Liberal Activism "Helping" Trump ? PUH-LEEZE! Get A Freakin' Grip!

"WAAAHH!  Don't badmouth the Donald mo' than I do, libruls! WAAHAHA!"

As we've seen the spectacle of the most massive protests since the 1960s Vietnam War era, it was inevitable numerous dunderheads would try to dismiss them as "astroturf" with protestors being "paid".  It never occurs to the dunderheads - even those like Gail King and Nora O'Donnell (this morning on CBS) that the protests at town halls are real, organically spawned by concerned citizens.   All of them outraged by the over stepping of the Trump bunch, especially in attempting to roll back their precious health care via the ACA (see my two previous posts). So why the hell wouldn't these rightfully outraged citizens be energized to show up and make their concerns known? But for too many dopes in the media, as well as Reeptard Reps, I guess they are only supposed to be seen and not heard.

Then there were the dozens of "Not My President" demonstrations and protests on Monday, again showing that a segment of the nation is not behind this psychopath occupying the White House. Yes, some of those events and protests were organized in advance, by Moveon.org and the Indivisible Movement, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/karin-kamp/71133/how-the-indivisible-movement-is-fueling-resistance-to-trump


 But that doesn't make them any less valid than the Tea Party protests organized 8 years ago by "Freedom Works" and "Americans for Prosperity" - the difference being that those organizations were confected by the Koch bothers.

But it appears the sights and sounds of all these "left" protests are getting to the group I call proto-Trumpiies. This lot I define as those who insist they never ever REALLY wanted to vote for the Donald, but found the alternative too appalling to contemplate. Also, this lot would work with Liberals if only the latter would cease with the "moral Bolshevism — the belief that the liberal vision for the country was the only right one".

So writes NY Times columnist Sabrina Tavernise ('Are Liberals Helping Trump?', Feb. 18) in a political puff piece designed to assuage the Trump voters and coddle them through the harsh spectacle of energetic protests.. Sabrina notes:

"Liberals may feel energized by a surge in political activism, and a unified stance against a president they see as irresponsible and even dangerous. But that momentum is provoking an equal and opposite reaction on the right. In recent interviews, conservative voters said they felt assaulted by what they said was a kind of moral Bolshevism "

Which is the biggest load of horse pockey ever recited in a NY Times political op-ed. In fact, St. Sabrina quotes one  proto Trumpie nitwit in SC :

"I didn’t choose a side. They put me on one.”

Awwww, boo hoo hoo, sonny! The scenes of angry progressives, liberals "forced" the poor little dweezil to back Trump even more. Sounds to me like Ross Kaminsky, the talk show jock,  who (in a DPost op-ed 3 weeks ago) insisted liberals "forced him to get behind Trump and the Patriots" (he is a Broncos fan), by their "mean" protests and name -calling.

But like Kaminstky, the South Carolina twit DID choose a side when he voted for Trump. Sorry, that's how it goes. You can't now look for tranquility and comity after the fact, or be appalled at vigorous protests when you helped put an unqualified psychopath narcisist in the White House.  And don't even hand me that BS false equivalence that "we put up with Obama so why can't they put up with Trump". Oh no! Obama was a sane human who never engaged in pussy grabbing or bragged about it, or called Mexicans rapists, or made wild claims for electoral or popular vote wins he never achieved. Don't even try to go there!

Another joker quoted in the piece insisted:

"The name calling from the left is crazy.  They are complaining that Trump calls people names, but they turned into some mean people.”

Awww, bwaahahhaha! Cry me a river! In fact, the protesters are merely using apt appellations for a character beyond civil description. I might use the words "deranged, narcissistic psychopathic fucker" but even that falls short given the purview of his unhinged acts, tirades against the media, incapacity for governance and 3 a.m. tweets. And anyone who doesn't see that like this guy ("Bryce") is suffering from his own psycho-neurotic disorder. Or psychopathy, like an ignorant woman who actually compared protesters to "Islamic terrorists".  I believe she needs to be escorted to a rubber room at Bellevue and administered ECT three times a day if that is how she perceives the protests and activated Dems. She's as delusional as Trump.

The SC fool also told Ms. Tavernise, that:

"admitting you voted for Mr. Trump is a little like saying in the 1950s that you were gay."

