Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Kleveland Klux Konvention

Even before the official festivities got underway, Iowa Congressman Steve ("Mexican drug dealers with calves the size of cantaloupes are coming over the border to kill us and rape us!") King set the white supremacist tone of the four-day-long Hate-a-Thon.

Whenever corporate media pundits need a reliable racist to balance out a panel of smarmy identitarian liberals, they invite somebody like Steve King. (Rudy Giuliani is another ole reliable, but he was busy both on the stage and sitting next to Bob Dole last night.) 

King was asked to guest-star on Chris Hayes's "All In" Konvention show with the almost iron-klad guarantee that he would pleasurably outrage the viewing audience and Quicken their pulses as a warm-up act to Duck Dynasty. Ratings duly skyrocketed as the clip of King spewing white supremacy has gone viral, stunning even fellow guest Charles Pierce, a normally voluble wag, into "jaw-dropping" silence.

So, not wanting to deprive the ratings-needy Chris Hayes of even one more click, I'll post the exchange, too.



Please note that after a faux-shocked Hayes wittily retorts that Hitler and Stalin were white guys too, he then effusively invites this mentally unstable pathocrat back on his show "any time". Anything to make center-right neoliberals seem reasonable and humane.

 But just for now, Hayes has to cut the racism short, because "it's cable." Heh, heh, heh. And now a word from our sponsors (Big Oil, Big Pharma, the "defense" industry, and my own personal favorite, the ad showing a well-to-do retired couple and their leashed pet pig strolling along the seaside to a wealth management appointment at too big to fail JP Morgan Chase.)

Maybe, by the end of the day, the white supremacist dude will even overtake PlagiarGate in total views. But I doubt it. Because the awesome spectacle of Melania Trump copying Michelle Obama's own insipid and probably ghostwritten 2008 convention speech has captured the attention of Kardashian Nation.

My take: The speeches of political wives, unfortunately, are by their very nature interchangeable. These women all come from the same 'umble beginnings, they all worked hard and played by the same hardscrabble rules, they all had strict parents who instilled puritanical values in their children, they all think their hubbies are living saints who care about millions of people they don't know and don't want to know just as much as they care about their own flesh and blood.

The media eats it up. And, of course, the wives' fashion labels are always given at least equal time with their anodyne words. No matter which side of the Money Party they're on, when it comes to media coverage, "who" they are wearing is nearly as important as their teleprompted platitudes.

Before an unemployed blogger/Obama fan caught the plagiarism, Rachel Maddow and her compatriots were full of effusive praise for the adorable Mrs. Trump. Because it is imperative that the corporate media raking in the bucks from this 21st century Nuremberg rally treat it as a genuinely democratic, as well as sane, enterprise. This is despite their frequent wide angle camera shots of the white sea of delegates decked out in their patriotic fright costumes and "Bikers for Trump" regalia.

Luckily for Hillary Clinton, who sent out fund-raising email blasts at the rate of about one per hour during prime time, there is no 1992 Democratic Party convention speech from which to compare notes and play Gotcha. She was deemed too controversial and risky at the time, what with her nationally televised dissing of Tammy Wynette and her aversion to baking cookies.

When 1996 came around, however, Hillary was finally allowed a convention speaking slot. For one thing, she needed to promote her first ghost-written memoir, It Takes a Village. And at the convention, she duly proved that she can be every bit as hackneyed as Melania and Michelle when it comes to folksily pumping up one's spouse:
I wish we could be sitting around a kitchen table, just us, talking about our hopes and fears about our children’s futures. For Bill and me, family has been the center of our lives. But we also know that our family like your family is part of a larger community that can help or hurt our best efforts to raise our child....
  It takes a president who believes not only in the potential of his own child, but of all children, who believes not only in the strength of his own family, but of the American family who believes not only in the promise of each of us as individuals, but in our promise together as a nation.
It takes a president who not only holds these beliefs, but acts on them. It takes Bill Clinton.
Sometimes late at night, when I see Chelsea doing her homework or watching TV or talking to a friend on the phone, I think to myself her life and the lives of millions of boys and girls will be better because of what all of us are doing together.
 But I don't want to take any more time away from the Republicans. So about last night:

