I woke up in the middle of the night to check something and found this rant on my Facebook feed:
So, just so we’re clear- I get it, you don’t like Kamala or Tim. Not your first choice, etc., etc.
So, I ask you this as you hem and haw: cut into the only chance this country has to rid itself once and for all of an openly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, incompetent tyrant who has given a voice to the worst parts of our culture; to keep this rapist and felon from returning to power, this time with people who are focused on carrying out his Agenda – Whatever might happen if we’re to have a Harris/Walz presidency, how in any possible way is that worse than what four more years of this man and what he represents can bring? HOW?
To vote otherwise (Republican or Independent), to criticize to the point of damage, to abstain, is nothing more than serving one’s ego.
By 2028 the world will gladly continue on after slicing up what remains of the United States of America, and while I understand every single one of your arguments regarding the history of this country – and agree with a good many of them – for all the reasons you want to see a future that has better things than the past, put down all your grievances, or at the very least anything that will prevent this duo from taking the reins and JUST GET THEM THERE.
We can rightly start to work when we are sure there’s something left to work with, because if you don’t know that the alternative will leave us with less than nothing (and not for long at that), you’re complicit in a way that can not and will not be forgiven by history, your families and very likely, because chances are you are someone with a decent heart who gives a shit, yourself.
Blue. That’s it. That’s all. Right now. Do it.
The writer is a much closer friend and of longer duration than the one I discussed in yesterday’s Ethics Quiz. He’s also in professional theater, but, believe it or not, is a lawyer—you know, the profession that supposedly reveres precision analysis. Another interesting wrinkle: he’s Jewish, and promoting a Presidential candidate who wants to impose a “permanent” cease-fire in Gaza. You may remember, and I’m certain he does, how the last supposedly permanent cease fire in Gaza ended, on October 7, 2023.
Andrew Sullivan, at war with himself, is a fascinating case study. He’s a devout Catholic gay conservative, raised and schooled in Great Britain, and obviously brilliant. Everywhere he has written and opined has seen his cognitive dissonance on display: his friends and colleagues are mostly progressives, many of the knee-jerk variety, and he longs to be accepted and loved by them. Andrew also has too much integrity for that, much of the time anyway. He edited The New Republic after contributing articles most notably on the topic of AIDS and gays in America, but that publication’s turned on him, rebelling when he found scientific and intellectual value in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s “The Bell Curve,” the theory of which was (and is) officially condemned as politically incorrect and inherently racist. Sullivan, temperamentally inclined to keep an open mind, became a pariah in his own magazine. Later he wrote for The New York Times Magazine but was fired, because his tendency to call out progressives and the Times itself on intellectual dishonesty and bias annoyed Times editor Howell Raines. Sullivan’s whole career has been like this; one of the most influential bloggers when blogging was all the rage, these days he makes money and waves with his substack newsletter, “The Weekly Dish.”
Sullivan writes like a dream, and when he is good, he is very, very good indeed. Ethics Alarms has highlighted several of his essays in the past (most recently last December) and will doubtlessly do so again.
Yesterday I found myself reading Andrew’s latest essay without knowing who wrote it (don’t ask me how that happened). I almost quit reading after a few paragraphs. Oh, great, another diatribe by a Trump-Deranged conservative like David Frum, I thought to myself.
Poor Mira Sorvino. She won an Academy Award once, but her career as an ingenue stalled and she’s 56 now: she’s officially on the celebrity has-been list. But that’s not what makes her epic post below on “X” memorable. It should be studied as a tragic example of what relentless Big Lie propaganda from the mainstream media and progressives, which are pretty much all Sorvino has been exposed to in Hollywood for at least three decades, can do a mind that was once capable of critical thought.
As you will quickly see, the late Paul Sorvino’s daughter is Trump-Deranged to a crippling degree. She’s not stupid, far from it; at least she didn’t used to be. She graduated from Harvard with honors back when Old Ivy was closer to being a respectable institution than today, and didn’t major in “Women’s Studies” or some other wokish area, but East Asian Studies after spending a year abroad learning Mandarin Chinese.
When you wonder how it can possibly be that so many people won’t abandon their determination to vote for Joe Biden even as the evidence becomes indisputable that one might as well elect a quahog as President, just reflect upon Mira’s lament below. She was willing to publish this, publicly, even though, to a functioning mind, doing so would be the equivalent of wearing a neon sign flashing, “I am a cabbage.” It’s sad. It’s tragic. But it shows what nearly eight years of being bombarded with lies and fearmongering can do.
I’ll interject periodically, as is my wont. Heeeeeere’s MIRA!
How ironic! A post spawned by a banned trolling commenter who called your host a “Trump-supporting fascist” generated excellent commentary and two outstanding Comments of the Day. Thus a disruptive and unethical visitor here actually helped to enrich the discussion and enlighten participants. I know I learned some things from Sarah B.’s excellent Comment of the Day on the post, the first of the two earning the honor.
While I cannot answer for lawyers, there are plenty of Trump deranged engineers, and we sure get trained in logic, critical-thinking, and evaluation of consequences of our thought processes. This training does not inoculate us from our own biases. Indeed, biases manage to short circuit the training.