Uh no, sonny. Admitting one was gay in the 1950s got one beaten to death, or lynched and set on fire in many places. (Like central Oklahoma, northeast Arkansas, northern FLA and western  Kansas).  Admitting you voted for Trump today just puts you in the relatively same fascist category as the anti-Semitic assholes who overturned gravestones in a Jewish cemetery outside St. Louis - or made one of the 68 bomb calls  to Jewish Community Centers.  In other words, if you voted Trump, you also by proxy voted Steve Bannon and his retinue of Breitbart  white supremacist and anti-Semitic tools.  Sorry! But hey, at least you don't get lynched!

In other words, this whole narrative about liberal protestors alienating Trump voters who "might be moderates" or moderated, is just a patent load of hog swill.  Only a low I.Q. dolt would buy into it, or any argument that these folks didn't make their choices of their own free will and cognition and - like Ross Kaninsky now - are just looking for excuses or ways to vent their spleen on liberal activists.

Do these proto-Trump dopes even know that Trump has the lowest job approval ratings of any President over the last 60 years? Probably not, because they likely just confine their attention to comics or Breitbart.com.  Enter now Ms. Tavernise's claim:

"if political action is meant to persuade people that Mr. Trump is bad for the country, then people on the fence would seems a logical place to start.. yet many seemingly persuadable conservatives say that liberals are burning bridges rather than building them.."

There is one problem with that: there is absolutely NO potential for any "bridge building" in this nation right now. We are a nation divided. Most protestors I know are not interested in persuading Trump voters (let's not call them "on the fence" if they voted Trump) because they know it's a hopeless task. People that absorb fake news, FAUX news etc. and are entranced by the antics of an authoritarian narcissist madman cannot be persuaded. To believe so is delusional. What protestors are actually about is igniting a firestorm to force political reps to look out for their interests, such as preserving workable aspects of Obamacare and not just "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". 

Monday night in her appearance on 'All In' Tavernise referenced one of the people in her anecdotal survey of 10 Trump voters in three states by saying:

"Well, the fellow in California said if Trump suddenly  ditches the health care law and there are 18 million people without health insurance, I'd be really mad at Trump and I wouldn't support him after that. That would make me really change my mind about this guy and his presidency....But liberals keep saying I am a Trump voter and I support him. But I didn't check my brain at the door."

But in fact, this guy did check his brain at the door. He did given he failed to note Trump's words during his campaign that he was going to repeal Obamacare. So how could he possibly be astounded now if he actually goes through with it?  The bollocks that seeing Trump actually ditch the healthcare law now would render him a non-backer is total bullshit and indicates he thinks the rest of us are idiots.

If Trump voters are really worried about vulnerable citizens (or themselves) losing their ACA benefits, fine, join the outcry. But don't whine and bitch that liberal activism forced you to back off and embrace Trump anyway. That doesn't compute and doesn't wash. It indicates a yen to make excuses for what they know in their heart of hearts was a god awful election choice. Now, they refuse to own up to it and the liberal protests are a reminder of that guilt.

In this respect, Erin Gloria Ryan's response to Tavernise's puff piece was spot on:

"I thought a lot of the reaction was to the headline, which was a provocative headline like headlines are supposed to be. But what I think is a really interesting question to follow up is: Are Trump supporters hurting Trump? Because the quotes that they gave Sabrina are like completely myopic. Like these people are concerned about their Facebook wall when ICE raids are breaking up families. These people are worried about whether or not to put a bumper sticker on their car when rivers are about to be poisoned. I don[t have any sympathy and I don't think many people on the left have sympathy for a guy because he can't wear his 'MAGA' hat on a dinner date."

And let's agree here that such myopia in the face of all Trump and his henchmen have done is another symptom of detachment from reality. These proto-Trump people actually see an inability to freely wear a red Trump hat on a date as more horrific than Trump's allowing coal waste to be dumped into rivers and streams. In other words, they are fucked in the head. So why would any sane liberal want to join in common cause with them, or be overly solicitous in regard to their upset feelings?

When Tavernise went on to say she's "not writing against protesting, only that she's seeing an equal but opposite reaction on the other side" , Ryan had the perfect comeback:

"Hillary won the popular vote by three million votes and the people that were spoken to in the piece were from South Carolina, California, and New York. States that did not hand Donald Trump the presidency. I think there is something to be said for persuading people who are persuadable but right now I think this is about activation, getting people organized and getting people who didn't show up to vote to actually show up to protest. Which is what they're doing."

All apt points, especially that Tavernise never stepped into any of the three 'Brexit' states (PA, MI, WI) that actually handed the election to Trump and by a mere 77,000 vote margin - about the capacity for a Packers' game at Lambeau Field.

