Trump’s speech in Poland yesterday hasn’t received much attention because of his other antics, which included slamming the U.S. intel community and American press on foreign soil and blaming President Obama for not responding to Russian meddling in the 2016 election, while simultaneously claiming that it’s impossible to definitively pin the interference on the Russians. Predictably, the MSM hot takes on the speech focused on the fact that Trump read it more or less successfully.
But the speech’s content deserves attention because of the worldview it reveals — a Bannonite dystopia in which white Christian countries are besieged by hordes of brown heretics. That vision flew mostly under the radar because Trump used “the West” as shorthand for white folks, and people interpret the phrase in different ways. But the message was clear and chilling if you’ve paid attention to the garbage ideology white nationalists allied with Bannon have pushed with varying degrees of success worldwide.
One thing that caught my notice in the transcript was Trump’s focus on Poland’s borders, which have been tragically erased again and again by invading armies, and a linkage with broader border security issues today. It was clear (to me, anyway) that despite a nod to NATO, the border-related fear Trump was selling in Poland wasn’t really about Putin’s revanchist ambitions but rather nonwhite, non-Christian invaders. He’s selling a parallel bill of goods here at home about our border, complete with a shameful program to demonize immigrants.
I’m not convinced Trump himself even understands the bamboozle, but it doesn’t matter. The white nationalists at home and abroad damn sure heard and were encouraged by the dog-whistles in that speech. I think the Trump-Putin meeting today will eventually lead to the announcement of a U.S.-Russian alliance to defeat the Muslim hordes, bought at the extremely low bargain-basement price of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia, probably with Trump giving back the spy houses in the U.S. that President Obama seized to punish Putin for fucking with our election as a down payment.
That will further divide the country. Cult45 will make fap-memes featuring Aragorn’s “Men of the West” speech in Lord of the Rings to celebrate the white Christian alliance against the Muslim menace. Meanwhile, those of us who see the greatest threat to U.S. democracy in the machinations of Putin will view it (rightly) as capitulation.
In conclusion, please hurry, Mr. Mueller!
StringOnAStick
I’m good friends with a couple from Poland. Ten years ago they planned to move back there after retirement since his college prof pension would let them live really, really well but the rise of the Right there has them both saying there is no way they would considering moving back to the old country. They’ve both been there a lot lately due to elderly family members, and each time they return even more shocked at how people there love tRump even though they hate Putin with a passion. I’m wondering if the P-T love affair becoming so public that even the crappy RW Polish media has to cover it might create some cracks in the facade? The next time she’s back in the US we will have plenty to talk about on this topic.
rikyrah
STOP.GIVING.HIM.ANY.BENEFIT.OF.THE.DOUBT.
1. He has White Supremacists WORKING IN THE WHITE HOUSE
2. He had a Nazi WORKING IN THE WHITE HOUSE
3. They ALL LIVES MATTERED THE HOLOCAUST
4. We have incidents, coast to coast, of folks being attacked by Al Cracka, and silence from this White House
5. The White House Seder looked like a bunch of Garbage
6. He refused to have the White House Dinner honoring Ramadan
7. His father was arrested at a KKK march
8. He was sued himself for racial discrimination in housing.
9. The Central Park Five
10. Birtherism
STOP STOP STOP thinking that this racist muthaphucka doesn’t know his racist speech.
Just STOP.
Elizabelle
Kudos on the blogpost title. Perfect.
rikyrah
McConnell: O’Care Repeal Bill To Be Reworked, But There’s Also A Plan B
By BRUCE SCHREINER and ALAN FRAM
Published JULY 7, 2017 11:18 AM
GLASGOW, Ky. (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he plans to produce a fresh bill in about a week scuttling and replacing much of President Barack Obama’s health care law. But he’s also acknowledging a Plan B if that effort continues to flounder.
“If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday. It was one of his most explicit concessions that a top priority for President Donald Trump and the entire GOP, erasing much of Obama’s landmark 2010 statute, might fall short.
He provided no details during remarks he made at a Rotary Club lunch in a deep-red, conservative rural area of southern Kentucky.