Jack is fond of saying biases make us stupid, and certainly today’s society proves it. I cannot tell you how frustrated I get when a trained engineer tells me that electric cars will solve all our problems. No one with the training I went through should say that electric cars are a universal solution. They should be able to calculate life cycle pollution, understand vehicle weight issues with roadways, realize the limitations of battery technology, mineral scarcity, and electrical grid load. However, by the time we get our intensive training in logic, critical thinking, and more, we have also been inundated in “global climate change” mass hysteria. The biases I saw my fellows come out with was amazing, even as I was standing there with the damn numbers.
This might be the easiest Ethics Dunce pick ever; at least I am certain that there couldn’t have been an easier one. When I heard which ever Democratic Party hack it was introduce Robert DeNiro as a featured speaker for the Biden campaign’s Trump Hate presser outside the Manhattan courthouse where this kangaroo kaper is inching to a conclusion, I thought, “No! They can’t be this crude, obvious and stupid. They just can’t be.”
And they say baseball isn’t the national pastime, the fools!
Today the Athletic has the tale of Atlanta Braves back-up catcher Chadwick Tromp. He’s from Aruba. Tromp says he pays no attention to the politics of the nation in which he has spent half the year every year since 2013 and that now supplies him with over a million dollars each annum. For that reason, I have little sympathy for the problems he has encountered because some jerk in the Braves clubhouse gave him uniform number 45 in an election year, making Tromp a walking target and a bad pun. Supposedly this was accidental. Is everyone on the Braves from Aruba?
As I noted in an earlier post today, extreme Trump Derangement rants are less tolerable from genuine professionals of whom the public reasonably expects better than from the Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Jimmy Kimmel, Rob Reiner, and “The View”-type celebrity pundits who are loud of mouth, large of ego and megaphone, and short of wisdom. Thus the letter Steve-O-in NJ reveals and critiques in his Comment of the Day is particularly disturbing. As you will see, it is sloppy, miserably researched, steeped in emotion and bias, and, frankly, I’m embarrassed for my profession after reading it. That the writer, as he informs us by way of appealing to his own authority, was on short lists for a cabinet position either speaks to the incestuous nature of our political elite, or the frequency of age-triggered cognitive decline. And he wants this self-indicting swill widely circulated! The lack of self-awareness among the Trump Deranged is a source of wonder.
I also need to say that I have not recognized Steve’s often detailed, erudite and perceptive comments frequently enough. I attribute this to taking blessings for granted (one of my myriad flaws): so many of his posts are outstanding that I’m not sufficiently impressed by them any more. My fault, and my apologies to Steve.
Paul Grossman, supposedly a conservative, wrote the following, which should tell you all you need to know about Trump Derangement. He’s is a nationally known employment defense lawyer at Paul Hastings and a Republican. He has encouraged that it be shared.
“April 5, 2024TO:
My Friends and Acquaintances
FROM: Paul Grossman
SUBJECT: The Upcoming Presidential Election
In most elections, candidates differ in philosophical approach regarding how best to solve commonly appreciated issues and shared challenges such as the large federal deficit.In 2024, we are faced with a departure from this normal paradigm in which we can presuppose the integrity of the candidates and their desire for a better United States now and in the future.
For the first time in my lifetime, one of the two major candidates for President of the United States has proven himself to be not just unfit for office but affirmatively evil. I am a Republican. Until our former President came along, based on the issues, I voted for The Republican candidate for President. Ronald Reagan wanted me to run the Department of Labor forhim. I had serious hopes of being Mitt Romney’s Secretary of Labor. I would have happily voted for Nikki Haley over Biden, with whom I differ on numerous policy issues. But for the reasons set forth below, in this election differences in character are more important than the underlying policy issues.
Please vote. Sitting out this election is not a reasonable choice.Is the former President evil? Yes. There can be no doubt. Consider the following: He incited the January 6th riots. He refused to take action for hours that day while watching the riots on television. He has promised to pardon the convicted rioters despite the deaths and destruction they caused. He calls racists “good people.” He still claims the 2020 election was “stolen” – he lost it by 7 million votes. He calls his opponents demeaning nicknames – a tactic used by grade school bullies. He is a serial liar. His trade policy is protectionist – he ridicules serious economists. He has engaged frequently in unwanted sexual touching of females – as he put it in a recorded statement, he “grabs pussy.”
He has been found by a court to be guilty of sexual assault. He avoided military service; at a military cemetery he labeled those who served “suckers.” He initially denied the existence of the recent pandemic. He rejected medical evidence in relation to the recent pandemic and demeaned medical experts. He makes fun of climate change. He embraces nonsensical conspiracy theories.
[My problems with Biden include his age, immigration, the Afghanistan exit, unconditional sympathy for trade unions, overspending, and contentions the wealthy are not paying their “fair share” of taxes. But I must admit despite my reservations about Biden, the economy is doing quite well.]
