MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
President Trump is now speculating that the media is covering up terrorist attacks
By artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 5:24pm |By Philip Bump @ Washington Post, Feb. 6
Speaking to the U.S. Central Command on Monday, President Trump went off his prepared remarks to make a truly stunning claim: The media was intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks. “You’ve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening,” he said to the assembled military leaders. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.” [....]
Update: In a press availability on Air Force One, Spicer tried to soften Trump’s comment. Terror attacks had been “under reported,” not “unreported.” He continued, according to the pool report: [....]
URL:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/06/president-trump-is-now-speculating-that-the-media-is-covering-up-terrorist-attacks/?utm_term=.93b372f2cf31
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Comments
Wow, and he said it to CENTCOM. I used to think Trump was just a liar, but I'm starting to believe he's delusional.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 5:32pm
Yup, same surprise and same shock here. Is a repeat, but worse, of the visit to Langley.
One clue from several of the White House leaks articles is that he's not a reader, so he's probably just scanning and skimming his briefing papers and the newspapers he orders. (Added evidence: he stacks up papers in his office like he's going to get back to them later--I personally know that trick!) Then when he's got some quiet time to think, instead of reading, he squeezes in bouncing around TV political shows late at night. After that he tweets what his mind has produced.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 5:43pm
His ignorance doesn't surprise me. His self-delusion does. I always figured him for a charlatan who deliberately lies for personal gain. But this comment in this context--not a tweet or a press conference but a high-level Defense Dept. meeting--suggests that he actually believes his fabrications. And you're right, it's very much like the Langley comments but scarier.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 6:19pm
The scariest part of that scary pronouncement to me was adding "you understand what I mean."
My thought is your thought.
by moat on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 7:00pm
I would also say now the more I learn about him, that the charlatan thing is not there at all! The fight to maintain the ego definitely is. It is straight out male alpha bullshit with him, all the time, including protecting whatever poor dumb betas decide to ride with him. He is no doubt sincerely in love with his fans and no doubt wants to take care of them and all those nice fan folks he meet out in the heartland and the poor decent black Americans he imagines stuck in the ghetto with all those thugs. And make sure they getting treated justly (justice as defined by him, is the only justice) as only he can do as one of the greatest smartest males that ever walked the earth. Also: he knows how to pick lieutenants in his organization, he picks them because they echo his thinking. And if it turns out they have an independent mind, it's: you're fired, can't deal with screwy thinking unlike my own which is the only rational way to think.Go find another alpha elsewhere
Just one example:
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 9:03pm
more on the TV news watching meme just published @ The New Yorker
once you get to the site, you'll see several more articles on the unreality factor on the "most popular" list, like Amy Davidson's.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 11:46pm
Well, in fairness he thought he was speaking to the Real Estate Company Century 21. He was a little confused about all the uniforms, but Bannon (his master) told him it was just the agents' way of showing respect to him.
by CVille Dem on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 5:42pm
You saw that his anti-hair thinning medication has a side effect of dementia, right?
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 6:01pm
It's impossible for a democracy, particularly the most exceptional, to elect an insane President, with additional symptoms of dementia, right?
by NCD on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 7:25pm
Well can't blame the founding fathers. Comes to mind that King George's mental illness was partly concurrent with the American colony hullabaloo? They didn't know about that at all, but definitely thought he was acting crazy.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 8:28pm
More seriously, it's unlikely age dementia or prescription drug related. The patten of him acting this way goes way back if you read what biographers say and those that interviewed him over a length of time. The deusional thing was always there. Us New Yorkers just ignored it. He was always such a bloviating boring boor that we didn't bother to delve into his personality, would just catch his latest blather on the headline of the New York Post which we didn't read.
He always thought because he's successful he can do or think any damn way he pleases and takes no correcting from anyone. He also always thought he is smarter and superior to nearly anyone else in the world. He thinks his thoughts should be other powerful people's thoughts, probably has no concept of like, the way a four-start general thinks or leading foreign politician thinks. He think that they should care about the same things he cares about ( like ratings, TV whatever). Because: he's never been challenged by anyone because of what he did in his life. Always the loner with minions, nobody challenging or questioning him.
It always ends up that no matter how bad things are, he comes back from whatever it is and crushes the opposition. Look at his life: No one except his father ever corrected him. Only yes men and yes women after that. If anyone dare challenge, he sued. Women like Ivana might have challenged his thinking but when he got tired of that he made her shut up if she wanted any money. Whenever dissed, he takes it as a challenge. It is complete utter narcissism, the only input he will take is validation. Criticism probably goes in one ear and out the other, if it digs on the things that mattered to his way of thinking, he sued, and that was the end of it. Get an army of lawyers and just fuggedabout it, he didn't do anything needing correcting.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 8:42pm
Without seeing very far into his financing, it is impossible to know whether there is a Dorian Grey element in this narcissism.
Perhaps there is a reality principle that shapes his view that accurately locates where he needs to go when in trouble but does not involve acquiring much information beyond preserving the image that has been resolved.