Previously, other Republicans have said that if their broad drive to dismantle much of Obama’s law struggled, a smaller bill with quick help for insurers and consumers might be needed. They’ve said it could include provisions continuing federal payments to insurers that help them contain costs for some low earners and inducements to keep healthy people buying policies — a step that helps curb premiums.
McConnell’s comments suggested that to show progress on health care, Republicans controlling the White House and Congress might have to negotiate with Democrats. While the current, wide-ranging GOP health care bill has procedural protections against a Democratic Senate filibuster, a subsequent, narrower measure wouldn’t and would take 60 votes to pass.
The broader repeal effort that McConnell prefers would fail if just three of the 52 Republicans vote no, since all Democrats oppose it. He was forced to cancel a vote on the measure last week after far more Republicans than that objected, and he’s been spending the Independence Day recess studying changes that might win over GOP dissidents.
ruemara
Do not. Do Not sully Aragorn Telcontar’s good name with that neo nazi swill. That was Triumph of the Will 4.0 level shite. Aragorn was a leader of all men and meant to demonstrate the flower of manhood with a depth of emotion, loyalty, steadfastness as well as physical endurance. Aragorn’s name shouldn’t be even in the same book as Trump’s.
@rikyrah: I do not understand what’s so hard about acknowledging that Trump is everything he is with no caveats and no extenuating circumstances. Much like his voters.
Major Major Major Major
I’m expecting more of the usual 300 garbage.
Frankensteinbeck
What happened to the bill the Senate passed 92-8 to make Russian sanctions law so Trump couldn’t end them? Did that get through the House?
@rikyrah:
He’s a well established racist. He’s also a well established dimwit with terrifying senility issues. I’m not sure he understands the content of any of the speeches written for him. I’m sure he’s blissfully confident that they express his desire to hurt anyone who isn’t a straight white American male.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: The “bamboozle” referred to isn’t that the speech contained racist dog-whistles; it’s that the speech conflates border security issues relevant to Russia’s generations-long threat to countries it considers protectorates with border security issues associated with immigrants in Europe and border security issues demagogued in the US. So maybe stop yelling at me? ;-)
Gin & Tonic
Fun fact: Muslims represent a bit under 1% of the population of the US, overwhelmingly assimilated or assimilating in their desire to be Americans; Muslims represent 6.5% of the population of Russia, mostly in areas (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc.) where conditions for them are, um, different.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
It’s almost beyond belief to me that at a time when Putin is looking to take back a lot of Russia’s glory by taking back a lot of land that they once held sway over, Trump is trying to freak everybody in eastern Europe about Mooslims. I say almost beyond belief because nothing this shitloaf does any more is truly beyond belief to me any longer. He could rape a nun in the Rose Garden, and it would I wouldn’t think twice about it. “Well, that’s just what he does,” I’d think and shake my head sadly that it’s come to this. You’re right about Mueller, though. That’s what gives me hope. He doesn’t make waves or even news. He just keeps on doing his thing, and I hope it’s as devastating as I think it’ll be. God help us.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: I think you are over thinking Donald Trump
* Trump’s a lowlife that no decent person would associate with
* These racists are lowlives that no decent person would associate with
So they really only have each other.
I really doubt Trump’s self obession would allow him to fell loathing for a group souly based on skin color. That man’s measure of all things is “does it kiss my ass? then it’s good, if it doesn’t, then it’s EVIL!”. If Mexico and Iran started praising Trump tomorrow, Trump would be praising Mexicans and Muslims to the heavens.
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck: “What happened to the bill the Senate passed 92-8 to make Russian sanctions law so Trump couldn’t end them? Did that get through the House?”
there’s some parliamentary disagreements and at present the House Democrats are the ones balking.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: It also showed an odd “concern” with Poland’s borders in light of this administration’s complete lack of concern with Ukraine’s borders. It’s almost as if they have no coherent foreign policy.
Formica
@rikyrah: 11. He skipped visiting the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-skips-warsaw-ghetto-visit-angers-jews
MattF
@ruemara: Somewhat OT… There’s a school of thought that Tolkien’s narrative is history written by the victors, and Mordor was the seed of a rational, industrial civilization brought down by right-wing forces. All’s fair in narrative and counter-narrative, after all. Here’s a starting point: The Last Ringbearer.
