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Sunday, October 23, 2016

No Whammies! Stop Gloating!

Some are too quick to squash the real joy arising from partisan politics with all its compromises, impurities, miscommunications, struggles. Sure, we don't want complacency given the stakes, but why the knee-jerk denigration as "gloating" of Democrats feeling our rising winning strength? Feeling a righteous wind at your back isn't "gloating" -- and it can fuel winning coalitions and compensate inevitable setbacks. If Texas and Georgia Democrats were doing more of what gets criticized as "gloating" it might mean that they were organized and energized enough already to be winning winnable races for the diversifying, secularizing, planetizing emancipatory coalition of the REAL Real America with which President Obama won the White House twice and which grows by the day.

2 comments:

jimf said...

> [T]hey were organized enough already to be winning winnable races
> for the diversifying, secularizing, planetizing emancipatory coalition
> of the REAL Real America already.

Yeah, but Donald Trump and Magic Mike are still the REAL Real Primates
on stage. ;->

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/10/who-will-win/497561/
------------------
When Donald Meets Hillary
James Fallows
October 2016

. . .

“In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of
male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Jane Goodall,
the anthropologist, told me shortly before Trump won the GOP
nomination. “In order to impress rivals, males seeking to rise
in the dominance hierarchy perform spectacular displays:
stamping, slapping the ground, dragging branches, throwing rocks.
The more vigorous and imaginative the display, the faster the
individual is likely to rise in the hierarchy, and the longer
he is likely to maintain that position.”

In her book _My Life With the Chimpanzees_, Goodall told the story
of “Mike,” a chimp who maintained his dominance by kicking a series
of kerosene cans ahead of him as he moved down a road, creating
confusion and noise that made his rivals flee and cower. She
told me she would be thinking of Mike as she watched the upcoming
debates. . .
====


Trump can kick the kerosene cans, too.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/opinion/campaign-stops/men-need-help-is-hillary-clinton-the-answer.html
------------------
Men Need Help. Is Hillary Clinton the Answer?
By SUSAN CHIRA
OCT. 21, 2016

. . .

Joe Peterson and Al Paslow, 61 years old and friends since high school,
waited for hours the other day to attend a Trump rally in Ambridge, Pa.
[near Pittsburgh]. . .

The two friends most recently worked as independent contractors in the
oil and gas industry, earning six-figure salaries. Mr. Peterson had
a high school education; Mr. Paslow a college degree. Last year,
they were both laid off. . .

“I worked for the oil industry, which is dead because of Hillary,”
Mr. Peterson said. Now, he said, he was “considered nothing.”. . .

The friends were thrilled that Mr. Trump promised at the rally
to bring the oil and gas industry back on his very first day in
office. “Unbelievably, that was exactly what we wanted to hear,”
Mr. Paslow said. “Our hearts were uplifted.”. . .
====

Dale Carrico said...

It's funny -- but not, you know, funny ha ha -- the way Trump indulges in endless obvious projection, accusing his foes of his own frailties and predicting for them fates he fears for himself... Given the fraud cases that might multiply after after the verdict on Trump University later in November and the ongoing avalanche of sexual assault charges, which are hardly likely to be discouraged once Trump goes down in his Presidential bid and is revealed as an empty suit and not an all-powerful bully who cannot be crossed by his victims, one wonders if he is a chimp who is going to find himself behind bars before long... I wonder if the mob of white-resentment voters who howl "Lock Her Up!" at his hate rallies won't settle for seeing him locked up after he is revealed as one more liar and con artist who played on their fears to lead them to yet another humiliating culture war defeat in a diversifying secularizing America that makes them shit their pants in manly terror for whatever reason.