Just last week I realized that it has been less than a year since Donald Trump became President. It seems like so much longer. And we have at least three years more to go.
Today Corey Robin, whom I've begun following lately, posted this on Facebook, referring to this tweet from Eric Alterman. (Doug Henwood also noticed the tweet.) I'm glad I'm not the only person who's noticed the behavior he's talking about:
I'm surprised when liberal writers and journalists say they're fine with Trump voters losing their jobs, health care, access to potable water, and so on, because they had it coming to them. Since jobs, health care, and clean water are critical to one's survival, such calls are essentially an endorsement of death on the installment plan for one-half the country. Imagine the reaction of these very same writers and journalists if the radical left were to call for—or endorse—the death of their domestic political enemies.
Or if the radical right were to do so. Recently my Right Wing Acquaintance Number One gleefully linked to an article about child malnutrition in Venezuela, sneering at that country as a "worker's paradise." Of course, those children had voted for Chavez and Maduro, so they had brought their misery on themselves. A day or so later RWA1 linked to a story about Roy Moore's attack on the gay son of his victorious opponent Doug Jones; RWA1 declared that Moore, like the late Fred Phelps, was of Satan. I commented that RWA1 needs people like Moore and Phelps so that he can pretend to be a moderate while he does a happy dance at the plight of starving brown children. I might also have pointed out that child malnutrition is a serious problem in the United States, thanks to the policies of both parties over the past few decades; but I doubt RWA1 cares about that either, since those children probably voted for the "aspiring Mussolini" Barack Obama.
Robin's post sparked some discussion, with a few people actually defending Alterman's remarks. Some denied that anyone besides him had expressed such sentiments; a couple doubted that he or any other liberal could actually mean such a thing. That excuse could probably be made for many Trump voters, though. Later in the thread Robin added:
This country has had a large anti-democratic element since its founding. If anything, I would say the size of that element is considerably smaller (and less violent) today than it was the year I was born. I also think comments like the one I posted are not symptoms of populism; they're symptoms of tribalism. Party tribalism, where your team is the good guys and the other team is the bad guys. Even tribalism is too fancy: it's just groupiness and cliques. That again is why you see a lot of heated rhetoric from this quarter but no action.
I was glad to see that he too has noticed the limitations of the word "tribalism." This, as Henwood noted, is why liberals are so popular, and as one of Henwood's commenters remarked, it's how to win elections.
Unlike Corey Robin, I'm not all that surprised by Alterman's sentiment, since I've seen so much of it already -- just extremely pissed off. But it also makes me feel a bit more hopeless, because it means that the people who are supposedly, nominally, on my side are really not, which means that there may be hardly anyone to make common cause with. In the US at least. As a result, I get called a nihilist, which is funny but stupid - and also depressing since it comes from people who are nominally on my side. Well, you live and learn.
I want to stress again that I don't think things are necessarily any worse than they were in the good old days, at least in some areas. People have always been insane. Still, certain things do make me want to bang my head against the wall and howl in despair.
But as I'm sure you'll have guessed, the hissyfits inspired by this list were over Bush and Cheney.
Parents were outraged when they discovered the list, according to the station, and, in reaction, the school district had the list covered with black duct tape.
Superintendent Randall Williams says the printing of the list was "an oversight," Fox 16 reports, and said he was disappointed to learn the tape could simply be peeled off the page.
Duct tape? And the Superintendent is surprised to learn that the tape can be peeled off? How is it that every adult in Russellville hasn't been declared mentally incompetent and placed under guardianship?
"I'm furious as a parent and as a board member and as a tax payer and as a resident of Russellville," School Board Member Chris Cloud, who has two children in the district, tells the station. "It's wrong."
Of course Fox News can't do more than generate soundbytes, but why does Mr. Cloud think that "it" (whatever it is) is "wrong"? As a taxpayer, I'm furious that this sort of tempest in a teapot is happening in a supposedly free country, though as an informed person I know that it's nothing new. Political Correctness has run amuck!