Chris Hayes also made another very salient observation, that so much of the piece captured the distorted "enemy of my enemy" reasoning.  I.e.

"I don't like him but I hate the people that hate him more than I hate him."

Which is reasoning at about the 12 -year old,  pre-adolescent level.  Or,  as Hayes put it, a lot of the way many currently do their political reasoning.  In this case, for conservatives, "they hate liberals more than they're ever going to hate Donald Trump". And don't you dare spit on or mock the man! That's for us to do, if we choose!.

Tavernise again:

"Well, yeahh....and again, this is among these moderates, they feel that there is this contempt that is flowing in their general direction. That is imbibed through their social media, hrough everything that is happening everywhere - online, and to a certain extent with the protests. I think there's obviously a lot of polarization- conservatives hates liberals, liberals hate conservatives. All I'm saying it these folks aren't flag wavers for Trump and we do need a middle ground, we do need a middle space and we do need moderates,"

Except that I take Jim Hightower's quote more to heart:

"The only things in the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead skunks."

Even Hayes in his response pointed out the "middle ground" is vanishing if it hasn't already. Much of that can be traced to the Tea Party and the Koch brothers not to mention the rise of Trump. So to waylay the left now for reinforcing its own soldiers and activists is kind of like "we can do that but not you" thinking.

Or to quote Erin Ryan, "the reaction on the left is basically 'cry me a river'.  Yeppers, and don't shed your tears on us, after the shit you pulled with the Tea Party protests back in 2009.

Incredibly, Tavernise  in her piece quotes a "registered Democrat" Ann O’Connell, 72, (a retired administrative assistant in Syracuse)  who voted for Trump and whined. “I feel like we are in some kind of civil war right now. I know people don’t like to use those terms. But I think it’s scary.”

Well, we ARE in a kind of a civil war, which is going to get a lot more heated - resembling scenes of what we saw last month at UC Berkeley (when protestors shut down the appearance of pedophile defender Milo Yiannopoulis) if those like O'Connell and the other imps interviewed in Tavernise's piece don't get their reality glasses back on and their heads straight - to see what the rest of us in the sane contingent see. (Including two psychiatrists interviewed last night on 'The Last Word', who noted Trump is a "paranoid psychopathic narcissist who's divorced from reality" and  is  "as sick mentally as one can get in winning a presidency".)

The worst Trumpie coddling by far, worse than Tavernise, has been WaPo hack Marc A. Thiessen ('The Left's Hypocrisy On Trump's 'Enemy of the American People Comment' 0) At least Tavernise tried to show some balance in her coddling of the Trumpies (at least in her TV appearance), while Thiessen showed little or none. He hyped the "venom spewed by the left at anti-Trump rallies" but said nothing of the venom spewed by Trump - which as we've seen has now given rise to hundreds of hate crimes. That includes the murder of an Indian techie in Olathe, KS by a hard core Trump supporter babbling his same rhetoric. Can this fuckup Thiessen point to ONE incident where the "hateful Left" has vandalized one Jewish gravestone, or burned a Mosque (as in Tampa last week) or shot an Indian student dead (mistaken for a middle Eastern person)?   No? Then don't even attempt to inject false equivalence!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-boehlert/71356/enough-already-the-ny-times-needs-to-stop-coddling-trump-voters


And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-berkowitz/71316/neo-nazis-are-rejoicing-at-trumps-stance-toward-anti-semitism


And:

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/21/trump-has-the-media-crying-all-the-way-to-the-bank/

Assessing PLAYBOY's First "Vanilla" Issue: Not Bad

Sarah McDaniel on front cover with her left blue eye and right brown eye.

As promised, PLAYBOY magazine delivered its first "vanilla" (e.g. no nudes) incarnation with the March, 2016 issue. It arrived in the mail barely four days ago and wifey and I have been more or less sharing it - both of us reading the scintillating interview with Rachel Maddow. Personally, and I believe speaking for Janice,  the Maddow interview alone made the magazine worthwhile, even with barely a nude to be seen. ( I will get to that in a bit! The issue wasn't totally sans nudes.)

Among the things we learned about Maddow:

- She regards herself not as good looking but as a "goober"

- She is every bit the brain we believed her to be, a former Rhodes scholar (in political science) with a Ph.D. from Oxford.

- She'd like readers to recall (in this tempestuous election year), that ours has always been a "raucous, fight it out kind of country" where Senators used to "beat each other to death with canes on the Senate floor."

- She acknowledges that Obama is a centrist "not a progressive" - which most of us lefties figured out very early - which is why we want a real progressive candidate now, not another mock one.

