called out and every other guy in the room would be completely creeped out.
James, I question the timing of Russian Intelligence helping out your party’s candidate.
@JKB:
Um… you do realize most African Americans are not poor?
Right?
@gVOR08: She was in NH and addressed sexual harassment, assault and rape. The full speech is here:
FLOTUS in Manchester, NH
Very much worth listening to in full. She hit every note on what I’ve been feeling and made the case that DT and his apologists are also an insult to strong decent men, and detrimental to both our daughters and our sons.
@Guarneri:
“300” was insanely popular among my cohort–white young first wave millenials. Considering the popularity of that movie, white men couldn’t complain if Trojans started stabbing us with antique swords. After all, we like the movie, right?
And I can’t believe people actually got mad at Jeffrey Dahmers. Silence of the Lambs won an Oscar.
I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask again–how exactly did you become a titan of business while being this abjectly stupid? And before I get accused of violating the site’s terms, I think all available historical evidence backs up my stupidity assertion.
@Jenos The Deplorable:
She’s up double digits, dude. Double fuking digits.
James is worried about timing. Hmmm. With good reason. Well, I say never leave anything to chance. So has Donna Brazille been given the questions to the next debate yet? That way they will be safe, and not “leak.”
just watched it. what a speech.
@Kylopod:
Most actual African-Americans are not poor.
The one-dimensional, inane caricature of African-Americans that inhabits the America of racist Republicans is another story, though.
I have to say that I hope this is the Clinton campaign orchestrating this.
If Clinton gathered all this disparate info and synthesized this story and orchestrated the roll-out…Put the tape out on Friday, two days before the debate, then played rope-a-dope at the debate, then rolled out all these other women this week…
Then it shows pure genius, imagination, warrior instinct, the ability to execute a plan flawlessly, willingness to keep her powder dry up until now, and the balls to go for the kill-stroke and destroy her opponent.
If this is all the Clinton campaign…then she is the right person for President, no doubt about it.
@Guarneri:
In addition to what others have already noted, there is a world of difference between consensual sexual activity and sexual assault.
GOP: Groping Orange Perv
@Neil Hudelson:
THIS….+10
@Neil Hudelson: oh, and the movie Titanic was immensely popular as well. Which means, I guess, that people want to be on a ship which hits an iceberg and then die from freezing water…
@C. Clavin:
And the other side of this is that apparently the Cheeto-Jesus wouldn’t let his own campaign look into his own background to scout for his own weaknesses and prep for incoming fire.
That tells me he shouldn’t ever be President.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/10/trump-wouldnt-let-staff-research-his-past.html
@C. Clavin: …and do it ALL without a single fingerprint of any one of her campaign staff or surrogates on any of it. Marvelous.
Of course, Jerry Falwell Jr. is apparently retweeting some conspiracy that Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Dan Senor are behind the leaked tape. So there’s that.
@Modulo Myself:
Well, I suppose he could say its just team politics. People supported Presidents who dropped nuclear bombs (first understandable, second not so much), faked ship attacks to start a war in South East Asia, lied about WMD, overthrew gov’ts – after supporting Presidents responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths I suppose there’s not really much that’s disqualifying.
People support their team. That this time the GOP has an absolutely mind numbingly narcissist running doesn’t change that basic mechanism; your quarterback might be a cripple who fumbles as soon as he touches the ball and couldn’t throw it more than five yards even if he could hold onto it, but he’s still your quarterback, and you support the team in public, even if you bitch about him in private.
People on sites like this read too much into voters; most really don’t look at what a candidate says, they do a quick glance at the team jersey and then move on to more interesting things. Its like climate science (and the climate scientists have it right in my opinion): how many people have bothered learning the necessary science to really understand what is being said in the various peer reviewed journal articles about what might be the most important issue of our day? People decide who to believe and move on without looking into it.
@JKB:
Why would Obama speaking to muslims make any splash?
Oh, right. You should really see somebody about that xenophobia.
@C. Clavin: Good heavens. I just read that article and the Bloomberg one on the same topic. This is Campaigning 101. If that’s true–he prevented staff from doing the self-oppo research that every single campaign does–I’m shocked that he got any experienced staff to sign on with him at all. This is about as close as one can come to political campaign malpractice. He’s brought this all on himself. He owns this, along with whatever the fallout will be to his business interests. Holy moly.
@george:
Exactly. On a subject like AGW you can dig a little into the science and you can look at the credentials and motivation of the people on either side. But that’s work, Most people will just accept what their tribal shamans say. The politicization of science is another symptom of our polarization and particularly our polarized media.
I remember seeing comments saying this is just like that stupid CFC/ozone hole thing those stupid scientists pushed years ago. We ignored that and it’s gone away. How much curiosity or intellectual honesty would it take to look at wiki and find out that back in the late 80s even Republicans took the scientific consensus seriously, so far from ignoring it, the world negotiated a treaty to phase out CFC, and the hole is shrinking?
Unfortunately, everything has secondary effects. The CFCs were replaced with HFCs, which are still a greenhouse gas and need to be phased out.
(Several years ago I removed any doubt about AGW by playing a little game. Every time I saw a prominent AGW denier I counted how many mouse clicks it took to find a link to energy industry money. IIRC it averaged around four. My game probably wouldn’t work as well now, they’ve become much more circumspect.)
If you want high-grade legal snark, you gotta read the NYTimes’ response to Trump’s threats to sue them for libel.
Ouch. That’s gotta burn.
