...blames his dysfunction on us: We're stunned by the way Anderson Cooper now opens his nightly program.
Last week, he struck us as "the angriest dog in the world." Last night, he appeared to be the most frustrated dog. Beyond that, he was involved in vast acts of projection.
Here's how he entered the yard:
COOPER (7/14/20): Good evening. With more than 136,000 dead in this country due to the coronavirus pandemic, the president of the United States today stepped into the Rose Garden and tried to turn into one of those political rallies that he can no longer do because of the pandemic.Trump lashed out, going on and on? "Look who's talking," one bright young analyst said.
For the better part of an hour, he railed against China, the Democrats and Joe Biden. He lashed out at the World Health Organization, the Paris Climate Accords, energy saving air conditioners, statue vandals. He went on and on.
Like others in the upper-end, very corporate press, Cooper can't bring himself to acknowledge the fact that Trump is cognitively and psychiatrically impaired. His bosses won't let him say that. They're paying him millions of dollars per year to avoid discussing the truth.
His bosses won't let the frustrated dog tell his viewers the truth. And when we agree to avoid the truth, we end up projecting. Like this:
COOPER (continuing directly): The president at times sounding like he was reading a list or a litany. At other moments, he just seemed to free associate. He talked about all the bombers under his command and said quote, "Hope we don't have to use them," and boasted of things he did three years ago with the wall, undocumented immigrants.Really? That's how numb we are? Who's this "we," Kemosabe? And by the way:
All the old applause lines, but there was no applause, only silence, because this wasn't some stadium packed full of supporters who'd come to cheer and cheer and bask in the glow of this artificially tan man. His meandering screed was not close to anything one would normally expect or accept of a president, but that shouldn't surprise us.
That he chose to do it in the Rose Garden, just steps away from the Oval Office, that too should not surprise us either. That's how numb we are.
If you want to hear a "meandering screed," just watch Cooper tonight! At least he isn't artificially tan!
Cooper is directing his frustration outward. He can't grant himself the resolution which comes with acknowledgement of the truth, and so he goes on and on, then on and on, saying various things about "us."
Saying things like this:
COOPER (continuing directly): We listen to this man muse and meander, rant and regurgitate the same tired tropes and untruthful claims. We watch him boast and brag and preen and do that odd thing with his nose when he sucks in air very loudly, and none of it surprises us. That is how far we have fallen.No, Motherf*cker! That isn't how far "we" have fallen. You're just projecting again!
Cooper's anger is eating the soul of one of the people who helped put Donald J. Trump where he is. Now, Gloria Vanderbilt's spoiled boy wants to say that "we" are all as fallen and numb and hapless as he is.
Except "we" aren't the one who rolled over for Trump. And "we" aren't the ones who won't address the obvious truth about him.
"We" aren't the people doing that. Until the day he decides to change, Anderson Cooper is!
Rather plainly, Donald J. Trump seems to be impaired. That is never going to change. That was already true when Gloria Vanderbilt's best little boy cast himself as Trump's pool boy during the last election.
It was extremely good for ratings, so he rolled over for Trump on the air. Now, this frustrated dog is insulting "us." He's on the air saying we're numb and fallen. Saying we're numb and fallen like him!
We're sorry, Chump, but that isn't us. You're discussing yourself again.
Donald Trump seems to be mentally ill. Even with his clinical psychologist niece telling us this in a best-selling book, people like Cooper still refuse to take her lead and discuss this rather obvious possibility on the air.
Cooper helped put this disordered man where he is. Now he's insulting you and me, saying that "we" have fallen.
Donald J. Trump is badly impaired. Until the day he decides to change, what's the pool boy's excuse?
Full disclosure: His performance got dumber from there.
"Donald J. Trump is badly impaired."
ReplyDeleteYeah, look who's talking indeed. Compared to your liberal-hitlerian clowns, Our Beloved Commander is sanity itself.
Incidentally, it's great that you (apparently) stopped watching one hitlerian dembot: Maddow. But now you sound like you're addicted to another one: Cooper.
What's the deal with that, dear Bob? Can't you direct your passion to something less hitlerian, less annoying?
Speaking of Hitler, why do you think he was such a milquetoast bigot in comparison to the entire modern Republican Party?
