Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

We still have time to mess this up!

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: “The Year the Trump Laughter Died”

Open Thread: “The Year the Trump Laughter Died”

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Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone:

… Trump seemed like a perfect foil in particular for Jeb Bush, a hesitating, gelatinous aristocrat who lacked the cocksure brainlessness the previous Bush used to sell himself as a “regular guy.” In an era when Republican voters were more distrustful than ever of the Same Old Politics, stiff, birthright-bearing Jeb was exactly the wrong candidate for the party elders to back.

And they seemed to realize it, too. Once the Republican race got going, the party appeared too disorganized and fractured to throw its institutional weight behind anyone. This left a comically enormous cast of hopefuls to duke it out in the equivalent of a schoolyard rock fight. And without the gravitas of party and media support, the candidates on the Republican side turned out to be just a bunch of chattering, defenseless, fourth-rate flesh-bags, exquisitely vulnerable to any strong personality. The entrance of Trump into the race on June 16th therefore offered the potential of an entertaining car wreck of awesome proportions…

The ancient report that he used to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside notwithstanding, it’s very likely that Donald Trump never in his life thought seriously about things like nativism, fascism, eugenics, or any kind of ideology at all. This was not someone who likely ever dreamed of cattle cars and rivers of blood. Trump is a narcissist, not a demagogue; his pathology is himself, not politics… But shortly after Trump jumped into the race, he stumbled onto a secret: whenever he blurted out forbidden thoughts about race, ethnicity or gender, he was showered with the attention he always craved.

It was a bizarre marriage, but it made sense from from a clinical point of view. Attention is attention. Patient with narcissistic personality disorder discovers massive source of narcissistic supply, so he sets about securing its regular delivery…

Trump made the Republican field look weak by blurting straight-out what they would only say in code (Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie all parroted Romney’s pathetic “free stuff” line this year, for instance). This part of Trump’s act has to thrill Democrats, since he’s stealing away from Republicans the illusion of centrism. Future Republican nominees will have a tough time remembering how in the world George W. Bush ever won 44% of the Hispanic vote, as he did in 2004.

But Trump’s act isn’t all about race. He’s also scoring points by mining the same mainstream frustrations over language-policing and political correctness that made Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay famous…

All comedy is about misunderstandings. A little town gets word that a government inspector is coming, so it mistakenly rolls out the red carpet for a visiting drunk on a gambling spree.

2015 was the same kind of mistaken-identity tale. The Silent Majority has been waiting 50 years for a prophet, but this year it settled for a billionaire loudmouth with a comb-over and a personality disorder. Like all comedies, this one is bound to end with an explosion of unintended consequences. What we won’t know until 2016 is whether this joke will end up being on all of us — or just those of us who waited too long to take Trump’s accidental war seriously.

Reader Interactions

157Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Fascist short fingered vulgarian is aware that whoever is elected to the White House in November 2016 won’t be sleeping in it until January 20th, 2017, right?

  2. 2.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    right?

    Wrong. He knows nothing about how stuff works. President Obama still has a year and nearly three weeks remaining in the White House. I fully expect him to do a number of awesome things in that almost thirteen-month period, and I intend to help him every inch of the way.

  6. 6.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    I can’t even express how much I love this no-fucks-left-to-give President. I only wish he had felt he had had the freedom to go fuckless earlier in his tenure.

    Someone here a few days ago (Elizabelle? Truly can’t remember) used the term “lithe duck” instead of “lame duck.” Definitely works for me.

  7. 7.

    Frankensteinbeck

    But Trump’s act isn’t all about race. He’s also scoring points by mining the same mainstream frustrations over language-policing and political correctness

    Taibbi, you have said much that is wise in this quote, but if you don’t see this connection you are blind.

  8. 8.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: I look forward to it with gleeful abandon.

    That’s a strategy that I don’t know if any of the Dems have considered: freak out the right wing so bad they have some fatal cardiac episodes, thereby reducing the strength of the GOP voting bloc.

    Risky, but potentially fabulous to witness.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    @Randy P:

    The Government Inspector, also known as The Inspector General (original title: Russian: Ревизор, Revizor, literally: “Inspector”), is a satirical play by the Russian and Ukrainian dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol.

    His wife is a regular commenter here.

