Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Over at France's semiology website, Elodie Mielczareck gets into some detective work to examine Donald Trump's choice of words and, indeed, compare them with that of Kamala Harris. Notably three departments:
• the semantic aspects: frequency of words and their symbolic scope;
• the rhetorical style: which figures of speech are used, which tone, what effects;
• pragmatic linguistics: which specific speech actions are used
We learn about the art of repetition and amplification in Trump's speeches along with his warlike strategy, contrasted with Kamala's autobiographical speech and her rhetoric of hope
Using John Searle's philosophy of language, Elodie Mielczareck further contrasts Trump's vision of a conflicted world with Kamala's attempts at pragmatic engagement.
• les aspects sémantiques : fréquence des mots et leur portée symbolique; • le style rhétorique : quelles figures de styles, quelle tonalité, quels effets ;
• la linguistique pragmatique : quels actes de langage en particulier ;
This came before the Polish elections ousted the country's conservatives and brought the left back into power. But in honor of St. Nicholas’ Day (Mikołajki comes from Mikołaj (Polish for Nicholas, meaning little Nicholas)), we are bringing a lashing-out from The Economist at Poland's rightist government before the election, leading a Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament to come to the country's defense.
Poland’s government
Your leader on the Polish government read in places like an election pamphlet from the opposition Civic Platform party (“A Polish pickle”,
April 21st). The governing Law and Justice (PiS) party received an
overwhelming mandate from the Polish people in 2015, including a clear
instruction to rebalance a judiciary, which had been stacked with allies
by the former government without any complaint from the European Union.
To
counter its weakness at home, Civic Platform is seeking to Europeanise
what are essentially domestic issues and fight its battles in Brussels
rather than Warsaw. By imposing an agenda of ever increasing
centralisation and trying to force a mythical European identity on
member states (the same policies that contributed to Brexit), the EU is
behaving, in the eyes of many in Poland, like the former Soviet Union.
ASHLEY FOX, MEP Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament Brussels
as we move into 2025, many businesses are optimistic about the possibilities of doing business in the USA.
In my role withExact,
an international business software provider for small and mid-sized
companies, I have the great fortune of speaking with mid-sized
manufacturers, distributors, and financial services firms across the
nation. With regional responsibilities in North America, the United
Kingdom, and Ireland, I also hear from companies abroad.
Many of our customers I have spoken with in the last quarter share
a collective sense of optimism for the future. Most of these
conversations with customers boils down to some key themes. Here are
four key reasons why I believe this optimism exists:
Reason #1 – Market Size and Diversity
Depending on who you ask, the United States is credited with
nearly 25% of the world’s GDP, showcasing its economic muscle and high
confidence in consumer and business spending. The sheer size and
diversity of the US market are attractive to many international
companies with expansion ambitions. …
Reason #2 – Favorable Economic and Regulatory Policies
With the US Presidential Election concluded and a new
administration taking office in mid-January, there is hope that campaign
promises will lead to an economic boom in 2025 and beyond. …
Reason #3 – Innovation and Technology
With the explosion of artificial intelligence, supercomputers,
self-driving automobiles, and the emergence of mass-produced,
polyfunctional robots on the horizon, technological innovation will be
front and center …
Reason #4 – Economic Stability and Prospective Growth
In the last six weeks alone, the stock market has surged over 6%,
and many industry analysts suggest the US economy will remain resilient
in 2025.
The America that I love, I have seen it being destroyed from the inside for twenty years. Today, there is a chance for a rebound. We have to put an end to this cycle of decline, we have to put an end to this descent into hell. This election sends a very positive message about the future and about the ability of the United States and Americans to reverse this slope of decline.
Gérald Olivier est journaliste franco-américain et auteur. Il a notamment publié « Cover up : le clan Biden, l’Amérique et l’État profond » (éd. Konfident).
Dans cet entretien, il analyse la victoire de Donald Trump à la présidentielle américaine ainsi que les enjeux économiques et géopolitiques de son élection pour l’Union européenne, la guerre entre l’Ukraine et la Russie, le conflit à Gaza ou la rivalité avec la Chine.