- Ten to fifteen percent of her mail is hate fest crap in which the morons "think I'm a man or want me dead"

- She is good friends with several people from FOX News, including Greta Van Susteren ("a good social drinker" and :"warhorse") and Shephard Smith ("a fun loving guy").

- She once shook hands with Bill O'Reilly and was nonplussed by his weak handshake.

- She will never ever run for public office and firmly believes no pundit or member of the scribe class should, ever.

One of the three main pictorials featured Snapchat sensation Sarah McDaniel (also on the cover) who sports one stunningly blue eye and one right brown eye (a condition called "heterochromia iridum" a genetic condition) . The sequence of nine photos of her - 2 of which were twin page spread outs - were as if a "boyfriend" was gazing at her with no makeup on.  All the shots are totally tasteful, and artsy to the hilt. In the one semi- nude shot she is only seen that way behind a fogged up shower door,

The March centerfold, meanwhile, turned out to be Dree Hemingway, the great grand daughter of famous author Ernest Hemingway. She is featured in the first non nude centerfold - wearing a blouse and panties. Nothing is exposed that wouldn't be allowed, say in MAXIM or Esquire. (Which is the main gripe of old line subscribers). There is, however, a separate b&w shot of her which is in the nude, but to say she has the  "skin and bones" look would not be an exaggeration. "Voluptuous" would not be a word I'd use to describe her.

This is in contrast to model Myla Dalbesio seen in a five -page pictorial near the end. Myla came to fame as "Calvin Klein's first plus size model" (she was a size 10, according to the write up, while most models are sizes 4 to 6). All the shots in Myla's pictorial were taken by her, in hotel rooms, as part of a project she calls "In My Room". They are all also glorious testaments to what the PLAYBOY females of yesteryear used to be. She was fully invested in the project because seeing beautiful photos of her body "bolstered her" and made her feel better about herself.  Believe me, there is no quarrel with that! All the images are authentic and show her in real poses, i.e. images that appeal to the male eye.

Speaking of the latter, one of the better articles in the magazine is by Bret Easton Ellis ('Modern Sexuality A Case Study', p. 99) in which he explores the evolution of sexuality in our culture - from the days porn was still shown in seedy theaters (and guys wore hoodies on entering so as not to be recognized) to today's internet scene where it's all a click away. Ellis argues this hyper-convenience has caused sex to be available "without investment". In his words:

"When you went to a record store, or bookstore or movie theater or newsstand you took the time to place a certain amount of investment in buying the record, the book or watching the movie or hunting for sexual images. The investment was involved with a deeper effort to connect"

But that is no longer the case. In using this line of thought, he ties it neatly to PLAYBOY's "evolution" , implying the mag has forced those now conditioned to nudes at their fingertips to reinvest, but this time without the nudity being the focus. The unwritten message being the women portrayed can now be seen more or less for themselves. (Like Sarah McDaniel with her  blue eye and brown eye).

The article I found most informative was "God Bless Birth Control" by Erin Gloria Ryan about the IUD and how it has evolved far beyond the ancient Dalkon Shield - the subject of so many lawsuits back in the 80s. The new device is virtually trouble free, she writes, and has a far lower risk of pregnancy than either the pill or condoms Plus, women don't have to hide their pills from snoopers, or worry about "anti sex right wing chuckleheads taking their birth control away".  And the best news is the IUD is covered under the ACA though some moronic lawmakers have tried to declare it an abortifacient, despite the fact that would require: "a woman successfully ovulating every 24 hours and being fertilized by a human sex machine". 

It was also interesting to learn that a $25m grant for Colorado over 2009-14 "provided more than 36,000 Colorado teens with long acting birth control. The result was a 48 percent drop in unwanted pregnancies, saving $78 m in Medicaid.  Yet last year Republican lawmakers killed a bill to provide $5 m to continue the program".

Proving again that the Reepos really are dumb clucks when it comes to priorities and budgeting issues.

Other interesting articles could also be found(e.g. 'My Deportation' by Javier Valadez)  and my general assessment was the issue was better than I originally believed it would be when I wrote the original blog post warning PLAYBOY might now make a mistake as big as Coca Cola with "New Coke" e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/10/playboy-opts-to-go-without-nudes-why.html

But would I re-subscribe to it? I don't think so. Let the "new generation" that PLAYBOY rep Scott Flanders wrote about in his cover letter (stuck into the magazine) enjoy it now. It remains to be seen if this experiment will work, but it might if enough of the old guard subscribe.