Serious question: At the age of 71 and 7 months into his presidency, has @realDonaldTrump ever even VISITED a war zone, seen one personally?
— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) August 9, 2017
With Roy Cohn.
— John Weaver (@JWGOP) August 9, 2017
I guess you've forgotten that STDs were his war zones.
— Joe Nocera (@NoceraBV) August 10, 2017
Think about it: We've heard from a lot of women Trump has sexually harassed, and almost no women who report having actual sex with him.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 10, 2017
Trump is terrified of germs and of women's bodily fluids. He would hate casual sex.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 10, 2017
Serious answer,
If there isn't a hotel there, he ain't going.
— Frederick Douglass (@HITEXECUTIVE) August 9, 2017
SiubhanDuinne
I can only guess where the comments are going to go on this thread, if those tweets are any indication.
So can I just do a big preëmptive “YUUUUUURRCKGH!!” and save us all the trouble later on?
efgoldman
Well, Sanctus Ronaldus Magnus remembered as wartime experiences his arduous time on movie sets. From what we know about Vermilion Voldemort, I suspect he imagines himself the hero of… something.
Major Major Major Major
By the time this is all over, there might well be a trump property in a war zone because the war will have come to it.
Anyway, I saw some pretty houses today.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
one of the old profiles of trump, I think from the post-Marla years, said that he liked to be photographed with beautiful women around Manhattan, then he’d go home alone and sit up watching TV and eating candy
Felonius Monk
The only real weapon we have that can be used against Trump is laughter and ridicule. He can be laughed out of office.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Nice Victorians.
danielx
@Felonius Monk:
Would that it were so, but if laughter and ridicule could do it he’d already be living in Dubai or something. Yes, he does have a golf club there.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was skeptical of the wood-sided one when I approached but it turned out to look pretty good from the sunny side.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Sometimes I really feel sorry for Trump. His life seems so empty, unfulfilling and sad. He’s an example of how NOT to live your life. And honestly? Bodily fluids have never turned me on, I have to say, Barro.
danielx
One must wonder who would want to admit it if they had.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: but trump is actively repulsed by them, is what he’s saying.
dmsilev
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Nobody forced him to (for instance) go hard-core birther against President Obama back in 2009-2010 or thereabouts. He chose this path, and whether it was willingly or because he was driven by internal demons really doesn’t matter much.
dmsilev
@danielx: Well, there were the three (so far) wives.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Yeah, rereading it, I see that. Don’t know how appropriate this is to share, but back in high school, I remember my dweeb friends talking about, “eating a girl out”. I always thought that was so disgusting.
Villago Delenda Est
Donald’s Vietnam was Studio 54. As for actual or even simulated wars, no, he’s never seen one.
efgoldman
@dmsilev:
Bet Sukelow wrote an iron-clad prenup for Melanoma.
He will have to bribe the next one, bigly.
Mike J
Late night? I just finished dinner. New crust recipe makes pizza nice and crispy.
Now deciding between s and i strains for relaxation.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@dmsilev:
I’m not making excuses for the dude. He totally owns all of it, ultimately. It’s just a shame he couldn’t have gotten some kind of help. Would have saved us from him, frankly.
efgoldman
@Villago Delenda Est:
Since my dad called in a favor to get me in the reserves and keep me out of Vietnam, I don’t ever criticize anybody for not going.
However I never claimed I did honorable service, or that reserve drills for six years were my Vietnam. I found a legal way to stay out of it, and I took it.
danielx
@dmsilev:
True. On the other hand, he divorced or was divorced by two out of the three and Melania admitted she married him for his money.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@danielx:
Assuming she’s not a Russian asset, she must regret ever marrying him.
opiejeanne
He is so squicked out by girl cooties that one wonders how he fathered five kids. Artificial insemination?
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
That’s not in his makeup, the same as true charity isn’t. The only thing that might have worked, but that no-one would dare try, would be involuntary commitment.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: It’s one thing to serve in the reserves or the NG where you might have been called to ‘Nam. It’s another thing to take five deferments and then have a bone spur magically show up to make you 4F. Then boast that your Vietnam was dodging STDs in the 70’s, which Donald did.
It’s also another thing to support a war that you refuse to serve in yourself, which is what the deserting coward and Darth Cheney did.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: That’s probably a good thing considering on what you’re studying. When the kid had her pinning ceremony, one of her profs gave a speech that described in detail some of the stories of nursing and bodily fluids. Fortunately, we’d already finished lunch.
efgoldman
@Villago Delenda Est:
Lots of other guys, too, many of whom ended up as RWNJ congresscritters.