Here’s a good summary of what the NYTimes is doing: (grabbed from a commentator over at Balloon Juice)
@Guarneri: “You know, 50 Shades of Grey, a total exploitation and poor depiction of women, sold 60 million copies and did $600mm at the box office. A chick flick. Gobbled up. Couldn’t get enough of it. When did women so willingly allow their exploitation? ”
And you know what’s really crazy? All those people who go to see slasher movies, but you try to jam a fork into their eyeball or rip their spleen out with a power drill, and they get all pissed off. Don’t they know that if you enjoy a particular kind of fiction you are obligated to embrace having everything in that fiction happen to you?
You really nailed this one, G. Truly worth the time off from buying and selling Fortune 500 companies, or whatever you call that thing you do with Play-do.
This response from Trump actually worries me in terms of the election results. It could be effective
From TPM
@MarkedMan: “But the second would get called out and every other guy in the room would be completely creeped out.”
Except for Jenos. He’d be taking notes.
One shouldn’t believe in media conspiracies because people actually aren’t that smart or disciplined.
It is pretty darn funny, though, to read people utilize a childlike naivete about how the world works when it comes to coverage of Trump when the exact same people would be screaming OCTOBER SURPRISE if the same thing were happening to Hillary Clinton.
Mike
@grumpy realist:
Oh, that letter from the Times? Beautiful.
@george: Well, I suppose he could say its just team politics.
That pretty much sums it up. In 1992, Bill Clinton engaged in behavior that had been up to that point considered disqualifying by the overwhelming majority of people. Then the Democratic Party, almost all of the media and a plurality of the public decided that behavior was now entirely acceptable and they did it for absolutely no reason than desperately wanting to win the White House after 12 years of GOP control.
And if you think there was any other reason for it, please let Anthony Weiner know what it was.
Now they are shocked to discover they aren’t the only ones who can play that game.
Mike
@CSK: I bet the lawyers at the Times were fighting over who got to write it. Legal snark, especially when you have a four-corners case, is SO much fun to write…
(And they were doing it back much earlier in history, as well. I ran across a lovely example from an Italian jurist in 1500. All in legal Latin.)
@grumpy realist :
I came for the letter but stayed for the comments. Jesus, that’s some quality schadenfreude 🙂
@grumpy realist:
That letter was worthy of the great eighteenth-century satirists. Somewhere, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift are smiling.
on the other hand, Patrick Buchanan just described Trump’s Sunday night blatherfest as “perhaps the most effective performance in the history of presidential debates.”
OT: Trump apparently thinks the NFL’s new rules regarding concussions as soft.
This man has a pathological need to mock/comment on health issues he knows nothing about while pretending to beat his chest like a caveman. Me Donald, me Manly Man!!! Let’s stand him in front of the Patriots’ line and see how he fares with the old rules or even the new ones.
… no that’s cruel. We’ll give him the Browns instead so he has a fighting chance 🙂
@Jen: Trump didn’t get good people. He got the political equivalent of people who would do PR for Daaesh if they were paid enough.
Never in my life have I more often been reminded of the old comment: “what you are, madam, has been sufficiently established. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
@Guarneri:
I have heard this attempt at deflection numerous places and I am wondering: what is its origin?
As wr aptly notes, it is a rather ridiculous attempt at defending/excusing/dismissing Trump.
@Jen:
Apart from Conway, he really didn’t (and this is her first time running campaign).
@MBunge:
Yep, if the Trump campaign withheld info until October and then put it out there, that would be called an October Surprise. And if Clinton’s people did the same thing it would also be called an October Surprise. Because that’s what it’s called. What’s your point?
@MBunge:
I will add, however, that supporting the team is what fans do on all sides – if the ref makes a call, one side will complain and the other side will agree, regardless of how it actually went down on the field.
However, that doesn’t mean that both sides are wrong; sometimes the ref called the penalty right. In this case I’d argue that Trump is bat sh*t crazy, so crazy in fact that a good portion of the GOP party is against him (including much of National Review for instance).
I’m just arguing that it doesn’t say much about the fans; they’re just cheering for their teams (they’ve generally got no more time or interest in following the politics of the election than they have in understanding the science behind climate change, or in the solid state physics running their computers) – they decide who to trust and move on to more pressing matters.
The players who’re on the field is a different matter – they know when they’ve committed an infraction.
the timing and slanted reporting of it- the msm has nothing on soviet era tass…….it’s pretty disappointing to see what was once the most unbiased media in the world….just pandering to the left in a last ditch effort to stay afloat in a dying industry.
but hey, it’s been coming for a long time- we knew the individuals were usually quite liberal but could try to report stories without much of a bend. now they can’t even fake it, let alone hide it.
but anyways, trump is teflon to this stuff- and anyone with a 3 digit iq knows it’s all trash- just like the people “reporting” it. it hearkens to the time dan rather tried to stage his own little “coup d’etat” with doctored documents about “w” and his days in the national guard. it cost dan his job and credibility- something none of these reporters has to worry about anymore.
@bill:
Oh, it’s trash alright.
@Steven L. Taylor:
C’mon…
@grumpy realist:
I had mentioned this upthread, that Trump refused to allow his staff to do self-oppo research on him. If these people were at all competent, they should have gone ahead and done it anyway in order to prep for it. I know that Trump surrounds himself with yes-men and yes-women, and that they lose their jobs if they bring him bad news, but even so, I would think that good campaign people have to be prepared to save a candidate from him or herself. Certainly it would have been in their own best interests. Who’s going to hire them after this debacle?
Trump is sitting on the Mount Pinatubo of sewage, and all we’ve seen yet is the pyroclastic cloud.
