“A major schism in the party is over the question of how much pretense we’re fighting to keep lying about. A lot of people seem to think that even though we’re plainly in a Cold Civil War, and even thought Joe and Mika spend three hours a day ripping Trump, Trump’s supposed to pretend we’re all (as John McCain says) Good Friends.I’m not saying Trump scored some tactical victory here. I’m saying, as I usually do- – who gives a wet shit?
How can the flailing old women of the Nominal Right huff themselves up so much to pretend outrage that a guy being attacked by the media everyday decides to occasionally attack them back?I understand the leftist media’s interest in pretending that they’re behaving normally and haven’t rewritten the professional code of conduct to allow attacks on Trump which would have been near-hanging-offenses on Obama.But what is the interest of the sissified Nominal Right over defending the media and pretending along with them?”
—-Cult conservative blogger Ace of Spades, rationalizing the latest embarrassing Presidential tweets, hurling juvenile insults at the co-hosts of Morning Joe, those love birds Joe Scarborough and Mika.
I mentioned a few days ago that I was not an Ace fan. This kind of post is why. I was going to skip commenting on today’s Trump obscenity, though the tweets were horrible even by his low standards [“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came……to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”], because I’ve written that post too many times, and I don’t see the point. Do I have to keep saying, again and again, that this guy has a flat learning curve, that his staff does him no favors by not having an intervention and telling him this nonsense stops or they’re out the door, that such outbursts are the equivalent of punching himself in the face with brass knuckles? Anyone who comes here knows these tweets are idiotic, and is aware of what I’ve been writing about Trump since he was a fake Presidential candidate in 2011, and nobody who doesn’t come here cares what I say anyway.
But I read too many of these excuses for Trump in the right-wing media, which are the flip side of the “How dare the President impugn our honesty and objectivity?” squeals from the left-wing media. Both show ethical obtuseness or worse, and both ensure that the news media and Trump will continue their equally atrocious, divisive and destructive behavior. What is wrong with Trump’s tweets is not that his targets aren’t unprofessional, unfair and vicious, and part of a unified effort to as Salon said this week, “drive him from office.” What is wrong is that he is President, and he has an obligation to maintain and uphold the dignity and the image of the office, because that’s all he’s got. This is what Democrats and the news media have been working around the clock to strip him of, disgustingly, and when he acts like this, he assists them, and betrays his duty to the institution he represents. What is wrong is that the tweets are punching down, that he lowers himself, that he punches down, that he shows himself to be petty, and mean, and without the common sense and judgment of the average gerbil. What’s wrong is that this conduct degrades the culture and leads the young to think being a jerk is accepable. What is wrong is that it’s stupid. Incredibly stupid.
What is wrong is that the tweets aren’t Presidential, and he is President of the United States.
And the Ace of Spades, a much admired conservative blogger, can’t figure this out.
He’s useless.
Ethics Alarms 
What is wrong is that he is President, and he has an obligation to maintain and uphold the dignity and the image of the office, because that’s all he’s got. This is what Democrats and the news media have been working around the clock to strip him of, disgustingly, and when he acts like this, he assists them, and betrays his duty to the institution he represents.
The argument could be made that he has already stripped himself of the dignity and image of the office through behavior like this, and that the media thus cannot possibly strip him of that dignity. They can only point out that he has done so himself.
And I don’t even see how Ace’s rationalization applies here–Mika and Joe aren’t journalists, and they aren’t even unfair to him. Joe has defended Trump on occasion. Their offense in this case was making fun of him for the fake Time covers…which was well deserved, and funny. And he can’t take THAT?
Ace is a moron.
Yup.
Also: holy god, the comments. Almost 500 in one day; the first ten include blatant mysoginy and accusations that Joe Scarborough had someone murdered. I scrolled down to the last few, and found blatant anti-Semitism.
Idiots flock together. Thank you for always holding yourself, and this blog, to a higher standard.
Talk about faint praise!
Heh. I should have clarified. Not just a higher standard than Ace, who has no standards other than “agrees with me;” you hold this community to incredibly high standards.
Can we redefine being a dangerous disgusting pig as a high crime? I know it didn’t work for Clinton, but shouldn’t we try again?
These are different levels of disgusting piggish behavior. Neither are high crimes.
The standard for impeachment is high crime or misdemeanor, not low brow and mischievous.
But you recognize that this has been the progressive refrain since November: Trump should be impeached because he’s an asshole—which includes being a Republican, male, rich and white in their world view, muddling the point, which is still wrong anyway.