My Vietnam was hating on Tricksie Dicksie Nixie for lying about ending the war and bringing everybody home. What a fucking waste.
ETA: Unlike Shrub, I actually went to all the drills. They held the threat of being called to active duty over us.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Oh, I’ve seen my fair share, during clinicals. Imagine what happens to sweat on the crook of a person’s immovable arm that hasn’t been washed properly. Yeah.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
No thanks!
Yarrow
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I don’t feel sorry for him but I do know what you mean. I kind of think if Trump were a character in a play or novel he’d be a considered a tragic figure.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I don’t need to imagine, one of the joys of having a medical professional in the family is detailed(names omitted) stories.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Yarrow:
I feel sorry for him in that sense. He’s basically wasted his entire life, imo
SFAW
For some reason, I can’t imagine why, but the tweets brought both Talking Heads and Dr. Strangelove to mind.
Of course, his recent Littledick-waving re: North Korea also brings Strangelove to mind, but in a somewhat different way.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: There are, based on a number of news reports and RUMINT on political operative social media, a lot of NDAs between him and women he’s had affairs with. These are intended to prevent disclosure of a variety of personally, professionally, and now politically embarrassing information and details.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I don’t criticize anyone for avoiding Vietnam service. I do criticize people who did that and then when their asses were too old and fat to serve chose to send others off to fight the kind of war that they ducked. (Wartime, but not combat vet here)
Mike in NC
We’re finally watching the last episode of “House of Cards” on Netflix, where Frank Underwood is a pillar of decency and patriotism compared to Donald Two Scoops Trump.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: he absolutely is a tragic figure. So were kings Oedipus and Lear, no need to be nominally unsuccessful to be tragic.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Only after the 10 PM hour.//
You may still be oversharing, but I’ll leave that for others to say. I’m just going to update your dossier…
Yarrow
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Again, I know what you mean, but he didn’t really waste it. He’s done a lot. Had a family, or families. He has everything a person could want. Everything. He’s even President. And yet he’s so empty. It’s tragic in some way.
SFAW
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
He would disagree. After all, he’s gotten to inflict a fair amount of pain on people who do not bow down before him (as Omarosa [I really hope she is not related to The Goat] told us last year); I am sure that it’s one of the things that warms him at night.
You, unfortunately, are using a person-who’s-not-completely-fucked-in-the-head frame of reference, which does not apply to Lying Littledick.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: @Yarrow: A tragic hero is someone who is great but has a tragic flaw that results in an inevitable downfall. What is Trump’s greatness? He is pathetic.
ETA: Except for Willy Loman, of course.
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est: Mitt Romney also vigorously supported the war in Vietnam while hiding out in France for two years, posing as a missionary for his cult church.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: Yes. I feel like we’re too close, too involved to fully see or appreciate just how much of a tragic figure he is. He can still do so much damage to all of us. Need much more distance.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Yarrow: I don’t think anything he ever did before becoming president will matter. He’ll be remembered for being the worst president in history. Worse than Nixon or Buchanan. He’s also never had a healthy relationship with another human being. I’d call that a fail.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I can get you into a battery in Guam in time to return fire later this month. Just let me know.//
Adam L Silverman
MSNBC reported earlier this evening that the rest of the US Intel Community is now pushing back on the leaked DIA report info on the DPRK miniaturization yesterday. Apparently they’re living up to the unflattering nickname of Do It Again for getting to far ahead of themselves and the rest of the IC.
The Dangerman
Napolean famously had his had inside his coat; this Neapolitan* Napolean has his had inside his pants. Ivanka should just do him and maybe he’d go away.
*mixing strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla gets us close to orange, I think
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I did my time and got my badges, medals, and ribbons. I’m good. Besides, my gun isn’t used anymore.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: a tragic hero, sure. Trump is more of a tragic… protagonist.
JWR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So, is “eating candy” a metaphor for whacking-off? (Sorry if said imagery offends anyone,)
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major: He’s a villain protagonist
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
No, he is not. And he’s not “flawed.”
In literature, “tragic” figures are generally persons who are more-or-less good, but (usually) make severe errors of judgment, the result of which is usually harm to others as well as to the tragic figure. Brutus, Lear, usw.