Williams tells Fox 16 the yearbook sponsor -- a teacher -- is "very, very, very" upset that she didn't pay more attention to the page with the list, and that the yearbook editing process is being reviewed."I think she maybe just scanned the whole page and went on," he tells the station, adding that he can't talk about disciplinary action.
That doesn't mean there won't be disciplinary action, of course. Someone has to pay for making trouble. You don't go to school to learn to stick out in a crowd.
I don't believe that anyone -- anyone who mattered, I mean -- would have objected if an equally meaningless but more Truely Politically Correct list had appeared in the yearbook. But why doesn't anyone talk back to Chris Cloud and his gang? I sympathize with the superintendent, who can't reasonably be expected to jeer at the school board. But if anyone in Russellville has a different view, their Fair and Balanced news station didn't bother to inform us. And just because it's Arkansas doesn't mean everybody is a Teabagger.
Then Eric Alterman had to remind me how much Stupid there is on what we laughingly call the American Left. His current blog post at the Nation is called "Stupid Is", and he doesn't notice the backwash. The post is dedicated to touting his own latest column, on the idiocy of Republicans, and then "If the recent news of stubbornly high unemployment claims, weakening jobs reports, a re-imploding housing picture, and softening manufacturing activity didn’t convince you that both our country and President Obama’s chances for reelection are teetering on the brink of disaster ..." You see? Obama's reelection and the future of Our Country are inseparable.
One aspect of American politics that receives insufficient attention is that a significant percentage of self-identified Republicans—around half—are complete idiots. And the candidates who wish to be elected by them must pander to them, either by being idiots themselves—see “Bachmann, Michele”—or pretending to be. Nobody in the MSM is empowered to say this aloud. Indeed, the very act of pointing it out brands one a “liberal elitist” who is biased against proud, patriotic conservatives.
He follows this up with some poll results showing the crazy things that Republicans believe. And there's no doubt about it, they're crazy things. But what about the crazy things that Democrats believe?
“I would like to see a cleaner earth for my child that I’m bringing into the world very soon,” says one smiling young woman. “It’s time for change,” a serious young white man agrees, “I want a better future for my children.” “I would like our environment to be safe,” an elegant African American woman adds. “Someone to actually make a difference in my generation,” says a white man with close-cropped hair and what appears to be a bruised eye, wearing a bomber jacket and hoodie. “I would like to see us in a world without fear,” says a man with his arm around a smiling woman. “Basically, um, I just want the war to end,” says a young Latina who earlier assured the viewer that “Esto es nuestro America.” The expectant mother returns with “I would like the rest of the world to think highly of our amazing country.” Also I’d like an Xbox, a Hannah Montana DVD, and a Cabbage Patch doll, okay? … If I were going to satirize this video, I’d show Obama dressed in work clothes, shuffling and scraping as he pushed a broom, mumbling, “Yes’m, I’ll clean up the earth for you right away, ma’am. A world without fear, suh, comin’ right up!”
Obama has not only failed to deliver on these fantasies (which is not unreasonable), but has delivered a third Bush term instead (which is very unreasonable) and has attacked and laughed at his Democratic critics. (His right-wing critics, however, he takes very seriously, and his response to them is careful, measured, and civil.) Yet his approval ratings currently hover around 50 percent for the whole population, but among Democrats, it is 82 percent; among liberals, 76 percent. Consider what that means: the economy is still in trouble (except for the richest), we are still waging wars in at least three countries depending on what you consider a war, the Patriot Act was just renewed without debate, and so on, but a very large majority of Democrats think Obama's doing a good job. Some presumably know what he's doing and approve of it, others presumably believe that he's still working on that Xbox for next Christmas and would have brought about a world without fear if it weren't for those rascally Republicans. Numerous Obama apologists point to his good poll numbers among Democrats and liberals as evidence (or proof) that the God-King is doing a good job; what those numbers actually indicate is that substantial majorities of Democrats and liberals are delusional.
Between the Republicans and the Democrats, that's a lot of Stupid. What can be done about it, I don't know. I'm not sure anything can be done.
