Mr. Blowhard vs. Mr. Boring

 By Hal Brown

I hope Trump doesn't pick up the nickname Ron DeSooozer. I think it is the best one yet. Fortunately I rather doubt he reads my blog.

How long will the Governor of The Sunshine State fight clean against the slinger of salacious suggestions?

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Yesterday my partner and I managed to make our way through The Banshees of Inisherin ( 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes):

Set on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN follows lifelong friends Pádraic and Colm, who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship. A stunned Pádraic, aided by his sister Siobhán and troubled young islander Dominic, endeavours to repair the relationship, refusing to take no for an answer. But Pádraic's repeated efforts only strengthen his former friend’s resolve and when Colm delivers a desperate ultimatum, events swiftly escalate, with shocking consequences.

To say the the movie is a downer is an understatement. The reason I am referring to it is because the story revolves about the reason Colm abruptly ends his friendship with Pádraic is that he's dull. Colm has concluded that he has better things to do with his life than waste time with Pádraic  Pádraic believes that boring or not there is virtue in being a nice guy. Colm isn't a blowhard like Trump, but he is a performer as he composes music which then entertains the villagers with playing on his violin at the pub to an appreciative audience. (I previously got the names reversed.)

Of course neither Donald Trump nor Ron DeSantis are nice guys but the most commonly described political deficit DeSantis has to overcome is that he comes across as boring and dull.

DeSantis makes the news by being an anti-woke warrior by promulgating policy. He stands before podiums with a plethora of cardboard signs and in his dull as dirt style announces his latest executive action.

He has yet to go on an offensive offensive directly against Donald Trump. 

DeSantis is not only dull as dirt but his delivery is as dry as the desert. 

If Trump trounces DeSantis he will do it for two reasons. One is that enough members of his cult remain loyal to him, but the other is that his schtick still sticks. Trump, from what I can tell , comes up with his insults himself. He spitballs them, now on Truth Social, and sees what sticks. 

DeSantis so far has mostly ignored them. On the accusation from Trump that he was a groomer of teenaged girls when he spent a year teaching as a private school this is how he responded:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday hit back at former President Donald Trump, a day after Trump promoted a social media post accusing DeSantis of "grooming" teenage girls.

While speaking with reporters, DeSantis was asked about Trump's decision to amplify a Truth Social post that accused DeSantis of plying teen girls with alcohol while he was a high school teacher.

After filibustering for a bit, DeSantis directly addressed Trump's efforts to falsely smear him as a sexual predator.

"I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden," the Florida governor said. "That's how I spend my time. I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans." Raw Story

Click above to enlarge tweet reposted by Trump

This is an attack ripe for a riposte since if anyone can be credibly accused of being ephebophiliaesque (primarily sexually attracted to mid to late adolescents) it's Donald Trump. This is evidenced by how he behaved at the Moscow Miss. Universe Pageant and other pageants he owned where contestants complained he watched them undress and harassed them.

Click above for article

DeSantis has plenty of ammunition to fire back at Trump. He has yet to utilize it. If he does so he will need help both an acting coach and a script writer because unlike Trump he is not a natural.

A knock-down drag-out slimy slugfest between these two will prove to be entertaining. The winner will go up against someone who doesn't need any coaching or script writers to help craft comebacks. Joe Biden can do this with his wry sense of humor.

Consider how he put down Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday, sarcastically asking a room full of House Democrats during their annual retreat in Baltimore “isn’t she amazing?”

“She was very specific — I shouldn’t digress, probably — I read, she was very specific recently saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is, that fentanyl they took came during the last administration,” Biden said, letting out a chuckle.

He stopped himself from continuing on the topic.

“Look folks. Anyway, I don’t want to get started,” he said.

 (The Hill)

No matter who ultimately wins the GOP primary I hope that whoever runs is so battered and bruised that the swing voters who leaned Republican consider them so damaged that they'll look at all that President Biden and the Democrats accomplished for them and the country, and to promote democracy, and vote D down the line.

