American Insanity by Publius Tacitus

I understand why some people dislike Donald Trump. He certainly says intemperate things, appears to have no deeply intelligent governing philosophy and is at the extreme end of the narcissist spectrum. That said, the media/punditry meltdown over his alleged "ambiguous" "inadequate" statement in the immediate aftermath of a crazed rightwing extremist 20 year old running over a bunch of lefty radicals on Saturday in Charlottesville has taken this country beyond satire. We are on the brink of something very dangerous.

Here was Trump's initial statement:

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides — on many sides,”

When I heard this on Saturday I was still waiting for news about who was responsible for the so-called attack. I thought this was a very reasonable, responsible comment from Trump. Unlike Barack Obama, who frequently jumped to incorrect conclusions (condemning police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for instance), Trump was very clear about condemning hatred, bigotry and violence.

Then ensuing firestorm of faux outraged, especially from despicable pols like Mitt Romney, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, forced me to go back and listen again to what Trump said. Trump was (and is) being accused of embracing the KKK and neo-Nazis. What the hell?

Various other Republican senators also criticized Trump, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), second ranking Senate Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

I have one phrase fro these Republican hypocrites--Go Have Sexual Congress with yourself. I challenge anyone to provide me with a statement, written or verbal, where Donald Trump embraces racism, anti-semitism or radical right ideology. Just one damn quote. I dare you.

We can point to several failure on the part of Trump's communications team over the last eight months, but I can empathize with their confusion over the claims that Trump was going soft on extremism. On Monday Trump made and even stronger statement:

"Racism is evil," the president said, "and anyone who causes violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans." 

Still not good enough for those bent on destroying Donald Trump. When I hear so-called political and business leaders describe this as "an ambiguous" statement I then realize that this is not a fair game. This is political propaganda at its worst. But it ain't the President who is doing the propaganda. The media and political and business elite have banded together to push a lie.

But that is not all. Creeping out of the sewers are the radical ideologues keen on eradicating any vestige of American history. These are rebels keen on reinventing the past. The calls to erase all statues associated with anyone who fought for the Confederacy or was a slave owner has gone beyond the absurd. We now are confronting a rabble possessed of a mindset akin to the blood lust of the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia and the fanaticism of ISIS jihadis, who destroyed ancient historical monuments because they claimed those pieces of stone were idols. These are radicals convinced in their truth and their vision who are willing to do whatever it takes to promote their twisted vision of perfection.

These crazies, I believe, are overplaying their hand. Enough Americans understand and grasp how bizarre and unfair their rantings are and will in turn start pushing back. There is a danger here, however. The Americans being labeled as racists are more likely to own guns than those lefty cretins who arrogantly insist that Trump supporters are in-bred morons. That is a recipe for real conflict and is the kind of tension that triggered the Civil War of 1860.

Important to remember, however, that the crazed kid mowing down lefties on Saturday was not an organized effort. Just compare the lethality achieved today in Barcelona, Spain by a committed jihadi. He left at least 13 dead and more than a 100 wounded. The right wing nut in Charlottesville only killed one and his effort was not part of an organized plan to wreak mayhem.

There may be a silver lining in all of this for Donald Trump. He now will have no illusion about who his enemies are. They have jumped out of the closet and revealed themselves. This information in the hands of a Machiavellian ruler would be potent. Remains to be seen if Donald Trump actually knows how to play such a game or is just a pretender.

Comments

[Laura Wilson]

No one is more effective at destroying Trump's Presidency than Trump himself. Unforced errors abound.

[Cortes]

On a guess I had a look at popular Teeshirts marketed by the Smithsonian:

http://www.cafepress.com/smithsonian/7586713

When the statuary in public spaces are cleansed from view, no doubt campaigners will arrange for the removal of Classical artefacts from museums and art galleries together with offensive teeshirts?

[Publius Tacitus]

Laura, Your comment really adds nothing to the discussion. More like this and I will delete. Being banal and trite is not something you should continue to aspire to achieve.

In this instance Trump did nothing wrong and only spoke the truth. When telling the truth becomes a liability we are in serious trouble.

[John Minnerath]

PT has nailed this exactly, the anti Trump faction is totally out of control.

[Gene O]

PT -

Laura has a point. The president should avoid the press and keep his tweets focused on re-energizing the industrial base of this country.

Why does he keep feeding the media/punditry?

