The Full-On Creep is Full-On Display!

One other difference between Nixon & Trump (see previous post) - we didn't know that Nixon was a paranoid, vindictive, alcoholic, madman, creep with an "enemies list" until after his landslide win in 1972, the Watergate scandal rolled out, and we finally got to listen to the tapes. We may have suspected all of the above, and certainly that was the gist of HST's reporting, but Nixon hid behind a mask of pragmatism and competence. The reality of Nixon's venality outstripped HST's imaginings.

Not so for Trump. Every bad quality he possesses has been on grand display from the first. We know that Trump sees enemies in every corner (these "enemies" are just average Americans who don't support him), and he even tweets about them: “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”

Not so cool. Not so funny. Not so normal. The full-on creep is full-on display! Remember how Obama told us there is no Red America, No Blue America, that he was President for all of us. Big difference right there.

Let's hear it from that other Boss, Bruce Springsteen:  “I’ve felt disgust before, but never the kind of fear that you feel now,” he said. “It’s as simple as the fear of, is someone simply competent enough to do this particular job? Do they simply have the pure competence to be put in the position of such responsibility? I think he’s going to make as big a mess as he can, and I don’t know what that’s going to mean,” he continued, “but we’ll find out shortly.”

“When you let that genie out of the bottle — bigotry, racism, intolerance… they don’t go back in the bottle that easily if they go back in at all,” he said. “Whether it’s a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and behave in ways that previously were considered un-American and are un-American. That’s what he’s appealing to. My fears are that those things find a place in ordinary, civil society.”

By the way, Sam Wang over at Princeton Election Consortium tells us it is "polarization" between Democrats & Republicans that has destroyed our abilities to make rational distinctions. Folks are so blinded by political polarization that many of our citizens thought that Hillary Clinton was worse, or at least no better than Trump. They can't see the difference! Which from my perspective, over on the Left side of the equation, is totally, completely ridiculous.

And maybe the danger now is that Trump has such lowered expectations that whatever havoc he wreaks is already being integrated in our worldview. Could this be true: "Today, majorities of Americans do not express confidence in Trump’s ability to prevent major scandals, use military force wisely, or handle an international crisis. Trump’s extreme low scores in these domains are concerning for the coming year."

Trump's Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune!

I was a wee lad when Watergate dominated the news. I came of political age reading Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72".

It's all ancient history now. A weird time. It kind of set the template for me, in terms of political culture, and maybe pop culture too. HST was a real hero to me. A drug-crazed journalist obsessed with the Dark Prince of America: Richard Nixon.

Today I see echoes of Watergate and Nixon in the Russian Hack and Trump. In both cases the initial event was a burglary of the DNC headquarters. In 1972 burglars cracked a lock, in 2016, Russian hackers cracked a computer.

Nixon and Trump have lots in common too. Paranoid: they see enemies in every corner. Insecure: they seem to share the feeling they just aren't good enough, not like those establishment folks who will never give them the respect they deserve. Vindictive: they both seem to want to win and even the score, always.

Nixon, of course, was a smart, experienced politician, a man who knew how to conquer and divide folks to his electoral advantage. Trump is an experienced, multi-bankrupt con-man, who built his brand empire on a hill of sand, but he too is good at playing on folk's hatreds and perceived slights. Pricks and kicks are all Trump feeds on - the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune.

Nixon's "Watergate" played out like Shakespearean tragedy - deeply flawed man, rises to the pinnacle of power, wins in a landslide against George McGovern, brought low by his own deep flaws, resigns in disgrace less than 2 years later, declaring "I'm not a crook!"

Trump - it's a dark comedy. And the Russian hack is not a little story floating around on the back pages of the Washington Post, no, already this little hack/burglary is front page news in all the major papers. A bi-partisan committee of Senators are on the case. 

Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet, and already he's squirming around like a clueless buffoon.  He's out on a limb against the President, CIA, FBI and Senators & Congress folks. Trump has decided to throw in his lot with Putin & Russia. Stunning. Weird. You wonder does he owe money to Russian Oligarchs? What is he hiding on his tax returns?

I do sort of wish HST were around for this one. The dark circus is back in town.  How long before this "winner" turns into the big loser we all know is his grand destiny? I'm guessing this all comes to a head in less than a year.

I Vow to Be More Joyful!

2017. An improbable number. Arbitrary. Just a number. Not a lot of meaning in that number. Just a way to keep score.

The first day of the new year. And what's a year? "One revolution of the earth around the sun."

So here we are. What to do? I don't know about you, but I vow to seek to be more joyful, eat more chocolate, meditate more often, to think, to listen, to play more music, to sing, to write new songs, to create.

To carry on with heart and soul. And try to enjoy the things I enjoy. To endure. To deepen my heart. To be compassionate. To try to understand. 

To not get too pissed off. To try to be realistic and happy too. To find pleasure in little things. To look around. To smell the coffee. To not let others dictate my level of happiness.

As Zadie Smith recommends: "Regret everything, and always live in the past."

Just kidding! 

2016 - Death-Haunted!

Death-haunted. 2016 was that kind of year. I mean, you could probably say that about every year, right? All of us, haunted by death to one degree or another.

It is the great subject that is always floating around us. Or as the mystics tell us: Death is always on our left shoulder. Our constant companion.

And death has no mercy.  So final. Complete. It's a hard nut to crack. No way around it. The losses mount up. Life rolls on. That's the story.

A Coordinated Disinformation Campaign!

Another political writer that I have been turning to, is David Frum, Senior Editor at the Atlantic. I suppose it is fair to say that he is right of center, but seems to me to be a very principled conservative. A thinker. Open to evidence. A perceptive and eloquent thinker and writer.

And the evidence (as Kevin Drum reminds us) tells us that yes, Russia did hack the 2016 Election.

But it's the next step of this operation (as detailed by David Frum), that is most important: "How Trump Made Russia's Hacking More Effective." It wasn't just that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's computers, but that Trump lied about what the DNC emails said during the campaign.

It's almost like the whole thing was a coordinated disinformation campaign! Done in plain sight. We watched it happen. Some of us were so stunned by Trump's buffoonery, that we didn't take his malicious actions seriously. 

Alternatively, Josh Marshall suggests that maybe indeed, it was all buffoonery, that Trump just blundered into supporting the Russian disinformation campaign. Trump's stupidity, and/or indifference to the truth, led him to concoct false tales on the campaign trail, using anything he could to throw mud at Hillary Clinton. And since we know that Trump doesn't know what he doesn't know, and it out-weighs by tons anything he does know, maybe his campaign actually was mixed up with the Russians, but he either didn't care, or just didn't want to know, or just did his best not to see it. And he denies it even now, even after U.S. Intelligence tells us it's so.

Anyway, is all this treason? A candidate wittingly or unwittingly coordinating with a foreign government to interfere with a U.S. Election? I do think Congress should thoroughly investigate. We all need to know. What did Trump know, when did he know it, and was he working with Putin and the Russians? And, oh yeah, just what exactly is Trump hiding on his tax returns? Is he partners with Russia? Does he owe money to Russian Oligarchs? Does Putin have anything on this man? Is he being black-mailed by a foreign power?

Questions! Many questions for the new year in politics!

Stream of Consciousness Gibberish in Action!

Yes, still mulling over that great article and interview I posted about yesterday (see previous post).

There's this from Stuart Jeffries: 

"If you listen to Trump speak, it's all stream-of-consciousness gibberish. There's no real thought, no real intellectual process, no historical memory. It's a rhetorical sham, but a kind of brilliant one when you think about it. He's a projection of his supporters, and he knows it. He won by capturing attention, and he captured attention by folding pop entertainment into politics, which is something the critical theorists anticipated."

