Charles P. Pierce: I Will Never Stop Hating This Election for Normalizing Stupid

[babylonsister]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48795/trump-election-normalizing-stupid/


I Will Never Stop Hating This Election for Normalizing Stupid

And Drew Magary has a point.

By Charles P. Pierce
Sep 21, 2016


We now have another expedition up the river into the heart of the Trumplandia and, before we take a look at the report these plucky adventurers have sent back, let us note for the record that, at a church in Cleveland on Wednesday morning, the Republican presidential candidate was endorsed by a convicted killer who felt free to drop n-bombs on the audience to the apparent delight of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago. The killer, it should be noted, was introduced in the church by Mike Pence, whose Christian faith is unshakable, according to those people who believe the gospels are sales manuals.

snip//

Half the country is buying this carny act. If you want to see why, check out Mother Jones' dispatch about that particular half of the country. And, can I suggest to cable TV bookers that, if you want an informed opinion on the "alt-right" or whatever it is that we're calling extremists these days, you might want to ditch, say, Matthew Dowd in favor of Dave Neiwert, who's been working the beat for over 20 years.

"The ingredient in Trump's historic rise that makes it so delicious is that it's nuclear powered," he wrote after a Trump rally. "It is unstoppable. It is impervious to foot-shuffling, complaints, whining, hysterical cries of 'racism' and so-called 'white supremacism.' Trump supporters don't care and there is something undeniably infectious about Trump's masculine attitude." Edwards has also called Trump's campaign "implicitly white."

Yeah, but it's Hillary Rodham Clinton's association with Sid Blumenthal that's the real scandal in this election. If that isn't enough, check out the survey that The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper did in which folks attending a Trump rally were asked to describe their favorite conspiracy theories.

Via SplitSider:

After interviewing a bunch of Trump fans, Klepper learns that Clinton might have AIDS and uses a body double, President Obama is a Muslim terrorist responsible for 9/11, and the media doesn't portray Trump's many black supporters. So what sources do these Trump fans use to find these facts, Klepper asks? "Um, just Facebook or Twitter. Everything." "So you'll look at facts and bullshit and you'll put it all together?" "Exactly."

I'm sure that believing that the president is a Muslim and was somehow involved in the 9/11 attacks are merely the public expression of economic insecurity, although I'm damned if I can figure out why.

snip//

Or, you can follow the logic of this piece in The Nation which, I confess, is of an intellectual level I cannot attain.

Make no mistake: I want Trump to lose this election. But progressives should not support Clinton.

No kidding. I will never stop hating this election for the incredible deluge of Stupid it has loosed upon the country. It is the pure product of the forces driving the Trump campaign in concert with the attempt to make sense of it without accounting for the pure hate without which that campaign would not exist at all. There is nothing worthwhile about it. It does not raise serious questions with which the country must grapple. It is merely a giant loogie hocked at people whom most Trump supporters have been trained over 40 years to hate.

Or, as Ross Cardinal Douthat suggests, you can blame Samantha Bee. God, he wants to be one of those people in the red ballcaps so very badly, it fairly drips from every sentence. Moron envy is not attractive in a fellow of his education.

Me? I'm with Magary.

[lewebley3]

1. We need to use words like: The American people rein: not King Trump

[maxsolomon]

6. Reign?

regardless of the word, that pretty much means nothing. its the kind of stuff Trump voters say to convince themselves they're the patriots.

[shenmue]

2. He was anti-Clinton until she won the nomination

I don't trust anything he says.

[babylonsister]

5. So was I. What's your point?

Weren't we supposed to get over ourselves?

[shenmue]

7. Already stated my point

[oasis]

3. Sarah Palin gets the credit for the acceptance and embrace of stupidity.

She's the founder of the low information movement.

[hibbing]

8. What about the cardboard box intellect of George W. Bush? n/t

[oasis]

10. Sarah took pride in her stupidity and resisted any intellectual input.

Bush just failed to process information.

[hatrack]

12. Or, W was stupid and lazy, Palin was proudly stupid and lazy

Key difference.

[BSdetect]

24. Also too

She'd probably spell it "also to".