[Dr.Puck]

Trump on Tuesday: You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group, excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park, from Robert E. Lee to another name. is the statement that got POTUS into trouble. You also have lots and lots of accretion of context going back to his campaign, some of his tweets, and to the stamp of Bannon

I know of no call by anybody to remove all statues of the slaveholders. Please edify.

Is Trump a racist? Most have an opinion. I will say that Trump's birtherism would be very hard to interpret as being something other than racism--unless there ever was rationally supportable doubt about where Obama was born. I have been well aware of Trump's biography since the late eighties, yet it was the birtherism that certified what to me has long been his obvious racism.

PT, we would, here, have to agree to disagree.

"at the extreme end of the narcissist spectrum" is charitable. He seems to me to have a Cluster B personality disorder with a focal malignant narcissism, with clinically significant antisocial, sociopathic, and paranoid elements.

[MRW]

I agree with you, Publius Tacitus. And I especially appreciate your tone.

[doug]

The media, and political elite, pile on is precisely what I expect. The chattering political classes have converged on the belief that Trump is not only incompetent, but dangerous. And his few allies are increasingly uncertain of their future.

The thrust appears to be to undercut components of his base while ratcheting up indignation. WaPo and the Times dribble out salacious "news" stories that, often as not, are substance free but written in a hyperbolic style that assumes a kind of intrinsic Trump guilt and leaps from there. They know better. No doubt they rationalize this as meeting kind with kind. Trump is the epitome of the salesman that believes he can sell anything to anyone with the right pitch. Reporters that might normally be restrained by actual facts and a degree of fairness simply are no longer so constrained.

It reminds me of the coverage in the run up to Nixon's resignation. Except this one's on steroids.

I believe the DC folks fully expect Trump to be removed and now are focusing on the strategy that accrues the maximum benefit to their party. Unfortunately, things strongly favor the Democrats.

Democrats want to drag this out as long as possible and enjoy the chipping away at segments of the Republican base while the Republicans want to clear the path before the midterms. However, the Republican officials, much as many or most can't stand Trump, have to weave a thin line because taking action against Trump would kill them in the primaries and possibly in the general.

So the Democrats are licking their chops and hoping this can continue until the midterms with the expectation they will then control Congress. After that they will happily dispatch Trump with some discovered impeachable crime. At that point it won't be hard to get enough Republicans to go along.

The Republicans can only hope to convince Trump to resign well prior to the midterms. They hope they won't have to go on record with a vote and get nailed in the elections.

In the meantime the country is going to go through hell.

[LeeG]

Goodness what histrionics. Trump is undoing what leadership the presidency is capable of. He's opening up a vacuum for other countries and private entities to fill. His lack of integrity in thought and speech doesn't hide his basic values and motivations which are all about what's good for Trump. He has no sense of community or the common good.

The "media" arent playing a game that leaves poor Donald at an unfair disadvantage. Poor Donald is in a job he is totally unfit for. It's no game.

[Lars]

What upset a lot of people was Trump's "both sides" argument. Many people, including me, do not think anything equates Nazis or Klansmen when it comes to what they seek to do to the nation. They came to Charlottesville to do harm. They came armed and were looking for a fight.

[MRW]

And, oh, how we clutched our cheeks when the Taliban and ISIS destroyed priceless and ancient public statuary and museum items, crying why oh why, how could they be so savage and uncivilized. How could they wipe out thousands of years of ancient artifacts detailing our history?

For all the talk at the time of the savagery and crassness (”He writes romance novels, oh gawd.") of Saddam Hussein, he understood waves of mass hysteria (which is what we’re experiencing now). By the fall of 2002, Hussein had removed the most priceless items from his country’s museums to the basement of the British Museum and had wisely asked the British Museum to replace them with copies that no one knew about at the time. I read a detailed account of it in a British paper a couple of years later. It is my understanding, unsubstantiated, that these priceless artifacts still remain in London, protected.

[Kerim]

From abroad it really looks as if things have gone off the rails in the US. It just keeps getting more and more surreal!
One wonders how much more delirium before the abyss

[turcopolier]

kerim

Yes, we are staring into the depths and the abyss has begun to take note of us. BTW the US was put back together after the CW/WBS on the basis of an understanding that the Confederates would accept the situation and the North would not interfere with their cultural rituals. There was a general amnesty for former Confederates in the 1870s and a number of them became US senators, Consuls General overseas and state governors. That period of attempted reconciliation has now ended. Who can imagine the "Gone With the Win" Pulitzer and Best Picture of the Year now? pl

[Tyler]

Some of you still don't get it.