Like a person who parties every night and still has a job the next day until finally someone notices the cognitive absence and fires them.
by moat on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 9:03pm
You are getting at why I instinctively feel he would resign if challenged too hard, if challenged beyond any way he could think of handling it. He would just walk away with "take this job and shove it." Which would make it easy for him to maintain his deulsion that that he is one of smartest and best alpha males on the planet. Confronting or even questioning self basically means death? I never watched a full episode of The Apprentice. So offered with the cavaet that maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect with him at the helm it taught: alphas always eventually win, if you act alpha but lose, just pick yourself up and try again until you win, because you eventually will.
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 9:16pm
It's probably better to have an insane Republican 'populist' president as it brings an unpredictable variable into GOP moves to screw their base and the nation. It could slow down the damage at least in some areas. They like everyone else have no idea what he will do. They also have to spend time disassociating from Trumps wilder rants.
by NCD on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 10:07pm
I think so too, but then I start worrying about the fact that this maniac controls the levers of power. It's the Trump vs Pence conundrum--both very dangerous in different ways.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/06/2017 - 11:07pm
There's a weird corollary to his immersion in TV watching rule "if it's not on tv it didn't happen" and "if I think it was on tv it must of happened (muslims partying" that emerged from his Apprentice role "if the editing shows that the winner we picked was the victor in the postulated competition it really happened".
In other words, he is the reverse of the Truman Show--He's has sucked the video production out into the real world.
How did epistimology ever become such a current events topic?
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:51pm
Just curious. Have any of you read any of Donald Trump's books? Yeah, me neither. Then, do any of you follow Scott Adams' blog wherein he explained what Trump was doing and why he would likely win the election? Adams based his predictions on having read Trump's early business books -- mostly the one co-authored by Tony Schwartz: Trump: The Art of the Deal. For those interested, Adams recently posted links to all his Trump predictions beginning with Trump's announcement of his candidacy in June 2015: A Look Back at My Trump Predictions.
What does all that have to do with this thread's topic? Kevin Drum explains: Trump Has the Whole Country Talking About Terrorist Attacks Tonight. And that is pretty much how Trump won the election. He controlled the conversation.
Reading through this thread, a quote from the 1970 movie Patton kept popping into my head, "Rommel... you magnificent bastard, I read your book! " I wonder if anyone on Hillary's team bothered to read Trump's. Probably not. Is it too late for President Trump's opposition to read them. Definitely not. Will they?
by EmmaZahn on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:12am
I tried reading Trump's book - it's one giant ode to himself with nothing actually interesting or useful.
I don't think that 30 year old piece of shit quite shows how he foisted this narcissism on a nation of semi-cognizant people.
Adams' analysis of the framing is worthwhile - while NLP isn't a cure-all or exact science, there's certainly something that's working for The Donald. Yes, we end up talking about what Trump wants to talk about.
Of course George Lakoff has been discussing this for a while too, with "Don't Think of an Elephant", etc.
Here are some of my earlier thoughts on the matter:
http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/wizard-behind-curtain-21402
You might also try a Forbes article on Trump using Saul Alinsky, example:
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 6:03am
good vid and link both, thank you.
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 3:08pm
I will add this op-ed yesterday @ The Guardian
Bannon says he’s a Leninist: that could explain the White House’s new tactics
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 3:10pm
oh here's a very interesting cross-link I found at the above, this op-ed is summing up the rightist factions in Australia, and compares them some to those in the U.S. scroll down to where it says this
The fragmentation of the right looks like this:
and this analysis Moral issues will split the vote, libertarian issues will split the vote, economic issues will split the vote further, corporate support in tax cuts will split the vote.
Meanwhile, the dynamics of Trump will keep foreign policy issues and immigration, refugees and race on the agenda, putting Turnbull under constant pressure to go “harder” on national security to stifle dissent on the right but at the cost of his personal standing and brand.
What is Turnbull left with as a set of policies that can unify the conservative side of politics? To paraphrase John Howard: the things that divide the conservatives are now greater than the things that unite them....
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 3:23pm
In passing, worth an "NB:" The author of that compelling op ed is a biographer of Lenin, ie, he knows what he's talking about.
Since I grew up wanting to be Lenin (sorta the red diaper baby version of wanting to grow up to be George Washington, I guess...) I am vulnerable both to a frisson of envy vis-a-vis Bannon and profound apprehension.
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 4:52pm
i didn't notice his bio, presumed he might be just another talking head with a few interesting points to make, so thank you for pointing the expertise out!
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:02pm
Yeah--that's what I thought too...that's why I bothered to click, I was sorta specting I'd get Sebastian Gorka's opposite number or sumpin'..."sorry (to paraphrase the penitentiary all purpose sympathetic) 'bout (y)our luck..."
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:23pm
Oh, how poignant the frequent disclaimers predicting Trump's expiring shelf life from the (early primary) vantage of Sept. '15, even as his mastery of the media molotov cocktail is deconstructed.
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:00pm
Thanks for reminding me about Drum, forgot about him. I'd like to follow people who are watching for the whole "control the conversation thing" in addition to knowing something about foreign policy, not just domestic.
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 3:06pm
Drum pointed out today that it appears that many approve of Trump doing a lousy job.
