THE BIG LIE: According to Cassidy Hutchinson, Jim Jordan has knowledge of almost or possibly everything related to the January 6 COUP. Jim Jordan must abide by the two congressional subpoenas that he has not followed, and it is essential for him to do so as the public seeks… pic.twitter.com/RghnpFaygl
— Popular Liberal 🇺🇸 (@PopularLiberal) October 8, 2023
The tweet above crossed my path, reminding me I’ve meant to talk about Cassidy Hutchinson’s book tour — specifically, about how her (now ended) devotion to Trump was sparked by growing up with an intermittently absent / abusive father. Monica Hesse, in the Washington Post [unpaywalled gift link]:
Cassidy Hutchinson’s parents had separated only recently when her father sent her a text saying he’d left her a present. He hadn’t handled the split well, the former White House aide writes in her new memoir, “Enough,” but there he was, telling her there was a surprise in the mailbox of the New Jersey home where she lived with her mom. Teenage Cassidy went out and retrieved “something weighty wrapped in aluminum foil.” She unwrapped the package at the kitchen sink and found two deer hearts, “still warm and dripping with blood.”
Was the gift a threat? A performance? Was it the only convoluted way that a man like him — a hunter untrusting of government and hospitals and appendix removals and “wimps,” in his daughter’s telling — knew how to express love? Hutchinson doesn’t plumb the event too deeply in the book, in which the bloody heart gift is just one in a series of kooky behaviors from her complicated dad. But if you’re reading “Enough” not as a political potboiler but as a character study in what a nice girl is doing in a place like this, then, boy, the deer heart is going to haunt you for days…
I cannot count the number of times, during the Trump administration, that I looked at the young women surrounding him — the Hope Hickses and Alyssa Farahs and Sarah Matthewses — and wondered what in God’s name they were doing there. John F. Kelly, Mark Meadows, you could understand. They must have decided they could either steady the ship or party on down with it — and if the latter happened, hey, they had their entire careers in the rearview mirror. But when you’re a 20-something woman, what about Trump’s mangy persona or misogynist tendencies made you decide to serve at the pleasure of this president?
“Enough” is most interesting when it serves as a case study to answer that question. Hutchinson didn’t come from money. She didn’t go to Harvard. She was wait-listed from her dream school, which wasn’t even an Ivy but a decent liberal arts college in rural Pennsylvania. She ended up at Christopher Newport University, a fine institution in Virginia that you will be forgiven if you’ve barely heard of. She didn’t have a buffet of family-connection job offers awaiting her upon graduation. She got a little lucky with a college boyfriend whose family let her live with them rent-free in the D.C. area so she could work unpaid internships. But otherwise — this was a young American who got patriotic stars in her eyes the first time she visited Washington as a child, and who decided then that she’d do what it took to work there as soon as she graduated college. It was her bad luck that the White House administration coinciding with her job eligibility was an absolute toilet bowl.
“Enough” is a profile in courage, but it’s equally a profile in panic. A profile in realizing that the toilet is never going to flush you out into an open ocean of possibility; that you just work in a toilet now. You are 24 years old, caught in the middle of something far bigger than you, and it turns out all your mentors are snakes.
In the background of all of this is Hutchinson’s father. Her descriptions of him paint a picture of a needy, aggrieved man who delighted in mocking weakness and thrilled at considering himself a “warrior,” who demanded Hutchinson’s fealty while offering jeering and insults in return. If this sounds an awful lot like someone else in her life (and ours), it won’t surprise you at all to hear that “The Apprentice” was her dad’s favorite television show. Her father, Hutchinson writes, “fixated” on Trump and on the important business lessons he felt the man was sharing with the country.
A daddy metaphor feels a little on the nose here. But reading this book about Hutchinson’s bid at redemption makes you wonder about how ours might go, as we careen toward 2024 and the likelihood that most Republicans are sanguine with the idea of restoring Trump to the White House, despite what Hutchinson and others have told us about what it was like in there with him in charge. Legions of young graduates need to decide where to direct their résumés and their loyalty. The future may be advertised as a gift. But it feels like the country is standing at the kitchen sink, unwrapping a wad of aluminum foil, dreading whatever is inside.
I know this has been said before, but: Trump himself grew up with an abusive father, part of a deeply dysfunctional family. A childhood like this induces a form of PTSD, and its survivors have a well-known tendency to end up as abusers themselves… or as enablers, who seek out abuser who will make them feel safe, inside the kind of horrorshow where they’re comfortable as performers, unlike the wimps and weaklings who don’t understand What It Takes. HRC was right to talk about ‘deprogramming’ MAGAt legislators, because of course the only way to break a cycle of abuse is to help its survivors understand there is a better way to live.
Per The Wrap — “Cassidy Hutchinson Says Trump Had Food-Throwing Tantrums ‘Once or Twice a Week,’ a ‘Potent Fear of Being Poisoned'”:
On a Wednesday night stop by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” former White House aide and “Enough” author Cassidy Hutchinson went into great detail about former president Donald Trump’s food tantrums, which she witnessed frequently during her time working for the Oval Office…
Kimmel asked if the incident was a regular occurrence.
“So, I don’t know if you know this,” Hutchinson began. “He does have a very potent fear of being poisoned, so he uses and prefers the small Heinz glass ketchup bottles because he likes to hear his valet or whoever’s serving him his meal, he likes to hear the pop.”…
Of the actual food-throwing tantrums, Hutchinson revealed that they would sometimes happen “once or twice a week, sometimes more.”
“There would sometimes be a week or so lull, but then there’d be a bad news story,” she said. “But it wasn’t just launching the food and the plates and the porcelain at the wall. It was also sometimes just flipping the tablecloth.”…
Later on in the segment, Kimmel touched on the multiple lunches Trump would eat.
“Well that was because some of them winded up on the wall,” Hutchinson said. “But also he doesn’t like to eat in front of other people. I don’t know why.”…
Uneasy sits the arse that mounts a throne, as the old proverb goes. But at least he’s feared, as well as fearful!
Speaking of survivors, this is from Slate:
… The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol left Hutchinson shaken and guilty. She never doubted that Trump had lost the election, but she still planned to work for him in his post-presidential life, convinced that she had promised to do so and that Trump needed sober-minded helpers like herself. Of course, the loyalty that Trump demanded from his underlings was never returned. Meadows explained that she, too, had come under suspicion as a leaker, an accusation that infuriated her. The job offers promptly evaporated—until the Jan. 6 committee started issuing subpoenas. Nearly broke but determined to avoid the strings connected to offers of legal help from Trump World, Hutchinson tried to find an attorney to represent her pro bono or for deferred payments. She spoke, fruitlessly, with dozens of lawyers, and fell behind on her rent. In desperation, she finally agreed to accept the “help” of a Trump-connected attorney who instructed her to tell the committee as little as possible. “Just like that,” she writes, “I was back in the Family.”
It was only then—hitting bottom, you could say—that the scales truly fell from Hutchinson’s eyes. Still, she was financially dependent on Trump and his allies. More job prospects were dangled before her (and ultimately snatched away). Finally, she turned to a friend, former White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah, who had become a prominent Trump critic following Jan. 6. “I think I’m on the wrong side of this,” she told Farah. “I don’t know what to do.” Farah enlisted Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, who would become her mentor. Cheney helped finagle Hutchinson out from under Trump World’s thumb and connected her to attorneys who would represent her pro bono…
Jay
Has anybody heard from Amir?