D’après Gérald Olivier, les électeurs américains ont notamment été séduits par le programme porté par le candidat républicain et comptent sur lui pour remettre de l’ordre.
« Derrière Donald Trump, vous avez un vrai programme de gouvernement qui repose sur le principe de mettre les intérêts de l'Amérique d'abord, de rétablir la situation économique en combattant l'inflation, de relancer la production d'énergie, de protéger et de réindustrialiser le pays à travers une politique beaucoup plus protectionniste, et de mettre de l'ordre dans le monde en essayant de résoudre à la fois le conflit en Ukraine et le conflit au Proche-Orient », ajoute Gérald Olivier.
« Le dernier élément de la mission que Trump se propose d’accomplir consiste à nettoyer Washington, en finir avec la corruption douce qui règne dans ce pays, voire l'instrumentalisation du système politique et judiciaire aux dépens des opposants du régime, ce dont Trump a fait l'objet pendant de longues années. »
Alors que Donald Trump a promis de mettre un terme à la guerre entre l’Ukraine et la Russie, Gérald Olivier estime que sa politique sera très différente de celle de Joe Biden.
« Faire pression sur Volodymyr Zelensky, c'est très facile. Sans les États-Unis, Zelensky n'aurait pas tenu tête à la Russie comme il a réussi à le faire depuis trois ans », remarque-t-il.
« La vraie question est comment amener Vladimir Poutine à la table des négociations ? Poutine estime qu'il est en train de gagner cette guerre, il a conquis un certain nombre de territoires, la Russie contrôle aujourd'hui une partie de l'Ukraine et si on gelait les positions militaires, elle sortirait gagnante de ce conflit. »
D’après le journaliste franco-américain, Trump compte amener le président russe à la table des négociations « en maniant la carotte et le bâton », et en garantissant que l'Ukraine ne rentre jamais dans l'Otan.
Et Gérald Olivier de conclure : « Cette Amérique que j'ai aimée, je l'ai vue depuis vingt ans être détruite de l'intérieur. Aujourd'hui, il y a la chance d'un rebond. On a mis fin à ce cycle du déclin, on a mis fin à cette descente aux enfers. Cette élection envoie un message très positif sur l'avenir et sur la capacité des États-Unis et des Américains à inverser cette pente du déclin. »
RIF's Philippe Karsenty was a guest on Sud Radio, where the RIF spokesman discussed how Donald Trump is already in presidential mode, long before the January 2025 inauguration.
The section with the RIF spokesman starts at around 20:30 and ends around 38:45.
Avec Luc Gras, politologue, Philippe Karsenty, porte-parole de Republicans in France, Jean-Pierre Augé ancien colonel du secteur Afrique noire de la DGSE pour son livre "Afrique Adieu" aux éditions Mareuil
Retrouvez Alexis Poulin sans réserve tous les vendredis de 12h à 13h sur #SudRadio.
A diagnosis of anxiety fits his own government, too. Mr Trudeau and his
party have traversed an arc from heroic to hapless during nine years in
office, and today are despised by many in Canada. … A letter has been circulating among Liberal MPs calling upon Mr Trudeau to resign.
… The unaffordability of housing is central. The cost of owning a home in
Canada has increased by 66% since Mr Trudeau took office, with prices
rising faster in this century than in any other sizeable OECD country bar Australia. … The influx of immigrants during Mr Trudeau’s decade in power has intensified the demand for housing. … The pain of high housing costs has been compounded by a mediocre economy.
… Climate change offered Mr Trudeau perhaps his clearest opportunity to
blend moral leadership with pragmatism. But he ignored polling showing
that while Canadians were concerned about the climate crisis, they were
also loth to pay taxes equivalent to a Netflix subscription to fight it.