Lying Littledick is NOT a more-or-less good person — he’s a demented, selfish, childish, (now) stupid, grifting, misogynistic, racist, damaged narcissist. He may have been able to carry on intelligent conversations 20 years ago, but those days are long gone — and even in those days, he was a selfish, immature, misogynistic, racist prick who got where he was because his racist, anti-Semitic father left him a couple hundred million.
He learned at Roy Cohn’s knee. Lying Littledick is somewhat like Cohn — minus about 60 IQ points. Roy Cohn was not the most evil person to have walked the earth, but the world would have been much better off had he never existed.
So, no, Littledick is not “tragic.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Pray explain the difference.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t see him as a tragic hero in the classic literary sense, but he is a tragic figure in some ways.
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: History is not going to judge him well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I mean, thanks for the offer and all that. I had my resignation in in 1992, but would have pulled it back if we had gone into Bosnia as peacekeepers. That would have been something worth doing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Trump is pathetic. What he’s done to this country, what this country did to itself through him, is tragic, except– I still have hope– it’s not fatal.
I just turned on my TV, it’s on muted MSNBC… A Russian military jet flew over New Jersey? WTF? The footage looked like day light, and we’re just hearing this now?
JWR
@Adam L Silverman:
I was just discussing this possiblity with a neighbor. Not so much in the sense that this crisis is some sort of “false-flag” op to take the spotlight off the Russia stuff, but it would be irresponsible not to ask. ;-)
NotMax
@The Dangerman
Maybe we can update Star Trek“s Herbert to Sherbert.
(Before anyone goes off on a tangent, Merriam-Webster gives the variant thumbs up.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: Okay. We will have to agree to disagree. I see him as a pathetic asshole whose neuroses will, at a minimum, fuck up a lot of lives.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
No, he’s not.
The only thing that’s “tragic” about him is that the punishment he or his minions inflict on the powerless is a tragedy for those on the receiving end. That’s it.
Not sure why there seems to be a love-in going on toward Lying Littledick tonight (not just from you), but it’s getting old, and the night isn’t even half over.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I was teasing. I do have a former student who is high up with the Guam NG, but I was basically being a smartass.
MCA1
@Omnes Omnibus: This. A tragic figure has much to admire about them, but also an Achilles heel, sometimes an overdose of one of those admirable qualities, that leads to a downfall. Drumpf (a) has not had his comeuppance yet, and may never, and (b) is a parasite with no apparent redeeming personal qualities. He’s a pathologically lying, degenerate fraud. He has coped with his massive emotional deficits and neuroses by weaponizing them, bullying his way through life, basically cheating and getting away with it through his sheer brazenness and bluster and monied safety net, inflicting his bottomless narcissism on the rest of society. He has never done a single thing with the interests of another in mind. He breaks contracts, both legal and moral, constantly. He does not pay what he’s bargained to pay. He thrives by preying on the ethical and moral structures that constrain the rest of us, and he’s never been punished for it. He’s a walking repudiation of every single thing we’re supposed to stand for and hold dear in this country, and an argument that none of them matter anymore. Honesty. Hard work. Dignity. Compassion. Focus. Knowledge. Honor.
That’s not tragedy. Travesty, maybe.
ETA: I see I’m late to the game here. Sorry!
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Thanks. I agree with you, but I am not feeling particularly fighty tonight.
SFAW
@NotMax:
You reach me.
Cheryl Rofer
Waitwaitwait
He has four children.
Major Major Major Major
Fine. Trump wouldn’t make a good character in a play about a bad person whose downfall is caused by his own flaws at all.
Did you guys fucking sleep through Macbeth or something?
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I expect you realize I was not putting you in the “love-in” crowd, but just checking.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I know. I was just offering an example of something would have brought me back. I was not really suited to the army. Have you ever read Anthony Loyd’s My War Gone By?
cynthia ackerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
Studio 54 was long after Viet Nam.
But your point is well taken.
PS — I was at Studio 54 for Andy Worhol’s birthday when his friends gave him a garbage can full of money. Good times for real.
MomSense
Gross, I’m going to have nightmares.