DeleteSpeaking of Hitler, I wonder how many people understand that Hitler's plan was for the other nations (not Jews, nations) in Europe to become slave workers to support the greatness of Germany, much as the colonies worldwide funneled products to the other colonial empires. People in countries subjugated militarily, were sent on trains to live in dorms and work in factories on behalf of the German war effort, but the plan was for them to continue such labor after the war. Not being German/Aryan was enough to justify enslavement and conscription as labor. Of course prisoners were put to work, with no consideration of safety. This extends the Republican concept of wage slavery by eliminating the pretense that workers can choose their jobs and working conditions. So when Mao calls Democrats Hitlerian, it is kind of a hoot.
DeleteWhat's your point, dembot? Stop wasting time here and go Kneel and Beg for Forgiveness.
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DeletePeople are not dogs. It is wrong to refer to them that way, especially someone who is as innocuous as Anderson Cooper, just doing his job.
ReplyDeleteReferring to people is a standard dehumanizing tactic. People are dehumanized so that it becomes easier to mistreat them. You can do and say things about them that people would be horrified to do to a human being.
I have little worry that Somerby intends to mistreat Anderson Cooper, but establishing a practice of dehumanizing people without objection makes it easier for tyrants to encourage the populace to attacks its designated scapegoats. We don't need to help anyone do that by labeling the press as sub-human, animals.
This is doubly wrong because Anderson Cooper is a visible member of a minority group that has been persecuted in the recent past, gay people. I am not accusing Somerby of gay-bashing, but bashing someone who is gay by labeling him as a dog gives comfort to those who would bash Cooper for being gay. It provides cover for their less well-intentioned actions.
Somerby has done this before. It isn't any more cute when he does it, than it is when our President calls some hapless woman a dog. Or refers to immigrants in terms of pestilance, as an infestation.
Somerby needs to stop this. More of his hostility may be leaking out than he intends to share with his readers.
Yeah, insulting dogs by comparing them to liberals was uncalled for.
Delete"Trump lashed out, going on and on? "Look who's talking," one bright young analyst said."
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of quip that makes Somerby sound like a conservative. Cooper was talking about one incident in the rose garden and he merely summarized what the President said. If Cooper went on and on, it was because Trump went on and on. There is no evidence that Cooper unnecessarily extended Trump's list of topics or that he was indeed droning on, as the analysts implied. But this remark expresses sympathy for Trump and implies that Cooper did something wrong by listing his topics.
And then Somerby blames Cooper for not calling Trump mentally ill? So that Somerby can offer Trump more pity instead of holding him accountable? No thank you.
"Really? That's how numb we are? Who's this "we," Kemosabe? "
ReplyDeleteLiberals, that's who. These one-liners tend to add up to a picture of Somerby that is far from the way liberals react to news. Somerby needs to stop pretending he is liberal and own up to having become conservative. This is more support for Trump, camouflaged by an occasional suggestion that Trump may be mentally ill.
It doesn't take much of this to generate distaste for the media, an unexamined residue that leaves us less willing to believe whatever Cooper (or others) say, that undermines trust in the stations that WE BELIEVE tell the truth about Trump and his cronies.
Who wants to discredit the press? Not liberals, that is a conservative tactic. Coming from Trump, it may be the first step toward tyranny, elimination of a free press, with Somerby's help. If he makes Cooper seem ineffectual and biased, perhaps we won't object when Trump moves to censor him. Today, Trump uses the National Guard to make sure hospitals don't report data to the CDC, what will he do as he becomes more desperate? But Somerby thinks his time is best spent criticizing Cooper, not objecting to the use of a press conference as a political rally.
"Donald Trump seems to be mentally ill. Even with his clinical psychologist niece telling us this in a best-selling book, people like Cooper still refuse to take her lead and discuss this rather obvious possibility on the air."
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump's niece also said that Trump could not be diagnosed without a battery of tests that he would never sit for. That too is a professional assessment.
If you are a journalist of Cooper's stature, you cannot start calling the president mentally ill without expecting to be removed from your job or ordered to apologize. The office, if not the man, deserves respect and slandering the president without evidence that he is, in fact, mentally ill, is not part of Cooper's job, and would not be tolerated.
Perhaps Somerby understands this and wants to see Cooper gone? If he doesn't understand this, he is a deeply stupid man and deserves whatever they feed him over at Fox. If Cooper were to call the president mentally ill, Fox would have a field day and conservatives would be justified in their complaints. That is the last thing we need, when we are trying to fight back against a party that routinely maligns the press.
Cooper supposedly "cast himself as Trump's pool boy" during the last election.