Oh please. Don’t take this too far. Do you think liberals would be going this crazy of Romney had won? I mean, he was a far better choice than Bush and we survived 8 years of him. I might disagree with a lot of Romney’s policies, but he is a gentleman. He would have brought grace and dignity to the office.
Do you think the Democrats would be doing this to Trump if he was a Democrat (which he is, more or less)? That’s the point. The Democrats have individuals in leadership who are almost as revolting as Trump—Howard Dean and Harry Reid come to mind. Obama and the Democrats styled Romney as a cruel,sexist, racist, rich guy who didn’t pay his taxes and who was a habitual liar!
Oh! THIS Republican is REALLY Hitler; they were just saying it about the others!
The Democrats were ratcheting up this tactic for decades. Hillary’s shock loss and Obama’s failure ignited it.
I think you need to step back and reread your comment.
Most Democrats think Howard Dean might be a little crazy, but do you think either Reid or Dean (both who are on their way down, not up in the party) come anything close to the hideousness that is Trump?
The rest of your comment is offering excuses and rationalizations. But, even if that were a valid response, nobody has ever done it on the level as Trump. He has redefined this category all on his own. Everything else (on either side) has been just an appetizer leading up to this awful entree.
We might have made jokes about Romney’s casual rich person’s detachment from reality ($10,000 bets in debates and car elevators), but we would not be wringing our hands in concern because of unhinged remarks on Twitter. We would not be concerned that we are X% less safe because Romney is in power and might get his shorts in a knot over what a foreign leader might same about him.
They are both, like Trump, essentially ethics free, and horrible role models who believe that the ends justify the means. Sure, Trump is cruder, dumber, and less articulate. But if Democrats were genuinely offended by his style and conduct as a matter of principle, they wouldn’t have tolerated, indeed honored, those guys (and others.)
You do recall that the same CBC leader who led the boycott of Trump’s inauguration because he wasn’t “legitimate” also boycotted the Bush inauguration. Coincidence?
We ousted Dean from the primaries years ago and he was given a pencil-pushing job for his loyalty. Democrats have a long history of eating our own — the Republicans do a much better job of protecting their people.
“<Democrats have a long history of eating our own — the Republicans do a much better job of protecting their people.”
Wow. Spartan, that was a eye opening comment. I have felt the opposite way: the Democrats seem to circle the wagons and the GOP throws out the baby with the bath water.
Funny how your perspective changes depending on your beliefs, huh?
Have a great Holiday weekend!
Yes, everyone thinks that their tribe is full of rugged individualists who aren’t afraid to snipe and bicker and infight with one another, and that the opposing tribe is an indistinguishable hive mind that marches in lockstep with one another. This is practically hard-wired into our DNA at this point.
But there is simply no left-wing equivalent of Donald Trump. There may be some politicians on the left who are as dumb as Trump, OR as sexist, OR as narcissistic, OR as unethical, OR as petty, OR as ignorant of the Constitution, the law and basic professional decorum. But there is no one on the left who has all of those qualities to the same degree that Trump does.
To be fair, there is no one else on the right who does either.
It’s important to remember that Trump isn’t right or left. The CNN producer in the most recent sting video is right about that. Trump has no ideology—not that there’s any thing wrong with that. it is a problem if you have no guiding values, however.
Chris,
You know… I cannot disagree with your assessment of Trump. He is pretty much as you describe.
An odd point we agree on…
Always nice when we can agree, slick.
Oh, I definitely agree. But, Trump is damaging the Presidency. Yesterday, I was reminded that his tweets HAVE to be preserved in the National Archives. It made me want to vomit to know that hundreds of years from now, young students on field trips will be reading what this President wrote. On the other hand, because of the damage he was wrought, perhaps we will be in full Idiocracy mode then and no one will care.
I wonder if threatening journalists could be considered a high crime and misdemeanor?
http://www.businessinsider.com/morning-joe-trump-national-enquirer-scarborough-mika-brzezinski-2017-6
Probably not.
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html
Seymour Hersh is claiming that:
> Trump authorized a Tomahawk missile strike in Syria in retaliation for what he a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.
If this is true, I would hope that is an impeachable offense. But what do I know?
Regarding Joe, Mika and Donald, I’m sort of with Ace. Given how low each of these has gone, I don’t care, and I don’t see why I should care. If I knew I could pour gasoline on the fire and keep the country safe, I would.