Mike in NC
Anybody who watched vomit like “The Apprentice” has to be sick in the head. Millions of us had miserable managers who were every bit as bad as Trump.
Scout211
The Liz Cheney connection is something that I had never heard before. That Cassidy Hutchison turned to Alyssa Farah was widely known but that Farah turned to Liz Cheney is an interesting twist.
Steeplejack
@Jay:
Nope. Still MIA since (I think) July).
hitchhiker
I’m listening to the audio of this book right now, which Hutchinson narrates herself. She’s SO fucking young. A smart, ambitious person with zero exposure to life … there are many moments in this book (I’m at the Jan 6th ellipse right now) when she’s embarrassingly self-serving. When she exposes herself in ways that you can tell she doesn’t yet understand. When she exposes the men around her, who are mostly appalling.
The thing that will stay with me, I think, is her description of going to her first trump rally when she was still in college, I think in 2017. She talks about the warmth and fun and energy of the crowd, and how it felt to look around and feel part of something so unusual & magical. I’ve never watched a whole speech of his, usually don’t even play the clips of him being stupid or vulgar with sound on, because his voice is so disgusting to me — which is to say, I have no idea what she’s talking about.
But I think I can imagine a college sophomore getting stars in her eyes in that circumstance. I still can’t imagine her absolute passion for helping him once she’d had an up close look at the kind of man he is.
Least fave part so far is what seems to be a gratuitous swipe at Pelosi, in an instance where Hutchinson experiences Pelosi as being a complete bitch on her way out of a meeting with trump.
Redshift
The articles look mostly fine but this pisses me off:
You know who else doesn’t have “a buffet of family-connection job offers awaiting then upon graduation?” Almost everyone.
I don’t know much about this writer, but painting Hutchinson as terribly deprived because she had to find a job after graduation instead of having one handed to her smacks off a level of privilege that makes me take the rest with a grain of salt.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@hitchhiker: Nobody is perfekt
Steeplejack
@hitchhiker:
I can see a “serious” young person getting sucked in by the exciting rock-concert-type energy, but it’s for a noble cause, so it’s permissible. Heady stuff.
eclare
Her dad mailed warm deer hearts to her? That is sick. Beyond sick.
Danielx
I feel somewhat sorry for her – but only somewhat. Evidence of TFG’s complete douchebaggery was rife well before 2016, and anyone who hadn’t noticed wasn’t paying attention.
Chetan Murthy
@Danielx: @hitchhiker: This idea that she went to a TFG rally and came away with stars in her eyes? Yeah, that’s a real tell there. Anybody who can do that is a bad person, b/c it’s clear that his rallies are about hate thru and thru: performing hate, agreeing with hate, singling out individuals, separating out groups, to hate.
I’m glad she’s started to wake up. Maybe someday she’ll realize what she did to herself.
Betsy
Eats a lot of ketchup, sounds like.
Checks out.
West of the Rockies
I can see how a 24-year-old person could be taken in by D.C. charlatans. I was not half as worldly or knowledgeable as I thought I was at that age.
CaseyL
Many, many cults use those techniques – warmth, fun, acceptance – given to people who’ve never had it before. Hook ’em, reel ’em in, and before you know it they’re selling flowers on street corners and getting beaten for not selling enough of them.
They might be able to leave the cult, the cult never quite leaves them. The loneliness and hunger for acceptance and love is always there.
Alison Rose
I mean, one way to make sure you don’t need to worry about people poisoning your food is to not be a complete dickweasel.
Chetan Murthy
@Steeplejack:
But the *best* interpretation is that she simply didn’t think thru the actual messages in the rally. That she was simply bowled-over by the energy, the community, etc. That’s the best interpretation. A worse one, is that she agreed with the actual messages. But let’s stick with the best one.
On that interpretation, she’s a idiot, and was many employed thousands of feet above her actual skill level. A veritable Chance [remember Being There?] in the White House.
West of the Rockies
@Steeplejack:
Did Amir announce an upcoming hiatus? I hope he’s okay. He’s a stellar person.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Steeplejack:
Maxim
@Chetan Murthy:
Lots of young people that age are barely conscious, let alone astute. We older folks tend to forget that, sometimes. Add in her background, and I can understand it.
ETA: What WOTR said.
Alison Rose
Got an email from Gavin Newsom asking for donations to Jon Tester’s campaign. Glad to see him doing so, that’s an important race.
Ken
@West of the Rockies: I have little doubt she was taken in, or at least dazzled. But I’d think after the second or third food tantrum, she’d wise up.
Then again, something close to 100% of Trump staffers have used their tell-all books to say that the environment was toxic and he was a lunatic, but they stayed on for not-completely-believable reasons — generally that they thought they could steer him, or counteract the other (less noble) staffers who were also trying to steer him.
Maxim
@Alison Rose: Yes, good.
@West of the Rockies: I do hope he’s okay. I hadn’t realized it had been so long.
Ruckus
@hitchhiker:
Least fave part so far is what seems to be a gratuitous swipe at Pelosi, in an instance where Hutchinson experiences Pelosi as being a complete bitch on her way out of a meeting with trump.
But can you blame Nancy after a meeting with that POS? There are limits and everyone has them. Mine would be before I went into a meeting with him. But then I’m not in congress….
Maxim
@Ken: That pattern of behavior is, as has been noted, very common among people from abusive backgrounds. It would be not at all surprising if damaged people comprised the majority of his adherents.
eclare
@Maxim:
It is scary and sad to think about how many people in the US grew up with abusive parents.
Ruckus
Most people have more to learn at her age. Especially if her home life wasn’t all that and a box of cookies. And it sure didn’t sound as if it was.
We all make mistakes, most of us grow up at some point, I think she seems to be bringing it all together pretty well. How many of us had it all together at 24 and haven’t changed, grown up a tad since then? She seems to be handling this complete and utter shitstorm pretty well.
BlueGuitarist
@Steeplejack:
can you shed any light on the WaPo story about Alexa saying the 2020 election was stolen by election fraud?
Maxim
@eclare: It really is. I have some gnarly stuff in my background, and I remember what I was like at that age, very vulnerable to manipulative behavior. So I’m sympathetic to young people who make bad choices, especially when they’re trying to do better.
Ben Cisco
Comes off as a paen to self-serving entitlement. The ‘energy’ from TRE45ON’s rallies should have been recognized for what it was by anyone of even moderate intelligence. Glad to see she figured it out, and I understand she has to earn a living, but this is a little much.
Steeplejack
@West of the Rockies:
No, he just disappeared. He did that once before when he had a health issue, but this hiatus has been longer, I think.
eclare
@Maxim:
I am sympathetic too.
Steeplejack
@BlueGuitarist:
Alexa and I don’t discuss politics. We stick to the weather, scheduling alarms and which jazz station to listen to. (Currently KUNV 91.5 in Las Vegas.)