@wr: I’d also argue, along with many other women & gender studies academics, that the exploitation manifest in 50 Shades is not the sexual exploitation of women (or men), but rather the financial and cultural exploitation of a popular culture phenomenon that was created and is maintained largely by women (fandom) – specifically, Twilight fanfiction with a hefty dose of (badly) written BDSM by a non practitioner – to make one woman very, very rich.
Many fanfiction writers have filed off the serial numbers and published their work. This one happened to be in the right place at the right time. Moreover, as so many others have mentioned in this thread, she depicted their relationship as contractually consensual. The overtones of emotional abuse and gaslighting were a result of two things: one, the author’s lack of familiarity with and unwillingness to do research on BDSM; and, two, the source material on which it was based. To her credit, 50 Shades of Grey actually toned the source material’s creepiness down.
Because, if you want to talk about exploitation, if you find 50 Shades of Gray creepy, you were probably equally or even more creeped out the work that it was based on, namely, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Yet millions of women and men read the Twilight series. I suppose the logical conclusion here is that they all wanted to be a virginal teenager stalked by a rich, deathless, sparkling vampire, be fought over like an object between a vampire and a werewolf, and die giving birth to a miracle vampire child.
Now that I’ve typed that up, I am starting to see some parallels between Trump, his fans, and Twilight.
To answer Steven L. Taylor’s question, I suspect one of the reasons the 50 Shades phenomenon is such a mystery to people like Guarneri is because the fanfiction phenomenon itself has, as stated previously, largely existed in an unseen and unnoticed sphere written by women for women. To the surprise of few readers here, women have as rich, inventive, and varied tastes in their reading preferences as men, and have discovered that fanfiction is a niche that 1) largely acknowledges women’s sexual agency and 2) celebrates the fact that women feel desire. Of course, women having sexual agency is regarded as dangerous to some men; therefore it must be derided, and dismissed as deviant and decadent.
BTW kudos to James and Co for putting up with us. 😀 This election has been stressful for everyone involved.
@dxq: Hear, hear.
This just in:
The NY Times general counsel, David McCraw (full disclosure: David is a personal friend) just bitchslapped Trump’s attorney.
Never been prouder of you, Dave. Well done.
@Blue Galangal:
I agree with most of what you said, but I always find this claim curious. Just about every guy I know thinks women having sexual agency is wonderful, and the more agency the more wonderful. For that matter, the more deviant and decadent the better too. Having a single sexual partner your whole life isn’t nearly as popular, among either men or women, as people like to think.
The only men I can think of who might find it dangerous are celibates.
@Andrew: I’d rather see some sort of dragon involved, myself
@Blue Galangal: actually one of the funnier experiences I’ve had is reading feminists’ reviews of 50 Shades of Grey. (Book and movie.) the consensus is that the “Bees from Space” movie (Jupiter Ascending) was better.
@HarvardLaw92:
You’re a lawyer. (Obviously) Am I correct in assuming that a) Trump has no case here, since he’s made a career of treating women like used Kleenex and then bragging about it, on video, on audio, and in his books; and b) it’s a moot point anyway, since he’ll refuse to be deposed, and end up dropping the whole suit?
You seem to be confused, so let me help you out…yes, there were plenty of stories about Bill Clinton and yes, there was Gennifer Flowers and all the rest, but Bill Clinton wasn’t bragging about grabbing pu$$y and certainly wasn’t acting like the general blowhard that Donald Trump is…another difference–for a very long time Donald Trump has been a offensive gasbag, lazy, and certainly unqualified for any government job…this latest news just confirms everything offensive we already knew about the Donald…icing on the cake…
@CSK: I’m not a lawyer, but it seems a) was answered pretty well by the NYT’s (epic, awesome, fantastic) response, and b) seems quite likely based on Trump’s track record of filing such fatuous lawsuits as a way of harassing his detractors, costing them lots of money, and discouraging others from coming out against him.
He’s an authoritarian, he’s a reprobate, he’s a thug, he’s far and away the worst major party Presidential nominee in American history…and he has the support of more than 40% of the American people.
For shame. For shame.
@Blue Galangal: It isn’t so much the fanfic issue, or even the contents of this work. It is the specific claim that “How can women gripe about vulgar language if so many of them read 50 Shades of Grey and liked it.” It is clearly someone’s talking point and some Trump supporters clearly think it is clever (when it manifestly isn’t).
@Jenos The Deplorable:
Alright, Jenos, I’ll concede your point. The question was, why didn’t any of Trump’s primary opponents dig up this apparently easily accessible information? The question from which you deflected, as do all Trump supporters when cornered by a legitimate question about their illegitimate candidate.
@MarkedMan:
I’ll let you in on a little secret- nothing trump has done or said has actually worried me. Why? Isn’t it generally venal, horrible, monstrous, and well, evil? Yeah, but it’s also incompetent. That keeps him from being any actual danger (to the US, to the GOP he’s a huge threat).
@MBunge:
The 1996 election results suggest you are dramatically wrong about what the people believe to be disqualifying.
I just found a cartoon statue of Andy Capp a misogynistic cartoon character from the 60s and 70s This British character was know for getting drunk, playing snooker with the blokes and carrying on with other women, His wife would always be chasing him out the door with a rolling pin. We all laughed at it, but never thought he could be president. The statue says Women are like pianos, when they are upright they`re grand. Sounds so much like Donald.
I have a confession to make: Hillary raped me on a flight 20 years ago…she touched me and I was so upset and have not said anything until today. I would not have minded it if she kept her hands above my waist but when she touched my wee wee that is where I drew the line. I have decided to come out 3 weeks before the election to finally shed light on how Hillary raped me…
Oh, and Bill was doing the same to a stewardess.
jack, to paraphrase donald trump, “Hillary wouldn’t sexually assault you–i mean, look at you.”