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I think his attempts to reach out were the right thing to do, morally and politically. We are here, where everybody who is not a screeching monkey knows that the Republicans have lost their nut, precisely because Obama spent a good four years saying ‘I’m taking you seriously! Let’s negotiate!’ while the Republicans screamed ‘Evil tyrant!’ Not to mention that it was a necessary tactic to deal with the hostage taking back when the Tea Party had more control over the House. He also believes, and should believe, deeply in the constitution and separation of powers. He is free to be sarcastic now only because he laid all that groundwork before.

  17. 17.

    raven

    Here’s some fucking horseshit that will backfire!

    Carly Fiorina ✔@CarlyFiorina
    Love my alma mater, but rooting for a Hawkeyes win today. #RoseBowl
    2:00 PM – 1 Jan 2016
    798 798 Retweets 843 843 likes

  19. 19.

    Sam Miches

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This problem will be solved by good management. There’s no need to get into the specifics because it will be luxurious, and the best management ever managed by humanity.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    But Trump’s act isn’t all about race. He’s also scoring points by mining the same mainstream frustrations over language-policing and political correctness that made Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay famous

    What is this, but the whining of spoilt children who have finally been told to mind their manners?

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Oh, exactly. It would have been a disaster had he gone into his Presidency, or even the early part of his second term, as the Angry Black Man of scary legend. But with the 2014 midterms well out of the way, and a nice solid list of accomplishments to his credit, he can let it fly.

  22. 22.

    Gex

    @Frankensteinbeck: I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t see the connection. It’s that the base hates being politically correct about several different things, race being but one. Gender and orientation being others. Megyn Kelly’s “whatever” and Hillary getting “schlonged” are about being as disrespectful to women as possible. And while Trump actually hasn’t been an ass about gays (though I bet he’d be horrible on the topic on transgender people), the rest of the candidates made sure to go out of their way supporting Kim Davis.

  23. 23.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:
    The Beeb’s article is here.

    Gavin Newsom is making this his signature issue; it will be interesting to see whether he gets the initiative on the ballot and then, passed. If it makes the ballot ALL THE GUN MONEY will be spent fighting it.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: Yet she kisses up to the only people in Iowa who can be taken in by such a craven gesture, the Steve King voters, and they’re all going to vote for Jeebofascist Cruz.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    A historic milestone — though not a positive one — was reached this New Year’s Day: the copyright on Mein Kampf, claimed since its author’s death by the state of Bavaria, has now expired. People have been calling Donald Trump a Fascist — justifiably, it seems to me. And now the ideology’s most infamous work is out there in the public domain.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    Now I’m hoping Trump gets the nomination and is crushed by Clinton, just so Obama can invite Trump to a New Years party at the WH.

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Gex:
    I completely agree that it is about all kinds of bigotry, as is the GOP. It all blends into one big bubbling cesspool of hate.

    EDIT – @Ken:
    If Trump gets the nomination, he hasn’t got a shot in Hell at the general. He can’t pick up any moderates or undecideds, the base is not going to get any more terrified than they were in 2012, even if they’re happier they get to admit their hate, and you see that 44% of the hispanic vote Bush got? Drop that to 8%, like the Republican AA vote. Do the same with Muslims. It will be a disaster for the GOP.

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    @Frankensteinbeck: I’m assuming what Taibbi meant (note reference to ADC) was “Trump’s not just attractive to racists – the misogynists love him, too!”

    ETA: Gex beat me to it! (#26)

  32. 32.

    Felonius Monk

    @efgoldman:

    without actually seeing a decent game.

    You’re right -– they stunk. Maybe, just maybe, Clemson-Alabama will be a real game. Not really a fan of either, but they both seem rabid enough at this point to make it a contest. But then who knows what will happen when it’s finally played.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Amir Khalid:

    Heard, through a fog of early-morning sleepiness, an NPR interview with someone about this. The interviewee (or someone) is planning to come out with a fully-annotated edition of Mein Kampf. According to him, they don’t want a single page to be printed without some kind of commentary/context. Was not clear (well, as I say, I was half-asleep) if they were referring only to the German version or to an English translation. If a decent translation and good concordance, I would certainly read it.

  36. 36.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    Good news for the New Year. I went to the dollar store today and saw the books of Princess Sarah of the Northwood Methheads and Bill Oreilly in the clearance bin. The dollar store. I didn’t think about it then but I should have taken a picture and tweeted it.

  37. 37.

    Anne Laurie

    @Gex: @Amir Khalid: The article I read about that (Gawker, maybe?) pointed out that the copyright on The Diary of Anne Frank also expired.