Addendum:

I doubt Trump has the five point plan suggested here. He is well aware that few if any of the members of his cult care, or even understand, anything on the list. He knows that they will respond viscerally (not that he can define this word) to his hurling insults at DeSantis. He knows that even if DeSantis wanted to fight back in kind he'd be inept in doing this. In effect it would be a battle between Mr. Blowhard and Mr. Boring. DeSantis might try to get Trump to drink poison but Trump won't take a swallow.

‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing Trump

He (Rick Wilson) adds: “Right now they’re all talking so much shit: ‘I’m not going to get with Trump. I’m going to be with the hot new number, DeSantis.’ When DeSantis gets his ass handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’

Recommended reading:

The media is underestimating Donald Trump — again

How many expeditions into Trumplandia will the media have to take?

By Chauncey DeVega

Comments:

 Anonymous said...

Your ongoing fixation on Trump is quite sad. I hope you get help.

March 3, 2023 at 7:09 AM

 

 Ben Kalom said...

I would offer in response to the first comment: 
We have an obligation to remain vigilant, to continue to offer up ridicule, to be hyperaware of both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis. Predators need to be paid attention to. The pair of them have only one goal - hunting down their next victim.

This is a continuation of a traumatic stretch of years in our lives.

Interesting interview with Steven Spielberg on Colbert last night.

They got into the topic of antisemitism, and Spielberg offered up that he hadn't seen the rise in antisemitism in the last 50 years or so, not until now, when marginalization made possible the returned spread of general hatred, and its bedfellow, antisemitism.

Spielberg said he was given hope through the words of Anne Frank, who offered, in her diary, people are basically good.

When you watch the interview, you will see the imaginarium of Spielberg's genius, being stretched to find that hope.

If these creepos get their way, minorities will be marched off to some as-yet undisclosed location, to be eliminated, to re-enact the horror of 1938-1945 Germany.

The ONLY thing that stops the insanity of our current foment and discord is when good people get pissed off, stand resolute, agree to defend their herds and find community with those doing the same.

Please keep bashing the shit outta these two assclowns. They have earned our contempt.

March 3, 2023 at 7:27 AM

 

I was ready to open a Truth Social account and try to post an abridged version on this which was complementary to Trump on a new free blog in an attempt to get Trump to "re-Truth" it. I thought that I might get him to start using Ron DeSnoozer and then I could take credit for it and direct people to my actual blog. I opened a new dedicated email and that worked for step one of verification but then in order to complete registering I needed a phone number which they would verify as step two. I tried some fake phone numbers I found online but none of them worked. I wasn't about to give them one of my two real phone numbers. 

If I really want to bother going through with this I can buy a $20 burner phone and see if I can register with that number.

Chauncey DeVega's quote should be terrifying and mind-boggling

 By Hal Brown

Click above to enlarge image

Pictured above, would be Queen of the New Confederacy Marjorie Taylor Greene holding a $2400 Honey Badger firearm, because inquiring minds probably don't want to know. I am not an expert on firearms. I used Google Image search (here) to find out about the weapon.

The following paragraph is from Chauncey DeVega's article in Salon. 

Stop mocking Marjorie Taylor Greene

It's not just trolling. Republican threats of civil war should be taken seriously

We have just experienced a nightmare here in America (and the world) where what many "centrists" and "mainstream" political thinkers and voices said was impossible came true. If someone in 2015 or 2016 had told you that a professional wrestling heel, fake billionaire, willful ignoramus, white supremacist cult leader and TV host, a man credibly accused of rape many times, a failed casino owner and real estate developer, con artist would become president of the United States, make choices in response to a pandemic that would kill at least a million Americans, bring the country and its democracy to a breaking point, attempt a coup, surrender America's interests to its enemies such as Russia, commit an endless number of serious crimes while in office, be impeached twice and almost win reelection, and then announce a second presidential candidacy all the while not being held responsible for his crimes many people would – and did — mock any person willing to say such a thing. They labeled it "Trump derangement" syndrome. We all know what happened next.

Fo those who mercifully have forgotten:

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It should be as terrifying as it is mind-boggling that the things described above actually occurred. That there is a significant minority of the entire population of the United States who are happy about this is is beyond the pale, that is, outside the bounds of morality, good behavior or judgement in civilized society.