Omnes Omnibus
You aren’t going to get truly good people testifying about what went on inside the Trump White House. the best you are going to get are damaged people who somehow found meaning there. The rest are evil fucks. IOW, she is as good as you are going to get.
hitchhiker
@Ruckus:
Hutchinson describes Pelosi snapping at her, a young staffer, for not having umbrellas ready when Pelosi & her team needed to exit the White House into a rainstorm. There’s very, very little antagonism toward any Democrats in this book, so it stands out.
To be fair, she also describes herself snapping at a young volunteer on Jan 6th, who looked befuddled when a desperate Hutchinson asked him if he’d seen Giuliani. “Rudy?” “Yes, Rudy! The president’s lawyer! The former mayor of New York!”
Hutchinson portrays herself as working heroic hours to please her various (all male) bosses & mentors, and takes many opportunities to showcase her long hours, her organizational chops, and her excellent people-pleasing skills. She doesn’t seem to know what a cliche she is in these scenes, like an eager ’50s working girl.
It’s kind of hilarious (in a sad way) to hear her go on about the importance of fostering her great working relationships with Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Dan Scavino, and of course Meadows.
Ohio Mom
I dunno, I see Hutchinson’s transformation astoundingly inspirational. Being able to step outside yourself and reevaluate what you are doing, and then to change tacks, if only more people could manage that, what a different world it would be.
Lyrebird
Agreed.
I am very grateful that she chose to change her path, and that she stuck with her choice through major blowback. One of many ways the Jan 6 committee made their point so powerfully was by having the main defendant condemned by his own staff and party members. People I consider cool to hang out with are not likely to change the mind of anyone who supports Trump.
ETA: totally agree with OhioMom, too.
Steeplejack
Huh. For the second time today the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun” is playing for me from a slightly unexpected source. It’s not my favorite song by the Animals, who are one of my favorite British invasion groups, but it does have Alan Price’s sublime organ solo. I wonder if I should do a wellness check on Eric Burdon (age 82). Or Price (age 81), for that matter.
Brachiator
I hope that Hutchinson can move on with her life, if that is what she needs, but I wonder if her publisher wanted a “hook” that would make her appear to be more sympathetic.
MisterDancer
Toxic behavior is not a thing about one’s intellect. Quite the opposite — they override your intelligence and your empathy with a wealth of what we’ll call lizard brain business.
I’ve known people in positions like Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson. In no way am I saying they are all OK to be around! Being raised in an toxic/abusive situation is a great way to end up with issues that can take decades to unwind, and cause a lot of damage to people along the way.
If Hutchinson did get the treatment she outlines, the connections she lays out, the free room and board? Yeah, it’s fair to say she had a ton of privilege. It’s also true she can from a space that likely shorted out a lot of her ability to develop healthy emotional connections and empathy, which likely contributed to how she found Trump fascinating, even as that early excitement turned to an ongoing horror that she likely lacked all skills to self-diagnose, much less self-extract.
But, put up against the wall, she did do the right thing. It seems to me she was, and is not, a lost cause. Maybe this is just a phase, but sometimes, yeah, people just need to be guided into the light, and I fully acknowledge it’s not “our” job to do it. It’s just good if someone can help the people willing to change, is all.
I don’t think everyone Trump touches is irredeemable. Especially when I see someone reacting in ways that resemble, sadly, trauma responses.
artem1s
so out of the frying pan and into the fire. out of the shadow of one abusive father figure and into the shadow of another. free lawyers from a Cheney are probably a step up from TIFG’s free lawyers, but it’s unlikely they are completely representing your interests.
cain
@Chetan Murthy: I believe that we can be very selective in what we are hearing especially in an ambiance where as a young white woman – she’s gonna get plenty of that kind of warm attention in the backdrop of political theater. Sometimes, you’re probably not even paying attention to what Trump is saying but taking in the mood instead.
I can see that. It can be powerful – even if the words are horrible and full of hate.
Look at Hitler’s speeches there is something about that crazy eyed son of a bitch.
TriassicSands
In truth, there may not be any adequate description of Trump and his depravity. One thing that has struck me about Trump is that unlike almost every other human being, Trump does not seem to have a single positive characteristic. Of any kind. This is a person that is so corrupt and so evil that I’ve never been able to identify anything good about him, nor have I ever read anything about him that is flattering, complimentary, or attractive. The overriding quality that seems to dominate Trump is money and his pursuit of it. His possession of money creates a situation in which other, mostly despicable people, are willing to work with and/or for him, or to enable him.
I’ve spoken to numerous people who support Trump who did so originally because they thought he was a successful, even great business person. None of those people had even a remotely accurate understanding of Trump’s business career.
Personally, I find it to be an extraordinarily questionable assumption that being a success in American business is in any way a desirable attribute for an elected official. In fact, the more successful someone is and the larger the business, the less likely, in my estimation, it is that he or she is fit to be an elected official in a democracy. A dictatorship is different.
cain
@Omnes Omnibus: Also she is still all in on the GOP agenda.
MisterDancer
In fairness, the one time as an Senate Page I met my other, Democratic, Senator, he snapped at me, too. And we were just in the damn elevator!
It happens…but it also clearly stuck with me, and that was decades ago, and a far more minor situation. Plus we know Pelosi has a temper — and has earned it.
Overall: Take of that, what you will.
BellyCat
@cain: Exactly.
NotMax
@MisterDancer
Partaking of the rarefied air in a restricted elevator?
Alison Rose
@Steeplejack: My brother’s garage band* covered that song :) I won’t say it was as good as the original, but it wasn’t half bad!
(*I don’t think they ever actually played in a garage, but you know…that type. Mid-90s hard rock)
Alison Rose
@TriassicSands: I remember John had a post about this, and also noted how TIFG doesn’t seem to like or enjoy anything. Just money. That’s all he enjoys.
MisterDancer
Nope. :)
Mai Naem mobile
@Chetan Murthy: i think you’re being a little unfair to Cassidy. She’s not stupid but she was damn young with little experience. She could have gone along with TFG’s lawyer and been careful with her responses in the depositions and nothing would have happened to her. She was working at the WH for gawd’s sake and I am sure that was part of the reason she kind of stayed in denial. I can see somebody, especially a young person being bowled over by working at the WH.
Villago Delenda Est
@Danielx:
SPY had been documenting the PAB’s douchebaggery since the 80s. Anyone who didn’t know of it was deliberately suppressing the knowledge.
CaseyL
We had a teeny tiny earthquake here in Western Washington a couple of hours ago. My house creaked for an instant, and there was a fluttery feeling in the air, but it was quickly over. I wasn’t even sure it actually was an earthquake until the local news ran a story about it.
Anyone wondering if animals have a sixth sense about these things, well, Oscar Cat did not sense it coming. But he was definitely unsettled afterwards, staring up at the ceiling and staircase with a High Alert! expression. (He’s OK now.)
ETA: Per the news, it was a 4.2 shake.
Mai Naem mobile
@TriassicSands: i couldn’t agree with you more. When I hear people pushing for Mark Cuban or The Rock to run for POTUS, I just want to scream ‘didn’t you f’ing learn anything from TFG?’ Goverment is not a private business. Stop comparing the two.
Chetan Murthy
@Mai Naem mobile: I was speaking of her reaction to the TFG rally, not her time at WH. You go to a rally and you hear the things he says at every rally, and you don’t register that he’s selling hate? That’s either because you’re a fool, or you’re one with that hate.