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah, I see. The House version contains a clause that lets Trump cancel the sanctions after all. Yeah, I’m not surprised Democrats are pissed.
SatanicPanic
I bet Trump’s so happy today, he’s meeting with his puppetmaster.
Robert Paehlke
This is exactly what needs to be said and thank you for saying it. And yes he may well not understand the script he read, but that does not alter the fact that some of it was damn near plagiarized from Leni Riefenstal’s film title (Triumph of the Will)..
Frankensteinbeck
@SatanicPanic:
Seriously would not be surprised if Trump gives up the whole game, admitting he’ll give Putin whatever he wants in exchange for money, and has been doing so since the primaries. The Germans sure as Hell have the whole room wired.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@MattF:
Somebody else who’s read it! Conceptually it’s fantastic. Even from a writing perspective (and plotting), it’s pretty good. I came away thinking it could be expanded somewhat.
Great piece.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Trump has an EXTREMELY well documented hatred of blacks, and other racism issues as well. It’s not just who is disrespecting him.
SatanicPanic
@Frankensteinbeck: his stupid fans will be like “it’s not illegal!”
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Good point, and yet the more positive MSM takes on the speech took the border talk at face value as an affirmation of NATO’s role in keeping Putin in check.
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
I’m with you 100% on this.
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He started his campaign by calling Mexicans, rapists and murders. He was the candidate of open bigotry and xenophobia.
@Betty Cracker: The broader MSM is made of miniTrumps, look at the difference between how they are grading T vs President O.
Yarrow
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, it’s a both/and situation, not either/or. One thing about diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s, as they progress the person who has the disease often loses their filter and begins saying things they might previously have thought but kept to themselves. I don’t know what type of memory or brain disease Trump has but it’s clear he’s suffering from something along those lines. As such I expect Trump’s racist comments to increase as time goes on. He already says and does terrible things–horrible to think it will get worse.
This issue also applies to any intelligence briefing info and collusion with Russia and that sort of thing–he’ll just say whatever pops into his head as usual, but with less ability to know how to protect himself from admitting wrongdoing.
Ian G.
@Major Major Major Major:
Funny, isn’t it, that the effete homos of Athens were able to sustain themselves to become the basis of modern western civilization, while Sparta is basically a tourist trap ruin a la Pompeii, without the excuse of being wiped out by a volcano.
This will be lost on the keyboard warriors of the alt right.
Emma
@ruemara: My (very personal, very idiosyncratic) opinion of LofR is that it is the triumph of the agricultural over the industrial and the medieval warrior’s battle versus modern mechanized warfare. However, I do see that Englishness that tinges into condescension if not outright dislike of “those people out there.” I always joke that the only people I can really identify with are the hobbits.
Bruce K
I’ve got a bad feeling that the logic driving the 2017 GOP is that if they invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, they risk losing the Southern Strategy voters that they can’t afford to lose.
(I’m also reminded of the meme with the Titanic half-sunk with the caption “What do you mean we’re sinking? I’m 200 feet up in the air here!”)
chris
I picked this up from Twitter yesterday. One of Bannon’s buddies I presume, he seems nice.
Link.
schrodingers_cat
Some journalist should ask T what he means by the West? During the Cold War, Poland and Russia were certainly not the “West”. Also “our values” what might those be?
Sab
@MattF: @comrade scotts agenda of rage: That’s amazing.
schrodingers_cat
@Emma: Never been a LoTR fan myself, I like your interpretation. Apparently the trench warfare of the Great War was one of Tolkien’s inspirations behind the trilogy.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@rikyrah:
There is also the ongoing Pocahontas garbage that is wildly disrespectful of Native Americans. Oh, and let’s not forget about his little improv about a disabled reporter.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@schrodingers_cat: And why, because he lost money on a land deal in Mexico. Trump is really that childish. I am sure that doesn’t make much differance to the victims of the race bashing Trump is inspiring, but it could quite easily Belgians some other random group that Trump decided was insifficently respectful to The Donald for tomorrow’s Hour of Hate with Trump.
gene108
@MattF:
I want to hurt that hyperlink. I couldn’t sit through the LotR movies because they deviated too much from the books for my taste.
