... is a testament to perseverance and ingenuity--to the Power of Gall--but it’s also an indictment of the wet-cardboard strength of the rest of the Republican field. Here they have a clean shot to take the White House...and they troop out this Gong Show* cast of contestants, most of whom couldn’t find their ass on a map and speak entirely in re-masticated phrases and sentiments tossed into their mouths by Rush Limbaugh, Grover Norquist, and Frank Luntz for years. The Republican field reflects the weak-minded, strong-willed prejudices of its base, hooked up to Fox News as if it were an IV drip. So when rightwing bloggers complain about the candidates, they need someone to skywrite for them, “If they suck, it’s because YOU suck..."
Strong words.
Strong, old words.
Because this is the inimitable James Wolcott writing about candidate Newt Gingrich's resurgent popularity back in December, 2011.
See, the toxic, despicable brokenness of the GOP has been such a plainly obvious, water-is-wet fact on the Left for so long that it isn't even the real story anymore.
The real story is how the Beltway media has gotten away with lying about it straight to our faces for so very, very long.
This was not a speech that was intended for me. And although one side-effect of President Business's Mitt Romney's speech will be to give involuntary ruling-class sympathy boners to people like David Brooks, it was not intended for Mitten's fellow entitled oligarchs either. Presumably it was intended to sweet-talk the hoi polloi into once again sacrificing their dreams of greatness for another party-approved corpse.
Now, at long last, the big guns are being brought to bear. Now, at long last, some major Republicans like Mitt Romney are speaking up to lay waste to Donald Trump...
Yes, thank Heaven and Calvin Coolidge that the ma簾tre d' has finally shown up to toss the vulgarians out of Mr. Brooks' Very Nice Restaurant.
But the vulgarians ain't leaving, because the show ain't over yet. Hell, we're barely through the second half of our national Slobs Versus The Snobs marathon, which Mr. David Brooks of the New York Times seems to be blissfully unaware is one of America's most popular and enduring genre of American film, radio and teevee entertainment dating back at least to Charlie Chaplin (a good case could also be made that it dates back to The Odyssey, and that at least half of the New Testament is about scruffy outsiders finally getting over on rich, officious hypocrites.)
Of course to pull it off, every Slob Versus Snob comedy needs a wealthy, clueless stiff who can hit their marks and deliver long, windy, condescending orations about how lesser, scruffier mortals need to shape up and do as they are instructed by their economic and moral superiors. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago after Jeb(!) ran sobbing back to his Kennebunkport tree-fort never to be seen again:
The Margaret Dumont of the 2016 Republican campaign has left the set of A Day at the Races, never to return...
So now we'll get to see what Bizarro Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo and Zeppo Marx will make of of their game of anarchy in a sanitarium and at a horse race now that their favorite foil is gone for good.
And because the Comedy Gods are kind, here comes Mittens von Romney right on cue -- the most hilariously wrong delivery system for just the sort of Dean Wormer-style "You're finished at Faber!" upbraiding that no truly great Slob Versus Snob farce can do without.
And truckling along just behind Mittens, carrying his extra spats and emergency backup monocle, we find David Brooks, calling out Trump as a con man (which he most certainly is) in order to defend the last, pitiful remnants of Mr. Brooks' own corrupt snake-oil franchise.
Because for more than 20 years, Liberals have been crying in the wilderness, warning the nation that beneath its thin veneer of David Brooksian respectability, the Republican party was little more than a mob of bigots, con men, theocrats and oligarchs all united by their desire to strip the United States federal government down to the floor boards and get rich selling off the parts.
And for more than 20 years respectable Conservative frauds like David Brooks have been making a fabulous living by repackaging and reselling the same comforting lies about worry-wart hippies, Noble Whigs and Both Sides Being Equally Wrong All The Time About Everything over and over and over again to the same gullible chumps and political cowards.
And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that Meddling Trump!
... In fact, you have to wonder why, exactly, the Republican establishment is really so horrified by Mr. Trump. Yes, he’s a con man, but they all are. So why is this con job different from any other?
