obviously this is ridiculous as a matter of correspondence to reality. but as a symbolic representation of what trump means to his supporters, it is kind of perfect. (thread) pic.twitter.com/iICM1zQ8Ui
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) November 27, 2019
Since Trump theoretically didn’t have access to his own twitter account when it first appeared, it’s possible he didn’t personally retweet that ridiculous Rocky Balboa photoshop. (His diligent minions should’ve known better than to retweet it, but ‘should’ve known better’ is not a skill for which Trump minions are selected.)
Interesting riff from Jamelle Bouie on the trope:
when CREED 2 was released, my friend @adamserwer wrote on the first CREED as a subversion of the Rocky franchise. The first three Rocky movies, he notes, are the story of a working-class white man humbling the black man who dares to claim America. https://t.co/f6Vo4cni7g
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) November 27, 2019
Whoever created this meme image of Trump as Rocky just wanted to show him as a powerful man. And Trump obviously wants to present himself as such. But when you consider the racial politics of the film itself, it’s hard to imagine a more apt piece of political symbolism.
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) November 27, 2019
Adam writes that “The Rocky films are a product of a sense of white pride and humiliation, and the desire to overcome it by restoring the proper order of things.”
You can say exactly the same for Trump himself. (end thread)
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) November 27, 2019
Trump's a lazy, unathletic, spoiled, amoral Manhattan socialite and trust fund baby, but his supporters *need* to make him out to be some blue-collar hero.
— Kergeey (@kergeey) November 28, 2019
I would also like to remind people that his twitter is an official Presidential statement.
That shit is going to the Library of Congress.
— Diogenes Rex (@tyrantdoggoking) November 27, 2019
Jeffro
The Library of Congress doesn’t have to actually accept it, though, does it?
(shudder)
Just more wacko culture war BS that keeps his face in front of our exhausted, offended eyes, unfortunately.
However, FORTUNATELY, UVA managed to hang in there and beat Tech today – WOOT! Off to the ACC championship!!
dmsilev
Washington Post:
I’m sure everyone is shocked to learn this.
West of the Rockies
Christ, but Republicans are fragile, fragile snowflakes.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@West of the Rockies: The phrase “glass jaw” comes to mind.
Bill Arnold
@West of the Rockies:
Bold mine:
The surprising history of “snowflake” as a political insult:
Jeffro
Shouldn’t we only be one, maybe two Comedy Central specials at most away from mocking this clown into exile?
I mean, deep down RWNJs seem to know that elevating someone who has no shame to the country’s highest office pays off for them (which is why we should have been shaming THEM from day 1)
But still…he’s such a putz. I know another ‘Walter Reed partial physical’ is within reach, if we just put our best comedians on this task!
Adam L Silverman
This is Joe Frazier’s gym in Philadelphia. When I was a professor at Temple back before I quit academia, I lived about 10 miles north of it up across the county line in Elkins Park. On the rare occasions I drove to work, or needed to drive into Philadelphia proper rather than take SEPTA, I would drive past it. There isn’t even a historic marker.
In 2012 I had the privilege to meet a member of Frazier’s ring crew, a Navy vet who’d retired into the same complex in Denver where my grandparents’ condo was (Windsor Gardens). I met him in the gym there when I had to go out after my aunt died – she’d been living in my grandparents’ condo – and arrange for both an estate sale and the sale of the property. We got to chatting and he told me something I didn’t know and that I’ve never seen/heard remarked in any of the documentaries about Frazier’s fights with Ali.
In their final fight, when Frazier’s trainer threw in the towel just as the bell to start the 15th and final round rang, it was to protect Frazier. While both documentaries make it clear that Ali was out on his stool, that he wouldn’t have been able to answer the bell for that final round, and that Frazier and his corner didn’t know this, what no one knew was that Frazier was blind in one eye from an earlier injury. And since they didn’t know Ali was out and unable to continue, they were worried if Frazier took any more damage to his good eye from Ali, then he’d be completely blind. So they threw in the towel.