ReplyDeleteCan Somerby be any more demeaning toward Cooper? Cooper did his job. Hillary didn't get enough air time and the coverage of her campaign was abysmal, but Somerby can't bring himself to acknowledge that. Instead he attacks Cooper, who was no better and no worse than any other cable pundit during the 2016 campaign. Why single him out? Maybe Somerby has pool-boy envy? A mensch would own up to his own dislike of Hillary and see the irony of his defending her now, without ever mentioning her name.
Somerby is being a real asshole today.
Cooper is a vapid lightweight. However, TDH has ingrained this idea that Trump is clinically mentally ill, and that the media is amiss in not harping on that, on top of everything else they harp on about. Mental illness is not like having cancer, or the measles. There's often a subjective element to it. I've seen psychiatric records of people - and the diagnoses commonly shift between one doctor and another. I would suggest that almost everyone has one neurosis or another. There are thousands of psychiatrists and psychologists. Just because a few of them have diagnosed Trump from afar as having some type of psychiatric condition, doesn't mean that it's gospel fact. And if the press did what TDH wants them to do, how in the world is that going to do any good? - if anything, it would make them look irrational (not to say that there isn't lots of irrationality already).
DeleteAC/MA, no, there is not a subjective element to a mental illness diagnosis. That's why you need a battery of tests to make such a diagnosis. You don't do it off-the-cuff, the way Somerby insists we all should.
DeleteThe difference between subjective and objective is that the diagnosis needs to be repeatable by different professionals in order to be considered objective, or a test needs to produce the same diagnosis when used with many different people who have been labeled mentally ill in the same way.
If you believe that most people are "mentally ill," you are incorrect. It is a serious diagnosis with consequences in terms of real life behavior and suffering. It means something real. It isn't the same as the casual labels people use with each other, such as paranoid or obsessive or neurotic. If Trump were to be diagnosed as mentally ill by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, it would be more than just that person's subjective opinion. That's why responsible clinicians don't write books like Bandy Lee did, and your opinion here is why books like hers do damage to both the mentally ill and mental health practitioners. You would never write an opinion that arthritis or asthma are subjective ailments because everyone has aches and pains. It is unfair to dismiss the serious difficulties encountered by those who are truly mentally ill.
AC/MA, no, there is not a subjective element to a mental illness diagnosis.
DeleteOh, professor, should I laugh or cry?
You think subjective judgment doesn't enter into psychiatric diagnosis? Read Greenberg's The Book of Woe, especially the apart about the hastily-abandoned attempt to "test" the DSM-V criteria by having independent therapists read patient histories and come to similar conclusions.
Is homosexuality a mental illness? Used to be. Not now.
You don't judge medicine by what it used to be. There are several of these critical books. Medical doctors don't agree on diagnoses either, but they do their best, as do mental health clinicians. My point is that subjectivity isn't the goal and objectivity is the point of the tests, which are not dependent on therapist intuition.
DeleteThere is subjective judgment about whether someone has covid or not, especially given test inaccuracy. But no one goes around saying that medicine is a subjective field, the way AC/MA was doing.
People who are gay used to go to therapists seeking to change themselves. That's partly why there is such a classification. Also, not everything in the DSM is considered an "illness" as such. Disorders and dysfunction are not necessarily illness, a term used more often to describe major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, OCD and anxiety disorders. Personality disorders and eating, sleep, identity disorders are not necessarily mental illness. Something like kleptomania or a shoe fetish or hair pulling wouldn't be considered mental illness either. So referring to everything in the DSM (which is a catchall of diagnostic labels intended for use by researchers and insurance companies, not practitioners) is what we mean by mental illness. Mental illness typically has an organic contribution, needs treatment using medication not solely talking therapies, is incurable (although symptoms can be mitigated), and typically causes suffering and is disruptive to functioning in the world.
There is a lot of hostility toward psychiatry and clinical psychology and these critical books exemplify that, but they don't negate the good that is done for people who are suffering, no matter how much you and others mock the field.
By the way, I am incidentally trained as an MFT (Marriage & Family Therapist) but my field is Cognitive Science and I worked in emotion research and in AI (artificial intelligence) before retiring. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I dislike seeing a field that has helped many people being maligned, especially out of ignorance. Implying that therapists don't care about homosexuality because it was once classified (by a committee) as a disorder, is wrong. And a therapist is trained not to try to change anything that isn't a problem for the client. If someone were happy being gay, it would be a breach of APA ethics to try to change him or her.