If Trump gets impeached, I hope it’s for something he really did do. And if so, I hope he gets impeached soon, the quicker the better and maybe we can sleep a bit easier without Crazy Eddie behind the football.
But I suspect he’ll be impeached for something he didn’t do, something that really is a concoction of Democratic Interests, Media Interests, and Wall Street Interests.
These guys can have each other. Our best chances are if both sides can self-destruct without taking the country with us.
What I am most angry with Trump about, is that Trump is such an enormous jackass that he has given the DNC and Democrats all the cover they need NOT to reform themselves after their Hillary Clinton debacle.
Trump brings the Presidency down, and the Media brings itself down?
Both outcomes sound good for the People.
How could these results possibly be good for the people? Both are tragic and harmful to everyone.
We worship both the Presidency and the Media too much. Both need a reset.
The Presidency is getting a reset that it didn’t need, and the Media doesn’t deserve worship, and never did. It does have to earn back respect.
And the reset should be bringing down the press and the presidency? Let’s try some other less drastic things first. The Presidency and a free press are benchmarks of our Constitution. I, for one, am not ready to abandon them.
Maybe it’s a simple expectation from all citizens that our crucial institutions be placed in better hands in the future and the votes/approval both political and social to back it up. Of course, that presupposes that more than 50% of the people agree with the idea that adherence to the Constitution is essential. I don’t think they do. But, I’d love to be proved wrong.
What a crazy comment. Starting off with Seymour Hersh was the tip-off.
> What a crazy comment.
Judging by some comments that bloggers have given me back, well, yeah, but I’ve made crazier
See #22 on the Rationalizations list
“What’s wrong is that this conduct degrades the culture and leads the young to think being a jerk is acceptable.”
Case in point…
https://reason.com/blog/2017/06/29/dad-beats-the-crap-out-of-good-samaritan
Isn’t is sad when cousins marry?
Ha!
You know, there’s a side of me, one that I push deep down, and am not proud of, one that isn’t logical, or rational at all…a side that gets absolutely incensed when objectively bad people (this guy) get to keep on going through life thinking that this is an acceptable way to live, without any obvious or public consequences for his behavior, and that he has people in his life enabling that worldview. A side that says, “being a jerk SHOULD be a punishable offense.”
I fight this also. Every day. I’m forced to rely on karma. It’s never instant enough.
“As a man sows, so shall he reap”
karma is a spiritual law…
Use social sanctions. No dinner party invites, fail to notice them when they’re in the same room. When asked about them damn them with faint praise. With (only) the closet of friends, make cutting remarks about poorly tied cravats.
You got it! The next time I throw a dinner party, this Good Samaritan puncher is OFF THE LIST!
😉
Not sure that Ace is a he but I’m not really sure how you can expect anything else from AOSHQ if you have ever read the blog. Kind of like baiting deer. There is one glaring, it seems to me, ethics violation that I haven’t heard anyone mention. The violation of confidentiality with regards to a guest at a Trump location recovering from a facelift. Isn’t that a kin to any other professional ethics? Fuck punching down. If the head of the company can openly talk crap about guests (and I’m assuming because they were at Mar-a-largo they were guests), what can you expect from the help? Someone needs a serious intervention.
Someone appearing in a public place—and a club, even a private club—is public enough—has no expectation of privacy or secrecy regarding his or her personal appearance. It’s rude, crude, mean and wrong of Trump to do this, but there’s no professional duty, just basic, old fashioned ethics, which should be enough. Good point, though, about the lesson to employees. An employee doing this would have to be fired…and now that employee has a defense.
The facelift? Pure fiction, as photos taken at he time show. She’s never had one.
So no violation of confidentiality, just another falsehood. A lie? Maybe not. Maybe his mental acuity is deteriorating. Maybe he just misremembered. Does it really matter?
Apparently he doesn’t. You may think he should, but there’s no law saying he has to, and most on the Right apparently approve of his behaviour, or don’t disapprove strongly enough to think it worth mentioning.
You may think it wrong. Many on the Right see that being a Jerk is a positive good, a sign of healthy Capitalism. Freedom. That a Culture that is politically correct has to be degraded, as courtesy is degenerate liberal nonsense.
It’s a New World out there. One I loathe, but you don’t deal with a problem by pretending it doesn’t exist, or saying “But… But.. he can’t *do* that”. Yes he can. Yes he is doing. And no-one capable of stopping it is lifting a finger.
If he did have an obligation, then there would have been a law, not mere tradition or custom that can be ignored with complete impunity.