Adam L Silverman
@JWR: I’m reasonably sure it was an approved leak. But given that the report has now been sourced to DIA and that the other IC members are quietly pushing back with the media we’ve got two separate dynamics. The first is DIA’s known propensity for being overly aggressive in coming to conclusions. The second is the administration approving a leak to change the narrative on the day that news of a no knock search warrant being dropped on Manafort two weeks before broke. At some point someone in the Senate is going to be asking DNI Coats about this.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Macbeth was not a dick from Day One. Certainly ambitious, starts hallucinating, etc. But it’s not as if everything he did is as vile as everything Littledick does on a daily basis.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hated W, Rummy and Darth’s excellent Iraqi adventure. As I feared, it was done without planning or gaming out the consequences, by people who had no fucking idea what we were doing. Both my senators (one a combat veteran) and my congressman were dead set against it, but….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Okay, sorry, I shouldn’t comment on chyrons with the sound off. Still strikes me as kinda weird, but I guess my nerves are a bit wound up.
KS in MA
@MCA1: It’s not a tragedy until somebody learns something.
I guess that suggests that drumpf is only a story of corruption, for now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: MacBeth, prior to meeting the witches, had been the epitome of an honorable soldier. That is the whole fucking point of the play. Had he not had the notion put into his head, his flaw, ruthless ambition, would have remained uncovered and he would have been remembered as a good and brave soldier.
ETA: Oddly H.R. McMaster is probably the person best set to serve as a tragic hero in the mess.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Five children.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: I was using it as an example of a tragedy without a good person as a protagonist, not an exact parallel. Macbeth’s tragic flaw is that he’s a power-mad asshole, and while that certainly ramps up it’s not as if he has redeeming characteristics.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Victim of a witch hunt?
MomSense
@Mike in NC:
I feel for the writers of House of Cards and The Americans. Real life is crazier now.
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
He’s nasty enough. but nowhere near clever enough, to be Iago.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: My point still stands.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: there is a great parody for The Americans crew to do, is so inclined they are, of Elizabeth setting up a dimwitted real estate heir who can’t shut up about himself long enough to notice that a gorgeous woman is, for some reason, coming on to him.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: We read it differently.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep.
FlipYrWhig
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ve had thoughts along Barro’s line before. Accordingly I’d almost bet that one of the embarrassing things hidden in NDAs is that Trump didn’t have sex with _a lot_ of the women he “had affairs with.” He has a 10-year-old boy’s understanding of girls and sex. He wants to see them naked but he has no idea what to do next. And isn’t he a never-nude, too? He wants to look; he hates his own body; and his most important wish is to be _considered_ a playboy, by the other guys. I think I said before, probably circa the püssy tape, that he sounded to me like Steve Carrell as Andy in 40-Year-Old Virgin. He’s trying to brag and it’s coming out totally awkward.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Do you recommend that book?
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
re: tragedy
Not gonna re-type the joke out when a link will do.
gene108
@Mike in NC:
I wonder what appeal Mormonism has for the French. A religion that forbids drinking coffee and wine would probably not be very popular there.
Mitt should call it what it was, a two year paid vacation in France.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ll update your dossier…
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Kind of a step down from Mary Kay reps and agricultural scientists.
Wonder what kind of wig she would wear?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s the great thing about Shakespeare!
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here’s the relevant info from CNN (emphasis in bold mine):
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/us/russian-air-force-tu154-overflight-dc/index.html
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
You might consider stopping your digging.
And you might consider that Macbeth was not, at the outset, a villain, nor was he contemplating offing Duncan until the prophecy, and his wife, came on the scene. In other words, he had redeeming qualities until he went really astray.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well played…
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Many of Loyd’s self-criticisms of his performance as an officer are things that i would recognize in myself. (Absent the heroin problem.)
@O. Felix Culpa: It is a very good book about the war in Bosnia. Loyd was on the ground on each side. And also, tangentially, about the kind of people who became army officers in the late 80s without educational benefits being tied in.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: I don’t really care any more.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: I posted the never-nude thing here once, mostly in jest, but it strikes me as someone plausible, given his other apparent body issues– the tie thing, the ill-fitting suits that I assume are to make his gut less prominent, lying about his height so he’s not considered obese– I guess it’s plausible that he’s told Melania to wait till he’s under the covers. He was once around enough of his body to pose for that photo in his bathrobe, though why he’s posing in what appears to be a fourteen year-old girl’s bedroom in 1978, I don’t know.
and a not quite complete understanding of sex is a charitable explanation for this:
as I recall the video, it suggested Princess Tackycrap was healthy enough to be a bit grossed out by her own father.