Transexuality used to be called gender dysphoria and was part of a group of body-related dysphorias (including things like worrying over having a big nose or a small penis). When it became clear that transexuality is a matter of hormones and genetics, organic and not learned, that too was moved out of the DSM. Now, the only concern a therapist might have is with helping someone with the social difficulties of transitioning. There are lots of changes in the DSM related to discoveries in neuroscience and medicine, as well as in psychology, and the DSM itself lags behind the science and practice both.
The biggest scandal in psychotherapy is the rift between clinical practice and scientific psychology over repressed memory. That was resolved by running more studies and figuring out how therapists can deal with the past without distorting what is recalled.
I don't care whether you laugh or cry. The bottom line on mental illness is that most people who have it are suffering. If you want to take away those who are trying to help, you'd better have something to replace it with, or you are no kind of human being.
"Oh, professor, should I laugh or cry?" the dog barked, before being run over by a car.
DeleteTDH's impact on politics: Trump more likely to get re-elected
Cooper's impact on politics: Trump less likely to get re-elected
Like a fiddle...
Your claim, as I quoted you @6:29P, is that there isn't a subjective element to a diagnosis of mental illness. My counter-claim is that there is, and I'll go farther and say that a diagnosis of mental illness is based almost entirely on a subjective judgment of a therapist, and that a diagnosis of physical illness is usually not. And moreover, when physicians rely on subjective judgment it's for reasons far different from those of therapists.
DeleteI'll give my argument later, but mostly because I love the sound of my own voice, and not because I think this will be a reasonable conversation. Your response here, as in most of our exchanges are bizarrely tangential. To wit:
You don't judge medicine by what it used to be.
Of course not (or we'd still be complaining about bloodletting as a general therapy), but this is also not the point, which is the change in the (necessariliy subjective) change in societal opinion about homosexuality.
There are several of these critical books.
So what? The book in question doesn't question the worth of psychotherapy -- the author is a therapist -- but describes the failures of the DSM to place the diagnosis of mental illness on an objective basis.
Medical doctors don't agree on diagnoses either, but they do their best, as do mental health clinicians.
Who claims that doctors and clinicians don't do their best? Not me.
My point is that subjectivity isn't the goal
Whom are you arguing with? Not me. Objectivity is the goal for most medical practice.
People who are gay used to go to therapists seeking to change themselves.
Or they were sent there or they were shamed there. But so what? It was still a subjective judgment that they were ill. Not so much for children who had measels in that period. See the difference?
If someone were happy being gay, it would be a breach of APA ethics to try to change him or her.
It is now. Why don't you understand why that is?
Implying that therapists don't care about homosexuality because it was once classified (by a committee) as a disorder, is wrong.
Again, whom are you arguing with? Not me. I'm not implying or stating directly anything about how much therapists care about homosexuality or anything else.
There is a lot of hostility toward psychiatry and clinical psychology and these critical books exemplify that
There is hostility, some of it from merited, some of it not. But so what? And The Book of Woe isn't hostile to therapy.
but they don't negate the good that is done for people who are suffering, no matter how much you and others mock the field.
Whom are you arguing with? Not me. I'm not denying that skilled therapists do good. My "hostility" is to the host of unqualified quacks and charlatans that haunt your field. And in any case, this has nothing to so with the subjectivity qeustion.
There are lots of changes in the DSM related to discoveries in neuroscience and medicine, as well as in psychology, and the DSM itself lags behind the science and practice both.
So what? Whom are you talking to? It can't be me, because I'm not talking about the DSM's incorporation of discoveries in neuroscience. I'm talking about the failure of its mission to create an objective basis to diagnose mental illness.
The biggest scandal in psychotherapy is the rift between clinical practice and scientific psychology over repressed memory.
Really? So what? This has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
(con't->)
(<-con't)
DeleteI don't care whether you laugh or cry.
What an odd, unselfaware thing to say. Do you think the expression was meant literally, that I couldn't decide between actual mirth and real tears, and that I thought you might care about the choice?
The bottom line on mental illness is that most people who have it are suffering.
Why would you think this was the bottom line? Do you believe that I think that the mentally ill don't suffer?