The answer, I’d suggest, is that the establishment’s problem with Mr. Trump isn’t the con he brings; it’s the cons he disrupts...
As I see it, then, we should actually welcome Mr. Trump’s ascent. Yes, he’s a con man, but he is also effectively acting as a whistle-blower on other people’s cons. That is, believe it or not, a step forward in these weird, troubled times.
Bingo!
Because after years of stalemate the stars have aligned to give us these three leading Republican contenders for President of the United States the bigot con man, the unhinged theocrat and the fingerpuppet of the oligarchs.
And in the background, watching as the rising tide of Republican crazy threatens to swamp his Whig pleasure barge, we find David Brooks, practically ordering his readers to ignore what they can plainly see with their own eyes and begging Rich Daddy Mittens to use his magic plutocrat powers to make everything go back to the way it was before Donald Trump's Pandemonium Carnival rolled into town and crushed everyone else's patent medicine wagon.
Donald Trump: Mittens was a loser. Failure. Loser. His daddy in Mormon Heaven changed his name. We're getting our ass kicked on trade. We're losing money to everybody. Our entire hair shirt industry was shipped to Freedonia.
Chris Wallace: Bigots. Whaddya think?
Donald Trump: The Klan are losers and I disavow them. Like Mittens.
Bret Baier: Marco, you said you don't go personal. Now that's all you do. Whazzup?
Marco Rubio: Rules don't apply to me.
Donald Trump: Marco is not that much of a lightweight. Also I have a huge dick, Huge.
Ted Cruz: For the folks at home, this is about struggle. It's also cheaper than NASCAR with twice the explosions. Working stiffs who Barack Obama have destroyed. It's about Johnny Truck Drive and Jenny the Hooker.
Donald Trump: I'm beating Ted's ass red up and down this monkey house, so where does this confidence come from.
Marco Rubio: But many people have voted against you. Like Ted said...
Donald Trump: My poll numbers are awesome and lil' Marco can't do basic math. Sad really. And I beat Hillary Clinton already and I haven't even started on her yet.
Bret Baier: John Kasich, you seem to be a loser. I Mitt Romney he high?
John Kasich: Many people who have no intention of every voting for me say nice things about me. You all wrote me off, but I'm still here! You all stole my lunch money and shoved me into my locker, but I'm still here! It's Kasich Time now bitches!
Chris Wallace: The economy is a thing that happens to other people. Is Trump really a con man and how many jobs have you created Marco?
Marco Rubio: Government does not create jobs. I have a plan. It's on a website. So I have a web developer. So that's one job.
Donald Trump: This little guy is such a liar. I make big money. China cheating and currency devaluation makes it impossible for me to make a buck selling my crappy ties in this country.
Donald Trump: Little Marco.
Marco Rubio: Liar!
Donald Trump: Little Marco.
Marco Rubio: Liar!
Donald Trump: Little Marco.
Marco Rubio: Liar!
Donald Trump: I will cut waste fraud and abuse.
Chris Wallace: But your math is ridiculous.
Donald Trump: Since when did Republicans start giving a shit about math.
Chris Wallace: Ted Cruz, after you fire everyone in the IRS, who is going to collect the taxes?
Ted Cruz: I have a postcard. It will be simple. We can sack everybody in Obama's IRS Gestapo! Donald Trump uses angry rhetoric. Support Ted Cruz and Hail Hydra!
Donald Trump: I spread a lot of money around. So what. I was a businessman. It's how business gets done.
John Kasich: I worked in gummint but don't hold it against me. I personally balanced the federal budget.
Megyn Kelly: Immigration! Your pal Jeff Sessions just endorsed Donald Trump.
Ted Cruz: Donald Trump supported Jimmy Carter. And he gave money to the gang of eight! And Killary.
Donald Trump: Again, I'm a businessman. It's how business gets done. What about this do you not understand.