Ali, the only black nationalist that white Americans are comfortable with, is lionized. Frazier, who supported Ali financially when he refused to serve in the US Army and lobbied for him to get his boxing license back, was crapped on by Ali as Ali tried to hype their fights and build up his own reputation. Ali died a revered public figure. Frazier all but forgotten.
Changerous
Best evidence yet of Drumpf fixation on being Putin’s puppy.
He emulates totalitarian leaders worst traits.
NotMax
How Putinesque. But needs moar wrestling a bear.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
Eddie Murphy nailed this shit in Eddie Murphy Raw decades ago:
https://youtu.be/tQM0XqvzAC0
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
At least Putin used his own moobs.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: We’re not even ready for a cease-fire. The problem we’ve faced for 18 years now, that the National Command Authority, especially the civilians running it and their senior advisors can’t figure out, and expect the military to solve for them even though that isn’t what military strategists do, is figure out how to secure the peace. Staying is not getting us anywhere, but leaving doesn’t resolve the problem. So we stumble from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year trying to translate official US policy and national strategy into a coherent theater strategy that can be planned into successful operations at the tactical level. All the while we still do not know what to do to set the conditions through these operations within the theater strategy and campaign plan to secure the peace. Staying won’t make things better and neither will leaving. It is like a dysfunctional relationship where neither side can figure out how to break out of the cycle of dysfunctionality.
NotMax
As a companion piece, maybe they’ll slap Ivanka’s head on Bea Arthur’s bod.
:)
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Had his own been shown it would have to be titled Mooby Dick.
;)
Dan B
@Adam L Silverman: I dated a guy who is a provost at Temple. I don’t know how long he’s been there. He cut off the relationship probably because he knew I wouldn’t be an academic’s “wife”. It also is possible that he realized I would have a tough time with the 5 AM alarm clock.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
Sadly, the “answer” is known, it’s been known since before the First Loya Jurga. The problem is that nobody wants to pay the costs, acknoledge the multitude of failures, and on so many, many fronts, start over and respend billions.
Jay
khead
@Jeffro:
I guess the streak had to end sometime. Heh. Thought it might happen today. Congrats and enjoy being the cannon fodder for Clemson.
Adam L Silverman
@Dan B: If he’s THE Provost, then sometime after 2005. Up to that point the provost had been a friend of my Dad’s who would’ve been ready for retirement sometime over the past decade or so. I went up there on a visiting position for 2004-2005, but they were planning on filling two faculty slots that academic year – “wink, wink”. One at the junior level, which I was at, and one at the very senior level. The dean of arts and sciences at the time, who was an absolute lunatic, made two very fateful decisions and then up and resigned and took an endowed chair at Princeton. The first was she cancelled the two criminology searches because she couldn’t get her head around what criminology did. Despite the department telling her they were ready to fill the junior position and had that person already on faculty as a visiting. I left for winter break after having a talk with my department chair where he told me to have a good time and that when I got back he expected we’d have a very nice chat and that the department had never lost a candidate because they’d always been able to make generous offers. This was his way of saying not to stress, I had a job offer coming without him telling me because the dean hadn’t signed off. When I got back we had a talk, but it was to tell me the dean had cancelled the two criminology searches, the only searches in the College of Arts and Sciences that year that got cancelled. That I could stay one more year as a visiting if I wanted, but that was it. The dean, I did mention she was batshit crazy, right?, had also denied every female faculty member up for tenure and/or promotion tenure and/or promotion. That’s right, a female dean professionally screwed over every single female faculty member in arts and sciences whose departments had approved them for tenure and/or promotion. And then she quit and left ASAP. I took a visiting position somewhere else for a year, then a tenure track position, but I’d had enough. At Temple I could never do enough for the students who needed help and could never get the students who didn’t to stop complaining about trivial matters. While it took two more years, I got out of academia and I’ve never looked back.