    As a novelist, Murphy the Trickster God is never above going for the easy “ironic” twist!

  38. 38.

    Felonius Monk

    @efgoldman:

    She had to have been a child bride.

    She’d also have to be mighty, mighty old. Record breaking old even. Perhaps a fossil. So,obviously not the same Mrs. Gogol –– unless, of course, she’s a vampire. Does she comment during the day?

    Nah, she always has something interesting to say. Vampires usually aren’t interesting.

  39. 39.

    amk

    “Jeb Bush, a hesitating, gelatinous aristocrat ”

    when did a nazi sympathizing robber baron family qualify as aristocrat?

  47. 47.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @efgoldman: There were games today? I did see the Goodyear blimp up over in the area above the Rose Bowl during my hike in the park. (Of course I got some pics.)

  49. 49.

    Amir Khalid

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I heard it was some scholarly group in Germany: the idea was to point out to the reader every last vicious, ignorant and stupid thing Mr Hilter said in his book, and there’s certainly no shortage of such things. So I guess it would have been in the original German, with translations to come later. But this idea was proposed a few years ago while the Bavarian state government still held the copyright, and Bavaria’s policy was to suppress any publication of the book. So Bavaria nixed it.

  51. 51.

    feebog

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    you see that 44% of the hispanic vote Bush got? Drop that to 8%, like the Republican AA vote. Do the same with Muslims. It will be a disaster for the GOP.

    The Hispanic vote won’t be quite that lopsided. Obama got 70% in 2012, look for Trump to move the needle 5 to 10 more points. The Asian vote will also shift a few points towards Hillary. The big shift will be in the women’s vote. Women were 53% of the electorate in 2012. Add a 3 to 5 point shift towards Hillary in 2016 and you are looking at a 58 to 42% margin.

  53. 53.

    Anne Laurie

    @amk:

    when did a nazi sympathizing robber baron family qualify as aristocrat?

    Speaking of Terry Pratchett… there’s a section in Maskerade Witches Abroad where Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax are discussing whether the tomcat Greebo, temporarily transformed into a human, will pass muster at Ella Cinders’ ball. Nanny insists that Greebo looks “aristocratic”.

    Granny says (paraphrasing from memory): “He looks stupid, greedy, and cruel.”

    Nanny beams: “LIke I said — aristocratic!”

    (Although IMO Jeb just looks stupid & confused. You don’t notice the greed & cruelty until he opens his mouth.)

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @SiubhanDuinne: I believe it’ so nly the German version. I have seen English versions—in fact, my grandfather had one when I was growing up, because he served in the war and was very well-read regarding European history, not merely WWII history. I should note that he was racist in the way that most white people of his era were racist, but he absolutely found Hitler disgusting, but he believed in knowledge and the free exchange of ideas. It never dawned on me that it would be banned anywhere.

  55. 55.

    redshirt

    @amk: The Bush family is clearly an American aristocracy at this point. There’s only been a few in our history. The Kennedys seem to be a House fallen.

  56. 56.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @feebog:
    I think it might be that lopsided. I was shocked to discover that all the other Republican candidates had positive favorability with Hispanic voters. Trump had -50 favorability. People resent being called rapists and murderers.

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:
    A few years ago, the Ralph Manheim translation was on sale in a Japanese-owned bookstore here in KL. I have no idea who bought it, or who would want to.

  59. 59.

    Amir Khalid

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    Not altogether surprising. I would guess that Hispanic Americans tend to be socially conservative, like Muslim Americans, and like the latter would gravitate toward socially conservative Republicans. I seem to recall, it was only post-9/11 Republican hostility toward Muslims that drove them toward the Democratic party. I note that all the Republican presidential candidates whom Hispanics don’t object to are currently trailing the Donald.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Suzanne:

    It’s pretty amazing the number of people — intelligent, well-educated, well-bred people — who were utterly opposed to Hitler and yet thought nothing of flinging around the most offensive and appalling antisemitic slurs.

    I’m a big fan, as I think you know, of Dorothy L. Sayers, but I cringe my way through her more egregious racism. All very well to say that she was just reflecting the customary views of her time, but I still cringe.

  66. 66.

    magurakurin

    @Mike J: They’ll just blame it on Clinton. They’ll say Clinton gave the terrorist the idea to do that, hence Clinton=Terrorist. It’s simple math.