If you want to take away those who are trying to help, you'd better have something to replace it with,
Not only is this irrelevant to my point, but it's utter nonsense. There are all kinds of well-meaning ignoramuses who are trying to help with currently-intractable problems. If they do harm, they should be ruthlessly chased from the field of discourse even if we have no good replacements.
or you are no kind of human being.
I'm not your kind of human being, which is to say I'm rude, snide, boorish, and contemptuous. But the question is whether I'm right, not what kind of human being I am.
By the way, I am incidentally trained as an MFT (Marriage & Family Therapist) but my field is Cognitive Science and I worked in emotion.
The fact that you were incidentally trained might explain a few things. Most people obtain training as a deliberate act.
I am agnostic about personal claims in cyberspace. Which is to say that I have no reason to believe you because I can't check your assertion. On the other hand, I have no reason to disbelieve you either. And rudeness, snideness, boorishness, and contempt aside, I contemplate the truth of your claim with, shall we say, unease. You're trained in cognitive science, and you can't follow the train of an argument. You're trained in family therapy, and ... well, the mind boggles.
Some say imitation is artless flattery. I have heard that. I could be flattered, I much rather be resembled. Or reassembled as Khashoggi would say. Sad.
Delete(a little throat clearing, pardon the mucus - as close to God as I am, I have not mastered the dark art of italics; having said that, I do tend to leave the gun and take the cannoli)
"I'll go farther"
So you are saying there is a physical distance between claims and counter-claims?
You may have single-handedly revolutionized quantum physics, whatever that is.
Now, I am open to this being an issue of accent, maybe you meant you would consult your father?
"Who claims that doctors and clinicians don't do their best?"
As Rory sang, my hands are waving in the air.
"Objectivity is the goal for most medical practice."
Really? In my experience, most "medical practice" are driven by monetary goals. I say this having never contracted homosexuality nor cancer nor measles, but I have had a few doctors surgically remove my wallet from my dad pants held up by a Borscht belt, apparently not well enough. They don't call me Yenny Hungman for nothing.
"Or they were sent there or they were shamed there. [what I would give to have you come up with 50 more "Or they were"s] But so what? It was still a subjective judgment that they were ill. Not so much for children who had measels [new disease?] in that period. See the difference?"
Much ado about much ado. This counter-claim of a counter-claim to your counter-claim is actually neither a distinction nor a difference.
"Whom are you arguing with? Not me."
Yep, that about sums it up. I think mostly we are in shock AC/MA made a comment where he did not come across as a counterfeit Dem.
"If they do harm, they should be ruthlessly chased from the field of discourse"
Here is the crux, the nub, the heart, the essence, the most important point, central point, main point, essential part, core, center, nucleus, kernel, the bottom line as they say in proctology:
Talk about "unselfaware".
Brother, please!
A little less conversation, a little more running away from the field of discourse please.
"Really? In my experience, most "medical practice" are driven by monetary goals."
DeleteYou say this in the midst of a pandemic. Stop and think about it.
I do, and fuck you. Doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical equipment companies drain our economy so we can have one of the worst health care outcomes for an advanced industrialized country. Our current health care system is market based, it exists to make money.
DeleteThere has been all kinds of pandemic profiteering in the medical community, from early rejection of foreign tests to various bad actors trying to make a buck off of PPEs to Gilead nonsense. The medical community has been caught with their pants down, masturbating to the piles of cash they have been ripping off from Americans, too busy to prepare for what was known to happen eventually.
This is to say nothing about how shitty health care is in normal times while medical professionals are focused on wealth accumulation in the US. Doctors in other countries have middle class incomes, the reward is in the work, but not here. Here in the US as a patient you are treated like shit, a means to a McLaren. Wait a few weeks for your 5 minute appointment so drs can enjoy Alcantara. While you sit on white paper with weird stains and look at faded anatomy posters and fake plants, the dr goes next door and googles your symptoms, then peddles whatever drug Big Pharma wants to push. Doctors are just glorified mechanics and they push most of the work onto nurses, who wind up bitter and burnt out.
"Stop and think" really just means shut up and accept the crappy status quo.
Well said, 11:22 AM
DeleteI saw somewhere they get 3 times more from Medicare if they diagnose you with covid19, and 8 times more if they diagnose you with covid19 and hook you up to a ventilator.
No wonder everyone gets covid19 and dies from it.
I saw somewhere that Trump created the virus himself because he's a Martian who hates Earthlings. No wonder non-humans like Mao love Trump so much.
