The hate-Trump Left has Melania's bizarre choice of jacket as she boarded the plane to go check out the border crisis, as well as Brian Kilmeade's "like it or not, these aren't our kids" remark on Fox & Friends.
The portion of the right preoccupied with each outrage in the flood thereof has the fact that the kid on the obscene Time cover wasn't separated from her parents, as well as Peter Fonda's suggestion that someone kidnap Barron Trump.
Was it really only two days ago that we were noting the disruption of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson's dinner at a DC restaurant? (By the way, one of the main instigators of that was a DoJ employee, and she said "it felt really good.")And when was the Robert DeNiro outburst at the Tonys? A century ago?
I realize that trafficking in feelings rather than facts is useless at best, and that it's the hallmark of the Left, but doesn't it feel as if there's been a ratcheting up of the fury, maybe even that we've reached an inflection point? I suppose if one had the time and energy for the rigor involved, a quantitative analysis of how often obscenities have been used in awards shows in, say, the past three years, in comparison to some three-year period from the 1970s or 50s, or similar comparisons of how often movie stars had publicly suggested kidnapping a president's ten-year-old child, or how often an activist group had made public the phone numbers and addresses of employees of a given government agency could be conducted.
How much more brittle can society get before we're at the actual crackup stage?
Of course, it's a frequently-bandied parlor game question as to whether we'd have reached such a cacophonous juncture if the Republicans had nominated, and the country had elected, an actual conservative. I tend to think the atmospheric dissonance would have been somewhat less. We probably wouldn't be dealing with absolutely stunning developments like this:
Two days ago, President Donald Trump promised House Republicans he'd have their backs "1,000 percent" on immigration. On Friday, he told them to “stop wasting their time” — putting GOP leaders in an impossible position and throwing the conference into chaos.
But House Republican leaders say they plan to forge ahead with an immigration vote next week nonetheless.
Speaker Paul Ryan's team has spent weeks trying to strike an accord between moderate Republicans from swing districts and conservatives who are petrified of being accused of supporting "amnesty."
And House Republicans exited a Thursday night meeting saying they believed they had a "breakthrough" between the two wings of the party on a compromise that would help Dreamers and boost border security.
But Trump undercut his party’s plans Friday, telling them to wait until after the midterm elections to act.
“Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!”Real nice. So we're just supposed to endure four more months of ratcheting up of the dangerous antics?
No, this is not a good state of affairs. We're not great again, we're not having any genuine fun, we're not even safe.
If post-America really understood its fundamental sickness, its citizens would drop to their knees en masse and implore their Creator for mercy, guidance and healing.
It's very, very late in the day.
How could anyone think that Time cover was anything but symbolic? On our knees or not, a lot of people are not in favor of Trump's immigration policies and worse, Trump's tactics and schemes, of course including his Great Wall. Two words: George Will. In November voters move in for the kill?
ReplyDeleteSee Rasmussen poll results discussed in the post below. The sturm und drang about this is not commensurate with its actual size relative to the general public.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's always rainbows and lollipops for the Right in every Rasmussen poll.
ReplyDeleteCBS poll in March had 60% against Der Fury's wall, but a huge majority of Republicans in favor. Since you're neutral now, where do you stand?
ReplyDeleteI think an actual wall of the type Trump envisions is not there first, second or third priority. First is to immediately send newly arrived illegal aliens right back across the border, using the personnel we currently have available. For one thing, that would take care of the separated-children problem. (In other words, it seems to me a fleet of busses would serve the same purpose as the wall.) Also strictly enforce current laws prohibiting US businesses from hiring illegal aliens. Also step up action against human trafficking. On a cultural level, we need to find ways to discourage things like bilingual telephone menus ('for Spanish, press 2"). We also need to cooperate with willing Latin American countries to address their gang problems and also encourage economic growth.
ReplyDeleteShould we still need a wall after a concentrated effort in these areas, then yes, let's build it.