Acting like Sauron doesn’t use magic…it’s like creating an alternate universe, where Trump isn’t a racist…
Sauron is the most powerful magic user on Middle Earth.
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I disagree with your analysis. He is motivated by racism and bigotry. His history shows that.
Monala
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Sorry, no. Trump is genuinely racist and genuinely sexist. They shape his priorities as much as his narcissism and greed.
ruemara
@MattF: If you like that, you should try the Godbreaker series. However, I’ve rejected most of that line of reinterpretation. Although Tolkien was opposed to rampant industrialism, he was not opposed to improvements in labour. He felt that there was a necessary level of caution and as I see the rampant industrialists who’d like to Mordor our lands while preserving their little Shire-like estates, I agree.
@schrodingers_cat: it’s another Der Jûden moment.
@gene108: exactly. The writer didn’t pay a lick of attention.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
WW2 also influenced the books. He wrote a large chunk of those during WW2. I think his son served in the RAF.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: Given the status of the helots, yes, more 300 garbage about “freedom” is on the way.
rikyrah
what he did, working with the GOP to deny the Democrats control of both houses in NY should haunt him enough to deny him any chance at the Presidential Nomination.
Democrats can do a helluva lot better than Andrew Cuomo.
……………………………………………………..
Andrew Cuomo Can’t Stop Punching the Left
by Martin Longman
July 7, 2017 12:15 PM
David Freedlander didn’t get New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to cooperate with him while he was writing his profile of him for Politico, and that is apparently the norm. Cuomo doesn’t want people discussing his presidential ambitions. Nonetheless, I imagine that Cuomo isn’t displeased with the piece since it paints him as a ruthlessly effective politician who gets shit done and takes no prisoners.
Overall, it’s a good piece because it provides a comprehensive history of Cuomo and his time in Albany, and it takes in commentary from a wide spectrum of views including admirers, progressive opponents, and even fearful members of Trump’s team. But there is one rather significant problem.
It begins by asking if Cuomo can win over liberals if he runs for president. It correctly sees this as his largest obstacle. It then goes into admirable detail about why this won’t be easy considering his record of vindictively antagonizing progressives and welshing on his promises. This is followed by a long and somewhat convincing argument that he’s checked off a whole lot of boxes on the progressive wishlist: free college, gay marriage, stricter gun control, a relaxation of Rockefeller-era drug laws, and a ban on fracking. In other words, he’s fought with liberals but he’s also delivered for them. Liberals should recognize his effectiveness.
And that’s all fair. But then the piece concludes with stuff like this:
……………………………
Cuomo’s approach has worked on a lot of levels and he’s got good enough poll ratings that he could probably be reelected to another term as governor without much difficulty. But the perception that he’s from the wrong wing of the Democratic Party is widespread and is going to be tough to overcome in any effort to win the nomination for the presidency.
He’ll be able to go down the list of things he’s accomplished and make the case that he’s a solid progressive, but his hardened enemies will make things tough for him. If he really has the ambition to be president, and I do not doubt that he does, then he needs his supporters to stop trashing the progressive left.
Villago Delenda Est
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Belgians, aka “The Sprouts”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Bruce K:
Well they then damned if they do, damned if they don’t because the three southern conservative Trump voters I know on line are all utterly terrified of how the world has been taken over by idiots who have access to nuclear weapons (while omitting to mention they voted our idiot leader with nuclear weapons in)
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: If Cuomo “gets things done” (aside from shutting down investigations that are getting to close to him) how come the NYC subway system is such a mess right now? Because that’s HIS job, not DeBlasio’s.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah:
Wow, fuck him, he just lost my vote, not that he ever had it.
gvg
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No. You are wrong on this. Trump has a decades long history of racism. He would not change even if flattered by Mexicans. I am not as sure on Muslims, but I suspect not. In addition he has now had a lot of flattering attention from the other racists, so I think his bad attitudes are now even more fixed. His nastiest hatreds are for blacks, but he has spread it around.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
YAY! A DK reference!
Smitty
@gene108: Lord of the Rings…..really?