  67. 67.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Amir Khalid: They wouldn’t have taken Hillary’s idea and ran with it if they didn’t think it would be effective.

    Trump is Daesh’s best recruiter. One has to wonder if he’s being compensated for it.

  79. 79.

    magurakurin

    @Corner Stone:

    What is a well-bred person? Do they have a shot at the Triple Crown next racing season?

    The Scottish. In England oats are fed to horses and in Scotland to people, that’s why the English have fine horses and the Scottish such fine people.

    Does he have a chance? Does he have a chance!!? Hell! Yea……gulp.

  85. 85.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: Sorry, resolution was the wrong word. Law, enactment, regulation… something real. For instance, is the White House budget approved by Congress? Could they cut it if they wanted to? Could they cut parts of it? First Wife must have been a budgetary category as traditionally she has a staff, travels, receives foreign visitors, etc. That all costs money.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’ve been a member of one or another (or several) DLS discussion groups for the better part of two decades, and have been reading her since I was in my early teens, so sixty years or so, with dozens or scores of re-readings of every book and story in the canon. This is invariably one of the liveliest and most contentious areas of discussion. And I always, always cringe and just want to tell her, Don’t go there, Dorothy, don’t say that, don’t undo all your wonderfulness by participating in this conventional, unthinking racism and antisemitism. She was so beautifully insightful about so many other issues, especially feminism, that it just perplexes me that she could have been so tone-deaf on matters of race and ethnicity.

  91. 91.

    Gin & Tonic

    @redshirt: The operating budget of the Executive Office of the President is, like the operating budget of every Federal agency, subject to Congressional approval. Here’s the budget proposal that was submitted for 2014. Congress could reduce it overall, but they don’t have line-item control.

  92. 92.

    srv

    The continuous jabs that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have thrown at each other while campaigning have reportedly strained a once blossoming friendship between their children.

    ‘Over time, they had developed a real relationship, a real friendship, and had a mutual respect for each other based on their upbringing, being in the spotlight, their parents, scandals, their history,’ the source explained to the Daily News

    Hillary can be such a monster sometimes.

  94. 94.

    redshirt

    @Gin & Tonic: Thank you!

    I was trying to get to the obtuse point that First Husband Bill Clinton will be subjected to congressional action if the Repukes still control the House and Senate. I just wonder what their tools will be. Could they reduce the budget for the Executive Office to zero?

  97. 97.

    Gin & Tonic

    @redshirt: As I said, they don’t have line-item control. “The White House” has a staff of 450. “The Executive Residence” has a staff of 96. “The Office of Administration” has a staff of 230. I don’t know how large the staff of the First Spouse is, but it’s from those numbers. Of course some wingnut could propose reducing the total to zero, but if there’s nobody there to answer the phones or cut the grass, that will be somewhat noticeable.

  102. 102.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    @burnspbesq:

    That can’t possibly have been written by Taibbi–it makes sense.

    He’s usually fine as long as he just talks about people. It’s if his subject requires even an iota of technical knowledge to sort out the people that he’s totally lost.

  103. 103.

    dogwood

    @redshirt:
    I don’t think there are many people living like aristocrats anymore. Plenty of ostentatious Trump types, but aristocrats not so much. At one time the Bushes might have been viewed as aristocrats. But when your sons start marrying middle class school teachers and Mexican daughters of farm workers who are Catholic to boot, you’ve lost your aristocratic edge.

  105. 105.

    Amir Khalid

    @dogwood:
    Then again, Prince William, son of the heir to Britain’s throne and himself a likely future King, married a daughter of untitled middle-class commoners.

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dogwood: Rather depends on how one defines an aristocrat. Fictional example (similar real ones exist) : The Earl of Grantham marries a half Jewish American for her fortune. His children are no less aristocratic than he is. Real world example: Winston Churchill was considered no less aristocratic because of his new money American mother.

  108. 108.

    Amir Khalid

    The Earl of Greystoke grew up outside Britain — and he wasn’t even raised by humans.

  111. 111.

    JCJ

    @Amir Khalid:

    a general book retailer like the Kinokuniya chain.

    You and I may be the only ones who frequent Kinokuniya. Maybe there are some in other parts of the US, but I only know them from Bangkok.

  113. 113.

    PurpleGirl

    @JCJ: Kinokuniya has a store in Manhattan. It was in Rockefeller Plaza, could still be there. I used to pass it going to the building where my dentist was. Also a co-worker’s Japanese wife shopped there.

  114. 114.