And then, there's this from Kevin Drum this morning: "Donald Trump Holds a Micro Press Conference, Comes Off as Idiot."

So, yes, "stream-of-consciousness gibberish" in action! It does help when you have a few "neo-marxists," or "lefty all-stars" to consult!

And it's kind of head-opening to be reminded that my beloved Pop Culture actually promotes an insidious Capitalistic Totalitarianism!  Manufacturing Distraction!

"Manufacturing distraction is exactly what it is. If you read Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, you see him struggling with this problem. He sees in 1964 that everyone is getting too comfortable to revolt against oppression of any kind. People are distracted by the sexual revolution, by popular music, by virtually every aspect of mass culture."

By the way, here's another interesting piece of the puzzle: there's this little "brain study" that tells us it's really, really hard to change someone's political opinions. Seems those opinions are buried deep in the brain, in something brain scientists call the "default mode network," so an attack on our political opinions is perceived as a personal attack on our identities.

An "inconvenient truth," is like a threat to our being. So we evade, and dissemble, and double-down on our initial belief despite the evidence. Sounds familiar?!

So yes, we are seduced, and lied to, and it's okay, just let us buy stuff and let us believe what we want to believe, when we want to believe it. That's so damn human of us!

"The way he speaks and lies and bombards voters..."

What makes Sunny sunny? Sometimes? Finding out interesting, thoughtful things. Ideas! Things to roll around in my over-charged little brain. For instance, this article from Vox: "If You Want to Understand the Age of Trump, Read the Frankfort School."

I just love the idea that there is a school of thought to draw upon. And to find out that it's a school made up of an "all-star crew of lefty theorists," well, it makes me think that some of my time spent nosing about in philosophical texts in college wasn't a total waste. I realize I actually did read some Walter Benjamin!

"Neo-Marxists hoping for a socialist revolution..." Oh those were the days... this is the gist of their critical theory, it seems totally unassailable today:

"A guiding belief of the Frankfurt School, notably among Adorno and Horkheimer, was that mass culture, in all its forms, was a prop for totalitarian capitalism. The idea was that art, in late-capitalist society, had been reduced to a cultural commodity. Critical theory sought to expose this by rigorously examining the products of popular culture. In particular, they tried to show how culture became a stealth vehicle for the inculcation of capitalist values."

Pop Culture has won the day! It is oh so shiny, oh so seductive. It permeates everything. And we willingly surrender ourselves, and submit to the apotheosis of Pop! And yes, it's a consumerist, capitalistic paradise. We willingly give up all of our freedoms and privacy in order to shop more efficiently!

Okay so right, so far... and then there's this, which, right about now, seems prophetic and profound:

"Adorno warned of an American “culture industry” that stunted critical inquiry and, over time, blurred the distinction between truth and fiction, between the commercial and the political."

Bingo! We are definitely in the time and place where fiction beats truth, and commercial beats political every time! Trump!

Anyway, I recommend the article and the interview with Stuart Jefferies.  It seems so smart and of the moment, and sort of helps you get your head around what's been happening. Here's Jefferies on Trump:

"From the perspective of critical theory, Trump is clearly a product of a mass media age. The way he speaks and lies and bombards voters — this is a way of controlling people, especially people who don't have a sense of history. I saw the same thing in the months leading up the Brexit vote earlier this year: the lying, the fear-mongering, the hysteria. Mass media allows for a kind of collective hypnosis, and to some extent that is what we’re seeing."

Let's See the Damn Video!

There has been a "rumor" floating around for a few months. I've heard about it from friends in the neighborhood, and read it online in a few places. Supposedly, there is a video - outtakes from Trump's Celebrity Apprentice Show, spliced together, showing Trump saying terrible, terrible, nasty things. Sort of a highlight reel of the worst of the worst of Trump's fever swamp brain.

People associated with the show have seen it. It may even have been passed around for entertainment purposes. "Hey watch this funny video of the ridiculous Little Baby-Man saying terrible nasty things about people!"