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Never been impressed with Cuomo in the least. I love Kirsten Gillibrand and hope she runs for president someday, but I can see one drawback if she runs in 2020 that would apply to both Cuomo and Gillibrand if either runs against Trump: the media will call it a “subway series.” I’m not sure I could bear a year and a half of that! ;-)
Gravenstone
I read in an AP article I believe that the Poland speech was actually written primarily by Stephen Miller, aka Bannon’s Pet Nazi. So even worse than Bannon himself. Also explains the heavy, heavy emphasis on all the “white struggle” buzzwords and phraseology.
Barbara
Obviously, “western civilization” isn’t the be all and end all of “civilization” as a general proposition — but still, the idea that white nationalists are bemoaning the decline of western artistic or cultural achievement is just absurd on its face. They aren’t sitting around listening to Beethoven or reading Goethe or whatever Trump has in mind when he extols the virtue of western civilization. People in China and Japan who train to be classical musicians are more likely to carry the torch for western civilization than Donald Trump or his supporters. People like my mom would turn up the opera on Saturday afternoons and watch college football with the sound turned down, but I have to tell you she was an outlier even 50 years ago.
So far as I can tell, the only remaining thread between, say, people in Kentucky and their European antecedents or forebears is religion, and even that is way overblown, because modern Europe is for all intents and purposes post-Christian. It is deeply affected by Christian thought and tradition but most people are not religious in any overt sense, and really HAVE NOT BEEN since the French Revolution, although of course the rate of the departure from religious practice varies by country. Yes, of course, white skin, but for Christ’s sake, even that doesn’t “unite” people. It certainly doesn’t unite rural people to their urban counterparts in the U.S.
aimai
@rikyrah: very right!!!!
No Drought No More
“In conclusion, please hurry, Mr. Mueller”!
Nope, all wrong.
Mueller (et.al.) should take
All the time they need,
To best dot the “i”‘s
And cross the “t”‘s,
So the day Trump falls
There will be none to say
“They got it wrong
And he must stay”.
The Thin Black Duke
@aimai: “When a person shows you what they are, believe them the first time.”
eclare
@Elizabelle: Seconded on the blogpost title, perfection.
aimai
@Emma: There’s nothing really industrial about the books, that is all in the movies (the mass production of the orcs). There is a revulsion for enclosures and modern things like industry and capitalism run rampant in the last section on how the shire is defiled (and restored) but its not a medieval vs. modern situation at all but a rural, bucolic, 18th century middle class agricultural fantasy vs. industrialization/urbanization/loss of connection.
TenguPhule
@ruemara:
Unless it involves him using a sword on Trump. Or a shield, or really anything else at hand.
Laura
@rikyrah: I love your clarity and your laser focus on the facts in front of our faces.
None of this is normal.
scav
Donald Trump’s very exciting news about the end of the west
First Dog on the Moon
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
I expect a naked Baud mopping with mustard soon enough.
Frankensteinbeck
@Barbara:
It’s about white skin. It’s about race, with the assumption that with race must come a culture that is superior in all ways. What they are afraid of is miscegenation. When they talk about the end of the white race, it’s the assumption that once brown people have enough power, they will breed with the racists’ white daughters and there will be no more white people left. They see confirmation in this in how interracial relationships have become progressively normalized since desegregation. Certainly black/white couples were shocking in a ‘liberals are supposed to accept this’ way in the 80s.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Almost?
Major Major Major Major
@Frankensteinbeck:
There’s the associated fear, caused by their own projection, that once non-whites hold power, they’ll treat white people as badly as white people treated them.
Seanly
@Major Major Major Major:
When I finally saw 300, I had 2 thoughts – 1) that was the most homoerotic movie I’d ever seen* and 2) considering how gay the Spartans were, why the beef with metrosexual Persians?
* being straight, I maybe haven’t been exposed to much.
Back on topic, when I hear the RWNJs talk about “the West” and “(western) civilization”, I just see those as barely hidden code words for white folks and white pride. The only thing that surprised me was some jabs at Putin which was probably just playing to the Poles. I assume Trump prostrated himself to Putin at their meeting today?
Gerald Parks
@rikyrah:
Well said AND spot on!
