Kishkumen wrote:I feel compelled to agree. Gavin Newsom is the very embodiment of California. The GOP would have a field day with him. Not that this is right. I mean, he is by far and away a better choice than that sick bastard DJT. I think we could grab a school principal from your local K-12 and find someone who is more qualified to be president than DJT, but the Republicans have either drunk the Kool Aid or sold their souls to this petty demon from the sewer of our country. If they admit the emperor has no clothes, the entire edifice comes crashing down.
The emperor has no clothes, and damn what an ugly effing stupid emperor he is.
I always thought of Newsom as a weenie. Of course, I don't know much about him, that was just an impression. Then not too long ago, Steve Schmidt from the Lincoln Project began talking Newsom up and I thought, what, Newsom? Well, I have to say, he's definitely not a weenie. In a debate, he'd tear a new hole in any right-wing politician or pundit that Ajax would support without breaking a sweat, and that's a good start, in my book.
Drinking the Kool Aid implies that republicans are victims of a demagogue. I just have a hard time buying that. A couple years ago on another venue where I spent a small amount of time, I got into a weird debate with a conspiracy theorist from Norway or something who was all-in on the deep state. I can't remember how it fit into his argument, but he brought Noam Chomsky to his defense. After that, I looked into NC a bit, what he has been up to in recent years, and yeah, he's an unhinged libertarian. On the one hand, the single most quoted intellectual writer on the planet, and on the other, a total nut-ball right-winger, who probably doesn't quite get what the right-wing is about anymore. Funny enough, I learned that NC actually called into Alex Jones on his show, as essentially a fan of Alex Jones for Jones' daring to be an individual, and ended up hanging up in frustration.
Well, the point this misplaced student of NC tried to make, drawing off of some of NC's old theory, is that we sheep are essentially victims of government propaganda. This is based on a broadcast model -- as in a satellite broadcast where messaging is one-way. Jean Baudrillard had a very similar model -- his version of the postmodern condition was of society structured by messaging in a unilateral configuration where radio waves propagate from antennas and we, like television sets, receive it. In authoritarian regimes there is merit to the model, and it was a relevant idea in the 50's - 80's, but times have changed. Social media and free-flow of information has destroyed any credibility to the idea that we Americans are the products of government messaging, or really, any unilateral messaging.
My belief is that, unfortunately, while Trump may be a bad guy, he's more of a victim of delusional Americans than delusional Americans are a victim of Trump. Delusional Americans have created the mythological background for a negative messiah, Trump haplessly walked into it, and has effectively played it by ear. But even Donald Trump, in rare moments, reveals shock over how utterly insane his followers are. Liberty and wealth has offered its own unique moral hazards, and the luckiest and wealthiest generation in world history, the boomers, have essentially become bored and turned into a frightening mob of reactionary lunatics. They are, in large number, very bad people, who fortunately won't be around much longer. Pray the GOP destroys Medicare, as it may be the shortest road to ridding our society of what has become known as Trumpism.
Social distancing has likely already begun to flatten the curve...Continue to research good antivirals and vaccine candidates. Make everyone wear masks. -- J.D. Vance