One of the people who has supposedly seen it is Tom Arnold. Who is Tom Arnold? Wikipedia tells us he is "an American Actor and Comedian." Yes, he was on Roseanne Barr's TV show. He married and divorced her. He used to appear on the David Letterman Show - hyper, sweaty, sort of funny in a  self-deprecating way. You always thought he was on something. You laughed at him or with him, but sort of felt sorry for him too. And then well, he went to rehab, you got the idea he cleaned up and he was on some sports cable talk show, and well, he entered that quasi-celebrity zone - ex-sitcom guy who turns up every once in awhile on Howard Stern or other lame talk show to tell stories about the days when he did crazy stuff. 

I've actually sort of kind of always liked the guy. Especially, probably because it seemed Letterman liked him. And that was some sort of stamp of approval. But he now does exist in this sort of subterranean cable TV/bad sitcom/stupid game show universe where lots of semi-celebrities, disreputable people of all stripes hang out. People famous from porn tapes, or drug crackups, or really degrading sitcoms, child-stars who later went off the deep end and lived to tell the tale. You know the  place where Trump ruled as the Big Daddy Boss Man.

Anyway, there were people who were hoping that this ugly video would have been released to the public BEFORE the 2016 election. But it didn't happen. But now Tom Arnold has recently been tweeting that he is one of the folks who think it's time that little video should be seen and that "Watergate Level Journalists" are on the case.

Tantalizing! Do we want to see the video? You wonder if it will just be more noise. The people who despise Trump will probably despise him more. The people who love Trump will love him more, and those who love him will just spin and rationalize his behavior. Maybe it's worth it just to watch his supporters/enablers continue to defend the indefensible?!

I suppose I'm in the camp with Kevin Drum - "Let's get it out there!"  I mean, sure it might be ugly, degrading, and unedifying, and it probably won't change one damn mind, but hell, why not? It's the new Little Big Baby Man Era.  Let's see the damn video!

2016 - Ambiguous Key Center?

Looking for a different narrative this morning... not the same old story...

Maybe cosmological? Ecological? Geological? Anthropological? Social? Political? Musical?

I stumbled across a Vox article this morning: "The Music Theory Principle that unifies 2016's Radio Hits." Funny. I have not heard any of these songs. Not on my radar at all. 

My musical tastes point in another direction. We do own one Adele record in our vast collection of music (doesn't everyone on the planet own at least one Adele record?), and although I don't often listen to it, that woman really does have a powerhouse voice, don't you think?

Anyway, what about this grand musical theory? Well, Owen Pallet from Arcade Fire (Yes, we do own a bunch of Arcade Fire records, they are one of our favorite bands, please see Funeral, The Suburbs & Neon Bible, for instance), tells us that 2016 features a bunch of songs with "ambiguous key centers." Which is damn interesting.

Songs are usually in a particular key. G-Major would be a sunny, uplifting kind of feel, A-Minor, sort of sad, introspective. Seems these "hits" kind of waver between key chords, no definitive choice, or in some cases, the chord is just suggested.

And many of the hits of 2016 were these kinds of songs. Now of course, music is sort of like fashion, and one thing influences another, and one hit will inspire other hits. It's sort of like the idea of a viral infection - one germ of an idea, spawns many others. Copies.

Now, as a musician and songwriter myself, most of this is interesting, but not useful. I find it best to "not know what I am doing" when I'm writing a song. Tune everything out. Of course, I am steeped in all the music I do listen to, influenced, by the things I love, but my process is much more intuitive. "Dancing in the dark." Which is probably why I have never written a hit. Kind of working in another field entirely.

It's not exactly incompetence, but maybe, sort of...

And that's cool. But it is also kind of cool when you look at the clutter of the world and sometimes see or imagine some over-arching pattern or theory which seems to fit a certain phenomena. I mean it's interesting for entertainment purposes only. But sometimes entertaining ourselves is essential!