NoraLenderbee
The tragedy is that Hillary was denied the Presidency.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not trying to be a smartass, but other than looking at a different chart, what’s the difference commanding a different gun?
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Well played, I guess.
Mike in NC
@gene108: Cigarettes, too. My wife quit smoking until we vacationed in Europe a few years ago, where everybody still smokes.
gene108
@SFAW:
MacBeth hallucinated because he still had a conscience. He remembered what being honorable was.
Trump has no conscience. He has never been honorable. He has destroyed many small time contractors by not paying them. And he’d do it again in a second, if he could save a few bucks.
The man has no redeeming qualities. His appeal is to others because they think they can get something out of him, like court appointments or people want to he assholes and he gives them license to be.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: Big and blonde
@Adam L Silverman: thanks, like I said, I should’ve listened to the sound, but the way MSNBC presented the chyron made it seem like another provocation
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: Meh?
Mike J
@NotMax:
A fave.
SFAW
@NoraLenderbee:
Fixed, if for no other reason than to beat Native Russian to the punch.
hovercraft
@Cheryl Rofer:
Wait, which one is the cuckoo in the nest?
SFAW
@gene108:
Don’t tell me, tell the guy who’s carrying Littledick’s water tonight.
Arguments are two doors down
SFAW
@gene108:
All these years and I’ve been doing it wrong? I could have just waited until he came along, and it would have been OK? Damn.
NotMax
@SFAW
No they’re not!
;)
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@KS in MA:
And according to Aristotle, tragic heroes must have great virtue, speak well, be manifestly superior, AND have a tragic flaw. Lump has only flaws… many, many flaws.
james parente
@Omnes Omnibus: I had my Student Deferment and then pulled a # 319 in the Draft Lottery.
I am really p.o’d at those who took their deferments and now cheerlead for GOP wars.
JWR
@Adam L Silverman: Got it. And thanks for mentioning what occurred to me just after I hit the post button, that the Manafort search became public just as this whole NK brou-ha-ha broke. At worse, it’s misdirection, but not a false-flag.
SFAW
@NotMax:
If I’ve told you once …
FlipYrWhig
@Cheryl Rofer: You know he was going EW EW EW all during both conception and birth.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Different guns do different things. We were better at wiping out other artillery (counter-battery fire) than others were. Also, our guns were slower but more accurate than others. When you really, really want to hit something, call in the 8 inch guns.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
villian protagonist
Chaotic evil, and an antagonist except in the stories he tells himself or commands be told about him.
He hasn’t the tiniest hit of arete, without which the eventual fate is not tragic, but pathetic
(or in The Donald’s case, just plain despicable)
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No worries. Everyone is on edge and assuming the worst right now. For obvious reasons.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That looks like another one of his learning-disability moments, like he thought the question was “What’s your favorite thing?” and thought about a kickass answer like “Doing the nasty! I love it so much!” and then realized the question was actually “What’s the thing you have in common with your daughter?” and then realized on top of that that his kickass answer was now inappropriate but he decided to say it anyway because it would be funny-shocking-scandalous like the kind of thing that impresses his good friend Howard Stern, and the alternative would be admitting he was wrong or confused, which he’s temperamentally unable to do.
Adam L Silverman
@JWR: Yep.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: What’s always surprising to me about chaotic evil people in real life is just how lazy they are.
Omnes Omnibus
@james parente: My father was married, had a child (me), and was in school. It freed him to be an advocate while he was in school. No one could say that he was avoiding the draft because the draft couldn’t touch him.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
KAOS had a better health plan and more vacation days than did CONTROL.
Omnes Omnibus
@hovercraft: All of them, Katie.
FlipYrWhig
@FlipYrWhig: I guess more ADD than learning disability but six of one, etc.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: They also had a cooler logo.
Omnes Omnibus
@james parente: @Omnes Omnibus: FWIW, my dad remains a proud liberal.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t tell the Our Revolution folks. They’ll deliver a petition to his house.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
No, Don jr., Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany and Barron. 5
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: Then again, they may have not been conceived the “old fashioned way”.
Frankensteinbeck
@SFAW:
I would argue you have it backwards, and are the one applying normal standards to a deranged mentality. By any normal standard Trump should be happy. His behavior suggests NOTHING keeps him warm at night, and he has trouble sleeping because his days and nights are filled with resentment and humiliation. The man is utterly miserable.