… Instead of adapting to or confronting challenges thrown up by his
policies, Mr Trudeau has preferred to attack his critics. He has seemed
inert as the erosion of his party’s support accelerated. Some Liberals
privately suggest the breakdown of his marriage last year distracted
him. In a shuffle aimed at energising his front bench in 2023 more than
half his cabinet changed portfolios, but the economic message remained
the same: we will continue to deliver “good things” to Canadians. Only
recently has Mr Trudeau begun to acknowledge that this fell short.
“Doing good things isn’t enough to deal with the kind of anxiety that is
out there,” he told the Montreal conference. He still describes his
voters’ problems in psychological rather than practical terms.
You described Justin Trudeau’s identity politics as “sanctimonious” (“The dying of the light”,
October 19th). A local journalist once remarked that the Canadian
system of government is a sanctimocracy: rule by the holier-than-thou.
ROBERT GENTLE Johannesburg
The
antipathy of Canadians towards their prime minister was quite apparent
when, in the middle of this summer’s Rolling Stones concert in
Vancouver, Mick Jagger commented on his long-standing friendship with
the Trudeau family and was roundly booed. Mick quickly pivoted to the
recent success of the Canadian soccer team.
If you can sit through a three-hour interview of Donald Trump or JD Vance, head over to FEE to listen to Lex Fridman's 2-hour interview of Javier Milei.
The journalists, who have vested interests and are corrupt, are professional torturers (1:18:00)
[Trump] is a true warrior! He's truly, he's a Viking! He's a Viking! He's literally a Viking! (1:19:45)
Javier Milei’s two-hour interview
with Lex Fridman … Argentina’s libertarian president reflected on
the first few months of his administration following his historic
electoral victory on November 19, 2023.
Milei has been called many
things, but his methods and philosophy thrive under scrutiny. In a free
society, being questioned is both a challenge and an opportunity. What
sets Milei apart is his ability to answer tough questions with logic,
evidence, and, most importantly, results.
His anarchist rhetoric
is—as he said—rooted in a libertarianism that has an “unrestricted
respect for the life project of others based on the principle of
non-aggression and in defense of the rights to life, liberty, and
property,” a definition championed by Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr., and
that follows John Locke’s ideas.
A Model Exported
Milei’s
reforms haven’t gone unnoticed in the U.S., especially after the
announcement of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to be
led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
In the interview, Milei
highlighted how Argentina’s Ministry of Deregulation and State
Transformation, led by Federico Sturzenegger, is systematically
dismantling protectionism and privilege by eliminating 1 to 5 economic
restrictions daily.
This approach is catching attention worldwide, as Musk
and Ramaswamy have hinted at adapting this “chainsaw” strategy.
Ramaswamy recently posted on X: “A reasonable formula to fix the U.S.
government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids.”
A reasonable formula to fix the U.S. government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids.
If
there’s one image that defined Milei’s 2023 campaign, it’s the
chainsaw. He carried a real chainsaw to his rallies, chanting “¡Motosierra! ¡Motosierra!” (Spanish for “chainsaw”) as a symbol of his promise to slash Argentina’s bloated bureaucracy.
When
Milei took office, Argentina’s inflation was out of control, climbing
at almost 1% per day. Fixing the fiscal deficit became his top priority,
knowing nothing else would work without a solution on that front. In
just a few months, he made drastic changes: cutting over 50,000
government jobs, shutting down more than half of the ministries,
slashing regulations, and removing subsidies. …/…
Milei: A Former Academic
As a former
economics professor, Milei excels at breaking down complex economic
concepts. Early in the interview, he provided a roadmap for those
interested in understanding Austrian economics with big references: Human Action by Ludwig von Mises and Principles of Economics
by Carl Menger, two starting points for him. He also name-dropped other
thinkers, including Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Hans-Hermann
Hoppe, Jesús Huerta de Soto, Juan Ramón Rallo, Philipp Bagus, and Walter
Block—a quick guide to both Anglo and Hispanic perspectives on
libertarian thought. …/…
Key Takeaways
There are two main
takeaways from Milei’s interview with Fridman. First, Milei knows what
he’s talking about. Too many politicians don’t really understand
economics, but Milei clearly does. He doesn’t just memorize numbers; he
explains the reasoning behind his decisions, and it makes sense. Second,
market-driven reforms can deliver results. Contrary to popular belief
or experts’ advice, these changes don’t require decades to show their
impact.
