On the role of idiocy in American life, Part IV

Donald Trump praises Mao and calls his enemies "vermin." I think that pretty much covers everything you need to know, don'tchathink??

I’m proud to be a pro-life party. we can win on this message. the American people are where we are, and they want common sense limitations, they want more access to adoption, we want to make sure that there are pregnancy crisis centers. these are things we can win on. but we have to talk about it, and you can’t hide in a corner and think that abortion’s not going to be an issue.

• Ronna (Romney) McDaniel, Republican National Committee Chairwoman

After suffering a defeat, whether ignominious or narrow, most leaders will step back and dispassionately examine what happened- what went right and what went off the rails. But there are other, broader questions beyond that, like:

• What could they have done better?

• What did they do well that they should do more of next time?

• What fell flat that they should avoid the next time?

• When did things go sideways?

• Could we have done a better job of identifying problems?

• Could we have reacted better/faster?

• Did we use resources appropriately/most efficiently?

Whether you’re a football coach, a CEO, the manager of a Dairy Queen in Rugby, ND, or the leader of a political party, setbacks are times to re-examine your strategy and tactics and ask yourself a very straightforward question:

Is there a better way?

Effective leaders understand a fundamental truth- the definition of “insanity” is doing the same thing and expecting different results. No successful leader will continue employing the same methods if they fail to produce the desired results.

Winners adapt and change. Even if they don’t win the next time out, the accumulation of lessons learned will eventually lead to success. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But, with patience and application, someday.

Yet Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel sees nothing wrong with running the same fourth-and-15 play that didn’t work on Election Day until Republicans can run it successfully.

So…what was the definition of “insanity?”

hey, remember a couple of weeks ago, when Republicans ran on a platform of forced birth and got totally fucking slaughtered at the ballot box? that was pretty fun, right?

it really does take a special kind of stupid to be on the wrong end of that electoral drubbing and conclude that we need to be forcing birth harder.

Republicans were all over the Sunday shows this past week, talking about how they can absolutely win by shouting even louder about how much they want to take away women’s rights….

a personal plea to every Republican who refuses to stop fucking this particular chicken: yes, keep right on at it. never stop.

enjoy getting reamed at the polls next year.

“We can win on this message….”

Sure you can…and remind me to bet my house on Our Lady of Perpetual Motion College to win next year’s NCAA basketball tournament- especially if they play Kansas or Kentucky in the first round.

Remember this clown? I sure as Hell wish I didn’t, but I fer damn sure know that when I’m looking for trenchant commentary of the threat radical Islam (or was it radical Christianity?) poses to America, Phil Robertson is NOT who I turn to.

Every time I watch his lips move, I’m terrified something will crawl out of that deer blind he calls a beard. Good Lord, y’all; you could hide an infantry platoon in there.

Here’s what I’m wondering, though- in what world does anyone think Phil Robertson has anything relevant to say about anything? Meh, probably the same numbnuts who thought interviewing Fabio about the issues of the day was a great way to pump up ratings.

Someone at Fox News seriously thought his opinions on radical Islam were worth broadcasting to the free world. And to think someone probably went to four years of “J” school at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion College for that.

Ugh, just thinking about it causes brain cells to commit seppuku.

And who knew one could turn losing one swimming race to a transgender competitor into a career? It seems Riley Gaines is well on her way to doing precisely that. Lord knows she’s got the Conservative whine and evidence-free claims down cold.

Yeah, if Megyn Kelly ever gets tired of being the blond defender of White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals and all things White Privilege, Riley Gaines has her schtick nailed…like fingernails down a chalkboard.

You know, I never thought it was possible to be an oppressed majority, but evidently, being a White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual means being part of an oppressed class. Man, it’s gotta be tough being part of that oppressed majority these days, don’tchaknow??

Man, I had NO idea….

Meanwhile, America’s Man-Child-in-Chief continues his “Propagandize America 2024” tour, which is less an actual tour than his having access to our frontal lobes 24/7/365. For a man who can’t speak in complete sentences and is now channeling Adolf Hitler as a way to distract the American Sheeple from his senility, Donald Trump is ubiquitous. And it’s disgusting.

Sometimes, I’ll turn on the news and say a silent imprecation in the hope that the news will be about something, ANYTHING other than the Orange Diapered One. And sometimes it is…but not for long. Once the news moves away from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, it’s back to the Trump lunacy.

Ferchrissakes, lock him up already….

I’m not a vermin; YOU’RE a vermin…man, THAT’S inspiring, no?

And, if you didn’t have Donald Trump praising Chairman Mao on your November 2023 bingo card…well, you lose- because he went there.

And so peace and happiness reigned throughout the kingdom…mostly because Mao killed millions to get things under control, which is precisely the sort of thing Donald Trump admires and wishes he could do.

[T]he man’s great love of strongman dictators knows no political bounds. It doesn’t matter what someone actually believed so long as they got some mass murder going on and portraits of themselves everywhere. One must have priorities.

Trump, by the way, asked his audience if any of them would oppose executing drug dealers and only one person was opposed. This was not terribly surprising, as there are only two reasons to support the death penalty A) You haven’t thought about it too hard and also have no idea how many innocent people have been convicted in our courts of law, or B) you’re just super bloodthirsty. It seems like the latter type would be most likely to show up at a Trump rally.

And now for a smooth segue….

Remember when Twitter used to be a relatively useful tool? People exchanged ideas, kept in touch, and all sorts of wonderful and practical things happened. Sure, it had a neo-Nazi problem, and there were a lot of useless dickheads who used the platform for their nefarious purposes, but overall it worked pretty well.

Then Elon Musk bought it and blew the ol’ “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” maxim right out of San Francisco Bay. Before you knew it, Twitter was a shell of its former self and a home for recalcitrant neo-Nazis (some of whom Musk had restored after having been kicked off the platform as much as a decade before).

The self-declared “free speech absolutist” turned out to be about “free speech” only for people he liked- those on the Right side of the political/ideological spectrum. Over a relatively short period, Twitter has gone through a rebranding (it’s now called “X”) and has hemorrhaged large numbers of users and advertisers. What was once a decent, if somewhat capricious and erratic, social media platform is barely recognizable.

Now Musk is trying to make Right-wing lemonade out of lemons:

imagine you’ve driven half the major advertisers off your failing app by being a raging antisemite. what do you do for an encore?

if you’re the SmArTeSt GeNiUs iN tHe GaLaXy, I guess you drive away the other half by calling them “the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.”

Say, didn’t Elon Musk used to be a brilliant businessman? Or was that just a load of self-promoting bullshit?

As if that question is anything but rhetorical….

I guess genius isn’t quite what it used to be.

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll trust my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their financial support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)

And now a word from our sponsor….