“…Many on the Right see that being a Jerk is a positive good…”
Rational response: can you source that opinion? Got a handy poll to back up that smear? Given that ‘those on the Right’ tend to be FAR more decent people than leftists, because they believe in truth, fair play, and ethics?
Irrational (but funny) response:
So you are saying the right has their version of Bill Clinton? Seems to me the right was saying the same about him… 🙂
Given that ‘those on the Right’ tend to be FAR more decent people than leftists, because they believe in truth, fair play, and ethics?
slick, this is just as unsupportable as Sue’s claim–more so, actually, since “those on the Right tend to” is more of a generalization that “many on the Right.”
This is anecdotal, but a quick perusal of the replies to Trump’s tweets shows that many people DO cheer on Trump’s jerkish behavior. I was also amazed at how many comments Ace got that essentially said “Being a jerk to liberals is good.”
Chris, you don’t live where you rub elbows with very many of ‘those on the Right.’ You speak out of ignorance and bias.
Those on the Right, as a group, are ON the Right because they support objective truth and traditional values: something the left has been actively trying to destroy. Those values are what I said they are in my post. These are things the left demonstrably have abandoned and now openly scorn. When the left calls their opponents ‘deplorable,’ when they sneer at ‘fly over country,’ and when they challenge an election because of the rubes who outvoted them (but the popular votes!), the case can be made that one side is continually at war with those who just want to be left alone to live their (traditional) lives.
Those on the Right tend to believe in objective truth, objective facts, and personal responsibility. At least, until the left taught some of our more weak-minded brethren to abandon these things in search of a tit-for-tat, vengeance model. The left, in general, has stood against those things, in many cases denying that they even exist.
The Right is not perfect, and traditional liberal views (not what that term has become the past 50 years) are needed to change society for the better. Traditional liberals were not socialists. (Progressives are, indisputably.) So many do like what Trump tweets. But they are not on the Right if they agree with the tactics of the left, which is what Trump is using.
I can’t believe you typed that whole comment after accusing me of bias, slick. You even ended with a “No True Scotsman” fallacy. I have no idea how to respond to this–it’s a partisan screed, and beneath you.
Nice deflection, Chris.
My definition for the Right is in the post, and thus there is no ‘True Scotsman’ in there. I gave you objective and observable truth… and you missed (or dismissed) it in true progressive fashion.
Objective truth exists. Facts being stated are not a screed, and you saying so diverts from having to actually debate the assertions: a good progressive tactic. You prove my point perfectly. I could kiss you!
Have a great Holiday weekend, Chris. I may not make it back to this blog if my wife has her way (she better not take a nap, though!)
You defined anyone who supports Trump’s nastiest tweets as “not on the right.” That is absurd. So the alt-right isn’t on the right? And you think this is “am objective truth” and a “fact?” This is a classic example of No True Scotsman, slick.
I hope you have a good 4th of July weekend as well.
Those on the Right tend to believe in objective truth, objective facts, and personal responsibility. At least, until the left taught some of our more weak-minded brethren to abandon these things in search of a tit-for-tat, vengeance model. The left, in general, has stood against those things, in many cases denying that they even exist.
Mostly agree. Here’s how I’d put it:
Those on the Right, apart from the Extreme Right, have historically tended to believe in objective truth, objective facts, and personal responsibility. Recently, even many not on the extreme Right have completely abandoned the first two, and personal responsibility only applies to other people. The extreme Left and many in the middle historically stood against those things too, and any improvement in that has been negligible.
Some improvement – Kucinich no longer gabbling on about Chemtrails – or if he is, he’s being ignored – but worse in some areas with New Age fashionista antivaxxers being indistinguishable from the Religious Right. No signifcant change for the better overall.
Ok, it’s only the White House credentialled Lunatic Right that claims Mexicans are kidnapping orphans to send to labor camps on Mars, but many Leftist antisemites routinely make similar accusations about Jews. As do Rightist antisemites. It’s the White House credentials that are the problem.
All groups have their loony fringes. The important thing is how much power is given to them. You don’t make a Faith Healer Surgeon General, and you don’t make a Flat Earther chair of the House committee on Science.
Well said, Sue.
Sue: I accept your revisions of my statements as being more clear than I originally presented them.
One caveat: the left-moderate and extreme Left have the bully pulpit of the media and Hollywood, which makes them seem more representative of the entire left. We just do not hear from the ‘right-moderate’ and conservative Left?
I am sure they exist, even if they don’t self-identify as such.