I’m *glad* that she’s waking up. She’s not waking up fast enough, b/c she’s still (from what @cain: wrote) still bought into the GrOPer agenda. So she’s still one with the hate, I guess.
NotMax
@MisterDancer
Now that’s something different — when office and elevator are one.
;)
MisterDancer
@NotMax: I’ve watched that video as I’m a big Tom Scott fan. Not certain if there’s an implication here I’m missing?
Gvg
I wonder what her mother was like. A lot of times both parents are intertwined in abusive behaviors. even if she started out fine, the mother would have had issues after a husband like that. I wonder if that child had any experience with good emotion or behavior. We learn about good and bad from examples and our parents are usually the biggest influences.
NotMax
@MisterDancer
No implication; just extrapolating from being in an elevator to something a tad on the kooky side as amusement.
MisterDancer
@NotMax: oh, fair enough :)
Alison Rose
@CaseyL: A year ago, we had two quakes centered just 2 miles from my apartment. First one was a 4.4, and then a second one came about one minute later, think that was closer to 4.0. Scared the absolute hell out of my cat for hours. Scared me too, TBH. I’m used to them but when that second one hit so soon after and was basically as strong, I was like “wtf is happening??” I’m on the 3rd floor so it shook a lot. I’ve got eight bookcases in my living room all covered in tchotchkes and such, and SO MUCH STUFF fell all over the floor.
NotMax
About to head out to the Maui mini meet-up.
TTFN, y’all.
Mai Naem mobile
@Chetan Murthy: i get that you were talking about her reaction to the rally. I still think she was really young and lacking in experience. Her dad thinking The Apprentice was some kind of businessman genius show gives you an idea about the kind of home she was brought up in. You and I can see TFG’s hate from a mile away. Cassidy was a white woman. I doubt she saw it. BTW I also think the loneliness in this country also helps make people like TFG popular. I can see a white person living in a very white area thinking the rallies looked like a fun social event.
Traveller
I quite admire Ms. Hutchinson, she’s had a rough road, (imo), and come out of it on the right side of life and history…at a young age. Bravo to her.
Nor do I see age as some magical elixir that brings wisdom and change…more often than not, just the opposite happens…it is to be remembered that the vast majority of Trump supporters are old.er…not so full of wisdom and certainly not capable of change.
I think her book is praiseworthy in its honesty…there may be some score settling in this nicely written book…but it seems also true that a lot of these scores deserve to be settled. Good on Ms. Hutchinson, may fortune go with her into her future. Best Wishes, Traveller
Parfigliano
Cassidy H is a twat. How sbout everthing it says gets filitered through that lens?
TriassicSands
@Mai Naem mobile:
And it’s not only that government isn’t a business and doesn’t run like one, their focuses are, or at least should be, completely different. Yes, it would be better if we didn’t run deficits every year (there are times when we should), or if we didn’t have the massive debt we have. However, we have them principally because the Republican Party won’t allow taxes to be in line with expenditures, and worse, insist on giving huge tax cuts to people and corporations that neither need nor deserve them.
On the other hand, on the business side of the society, we and the entire world would be a lot better off if corporations had some level of required social responsibility.* The idea that a corporation’s only responsibility is to maximizing shareholder value is one of the most damaging norms in the 20th and 21st centuries.
*Kind of like we’d be better off if SCOTUS justices had strict ethical requirements.
HumboldtBlue
What the fucking fuck?
Alison Rose
@Parfigliano: takes one to know one
TriassicSands
@HumboldtBlue:
My next call would have been to get a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric commitment for my father.
Ruckus
@MisterDancer:
Given her early life I can easily see things that many of us see as obvious signs that she would miss entirely. I was at one time, a couple of years older than her, a mental health counselor in a city clinic. Many people her age do not have all the reasonable adult human skills necessary and a lot of them never seem to get there. She has/is getting there. We seem to think that people are fully grown up at 18 or 21 or whatever but not everyone is, and some never ever make it to actually grown up mature adult. They just get older. One doesn’t have to grow up – take DJT – PLEASE! It does often make life a bit easier but it’s not a requirement to exist and many humans never actually figure it out. They eat, they crap, they sleep, they do something for money and that’s it. There is no guarantee that they will actually grow the hell up and mature. A sizable number of humans never do. She is, and seeming, to me reasonably well. Not in an easy way but growing up sometimes is messy and difficult. The deal is not that you have to do this at a specific age or actually at all but it is rather a better approach to life to manage it at some time. And she is seeming doing it rather well, on a national stage besides.
Chetan Murthy
I was curious about this claim that she grew up in some isolated backwater. So I googled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennington,_New_Jersey
She grew up in Pennington NJ, which is 8mi from Trenton NJ. I mean, sure it’s rural. But it’s a stone’s throw from the state capitol. A bedroom community, basically. It’s Blue (since 2004, always went to the Democratic Presidential candidate).
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@MisterDancer:
That’s not surprising. Bernie has a reputation for snapping at people.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
BINGO.
Nail hit squarely on the head.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus: @Parfigliano: @Alison Rose:
I haven’t looked into her background, but she probably grew up in an environment surrounded by relatively, politically shallow* right wingers and like many, if not most children, she simply inherited their political beliefs and positions without much, if any thought or analysis.
Then, having been in the position she was in — working so close to the POTUS — being young and not being an overly deep or thoughtful person — she was starstruck. If she really believed that her presence could have a measurable, positive effect on Trump, that simply reinforces my perception of her.
*That is the norm for American voters — left, right, and center.
Ruckus
@Alison Rose:
I’m not responding to that one, I don’t want to get kicked off the blog. Pied.
One of three current at least occasional commenters. I don’t pie often but sometimes it feels like the only possible answer to that comment that won’t get me kicked off. I think in the at least 15 yrs I’ve been commenting here I’ve pied about 5 or 6. And I can and often do swear like a sailor – because I was one, although my swearing started long before that.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
From what I’ve heard she grew up in a not all that great home. Many have and have moved on and figured out that it was a crap upbringing. But just like everyone growing up it can take a bit of time and as I’ve said here, not all of us get even close to actual adult, we just get older. I give anyone that actually grows up into an actual adult especially in a reasonable timeframe all the props for being a real human, instead of just a passenger in life.
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
Don’t tell the Secret Service, but I’d rather hit TIFG himself squarely on the head. And again. And again. And again.
Purely a fantasy. I don’t actually believe in political violence. While I may desperately root for Trump to die, the sooner the better, I think if someone were to kill him, it could make him a martyr and conceivably make things even worse, since there is no shortage of fascist wannabes to take his place.
@Ruckus:
I don’t think I’ve ever pied anyone since it is easy enough to ignore comments. There is a lot of raw emotion in the US today and it is understandable to me why some people are willing to make thoughtless statements like the one in question. Who knows what kind of day they’re having.
The closest I’ve come is probably with a current infrequent commenter who apparently believes that all our problems can be explained by the existence of Christianity. You probably know to whom I am referring. While I think that Christianity can be a tremendous force for ill in the U.S. today, I know that there are very good people who are Christians for whom religion may be a positive thing in their lives. As long as religious people don’t try to have their own beliefs written into laws, I don’t have a problem with them.