Hey jack, this time next year the SCOTUS will be in session, and there will be nine justices.
If you like all those bullshit laws that restrict abortion, hug and kiss them while they’re still here with us. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. 😀
@Jack: You poor thing…apparently you don’t understand how narratives work…see, Trump has openly bragged about being able to sexually assault women, and now we have women coming forward to confirm the piggish things he said…see how that works? When you find comments from Hillary along the same line as Trump’s maybe your silly little words will actually mean something…
@dxq: Hillary said all victims of sexual assault need to have a voice and be heard!
Brian Williams was a witness.
@Jenos The Deplorable:
Well, she does not have the skills some other recent Democrats have, that is true.
OTOH, she is punk slapping your boy from coast to coast 🙂
Nothing’s changed.
Donald Trump is still not Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump is still the only person who stands between Hillary Clinton and the Oval Office.
Hillary Clinton is still an existential threat to the continuation of the American Republic
@Tlaloc: The thing is, it had cease to be disqualifying well before ’92. After all, many of folks holding hearings on Bill were known adulterers and philanderers. For instance, Newt, then Speaker of the House, who dumped his 1st wife for his mistress while that wife was fighting breast cancer back in the 80s. And to top it off, he ran on ‘family values’! (seems religious eighties have been huge hypocrites for a long time too….)
@Jack:
Sorry cupcake, claiming that woman touched you is simply not credible.
@Jack:
Thank you for confirming the laziest liberal stereotypes about all conservatives.
You may stop now. You have my permission. This election is over. Your electoral future is over. If you want your voice to be heard, you will have to speak appropriately about other human beings.
But I suspect you are not capable of such.
@CSK:
He has no case. Truth is an absolute defense in libel cases – this includes statements which may turn out to be false, but which were printed with a reasonable, good faith belief that they were true.
We also have qualified privilege (in which a journalist reports facts important to the public interest)
Then there’s fair comment on a matter of public interest.
Followed up with a situation where the claimant’s reputation is already so tarnished that the printed material can’t possibly diminish it further.
Finally, Trump is undeniably a public figure, so New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) is applicable, and that raises the standard to actual malice. Trump somehow managing to show that the statements were actually false and damaged his reputation (both of which are unlikely) isn’t enough to prevail. He also has to demonstrate that the Times knew they were false or demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth (essentially that they didn’t care whether they were true / didn’t bother trying to find out).
Finally, if he goes this route, he opens himself up to discovery, which, believe me, he’s not interested in experiencing.
Truthfully, it’s immaterial. We’ll see the moon turn blue before we’ll ever see Trump actually file suit in this matter. He’s doing what he always does – trying to bully the opposition into backing down. The Times isn’t going to back down.
@JKB:
You need to start preparing yourself for the virtual certainty that Trump is not only going to lose, but lose on a scale approaching Nixon & McGovern.
@Jen:
I’m not, it’s not about winning, it’s about getting paid. 50% of all campaign operations are for people who don’t get elected (excluding running unopposed, of course).
@Tlaloc:
In general I agree with you, but this theme could have legs. Especially if Hillary supporters or fence sitters start to decide they have nothing to worry about.
some of the twitter people with “Deplorable” handles are now telling jews that they should be on an El Al flight in January
@HarvardLaw92: I wonder if Trump’s attorney is going charge Trump an extra “grievance fee for forcing me to look like a law student failing an exam on the First Amendment.”
@Grumpy Realist: Law student? Pshaw. Poli sci 200 level classes, in undergrad introduced us to NYT v. Sullivan.
@dxq: Here’s something else along those lines from TPM.
I hope the US gets through this safely. Is the Republican Party EVER going to realize that they’ve made a deal with the devil by pandering to the alt-right all these years?
@JKB: Wait, Obama didn’t destroy it already?
Speaking as a 60-year-old woman who had to deal with gropers in all walks of life starting at pre-school age, the thing that broke the dam was Trump’s finally answering Anderson Cooper’s question at the second debate that no, he hadn’t done this personally. I came up out of my chair with an OH, NO, YOU DIDN’T GO THERE reaction and I know many other women who did too,
If he’d responded like Arnold Schwarzenegger had by saying yes, I’ve been a bit of a bad boy and I’m sorry, he would have gotten the same response Arnold did. There is something that is the last straw.
I love how peons like Guarneri are aggrieved that a woman in her duplicitous heart may enjoy being tied up or spanked by a partner to whom she has given consent yet the same woman weirdly enough is not into being kidnapped by Guarneri and taken to his house, where he can do what he wants. You have to wonder what kind of person finds consent a genuine puzzle, like it’s a fiction invented by another person to hinder them.
I happen to believe Juanita Broaddrick and I’d like to believe that if Bill Clinton ran today, despite his talents, the real dirt on him (not the affairs with women who actually wanted to screw him, which is a thing that dealmaker Donald Trump seems pretty much incapable of having) would sink Bill. But maybe not. We swallow s–t for politicians, and much of the s–t swallowed for the Clintons was in the service of advancing equality for women, gays, and minorities. And you know what? Everything that has been advanced in the past thirty years came through the actions of people swallowing s–t for mainstream Democrats and none of it came from cheap Christians who idolized women and find them gross.
So why are people swallowing s–t and being tribal and voting for Donald Trump? It’s because they all for treating others like Donald Trump treats others. Or at least making that a right for white people to execute, in case they feel the need. There’s no mystery here. Trump, and the idiots like Gaurneri, are average Republican psyches–they don’t get why others say no, and they feel persecuted and deeply inferior by these refusals.