The award for best comedy performance by a politician in a fascist setting has been unanimously awarded to Mayor Nine Eleven himself, Rudy Giuliani. ("RooDEE, RooDEE, RooDEE"). Obviously vying with Jersey Boy Chris Christie for the top spot in a Trump Department of Justice, Giuliani promised that Trump would do for America what he did for New York City. Among Rudy's accomplishments were purging 640,000 people from the welfare rolls, instituting racist "broken windows" policing practices, throwing annoying SqueeGee guys off the city streets, and dumping his stunned second wife by way of a televised press conference.

Rudy also claimed that Trump has been a Secret Santa for decades, but that he was hereby breaking his own pledge of silence to Donald about the long unbroken spree of anonymous beneficence. Whereupon Rudy proceeded to immediately break his own promise by maintaining the radio silence after all. Not one folksy anecdote about even one Trumpian good deed was forthcoming.  

But never mind all that. It's Republican awards week, after all.

The  Kanye West award for best oratorium interruptus goes to Donald Trump, for interrupting a couple of konvention speeches from military heroes praising him in order to call in to Fox News to praise himself. He's so vain, he probably thought the show was about him. Oh, wait...

Best special effects: Donald appearing on the stage in blue-misted silhouette. It's a reminder that the opening scene of The Apprentice is probably what we can expect from a Trump presidency: a noxious haze of fear and theatrics.

For double the fun, though, the best improvisational dialogue award has to go to a frothing Rudy playing Adenoid Hynkel. Which means that Donald probably won't pick him to be attorney general after all. Donald hates being upstaged.

Giulani: Are we crazy?

Audience: Yeah!

7 comments:

  1. The highly contagious norovirus could upstage them all.

    From the Mayo clinic:
    Signs and symptoms of norovirus infection include:
    •Nausea
    •Vomiting
    •Abdominal pain or cramps
    •Watery or loose diarrhea
    •Malaise
    •Low-grade fever
    •Muscle pain

    Signs and symptoms usually begin 24 to 48 hours after first exposure to the virus, and last one to three days. You may continue to shed virus in your feces for up to three days after recovery.


    Some people with norovirus infection may show no signs or symptoms. However, they are still contagious and can spread the virus to others.

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  2. Elizabeth,

    Yeah, the Republican Konvention is a lot like your typical Carnival Cruise gone bad. So much verbal diarrhea and projectile vomiting, they might as well give the audience their money's worth and spew the real thing.

    There was a nasty outbreak of norovirus in my hometown of New Paltz a year or so ago. Luckily, it was confined to our local resort hotel (Mohonk Mountain House, the other Stephen King's inspiration for the haunted hotel in "The Shining") then hosting a confab for elite private school administrators from throughout the Northeast. They were tweeting out their plutocratic outrage in between their frequent trips to the well-appointed johns. Apparently, the Help were not cleaning up their messes fast enough to suit them, because the Help were puking too. They were all were literally trapped in a prison of luxury for almost a week. Just like in a Stephen King novel! It was all so very sad.

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  3. The only part I saw last night was Rudy pumping his fists and screaming "Murica!!!"

    Which I guess means he's learned a new word since his own failed Presidential campaign four years ago (or was it eight?). With all the grown-ups in the GOP lying low this year, the freaks have really come out to play.

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  4. The University of Pennsylvania has broken its silence on Trump, who frequently makes reference to his (UPenn) Wharton degree.

    "In her biannual meeting with The Daily Pennsylvanian's editorial staff, Penn President Amy Gutmann was asked why the University still refuses to comment on Trump's proposal to ban Muslims, despite a Dec. 14 Philadelphia Inquirer article specifically mentioning the concern of Muslim students at Penn about Trump's remarks."