For many years, when one or more Jehovah’s Witnesses would come to my door, I’d let them in, listen respectfully to their spiel and then, respectfully, explain why I disagreed with them. They were, to me, sincere people acting on their beliefs and trying to persuade someone verbally is not a negative thing. Later, I would explain to them, that I would listen to them, but there was zero chance anything they said would make any difference. Now, I respectfully turn them away, thanking them for caring, but telling them honestly that I am a lost cause.
Delk
Two hearts? Ugh, now I have Stacey Q flashbacks.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
As I said, I have very few people pied and a fair amount of time under my belt here. I think there is only one other semi regular commenter in my filter. IOW I’m not a huge believer in it, just an occasional user because sometimes people just say the completely wrong thing. This was one of those times. I’m not saying everyone has to be an adult all the time but really we should have some minimal standards. And the pie filter does that for me, because that comment was way beyond the pale – as we used to say… I mean I can swear with the best of them and used to know swear words in other languages and was an early adaptor of swearing as a second language. And sometimes first. But it has it’s place and it did even in the Navy, surprisingly enough. And I’m not going to tell someone they can’t say what they feel, I just don’t have to listen to or read them.
columbusqueen
@Alison Rose: And cruelty. The man has a sadistic streak a mile wide.
NotMax
@Delk
Two no trump.
//
TriassicSands
@Ruckus:
I don’t have a quarrel with your use of the pie filter.
NotMax
Milley profile on 60 Minutes.
Betty Cracker
The end of the linked Slate review is a good summary of what Hutchinson represents relative to our broader national problem:
I cut Hutchinson a lot of slack because she fell in with the Trump creeps as a young person. It remains to be seen if being easily led is a core personality trait or something she can put behind her as she develops the ability to think for herself.
Ginnie Thomas escaped one cult, only to fall into another. Some people are weak-minded that way. I’m hoping Hutchinson isn’t — and that the 74M people who voted for Trump in 2020 aren’t either.
TS
@TriassicSands:
I realised (fortunately when quite young) that money is a magnet that can turn someone who should be quite repulsive into someone I could become friends with – when I should have stayed a long way away. Whether trump was wealthy – he was certainly shown that way by the media & everyone else – his appeal was in such a person being willing to associate with anyone thing he ran into at his rallies.
Money is, in my view, what gives the positive characteristics to some people, including trump. As the money disappears and the truth of trump emerges, little will be left – other than folks not being willing to accept there is nothing there & they were scammed.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Hutchinson seems to me to be a person who has seen the (I have no real way to say it other than) shitty side of humanity and quite possibly realizes it is not just her parent who was on that side. There are more than a few humans who really don’t fit into the nice side of life. It really isn’t all that abnormal for people to be, well, shitty, at least occasionally. Just as there are people who aren’t, at least the vast majority of time. What they are is human, a wide ranging gang of the good and the bad and the middle of the road. I’d bet, for a lot of reasons that the good side is rather minimal, the middle is by far the biggest and the bad out weighs the good but the middle makes up for that. It’s life. It isn’t always easy or fun or great. But it doesn’t have to be shitty all the time. Except for the people that decide that the only way for it to be good for them is for it to be shitty for everyone else. Now maybe I’m completely wrong but that’s my take of over 7 decades alive on this rock.
ColoradoGuy
The deer heart story points to far worse incidents that are too appalling to disclose … in a book, to a friend, to a therapist, to anyone. Her father was, and is, a stone-cold psychopath and she is severely damaged. No human, or animal, can survive that level of psychopathy without damage.
And then she fell into a full-blown fascist cult. It’s remarkable she can function at all. I’ll give Liz credit for extracting her from this gang of psychopaths. Yes, I know, you can hardly use the notorious Cheney family as any model of sanity or normality, but that shows just how far gone the T**** cult really is. They are psychos who appeal to other psychos or those damaged by psychos.
In some ways, they are more far gone than Nazis. Not only would they build death camps, they would make it into entertainment TV.
TriassicSands
@TS:
Yes, but money is not a positive characteristic, it is simply a magnet for greed.
satby
I haven’t read the book and probably won’t, tbh. But this ^ discussion is coinciding with a growing worry I’ve had for the last few years as I’ve watched children at the farmers market grow up in the toxic stew of today’s super conservative, often white Christian nationalist home school environment. Because in many of these states these kids are growing up and being groomed by their parents to not know or understand at all how to fit into a modern, secular, multicultural society. Countless small cults, feeding young victims into a bigger one; and slowly poisoning our wider society. They aren’t being schooled at all in most cases. Both Indiana and Michigan have no standards, no testing, no checks at all on home schools; if they get a high school diploma it’s generated on the home printer by their parents. They can’t get into real colleges and universities which for many is the first real experience in navigating the outside world as an adult. They can’t qualify for most jobs other than service ones or farming. They have no frames of reference outside their dysfunctional homes and fundie churches at all. I see all these sweet, bright children slowly turned duller and limited by parents who were raised the same way. It’s a tragedy; and a ticking time bomb for this country.
TriassicSands
My final comment for the night.
If Hutchinson continues to support Republicans, after all she’s seen, then there is no hope for her. If she became disillusioned and decided to avoid politics altogether, that might be understandable, but it isn’t really a mature or intelligent response. Growing up in a dysfunctional household can, if things are bad enough, scar a person for life. However, if a person has a modicum of intelligence and judgment, then one hopes they will overcome that lousy start and find independent footing that allows responsible decisions in the future.
Hutchinson wasn’t merely exposed to Trump; she was surrounded by corruption, incompetence, and depravity. She has been in the room repeatedly with behavior that we only see in videos and read about. While it might take her some time to get over what she has experienced, if she continues to support Republicans, given who and what they are today, then she isn’t worth a second more of my attention. To be a responsible citizen, one has to be able to think for oneself. She has experienced the Republican abyss, but she has had the opportunity to climb out. It’s up to her now. I wish her luck.
Baud
This seems like the natural evolution of the culture that Reagan’s win mainstreamed.
mapaghimagsik
I…just can’t.
I’ve made lots of mistakes — pretty terrible mistakes — when I was younger. I hope I learned from them, and those that were hurt were repaid with joy tenfold.
What I didn’t learn, sadly, was that I should engage with horrible people when I didn’t get the job I expected.
I also didn’t realize I could turn that horrible behavior into a book tour.
So many thoughts about the products of flawed parenting, being flat broke in a country where its a crime to be broke, the things I did and didn’t do — how many other people have been in similar situations but will never get consideration, let alone well-connected friends, a publisher, and editor and a book tour.
I could never get into those that made redemption a brand.
Betty Cracker
@satby: There is similar education system chaos in FL, where thanks to recent laws signed by the governor, public school money is now going to homeschool families for big screen TVs, theme park passes, etc. There are no standards, and those kids will not be prepared to succeed in a modern economy. It’s horrifying to me that voters are choosing this path — they’re throwing away the work of generations. Few people seem to give a shit one way or another.
Michael Bersin
@hitchhiker:
In September 2016, in Kansas City:
…The vibe was palpable. The media as a group doesn’t like Hillary. Interestingly, one cameraman who has covered Donald Trump at rallies and filmed him in interviews stated to me in conversation while we were waiting, “He’s really nice one on one….”
Media narrative? What media narrative?