@Modulo Myself: And the reason the damn alt-right is following Donald Trump panting with its tongue hanging out and its tail wagging is because its despicable members want to act like Donald Trump. They all consider themselves “alpha males”, which in their vocabulary means “I can do whatever sh*t I like and to hell with anyone else.”
The only minor consolation I have is if the alt-right actually DID take over, they’d implode within a year because each of them would be insisting he was more alpha-er than anyone else.
Hell, a WEEK.
@JKB:
I don’t know which would be sadder — if you actually believe this, or if you don’t.
@grumpy realist:
If the alt-right ever met the Aryan Nation, they’d be carved up in a second.
Say what you want about Stalin, but the guy was actually out there robbing banks and being a terrorist before he became a genocidal dictator.
And I think it’s clear that Trump in his life has never been desired by a single woman. Dumb men are into him, and that’s it. That’s his base.
I always thought generic Freudian theories about repression and sex were bogus, but this election has made me Freud-curious.
@Modulo Myself:
Attraction to perceived wealth / power is a fairly common psychosexual trait. Actually it’s likely a very adaptive response because wealthy and powerful men would be good providers for any offspring (as the evolutionary psychologists claim anyway).
I read a very interesting take on Freudian repression in a Kim Stanley Robinson book – most likely one of The Mars Trilogy books because of the psychologist character – that Freud unconsciously used the steam engine as the model for his theory on repression. Pressure must be vented else a resulting explosion. And that most theories of the mind are based upon technologies, especially new technologies, that were present at the time the theory was formulated. A mechanical model would naturally be formulated in the Industrial era and the public would understand and accept it based on the time period.
Well, Raw Story and others are reporting that Trump called Marlee Matlin “retarded.”
More horrible, disgusting behavior toward the disabled. I hope he is absolutely crushed. What a depraved and awful human being.
Obama in full IDGAF mode…
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58002723e4b0e8c198a745f2
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:
Now I’m really shocked anyone with experience signed on with Trump, his MO being to hire people who don’t know him and then stiff them when the work’s done.
I question the timing of the Wikileaks emails, why right before the election, why not back in March when Bernie had a chance? Coincidence? I think not.
@Grumpy Realist:
Marc is a very talented litigator. He well knows that this would die in about two seconds if actually filed based on any number of potential motions to dismiss on behalf of the Times. I suspect that, for him, this is about notoriety and collecting fees for essentially doing nothing. KBT&F had a massive layoff last year, so maybe they need the money badly enough to look like fools?
That having been said, if this actually proceeded to trial, I feel pretty certain that Dave & Co. would defer any such motion to dismiss – for one simple reason: discovery. The opportunity to conduct a court sanctioned vacation through Trump’s life, and to put him on the stand / enjoy the optics of him hiding behind the 5th Amendment (which can be used against you in a civil trial), would be a field day for the Times. Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel …
@george: “Just about every guy I know thinks women having sexual agency is wonderful, and the more agency the more wonderful. For that matter, the more deviant and decadent the better too. Having a single sexual partner your whole life isn’t nearly as popular, among either men or women, as people like to think.”
Sexual agency does not mean a willingness to have hot monkey sex with you, which is the way you’re describing it here. Sexual agency means feeling free to reject you and have sex — or not — with the partner(s) of her choice. And I’d bet that a lot of those “just about every guys” would call t his woman a slut.
The worse of them would have sex with her and then call her a slut.
@Blue Galangal: In general, fanfic has always given me the creeps, even before the days I was working on seaQuest and was informed by the leader of the fanficcers that her stories were superior to mine because I was only writing for money while she was doing it out of love for the show.
But give Ms 50 Shades a lot of credit — she did what I always advise fanficcers who want to publish: She abandoned the specific, copyrighted aspects of the work she loved and found a way to express what she loved about it in her own original story and world.
@HarvardLaw92: Oh yes indeed. This is why the Times is sitting there rubbing its hands together in glee and saying “oh yes Br’er Trump, please, please PLEASE throw me in that briar patch….”
Damn. It would be EPIC.
(Not that what is going on now isn’t EPIC in its own way.)
@C. Clavin: I loved this line–
@wr:
I don’t think I know a single guy who doesn’t think the possibility of being rejected is part of the whole courting procedure. Maybe guys like Brad Pitt and George Clooney don’t run into it, for most of us we got rejections along with acceptances; you ask, if you’re rejected you move on. Its always been that way, it comes with asking. This is what is discussed in real locker rooms (as opposed to Trump’s imaginary ones – and I’ve played a lot of sports and been in a lot of locker rooms). You ask, if she’s not interested forget her, go on to the next. This only works if there’s a next to go onto. If women don’t have sexual freedom then the process stops – there’s no one to ask, because they’re not allowed to say yes.
And actually, I don’t know many guys who’d call a woman a slut for rejecting them (for most guys they get rejected as often as accepted, again, comes with asking, you quickly learn to shrug and move on). Its a word I hear more from woman describing other woman than from guys.
Hot sex is nice, but for most guys its not even a possibility unless women have the sexual freedom to agree to it; if they don’t you’re going home alone.
@wr: @wr: Sexual agency does not mean a willingness to have hot monkey sex with you,
If Clinton is really behind this orchestrated destruction of Trump, his brand, and the Republican Party…then what is she going to march out ahead of Wednesdays debate?
I for one cannot wait to see….
@JKB:
We heard the same idiotic horseshit about Obama in 2008. Not only is the American Republic still here, but–despite the best efforts of the numerous assholes that constitute today’s Republican Party–pretty much everything is better.
The Republican candidate is a man who has no knowledge of, or respect for, the Constitution that created our Republic, and you think his opponent is the existential threat? You’re a pure fool if you do.