DeleteI wonder why Somerby doesn't mention that Trump's diatribe was an hour spent telling lies about Biden? Dana Milbank summarizes Trump's anti-Biden remarks:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/14/trumps-window-is-closing/
Kevin Drum clicked the links in Peter Navarro's anti-Fauci op-ed and found that they don't back up what Navarro said.
ReplyDeleteThat is a more worthwhile contribution to media criticism than anything Somerby has written in years.
There is a not indefensible view that has been stated by others besides Somerby that the free TV exposure given to Trump in 2015-2016 helped fuel his victory, both in the primaries and in the general election. That includes CNN.
ReplyDeleteThe broadcasts of his rallies apparently got good ratings, although it isn’t clear how many viewers came away liking what they saw and how man were watching out of morbid curiosity. (It’s helpful to remember that the air time he got doing those Coronavirus Task Force briefings drove his numbers down, not up.) At any rate, the voters are ultimately responsible for choosing him, in my view.
What responsibility Cooper bears in this isn’t clear. It isn’t a horrible thing if Cooper simply interviewed Trump on his show, since Trump was after all a leading contender for the nomination, and was subsequently the GOP candidate.
Somerby's motive in attacking Cooper now isn't that he's upset over what Cooper may or may not have done in 2016, it's that Cooper is criticizing Trump, which TDH, as a malevolent Trumptard, finds unacceptable.
Delete“ ...Trump was after all a leading contender for the nomination, and was subsequently the GOP candidate.”
DeleteOne of Somerby’s arguments is that Trump became a rating draw and was given gravitas by being hyped by the media because they thought that he was an amusing clown-show who never stood a chance against HRC. As did HRC.
Somerby was criticizing the media over this in real-time.
What must he do to be a “real” Democrat in your eyes? He holds every policy position liberals hold. He’s saying that Cooper and his guild
were craven and irresponsible and clueless to have hyped Trump this way, that they helped put him in office- “ Don’t complain about the fall of society now you phony mofos”.
That he’s not verbally abusive toward we janes and joes on the street who voted for Trump is neither tolerance or endorsement of our judgment, thinking, or character. Rather, Bob is saying that he knew that we are every base and dumb thing he knows us to be, why then did Our Best and Brightest pander and hawk that for ratings, at the country’s peril?
I’m amazed at the inability of liberal posters here, who are ostensibly adults, to read this blog and not recognize the brilliance of the blogger because you chafe when he calls out our intellectually-bereft intellectuals.
You won the culture war. There are no intellectuals of any power or effect on the conservative side. All we have is the base that you and your intellectuals loathe. Does Somerby have to walk a fine line on your overinflated view of yourselves and your sensitive feelings every minute for you to process those underpinnings of his criticism?
We won’t agree on all the ways that our intellectual class has let us all down, but let down they have, and have been for years.
Meh. The media has always been Right-wing. This didn't start with Trump.
DeleteWhen a right winger calls Somerby brilliant, something is very wrong. And he does not hold the same policy positions as Democrats. I have been pointing out the divergence every day. And when you don't hold liberal policy positions, you don't call yourself a liberal. That's how political labels work.
DeleteKey policy position: liberals generally support BLM.
Somerby's position: (1) against BLM protests, against idea of defunding police, defends Zimmerman and similar shooters, (2) argues that press reporting of police atrocities is scaring black people too much, (3) argues that white lives matter in response to complaints about black shootings, (4) says nothing whatsoever about gun control, (5) talks about shooting of one-year-old as reported on Fox News, as example of black-on-black crime, (6) posts excerpts from conservative writers, with praise, and criticizes mainstream press for expressing liberal views.
There is your liberal. And this is only one of many issues where Somerby takes a conservative stance while calling himself liberal.
And it attracts flies like Cecelia, David in Cal, Leroy, AC/MA, and various drive by unnamed trolls.
Cecelia the tone of your comment is of one who knows better than the ostensibly adult libtards. This is not interesting but begs the correction that Trump was not buoyed by the media electorally.
DeleteTrump got roughly the same amount of votes demographically as the previous Republican presidential candidates. Trump won because voter turnout for Clinton was lower than expected, lower than previous candidates. Trump's "base" is white, male, and income above $50k.
You (and Somerby) get everything wrong and then assert that liberals are dumb for not listening to Somerby's outdated and ineffectual stance on electoral politics. You are amazed we see through Somerby's sad attempt at gaslighting liberals, who have rejected his politics.