    JCJ

    @PurpleGirl:

    Interesting. In Bangkok most of the books are in English and Thai, but there are also books in Japanese and Chinese. Newspapers from many countries are also available.

  115. 115.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dogwood: Henry VIII divorced (and more). Even under 16th century rules, why would Charles lose his place in line? His children are from his marriage to Diana – therefore, he has produced and heir and a spare. From traditional views, he done his duty – even if his great-grandmother wouldn’t receive him at court.

  117. 117.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @efgoldman: Yes, the Congress has to appropriate any money that the government spends, including the Executive Office of the President. redshirt’s question has a recent example in Obama’s administration. TheHill:

    Proposed House cuts to the Executive Office of the President’s (EOP) budget will hurt administration efforts to cut the deficit, the White House argues.

    The Obama administration made the argument in comments on H.R. 2434, the 2012 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act. That bill could be on the House floor as early as next week, and would decrease funding for the EOP from $705 million to $640 million.

    “The level of resources provided in the bill would significantly impact the EOP’s role in assisting the president in carrying out his constitutional duties as head of the executive branch, including protecting national security interests, developing policies to address the challenges facing the nation, reducing the deficit and spending taxpayer dollars more cost-effectively, and managing the Federal agencies,” the administration said in a statement of administration policy (SAP).

    The statement also rejected a proposed cut of $109 million to the IRS, saying that would require 4,200 staff reductions. These cuts, it argued, would cost the government $4 billion in revenues, as tax enforcement efforts would be stunted.

    “The level of funding provided for the IRS would seriously degrade the quality of services provided to taxpayers and would increase the deficit,” the SAP said.

    H.R. 2434 would provide $20 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Treasury and other agencies, $2 billion less than the Obama administration requested. Nearly $1 billion in these cuts would be taken out of Treasury alone.

    I don’t recall how it ended up.

    We should note that the Congress has to appropriate money for the federal courts as well. There has been pressure put on the courts over the years to do various things via the budget process, but it’s usually more subtle than the cuts that they tried to force on Obama. So even though the 3 branches of government are “co-equal”, they still have to get money via Congress.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  118. 118.

    celticdragonchick

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I gave an English translation copy of Mein Kampf to my dad as part of his WWII library. He has a lot of good primary documentation stuff, including a work by Erwin Rommel that was utterly fascinating.

    I read part of Mein Kampf, and I was intrigued at how Hitler could mix partial truths, outright untruths and social anxieties together into something almost unbelievably monstrous.

  119. 119.

    dogwo

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I get your point. Marrying outside class or race because you need money to preserve the estate and lifestyle is is often a necessary evil. But when you start letting the girls marry Marxist chauffeurs, the end is nigh.

  121. 121.

    magurakurin

    @dogwood:

    ut when your sons start marrying middle class school teachers and Mexican daughters of farm workers who are Catholic to boot, you’ve lost your aristocratic edge.

    Yeah. That’s pretty much what “well-bred” is in reference to.

  122. 122.

    Origuy

    @PurpleGirl: There’s one in Santa Clara, too, and I believe in San Francisco.

    Alan Cranston, later a Senator from California, published an English translation of Mein Kampf after a sanitized version came out that omitted some of Hitler’s worst racism and anti-Semitism.

  124. 124.

    Amir Khalid

    @JCJ:
    In most of Asia, there’s a considerable and affluent market to be had in the Japanese expatriate community.

  125. 125.

    dogwo

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Times change. Prince Charles is only the heir apparent because his great uncle was forced to abdicate in order to marry an American divorcee. Parliament had to come up with some new rules about titles when Charles and Diana divorced and he married Camilla Parker Bowles.

  126. 126.

    JCJ

    @Amir Khalid:

    Oh, I know. Where I stay in Bangkok has been referred to as “Little Tokyo”. There is a ramen shop down the street from us with the menu in Japanese with the items transliterated into English but no Thai. I have been in there for lunch when the only non-Japanese are my wife, my daughter and myself. I usually get some stir fried vegetables. Yummy. The grocery stores there have large Japanese sections as well.

  127. 127.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dogwo: Charles is the heir apparent because he is the eldest son of the reigning monarch. It is really that simple. How Elizabeth became the reigning monarch is irrelevant.

  128. 128.

    dogwo

    @efgoldman:
    The First Family pays for all their own food and any food their personal guests eat. They get an itemized bill each month. They aren’t required to pay for food that is served at official events.