"He will be one of the boys..."

Yes. Merry Christmas 2016. What's on my mind this morning? How journalists covered the rise of Mussolini & Hitler. I wonder why?

Entering uncharted waters. 

I have a tremendous sense of foreboding. This is where the dark, scary music starts playing, right? The Christmas tree is blinking. The presents have been ripped open. There's a loud rapping on the door. Bare knuckles or a solid gun-stock? There's the sound of boots in the street. And heavy machinery.

That Jagger/Richards song kicks in: "Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy..."

The Smithsonian - “No people ever recognize their dictator in advance,” she reflected in 1935. “He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will.” Applying the lesson to the U.S., she wrote, “When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”

A Bumpy Ride with Little Baby-Man!

Yes, as they say, "The Emperor has no clothes." Let Politico explain: "On Election Day, just 38 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, compared to 60 percent who viewed him unfavorably — unheard of for a presidential-election victor. (Still, Trump won about 15 percent of the vote among those who had an unfavorable opinion of him.)"

You do have to wonder about those 15 percenters. They had an unfavorable opinion about the man, but voted for him anyway. Kind of a "fuck off" to the rest of us. Aye?

How sad for the Little Baby-Man (see previous post). No respect. Low opinion. People just generally dislike the man. Oh, yeah, Putin is giddy.  But as one  Pro-Kremlin Russian Analyst says: “Putin is a macho, Trump is also a macho. Maybe it could be a problem.” Ted Nugent is probably firing off a shotgun in celebration right now, the Little Baby-Man does have his fans, but they are a pretty grim, motley group. 

How do we work around this "Accidental President?" That's gonna be the trick for the next few years.  Work around! The Emperor has no clothes. Not pretty! Still, we can't close our eyes. We must pay attention. Little Baby-Man is so desperate and needy. I predict no matter what he does, it's not gonna turn out well. For him, or for us.

Buckle up. It's gonna be a bumpy ride with Little Baby-Man!

No Respect for The Little Baby Man! He is Just Too Uncool!

Thursdays I usually turn to the Style Section of the NYTimes. You'd be surprised how entertaining and enlightening the world of fashion can be. Anthropological.  

Yesterday, a profile of Andre Leon Talley. Quite good. "Monsieur Vogue is Leaving Trumpland." Seems Andre has "dressed Melania Trump," and said some nice things about her in the past, and this has created a stir in the fashion world. A fashion world kerfuffle! There's this great quote from Andre:

“You make the choice to be in Trumpland or you make the choice to eject yourself from the horror of Trumpland. I’ve made my choice not to be part of Trumpland.”

Way to go Andre! I also read somewhere that the Trump team is frantically trying to secure "A-List" entertainment for the big inauguration in January, and is coming up empty. Already turned down by Celine Dion and Elton John (A-List?!), and I think to myself, yes, "Who in their right mind would want to play any part in that horrible spectacle? Well, looks like pretty much no one... although, you'd think maybe Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and those Duck Dynasty Dudes might show up?

Much of Hollywood, and the Fashion world and Silicon Valley and the Music World cast their votes for the progressive woman candidate. I don't expect many of them to now join the horror of Trumpland.

The man, and what he represents (Maybe Fascism in America?) is horrifying, and frightening. More importantly, basically, fundamentally, Trump is NOT COOL! Never was, never will be. He just isn't. Coolness is a land Trump can never enter.

Trump will never be cool. And he doesn't know it. Which even makes him more uncool. He is not only uncool, but he is laughable, a constant figure of ridicule, satire (Alec Baldwin!!!). A big, bloated buffoon. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. He likes to tell everyone how "smart" he is - a sure sign of complete stupidity. And insecurity.

The man is a Narcissistic little Baby-Man. And he thinks that with wealth and power, he will earn respect. He is sadly mistaken. No respect for Little Baby-Man. It's probably what drives him. He doesn't understand why people don't look up to him. Don't envy him. Don't show him the respect he thinks he deserves. 

