"Trump leaned back grinning."
Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are poking the same ones Trump pokes: John McCain and Jeff Bezos.
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| Goliath, the trophy. |
Trump surely likes watching it, and for a moment the young Democrats and Trump have a common enemy. He likes having enemies and he likes to demonstrate how he destroys and humiliates them.
It is ancient practice. Make a trophy of the corpse of your enemy. Send a message.
The Guest Post below is long and dense, so this introduction will be short. Thad Guyer says that their temporary alliance is not based on agreement. It is based on Trump's unlimited appetite for revenge. Democrats need to be at the top of their game to compete with Trump in the arena of revenge.
Guest Post by Thad Guyer:
“Trump, Ilhan Omar and AOC: Revenge and the Enemies-of-Their-Enemies”
A Vietnam war buddy of mine in failing health exclaimed “I hope I live to watch the 2020 circus”.
The racist called the Vietnamese “gooks”, sang “bomb bomb bomb” them, and made Sarah Palin his own. No, not my friend; I’m referring to John McCain, the war hero who according to Democratic firebrand Ilhan Omar’s retweet was anything but an honorable man. See, “Omar retweets attack on Meghan McCain's 'faux outrage' over anti-Semitism”, The Hill (Mar. 8, 2019, https://goo.gl/mu95Ja).
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| Achilles drags Hector's body |
Trump’s attacks on the dead senator have been considerably milder than hers but, still, Trump and Omar manage to share a dance on McCain’s grave. As to the living, damn be the “corporate greed”, “worker exploitation” and “power of the richest man in the world”, who can take his 25,000 high paying jobs and shove ‘em! That’s what AOC said about Jeff Bezos, as she ran him out of NYC. See, “Ocasio-Cortez Cheers Amazon’s Withdrawal as a Victory Over Greed”, (Bloomberg, Feb. 15, 2019, https://goo.gl/13rkrd).
As when Omar savaged McCain, Trump leaned back grinning as AOC trashed the Washington Post owner, that purveyor of “fake news”, that “enemy of the American people”, or as she said, that enemy of workers. It’s this adage now bonding Trump to both Congresswomen of color: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. All three share the same political etiquette, and present the same example of bitter partisan leadership.
Nevertheless, Ms. Omar and Ms. Cortez may be too inexperienced to fully appreciate Trump’s most practiced art-- the art of revenge. Mitt Romney and other fidgeting Republicans this week called public shame on Trump’s assaults on McCain’s flip-flop on “repeal and replace” and promotion of the Democratic funded “dossier” that helped launch Mueller’s “witch hunt”. These Republicans missed the point (or perhaps they don’t): the President’s vengeance will follow GOP traitors into retirement, disability, and even death.
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| Godfather message. |
CNN and MSNBC think Trump’s vengeance against McCain’s reputation shows mental and moral derangement. Maybe that too, but this ignores Trump’s unflinching lifelong willingness to engage in the “game theory” and psychology of political revenge. See, “I Dare You to Punish Me—Vendettas in Games of Cooperation” (PLOS, Sept. 19, 2012, https://goo.gl/QN32RE), and “The Complicated Psychology of Revenge”, (Psychological Science, Oct. 2011, https://goo.gl/zqara9). It finds “Successful revenge is therefore about more than payback; it is about delivering a message.”
Trump’s message to the GOP is that he will taint the traitor’s family name and humiliate his children (despite Art. 3 section 3 of the constitution normative value that a person’s treason shall not “work Corruption of Blood” on his family). Nor is Trump’s assault on McCain merely a sign that he’s panicking over the forthcoming Mueller report. Trump has methodically used revenge for decades in his business and media life. See, “Vilification and Revenge Are Key to Trump’s Personal Values” (Truthout.org, Oct. 6, 2016, https://goo.gl/ou6EFY).
Trump will savage any “let’s play nice” or “when he goes low, we go high” Democratic nominee in the general election. Trump has vanquished politics as usual and political correctness. See, “How Donald Trump and Roy Cohn’s Ruthless Symbiosis Changed America”, (Vanity Fair, Jun. 28, 2017, https://goo.gl/FaM27G).
Democrats better not nominate anyone who’s not up to Trump’s knife fight if we want to change America back.
3 comments:
I think the broader picture with McCain, and other veterans who become politicians, is that their service places them in a class by themselves. McCain's politics reflected his military background, with its own style of patriotism and value structure, which often is at odds with the mushy standards exemplified at their worst by a Trump or Graham.
I remember the "bomb Iran" comment and it seemed to me at the time to be a lapse into the often cavalier attitude towards violence we see from the military mentality. Another lapse was the "gooks" comment, which he apologized for, and could be attributed to PTSD. The Palin episode was a hail mary which could have worked except it was...Palin.
Another example is from country singer Toby Keith, "American boot up their a**", who markets to veterans, and so on. This plays into the bunker mentality that pervades our society I've referenced before. Maybe it's justified, it's a mean world out there, but it's certainly not up for debate.
As I remember I don't think McCain ever took on Trump directly, at least not publicly, so however one might feel about his legacy, the man retained his dignity which makes Trump's attacks petty and one-sided. Those cheering him on make the Trump cult appear even more juvenile and stupid which saying something.
Yes, a knife fight, indeed...or maybe a better analogy provided by Matt Taibbi is a WWE contest: The Orange "Crusader" against "Bolshevik Bernie" in the
(megaphone, please) "MATCH OF THE CENTURY."
The Trump team is already brainstorming their epithets and nom de plumes for his potential adversary. "Pocohantas," "Baaaddo," "Jo-Jo," "Ms. Harass," ...whatever will appeal to the masses that embrace the circus sideshow of identity politics rather than a rational discourse about the issues.
Andy Seles
Yes, WWE. I have made this comparison for 3 years, repeatedly. It is a fight between wrestling caricatures in the We. A number of national columnists see my blog, but I don’t know if Tiabbi is one of them.
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