@de stijl:
Interesting. I’ve thought that Watson and Crick’s description of DNA would not have been readily accepted before computers showed massive amounts of information could be coded in enough 1/0 bits.
@Mikey:
Hillary Clinton has the history and the organization to misuse the office of the President, to undermine the rule of law and further usurp the sovereignty of the people. We are faced with the prospect of the imperial presidency both parties have promoted for the last 50 years. We are faced with a dictatorial and oppressive regulatory bureaucracy unaccountable to the People or their representatives. We are faced with one-party rule in DC, regardless of the party label the individual markets themselves under. That party is the socialist party because the socialist party favors the office holder. At least those not an office holder (or their crony) has the hardest time.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, is opposed by both nominal parties and wholly by the real one-party that dominates DC. He is opposed by both political operatives and the rank and file bureaucrats within the Agencies. He is opposed by the news media that propagandize for the DC party. The single-party is horrified by the prospect that Donald Trump will assume the powers they’ve accumulated to the imperial presidency.
All of this opposition by individuals in the DC political, bureaucratic and media spheres will ensure any wild actions by Trump will be impeded if not quashed. This is not the case with Hillary. Hillary will be a continuation of the usurpation of the American people by the DC single-party. Donald Trump will actually cause all of those usurpers to work to undo the prior usurpations as in their own interest.
It is time the DC crowd went to work for America again and incentives matter.
@george:
This right here? Classic dismissal and invalidation: “I personally haven’t witnessed it often plus none of my friends do it so it must not be accurate.” #NotAllMen, indeed. Women who tell men no are regularly harassed with insults, perhaps not always the specific word “slut” but the connotation is definitely there. The first time I was shamed for not liking a male back was in kindergarten. A boy kissed me during naptime and when I smacked him for it, he went crying to the male teacher that I was mean to him. I was asleep but somehow I was wrong for being upset and not reciprocating! I will never forget what the teacher told me – “If you kiss one, you should kiss them all.” Neither of them called me “slut” but the implication that I was a capricious creature because I didn’t accept any and all affections was made blatantly clear to my young self. Thank god my father flipped when I told him and took me out of there.
Re-frame it: how many WOMEN do you know that have been called a slut or something of that nature for turning a man down? Go on, ask. You’ll be shocked at how many it was. I would bet damn near all. We have to be very careful turning guys down because we’ll be insulted, depreciated, threatened or even beaten/killed for having the nerve to reject a fragile male. Every woman will have at least one story to tell you and don’t be surprised if you recognize some of the male names involved. You’re not with all the men you know 24/7 after all; you can’t say for certain them drunk or angry won’t trigger the insults to fly.
This is a thing, george. A daily thing for some women. Have some respect, please.
@wr:
You worked on seaQuest?! <3 <3
I want to thank you for helping encourage a love of science in me, my sibling and friends. This was a fav show and sparked much debate on biology among our group. A friend is now a marine biologist, another a veterinarian and a third works with wolves. I personally spent a week or so on the calculations & engineering specs it would take to turn my sister's room into a dolphin tank. Typed up the proposal and everything – my parents weren't amused but my sister was totally down for it 🙂
@JKB:
I’m not sure that I (or many millions of other Americans) want our federal government to be taken over by people who are willing to force the federal government into default in order to accomplish their larger goal of eliminating and privatizing programs such as social security and medicare.
All the more reason for you to vote for Trump. Trump hasn’t given any indication he will be intransigent on the budget. On the other hand, he may ask pointed questions and this will cause the program managers to clean up their own house lest they be held accountable.
It is a beautiful thing, I’ve seen it. In the early Bush II years, the political appointees asked program managers to explain what they were spending their current budget on before they would discuss any increases. Most of the “bosses” couldn’t explain where the money was going…that first time. But next time, they were up to speed and had already developed plans to shutdown or consolidate that which was not easily defendable. Thus, dead and dying programs were trimmed and zombies were decapitated within the organization. Outcome, less waste in their budgets. And all done by incentivizing the most knowledgeable persons.
@Mary G: Yours is the perfect response to Dr. Joyner’s post. See also: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/13/13269280/donald-trump-accusers-timing
I’m not a fan of either candidate and will probably vote for Hillary over the insufferable Trump. There still is something off about this People magazine story. We know Trump is a lout, but the events described in the article just don’t add up to me. Who is Natasha Stoynoff anyway? Well, it looks in addition to her work writing puff pieces on celebrities she also writes book with John Edward. The same Psychic con man, John Edward. I have a difficult time accepting the credibility of a writer who partners with a psychic fraud to scam bereaved people.
@KM:
I know it is. Rape happens. Murder happens. I never said otherwise.
But there’s a huge difference between something happening, and something being the norm. That’s what the right wing preys on. Some whites get killed by blacks (and of course some blacks get killed by whites, but the right wing doesn’t pick up on that). Does that mean all blacks want to kill whites? And all whites want to kill blacks? Of course not. So why frame it any differently for men and women?
This is the same crap that they’re using to argue against BLM – a few BLM people carried signs saying kill all the cops. Therefore everyone in BLM wants to kill cops. Give me a break, these things are individual. There’s no such thing as shared consciousness, we all live inside our own heads and make our own decisions. If Bill Gates has a great meal it doesn’t help me if I’m starving just because we’re both men. Trust me on this, I grew up very poor, missing meals was regular. Identity with other whites or other males meant squat when there was nothing to eat. People categorize to avoid having to look at individuals.