Ted Cruz: I'm apparently one of the debate moderators now. Which is awesome.
Megyn Kelly: There is a secret tape of you at the New York Times. Are you a lying liar son-of-a-whore.
Donald Trump: Off-the-record conversations are sacred. Also in business you negotiate. Duh.
Megyn Kelly: Marco Rubio, you said a buncha shit and now you're taking it back. Liar?
Marco Rubio: Meep.
Donald Trump: I have too god damn much respect for journalism and for you, angry talking vagina lady, to open up about my own off-the-record conversations.
Part II: The Lirpa Fight Continues
Donald Trump: I'm changing my mind about visas for highly-trained people.
Megyn Kelly: But...but...but...
Donald Trump: Suck it.
Ted Cruz: I have reversed myself slightly because something something comprehensive investigation something something Donald Trump. Why does Donald Trump hate Marco's daddy and my mommy. Release the tape!
Donald Trump: I've had tens of thousands of people who worked for me. My hotel in Florida has a very short season with a part time job.
Marco Rubio: Donald won't hire Americans!
Ted Cruz: Apparently I'm a debate moderator and Joe McCarthy. Made Donald prove he didn't say shit I'm making up by Releasing The Tape!
Bret Baier: Whither ISIS.
John Kasich: Hillary Clinton just up and decided one day to get rid of Qaddafi.
Bret Baier: A buncha military brass said they would not obey your illegal orders. What about that.
driftglass: Jesus, when did Republicans get so delicate about war crimes.
Donald Trump: If I say "Do it", they'll "Do it," When the families are in
Ted Cruz: Yelling and cursing at people don't make you a tough guy. Just like. Ronald. Fucking. Reagan. Who single-handedly won the Cold War. I will kill scary brown people harder than anybody. Scary brown people and Edward Snowden.
Bret Baier: Who are the best people?
Donald Trump: Here are some names I memorized. If Russia were afraid of us, they would have sent Snowden back.
John Kasich: Me and Jeb Bush are both awesome on foreign policy! Right Jeb? Jeb? Hey Ben, have you seen Jeb? Ben? Ben?
Part III:
Megyn Kelly: Donald Trump, you're such a liar. Let's take a look at the tape.
Donald Trump: Can I respond to that?
Megyn Kelly: Suck it. You're in Kelly Town now.
Megyn Kelly stacked up three different questions on three different issues to make Trump out a liar. Yeah, Trump is a liar, but this absolutely dirty pool.
Megyn Kelly: Yes, but some people say you're a stinky liar.
Oh great. "Some people say."
Donald Trump: I'm flexible. So sue me.
John Kasich: This is me, reading my resume. Wow. Band camp. That was fun. You know, back during my 1 millionth town hall meeting we all agreed that people outside of government are insane.
Marco Rubio: Yes, Megyn, Donald Trump is a big, stinky liar,
Donald Trump: We have a 98% approval rating and an "A" from the Better Business Bureau.
This coordinated Fox News Rubio, Kelly,Cruz tag-teaming of Trump is very impressive.
Donald Trump: Marco has defrauded the people of Florida. Defrauded. Also how is it I;m kicking everyone's ass?
Ted Cruz: I will beat Hillary Clinton.
John Kasich: People are yearning. Yearn-ing. But mommy and daddy are tearing us apart!
Part IV:
Bret Baier: Where have you been on Flint?
Marco Rubio: Both sides! Both sides! Both sides! How dare the Democrats politicize a Republican governor poisoning his citizens.
Megyn Kelly: The Detroit schools suck. Why not fix them?
John Kasich: Those blacks and Democrats, amirite! Block grants will save us! People should fix stuff.
Chris Wallace: Detroit lost 90% of its manufacturing jobs.
Ted Cruz: Failed. Liberal. Left Wing. Policies. Are to blame for everything.
Chris Wallace: Sure, OK, but how will you fix this.
Ted Cruz: Repeal Obamacare. Tax cuts. Deregulation. You know, all the usual shit that never works but the rubes always fall for.
