Monday, November 14, 2016

Repugs are awful and Trump is their perfect representative


Maybe we're supposed to be all bipartisan now and give our new president a chance---even Dave Chapelle says so---but many of us will be floating turds in that punch bowl for the next four years.

President Obama was obligated to invite Trump to the White House to affirm the country's democratic tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, but the rest of us have different duties.

Maybe it shouldn't have been, but the thing that surprised me most about the primaries and the general election was how awful the Republican Party has become. If some version of fascism comes to our country, that party will provide the political nucleus and the shock troops.

And it really is about race with the Repugs:

Racism is a very real driver of Trump’s success. As the ANES[American National Election Studies] data shows, economic and social pain is understood through the lens of racial animus. Where to go from here? More research will certainly come, but it seems clear to me that Democrats need to begin organizing and mobilizing. Democrats need to vigorously fight voter suppression techniques and take seriously their ability to reduce turnout, particularly among young people, low-income people and people of color. Turnout in the presidential election was dampened by new voting restrictions and closed polling places...(Yep, race really did Trump economics: A data dive on his supporters reveals deep racial animosity).

I suppose it's possible to be intelligent and a racist, but most Trump supporters are apparently stupid and ignorant: two thirds of his supporters think President Obama is a Muslim and 59% think he wasn't born in the US! Gee, I wonder where that came from?

Watching the 60 Minutes Trump interview shows us how this contemptible person will be normalized by the media. The major networks have no choice, since their shunning a president is unthinkable---and it would be bad for business.

When I went to CBS for a link, the video of the interview was preceded by one of those vulgar Viagra ads. That seemed somehow appropriate, since it led to this question: how much longer will Lesly Stahl continue to inflict her 74-year-old legs on her audience? Does anyone want Charley Rose to take off his shirt? 

I love women and their bodies, but surely she's long past the point where she should stop pretending she's sexually attractive to anyone but her husband. Maybe Stahl has too much seniority at the network for producers to tell her to stop.

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