Be of Good Cheer
My previous post was a little pessimistic, so I want to put things in perspective. Hillary Clinton is going to crush Donald Trump on election day. Nothing about last night's debate changed that. Trump threw his followers some red meat and shored up his support among the right-wing assholes who form the base of the Republican Party. In doing so, he might have stopped some congressional Republicans from withdrawing their support. (Whether that turns out well for them or not is unclear at this point—I might write more on that point later.) But that's all he accomplished. He didn't change the underlying dynamic of the race, which is that his campaign is floundering and it is jeopardizing the entire Republican Party.
The title of this post is taken from Lincoln's advise to General Rosecrans after his defeat at Chickamauga. Rosecrans was in fact relieved of command not long after, never regaining his composure after the devastating loss. But in a broader sense, the advice was right. By that point, it was clear to almost everyone that the Union was going to win. Chickamauga was a setback, but it was only a matter of time before Union troops would march into Richmond.
And this debate wasn't even a Chickamauga! Clinton won! So be of good cheer. We are winning the war.
The title of this post is taken from Lincoln's advise to General Rosecrans after his defeat at Chickamauga. Rosecrans was in fact relieved of command not long after, never regaining his composure after the devastating loss. But in a broader sense, the advice was right. By that point, it was clear to almost everyone that the Union was going to win. Chickamauga was a setback, but it was only a matter of time before Union troops would march into Richmond.
And this debate wasn't even a Chickamauga! Clinton won! So be of good cheer. We are winning the war.
posted by James | 9:04 AM
1 Comments:
True. But it's depressing and infuriating that Trump has made it this far, that he has as much support as he does, that people like him can thrive in our society. There are just too many assholes out there, and our institutions most certainly aren't built to put alpha assholes in their place, provided that they toe certain lines. To pick a perhaps trivial example: look at Ryan Lochte getting to rehabilitate"his image on Dancing with the Stars -- you can get away with just about anything if you're charismatic, self-promoting, and good at something (and for the very fortunate self-promotion itself can be that something). Maybe Lochte isn't actually a rotten person -- I haven't looked into this -- but he sounds like an entitled, unethical shit to me, and I'd prefer to live in a world where that meant he had no huge fan base and lifetime celebrity cashflow. People are just so fickle, superficial, and unprincipled. It's like they just don't get how bad certain things are.
Donald Trump isn't just un-PC or something, he's a pathologically vicious and immoral person. He deserves condemnation and ostracism. Yet because of his charisma and, for lack of a better term, our celebrity culture, he gets away, and will get away, with so much. The Jimmy Fallon hair-tousling thing is actually a pretty compelling example -- it's sickening. Trump is no Pol Pot, but in terms of character he's closer to that end of the spectrum than to, like, Alec Baldwin's character in 30 Rock (the example that popped into my head even though I haven't seen it). You don't minimize that shit, you don't make light of it. So yeah, it will be great when a solid majority of this country dances on Trump's political grave, but it will be depressing and infuriating when, a few months later, he is back to doing his celebrity thing, kicking ass at life, reveling in the attention and fandom of millions of people despite being an evil piece of shit.
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