Bret Baier: Here come the gays!
John Kasich: I'm a do-bee. Not a don't-bee. Don't sue people you disagree with. Where has common sense gone? Just calm down, and if you don't want to cater a bondage party, that's fine with me.
Ted Cruz: Marriage should be left to the states, so fuck Loving and double-fuck Virginia. Also Jesus loves me more than a gay baker loves his dildo cake mold.
Bret Baier: Should people be able to own rocket launchers and nuclear weapons?
Marco Rubio: Fuck yeah. All laws are pointless which is why I am 100% pro Purge.
Donald Trump: Machine guns? Fuck yeah.
Ted Cruz: We are one vote away from being shipped off to commie Gulags. One. Vote. Also ignore all that mean stuff I said ten seconds ago about the horrors of "Five Unelected Judges" deciding things.
Part V:
Donald Trump: When I tell people to do things, they will do them.
Marco Rubio: Why won't we lead anymore?
Ted Cruz: We need nukes...in space! What about Star Wars, huh? Why don't we have a Death Star? I'll tell you why. Jimmy Carter.
Chris Wallace: Will you please take a swing at Donald Trump! My boss is watching.
John Kasich: No,
Chris Wallace: Puh-leeeease!
John Kasich: No, and stop asking. Now let me explain how NATO works because you meathead seem to have never heard of international treaties.
Finale: And now, bring on the Ahn'woon!
Bret Baier: Will you support the Republican nominee?
Marco Rubio: Yes. And you know why? Benghaaaaaazi!
Ted Cruz: Sure. Because I am so fucking honest.
John Kasich: Sure. But I'm gonna win.
Chris Wallace: Donald Trump, will you support the nominee even if it's not you?
Donald Trump: I'm gonna crush these children anyway, so meh, why not?
driftglass: I strongly urge the GOP establishment and Fox News to continue openly colluding against Donald Trump and complaining that the people who vote for him are clueless idiots who can be conned into anything.
Trump took simultaneous, coordinated fire from three sides all night (and Mittens von Romney all morning) and didn't buckle. This has to scare the bejeezus out of the Republican establishment.
Meanwhile, as the GOP commits suicide right before our eyes, it is instructive to watch how Republicans inside and outside of the establishment deal with their very own no-win scenario:
Saavik: Permission to speak freely, sir?
Kirk: Granted.
Saavik: I do not believe this was a fair test of my command abilities.
Kirk: And why not?
Saavik: Because... there was no way to win.
Kirk: A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face. Has that never occurred to you?
Saavik: No, sir, it has not.
Kirk: And how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?
Saavik: As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occurred to me.
Kirk: Well, now you have something new to think about. Carry on.
Today, failed 2012 presidential candidate R-Money handed Donald Trump enough picnic baskets full of blinkered, plutocrat cluelessness to feed him, Yogi and Boo Boo though the rest of the spring.
Yeah, I wrote about this same thing one post down, but I had one more left in the chamber and it seemed rude to jam it sideways into my previous post.
Count de Monet: It is said that the people are revolting.
King Louis XVI: You said it! They stink on ice!
At this particular moment in history, the two most nakedly obvious facts in the political universe are:
The anger and willful, reality-defying ignorance of the GOP base -- whose factory default setting was already "bone-stick-stone stupid and berserk with rage" -- is completely off the charts, and,
Nothing would delight the GOP base more than the chance to burn the Republican establishment to the ground and piss on its ashes.
And a considerable fraction of their nuke-'em-all fury is the belief that they were forced by their party establishment and against their better judgement to fall in line behind the a guy named Mittens Von Plutocrat Mitt Romney who ran a spectacularly shitty campaign and lost the White House to the hated Kenyan Usurper:
So, as if to demonstrate unequivocally to all future generations just how completely the Party of Reagan has been taken over run buy high-handed, out-of-touch Czarists, the Republican establishment hauled none other than Animatronic Thurston Howell IV Mitt Romney out of cold storage, recharged his batteries and turned him loose to declaim the Club for Growth's Articles of Faith to the great unwashed and order the peons to shut the fuck up and get back in line.