Trump is losing now not because we have successfully attacked his supposed ideology, but because he has been exposed as a bumbling clown, an ineffectual leader who only serves his self interest.
Liberals are neither intellectuals nor loathers, and they do not engage in a culture war. Liberals do engage in class warfare, they do care about class inequality. Somerby does nothing to support any liberal policy, and Dems are increasingly brave enough to reject layabouts like Somerby, who just needs a nice pasture to graze.
Anonymouse 9:49a.m., you left out that Somerby also predicted the DoJ’s decision that a charge was not warranted for the Missouri cop who shot Michael Brown.
DeleteAs well as accurately predicting that the evidence would go for Zimmerman.
Before that he accurately stated that Trump had a very good chance of being elected, while it was my thinking and Anonymices expressed opinion that this was far-fetched. Before that he cautioned liberals that Jim Comey was a snake and not to buy into the glowing media reporting of him.
I can’t address the sacrileges you cite that come from him being so illiberal..,as to excerpt something written by Andrew Sullivan or to think as MLK thought via King’s broader and less political appeal to society. I can’t address why anyone would think it prudent to frighten a kid to the point where they wished to escape the country.
I can’t address why you’d think it suspect for Somerby to have a few respectful readers and contrarians from across the aisle, rather than it being a credit.
I can only be glad that he doesn’t bother reading, let alone heeding, your silly self.
“ Cecelia the tone of your comment is of one who knows better than the ostensibly adult libtards”
DeleteNo, it wasn’t. I specifically referenced “liberal posters here”.
"who are ostensibly adults"
DeleteCecelia scratches her head and does her best Nathan Thurm.
Martin Short as Nathan Thurm 1985 Special
Dear ostensible adults,
DeleteI don’t use the term “libtard” and you are ostensibly adults to me since I couldn’t pick you out in a police lineup and you all cry like a baby with a bellyache.
While not perceptibly written, "tard" oozed out like puss from your comment. That said, I can understand sore feelings resulting from a psychic-like intrusion into your mind, let's build a bridge, heck I'll even sell it to you.
DeleteMy sensitive stomach aside, you mistake correcting for crying. Or is it the other way around? Damn those public schools, man the torpedos! Speaking of pedos, what's with Republicans and young males playing sports, especially wrestling. Creepy.
So glad you were able to address the issue at hand. Surely solutions are around the bend.
“Donald Trump seems to be mentally ill.”
ReplyDeleteDid he seem that way back in 2015? Possibly.
But Trump appealed strongly to something in his base that put him over the top. It’s doubtful that the media going on and on about his possible “mental illness” would have changed his appeal, or would have any effect now.
All Somerby’s talk about Trump’s mental state misses this very basic and important fact about Trump’s support.
CNN's Jim Acosta, Anderson Cooper called out for partisan commentary after Trump's Rose Garden remarks: 'Sad resistance performance art'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-jim-acosta-anderson-cooper-trump-rose-garden
Trump violated precedent by giving a campaign speech in the Rose Garden. IMHO that's a much smaller misdeed than using a fake dossier as an excuse to investigate Trump for a year, to wiretap his campaign, and to conduct a bogus impeachment.
ReplyDeleteThese words don't belong: fake, bogus.
DeleteThe Steele dossier was largely substantiated by independent investigators and Trump was actually impeached, with a vote and everything. He just wasn't removed, which is a shame given how the virus situation has turned out.
David as an opinion which doesn't revolve around blacks being second class citizens. Who knew?
DeleteBari Weiss says:
ReplyDelete"Lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned..."
She's a Somerby liberal! Which means, not liberal at all.
I've never read anything by her, but I wouldn't say she's the same as Somerby unless she's a malevolent Trumptard who defends DJT, Bill Barr, Roy Moore, Zimmern man and has devoted herself to re-electing DJT
DeleteBari Weiss has never been a liberal, and had always been pro cancel culture since her days of trying to get professors fired for criticizing Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians (they were exonerated after a thorough but unnecessary investigation). She is the same as Somerby, same as Dave Rubin, same as all the huckster opportunists (Krystal Ball) who fake being liberal for financial benefit. Somerby does not work, who funds Somerby?