The reasons how and why the things DeVega describes in chilling words happened have been addressed by political and social scientists and by mental health experts. I don't feel like delving into these when others have done a thorough job.* I really am devoting this blog about it to share DeVega's description.

The portion of the DeVega article that Salon highlighted, the concluding sentence, follows:

Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other Republican fascists and the larger white right and their allies are very dangerous. Your laughter does not change that fact. Your laughter will not save you from them or the new American nightmare they are forcing into being. He who laughs last laughs loudest. The laughter of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the other American fascists will be very deafening indeed.

About DeSantis from: 

Introducing the first-ever, sort-of-annual Bulls**t Awards: Not just for Republicans! by Brian Karem in Salon

A Mini-Me Bullshit award goes to Ron DeSantis, who while proving to be smarter than Trump (at least in some ways) has the charisma of roadkill and the smell of a dead skunk in the middle of the road. (That's a reference to an obscure song lyric — actually, DeSantis is so far to the right he's off the road). He mimics Trump's fascism in every move he makes, but takes it even further as he tries to turn the state of Florida into a Disney version of Germany in 1937. 

Here's Loudon Wainwright III singing Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road:

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* Footnote:

 DeVega regularly addresses these topics. For example just in the past week:

The science behind why conservatives are so easily triggered

The media's biggest addiction: Trump voters

UFOs and CRT: Republicans are in a constant state of panic about the "other"

Addendum:

I wanted to use the sign I made to use to illustrate yesterday's blog, DeSantis's great Florida fascist experiment, with a new background. I changed the background and also added five new elements.

\

Thanks to Chauncey DeVega for his retweet:

DeSantis's great Florida fascist experiment

 By Hal Brown

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Ron DeSantis, with his Harvard undergraduate degree and his Yale Law School degree, is now conducting an experiment worthy of a PhD dissertation in political science or a related field. He is conducting an experiment and the entire voting age population of the country are the subjects. He will attempt to determine whether the fascist leader of one state with a fairly unique population mix can attract a significant number of voters in a wide variety of other states. 

He is obviously going to run for the GOP nomination for president and has already taken his campaign on the road to test the waters in various states. He may be working on honing his performative skills so he comes across as more likable realizing, if he has any insight into himself, that he'll never have the odd charisma of Donald Trump.

There's no way DeSantis can beat Trump at the game of street, or rally, theater. One thing he has to do to beat Trump is wipe out as many early primary candidates as possible probably through raising far more money that they do.

However, the main thing DeSantis has to do is make the Florida fascist experiment a rousing success that sells to the likely voters in states with a large group who agrees with his anti-woke and pro-white agenda. 

If he can do this it wouldn't matter that he's duller than dirt or that there will always be a contingent of hard-core Trump cultists for whom nobody can substitute for the original.

If he can peel away enough Republican Trump voters from the far-right bigoted base he has a chance of winning the primary.

Should DeSantis be the candidate the rest of the country has to decide whether they want the entire country to look like Florida.

Update about DeSantis from: 

Introducing the first-ever, sort-of-annual Bulls**t Awards: Not just for Republicans! by Brian Karem in Salon

A Mini-Me Bullshit award goes to Ron DeSantis, who while proving to be smarter than Trump (at least in some ways) has the charisma of roadkill and the smell of a dead skunk in the middle of the road. (That's a reference to an obscure song lyric — actually, DeSantis is so far to the right he's off the road). He mimics Trump's fascism in every move he makes, but takes it even further as he tries to turn the state of Florida into a Disney version of Germany in 1937. 

Disney? I would say it would be a show from horror icons John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and George Romero. 

Why hasn't Trump nicknamed his rival Ron DeAnus?

 By Hal Brown

Caricature by DonkeyHotey

I've been waiting for Trump to start using Ron DeAnus as his primary nickname for Ron DeSantis. It was so obviously I was surprised that he hadn't started using it. I find it hard to believe Trump hadn't thought of it.

