This captures all the main elements of these monsters except two:
1. Republicans are natural subs. Yes, they punch down at those with less power or status, but they also suck up to those with more power or status and welcome the boot on their throat.
2. Trump is not just a convicted rapist, he thinks like a rapist, that is, he believes he can take whatever he wants, especially if you say no, and damn your rights and feelings. This rape mind pervades the party as a whole now, which previously was simply grasping and greedy.
It’s a sad statement on the modern GOP: the party’s racism is so deeply entrenched, so endlessly sprawling, that even artificial intelligence buckles under the task of cataloging it all.
I have read a fair number of articles that try to explain Trump’s support. For some, it is as simple as remembering that the price of eggs was less in 2019 than it is now. Others liked that he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and yelled at NATO to pay up. Still others that he is anti-woke.
Obviously there are way too many who are drawn by and to the anger and hate Trump brings but in my view they don’t add up to more than 60% of pure MAGA cultists. The rest are true believers in the sh*t Steve Bannon flooded the zone with.
I am 77 years old and never in my wildest dreams did I believe that a creature so lacking in human qualities could arise as the pied piper of crazy, but here we are. God help us.
Waldman nails it here. One of the many sad lessons we've learned in the last few years is that there's no lower bound to the orange criminal's assholery, nor to that of his suck-ups and cult followers. When you think the absolute bottom of the cesspool has been hit, human behavior could not possibly get more vicious, hateful, cruel, etc., nope, someone in the fetid MAGA swamp plunges to new depths of depravity.
So immensely grateful that The Cross Section is beyond the reach of the black swooshy arrow.
I am, these days, wondering a lot about terms that I myself have used frequently over the past several years in response to the holder of this rally: mean, cruel, punching down.... until this event, I wouldn't have believed he'd ever again go as low as he did in his attack on Serge Kovaleski. I was and am still struck by its stunning viciousness and by what it said about the airless emptiness of the person putting it out there into the world. So he goes and does it again at The Garden, with a firehose of a hack. But don't we give him perverse oxygen every time we note that rancid behavior like that is punching down, or mean, or even cruel? Because in his mind, and that of his followers, don't those words tacitly underscore that he's higher up than his target? Bullies always win.
you are right, of course. but it raises some thoughts i will risk sharing. First, you point out yourself that many, maybe all, the people who will vote for Trump like assholery...and that turns out to be almost half of the voting populations. Those who don't like it already know that and that is why they are not voting for Trump. Still, it is probably worth pointing out..gives the rest of us some encouragement to know we are not alone.
Second, your choice of language offends me. I am an old prude, but I discovered how much I don't like the word when the president (:) of "Social Security Works" called me an asshole when I tried to point out to him that calling for "make the rich pay" for Social Security was exactly what Roosevelt warned us against and was damaging to Social Security which works because it is paid for by the workers themselves.
Third, I guess, is my feeling that journalists these days rely on cute uses of language without taking the trouble to understand the facts themselves or explain them to the people. It may be that this is what is necessary because people are far more likely to be persuaded by cute language than by careful argument from those who know the facts.
That said, keep up the good work. I am just one of those old folks the enemies of Social Security have taught you-all to despise.
This captures all the main elements of these monsters except two:
1. Republicans are natural subs. Yes, they punch down at those with less power or status, but they also suck up to those with more power or status and welcome the boot on their throat.
2. Trump is not just a convicted rapist, he thinks like a rapist, that is, he believes he can take whatever he wants, especially if you say no, and damn your rights and feelings. This rape mind pervades the party as a whole now, which previously was simply grasping and greedy.
*The GOP’s Racism Broke AI*
It’s a sad statement on the modern GOP: the party’s racism is so deeply entrenched, so endlessly sprawling, that even artificial intelligence buckles under the task of cataloging it all.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150895632?r=4d7sow&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I have read a fair number of articles that try to explain Trump’s support. For some, it is as simple as remembering that the price of eggs was less in 2019 than it is now. Others liked that he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and yelled at NATO to pay up. Still others that he is anti-woke.
Obviously there are way too many who are drawn by and to the anger and hate Trump brings but in my view they don’t add up to more than 60% of pure MAGA cultists. The rest are true believers in the sh*t Steve Bannon flooded the zone with.
I am 77 years old and never in my wildest dreams did I believe that a creature so lacking in human qualities could arise as the pied piper of crazy, but here we are. God help us.
Waldman nails it here. One of the many sad lessons we've learned in the last few years is that there's no lower bound to the orange criminal's assholery, nor to that of his suck-ups and cult followers. When you think the absolute bottom of the cesspool has been hit, human behavior could not possibly get more vicious, hateful, cruel, etc., nope, someone in the fetid MAGA swamp plunges to new depths of depravity.
For an interesting companion piece to Waldman's post, see https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/their-masks-are-off-just-in-time. Jay Kuo uses a different metaphor to make the point that the hateful racist assholery could not now be any more obvious.
So immensely grateful that The Cross Section is beyond the reach of the black swooshy arrow.
I am, these days, wondering a lot about terms that I myself have used frequently over the past several years in response to the holder of this rally: mean, cruel, punching down.... until this event, I wouldn't have believed he'd ever again go as low as he did in his attack on Serge Kovaleski. I was and am still struck by its stunning viciousness and by what it said about the airless emptiness of the person putting it out there into the world. So he goes and does it again at The Garden, with a firehose of a hack. But don't we give him perverse oxygen every time we note that rancid behavior like that is punching down, or mean, or even cruel? Because in his mind, and that of his followers, don't those words tacitly underscore that he's higher up than his target? Bullies always win.
Perfectly stated
Waldman
you are right, of course. but it raises some thoughts i will risk sharing. First, you point out yourself that many, maybe all, the people who will vote for Trump like assholery...and that turns out to be almost half of the voting populations. Those who don't like it already know that and that is why they are not voting for Trump. Still, it is probably worth pointing out..gives the rest of us some encouragement to know we are not alone.
Second, your choice of language offends me. I am an old prude, but I discovered how much I don't like the word when the president (:) of "Social Security Works" called me an asshole when I tried to point out to him that calling for "make the rich pay" for Social Security was exactly what Roosevelt warned us against and was damaging to Social Security which works because it is paid for by the workers themselves.
Third, I guess, is my feeling that journalists these days rely on cute uses of language without taking the trouble to understand the facts themselves or explain them to the people. It may be that this is what is necessary because people are far more likely to be persuaded by cute language than by careful argument from those who know the facts.
That said, keep up the good work. I am just one of those old folks the enemies of Social Security have taught you-all to despise.
A perfect essay!
This is great