Trump Queen

Barry Ritholz tweeted about an instagram account called Trump Queen that photoshops Small Hands's face on the Queen of England.  The images are haunting and funny.

I am going to need a lot of this sort of thing to get me through the next four years!

Stop Being Trump's Twitter Fool

I first ran across Jack Shafer when he wrote for Slate and when I read Slate religiously.  He always comes off as a little cantankerous but also very bright and knowledgeable about the press.  I have followed him on Twitter, but to know why he vexes me, go read his Wikipedia profile (down under Libertarianism).  Still, I try to follow and read bright people with who I don't always agree.  This pays off sometimes like Shafer's recent article (under the same name as this blog post).

Trump's campaign and behavior as PEOTUS has been carefully scripted and executed by "media executive" Steve Bannon.  Shafer's point, acutely useful after the "Hamilton" tweets by Small Hands, is essentially:  Trump (probably Bannon) is playing us.

Haven’t any of these people raised children? Don’t they know about bait and switch? Have none of them been paying attention to Trump’s Twitter strategy for the past 17 months? For anybody who has read a half-dozen of Trump’s tweets, the pattern is obvious. He compiles these tweets precisely in order to elicit strident protest.

On a weekend where Small Hands paid a $25 million fine for Small Hand's University, we are talking about Safe Spaces and Pence in a theater.  He and his handlers keep waving shinny things, and we keep jumping after them.

Every time there is a crazy behavior or tweet, I am going to take a moment to consider whether I am being distracted from something more important.  It's going to be a rough four years.  Focus and thought are the most important tools to combat and contain the damage that is about to be done.

Go read Shafer's article, and read what he writes for Politico.  Some of it will make you mad.  A lot of it will make you think.

Jared Kushner

So you're thinking, "Trump's gonna be OK, he'll let Jared Kushner take care of most things.  He's alright... right?"  Let me give you exhibit A as evidence that, NO!  He's not alright.  He's very NOT alright!

Go read the entire New York Times article (perhaps with a beer or glass of wine to comfort you).  These are the kind of people who are seizing being given by voters in Dumbf**kistan the highest levels of political power in our country.

Feelin' the Bern

I am not going to make the point that Sanders would have been a better candidate than HRC.  I struggle a little bit to say that he would be a better President than Small Hands, but in the end, just about anyone will have made a better President that Small Hands.  The point I will make is:  I appreciate the fight with which Bernie brings to the table.  He brought it in supporting HRC to a laudable extent.  I think he will keep that fight up now that the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the Presidency.  We need that fight now.  I think a lot of us Democrats will quietly walk away and just try to exist through these next few years.  I think Bernie has it right.  I don't mean trying to take the country down in a temper tantrum.  I mean finding a way to be active an persuasive.  Most of the same people that lashed out and voted for Small Hands are the ones that will be most hurt by him and his party.  Pointing that out and making that clear will hopefully start the recovery that is needed.

What's the matter with Iowa?

This has been circulating (tip of the cap to M&D for pointing it out).  A couple of thoughts:

• This isn't wrong.  In fact, it's profoundly right.
• It's makes me unbearably sad and ashamed that Iowa seceded from the US and joined Dumbf**kistan 
• There IS a RED-America and a BLUE-America (though to be fair, I think I should change that from RED-America to WHITE-America so the folks in Dumbf**kistan don't get upset if I don't recognize their scary white nationalism)

I think I still have Tom Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas at home.  I guess I need to reread it.

What happened to the magic of 2012?

When last I wrote with any frequency to this blog, I was thanking Todd Akin for being such a very wonderfully awful candidate that Claire McCaskill would be able to sail through to re-election in Democrat-hostile Missouri.  It was wonderful.  The Spring and Summer came with a lot of dread that Mitt Romney would take the Presidency and the Republicans would take the Senate.  NEITHER came to pass.

In 2016 I was giddy with the prospect of Donald Trump as the GOP standard bearer.  I foresaw for a Republican party in disarray and a recapture of the Senate by the Democrats.  Then in October it began to fall apart.  The Comey letter looked bad, and I do not know whether it turned the tide (it couldn't have helped).  Now we sit with The Donald as President-elect and the Republicans with a real majority in both houses.

I don't suppose that people always realize how much history they are living through.  I don't think I fully do realize the extent, but I do know that the things that will happen in the coming months and years will reverberate.  Perhaps there will be an amazing and positive turn of events.  The long and the short of it is that I need to get involved somehow.  I don't know how, but I have to figure it out.