Here’s the original, if you want to read it.
This post isn’t a deep diatribe or anything – I just threw it together as I went along. I don’t consider Bob worth the time or effort. It’s not like he’ll ever read this in full anyway.
(Bob, on the off chance you got to this point and are still gonna read, here’s something that you might actually listen to. Because he’s liberal. I’m not, so… you can go now.)
(… Still here? … Huh. Okay. Let’s go then.)
___
“So Donald Trump gets to be President of the United States, which feels like something out of a bad parody but is in fact terrifyingly true. Set aside the awfulness of what he claims this week are his beliefs, and you’re still left with the fact that the man is utterly unqualified – a largely failed, multiple-times bankrupt real estate swindler whose main claim to fame is being a sort-of rich guy who played a richer guy on a reality TV game show.”
Reagan was a movie star. In addition, Donald Trump went bankrupt on a few occasions out of several hundred businesses and came back so strong that he was able to fund his own presidential race.
That is no small feat, Bob. The entire reason that our politicians listen to monied interests right now is that running for president isn’t hard or expensive, but actually WINNING it is incredibly expensive and difficult.
“For me, that’s the rubicon-crossing element right up front in this: That it’s the exact sort of story we used to tell to make fun of how venal and trashy our public discourse had gotten, that a hackneyed B-list celebrity could run for high office and win. ”
All thanks to your and the left’s refusal to engage with their ideological adversaries, Mr.We-Only-Need-One-Party (see images a bit further below)
“There’s no longer a lack of precedent for fringe celebrities, pop-demagogues, other reality TV people etc to swoop into the political scene and do well enough to muck things up even further”
Again, Reagan was a movie star. This is not unprecedented.
In fact, it’s actually kind of eerie how much this election emulates Reagan.
“and at this point they’re pretty mucked up.”
Yes. Yes they are. By the establishment. Which, if I know you at all, you’re about to argue we should have voted for for the sake of a “superior future” because you are a fascist.
“The whole spectacle has been making me physically sick since election night, but the fact is I’m more bothered by what inevitably comes next. Of all the problems with Trump, the most serious long-term is that his election-year persona is so cartoonishly awful that it has the effect of obscuring how base-level awful the “normal” state of the Republican Party is.”
Bob, in the weeks leading up to the election, it was revealed that the DNC deliberately sabotaged its own candidate, covered up Clinton’s numerous breaches of protocol for classified email documents, and was being funded by countries known for beating people to death for being gay. Clinton has been a corporatist shill for decades and her entire slogan was “be with me because I’m gonna be the first female president”.
Trump could be the most corrupt corporate bastard in history and he’d STILL be an angel compared to Clinton.
That’s leaving aside that we’re currently seeing riots across the country before Trump’s even put his hand on the Bible to swear the oath of office, let alone actually enacted his first policy.
“The most ridiculous things Trump promised his supporters (a walled-off Mexican border, a ban on Muslim immigrants, mass-deportations, etc) are going to be difficult to enact legally even with Congress nominally on his side, and that’s if you assume that he sincerely believes in such things and did not simply adopt whatever outlook tested best with his voters – the man is, after all, a charlatan.”
Clinton has 30+ years of lies under her belt, I’m not going to waste my time pointing them out to you. You know.
And frankly, tearing this a new asshole isn’t why I’m here, let’s get to the real meat of this shit show.
You ask a bunch of questions in this piece, but you also ask for some things to be explained to you. So, here we go.
“I don’t get how, when confronted with an unprecedented mass of evidence and testimony that tells you, essentially: “Hey, if you throw that brick, it’s a chain reaction that hurts good people who never did anything to you.” Explain that to me.”
Middle-class America is DYING, Bob. People are either becoming uber-rich or getting uber-poor. Entire towns are being wiped off the map by shitstains like you who say that their livelihoods aren’t worth anything because “they’re part of the past”.
That brick is one you threw at me from your glass house and told me to beat myself to death with.