As one Missouri politician has replied, when asked to say something nice about an opponent, “Well, I’m certain he regularly walks his dog and mows his lawn.” Except Donald Trump doesn’t have a dog and has probably never had to mow a lawn.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Redshift: Thank you! I m going to come off as a bitch but she strikes me as an entitled middle class pretty girl who thought her dreams should be handed to her. Side note my niece went to Christopher Newport. She’s a grade school teacher a good one.
so poor Cassidy did not get the school of her choice Jeez, she wanted to get into politics to destroy what exactly? Work for the most racist, misogynistic facist she could find? And if I hear one more time “how young” she is I may puke. Tell me she would get the same gentle treatment from the press and f she weren’t a pretty, thin, middle class white girl. And now she has a book deal. Gonna go put on my witches hat now…
Baud
@Michael Bersin:
He gets kids to mow his lawn.
Trivia Man
That is a promising thread to pull. If Gym does want to be speaker there will be many chances to ask him, and his supporters, point blank questions. No place to hide and deflection/ obfuscation only works when you can drop the mic and smirk yourself off stage. If a parade of people all ask the same 5 second tv-friendly sound bite questions then eventually you have to say something. And something can be put under a microscope and refuted.
you never answered YOUR subpoenas. Why should anyone else?
what did you know about Jan 6 and when did you know it?
Trivia Man
The harsh, unblinking spotlight of the presidency MIGHT be what finally does in TFG. Is the attention of the Speaker position enough to grind away Gym’s armor as well?
Geminid
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I wonder if Cassidy Hutchinson ever took a Poli Sci class from Rachel Bitecofer. She was teaching at Christofer Newport University in 2017. Bitecofer was fairly obscure then, and still is not so well known now except among political junkies.
Dr. Bitecofer ended up leaving CNU in April, 2020 when she was denied a tenure-track position. Now she makes her living mainly as a political consultant and lives in Salem, Oregon.
satby
I think a lot of people here have focussed on her story as just about her, and not as a symptom of why this society has gone wrong. After all, she wouldn’t have a redemption story or a book tour if she hadn’t ended up in the White House and in front of the J6 committee and in some pretty serious trouble herself. And certainly the story we tell ourselves and others about our lives usually glosses over our warts. Her life is a cautionary tale for the rest of us, radicalization doesn’t just happen to disaffected young men without futures.
Joey Maloney
She probably wouldn’t, but as with some similar things I could think of, the point is not that she doesn’t deserve that grace, but that everyone else does.
satby
@Joey Maloney: yeah, this too. I know she’s the subject that inspired the Slate article, but the point isn’t really about her. IMHO.
Gvg
@satby: Yes, one way we need to help is exposing the home school fraud state by state and fixing the laws to have standards, cutting off state funds for faith based charter schools with no standards and then devising plans to allow the mis educated children to correct their parents mistakes on them at any age they realize they need to so they can get back into society. I suspect it will take a number of hot scandals to give motive to voters to do these things and I think it will happen state by state just as the dismantling of public standards did. I just want some kind of idea or plan to aim for. I know Kay talks about these kinds of things. Some of the things going on in Florida use the same words but the rules aren’t exactly the same in Florida. It’s confusing. Also the damned Republicans in power are not obeying the actual laws. They are ignoring some or not funding ones they don’t like. That is really a problem.
NorthLeft
Unfortunately for you guys, too many of those Americans that are unwrapping tin foil are fashioning the foil into hats.
JAFD
@satby: Good morning, Sharon !
There’s a chapter in This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War History Book by T. R. Fehrenbach, on the educational background of US POWs who ‘cooperated with’ / defected to the Communists during the Korean War.
Don’t have copy at hand this morning, so can’t direct you to chapter and verse, but think you’ll find it relevant to your arguments here.
(IMHO, is really good book, well worth reading)
LiminalOwl
@MisterDancer:
“Toxic behavior is not a thing about one’s intellect. Quite the opposite — they override your intelligence and your empathy with a wealth of what we’ll call lizard brain business.
I’ve known people in positions like Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson. In no way am I saying they are all OK to be around! Being raised in an toxic/abusive situation is a great way to end up with issues that can take decades to unwind, and cause a lot of damage to people along the way.”
This, plus…. well, so many others. I want to add that the “lizard brain” is, above all, about seeking safety. And (sorry, I’m still sick, can’t find it) the comment about CH’s father’s appalling behavior, such that the deer-hearts incident can’t be the first instance of his psychopathy that she experienced. So I’m guessing that for Cassidy Hutchinson, and for others like her, the palpable hate at *45’s rallies meant she was safe, because it was turned on the out-group. And she would have been overwhelmed by that emotional aspect, unable (as with so many cults) to cognitively analyze what that hate really meant.
Still isn’t able, sounds like, but hopefully she’ll heal and emerge from that fog.
Geminid
@Geminid: Rachel Bitecofer will probably earn some money as an author when her book, Hit’em Where it Hurts comes out in early February. The title is actually “Hit’em Where it Hurts: How We Can Save Democracy by Beating Republican at Their Own Game.”
I expect the book is less about political science than it is about political engineering, because that is what the author is up to these days.
Michael Bersin
@ColoradoGuy:
“…In some ways, they are more far gone than Nazis. Not only would they build death camps, they would make it into entertainment TV…”
Easily:
I’m not ready to make nice (October 21, 2020)
“….If you ever wondered what you would have done if you were in Germany in the 1930s, you’re doing it now.
The problem for me is you’re the type of good German who might be pleasant to my face, even present me with a gift card for coffee, and then you’d stand around with your hands in your pockets when the Gestapo showed up to take me away.
I don’t drink coffee. I’m burning the card. And you can take your sanctimonious self-righteous hypocritical note and shove it….”
lowtechcyclist
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: I was getting ready to reach for my copy of Inside the Third Reich, but you beat me to it.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
QFT.
MattF
Speaking of earthquakes. Rare in Maryland, the local ‘big one’ happened several years ago when I happened to be inside a secure facility. Somewhat unnerving to be inside a shaking closed box. A young woman from California (who was plainly the smartest in the room) ran to a doorway and braced herself inside it.
MattF
And about Hutchinson— I’m sympathetic towards her. And irritated with myself for being impressed with Liz Cheney.
Jinchi
Ironically, because they are so rare on the East Coast, earthquakes shake the ground more strongly than a similar sized one would in California. And your California colleague probably knew that the little shake comes first, and the strong motion follows a few seconds later.
Geminid
@MattF: Was that the Louisa County quake? I was in a basement 40 miles away from the epicenter when it happened. I was not sure what ithe jolt was until I heard on the radio it was an earthquake. Then I read that because of the underlying rock structure it was felt from North Carolina to Maryland, and had damaged the Washington Monument and National Cathedral in DC. I think it was around 5.3 on the Richter scale.
Some people I knew lived close to the epicenter. They said their little dog jumped up on the couch and started barking out a window, and then the quake hit.
Ben Cisco
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Let me grab a broom and stand beside you.
ETA: It occurs to me that BECAUSE these people, as a baseline, want me and mine marginalized or dead, I find it difficult to feel empathy for how someone gets to where Ms. Hutchison was?
Holler at me when she stops supporting what is clearly a fascist, seditious, me-Confederate party.