Magnificent bastard indeed?
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 7:47pm
I have pretty much made my decision in re: Pathological Liar v. Florid Dementia.
Alas, I'm afraid that it's the far more dangerous door # 2.
Hence, a thought experiment:
Trump wired to a polygraph, going through his usual anti fact discourse
Does the machine show a consciousness of deception?
Dear (insert your deity of choice) we are SO fucked.
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 4:39pm
Thanks for sharing! I feel unsteady on the intuition front, can use the input of others, because I predicted he could not win. But, as I have noted before, a lot of us New Yorkers never really delved into the whole psychology there--because why should we? > before this, he was just another nutty and gross New Yorker, a large cohort that does include more than one or two billionaires. We are more than tolerant of more than a few pecadilloes here and there, unless you like, run for president and then win.
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:19pm
Put another way, he couldn't win because he was a New Yorker - if Hillary had actually been from New York, even I would have said she had too much baggage to win. Who wouda thunk that Rupert Pupkin would not only host the Tonight Show, but actually make the White House? Okay, maybe Queens ain't Jersey, but still... The Heartland normally wouldn't be amused.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:19pm
That too! I am still amazed at who really really likes him! He's classic Queens street smart rude obnoxious, yuge and all. As for Jersey, he sounds more like Tony Soprano every day. Not entirely clueless about the heartland, I was born, raised and lived in flyover until age 29, my father the first in his big extended working class family to go to college and white collar, my mother's big extended family farming and factory workers, only had one associated degree.
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:29pm
Wondering if pop culture finally managed to sink this country's "we hate New Yorkers" thing? Made everyone realize it's more complex than that, that it's not all effete liberals?
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:32pm
I never watched The Apprentice and I think in retrospect that it softened people up for his persona . If I am not misinformed it was a staggering ratings machine for years, (telling us, I guess, all we should need to know about the same people who vote every four years)
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:36pm
Media has increased and diversified so much over the years. In my life time I've gone from just three tv channels to just 12 to dozens plus streaming and tv sites like netflix and hulu. I read an article a few months ago with ratings numbers that showed how some of our most popular programs today would have been canceled for low ratings 15 or 20 years ago. While The Apprentice got 20 million viewers the first season the numbers dropped by a large number every year until the sixth season had only 7.5 million viewers. The title and format changed to The Celebrity Apprentice the seventh season to try to combat the falling ratings. The hope was that having celebrities compete rather than unknowns might pick up the numbers. It didn't work or only marginally and in season 10 they returned to the original format.
On March 17, 2010, NBC officially stated that a new season of the original Apprentice would be brought back, with the explanation that regular working people would again attract audiences in light of the damaged U.S. economy. That season premiered September 16, 2010.[5] This time the ratings were low, and both Trump and Producer Mark Burnett returned to the 'Celebrity' format
The ratings for season 10 was a paltry 4.7 million. Trump wants to perpetuate the myth that his show was a ratings buster but except for the first season it wasn't. There is simply so much time to fill on so many channels with reality tv programs being cheap to make that low rated programs aren't canceled like they used to be.
by ocean-kat on Wed, 02/08/2017 - 5:47am
The Queens thing....I recall even now an interchange I had (possibly with DoubleA herself, on her way, as it were, out the door...) where she corrected my misapprehension as to Trump's ethnic background, having myself taken him for Ashkenaz and not Teutonic/Pict.
Love the Pupkin connection, and I'll bet you that young Master Trump performed his share of "you lookin' at me?"s in the mirrors of the New York Military Academy
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:33pm
How come he never hooked up with Sandra Bernhard? That'd be more bombast than the world could endure.
The other reference might be Trump as King Koopa - how do you think he'd be saying "Goomba"? (He's even a germaphobe - match made in heaven...
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 7:09pm
Every so often I get a chilling/thrilling precognition.
Hence, I hit a 750-1 trifecta picked on the basis of the horses' names, called the Mets for the World Series in mid July and, (the point of all this blah blah) had a flash in the summer of '15 that he would win.
That said, the news from the Kingsbridge Annex of Delphi is not good. (Btw-let me put on record, bad news--five feet of sea rise in ten years and I better be wrong about that...)
by jollyroger on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 5:43pm
The speech syndrome continues
by artappraiser on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 9:17pm
Trump attacks people not problems.
From the local link:
The cops funding comes from seizing property, from unindicted or convicted 'criminals', they used to call that bribery, collusion, Serpico took a bullet for not playing that game, now it's legal SOP.
by NCD on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 9:40pm
He chose the wrong side to chortle with this time if he wants to stay in with the bankrupted real estate investor crowd (a much enlarged crowd joined The Donald's lonely club starting circa 2009). The civil judgment seizure thing in TX is a favorite of the new debt collector sharks who buy up big corporate debts of real estate investors who personally guaranteed the corporate debt. Then those sharks, in cahoots with those very same sheriffs, go looking for personal property of those corporate officers to seize. Wondering now if The Donald might have some property in TX.....other people with more invested might be wondering the same thing....
by artappraiser on Wed, 02/08/2017 - 12:51am