Ace is a troll that never grew out of the thin-skinned immature teenager mindset, his purpose is to incite; sure the vocabulary and knowledge of the world grew but the maturity never kept up with the pace with annual birthday’s; President Trump’s behavior is trolling in much the same way, it’s immature, it’s sophomoric, etc.
When you children do immature things that they really shouldn’t be doing, do you intentionally incite them to do more immature things just so you can publicly smear them.
Trump is the President of the United States and as much as I dislike and disapprove of Trump’s embarrassing atrocious trolling behavior I cannot and I will not strip the anti-Trump media of their responsibility for intentionally filling the mole holes in the yard with water so they can play whack-a-mole every single time the mole pops its head out. Trump’s trolling behavior is terrible and it’s embarrassing but the behavior of the media is far far more destructive to the United States of America! The media is intentionally pouring gasoline on a house fire and hoping for a massive conflagration! Why is the media doing this; “…it’s ratings”, “It’s a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss…All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you’re just like, that’s adorable. That’s adorable. This is a business.”; the intentions of the media are becoming crystal clear. Malcolm X said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” I firmly believe that the anti-Trump media has taken Malcolm X’s statement and pushed it well over the gray line and is now behaving treacherously. Their treachery is being driven by ratings, partisan ideology, and a level of moral bankruptcy that gives them some kind of pompous self-justification to write what ever they want. Go ahead and try to find more than an itty-bitty handful percentage of “journalist” in the anti-Trump media that don’t believe that just because they can report something means that all those somethings they report are right.
The media has become a destructive propaganda force in the United States of America, they are abusing their Constitutional right. I’ve heard people say that “you just can’t make this stuff up”; wrong! The plot of the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies is a nice correlation to what today’s treacherous anti-Trump media is doing.
There are a few moments of unifying cohesion but they are becoming so far apart and the overwhelming daily BS is pushing those few moments into places so suppressed that they are just distant memories because you must focus on putting out the fires of BS today. Any way you logically look at this mess, it’s a vicious circle of tit-for-tat unethical behaviors that’s pushing the public to divide further. The public is being manipulated by the media, it’s treacherous behavior and until the public fully recognizes that fact the deterioration of civility in the United States will continue. What’s really interesting is that the media is currently the major problem with civility in the United States and in the end, if the media could get their collective heads out of their ass, the media could actually be the solution.
We’re in for a really rough ride folks and where it ends no one can possibly know for sure.
Here’s a different point of view on the media from someone who’s opinion I respect that “leans left of center” but has “proudly voted for Republicans” too…
That was from back in March.
I think that the recent signature significant revelations about CNN “making money off the fear, paranoia and vulnerability of the angry, frustrated and gullible” has reinforced that there is a significant problem with the media regardless of which way any single source leans.
Trump is not being well served by his staff. Someone needs to sit him down and explain the historical and current function (and behavior) of POTUS. I don’t care one whit that he using millennial technology to make his points clear: they are not clear, they are not Presidential, and they only serve to undercut him as POTUS.
If the Republican Party wants to do a real service to this country, they can send a delegation to the White House and give Trump a one-hour course in ‘Presidential Behavior 101.’ Even when Trump makes correct decisions, his innate egotism and blue-collar behavior do not comport with what Americans — regardless of party — believe the behavior of the President of United States should be.
Analyses of why he was elected have been offered ad nauseum. But the daily public behavior of POTUS has only been useable by the “Resistors.” It is up to the Republicans to try and pull him into line and — even if he isn’t one — make him at least behave like a leader and a gentleman.
He wouldn’t listen even if they did that, Elizabeth.
“He wouldn’t listen even if they did that, Elizabeth.”
THIS!!!
Yep – just like I expected – the course of discourse in the was-country has taken yet another turn for the worse…and there is no “worst” in sight.
Jack was fond of saying of the nationwide discourse at the time, “This is what will help to get Trump elected.” Or, maybe I am mis-quoting Jack. Maybe I am just imagining that he repeatedly said something like that. I don’t read fast enough to go back and check. I have to trust my memory.
No matter – I will say, though, that since the discourse now is ever more petty, polluted by partisanship, and otherwise asinine, “This is what will help to get yet another totalitarian entrenched in power most rapidly.”
Lucky, your memory is fine.
And you point is even finer. People have rejected the progressive narrative, and the only choice left was Trump. The GOP failed to fulfill their promises for years, even when they had the power to do so. As they still are.
If the GOP does not get off the stump, another such as Trump could be in the wings.