The Trump team tends toward the insane!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

We're just extremely dumb: We've been urging you to come to terms with a basic fact of political life:

At this stage of our societal meltdown, our highly self-impressed blue state team tends to be very dumb.

In this, the age of Donald J. Trump, the other side has long tended toward the mentally ill—the insane. (Our tribe's "journalists" have all agreed that this remarkable state of affairs must never be discussed.)

The other side tends toward the insane. But if it's coming at you from our own side, it will almost surely be very, very dumb.

So it is with Ed Kilgore's very dumb new report for New York magazine's Intelligencer site. In its headline, the Kilgore piece asks the only question our extremely dumb pundit/analyst class is now able to care about or ask:

Could Trump’s Fake Electors Be Charged With a Crime?

Within our failing and failed pundit class, only one question remains—can we possibly find some way to get some of The Others charged with some sorts of crimes? It's the only thing they discuss on cable. It's the basis of Kilgore's piece.

After this evening's TV shows, NBC News will finally be walking Rachel Maddow slowly away. She was on the air again last night, saying "forgery forgery forgery forgery" without ever trying to explain why she was using that word.

For Maddow, it's always been about finding crimes committed by very bad Others, big shots and regular people alike. Tonight, she's heading for the padded room, she says for the next several months.

Round the decay of that cable news wreck, a million Kilgores remain. This is the face of societal breakdown, moral and intellectual competence-wise.

It's a basic fact of political life, one which may be hard to perceive and accept:

At this stage of our societal meltdown, our highly self-impressed blue state team tends to be very dumb. We want to find ways to charge Others with crimes. Within the realm of our corporate elites, it's our only remaining desire.


31 comments:

  1. "The other side tends toward the insane."

    Indeed, dear Bob, why wouldn't they all come and join your liberal-totalitarian cult? Certainly there's no rational explanation! Only the insane wouldn't happily join!

    We believe in the Soviet Union this unfortunate mental disease was known as 'sluggish schizophrenia'...

    ...well, thanks for laughs, anyway...

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  2. The New York Times has long had an unstated policy. When a Democrat commits a scandalous activity that's too serious to ignore, the Times's criticism of that activity must also include a criticism of Republicans. Bob seems to be following aq similar policy.

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    1. “Too serious to ignore” … you mean like Hillary’s email protocol?

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    2. David,
      Pretty good, but you forgot to call liberals “snowflakes” before you played the victim.
      Next time, I won’t grade you so leniently.

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    3. Interesting question that perhaps mh would like to tackle:

      Was the strong coverage of the email nothingburger done because it was a serious issue, or because it was generating sweet ratings?

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    4. No specifics here. What a shock. How I wish the Times or anyone would mention their own hysteria over President Clinton pardons with Trump’s utter debasement of the Presidential right to pardon, which barely rates a mention anywhere.

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    5. Hmm. When high-ranking government officials paranoidly protect their government-business communications from becoming accessible to overseeing authorities, that's hardy a nothingburger.

      ...or, at least, when those high-ranking government officials also grandstanding a lot about their 'transparency'...

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    6. This is article that not only explains about Putin, it also by proxy explains about Somerby:

      https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/putin-ukraine-democracy/621465/

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    7. Check your wallet! Remember what the Atlantic Magazine wrote in the run up to the Iraq war and the role they played in hyping the threat and promoting preemptive war. Not to mention their role in excusing the criminals once it was all over with.

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    8. The article is free. Way back when, The Atlantic supported abolishing slavery. Yes Jeffrey Goldberg is horrible but you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. At least not always. You do make an important point.

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    9. Rationalist, why don’t you just throw in the towel? You can’t even spot sarcasm.

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    10. Don't be so bitter mh.

      So you admit the media covers stories for ratings, and not necessarily because they deserve coverage. Just looking for that mild admission.

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    11. The media covers stories for ratings, but that's only one of the reasons they continually whitewash the actions of Republicans.

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    12. Saying that Putin is anti-democratic isn't exactly a story.

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    13. 9:20,

      The NY Times wasn't looking for ratings when they decided to smear Hillary Clinton.

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  3. “can we possibly find some way to get some of The Others charged with some sorts of crimes? “

    Since The Others keep committing crimes, one ought to think so.

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    1. In 2015 when one of our National Political Conventions encouraged to crowd to chant for imprisoning the opposition Candidate, a new page had been turned in our National Life. If Bob had a problem with it, he never said so.

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    2. At the most recent Trump rally the crowd chanted "lock her up" when HRC was mentioned by Trump. You don't have to pull examples of calls to charge Dems with crimes from obscure places. DJT promised in a debate with Clinton in 2016 that he would put her in jail. Nearly 100 million Americans watched and heard that. I guess Bob wasn't one of them.