“I don’t get how the unlikely possibility that backing out of NAFTA (not actually going to happen, by the way) might eventually lead to some kind of factory job maybe popping back up in your general area is still “worth it” when a gay person tells you “Hey, the guy you’re electing President because you think he’ll make that happen is going to create a Supreme Court that takes my marriage rights away and ruins my life.” Explain that to me.”
Because I can eat again and said gay person is delusional. Your right to gay marriage isn’t going to be taken away. It’s been established as a legal precedent and moreover, Trump has already said he’s not going to so quit with your fear-mongering bullshit.
“I don’t get how the momentary satisfaction of seeing Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver or whoever your “smug liberal who told mean jokes about my precious rural working class culture” target of choice is have to swallow the idea of four years under Trump is “worth it” when a Muslim person tells you “Hey, the guy you made President for the lulz wants to prevent the rest of my family from coming to live with me here because we’re the wrong religion.” Explain that to me.”
A) Trump’s proposed ban is on specific countries.
B)
Any other questions?
“I don’t get how the prospect of maybe (maybe!) seeing it become slightly easier to pick up this or that job because the migrant labor force growth has been stalled is still “worth it” when someone tells you “Hey, the policies you THINK are going to cause that are ACTUALLY going to be used as pretext to turn away war refugees fleeing a situation a thousand times worse than the suffering you think you’re enduring.” Explain that to me.”
“Refugees”. Right.
That’s why the people coming are mostly young working age unmarried men.
I’ve got my own problems to deal with, Bob, and your desire for more slaves isn’t going to convince me otherwise.
Yes, SLAVES. You bring people into America and have them work for basically nothing and give them almost nothing in return. Your ‘superior’ future is built on the backs of disenfranchised workers and slave labor. Fuck you.
“I don’t get how seeing this or that company (maybe!) put out one more “now hiring” sign is “worth it” when it happens because EPA regulations have been eased back and that company can now profit from poisoning the air and water that both you AND the “coastal elites” have to drink and breathe. Explain that to me.”
EPA regulations ALLOW companies to poison the water, Bob. That’s what they’re there for. Without them, we can sue. With them, they can just hold up a permit to dump their poison where they will.
“I don’t get how the prospect of your regional H.R. manager maybe (maybe!) offering a few more overtime hours because corporate is “worth it” when it comes from no longer being required to spend money offering health insurance coverage to employees suffering from chronic illness – meaning those people will get sick and possibly DIE. Explain that to me.”
Explain to me how driving prices up by 25% on average is meant to make health insurance more affordable. Then explain how this is preferable to someone maybe (maybe!) having to pay for their insurance another way.
“I don’t get how showing resistance to the spread of an art/entertainment culture that isn’t precisely your “thing” is somehow “worth it” when you are told, again and again, that it means mental and physical harm coming to the people and communities behind that culture. Explain that to me.”
Because that argument is full of shit.
And you knew that once. Remember when the Dark Knight led to a mass shooting? I believe your exact words were “I will be damned before I deny a film the right to simply exist because of what someone else is afraid might happen”.
“I don’t get how casting a vote on behalf of buzzwords like “manufacturing jobs” (manufacturing what? For whom? At what cost? For how long?) is “worth it” next to the undeniable fact”
Lemme stop you right there.
You do not know this shit. At all.
You are only pretending you do to try and attain a moral high ground you don’t have.
“that gay and transgender youth who – I promise you – are living lives as harsh or harsher than yours despite the impression you may have formed from only seeing such people as idealized pop-culture fixtures on daytime chat shows are going to have psychological and physical violence inflicted on them by bullies and bigots who feel emboldened by the victory of a political movement you claim to support strictly out of “economic anxiety.” Explain that to me.”
Because when people are poor they don’t have the luxury of worrying about a liberal art major’s trigger warnings.
And yes, I know that’s not what you mean. But frankly, those bullies and bigots are going to exist anyway. Putting more people in poverty is not going to help them. Hell, poverty will probably create even MORE bullies.