NotoriousJRT
@Betty Cracker:
Ginnie Thomas escaped one cult, only to fall into another. Some people are weak-minded that way. I’m hoping Hutchinson isn’t
This a nagging feeling I have about her after watching several fawning interviews of her. Her very earnestness in those interviews and her belief that Dems can come together with Republicans of good faith to bring back the pre-Trump “comity,” is dazzlingly naive to me. She has seen what she describes and hasn’t gone the way of Stuart Stevens; I find that a red flag. Trump was and is the logical conclusion of building GOP history since at least Watergate. January 6 was a more violent and appalling version of the 2000 Brooks Brothers riot. Cassidy needs to reckon with all that to really break free.
lowtechcyclist
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s nice. Glad to know that everybody read Spy.
The few people I knew who read it were snarky, supercilious young assholes. So the fact that they liked it wasn’t exactly a recommendation.
But seriously, before 2015, why would anyone with little connection to the NYC area feel the slightest need to think about this guy? When I first heard of him in the 1980s, my impression was ‘blowhard with too much money’ and I didn’t learn anything between then and 2015 to give me the slightest need to think further about him.
Michael Bersin
@NotoriousJRT:
“…This a nagging feeling I have about her after watching several fawning interviews of her…”
She is who she is. Our useless old media, on the other hand…
satby
@JAFD: Thanks JAFD, I’ll look that up. Did you get on Blue Sky? I still have a code if you didn’t, email me!
satby
@LiminalOwl: Your husband writes so perceptively and well, Liminal! I really wish he had a chance to post more here, though I realize the frenetic pace of some hot take posts makes it difficult.
JAFD
@NotoriousJRT: Note that Ms Hutchinson was born in ’98 or so (?), was in nursery school at the time of ye Brooks Brothers Riot, and may heard of Watergate in the final week of her high school history course.
Now, I heard JFK speak in person, grew up when FDR was a shadowy demigod in the fog between ‘history’ and ‘current events’ (as Reagan might have been for her), and ended up writing irrelevancies here.
For most US young’uns, the years from ‘where their history teacher ran out of semester’ and ‘what they remember happening, themselves’ is something they must learn about on their own, and often have big blank or distorted areas
NotoriousJRT
@Michael Bersin: The fawning did not surprise me. She played a significant role in exposing the deliberate and awful “strategy” that I believed led to J6. I think she did the right and important thing in testifying. I admit some disbelief (naive myself, I guess) at the number of powerful, grown-ass men who confided in and counted on this very young woman. I still find her assertion that Pat Cipollone entreated her not to let Trump go to the Capitol to be incredible. Dude was WH Counsel FFS. Also, the anecdote of secret service enabler and suspected douche (by me), Tony Ornato, describing Trump’s behavior in the Beast to her came across as a pathetic, wildly indiscreet attempt to impress her. So much of it confirmed the cynical view that politics at the highest level is a sordid game played by sordid people. It seems like writing everything down for her book would school her a bit more.
satby
Yes, this; even in kids who go to schools, because the average public school is starved for funds and now deals with book-banning parents. And though we associate it more with the white, rural population; here in South Bend Hispanic and black families are also increasingly opting out of public schools to homeschool with results not that much different than their white counterparts, though less White Christian nationalism. Poorly educated, poorly prepared kids who already had strikes against them to begin with. And all of them susceptible to conspiracy theories and propaganda, because they’ve never been taught otherwise.
Kathleen
@Baud: Agree. Profound observation.
Maxim
@Joey Maloney:
Yes. Thank you.
EarthWindFire
@NotoriousJRT: Hutchinson described herself as a Romney Republican in her interview with Maddow. Yeah, not so great.
That said, I worked in legislative affairs for a DC trade association when I was her age. I had similar thoughts about the parties working together, despite the rise of Fox News making it obvious that wasn’t going to happen. Of course, it’s more obvious now than in the Bill Clinton era, but I can see a young woman in her shoes hanging on to her few bipartisan wins. Anything to find meaning from the utter shitshow she was involved in.
I read Hutchinson’s book and wondered how much her psycho “warrior” dad had to do with her poor life choices. I’m glad to see this is getting more discussion.
Michael Bersin
@NotoriousJRT:
“…So much of it confirmed the cynical view that politics at the highest level is a sordid game played by sordid people…”
There is a distinct difference between acquiring power for the sake of controlling everything and acquiring power to try and do good. You’ll know which is which by how they define “good”.
lee
People the age when she went to her first Trump rally are very still impressionable. That is why armed forces recruit at those ages. In an alternate universe I wonder what would have happened if her first political rally had been one with Obama.
IIRC, there was mentioned in passing of Cassidy’s ties with Rep Cheney during the hearings.
Freemark
I think many here completely forget what being a teenager is like. My beliefs have changed a great deal from when I was 18. Growing up in a nearly all white conservative area, I had a hell of a lot to learn. And my parents were not psychopaths and were quite apolitical. Someone growing up like she did shouldn’t be expected to know better. It’s the opposite, they should be expected not to know better because that’s how humans work. Ask an adolescent psychologist and they’ll tell you it would be more unusual for them to realize those Trump rallies were about hate than to realize they were. It’s one the reasons conservatives HATE critical thinking and emotional intelligence in education. Those are essentially deprogramming techniques.
LiminalOwl
@satby: Thanks, satby. I agree, and I keep encouraging him to write more. Hopefully feedback like yours will also encourage him.
wjca
What you’re missing is that those kinds of connections, while rare in the rest of the country, are enormously common and important for getting a job in political DC.
So yeah, she was operating under a significant, and very real, handicap. Fault the writer for not explaining that more clearly. But not for noting it.
lee
@wjca: Her getting a White House job right out of college would have been pretty amazing at just about any other time. Unfortunately she walked into a nest of treason weasels.
RevRick
@Chetan Murthy: True honesty is when we reveal the least lovely, noble parts of ourselves.
I find the personal side a case study in family systems theory. What we are raised in is a powerful determinant of what we become. Those raised in a dysfunctional family learn how to live that way, and are unsettled by how healthy families live. It explains why children of alcoholics often end up marrying future alcoholics or other children of alcoholism, because that’s how they know how to live. The rational response would to be running, screaming, in the opposite direction, but the emotional response is to find “comfort” in the known experience.
Her swipe at Pelosi reflects internalized misogyny, growing up with a contempt for female “softness.” Her sense of self was pretty much bashed out of her, and if you look at her body language, you’ll see a woman who is very demure and proper, who often giggles nervously.
That she would fall into the orbit of Trump, who exhibits a sneering contempt for others (and weakness) and promises to fix those anxieties is not only not surprising, but entirely predictable. She had been groomed for a man like her father, like Trump, her whole life.
While we see Trump for who he is, anxiety is a blinding emotion. And Hutchison is clearly a very anxious woman. You can hear it in her voice, that tremulous, quivering sound. You can see it in her face, the way she almost seems on the verge of tears.
The fact that she reveals all this about herself, says she speaks the truth about what was happening.
George
Stop with any and all references to Trump having an abusive father. Did he, really? Or was his father simply a garden variety, millionaire asshole who left millions of dollars to his equally assholish son?
Trump is a psychopath, full stop. Any explanation or justification or rationalization beyond that is pointless if not completely counterproductive. His parents could have been humanitarians who devoted their lives to charity and Trump still would have been a psychopathic asshole, the only difference being is that he would not have gotten a boost in business by inheriting millions of dollars.