[politicaljunkie41910]

4. I'm glad someone had the courage to say it.

[Hortensis]

9. Afraid it's worse than stupid. It's demonizing hate --

against Democrats. Over decades now, when called upon to support more and more egregious candidates and extremist policies, to justify abandoning principles and keeping lower and lower company , a majority of conservatives responded by demonizing Democrats to the point that they can believe their duty is to stop them at all costs. That nothing is worse than what Democrats would do to the nation. All information that contradicts that picture is denied.

I once hoped Trump would define bottom for the conservative half of this nation, that significant numbers would say "hell, no!" At this point only perhaps 10% of the usual electorate are.

I now believe there is no bottom for most of the others, nothing so bad that in a fever of partisanship they would not refuse to believe the truth about it, nothing so bad that they wouldn't demonize the opposition to whatever degree it takes to justify their behavior.

We're going to win, but Trump will not lose by the huge numbers decency and even just duty to one's family requires. We need to recognize that it really could happen here and that this is how it would happen. Trump is not the worst the right can come up with, by a long shot. He's far too incompetent to be the worst. Pence is famously stupid, but obedient. I even fear him more. And he's not the worst.

[adigal]

16. It's amazing how many Trump supporters on Twitter have Conservative

Christian in the tag lines.,then say horrible vile things like calling me an old lady (I'm 54) and a "hoe." (Sic)

[Hortensis]

19. Umhm. Just good people expressing societal

disapproval of bad people like you. "Old lady." Lol. Seems a little conflicted -- hurl the insult of age without completely discarding old-fashioned manners?

[adigal]

21. Right?? Cause Jesus hated old people, don't you know?? He called his mother "an old broad" nt

[sarae]

27. Yep. It's a pointless endeavor trying to make

any sense out of the things they say and do. None of them practice what they preach, least of all their Orange Leader.

[SFierro2004]

11. The fact that Trump is even a candidate speaks volumes

It's like Americans learned nothing from the 8 disastrous years of GWB. And now they want to elect an orange-skinned psycho? Lord help us!

And the mainstream media is all too eager to help that loudmouthed buffoon actually win. Simply disgusting.

[sarae]

29. It's a sad proof

of all the worst suspicions and stereotypes about "Americans" as seen by the global community for a long time now. It feels like we are truly watching Idiocracy unfold.

Everyone is so polarized - Liberals vs Conservatives, white vs non-whites, men vs women, etc.

If Trump wins (god forbid!), I motion that we change our name to The Divided States. Under a Trump administration, said name is much more fitting.

[Dawson Leery]

13. I am BEYOND disgusted with the cultural right of America.

They are ignorant, racist, brutes who seek to beat anyone who is no their Mengle-ite clone into the ground. They are garbage, they are the offspring of the Nazis.

[workinclasszero]

17. I agree with you but the so called Left makes me sick as well

Or, you can follow the logic of this piece in The Nation which, I confess, is of an intellectual level I cannot attain.

Make no mistake: I want Trump to lose this election. But progressives should not support Clinton.


These bastards will vote for the Putins employee Jill Stein and feel all superior if Hillary falls to the fascist Trump.

So who is worse?

A brainwashed Fox news/Hate radio knuckle dragger or an "educated" hardcore leftist who helps Trump get elected???

[Hekate]

14. Thanks for this, Babs. I simply cannot wrap my head around the terminal stupidity...

...of so many of my fellow Americans.

[adigal]

15. I'm sorry, the stupid and hatred is already here

And from what some of my students now feel free to say in class, it's not going to die with these old white people. They've infected their young.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. It's normalizing evil. That is worse.

[Fast Walker 52]

20. yeah, but the right has long ago normalized evil

Trump just a more stupid, obnoxious version of them

[First Speaker]

23. If Trump wins, America will have embraced radical evil...

...as a liberal Christian, all I can say in that situation is: God help us...

[Wounded Bear]

22. K & R ...... nt

[wiggs]

25. Agree. Nothing good comes from the public discourse over this election. Nothing resolved, no

facts established and stipulated. One candidate just wants a pissing contest and the media gives it coverage 24/7.

[saltpoint]

26. Charles Pierce can write.

He's done by far some of the best analysis of this election.

[Sunlei]

28. Republicans had a stage full of 18? who "Ran for President", the 'stupid' started there.

[Blue_Tires]

30. To be fair, the trend started long before 2016

Trump is just the rock-bottom result of the final domino falling...