Cheryl from Maryland
Miller and Bannon didn’t add a reference of the 1683 Siege of Vienna to Trump’s speech, but you can bet that the Polish people remember their King in 1683, John III Sobieski, defeating the Ottoman Empire at the gates of the city. It’s a big thing in Eastern Europe — one of my professors brought me back a medallion commemorating the “great victory” in 1983, the 300th anniversary of the battle. For those interested in the Siege who like fantasy, I recommend Tim Power’s The Drawing of the Dark.
Major Major Major Major
@Seanly: To be fair, in some tellings Russians are barely western, arguably not European, barely ‘white’.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Seanly: Bears vs twinks?
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: hmm, maybe we should try to make that the next vampires-v-werewolves-style franchise.
d58826
From Tillerson
Does that mean that Trump now believes the IC community analysis? That it isn’t fake news and a witch hunt? Hard to square this circle.
Assuming you can believe what they are saying
Bill Arnold
I was told today by a couple of Poles that large numbers of friendlies were bused in from the countryside, “free sandwich” and beverage too. I asked for an estimate and they both agreed that maybe 60-70 percent of the people in Poland knew this.
Didn’t make much of a splash in the US media or maybe I missed it, though it was available in news feeds, e.g. here:
Trump Will Have Buses of Supporters Sent to His Speech in Poland, Utilizing Communist Party Tactics
(OK, quote cherry-picked for the “huge” :-)
The point being that politicians in other countries know very well how to manipulate D Trump.
scav
That sort of sheer bitter incoherency certainly has a market. See also this Pole at a Britain First rally: Marian Lukasik calls for Merkel to be shot for refugee policy
schrodingers_cat
Isn’t Miller, Jewish? The people on the right that love Putin have no love lost for Jewish people. Doesn’t he have any Jewish people he knows in Russia, he needs to perhaps have a talk with them.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: Isn’t that what vampires-vs-werewolves already is? And 300, and the Star Trek reboot, and….
Betty Cracker
Also, too:
So there you have it, folks — he said, she said, whaddya gonna do?
Stan
@rikyrah: Everyone I know here in NY f*cking hates Cuomo. And we are pretty good at hating. Not good enough though.
Yeah, he can be reelected because the repubs are so weak here.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: But, like, officially, I mean.
You could call the movie series Circuit Party or something.
d58826
@Betty Cracker: Richard Engles take is:
1. Putin has been looking for a POTUS who go back to the GREAT GAME of spheres of influence. Prev. presidents haved said no but Der Fuhrer seems to be supportive
2. the election hack was he said/he said but agreed to disagree. but we would talk about it some more. No punishment. US caved
d58826
OH for FSM sake. More important to move forward. Will try to get the russians to agree not to do this in the future. But the russians havn’t agreed that that did anything in the first place
Tokyokie
@Major Major Major Major: I once knew a Protestant who lived in the Irish Republic, and he said that was precisely the fear the Ulster Defence League types had. And, by the way, because of his personal experience of the contrary, he despised those Prot bastards.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Spikes and Pikes?
Citizen_X
Plus, he was giving the speech at a monument to Polish resistance to the Nazi invasion. Now, pardon my cartographic confusion, but wasn’t that particular menace coming from the, uh…help me out here…the west?
d58826
And the Russian version is that Trump accepted Putin’s version that the Russians did not interfere.
Bill Arnold
@Gravenstone:
Re Trump’s Poland speech, yes Stephen Miller drafted it, e.g. Trump’s Poland Speech Shows That Stephen Miller Never Left
Tokyokie
@Seanly: As Sarah Silverman said about 300, it got its name for how gay it was on a scale of 1-10.
Chris
@Ian G.:
Obligatory mention of pet peeve in “300;” that whole thing where Sparta couldn’t go to war for religious reasons, but Leonidas defiantly says “fuck the corrupt priests” and marches to war anyway?
That actually happened, but it was in the First Persian War, not the Second. The Spartans didn’t heroically defy the priests and march off to save Greece – all of them stayed put. The “boy lovers and philosophers” of Athens, along with a few allies, therefore had to meet the Persians at Marathon without them – and they kicked their asses and ended the war, also without them. Give me these people any day.
(In case you couldn’t tell, I tend to have a very deep contempt for Proud Warrior Races, both in fiction and in reality, and just as much for their fanboys).