“I don’t get how whatever you think Trump could conceivably bring to you, personally, is still “worth it” when you know (unless you are utterly oblivious) that his court appointments could mean that women nationwide will lose reproductive freedom and possibly their lives as a result of it. Explain that to me – unless your explanation involves some asinine superstition about the “personhood” of fetuses, in which case you and I had nothing to discuss way before Trump showed up.”
There are pro-life atheists. Knock it off with this ‘lulz superstition’ nonsense.
This dismissive attitude is why your political movement is dying, Bob. You refuse to engage, and so your ideas remain unchallenged, and so do mine.
Also, fetuses are alive. That’s science.
“Good, decent, wonderful people – people who matter, people who have value, people who bring good into the world, their communities and this country, people who have things just as rough and in most cases substantially rougher than you – told you “What you are voting to happen will cause harm to come to me”… and you did it anyway. How do you live with that? How do you face yourself? Explain that to me.”
Because good, decent, wonderful people who matter, have value, bring/do good in the world and in their communities, people who have things just as rough and in most cases substantially rougher than you have been begging for help for years. And you called them privileged shitlords because they were white.
This is the thing you don’t seem to grasp, Bob: those people in “flyover country” are real people with lives, hopes and dreams like any other and you shat on them because they’re not good enough for your “superior future.”
“And just so we’re clear: I’m not asking for an explanation because I don’t know the answer. We all know the answer to every single item: “I am selfish and looking out for number one.” I know it. You know. I just think that all the “Not racist, just ______!” Trump supporters should have to own up to it, if nothing else.”
And I know that none of the reasons you gave are why you voted for Clinton.
You voted for her because she has a vagina. Because you are a sexist.
“So until then, yes, it’s grudgingly true that liberals in the blue city strongholds and the blue coasts will have to at least TRY to take “Flyover Country” at its word that the open racists and misogynists aren’t truly representative and, if “reached out to” in some way, some of the supposedly disenfranchised working class “economic anxiety” voters can be peeled off to support liberal candidates who offer actual solutions to their problems…”
Read. My. Lips.
GLOBALISM
IS
A
FAILURE
YOU
PRAT.
THE EU IS DYING, AND WAS DYING LONG BEFORE #BREXIT. THE UN IS USELESS. GERMANY COVERED UP MASS RAPES IN COLOGNE BECAUSE IT WAS SCARED OF OFFENDING MUSLIMS. FRANCE’S PRIME MINISTER TOLD HIS CITIZENS TO GET USED TO TERROR ATTACKS.
YOU DIDN’T HELP THESE PEOPLE IN THE LAST 8 YEARS WHEN YOU HAD A SOCIALIST (non-practicing) MUSLIM BLACK MAN IN POWER. YOU SURE AS HELL WEREN’T GOING TO WITH A CORRUPT CORPORATIST.
GET OVER YOURSELF.
Ugh. Where’s the next question… ah, here we go.
“It will be The Democrats shoving marginalized, imperiled people with actual problems in front newly-emboldened white people with largely imagined/exaggerated problems and asking the marginalized people to swallow not just their pride but their basic sense of self worth and convincingly ask: “What can I do to make my life worth protecting to you?” Forget not knowing how anyone summons the will to do that – I don’t even know how you ASK someone to so much as TRY to do that.
Someone, please.
Explain that to me.”
For starters, stop telling them that they’re worthless and that their problems aren’t real because they’re white and male. Because that is about 90% of your problem with PR right now: you completely and utterly deny that any problem other than the ones you care about can even exist.
Then, stop sending liberal arts students to tell me I’m oppressing them because of my skin color. Send people with ACTUAL PROBLEMS that need solving and I will gladly help them if I can.
Of course, you never will. You’ll never even read this. Can’t say I particularly care anymore. Trump won.
And I am going to savor your tears.
A Response to Bob Chipman’s “Here’s what I don’t get” blog post on the Trump Presidency Here's the original, if you want to read it. This post isn't a deep diatribe or anything - I just threw it together as I went along.