Jay
Cheryl Rofer
Let us take a moment to consider how deeply strange it is that the President of the United States would have someone on his staff photoshop his head onto a fictional character’s body, portrayed by a movie star. That the President of the United States would then feel compelled to share that graphic, no comment added, with the world via social media.
Within Trumpworld, this sort of thing is not uncommon. In their art and political cartoons, when he is dressed, he has the physique of a well-kept middle-aged businessman or better. And there are a fair number of graphics showing him as possessing a tight and extremely muscular body, exposed for all to see.
Adam L Silverman
@Dan B: And I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I met someone I should’ve asked to marry me when I was there that year, but the timing sucked because of the search cancellation. There was no way she was going to follow me around to visiting positions until I could land a tenure track or tenured slot. A couple of years later when I was teaching two hour drive away, we made contact, but I went in a different direction relationship wise and she soon met her future husband and, as usual, my relationship with this other woman didn’t work out. In the end, I suppose, it worked out. I get asked if I’ll deploy at least twice a year. And I’m not willing to put someone through that. When she was giving me the signals that she wanted to try to make something lasting I wasn’t doing this type of work. It’s not something she or anyone else should ever have to sign on for.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Perhaps.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: And then have one of his adult sons, one of his PACs, and several other surrogates all defend it as if it was a life and death issue.
debbie
@Jay:
Now, was that before or after he explained what space was? //
khead
@Adam L Silverman:
This is pretty good. A lot packed into the last two paragraphs. Kinda ironic that white americans are comfortable with the Ali that Frazier would’ve thrown into the Atlanta Olympic torch fire.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: The third time is enemy action…
Jay
Greek, not Green,….
khead
@Cheryl Rofer:
You don’t understand. That tweet owned the libs this week.
Adam L Silverman
@khead: It is what it is.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: It is always important to color coordinate one’s incarceration.//
Jay
Keith P
Remember when the GOP wanted to bring dignity back to the White House?
Bill Arnold
Re the top post, the linked politico article says:
So I have no reason to believe that he didn’t pre-approve the Blond Rocky tweet. Perhaps he even suggested it.
At least it’s reported as a mod of a Rocky III poster shot, not Rocky IV, where in the alt-history that we now live in, he would have portrayed an alt-Rocky IV where a Blond Bizarro Rocky helps the Russians fight the real Americans, and loses badly, zero or more deities willing. DJT is a pathetic man. (Weak of mind and body, soft, slow.)
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: That whole quote makes no sense. Air Force 1 has wifi. And we already know that Scavino also tweets from the President’s personal account. So there’s no news here, but there is some disinformation.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
it’s a bit of a weird incomplete tale. Aleksander wasn’t a primary, was suspected of not only moving money, but draining accounts, was going to be extradited to Russia to face fraud charges, at the same time, another Greek Court said the US,
then it was France, then his former Bitcoin were accused of putting out a hit on him, then the accounts were linked to FSB and IRA players,……………
khead
@Bill Arnold:
The tweet is from early AM Wed. Pretty sure he did it.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: That’s why they’re called crooks.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
one of the Trump connected Mobsters said that Trump lied even when he didn’t have to, just to stay in practice.
as we have noticed more and more, so do Trump’s Minions.
Yarrow
This tweet is from someone who was at the London Bridge attack today:
A narwhal tusk! Love it. (She was told her spelling was wrong and then the person that did it was jumped on for pointing it out.)
If you click through on this tweet you can see a pretty good still from the video. Narwhal tusk guy is there and another guy is spraying the attacker with a fire extinguisher, as one does…
Dan B
@Adam L Silverman: I looked up my long ago boyfriend and he is not listed as a provost at Temple. The friend of his who was hired by the UW told me Larry was a provost must have inhaled.