And yes, humiliation. Like most narcissists, Trump doesn’t think he’s the greatest. He can’t bear not being seen as the greatest. They are very different.
@Cheryl Rofer:
Being squicked out by sex is not an absolute. He could have had enough of it within marriage to father children, while being rarely capable and too grossed out to have intercourse with the women he harasses. Also entirely possible is that none of the kids are his, his wives have had their own affairs, and he has touched them only enough to be fooled. It might explain a lot if he knew Tiffany and Barron could not be his.
All of that I present as hypotheticals on someone else’s theory. I have no reason to think he hasn’t been sexually active most of his life, although given his health impotence for at least a decade would be likely.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: He is a cranky old guy; he will let my mom tell them to fuck off. Sean Duffy, their rep., lives maybe five blocks from them. He gets a mouthful when (seldom happens) he goes door to door. Mom does the retired teacher thing and dad does the econ., SDS, fuck you thing. I rather like my parents.
J R in WV
@Mike in NC:
That’s pretty much over now.
We didn’t have much trouble with tobacco smoke in Spain, France nor Italy. A little here and there, but not too much. Missouri was worse!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I think it might be time for a new name. I’m thinking of switching to H. Melwex Entwistle, Jr. for my posts. It’s been too long with the same old name.
Major Major Major Major
OT: Man, Psych was such a good show.
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): As long as it’s “H. Melwex Entwistle, Jr. (Formerly Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.))”.
Where do you get these?
Omnes Omnibus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): If you do that, you may be the first person I pie.
cmorenc
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Many nursing schools now require applicants to have been certified and worked as CNAs (certified nursing assistants) for a specified period of time – precisely to weed out candidates who cannot handle the ick factor of coming in (gloved) hands-on contact with icky bodily fluids and icky patients emanating them. These schools don’t want to waste a slot on folks who don’t have a tangible grasp of the messy side of what they’re getting into. My younger (adult) daughter is now an R.N. in a hospital setting, but worked as a CNA in a nursing home and alcoholic rehab center before applying.
Surprisingly, it’s much less common for medical schools to have any similar prerequisite for their applicants. My older daughter is an M.D., and before successfully applying to medical school, had no prior work experience involving anything like messy contact with other people, unless you count her two summers a camp counselor. First messy contact for her and many of her classmates was with their cadaver in first-year Anatomy.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc: That is kinda surprising.
(((CassandraLeo)))
I think the phrase people are looking for above has been summarised nicely by TV Tropes as “Tragic Villain”. A person doesn’t have to be sympathetic to be tragic. Indeed, there are quite a lot of people for whom I feel no sympathy whatsoever for whom I nonetheless feel sorry – for instance, a lot of people who are abusers were abused themselves when they were younger. I can feel sorry for what they went through when they were younger without condoning what they are doing as adults.
TV Tropes doesn’t list him, and this reference is both going to date me and reveal that I am, at heart, a dork, but the definitive example of a tragic villain to me remains Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI. Under TV Tropes’ categorisation he’s really more of an extremely dark Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds (TV Tropes seems to use Tragic Villain to refer mainly to villains for whom there is a chance of redemption; Kefka has none), but regardless, he is a character with no redeeming ethical qualities whatsoever (at best, he can be considered to have some of the site’s Evil Virtues) who is nonetheless, if one pieces together all the information, an extremely tragic figure.
The key piece of information that a lot of players miss (because one has to go rather far out of one’s way to a place most players wouldn’t think to look in order to hear it) is that Kefka was the first test subject in the Empire’s Magitek Knight program. The program hadn’t been perfected yet, and the process drove him insane. His mind is literally no longer capable of feeling emotions like love or hope. He responds to this by (spoiler warning) absorbing the power of magic and becoming a god, and when this proves unfulfilling (because he still isn’t capable of feeling positive emotions), he tries to destroy existence itself.
There’s nothing sympathetic about him. He has no sense of personal loyalty; he commits literal war crimes; he attempts genocide; it’s implied that he physically (and possibly sexually) abused the game’s female protagonist, and he certainly literally enslaved her. Despite all of this, he remains tragic. He was never capable of being a good person (after the experiment, anyway), because he never possessed the mental balance for goodness.