DeleteFrom No More Mister Nice Blog, an article entitled Wrongthink by Yastreblansky, 7/15:
ReplyDelete"There is no White Working Class, though there's a very loose coalition of people, petit-bourgeois tax protesters and evangelical fanatics, who identify with the words, with a stress on the "White", and who are in fact pretty tribal, along with the genuine money elite bankrolling the movement and encouraging them in the old Silent Majority strategy from 1968 and the Francis Wilhoit principle according to which they plan to continue governing themselves—
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Apparently from Wilhoit's 1973 The Politics of Massive Resistance, a study of the white southern response to Brown vs. Board of Education, which contributed more than any number of newspaper opinionists to the "understanding" of these "other Americans" and the huge diversity of their operative myths and rationalizations, the ways in which they formed a nonce political coalition under the tutelage of a manipulative political elite rather than a "class" of any kind, and looks remarkably prescient 47 years later as "Federalism" and Robert E. Lee worship make their return:
It was only when the likes of Harry F. Byrd, Herman Talmadge, Russell B. Long, Leander Perez, et al., organized and incited white southerners that the segregationist position solidified and racial hatred acquired new virulence in the White Citizens' Councils, the Knights of the White Christians and other exotic supremacist groups. Wilhoit's central focus is on the political mythology which was developed to petrify the status quo; specifically on the elaboration of the myth of White Supremacy (God created separate races and meant to keep them that way; Negroes are happier with their own kind, etc.) and the more sophisticated but equally faulty and self-serving myth of States' Rights Federalism, "an amorphous collage of theory, fancy, fact, half-truth, aspiration and plain old rationalization." Despite Wilhoit's tough-minded appraisal of the demagogues and the politicos who fired the backlash, his purpose is not to censor and condemn but to understand the peculiar, pernicious politics of the South. In a strong concluding chapter he examines some of the ""preconditions"" -- political, psycho-cultural, religious -- which aided and abetted the racist reaction, considering everything from the martyrology of Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee to the machismo ("Don't be half a man, join the Klan") endemic in the society.
(that's a Kirkus review of the book, linked above; people keep quoting the line without mentioning where or especially when it comes from, and I looked it up this morning; the argument seemed pretty relevant).
Understanding doesn't mean agreeing. In demanding recognition for the existence of this "Class" and the good faith of its argumentation, writers like Zito, Brooks, and Weiss are themselves supporting tribalism of a really dangerous kind."
He went on and on
ReplyDeleteAnderson Cooper and Bob appear oblivious to the skill required to go "on and on" for almost an hour, hitting the points he wants to make, in an entertaining way. Trump's speech sounds disjointed to those who don't understand him, but he's easy to follow for those who do.
Retired Law Professor Althouse puts it better than I did:
This seems perfectly coherent to me. The main objection is that he's in the Rose Garden setting, and he's making the case against his political opponent. To present this as "disjointed word salad... the covfefe tweet come to life.... disintegrated... a stream of broken consciousness... a rambling oppo dump... confused" — come on. That's completely biased.
Imagine a transcript of Joe Biden speaking extemporaneously for over an hour — and don't even impose the difficulty of standing and wearing a suit and tie in 90+ degrees of hot warmth. What would that sound like? If it was anything like the transcript you see above, I guarantee you the press would laud him as a magnificent genius.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-president-of-united-states-ladies.html
You set the bar far too low for Trump.
DeleteImagine! He stood up in a suit for an hour! He spoke, never mind what he said -- his followers fill in the blanks and superimpose meaning on his fragments.
Biden does campaign events and he does better than Trump, especially this particular version of Trump.
There is no need to follow anything if you already know the call-and-response lines. That's what you seem to be saying.
I am appreciating Biden's approach to campaigning by not campaigning. Who knew all it took to defeat Trump was Trump! It was incoherent in no small part because Biden is not engaging with Trump and Trump has no clue had to deal with that, he is completely rattled, and apparently depressed, crying to his staffers.
DeleteWhen a two-year old is throwing a tantrum, ignore them and let them tire themselves out with their crying.
DeleteParenting 101.
D in C, you show how it takes all kinds. I would compare listening to Trump speak for an hour, as far as pleasure enters into, to getting a root canal without anesthesia. It's torture.
DeleteThis very type of description reminds me of an incident back in 1974.
ReplyDeleteA strategically positioned and well-timed butt wind would adequately bring any person back down to Earth.
I have experienced this first hand, truth be told. The release of a foul fanny odor will quickly make sober any pompous wind bag.
The ever-ready fanny wind.
Perhaps, but some are actually lifted by the same. I don't understand the physics involved, apparently von Braun gets it.
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