Sorry to hear about your troubles at Temple. I’m very glad you are here.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Only a good guy with a narwhal tusk can stop a bad guy with a knife…
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
well, more and more it looks like they caught and jailed the petty crook, for petty crimes, only to realize a couple of years later, that the petty crook, was ripping off not only even bigger crooks, in the form of his bosses, ( which the petty crook didn’t know), but also the FSB and GRU.
this is what, the third BitCoin operation that was laundering GRU/FSB money, or ripping off customers on behalf of the FSB/GRU?
almost like there is a pattern there,…….
Adam L Silverman
@Dan B: It was what it was.
And here is what it is.
Or something like that.
UncleEbeneezer
I remember reading that Serwer piece when Creed 2 came out. It was really excellent. And right on the $.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Well, a guy with a narwhal tusk and a guy with a fire extinguisher.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Didn’t deeds are, in fact, not done dirty cheap. And having alternative currencies and other ways of paying for them that are hard to track is always something folks at places like GRU and FSB are going to be looking for. That provides opportunities for those who are willing to take them. Those opportunities, of course, also come with a lot of risk.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: What you really want are the guys playing dominos. Some of the worst pub fights I’ve ever seen were among and between the domino players.
A woman’s rugby team on a pub crawl would also work, though it might be overkill.
Cheryl Rofer
Here’s a photo
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: A tour guide ran toward the guy and kicked him in the head. Don’t mess with the tour guides.
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s the photo in the tweet in my comment. I just don’t have the ability to actually post it in comments like you do.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: It’s a great photo. And great action.
Yarrow
The guy who took the knife away from the attacker and then goes running down the bridge to warn onlookers to back up because the guy has an explosive vest is also pretty impressive. The papers are incredibly irresponsible in posting pictures of him holding the knife without making it completely clear that he had taken the knife off the attacker.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Not in that world, but I could see taking the phones for opsec/comsec reasons, to make sure nobody turned them on, since probably most intelligence services could id the POTUS-phone(s) if it/they managed to connect to a cell tower, and reporters might break comsec for their own reasons.
Still not sure of the timestamp of that tweet. (this computer is in multiple timezones at once.)
As far as the tweet owning the libs, not really. Amused them, mainly. Over-estimating oneself is weakness. Swagger is weakness. Vanity is weakness. Selfishness is weakness. etc. :-)
Jeffro
@khead: Yeah, well thanks. Can’t beat Clemson w/o playing Clemson…which I guess VT doesn’t get to do this year ;)
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: They did do that for the flight into Afghanistan. But the tweet was sent before that. And given that it has been publicly acknowledged that Scavino tweets from that account, it wasn’t necessary to make the statement at all. And my guess is this was a Scavino tweet. The RUMINT is that he spends a lot of time on the chans and on gab and other sites and platforms that are utilized by neo-NAZIs, white supremacists, the “patriot” cosplayers, and/or the alt-right to collect these memes and tweet them out or to collect other material and retweet it.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I’d bet your favorite donuts that nothing I’ll say here is unknown to you.
We do not live in a society like Afghanistan. We do not know how to live in a society like Afghanistan. How long has fighting been going on? Off and mostly on for centuries. A hell of a lot longer than we’ve been there or here. It has little of any major riches, especially for the numbers of inhabitants. It’s per capita GDP is among the worst in the world, fighting has been going on for ever to control what is there and with it’s neighbors. It of course has religious extremism as most poor areas do, hell as even our country does. People have been trying to figure it out for centuries in one way or another and not much has worked. What to do?
Well if the situation isn’t helped by us being there and won’t be different by us leaving, the question has to be asked, why are we staying? Inertia? Stubbornness? Desire to be the pivotal power in the area? Which has done what for anyone?
If there was an endpoint, even if it was pie in the sky, sure maybe.
If there is nothing to be gained, and a lot to be lost, what is it all for?