@JKB:
No, they won’t, because they can’t. There are areas within which the President has near-absolute authority, one of which–terrifyingly, should someone as unhinged as Trump become President–the employment of nuclear weapons. Also, as Commander in Chief he can order the deployment of American forces anywhere in the world without so much as a by-your-leave to Congress.
He also has the authority to issue executive orders and direct his cabinet members to take actions. A principled cabinet member might resign in protest if Trump directs something bad, but Trump doesn’t surround himself with principled people, he surrounds himself with sycophants and yes-men, and there’s no reason he’d change if elected.
Nearly every statement he makes indicates a lack of knowledge, not just of the Constitution but of American law in general, and of course his unwillingness to address–or even acknowledge–his own ignorance is remarkable in its own right.
Mrs. Clinton is far from perfect, but even those who support her acknowledge this. Even when the charges against her are baldly ludicrous, she responds with a secretive circle-the-wagons mentality that is both unnecessary and suspicion-raising. Still, her depth and breadth of experience more than qualify her for the Presidency. This is manifestly, and obviously, untrue of Trump.
There is no way any reasonable person could conclude she is more of a threat to the Republic than he.
@george:
Go on any dating site, create a female persona and start turning guys down. Watch what you get called. Get a burn phone and let them text you. You’ll pick up a whole new vocabulary. Experiments of this nature have shown to have an eye-opening effect on what we really experience.
Women suffering negative consequences for rejecting men IS the norm in this world. That’s what you’re not getting. While it rarely escalates to murder in terms of sheer numbers, it is an ever-present concern for every female in existence that a male who feels rejected may decide to take it out on her. Maybe he just gives her a dirty look. Maybe he decides to call her a bitch or a lesbian. Maybe he decides to talk shit about her with his buddies and her rep (social, professional, personal, etc) takes an undeserved hit. Maybe it costs her job because gossip like that spreads. Maybe he keeps asking and asking to the point she avoids places rather then run into him. Maybe he do the vague creeper thing and she starts watching over her shoulder as she walks home or goes to get coffee in the breakroom. Maybe he harbors it resentfully until he finally lashes out and some random person pays the price for a rejection years before. It’s a crapshot and your odds of a positive outcome are less then 50% (even lower with circumstances like alcohol, location, crowd size, etc thrown in).
It touches every part of our lives. You’re focusing on the extremes and disregarding them as out-liers when I’m telling you its a fundamental part of being a female in this world. There’s a reason #YesAllWomen exists because of this argument.
And people use individuality to avoid acknowledging issues and thus changing. It’s a fairly selfish reflexive defense – “I didn’t do it, don’t blame me!” It’s taking a general issue personally. It takes attention away from the issue and refocuses attention on men as victims instead. Women tell you they experience a systemic, consistent problem and a guy’s first reaction to offer personal vindication of innocence? “Not me” -> “Nothing to do with me then!” -> “Not my problem since I’m not involved”. Using your BLM reference, #NotAllMen = #AllLivesMatter. Just as tone-deaf and just as useless in get the issue resolved.
Look, I get it. Humans don’t want to be associated with bad things. That’s why racists hate the term while gleefully doing their thing. Nobody wants to be tarred with a brush unfairly or smacked with a label. But this isn’t about you or any other male who has their feelings momentarily hurt when women mention how your gender keeps mistreating mine. It’s about the women in question, period.
@JKB:
This depends on him being able to ask said pointed question and understand the answer. Given his expressed lack of interest in learning anything, are you expecting him to get by with the wisdom of the fool?
@KM:
Did you grow up extremely hungry? Walk to school with shoes so worn out you could feel the texture of the snow through them, and the wind through the coat you wore? If not, is it your fault, as a middle class person, that I did? Should you feel personally responsible for it?
The problem isn’t hurt feelings. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, I doubt either of us cares even a tiny amount what the other thinks of them – a discussion on an Internet forum is no basis for any kind of personal reaction. The problem in discussion is the principle of being held responsible for something you have no control over.
More interesting, you state that individuality is just a way to avoid acknowledging issues, suggesting you don’t think it really exists. That’s an incredible statement. As far as I can tell, our thoughts, our selves, are definitely individual, tied into a few pounds of flesh in a very specific location. We don’t exist as part of a group in any concrete sense. There are science fiction worlds which have telepathy, where thoughts are shared, where sensations are shared. Maybe if artificial intelligence develops that will be part of it. But its not part of us. Your eating doesn’t assuage my hunger. My putting on a warm coat doesn’t warm you. We develop empathy, but that too exists within the same individual process. Saying individuality is just a way to avoid acknowledging issues seems to be in direct contradiction to everything that’s been written in philosophy, psychology, biology, and even the arts, for thousands of years. We experience reality as individuals – arguably its a cause for most of our greatest tragedies and hardships, for depression and hatred – but it seems to be the way it works, and I have a hard time understanding how you think otherwise.
@Alan Green:
And I have trouble believing comments from people who believe in psychics.
@george :
Except your “empathy” seems to be talking about how it’s so important to distinguish individual X’s non-culpability for individual’s Y actions toward individual W that you completely ignoring W in the process. Empathy means experiencing as if you are W and it not mattering that you are X. You are arguing the opposite – that being X is so important, W’s concerns come second to X not being negatively associated with Y. Y matters most because as an individual, Y is unique and alone.
You are essentially saying we are our own little worlds and never the twain shall met. Solipsism leads to some ugly things, my friend. After all, if we don’t exist as part of a group in any concrete sense, then what’s the point of the group? Ann Rynd has further details on where that train of thought lies. If it’s so important to you that you as a male don’t get lumped in with those other bad bad males, then go be your own special snowflake in the corner. You’re not being empathetic, you’re been self-centered around whether people think you’re bad as well.