Will these reforms catch on all the way to the White
House? Only time will tell. …/…
If you cannot, or do not want to, listen to the entire thing, there is an outline of 18 subjects (such as 38:05 Poverty -44:37 Corruption -
53:14Donald Trump -
1:20:56 US and Argentina relations - or even1:28:05 Messi vs Maradona), where you can jump to the issue of your choice…
On peut aussi lire une partie de l'élocution en français…
… the GOP should make a national photo ID requirement for federal elections a top priority in the next Congress. And it should go further.
There are other tools, used in countries we’ve liberated but not in our own country, like dyeing people’s fingers purple so they can’t vote more than once. And of course, maintaining trustworthy voter rolls, so that when someone shows up claiming to be entitled to vote, there’s good reason to believe that they actually are. If a person shows up with a photo ID, and it matches a person who is entitled to vote, the odds are very good that they are who they say they are, and they are entitled to vote.
Rules in other countries are generally stricter than what prevails in the United States,as thissummary from RealClearPoliticsillustrates:
Seventy-four percent of European countries entirely ban absentee votingfor citizens who reside domestically. Another 6% limit it to those hospitalized or in the military, and they require third-party verification and a photo voter ID. Another 15% require a photo ID for absentee voting.
Similarly, government-issued photo IDs are required to vote by 33 nations in the 37-member Organistion for Economic Co-operation and Development (which has considerable European overlap). Only the UK, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia currently do not require IDs. Of those outliers:
… In some countries, even driver’s licenses aren’t considered authoritative enough forms of voter identity verification. The Czech Republic and Russia require passports or military-issued IDs and others use national identity cards. Others go even further: Colombia and Mexico each require a biometric ID to cast a ballot.
Many countries in Europe and beyond have learned the hard way that fraud can result from looser voting regimes -- and they have instituted stricter voting measures in direct response to it.
In the United States, of course, even basic safeguards are wildly controversial among Democrats. The photo ID requirement, for example, though consistentlyupheldby courts, is always denounced in the press as racist and claimed to be unconstitutional. But it’s also favored byhuge majoritiesof, you know, actual voters.
Of course, readers of No Pasarán know that we have been reporting on the same thing as RealClearPolitics for years, now:
I think both a question mark and an exclamation mark are necessary to drive through JD Vance's reply to ABC's Martha Raddatz. Simply because, like "WTF?!", it is as much — if not more — an exclamation as a question. One which is akin to "For the love of God, Martha, do you even hear what garbage you yourself are blurting out?!"). Whatever the case, Damian Bennett takes the reply even further and disseminates it throughout the progressives' leftosphere, scattering it to all corners of their inner world:
Let us begin.
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen, said she left her windows open to “smell the burning tires” during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots because she felt it was a “touchstone” moment.
Keep your windows open as the sweet sweet smell of napalm in the morning wafts in from the DNC and the blue cabals and lefty media and the DTDS asylums all going up in flames, and bookmark this...
MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC News: “Senator Vance, I’m going to stop you because I know exactly what happened. I’m going to stop you.The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complex — apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems.” JDV: “Only— Martha, do you hear yourself?Only
a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by
Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala
Harris’s open border? ...
I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you
seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has
said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United
States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.”
...edit the quære accordingly. Strap in. It's been a long road to N5.
“MarthaJoe, do you hear yourself?”March6, 2024 JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host & say-absolutely-anything shill, person of privilege: “This is —and I don't —you know what I don't really —start your tape right now because I'm about to tell you the truth. And ‘F’ you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is THE BEST BIDEN EVER. Not a close second. And I have known him for years. The Brzezinski have known him for 50 years. If it weren't the truth I wouldn't say it.” [NB: 114 days later Joe had this to say: “In
2024, failure is not an option. So who I love, who I respect, who I
revere for their work and their duty to service over their lifetime
really is not relevant. It's not relevant for any of us. It's not
relevant for Democrat leaders. it's not relevant for anyone. The
question is can -- we know Joe Biden can govern. ... He can run the
White House. He can run the country effectively...but can he run for president in 2024?”]