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
People writing/etc on these platforms are 2 steps away from influencing the president’s messaging. That’s closer than most advisors. (On the chans, nobody knows that you are a
dogprogressive. :-)Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: @Ruckus: It’s not called the graveyard of empires for nothing.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus:
I think the strategic concern is that if we live it will make things worse and that worse will eventually wind up, again, on our doorstep.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: The RUMINT is he’s not the only one. A lot of this stuff is getting to the President or to people like Stephen Miller.
FelonyGovt
A MAGA friend of a friend is certain that the Rocky post is just Trump “loving to troll his haters in the media”. These people think these sophomoric stunts are just swell, as long as liberals are annoyed or upset.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I always thought a good marketing slogan for a chain of funeral homes would be “the empire of graveyards”.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: So if, say, a foreign enemy state wanted to influence American policy they could post on gab and/or the chans, then unleash their bots and trolls to like the posts and memes and promote them with the goal of getting someone like Scavino to push them on Twitter or print them out for Trump’s “briefing book.” I’m sure Russia or China has never done anything like that. Not at all. Nope.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Has no one done that yet? Would be perfect.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Yep, yep, and yep.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I am not aware of anyone who has. I should trademark it while I still can!
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes I understand the concept, but we’ve been mucking about around the world for some time now and really what has it gained in many parts of the world? We fucked with Iran, a country with a extremely rich history of development, and yes of abject poverty, but our meddling has done what, other than make things worse. We’ve meddled in South America with the drug trade and spend billions upon billions and accomplished what, other than driving up the cost of illegal drugs?
I’m not an isolationist but I’m also not one to think that we can export our country everywhere, especially given our history with slavery and our ongoing racism and fundamentalistic religions. Other countries, many of whom we meddle in already have those problems, and as we can’t seem to solve our own, I ask again why are we there?
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: I don’t have any better answers for you. I’ve not been asked for inputs on Afghanistan for a long time now. And I’ve really got little visibility into what we’re doing and why these days that isn’t what everyone else has from just reading the news.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I have the impression not many people know what we’re doing there. Is our goal to “win the war?” What does that mean? Are we still going to “defeat the Taliban?” or did we do that? It seems like the Hotel California of wars.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
That was my impression from a lot you’ve said here.
Which takes me back to my original and probably unanswerable question.
@Yarrow:
I think the answer is momentum, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
It’s because we never should have been there in the first place, in a war we had no right to start, in a country that we had no reason to go in to militarily. And it’s costing us massively. Creating a war posture for the last 16 yrs. It’s not good for our citizens, it’s not healthy for the world, it’s caused more ongoing problems and has accomplished nothing worth the price. We are continuing because the total lack of concept and planning of the GWB maladministration, which gave us President Obama, for which we are suffering a horrible moronic backlash with a fully grown child in charge of a twitter account and nothing else, while our almost totally absent foreign policy is balanced out by our almost totally absent national policy which is fuck with the liberals because conservatives have totally lost the plot and are pulling crap out their asses on a minute by minute basis. We are a major nuclear power, with possibly the worlds largest military, wandering around aimlessly at the behest of the leader of one of, if not our enemies, certainly not one of our friends because of the internal problems we face that really are the same problems as the middle east. Greed, poverty, religious extremism, royalty in power. We have a modicum of chance to pull out of this dive of stupidity we are in but that is about our only chance because we’ve jumped out of the plane, the chute is sitting on the seat we were sitting in, and there is only the hope that we land in a soft bush because the back up chute is on fire because the morons in charge thought it would look pretty.
StringOnAStick
@Adam L Silverman: When I was a graduate student, my goal was an MS then PhD so I could teach at a 4 year college. 2 years of being a GTA taught me the exact same lesson you learned. The engineering students always wanted to fight to change their 98% to 99%, and the non-science major students wanted to ask at week 14 if they could still pass with a 18% average. The endless energy these two groups absorbed meant the middle kids didn’t get the attention they deserved.
Suzanne
Maybe one one day when this is over, we’ll have a National Conversation about bad taste (which is not the same as lowbrow). Because this shit is bananas.