I think the parallels to our president* are fairly difficult to miss. I’m certainly not the first one to observe that Littlefingers gives off every sign of being a clinical narcissist, and I doubt I’ll be the last. One thing about narcissism is that it tends to run in families, and it appears to be to no small extent a product of upbringing. Fred Trump, from what I’ve read about him, certainly sounds like a narcissist. I certainly don’t see how one could be brought up by a person with psychological issues as extreme as the president*’s and not end up extremely messed up themselves. (I also don’t think it’s any coincidence that Tiffany and Barron seem the most normal and well-adjusted of his children, since he, by all accounts, was less involved in their upbringing than he was with the other three.)
And the president* may be powerful, but he is clearly not happy. If he were happy, his aides wouldn’t feel they needed to read him flattering news stories and quotes twice a day. That kind of behaviour is not the mark of a healthy, well-adjusted human being. (Beyond that, he’s also clearly in the throes of mental deterioration, though I suspect it’s also probably anosognosic, so the impact here is only on those around him.)
So, yes. I think the president* can be tragic without being remotely sympathetic. He is a terrible person through and through, but I don’t think people are born terrible; they are made that way. And I suspect that’s rarely a pleasant experience.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cmorenc: The first year of nursing school, they have clinical; so they get an idea early on if they can handle that stuff. The kid was a med tech in the Air Force, so she’d already gotten over the yuck part. Her first job in the Air Force was an OBGYN tech, lighting up other women’s private parts for the doc.
ETA: I’d ask her how her work was, she’d say: “Another day, another vagina”.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): TL:DR?
Major Major Major Major
@(((CassandraLeo))): Apparently this is a horrendous misuse of the word ‘tragic’ and must be forcefully pushed back upon.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: The short version is that a person doesn’t have to be sympathetic to be tragic, because people aren’t born terrible; they’re usually twisted into being terrible by life events, which are rarely pleasant.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Major Major Major Major: Your Instagram feed always looks like my daily walks. Of course, I work about 5 blocks from one of your hangouts, so I guess that’s not surprising? Anyway, lovely pix.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Some of us use the term as the canon suggests. Dude, you have argued that affect/effect are equal.
cmorenc
@gene108:
(my emphasis added to the original)
I agree that much of Trump’s appeal to ordinary voters is licensing them to unleash their resentments against whomever they think is burdening or cheating or frustrating them, by openly being assholes – blind to the fact that Trump is a paradigm example of exactly the sort of people who is fucking them over. And much of the GOP establishment privately has seen through Trump all along, but they’ve been so far willing to go along because he’s supposedly given the GOP total control to accomplish a long wish-list of regressive goals, unhindered by divided government or enough squishy GOP moderates to hinder them.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): Read what I wrote.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I have argued that for many they are functionally equal and I expect them to merge within my lifetime.
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Thanks! Small city.
Gretchen
@SFAW: 5. Eric, Donald, Ivanka, Tiffany, and Barron. I hate that I’m wasting brain-space knowing that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: You are still wrong. They are different words. You are also bright enough to know that. But do be an ass. I will look in the morning.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: The ancient Greeks don’t define how we use English words in the 21st century. I’ll leave the criticism of classics to people who actually speak ancient Greek and/or Latin, or at least have studied them in further depth than I have. One modern definition of the word tragic, however, is “causing or characterized by extreme distress or sorrow”. By this definition, it’s entirely possible for a person’s life to be tragic even if that person is not remotely sympathetic.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): Fuck him. Okay?
Gretchen
@FlipYrWhig: Yes! Hate to get into this speculation, but I’m totally buying the idea that, like the pussy tape, he wanted to watch naked women, but didn’t want to do anything with them. The disclosure agreements were actually to not disclose that he wanted to look but didn’t want to have sex with them.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: I personally loathe the motherfucker and think the world would be vastly better off if he had never been born. Doesn’t mean I can’t also recognise that he’s almost certainly been utterly miserable for the vast majority of his life. So, like I said, I think the phrase “tragic villain” fits pretty well. He’s still a villain. But people aren’t born villains.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s an argument winner.
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m also bright enough to know that words derive meanings from internal representations and that for many people they are in fact the same word. Some day, the majority will think that they are the same word as well, and that’s what will show up in the dictionary, while people like you keep talking about the onions on their belts.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): Do you have a point?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@SFAW: Not to mention that the real Macbeth was a complex moral actor both constrained by and rising above the religious and cultural conflicts of his time, whereas Trump has never been constrained by or, G-d knows, risen above a damned thing.