Trump isnt our last chance. Its your last chance. Yet still so many of you oxygen thieves still insist RUSSIA is the reason Hillary lost.

You guys are going to agitate your way into a CW because you can't accept you lost. Many of you agitating are fat, slow, and stupid, with no idea how to survive.

[LeeG]

Because he needs the attention. His tweets have the same leverage on economic trends that moving flag banners have on network news. It's something to keep your attention focused in one place.

[Walker]

US was put back together after the CW/WBS on the basis of an understanding that the Confederates would accept the situation and the North would not interfere with their cultural rituals.

Colonel, what "cultural rituals" are you referring to?

[Murali]

I totally disagree with you LeeG. From day one after the unexpected (for the punditry class and their media coherts) elections results everybody was piling on Trump. The stories abound about his Russia Collusion (after one year of investigation not even a smoke signal)or his narcistic attitudes (mind you LeeG Trump always addresses people as We where as Humble Obama always addresses in the first person). I get this feeling the Swamp doesn't want a President who will at least try to do something for the American people rather than promiss (Remember Hope and Change ala Obama, he got the Change quite a bit of it for him and his Banker Pals from what is left of the treasury and we the people are left with Hope). I hope he will succeed but I learnt that we will always be left with Hope!

[Murali]

Hi Lars do you know that the Alt-Left was also armed and to top it all didn't even bother to get a permit. By the way I am no supporter of Nazis and I really believe they don't have a chance to power in a diverse country like ours.

[AEL]

According to Shep Smith, Fox News was unable to find the very fine people demonstrating with the white supremacists in Charlottesville.

[Bobo]

What Charlottsville could of been.......as the Wackos marched down the streets heading to their rally in full armament the concerned citizens could have turned their backs to the Wackos as a mechanism of shunning the invader as they whimpered in to their rally and eventually would of have left. That did not occur. What did was a blot on our history that should not be allowed to continue but unfortunately it will thus I suggest to the next city that is visited Shun the invaders......the Wackos (KKK, Neo Nazi's and their ilk) but also Shun the Antifa, BLM and others who deny others their public rights. To me the Wackos are understandable as they have been around awhile with their Hatred and Vileness but the others who manifest with different names like chameleons are our biggest concern for the future. Hopefully our law enforcement has taken notice and puts a stop to this quickly. Also hopefully our LEO's find newer tactics than abandonment of the their citizens.
For the record the individual with the car belongs in jail for life.
Today I sadly see a bust of Abraham Lincoln has been desecrated in the great State of Illinois. Whatever happens I hope that State gets some funds to educate their people properly.
As to Donald you have a long road to hoe, keep at it with your chin up high, you were right but get some diplomatic skills quickly.
All the Best

[The Porkchop Express]

This is part of the larger problem. When a population is looking for moral leadership from a politician--ANY politician--that polity is in trouble.

[AK]

Dr. Puck,

The calls have begun:

https://www.rt.com/usa/399834-chicago-pastor-president-parks-renamed/

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kristine-marsh/2017/08/17/cnns-rye-calls-washington-jefferson-monuments-come-down

https://twitter.com/ajamubaraka/status/897890816366137344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fusa%2F399834-chicago-pastor-president-parks-renamed%2F

That last tweet is from the Green Party candidate for VP. Those are just a few examples from a quick google search before I get back to work. Those of you with more disposable time will surely find more.

[Eric Newhill]

Great piece, PT. Please keep 'em coming.

I think your tone is exactly appropriate.

[Richard]

The same can be said about the Antifa: "They came to Charottesville to do harm. They came armed and were looking for a fight."

That is the important point that Trump made.

[BillWade]

Someone on the last thread said in a very elegant way that what binds us Americans together is one thing, economic opportunity for all. I believe that was Trump's election platform, with the "for all" emphasized frequently.

I believe Charlottsville was a staged catalyst to bring about Trump's downfall, there seems now to be a "full-court press" against him. If he survives this latest attempt, I'll be both surprised and in awe of his political skills. If he doesn't survive I'll (and many others, no matter the "legality of the process") will consider it a coup d'etat and start to think of a different way to prepare for the future.