  129. 129.

    Amir Khalid

    On the subject of the post, I doubt Donald Trump could pass a middle-school civics test on the role and powers of the President.

    ETA: I know! Make all the presidential candidates — Republican, Democratic, independent — take that test, and publish their answer scripts. The results could be, let’s put it this way, revealing.

  130. 130.

    dogwood

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Oh, come on you know what I meant. If divorce hadn’t been a stickier wicket a at an earlier time, Charles would hold a different number in the order of succession.

  131. 131.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @dogwo: No, he would not. He is the eldest child of the monarch. He is the heir apparent. If you have an alternative argument, I would be interested in hearing it.

  133. 133.

    dogwood

    @Amir Khalid:
    There’s no doubt about that. He is following the path blazed by Sarah the Great, Which reminds me. Remember when he had his NYC lunch with Palin? I don’t want a president who eats pizza with a fork.

  134. 134.

    Anya

    @gogol’s wife: I already said this on twitter but tho I enjoyed it, I thought Sherlock was a bit of hot mess. A beautifuly made hot mess. It was undone by the same fan service that tarnished Spectre for me.

  137. 137.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes, Charles is legally next.

    But hasn’t Elizabeth made it clear that she’s not leaving and/or has no intention of Charles succeeding her? That’s been my impression of the rumors/rumblings I’ve picked up over the years (though I admit that I really haven’t cared enough to keep up with it). TheWeek has some of the scuttlebutt about the topic.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    @dogwood:

    But when your sons start marrying middle class school teachers and Mexican daughters of farm workers who are Catholic to boot, you’ve lost your aristocratic edge.

    Oddly, the elder Bush sons’ “Not Our Sort, Dear” marriages always seemed very WASP-imitation-of-19th-century-British-aristocracy to me. All the “best” families require infusions of outside blood (and/or money) upon occasion, and the Bush siblings (mean drunk George, lump Jeb, Marvin & his Crohns disease, Neil the mental runt) would be right at home in a textbook about the danger of linebreeding too tightly. Laura Bush seems to have been plucked from her unmarriageable obscurity and sacrificed to the mean drunk who needed “stabilizing” — gods know, in the White House Laura always acted like her marriage was the penance she’d accepted for her sins. And teenage Jeb running off to Mexico and falling in love with some little off-white infidel was exactly the sort of thing second sons notoriously did to embarrass their parents, back in the old days (of Darien aspiration). There’s been stories for years about how matriarch Bar “took Laura under her wing” and showed her what was required of a Bush spouse… and, on the other hand, how Columba was kept at arm’s length, even when her kids, the “little brown ones”, were permitted more Kennebunkport access…

  139. 139.

    dogwood

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I’m not making an argument. I’m simply asserting that the rules of acceptable behavior for aristocrats have evolved. Of course Charles is the heir apparent. And he will be able to assume the throne while being married to a divorced woman. That wasn’t the case for his mother’s uncle King Edward the VIII. He could remain king or marry a divorcee, but he couldn’t do both. My point was that had Edward been able to do what Charles is going to be able to do, the line of succession might very we’ll look different today. King Edward might have produced an heir.

  140. 140.

    Amir Khalid

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
    As far as I know, the Queen has said only that she will not abdicate. Because of her advancing age, and because he himself must prepare to be King one day, Charles has been taking on more of her duties in recent years — not a sign that he is out of favour with her. He seems to be in for quite a wait, though. Elizabeth’s mother lived to be 103.

  141. 141.

    Anne Laurie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Real world example: Winston Churchill was considered no less aristocratic because of his new money American mother.

    Well, they let him into the right schools, at least. But from what I’ve read — he’s not my favorite historical figure — Winnie was always defensive about his mama, and Lady Randolph certainly seems to have given him cause to be!

  143. 143.

    Crouchback

    @SiubhanDuinne: Agatha Christie was the same way. I don’t personally find it all that unusual – sexism made life difficult for both Christie and Sayers so they had good reason to sympathize with feminism. On the other hand they grew up in a world that was snobbish, racist and anti-semitic and simply thought like their peers did in such matters. Sadly, most people will adopt the prejudices of their time and place unless there’s a personal reason to challenge them. It’s hard to think of writers of that era who didn’t have significant prejudices by modern standards.

  144. 144.

    sm*t cl*de

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Amongst the books I am currently reading is Whose Body and the casual antisemitism is astonishing.