And not since the Republican establishment decided it would be a terrific idea to let a doddering, incoherent Clint Eastwood read excerpts from The Turner Diaries at an empty chair in front of 50 million people has there been a more perfectly hilarious mismatch between a moment, a man and a message.
But that's just the opinion of one of America's millions of dirty hippies that no one on the teevee is going to listen to anyway. This was not a speech that was intended for me. And although one side-effect of President Business's Mitt Romney's speech will be to give involuntary ruling-class sympathy boners to people like David Brooks, it was not intended for Mitten's fellow entitled oligarchs either. Presumably it was intended to sweet-talk the hoi polloi into once again sacrificing their dreams of greatness for another party-approved corpse.
So on those terms, how did Mittens so.?
Well, I know that the Articles of Faith demand that every sermon begin with an homage to St. Reagan, but setting the tone for a speech about returning to the fold with "A Time Of Choosing" was perfectly nuts. First, because it was Reagan's 1964 speech throwing his support to an outsider-crackpot in defiance of the wishes of the party establishment. And second, this was a speech in which Reagan promises to end Social Security and calls Medicare a dirty, commie plot. But since, based on the contents of my in-box, wingnuts have no idea how to use The Google, Mittens will probably get away with it,
Rest easy, citizens. America is great because we have "technology engines" and "innovation dynamic" and many other buzzwords.
"Warren Buffet said..." Awesome. Nothing says man-of-the-people like one billionaire quoting another billionaire.
Putin. Mullahs. And North Fucking Korea. Are you scared yet?
"Improvident choices" are bad. Really? Wow. Such language. So salty. I mean, since you're talking to working folk, why not let your hair all the way down and lecture them about "prodigal choices"? Or imprudent and unthrifty choices? Or even -- gasp! -- disregardful and inefficacious choices?
Trump would sink us into a recession (subtext: Trump is not President Business. I am President Business) -- says the guy who said he would let the United States auto industry burn rather than bail it out at at time when we were hemorrhaging 400,000 jobs a month.
Trump inherited everything -- says George Romney's pampered and privileged son.
So get out there and vote for Cruz. Or Rubio. Or Kasich. Because I forgot, y'know, to have a plan before I got up to speak.
Hehehe.
Please proceed,Governor...
And the Clintons? Hey, don't get me started. Hillary is a monster, amirite?
(Obligatory applause)
Don't you realize that the Jake Tapper/KKK video will play on a million times!
Yes, just like the "Romney sucking up to Trump for an endorsement" video will now play two million times. Honestly, how is it that Mitt "47%" Romney still does not understand how everyday recording and replay technology works?
Finally, Mitt assured the little folk that he understands their anger. Hell, his car elevator is eleven months behind schedule. Fucking dry-wall guys. Anyway, great presidents have never exploit that kind of anger, but harness and redirect it towards high purposes. Like that time Abraham Lincoln calmly talked the Confederacy into giving up slavery and returning to the Union...
And so, in summary, Mitt Romney would like to remind voters in states that have still have not held their primaries of the esteem in which they are held by the Brain Caste of the Republican Party:
But what is very clear is that Willard sees the perfect Romney scenario unfolding before him. If the party declines to nominate He, Trump, then maybe it will hand the nomination to Willard Romney—the nomination that always should have been his. No more scrabbling around with Those People in Iowa or New Hampshire. That is the way it should have been done in 2012. If you have enough money, opportunism becomes birthright. And so, on Thursday, we saw two remarkable political events. Willard Romney laid out in detail why Donald Trump never should be president of the United States and, in doing so, demonstrated why he never will be. If the best you can do for a nominee is He, Trump, and the best you can do for an opposition is Willard Romney, then maybe it's time to re-think this whole Republican party thing.