      And how could he have missed the endless accusations by Trump and his supporters that millions of Dems voted illegally in both elections, along with the lack of prosecutions?

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  4. Well, Bob states ( but could he actually believe it?) that mental illness excuses anything President Trump has done or said. A) best not to go into specifics and B) everyone who has done or said anything bad in Trump’s defense is also excused because… ah, because Trump is mentally ill I guess.
    Who the hell raised Bob Somerby? Is he a drunk ? How does someone who brags about his devotion to rationally reach such guttural state?

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    1. Greg, Sombery has never said that mental illness excuses Trump in any way.

      While Trump was in office, Bob complained mightily that the media would not focus on analysis of the president’s mental fitness, a tactic which could have been damaging and politically undermining.to Trump.

      You can argue about the efficacy of that sort of coverage, but it wasn’t championed in order to excuse Trump.

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    2. Where did this dumbass come up with "excuses"??

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    3. Cecelia is wrong about that. Somerby didn't only muse about Trump's supposed mental illness based on Mary Trump's book where she described him as narcissistic and sociopathic (but also said she couldn't diagnose him), but Somerby also suggested that he might not be fully responsible for his actions because he seemed to believe his own lies (and Somerby declined to call such statements lies when he didn't know Trump's state of mind). Somerby repeatedly suggested that Trump should be pitied, not locked up.

      That amounts to excusing Trump. Greg is referring to a repeated series of essays where Somerby kept telling us to pity Trump instead of wishing to prosecute him for his misdeeds.

      Excuse definitions:

      1. attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense)

      2. a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense

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    4. Where do these dumb shits get "Trump"? The whole claim is about "the other side". How do these ass wipes get from "he stated" to "amounts to"? The commenters here are raging dumbasses.

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    5. 7:34 I see, you are the genius that sees everything clearly. The stable genius, yes?

      These "dumbshit" commenters are merely pointing out the sky is blue, and you are responding by saying "what are you talking about." It'd be cute if we were not sliding away from democracy into a neo fascist hell pit. And while that is happening Somerby asks "Can't we all just get along?" That is not just some silly question, that is, well, to be frank, evil, considering the context.

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    6. Cecelia, your contention is absurd on the face of it. Bob ridicules the notion of punishment for Trump and his followers almost every day, equating those who would expect any accountability with those who chanted “lock her up.” And occasionally will mention Trump has mental problems (and how the real culprit there is liberals, of course, because we don’t argue Trump on those terms).
      The responsibility (or it’s mitigation) of the mentally incompetent criminal is acknowledged in our system. No serious person suggests their crimes should be ignored, or that their is something stupid about those bringing them to justice.
      Bob is no serious person.

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    7. Greg (@8:02) is right, although I would restate a bit. Somerby doesn’t say (or doesn’t just say) that liberals are stupid to want to bring Trump to justice. He accuses them of doing it out of mere partisan spite. Liberals cannot be seen as having noble or even well-meaning motives in Somerby’s world.

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    8. Cecelia,
      Does this mean the Right has finally stopped pretending they believe in freedom, or do they want the media to continue the long-running charade?

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  5. Anonymouse 7:14pm, that is yet another mischaracterization of Somerby’s thoughts.

    He has many times stated that the better word for most of these contentions is not “lie”, but “misstatement” and that…generally…the media shouldn’t be accusing people of being liars on matters on interpretation and motivation that are arguable.

    On the other hand, Bob has explicitly used the term “the big lie”, for Trump’s election claims.

    As to the mental issue, personality disorders and other psychiatric diagnoses are not the fault of the sufferer. They can learn to manage their problems, but might not be “cured” from them.

    If Trump was disconnected from reality, he may not be culpable as to ill intent, but most certainly could beremoved if his disorder put the country at risk.

    Bob wanted this to be part of the national dialogue. I know you hate him because he doesn’t think you’re the saintly salvation of the planet, but he wasn’t trying to help Trump.

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    1. Somerby never refers to the big lie without quotation marks.

      And his not helping of Trump extended to calls for him not to be impeached or charged with any crimes.

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  6. Entry phrase for Bob, the remarkably inept motivational speaker: "We're extremely dumb."
    Better yet: "We are extremely petty."
    Such would be the case in reference to the critique of a 2 minute opinion piece in which Kilgore interviews an election law professor regarding the legality of fake electors. Under certain circumstances their activities may not be illegal. Learned something. Whether their activities were legal or not is an interesting question, since there is some wiggle room there. Thanks, Bob for directing me to the article. It was a good read.

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