[Donald Trump] makes fun of people with disabilities. He dehumanizes immigrants – all four of my grandparents were immigrants. Those who have worked most closely with the former President are unstinting in their assessments: He has been privately labeled a “moron” by his First Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. He has been called dangerous by his former Secretary Of Defense, Mark Esper, who will not vote for him. He has been accused of undermining our NATO alliance by his former Secretary of Defense, James Mathis. His Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao resigned in protest of his January 6th related actions and inactions.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the January 6th mob violence a “failed insurrection.” He tried to bully his vice president to refuse to perform his vice presidential duty and certify the election results:Mike Pence, an honorable conservative, has announced he will not vote for the former President. He used to be pro-choice – he switched when he became a Republican and needed the evangelicals. He admires Putin and for good reason – both are evil and serial liars.
He could not care less about Ukraine’s heroic stand against Putin and Russia.Please join me in voting for the candidate who is a decent human being, and against the candidate who is evil.
Please forward this email to your circle of friends. I truly fear for our democracy if the evil candidate again becomes President. I think it possible, perhaps likely, that if elected in 2024, as the 2028 elections approach, despite the Constitution, he will do whatever he deems necessary to stay in power. Prominent conservatives including Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Lisa Murkowski have publicly announced they will not vote for the former President. It is not clear whether they will abstain. But an abstention or a vote for a candidate who has no chance makes it easier forthe evil candidate to win. Thank you for considering my views.”
This is already shaping up as “Trump Derangement Monday,” and it isn’t even noon yet. Steve-O-in NJ has a Comment of the Day on the way after revealing a disturbing anti-Trump rant from a previously distinguished lawyer. The lawyer’s Trump-Deranged, Democratic National Committee-endorsed talking points may be slightly more disturbing than the crazed claims “Blackish” actress Jenifer Lewis made when she sat down with Zerlina Maxwell, host of the radio show ‘Mornings With Zerlina’ on SiriusXM, but only because lawyers are supposed to be more responsible and reliable than show business celebrities.
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel, in my view, isn’t usually worth writing about on an ethics blog. He’s a despicable human being, and the fact that Kimmel is paid large amounts of money to be a media celebrity nicely illustrates the state of rot in our popular culture. Nevertheless, even the despicable have their uses. A recent outburst by Kimmel on his ABC show stands as throbbing evidence of just how estranged from logic and reality the Trump Deranged are. He also demonstrates just how meager the ethics decision-making skills are of many celebrities. (Very meager.)
Kimmel’s monologue three nights ago began with Jimmy expressing amazement that a poll showed Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in several crucial swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “How could this be?” Kimmel asked, channeling Hillary Clinton’s absurd lament in 2016 that she should be leading in the polls by “50 points.” Kimmel’s grand proof that Trump’s lead in polls was inexplicable consisted of his observation that many ex-associates of the former president have spoken out against him, so Trump. “doesn’t even lead in a poll of people who worked for him.”
Good thinking there, Jimmy. In fact, close associates and even family members of many, perhaps most popular elected officials and other public figures, like entertainers, have vastly different views of them than the public. The list of prominent figures including successful leaders who have sterling reputations, but who had smelly feet of metaphorical clay or worse is too long to list. The public doesn’t know the candidates they support; they usually only know their carefully constructed images. Moreover, working for someone is completely different from having a stake in their decisions. Kimmel’s reasoning here is incompetent, as usual.
Yet it is still not as damning as believing that there is no reason why anyone would rather see Trump—or anyone—in the White House rather than Joe Biden. To begin with, Trump’s term, until the pandemic derailed everything with the heavy assistance of the Democratic Deep State, was undeniably more successful that Biden’s term so far. It’s not even close. When one asks a loyal, closed-minded Democrat what is so impressive about Biden’s policies and results, all they have is admiration for Joe’s fealty to the progressive agenda, and the gaslighting argument that the public doesn’t appreciate how good they have it.
Biden may have the most incompetent Cabinet in Presidential history. Foreign affairs are an expensive, feckless mess. His Justice Department has politicize law enforcement beyond anything Richard Nixon would have dreamed of. Due process, equal protection, the right to fair trials, the First and Second Amendment and the Constitution itself have been eroded under Biden’s watch. The nation is enduring a totalitarian-style alliance between the central government and the news media, which is dangerous. Major cities are becoming unlivable, border enforcement is out of control, anti-Semitism is epidemic, and the single thing that Biden promised to do, heal the division in the nation, not only hasn’t happened, but Biden set out to make it…
I shouldn’t even be writing about this completely silly and worthless story. It exemplifies, however, the cesspool that we are going to be dunked in for all of the next year. Here’s how it goes:
ACT I
The mainstream news media decided to exploit the Christmas season as an opportunity to take a cheap shot at Donald Trump, since that is considered the patriotic duty of anyone who has ever had contact with him, and because he is a threat to democracy. So, as Columbus’s twin “Home Alone” movies were au courrant once again, Rolling Stone and some other enterprising Trump-bashers dredged up a three-year old Business Insider interview in which has-been movie director Chris Columbus, apparently looking to curry favor with the monolithic woke Hollywood community, revealed that Trump had “bullied” his way into the cameo he performed during “Home Alone 2.”
Ethics Alarms 