    "Her response, while not referring to Trump by name, indirectly criticized his plan to halt Muslim immigrants from entering the United States..."

    http://www.thedp.com/article/2016/01/penn-gutmann-breaks-donald-trump-silence

    Wharton students and alumni are more vocal: "Wharton students tell Donald Trump, 'You do not represent us'"

    "In the midst of 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump’s presidential run, during which he has repeatedly invoked his Wharton degree, 3,116 Penn students, graduates, parents, partners and family members have signed a petition telling him: "You do not represent us.""

    http://www.thedp.com/article/2016/07/donald-trump-wharton-letter

    The online letter now shows 3,638 supporters, see, You Do Not Represent Us: An Open Letter to Donald Trump

    https://medium.com/@whartonopenletter/you-do-not-represent-us-an-open-letter-to-donald-trump-94cf73ce11d8#.8e40invd3

    Another source on Trump is Michael D'Antonio, author of "Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success", see the CNN YouTube video "Who is the real Donald Trump?"

    https://youtu.be/1yRsHVx1MEY

    D'Antonio claims Trump’s first business activity was a Broadway play (Paris is Out).

    D'Antonio also claims Trump’s candidacy is a personal response to President Obama’s grilling of Trump April 30, 2011 at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, where Obama made Trump the butt of most of his jokes, and Trump had to sit there "painfully taking it", suffering, seething. D'Antonio speculates Trump decided that night to run for president, in order to take the keys to the Oval Office from Obama’s hand.

    Obama joked that no one is prouder to put the birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald, so he (Trump) can finally get back to focusing on issues that matter, like, did we fake the moon landing... The video of Obama and Trump is amazing. (sitting near Trump on the right is Fla. Gov. Rick Scott)

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  5. Valerie Long TweedieJuly 20, 2016 at 1:27 AM

    I know this might sound a bit petty, but as a teacher, I was appalled that someone didn't edit Melania's speech for grammatical errors. This woman WAS on national television, after all. Is the message that ignorance is great and erudite people are snobs who don't care about the working folk? All I could think about is the kinds of discussions Trump and his wife must have had throughout their marriage. At least Bill and Obama picked intelligent wives. Even Bush's wife was a librarian who had made a comment about HIS poor grammar on at least one occasion. Who are their speech writing staff? It wouldn't have been that hard to fix Melania's speech.

    I don't think the Republicans really want Trump to win. I think the two headed corporate party monster is merging into a one headed one. In order to make someone as repellent as Hillary "electable" . . . or at least give the impression our vote actually counts . . . they are putting forth a candidate that is such a clown, Republicans will jump ship. There are too many dissatisfied pro corporate, pro free traders who will be fine with Hillary.

    So our choices are evil clown and Cruella Deville. Jill Stein is so intelligent and civilized and reasonable in comparison.

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  6. @Valerie

    I find your thesis quite believable. The powers that be, inside and outside the Republican Party, have intentionally raised a straw man. Whether Trump is in on the con is still not clear. Hillary and a lot of other people will gleefully knock down this straw man. That's the deal: more name recognition coming out of this for Donald; more of everything else for the elites.

    Thinking about it that way––i.e., that the Cleveland show is an inside joke––makes me feel better. America really isn't going crazy and dragging down the species; people at the top (and we thoughtful few) can still think effectively. Humanity is proving once again that it can, with a little additional fraud, become more successfully evil, but this time with a bit of revolting drollery tossed in as comic relief.

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  7. Thanks for doing the telling reporting needed so dearly (direly?) at this time.

    As Valerie pointed out, no one even cared enough to correct the poor uneducated woman's bad grammar.

    But maybe that furthered the agenda?

    Maybe, by the end of the day, the white supremacist dude will even overtake PlagiarGate in total views. But I doubt it. Because the awesome spectacle of Melania Trump copying Michelle Obama's own insipid and probably ghostwritten 2008 convention speech has captured the attention of Kardashian Nation.

    ReplyDelete