Gretchen
@Omnes Omnibus: I rather like your parents too. A lot.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, and I don’t think it was particularly vague. Try reading. It often proves enlightening.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): I missed your point. Please explain.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: My onion is named Fred.
Omnes Omnibus
@(((CassandraLeo))): You are just kind of a total ass. You did ask.
danielx
@SFAW:
There are friends and unfriends of mine that would argue I have a natural talent for it. Probably confirmed this weekend at a wedding reception when I told an old friend that Trump was an incompetent, inept, corrupt embarrassment to my country. He looked like I’d pissed in his wine glass from a considerable height. Well, fuckit, he asked. The spousal unit was pissed at me though.
Speaking of which, are there any BJers out there who know about or (I hope not) experience with facet joint pain? Mrs. X is suffering through excruciating episodes and PT isn’t doing much good at relief, nor are meds all that effective.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s inappropriate to dismiss people as “terrible people” without examining the circumstances that made them that way. In reality, people are products of their circumstances, which they rarely have much, if any, control over, particularly in their formative years. This isn’t to say that people have no agency whatsoever, mind you – it’s why we can still independently come to the judgement that the president* is a terrible person. But he wasn’t born a terrible person. Someone, or several someones, made him a terrible person.
This isn’t to say that those circumstances in any way excuse his actions. They don’t. But if we don’t examine these circumstances and try to alleviate them where they still exist in society, we’ll run the risk of creating more people like him. Surely no one here wants that.
Mike J
Where do the tragically hip fit in?
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Omnes Omnibus: You flat-out admitted that you didn’t even bother reading my first post, then you condescendingly asked me what my point was, then you didn’t even wait five minutes for a response before gratuitously insulting me. And no, I don’t recall asking you anything. GFY.
danielx
@Mike J:
Only in a completely ironic way, I’m afraid.
hugely
@Omnes Omnibus: what, you egg! young fry of treachery! (its all I remember)
prostratedragon
@Mike J: You could ask this author. Or maybe that’s oafishly hip. The high point:
Mike J
@prostratedragon: Oy.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@prostratedragon: That’s … the salt-water taffy of political analogies, to stretch a point.
Feebog
@Gretchen:
7, you forgot Dopey and Sneezy.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I’m feeling like I need to reread The Golden Gate, a Novel in Verse.
Also, we can haz noo thred? This one is tired.
Anne Laurie
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: You don’t deserve one, but you get one anyway. Full-service blog!
prostratedragon
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Real gooey shoes chick!
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Omnes Omnibus: We have enough assholes and trolls around here. It’s late, but please try to read posts of people who are trying to be honestly helpful…
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
You haven’t usually been a self-pitying whiner, if I recall. Something happen to change that?
SFAW
@(((CassandraLeo))):
If only Littledick had agency, then perhaps he could have taken steps to be less of a corrupt, lying, grifting, racist motherfucker for most of his “adult” life.
But since Fred (Sr.) was also racist, anti-Semitic motherfucker (not sure what other sterling “qualities” he exemplified), I guess I can cut Lying Littledick some slack, because how would he know that there are people in the world who aren’t that way? I mean, it’s not as if most of the major religions ask or suggest that their adherents not be total dicks to those with less power, right? And the FAKE! media are screaming about fucking over the poor/weak/powerless every day, so how would he know?. And even if he had heard about that stuff, the idea that, as a 30/40/50/60/70-year-old “man,” he might conduct an iota of self-examination is patently ludicrous, of course.
Theodoric of New York, medieval slumlord/grifter
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
For someone who didn’t care, you seemed to “care” enough to keep the “people are being mean to me” thing for another hour
@Major Major Major Major:
I am effected by you’re highly convincing argument.
PS: Some have also argued that the Rethugs will never win the White House again, after 2012, by the way. In other words: arguing a position does not magically make it a reality.
AMinNC
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Just FYI, for most of the women I know, that’s a deal-breaker, dude.
AMinNC
@danielx: So sorry to hear about your wife’s pain. I know people who have experienced some pain relief from CBD oil – it’s a legal, hemp-derived oil that works with the body’s cannabinoid system – when other pain medications have not helped much.
rikyrah
@MCA1:
Bravo.
Bravo on this comment.
evodevo
@MCA1: Can I steal this? Brilliant summation …
MCA1
@evodevo: Of course! I’m flattered, though it bears mentioning that KS in MA covered most of my point much more succinctly last night: it’s not a tragedy until somebody learns something.