BC in Illinois
@schrodingers_cat:
@Barbara:
I assume that I am a product of and recipient of and inhabitant of “Western Civilization.” What is it of this civilization that I want and need to protect, emulate, and promote? I don’t think that it’s the same as what the people around Trump think.
There is much to be said about this, but to put in in our own nation’s present context: Why is it that the people who are so keen on protecting and preserving and honoring our European heritage (because that’s what they mean when they say “western), don’t highlight . . . Oh, I don’t know . . .German and Irish music; Italian, Dutch, and Spanish art; Greek, German, and Scottish philosophy; French and Italian cooking; Spanish and Swedish lifestyles; English and Russian literature? What about the Declaration of the Rights of Man? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Instead, we have people–intent on honoring their “heritage”–raising the flags of Nazi Germany and of the Slaveholders’ Confederate Rebellion. Two movements aimed not at an inclusive society for all, but for exclusion, segregation, enslavement, and extermination.
There is no reason to listen to any neo-confederate, neo-nazi, or avowed white supremacist speak about “civilization.”
As Simone Weil (I think) said it: “If you aren’t going to speak up for EVERYBODY, then why should ANYBODY listen to you?”
Quinerly
John Podesta gives awesome tweet storm while road tripping with his wife: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/podesta-response-trump-g20-dnc-server
Quinerly
If you need a laugh, the internet is not kind to Dense: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pence-touches-space-hardware-labeled-do-not-touch
TenguPhule
Trump is the dumbest sonofabitch on Earth.
I have no words.
Chris
@Barbara:
I find it fascinating that these people know this, and in fact, deeply loathe Europe as an atheist and socialist hellhole which as far as they’re concerned is basically the Soviet Union with fewer guns – listen to the horrified way they talked about Obama and Clinton wanting to move us to a more “European-style social democracy,” the way they describe things that’ve been fairly mundane in Europe for decades as the death knell of freedom, etc. And yet every one of them enthusiastically rallies behind the idea of saving Europe from the savage brown hordes. Why? What’s so great about Europe? If even a fraction of what you say every day about Europe is true, then isn’t it just a choice between communism and islamism where there is no good solution? What could you possibly have in common with all those Europeans that would make you determined to save their degenerate, totalitarian, God-hating, gun-hating America-hating civilization?
Of course, the answer is fucking obvious. But don’t say it out loud, because calling a racist a racist is worse than being a racist.
Jilli Brown
James Fallows at the Atlantic has a great piece on trumps speech. I highly recommend it. It’s a great primer on the bannon/miller/trump world view. I may be uninformed, but I learned a lot about their vocabulary. It was kinda stunning when he parsed the speech and compared them to other presidents. Anyway…
d58826
before the meeting
No wonder Trump likes him
https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/883372352171585537
Karen
so did the Russians get Alaska back?
Bill Arnold
@Jilli Brown:
Seconded. Easy link: How American Presidents Used to Speak Overseas (July 6, 2017).
Fallows has a good eye/ear for speeches/speechwriting. Sample quote:
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Trump ain’t dumb. He is vile. This is also an interesting “pivot.” Usually, Trump tries to pretend to be a statesman when talking directly to foreign leaders, and saves the “red meat” bullshit for his voter rallies. But now he feels free to let his fascist freak flag fly all the time.
Brachiator
@Bill Arnold:
@Jilli Brown:
Trump supporters love this. They embrace their “plain speaking” president and all the pedestrian language and mis-statements. Paradoxically, they see it as more honest and truthful than “old stye” rhetoric. At the rate we are going, Republicans will next elect a president who speaks emoji.
Tehanu
@ruemara:
That horrid, clumsy speech was in the movie — not the book. I enjoyed all 3 movies, mostly, but although quite a lot of the best stuff from the books did actually make it into the films, Jackson et al. only rarely resisted the temptation to “improve” on what Tolkien wrote, with horrid, clumsy results. I’ve realized that the movies have, to some degree, pushed the books into the background — there are lots of people who have no idea of the differences, and that’s only natural — but for me, the books will always be the authentic Middle-Earth.
GHayduke
@Major Major Major Major:
I can’t remember…were the bad guys in 300 as obviously blah as the Uraq Hai?