Trump: Ryan can get along with me or 'pay a big price'
Donald Trump warned Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that he'll have to pay the price if he doesn't get along with a President Trump after Ryan repudiated him for failing to disavow backing from David Duke.
"I'm going to get along great with Congress. Paul Ryan, I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm going to get along great with him," the front-runner for his party's nomination said during his Super Tuesday speech. "And if I don't, he's going to have to pay a big price."
...
Trump: How many people you got here, Speaker?
Ryan: The House has 435 members. Then there are the chiefs of staff, deputy chiefs of staff, legislative directors, assistants, communications directors, office managers, the tech guys, district coordinators and so forth. Say...5,800 people if everyone was at their desks.
Trump: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.
"Mercy for the lost. Vengeance for the plunderers."
They should add:
"Welcome to Rubio Country!"
Because other than a plurality of Michele Bachmann zombies who gathered in Minnesota church basements and high school auditoria to hand him a tiny, irrelevant win last night, Young Macro Marco, found cold streets and closed doors almost everyplace outside of the suburbs of northern Virginia:
Marco Rubio Falls to Donald Trump in Virginia, Ruining His Super Tuesday
Dashing Marco Rubio's hopes of pulling off a surprise victory over Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, primary voters in Virginia narrowly backed the billionaire businessman over the Florida senator.
The Associated Press called the state for Trump at 8:53 p.m. Eastern.
Though pre-primary polling had given Trump a wide lead over the GOP field, early exit polling showed Rubio within striking distance in the Old Dominion — raising the prospect that the establishment-oriented Republican would upset Trump to score his first-ever victory in a nominating contest.
But while Rubio trounced Trump in the affluent, highly educated Northern Virginia suburbs, it wasn't enough to overcome Trump's strength in more conservative and rural areas...
So why this particular anomaly? This glitch in these particular suburbs? Because as Mr. Chris Hayes shrewdly noted last night, it's where the fucking lobbyists live! It's the motherland of Washington's professional consultants, campaign advisers, defense contractors, media goofs, think tankers and a dozen other species of paid fixers. It's the gated nation-state of that "political establishment" you may have read about in the funny papers -- the people who have bet it all on Young Macro's Marco and have been desperately patching and upgrading his defective software from Day One.
And as long as Young Macro Marco can continue to live rent-free on top of their mountain of fear sweat and money he can go on right on getting his ass handed to him and calling it a Big Win, regardless of the fact that his chances of winning the nomination is becoming statistically indistinguishable from Ben Carson's. Which is why I found it especially delicious that, buoyed by the dough and desperation of a dying establishment, Young Macro Marco would deliver a "victory" speech so similar in megalomaniac denialism to Jefferson Davis' final address "To the People of the Confederate States of America" that on a cloudy day, if you squint, you can hardly tell the difference.
...We have now entered upon a new phase of a struggle the memory of which is to endure for all ages and to shed an increasing luster upon our country.
Relieved from the necessity of guarding cities and particular points, important but not vital to our defense, with an army free to move from point to point and strike in detail the detachments and garrisons of the enemy, operating on the interior of our own country, where supplies are more accessible, and where the foe will be far removed from his own base and cut off from all succor in case of reverse, nothing is now needed to render our triumph certain but the exhibition of our own unquenchable resolve. Let us but will it, and we are free; and who, in the light of the past, dare doubt your purpose in the future?
A few apologies: @MartinBashir@Toure@finneyk I am sorry for and ashamed of my earlier silence. I gave into to culture of fear at #msnbc
— Melissa Harris-Perry (@MHarrisPerry) March 1, 2016
Having said some funny-but-off-color things about some of its iconic cartoon characters within earshot of the wrong people, Mr. Harlan Ellison was famously sacked after working for the Disney corporation for "a total of four hours, including lunch." Being a writer, he wrote about that experience along with a few others in his essay "The 3 Most Important Things in Life."
He left Disney having learned this:
Big business is humorless. And . . . At Disney, nobody fucks with The Mouse.
Which, in my experience, are two of life's most important lessons.