    Also “Unnatural Death”, if memory serves.

  145. 145.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid:

    I can’t fault The Donald for eating pizza with a fork; that’s how the Italians do it.

    Pfft, modern manners. When the Romans ate flatbread-spread-with-garum ‘pizzas’, they sure didn’t bother with forks!

  147. 147.

    PurpleGirl

    @dogwood: It has been speculated that Churchill was against King Edward marrying American divorcee but even more, he (and others) didn’t like Edward’s pro-Hitler views. And that he manipulated the marriage stuff to get Edward off the throne in light of the coming political problems in Europe.

  148. 148.

    Anne Laurie

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The root of the problem is that Charles wasn’t permitted to marry Camilla in the first place, when they were both young & in love. The board of directors of the family firm — i.e., the succession — made it clear she wasn’t an acceptable mother to future princelings, so he dutifully settled for a young striver with a good-enough pedigree and an intact hymen. The fact that he didn’t have the skills, or the nous, to give up the Company and make his own way in the world… and that his legal bride wasn’t smart enough to settle for everything other than “romance” in her career… were the first and second tragedies in this drama. In an alternate universe, he’s a retired military officer with a bunch of kids written out of the succession, and Diana… well, if she hadn’t succeeded in killing herself by now, she’d probably be living off the proceeds of her fourth or fifth marriage, and her sons probably wouldn’t be on speaking terms with her or each other.

  149. 149.

    dogwood

    @PurpleGirl:
    I think I’ve read that too. Use phoney Victorian moral outrage to achieve a political goal. Rules for the aristocracy might change with time, but political maneuvering is timeless.

  150. 150.

    Anne Laurie

    @dogwood: I’m not trying to spin a political theory about how such things would or will ‘invalidate’ the Bush presidencies, though. Just speculating idly, late on a holiday Friday night, about how people tend to find narratives and use them as templates — me, as much as Bar Bush!

  151. 151.

    PurpleGirl

    @dogwood: Well, look where the duke ended up — they shipped him and the wife off to the Caribbean as a royal governor. A suitable sinecure but with no power in the politics of the time.

  152. 152.

    Origuy

    @PurpleGirl: There was also that problem that Wallis Simpson was chummy with highly-placed Nazis and that Edward was at least Reich-curious. So were a lot of other British aristocrats, for that matter, but they weren’t headed for the throne.

    ETA. I didn’t read back through all of the comments. You already said most of that.

  153. 153.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Suzanne: West Germany deep sixed any Nazi stuff after the war and for decades afterwards (the anti-Nazi Star Trek episode “Patterns of Force” (starring two Jewish actors!) was banned in Germany for having visible swastikas until recently), and that included burying any open discussion of the era for a generation.

    The movie The Nasty Girl (by the OTHER Verhoeven) is about that time during the 1980s when a new generation pushed off a change. During the 90s and 00s (don’t know about now), the Holocaust was taught intensively in West German schools.

    (East Germany talked openly about the horrors of the Nazizeit because it was run by former enemies of the Reich but as everyone in East German society became disillusioned by the Communist project, everything about the regime was discredited, and that included their political take on history, so following unification it was bog standard for East German street gangs to be awash in racist and Nazi ideas and symbolism.)

  154. 154.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Amir Khalid: Not all Latin@s are socially conservative.

    I’m involved in labor work and some of the toughest, most hardworking activists are Latin@s, including 1st gen immigrants.

    It depends what country you come from and what social class you belong to.

    Some people try to boil it down to nationality but Mexican-American landholders of Spanish descent in New Mexico are a far different beast from Mexican Indio migrant berry pickers in Maine.

    Cubans, too. That’s why Marco Rubio is the “wrong” kind of Cuban. Cubans like his parents were far more likely to have been flaming Communists than free-market capitalists or whatever they’re calling it now. Heck, Ted Cruz’ father apparently was a Communist before jumping ship. The old factory district in Tampa known as Ybor City was home to a huge Cuban immigrant community during the mid 20th century. The workers would hire readers in the factories to read newspapers and literature and essays in Spanish while they rolled cigars, and according to oral histories, the material could be quite radical (including the fiction).

  155. 155.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Amir Khalid: It’s pretty standard fare for undergrad history students in the US AFAIK. Maybe not read the whole thing but certain parts get referenced a lot.

    Might be of interest to the criminologist since he paints this picture (perhaps dishonestly) of his upbringing.

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