BellyCat
Given that the “youth vote“ is to be an increasingly significant factor in future elections, along with the impressionability factor of this age group, the future for either party appears to require charismatic candidates more than substantive policy argument. (e.g. see Al Gore)
Oh joy…
alliegirl73
This idea of TFG as a trauma response is fascinating. And yet my own dad was a malignant narcissist whose orientation toward our family and the world was always revolting to me. When I first read that TFG threw ketchup at thew wall, I was taken back to my own childhood kitchen, where my dad threw spaghetti at the curtains. I know this guy. The depth of his depravity and potential for great harm is so obvious to me that I don’t understand how anyone could support him, much less work for him. I saw this when I was Hutchinson’s age. I was also enthralled with the DC machine (and still am), but I don’t see myself as thinking that working for such an administration would have been attractive–even back then.
wjca
Exactly. TIFG being the person he is, it was probably inevitable that most of the White House staff would be either a) treasonous scum or b) young and naive. There may have been a few exceptions, but those were predictably the biggest groups.
And the young and naive could also be predicted to be kids who didn’t have network contacts who could point them towards less toxic positions.
Sasha
Not to serve at the pleasure of this president — to serve to please this president.
StringOnAStick
Growing up in what looks like an at least emotionally abusive household definitely set this young woman up for being sucked into any cult that offered a sense of community and belonging, she just happened to fall into this particular one, and getting to work at the WH surely fed into that “wow, I’m part of something amazing” sense that helped keep her in that cult.
I grew up in a similar situation and I shudder to think how close I came to falling in with the evangelical cult and then the Hari Krisha cult when they came through town, all to find some sense of safety and belonging. It probably helped that I am a liberal by early temperament and a big reader, but growing up with aggressive authoritarian parents, especially my father means you’ll change yourself into whatever the authorities in your life demand because that’s been your survival mechanism since you were born. I hope Cassidy eventually makes it all the way out of the R cult but I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t. Maybe she’ll be like more than a few (I hope) who will get their eyes opened as all the mango moron’s legal cases play out. Even my RW authoritarian father refuses to vote for him now, I think the secret documents theft was his breaking point.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@wjca: Needing a buffet of family/friend/school connections to get a job in a lot of industries is pretty common, from getting into an Ivy league or other school, to getting internships in publishing, fashion, journalism, you name it, to getting people to invest in your dream start-up (Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos…) She could have started in local politics and worked her way up like a lot of people do. But she wanted to go to work in D.C. and start at a national level. Maybe start in your community and get a feel for how politics works before thinking you “deserve” a job in the White House….
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Ben Cisco: Thank you, I feel like a complete bitch sometimes, but I get so tired of people saying we have to give the people who finally see Trump for what he is the benefit of the doubt… like my parents who benefited from the GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare, etc. and were perfectly willing to pull the ladder up after themselves. Loved my parents but I saw clearly from the age of 13 that they were racist assholes.
Let’s see – they are still trying to kill, or have killed any voting rights legislation, they killed Roe and are rolling back any and all abortion rights in any state they can. They still want to roll back or destroy any climate change mitigation laws we managed to keep despite Trump/Biden and the Dems managed to get passed…Oh good they hate Trump but are still going to vote R up and down the ballots.
wjca
Certainly starting in local politics and working up has a lot to recommend it. But as she notes herself, she got caught up early, on a visit to DC, with a desire to work there.
I don’t know about you, but when I was 20ish I had some career options I wanted to pursue, and ideas about how to get there, which in retrospect were seriously ignorant of the real world. So I can’t really fault someone else who was similarly naive.
apocalipstick
Was anyone in her home a Dr. Who fan?
WaterGirl
@alliegirl73: Welcome!
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Indeed. The ball really got rolling with the shitty grade Z movie star’s presidency.
StringOnAStick
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Yep, my dad refuses to vote for tRump (again, I guarantee he’s already done so twice because of the R label), but he’ll vote for every other R on the ballot, including the idiot Boebert.
Villago Delenda Est
@lowtechcyclist: You were not paying attention, then. The man single-handedly destroyed the USFL.
Just Some Flyover
@hitchhiker: I wonder if she was told to effectively use this book as sort of a resume in order to rebuild her credibility. (I have people skillz! I’m good at working with people!) I mean anyone who worked in this White House or in any official capacity to this administration is going to have that stain attached for future employment, at least in a government/public policy role.
@hitchhiker:
@hitchhiker:
Just Some Flyover
@Steeplejack: The downfall scene in Casino when all the associates started getting whacked!
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I believe that in a conservative world the PTB want the kids to not be educated and literate and self aware. Because that concept they think makes them easier to control. I think in a world of better, more communications among the population – as we are doing here, total control is lost. And total control seems to me to be an overriding conservative goal. They want their world to be controlled and rather free of differing ideas/ideals because to them a lack of control takes away their world and their definition of life with a definitive structure, rules and obedience, as they think it was in the way back when. A small town atmosphere with one church and most everyone does the same job, say farmer, with only the very necessary support jobs like a blacksmith. A return to small town life, where it’s work and church and everyone knows everyone else. Even if when we had that life it wasn’t actually like that. Think early TV life with Beaver Cleaver. An ideal that wasn’t actually ideal.
Another Scott
@Villago Delenda Est: I only saw a few headlines about the USFL. I paid more attention to the Eastern Shuttle stuff. Wikipedia says that it was never profitable after TIFG bought it.
Surprise!!
Cheers,
Scott.
JoeyJoeJoe
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
in my anecdotal so meaningless mostly experience as a senate intern, most of the friendliest senators seemed to be republicans; John McCain, Connie Mack, even Jesse Helms all of whom I had pleasant interactions with. On the Democratic side, I once met Pat Moynihan and he ended up giving me a friendly slap on the arm with a folder during a conversation. On the other end maybe, Strom Thurmond seemed not to want to share an elevator with me, he saw me in the elevator and walked away. I know there are actually many other explanations for that, but I think mine is funnier
JustRuss
I picked up a copy…somewhere, years ago, and it is a good read about a conflict that doesn’t get much attention these days. I’ll have to give that chapter another read.
Steeplejack
@Just Some Flyover:
Good catch! 🎶
artem1s
@Mai Naem mobile:
mmm,nope. TIFG’s lawyers were advising her to perjure herself. She was headed for a lot of trouble and maybe jail time. Once she figured that out she decided to act in her own best interest and get new lawyers.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Sometimes I think cult #1 let Ginni go cause she was a pain in the ass.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: I had a subscription. LOLing.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@JoeyJoeJoe: What’s the explanation? Were you too tall, too dark, too handsome?
Paul in KY
@JoeyJoeJoe: Sen. Moynihan ignored me when I said hello to him when I was on a HS trip to DC (for a Model UN competition). This being in 1977.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: I still don’t understand how homeschooling is legal. It is impossible for a parent to replace the educational experience one gets in a school.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: I still don’t understand how homeschooling is legal. It is impossible for a parent to replace the educational experience one gets in a school.
The Lodger
@Paul in KY: I remember seeing Moynihan outdoors when I was sightseeing in downtown DC about that time. As I recall, he was remarkably easy to recognize, even for a senator.