US Politics March 2019: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled”

exactly

he may as well have been computer generated

For the rhetoric course I teach, my students have to analyze five pieces of oratory to see how they observe Ciceronian canons of rhetoric, among which are Reagan's farewell speech from the Oval Office, Trump's inauguration, and Michelle Obama's DNC speech. I played them in class.

I felt distinct waves of discomfort during Trump's; no one wanted to discuss it much. Lots of students know Reagan by name but had never seen him; several praised how "soothing" he sounded, how hopeful (this is the Shining City on the Hill speech). After Michelle O spoke, I felt the love in the room, a sense that Something Had Been Lost.

xp
The psychology isn't hard to understand--and I agree with frogbs--it's just depressing how knee-jerk the adulation is especially since in my example the context of student debt had already been established.

What the hell:

BREAKING: Pentagon 'Thinks' the Air Force Secretary Has Resigned https://t.co/4v70060eAt

— Katie Bo Williams (@KatieBoWill) March 8, 2019

UPDATE: Air Force officials confirm that Secretary Heather Wilson has submitted resignation and will be accepting a position as president of UT-El Paso. She informed her staff earlier today. According to one member of her staff, nobody knew about this until this morning.

— Sandra Erwin (@Sandra_I_Erwin) March 8, 2019

Bill Shine has quit, per White House. The fox executive didn’t last a year in the West Wing. More to come.

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 8, 2019

E Pluribus Unum being changed to LOL Nothing Matters

Shucks! I'd just finished Jane Mayer's story about FOX and Bill Shine yesterday!

if everyone quits is Trump our king?

whee, typical trump friday

He's apparently being routed to a campaign role, but even so.

In baseball analysis there is the concept of "replacement-level players." I'm not sure where the baseline is when the doors revolve so quickly.

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort,” Mr Trump said. “Both his lawyer, a highly respected man, and a very highly respected judge, the judge, said there was no collusion with Russia. It had nothing with collusion. There was no collusion.

He added: “It’s a collusion hoax, a collusion witch hoax. I don’t collude with Russia. The judge… made the statement that this had nothing to do collusion with Russia.”

it's weird and sorta hilarious how Dubya has been pretty much completely written out of right-wing orthodoxy in the past couple of years. meanwhile Reagan is still lionized. and it seems like the distinction is mostly just a matter of who Trump decided to bash.

This is ahistorical. George W Bush had already been more or less disappeared from the Republican hero chart by 2012. He didn't even go to the GOP convention!

collusion witch hoax

without looking it up I rate the probability at about 20% that there is actually a Guided By Voices album called this

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I was going to post literally that!

Well, 'song' instead of 'album' so I guess I'm engaging in a witch hoax of my own.

Beat me to it, both of you.

The Fall: Live at the Witch Hoaxes

It just serves to underscore the extent to which his speech has devolved into an almost meaningless patchwork of words. I suppose it's only a matter of time before he starts regularly bringing his very own neologisms into the mix.

a very highly respected judge, the judge,

what a coincidence that this very highly respected judge would be named "the judge"

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/arresteddevelopment/images/1/15/3x10_Fakin%27_It_%2867%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20130323184627

"devolved"

It's true! My gf noted that Trump sounded almost like a functional human in that Calamari clip from The Apprentice that was floating around last week. He's always been a moron, and especially so since at least the time when he started entertaining political notions, but I think it's safe to say at this point that he's firmly in the 'doddering' phase of his rapid mental decline.

I see that, but must insist on the reams of Sopan Deb transcripts during the 2016 race which gave form to the advanced written Trump impression. The decline over the last three years isn't quite as meteoric as all that.

No, I agree, it's isn't meteoric but it is progressive, like the degradation of elastin which with each passing day brings his wizened sac into measurably nearer proximity to the toilet water's surface.

nobody striking imagery that

plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is

I still think "Very Rude Elevator Screamers" would make an excellent band name but the downside is it would always remind people of Donald Trump

lol

This is one of the most anti-semitic things I’ve ever seen. Also, this reveals so much more about you than it does me... https://t.co/IdfGuWcJZu

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) March 8, 2019

pic.twitter.com/NiWT6cclPr

— saeen (@_Saeen_) March 8, 2019

g_d bless eli

He's always been a moron, and especially so since at least the time when he started entertaining political notions

NB: this was 1987

I knew someone would go there, and it's only natural that that someone would be you, friend.

Okay, political notions that didn't include overtures to Oprah as a running mate.

oh, I thought I was agreeing with you

was this before or after the brain spiders

How is ABC Television allowed to have a show entitled "Blackish"? Can you imagine the furor of a show, "Whiteish"! Racism at highest level?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2014

His political ambitions have always been so thoroughly mixed up with simple self-promotion that even in 2016, after he had the republican nomination, he apparently viewed the election as the world's biggest infomercial on his own behalf.

2016, 2019

he literally sends out emails hawking 2020 campaign merch

(well, the royal "he")

It's just a little stunning to look back at eg that interview that leaked prior to the election where he was praising Hillary Clinton, where he doesn't seem completely incurious or like he was raised in a box and only released into the sunlight for the first time somewhere in his twilight years. Yes, again, he's been a huge blowhard dummy throughout his existence as a public figure, but the erosion in recent years is noteworthy. And not dissimilar to the pre-/post-presidency mental decay seen in GWB.

Parallel lines on a slow decline
collusion witch hoax

Another excellent Eli Valley cartoon:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0w7HNKX0AAkr00.jpg

Anyone post this amazingness?

https://twitter.com/ScottMStedman

Shit, this:

The video is just jaw dropping pic.twitter.com/xRMxo1arwf

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) March 8, 2019

that fucking family should be put in front of a firing squad

Prince, I discovered, seems to have a Trumpian relationship with the truth. He tried to suggest that a car bomb exploded at Baghdad’s Nisour Square “five minutes” before Blackwater guards shot and killed 14 innocent Iraqis on September 16, 2007. I reminded him that there was no such explosion at Nisour Square. He denied that his current company, Frontier Services Group, is planning to build a “training facility” in Xinjiang, China, where more than a million Uighur Muslims are being held in Chinese detention camps, dismissing a press release confirming the news as a mistranslation from Mandarin. I had to inform him that the press release was issued by his own company, FSG, in English.

https://theintercept.com/2019/03/08/erik-prince-trump-mehdi-hasan/

Bold Prognostication: Not gonna be the last time we hear "Maybe the transcript is wrong"

that fucking family should be put in front of a firing squad

― maura, Friday, March 8, 2019 5:46 PM (ten minutes ago)

oh jesus, don't let treeship hear you

intreeshent proposal

Guys we gotta knock this off