He never will earn that respect. People laugh at this man.  They will always laugh at this man. Always. Forever. He can occupy the White House, he will have the power to send soldiers into combat, he will be able to "drone" people, and still, he will be a figure of comedy. We will laugh at him. He is so uncool with his big, overdone hotels, his ridiculous Stepford Wife, his strange Stepford-like children, his frantic and absurd tweeting, his Celebrity Apprentice history.

The Little Baby Man is a fool. There may be tragedy around the corner. We may all suffer for his foolishness, but still, if the world ends under the rule of Trump, the last word, won't actually be a word. It will be a laugh. A small little snigger. Hah! "What has that Uncool Little Baby Man done now?"

UNCOOL! 

And as George Carlin the great comic once said, every little boy's last prayer before they went to bed, was always: "Please God, make me a cool guy." Everything else is just showbiz.

A Certain Darkness!

Then, here in the Midwest, we enter that time where we basically go from dark to dark. And if it's a cloudy day, we go from dark to less dark to dark.

And we do get the message. We are in the dark. Most of the time. And we move, we walk, and talk, and do things, but everything is framed by a certain darkness.

Our lives are permeated with a certain darkness. Deal with that!

Be On Guard. On The Watch. Always.

Words float up from the bottom of the well of my consciousness...

Vigilance. Resistance. Opposition. Protest. 

And also...

Truth. Facts. Data.

As my father used to say, "No one promised you a rose garden."  

So. Right. We need to grow and cultivate our own roses. Tend to our own gardens. 

Be aware. Awake. Hold people accountable for their words and actions. It is not just the Lying Strongman, but his henchmen, his followers, his enablers, his toadies, his lackeys, his boot-lickers, who must be held accountable for all they do and do not do.

Be on guard. On the watch. Always.

Everything is More Complicated!

People do stupid shit. All the time. And sometimes they suffer for it. Which is life, right? The way it's supposed to be? You do something stupid and you suffer the consequences. Short and sweet.

But sometimes people do stupid shit, and other people, bystanders, innocents ones, suffer. AND sometimes the people who do stupid shit, don't seem to suffer, instead it looks like they succeed, they win, they prevail, they carry on like the world is all peachy keen and just right for them. Their stupid shit is somehow rewarded, they seem to not be any the worse for wear, and instead, other people suffer in their place!

That feels like injustice. Doesn't seem right. One stupid person's stupidity multiplies and distributes suffering amongst the herd. Look around, paraphrasing Henry Rollins, it looks like "injustice happens all the time..."

Anyway, that's how election 2016 seems to some of us. Lots of people did a really stupid thing. And it looks like they are being rewarded for their stupid thing. But for the others, the bystanders, the innocents, the people who didn't do the stupid thing, suffering will be multiplied and distributed all around. AND we are gonna have to clean up after the stupid ones!

How to deal? What lessons to be learned? 

I recommend turning to smart people. People smarter than you. Open your eyes. Open your head. Make this a time of learning. And healing. I have been doing lots of reading and soul-searching. I am reminded that progress is not inevitable. Time is a wheel. And every action is met with reaction.

Chaos rules. It's always in the mix. Uncertainty is embedded in every moment. If you are feeling certain, reexamine. Take a breath. Be humble. History is a grand narrative, but that's not how reality rolls out. It's all much more complicated than that. Everything is more complicated than that.

If you always "go high, when they go low," you will sometimes lose. You will fail. Failure is encoded in our beings. A successful life is not one without failure, but a life where failure is encoded in the experience. We endure and carry on. Life is experience. Only experience.

Here's Hoping for Unlikely!

Robbie Robertson of The Band once wrote a great song called "Unfaithful Servant." Some of the lines include: "You don't have to say you're sorry, if you done it just for the spite, or just for the glory..."