Ruckus
@Keith P:
The Greasy Old Poop party? Dignity?
Can’t say as I do remember that.
Kent
@Yarrow: I’m fairly informed and I have no idea why we are still in Afghanistan. Yes, if the Taliban take over lots of girls will lose access to education and get sent back to the middle ages. But if that was actually our priority we’d be sending the infantry into Lancaster County PA where thousands of Amish girls have basically the same educational and social future as a girl under the Taliban with the unanimous blessing of the Supreme Court.
Jay
@Ruckus:
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/07/afghanistan-in-the-1950s-and-60s/100544/
Donald Gisselbeck
I continue to suggest that we get “tiny-dicked doofus” to go viral. It should goad the critter into tweeting pictures of his dick.
Ruckus
@Donald Gisselbeck:
Nobody, and I really mean NOBODY wants to see that.
People having to dig around in the closet for that long forgotten microscope, most of us get hurt running into each other trying to make it to the bathroom before throwing up on the sofa, dogs with their paws over their eyes to avoid blindness……..
smike
@Suzanne: Also, maybe somebody should reverse that juxtaposition of body/head and set that loose on the wingers.
ola azul
@StringOnAStick:
Missed your question earlier (two weeks ago or so). You still around?
Also, too: DMT: well, now. A body may or may not take an innerest in the existential, but a-times the existential takes an innerest in you.
Cacti
Eddie Murphy called this one years ago in his “Raw” stand up set.
“White people period, ya’ll go crazy when you see a Rocky movie cause ya’ll believe that shit.”
debbie
@FelonyGovt:
It’s like that coat Melania wore printed with that “I don’t care” remark. Sure this kind of thing may upset some people, but it makes Trump and the Missus look really stupid. I don’t think they benefit from this so much as they debase themselves. Trump may not care in the short run, but at the end of the day, he will regret all this.
SteverinoCT
@Adam L Silverman: I read a bit of his speech from the 26? Where he was talking about his hospital visit and how the doctors wanted him to open his shirt and show them his “gorgeous” chest. I associate the photoshop, or at least the timing, with that.
Ruckus
@debbie:
Trump may not care in the short run, but at the end of the day, he will regret all this.
I doubt he will. If he was capable of regret might he not be regretting all of his life about now? His bankruptcies/business failures?
OTOH he may be regretting all of it and ran for president to show that he really is the shit. Problem is of course that he’s tanking that just like he’s tanked everything else in life. My point is that he isn’t a normal human being, he’s deeply flawed with emotional issues and a stunning lack of mental acuity.
Miss Bianca
On the strength of that Atlantic review, just ordered Creed from the library. I knew that the Black Panther director had subverted the Rocky trope, and that for that alone it would be worth watching, I just hadn’t got around to it yet.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: Hey, I can tell you Joe Frazier is NOT forgotten in Detroit. Boxing was a huge deal in Detroit, so even tho’ I didn’t watch it – couldn’t stomach watching grown men pummel each other for sport – Ali, Frazier, George Foreman, and of course our own hometown pride, Joe Lewis, were all revered there.
Ruckus
Doubt anyone will read this but this post struck a nerve.
Dad use to like boxing. We watched it on TV together when I was a kid. But as the black fighters became names something changed. Not dad, not the actual boxing, but the audience and the promoters. It became, not more brutal, but the sport that it was changed to promoting racial fighting, blacks against whites. Dad recognized it and left the sport, I did as well but I didn’t understand what I was seeing then, but it actually just hit me, re-reading this post. And a lot of people left it behind when it happened.
Now don’t get me wrong, the sport was brutal, was never going to be anything but brutal, that skill, to be brutal and take the brutality, that appeals/appealed to a lot of people, but there also was an art and skill to the sport. Ali understood the brutality/skill and the appeal of that. The promoters saw a sales gimmick in the racism. And people like my dad wanted none of that.