Monday, April 24, 2017

Trump Derangement Syndrome




Allow Gopnik to speak for himself:







Cohen continued:




Gopnik explains himself:









Gopnik concludes about Trump:






Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

This Trump apoplexy is humorous. It's like watching a two-year-old come to the terrifying realization that the rest of the world doesn't feel everything the same way they do. Screams, shrieks, all at a glass-shattering pitch. I feel like an adult standing there, amused, waiting for the poor little child to get it out of their system. Yet these are adult toddlers who got high SAT scores.

The same people who wail about Trump are the same as those who use scolding tones about how unequal our society is. Yet these same people benefit disproportionately from government action. Student loan programs, Climate Change fraud, tax loopholes, transfer payments, free rides on government jets, gourmet pork products, butter mountains, setasides, affirmative action, "women's health" services, education taxes and so on, and so forth, and so much waste. It's an inside game, and now this orange-headed beast has been elected president and you'd think he was some Vichy-like installation of a foreign invader. The same emotional excess and whiny brattishness that is so peculiar in that these same people who want to say in their next breath how smart they are and how smart the people who agree with them are. Methinks something clarifying is afoot, as these people do not seem intelligent, wise, learned, experienced, transformed or mindful at all. "Deranged" seemed like a restrained term. Indeed, they seem lunatic... toxically sentimental.

Yes, this has been a clarity moment. We know who the enemies of adulthood are and what they stand for. They prove daily how globalization really works and who it benefits. Same for the environmental aggrandizement movement. Same for the investnent bankers. Same for the _____ Studies departments at our universities. Same for Washington, District of Columbia and its surrounding ZIP codes. Same for the technology executives, who are creepily obsessed with robots and moonshots. Same for the ______ Lives Matter movements. Et cetera...

I'm just glad Remnick's Messiah will be back today, making his re-entry into the public policy game less than 100 days into his successor's presidency. Talk about klassi. That's what you can always count on from the Obamas: lots of sophistication. The Iranians loved Obama, why shouldn't we?

Lastly, there is nothing more striking to me than the Leftist bent of the Wall Street Journal's newsroom. Sure, their Editorial group is famously libertarian, but the front page of the WSJ these days is vomit-worthy in its endless headlines, stories and What's News bits about how Trump is effectively the Antichrist. Like so many other mainstream outlets, they are not even trying to be fair or balanced in coverage. I am embarrassed for them. I'd cancel my subscription if I thought they'd care. But the "Quotable & Notable" piece on A17 mentions that the internals of the much-vaunted polling on Trump's low approval numbers also shows that he still would beat Hillary. Amusing. Hillary was such an awful candidate, and remains an awful person. All that aside, the Congressional Republicans should take note: Trump is still the only person who could've beat her. He's no Messiah (there is only one, after all), but I suspect his pragmatism will serve him well. And Gorsuch, of course.

It's interesting what "open-minded" has come to mean today, courtesy of the institutional insurgency of the Ctrl-Left. Open-mindedness is decidedly ideological -- open to one side, and hermetically-sealed from all other points of view. Precious, coddled, deranged snowflakes... regardless of age.

Sam L. said...

Forget it, Jake; it's NYTtown.

IAC, good to see you're using Ctrl-Left.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

I owe it all to you, Sam L. Love it!

James said...

IAC, Sam,
What's Ctrl-left?

Ares Olympus said...

I try to see Scott Adam's perspective, that Trump is just a great performer, and people want to be entertained. At least there's some sense there.

Like I heard recently Trump's mentor, fake-news king, Alex Jones had to go to court to protect access to his children, and his defense is that his on air personality isn't his real one, and he's actually a caring sensible guy off air.

And we can recall that Jones' promotion of a conspiracy theory that a DC pizzeria was a front to a child sexslave trade, lead of course by Hillary Clinton, and leading to a would-be hero bringing his gun there to sort things out.

You'd think Trump would denounce InfoWar's participation in this "fake news", but I don't think Trump cares, being a great performer, seeing another great performer just doing what they do best.

And yet with a straight face, Trump wants to call out mainstream media as the source of "fake news", since the more MSN is demonized, the more dependent people will become to online fake news like Jones' sells for his living.

So Trump is defender of honest news, calling MSN the enemy of the people, categorically, not even naming-names, but just a vast conspiracy to keep his people ignorant, but as long as people read his tweets, they can know the truth.

I mean, who use its more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us -- it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news and criticize it strongly.

And many of these groups are part the large media corporations that have their own agenda and it's not your agenda and it's not the country's agenda, it's their own agenda. They have a professional obligation as members of the press to report honestly. But as you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn't tell the truth. Doesn't tell the truth.

I do recall back when Trump got in trouble for retweeting neonazi quotes that black people are responsible for 90% of white murders, even the now fired Bill O'Reilly tried to tell Trump that he can't just repeat tweets without checking, and Trump lamely said he also heard it in many places, and asked "Am I supposed to check every tweet?" And Bill said "Yes, you have to."

But now we know Bill was wrong, and Trump was right. People don't care about Truth. People want performers to tell them things that demonize others who they don't care about, and who ideally can be punished, and if you are a good performer, you can get 46% of a national vote based purely on repeating things you heard, said by someone else who repeated things they heard, and started by some alt-right racist trying to start a race war, or whatever.

And this mental fog where we distrust all checked sources, and instantly believe any random outrageous thing we hear on the internet is good for performers.

The secret isn't to be a truth teller, but tell people you're a truth teller. It's a great trick!

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

James, I cannot steal Sam L.'s thunder, in good conscience. He was commenting here long before I, and in much more witty, pithy ways.

Sam L., the stage is yours, sir...

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

There is Trump Derangement Syndrome, and then there is something much more real: Trump's cerebral property ownership scheme, where he purchases significant collateral interests in the brains of Leftist and liberal persons worldwide. It is a frighteningly effective strategy, with each victim's full consent! For FREE!

Ares Olympus is a perfect example. Ares' brain is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America.

What a lovely view from Ares' palatial mind, so high above the skyline, above the mere shallow minds of so many, my own included. So high! So High! Soaring like a kite, blissfully dancing in wild ecstasy above all! Behold all... the unparalleled cranial prowess of ARES OLYMPUS!!!

James said...

I hope to hear from Sam. When it comes to technology I feel alot like the monkees In "2001 Space Odyssey" when they woke up and found the obelisk. It's not that I don't ............excuse me, I need to go get a banana.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

James, I totally understand. To lift some of the suspense, you may have heard Ares and hid radical compadres talking of ominous threats from the "Alt-Right". If you look on your keyboard, there's another key... which the mighty Sam L. will explain the mystery of, in terms of its connection...

However, in the meantime, don't think any of this pales in comparison to Russian hackery, Fox News, or "fake news," because those are all the food groups that make up a fortified Leftist meal.

Nighty-night, my friend...

Walt said...

You don't have to like everything about Trump (or, for that matter, to DISlike everything about Obama) to see that the meat of this blog is right on, I applaud its author for writing so many interesting essays on a variety of subjects and on such a frequent basis.

Dennis said...


When one has Ares one has and example of TDS and a Google scholar to pontificate to us lowly peons. I loved The juxtaposition (?) of Sam L's usage.