The starving person doesn’t give a damn whether you feel guilty they are hungry; they want food. The cold child isn’t interesting in philosophizing about individuality; they need to be warm. Now are you going to stand there in front of them and be satisfied you didn’t cause it personally or are you going to hand them a coat and a meal? Honestly, the navel gazing on this is remarkable….
@JKB:
I can’t understand this kind of comment. Most people look back on Bill’s presidency with fondness but these Republican partisans want to pretend that his wife would absolutely destroy the country. As if Hillary was never involved with any decisions and Bill would never be involved….
Not to mention that this has been a talking point against every single Democratic presidential candidate at least as far back as the early 90s. I don’t remember the talking points prior to the 90s as I was in the single digits age wise when Reagan ran.
@Matt:
What’s the mystery? The person saying it is, at very best, a fool.
@KM:
Yes, the child wants someone to give it a meal and a warm jacket. And that’s always going to be an individual that does it (it happened a few times, it was never a group, though you could have associated the individuals doing it with several groups, usually simultaneously). Saying we are individuals has nothing to do with solipsism (unless someone is suggesting they are the only thinking individual in the universe and I’m not sure where I said that), nor does it have anything to do with Ann Rand as far as I know (I’ve never read her work, nor had any of the major philosophers from traditions as far apart as Greeks to the Buddhists) – its just the observation that thought and decisions seem to occur for each individual in their brain.
Most acts of kindness come when an individual sees a situation, and makes the conscious decision to act in a compassionate way. That’s key, we can choose our responses. We can choose to react in anger, we can choose to react by ignoring (that’s by far the most common response), we can choose to act compassionately. But the choice is an individual one. Its a keystone in Buddhist philosophy. In Victor Frankl’s psychology. Even in the Biblical story of the kind philistine, who behaved as an individual rather than following his expected group.
At any time we are associated with many groups. Our gender. Our income. Our education. Our size. Our occupation. Our politics. Our religion. Our culture. Our race. Which one is important depends upon context. Sometimes that context is chosen by the grouping others project – if for me say occupation is my most important self identification I’ll have a tendency to project it onto you, even if for you some other grouping (say culture or gender or race) is most important. But these groupings isn’t what makes the decision to help that child, it always comes down to an individual seeing a sad situation and reacting with compassion.
It can come out with compassion in a voting booth. Voting for someone who will pass legislation helping the poor for instance (ie giving up some of your income to increased taxes) is an act of kindness. That’s the problem with much of the Christian Right wing, they don’t think teachings of the person they call their savior should follow them into the voting booth. But it always comes down to an individual decision. And more importantly, an act.
I don’t know anything about you. You might well be the individual who stops to help that child, who stops to run into a local fast food store to buy a burger for a three quarters drunk homeless person asking for a handout. If so, that’s real compassion. But you’re not thinking in terms of groups when you do that. If you see a starving, freezing child and think “they belong to groups A and B, and those groups are doing fine so I’ll walk on” then you’re probably statistically correct, but you’re not being compassionate. And the decision to continue walking was done by you, for good or for bad, as an individual, not as a member of a group.
And just when we thought this couldn’t get even more bizarre … Trump trots out a serial fabricator to make the hilarious claim that he was on the plane and saw everything.
This is just crazy.
@Hal_10000:
Can top it – #Repealthe19th is trending because of Silver’s gender-breakdown electoral vote map and Trumpkin males’ realization that they only way for him to win is to take away women’s voting rights. And they’re not kidding either even as the “haha it was just a joke” excuse is rolling out.
Please God, make November come faster…..
@KM: And on top of that, I saw a tweet from a woman saying “I’d gladly give up my voting rights to make this happen” (“this” being a Trump victory).
“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.” — Dostoyevsky
@Hal_10000:
Its been crazy from the start – what else was to expected from Trump? He’s a crazy narcissist, and has been open about for the last couple of decades.
What’s more surprising is how many are willing to put him in. He’s racist, but he’s hardly the first or even the most racist person going into the GOP primaries over the last couple of decades – none of the others on his level of racism got more than a couple of percent in their primaries before dropping out. He’s sexist, but that’s pretty much the norm for the GOP, and certainly there have been others in their primaries as bad as him. The only real difference I can see is that the others had an element of rationality to them (you can be malevolent and rational – in fact its quite common among rulers).
Trump on the other hand is openly bat sh*t crazy – no one has tried that before. It seems to be working for him. The only reason I can think of is that people want to burn down the house, and so they’re going with the guy running around with a lit flame thrower.
Its almost like there’s a check list: racist – we’ve seen it before, necessary but not sufficient. Sexist – same, necessary but not sufficient. Bat sh*t crazy: okay, that’s new, lets go with this guy and take the whole structure down.
Of course if they do tear the whole thing down they’ll find their romantic views of post-apocalypse America is nothing like reality. What’s especially ironic is that many of them are old and physically incapable of surviving in the future they apparently want.
@george: Bravo, bravo, bravo.
There was a short squib over at TPM the other day where someone reported on her Millennial male friend supporting Trump. There’s a heck of a lot of “let’s just blow the whole thing up!” from certain young males–I suspect those who have no idea of history or how bad things could exactly get.
Those of us who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it’s starting to feel a lot like Europe before WWI.
@grumpy realist:
A few weeks ago I saw something online, can’t remember the exact wording but it was basically “this is starting to feel like when a map gets lots of flags and arrows and ‘factors leading to’ written on it.”
@grumpy realist: I knew more then a few guys who are voting Trump for that reason. They also have a complete or near complete ignorance on history or believe that they will be the ones standing tall in the apocalypse…