Today I am sending out a psychic message to the Faithless Electors, those Electors who could change the course of history with their vote today in the Electoral College. My psychic message? "Please change your vote! Do not vote for Trump. Choose Hillary Clinton instead."

As I understand it, 37 Electors need to switch their votes from Trump to Clinton so we can move on from a "Certain Stupidity" (see previous post), to an Uncertain Future. I am not saying this will happen, I am saying that I think it should happen. Even if I really don't know what then what will happen.

Why should they "do the right thing" and vote Clinton?

1. The Popular Vote, the popular will. Clinton won the Popular Vote by 2,864,978 votes. She truly is the candidate of the people.
2. Trump is in violation of the Emolument's Clause of the Constitution. The minute he takes the oath of office, he rightly should be Impeached. He has not released his tax returns, he is a walking, talking conflict of interest which will lead to a certain corruption.
3. Trump won by a quirk in the system. The Electoral College is an anachronism, designed to induce the old Slave-Holding States to enter the Union of States. 
4. Trump's election was supported by Putin's Russia. Hillary Clinton's campaign was undermined by a foreign government. AND the Right Wing elements in the FBI also unleashed a campaign of disinformation at a critical juncture.
5. Come on. Trump is an Idiot of the Highest Nature. He immediately demeans the office of the Presidency just by taking the oath.

Ok. Anyway, like I said, this is unlikely to happen today. But here's hoping for unlikely!

Voting for a Certain Stupidity!

Nate Silver & Michael Lewis in conversation. Two really smart guys finally get to one really, really dumb guy. And what's funny, according Lewis, and the folks he's writing about in his new book, "The Undoing Project," the dumb guy's dumbness, his belief in his own infallibility, was a big drawing card for the folks who ended up voting for him. People voted for a Certain Stupidity!

"To have someone running for president who essentially insists he’s infallible is such a sign of stupidity. I mean, that kind of attitude to your mind and your gut instinct is idiocy. It’s stupidity. It’s not intelligence. It’s not a strategy. I mean, it is a strategy by default, but it’s not good. So, they would look at Trump and be appalled, but then a lot of people do that. They’d be appalled just intellectually, never mind [his] groping and whatever he’s done with his taxes and all the rest.

People are drawn, people want to make the world a more certain place than it is. They’re very uncomfortable thinking probabilistically. And they’re very uncomfortable turning to someone for advice or leadership and having that person be at all diffident, at all unsure. They want that person to seem totally certain. So, they want, in a weird way, idiocy from the people who give them advice. Stupidity."

More Musings, it's that Kind of Morning...

*Yes, a persona. Pretty much smoke & mirrors. Held together by baling wire & chewing gum.

*When in doubt, I check in with my President Obama. I do it unfiltered. I refuse to be satisfied with sound-bites, short clips. I watch and listen to his press conferences in total. It's always refreshing, inspiring. He is the eye of the hurricane. The last rational, level-headed, calm, cool, intelligent, graceful, funny, brilliant politician left in Washington D.C. It's kind of amazing that as our politics totally spins out of control Obama has held the prime position of power for the last 8 years. He holds it together. And shows how it's done. Take a breath. Think before you speak. Be restrained. Measured. Don't do or say stupid shit. "When they go low, we go high." He always, always takes the high road, looks at the bigger picture. A truly amazing & gifted man. Inspiring!

*When did the GOP go totally bat-shit crazy? Was it during the Bill Clinton years? Or when George W. stole the election from Gore? Or after 9/11 on Bush's watch? Or the Iraq War? Or torture, Guantanamo, Abu Graib? Or Hurricane Katrina? Or "no child left behind?" Or the election of Obama? Twice? Maybe all that rolled up together? The GOP has totally lost it. They are no longer a mainstream political party, but a twisted, radical, irrational, force. Delusional. 