No matter what the actual meaning of "de" is in French most Americans would take it as meaning "the", thus they would read the nickname as Ron The Anus. They would get it, understanding that Trump is saying DeSantis is an asshole.

I can't imagine that Trump would think his cult would be offended by his use of the word "anus".  Therefore what is there about the anus that keeps him from introducing this nickname, at least from testing it out.

All I can think of are two possibilities. One is derived from depth psychology, from Freudian theory, and involves Trump being stuck in the anal developmental phase which children pass through between the ages of one and three.

During the anal stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet training—the child has to learn to control their bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.

According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents ​approach toilet training. Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive.

Freud believed that positive experiences during the toilet training stage serve as the basis for people to become competent, productive, and creative adults.

However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that children need during this stage. Some parents punish, ridicule, or shame a child for accidents.

According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive personality.

If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive. From VeryWell Mind

If Trump had conflicts during these years any reminder of bowel movements might be anxiety provoking for him.

The other possibility for not using this nickname is much more mundane. Considering how his diet habits, lack of exercise, and his obesity it is simply that he now is struggling with hemorrhoids. It may be merely that using the word "anus" reminds him of his itchy bleeding butt.

Another blog from today:

Click above to read

How Trump could use "The Wire" defense to get off all charges against him

 By Hal Brown

I consider "The Wire" to have been one of the best  crime themed television series of all time:

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Law and Crime is the website run by Dan Abrams. The site was referenced here in an article in Raw Story.  I'd seen Law and Crime referenced previously so I thought I look at the website. This is the story that caught my eye:

Click above to read article

"The Wire" ran from 2002 to 2008. The man arrested for murder is accused of committing the crime in 2011. There is evidence he was a such a big fan of "The Wire" that he identified with one of the major criminals depicted on the show and that he used a method of silencing a gun shot from the show.

According to a report from Boston ABC affiliate WCVB-TV, prosecutors said that investigators at the residence found a phone which was “attached to” the name Marlo Stanfield. Marlo Stanfield is the name of a fictional character in “The Wire,” who headed up the most ruthless and feared drug ring in Baltimore.

In another nod to “The Wire,” authorities also reportedly said that they recovered a sweet potato from the scene of the fatal shooting. In season four of the HBO show, one of the fictional police investigators solves a murder in which the shooter used a potato as a makeshift silencer when fatally shooting his victim.

Here's a third similarity:

According to a 2011 report from Cape Wide News, Lampley was inside of his home at night when he was shot by someone standing outside of his bedroom window, a possible third link to “The Wire.” In season one of the show, a fictitious woman who is cooperating with police is killed when the shooter stands outside of her window at night, taps the glass to get her attention, waits for her to approach the window, and then fires a fatal shot into the home.

Hampton and Lampley also had a previous connection, with Hampton testifying in court that Lampley was involved in the July 2007 murder of Jacques Sellers in the same neighborhood, CWN reported. Sellers was also reportedly shot inside his home by someone shooting through a window from outside.

This seems to have nothing to do with politics, or so it would seem. 

The defense this accused murderer could use is that he was brainwashed into being a killer by identifying with the criminals on "The Wire". Notably, the show tried to depict criminals in a way that showed them in a somewhat sympathetic manner.

His lawyers would introduced the case of an actress who played a ruthless hit woman on The Wire who was convicted of second degree murder:

Felicia Pearson (born May 18, 1980) is an American television actress, rapper, published author and convicted murderer. She played Felicia "Snoop" Pearson on The Wire and wrote a 2007 memoir, Grace After Midnight, detailing her troubled childhood and time in prison for second-degree murder. Wikipedia profile

Above from Atlanta Black Star

I don't know whether Felicia Pearson used her playing a murderer in a TV show as part of her defense, but she could have. 

Donald Trump could use the defense that he also was brainwashed from identifying with characters depicted heroically on television as breaking the law for the greater good or to render justice on shows like "24" where Jack Bauer used torture literally to save the entire world, and on "Dexter" where Dexter Morgan was a serial killer who killed serial killers, a surefire way to stop their killing sprees.

Another blog from today:

Click above to read