*Blind Partisanship! We learn that Putin/Russia hacked our election and how do folks in the GOP react? They suddenly like Putin/Russia! Now that is madness. Pure. Blind. Partisan. It's that kind of irrationality that will, and is, destroying our Democracy. We have entered an Orwellian nightmare. Facts don't seem to matter. Can't agree on facts. Reason and rationality seem useless. Logic? Who needs it? 

*Myself, instead of getting more radical or extreme, I seem to be heading to the middle. I want to join Obama in the eye of the hurricane. The calm center. You know where cooler heads reside? Give me facts. Let's search out the truth. Let's think. And find things on which we can agree. A place of love, honesty, forgiveness, value, integrity. Oh yes, work & purpose too!

A Promise of a Glimmer!

Ok. Never mind. Having a "sunny disposition," is not a superpower. Or if it is, the "kryptonite" to be used against it is anything bad happening, and anything bad happening happens all the time.

So this (now in quotes & italicized) "superpower" can easily be played with, toyed with, and defeated. Let's just say there is nothing quite as bitter and spiteful, and vengeful, than a disappointed idealist. Those are the folks who prop up other folks against the wall to be shot down like dirty dogs.

So maybe a sunny disposition is just a front. A false front. Not bone-deep, not in the DNA, but just a thin veneer, a wrapper, like cellophane, or cheap wood-paneling; push hard enough and it tears, cracks and crumbles into a million tiny pieces.

You can always look on the sunny side. But it takes effort. And energy. And some times it's hard to conjure up. Then the darkness does come knocking. And the light and dark does their little yin/yang dance together. And neither the light, nor the dark win. They just dance. Eternally.

So, let's not get cocky, or overstate the case. Lean to the light. That's really all we have. A lean. A tendency. A glimmer. Nothing super about it, not so powerful either. A tiny thing. A spark. A flame. An inclination. That's it!

They say "It's always darkest before the dawn." So, if we believe them, there is the promise of light. Sometimes that is all we have, a promise of a glimmer. Hah! Run with that!

"Chaos Rules Baby... Please Pass the Condiments..." - Sunny Jimmy

The land of the Spooks. Intelligence. Counter-Intelligence. Lies. Deceptions. False-Flags. Information. Disinformation. Bizarro-World.

Word is, that yes, not only did the Russians hack us, and undermine Election 2016, but they specifically did it with the long-shot, wild-ass intention of making Trump President, AND now we learn that there is "proof" (Will we ever hear or see the evidence?) that "Vladimir Putin Personally Directed the Anti-Clinton Hacking!"

Gulp! 

That was a good one Vladimir! Obviously when the hack started, no one seriously thought Trump was gonna win. And even thru most of the campaign, it was assumed by pretty much anyone who paid any attention (especially me!) that Hillary Clinton was the solid favorite, some even said she couldn't lose.

Only Nate Silver over at 538 seemed to tell us that counter to pretty much all the other pollsters and prognosticators that his model showed that there was a 10% chance of Trump squeaking by with a Popular Vote Loss and an Electoral College Win.

But of course, 10% is pretty damn unlikely. I mean, lots of really stupid shit would have to happen. Once in a lifetime fuck-ups would have to accumulate for Trump to snag enough votes to tip key battleground states.  Nate runs his model millions of times, he can tweak parameters and test how they change outcomes. But reality only runs the freaking model ONE TIME! Oops! This one time and we get the "Accidental President." But the accident turns out to be a World-Wide Car Crash! And we, the bystanders are actually the victims.

Putin must be so happy, his long-shot bet came thru. And he wins on all counts: he undermines the U.S. Democracy, sows doubt about free and fair elections throughout democracies around the world, elevates a Putin-Wanna-Be and Colossal Dip-Shit in Trump, and shows Putin to be some kind of grand master political mischief-maker.  And now it looks like Republican Voters are such brain-dead sheep, that now they have decided they kind of like Putin's Russia! Wow.

"Chaos rules baby... please pass the condiments..." - Sunny Jimmy