EPIC JOE[Past blast. Strap in.]November 21, 2023:“[Trump] is not a normal candidate. He's running to end American democracy as we know it. He's an authoritarian who a court, ah, in in Colorado two days ago ruled that that
he led an insurrection against the United States government. He's
charged with leading schemes to help overthrow the United States
government. ...When
people go, 'Ooh, you can't compare him to any past Nazi leaders. You
can't compare him to this past Nazi leader or that past fascist leader,
because he hasn't done it.' Wah, what hasn't he done? He hasn't done the
things the American judicial system did not allow him to do last time,
but may very well allow him to do this time—OR —a
judicial system that will be ignored by Donald Trump and ran [sic] over
by Donald Trump to create the greatest Constitutional crisis of our
lifetimes. Just because he hasn't done it yet, doesn't mean he WON'T do it when he gets a chance to do it! And if he is voted into office then a lot these people that are talking about literal or figurative or whatever the hell they're saying -- you're going to look like idiots. Uh, because he will do, he will get away with, he will
imprison, he will execute whoever he's allowed to imprison, execute, uh
uh uh drive from the country. Just look at his past. It’s not really
hard to read. ...” AL SHARPTON, MSNBC house negro & race grifter, person of privilege:“No doubt about it.”
“MarthaBobby, do you hear yourself?”March9, 2024 ROBERT DE NIRO, actor & attention queen, person of privilege: “I
can’t see any good in [Trump]. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing
redeemable in him. ... If he is, he wins the election. He. You [speaking
to Bill Maher] won’t be on this show anymore. He’ll come looking for
me. You know, there’ll be. There’ll be things that happen that none of us can imagine. That’s what happens in that kind of a dictatorship, which is what he says. Let’s believe and take him at his word.”
“MarthaKeith, do you hear yourself?” March9, 2024 KEITH OLBERMANN,chômeur& professional nasty man, person of privilege: [Tweet (since deleted) responding to Biden-Harris HQ post of a video captioned: “Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated.”] “There’s always hope.”[NB: President Trump went on to survive two assassination attempts.]
“MarthaRachel, do you hear yourself?”June 11, 2024 RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show, hoaxster, person of privilege: “I’m
worried about the country broadly if we put someone in power who is
openly avowing that he plans to build camps to hold millions of people,
and to “root out” what he’s described in subhuman terms as his “enemy
from within.” Again, history is helpful here. He’s not joking when he
says this stuff, and we’ve seen what happens when people take power
proclaiming that kind of agenda. ... For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants?So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.”
“MarthaDavid, do you hear yourself?”July2, 2024 DAVID AARONOVITCH, BBC Radio 4 host, person of privilege: “If I was [sic] Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.” [Tweet since deleted. NB: President Trump went on to survive two assassination attempts.]
“MarthaJoy, do you hear yourself?”July4, 2024 JOY REID, MSNBC The Reid Out hostess & bitter but self-unaware plantation negro, person of privilege: “Y’all just tell me who the nominee is going to be. Let me know when you guys are finished fighting amongst yourselves who I got to vote for in November to keep Hitler out of the White House. That’s all I wanna know — who I got vote for to keep Hitler out of the White House.”
“MarthaWhoopi, do you hear yourself?”July9, 2024 WHOOPI GOLDBERG, ABC The View co-host, person of privilege:“I don’t care if [Biden]’s pooped his pants. I don’t care if he can’t put a sentence together. Show me he can’t do the job, and then I’ll say, OK — maybe it’s time to go. ... So yeah, I have poopy days all the time, all the time. I step in so much poo you can’t even imagine.” [NB: This said after the June27 Trump-Biden debate.]
“MarthaJames, do you hear yourself?”August 15, 2024 JAMES CARVILLE, Corporal Cueball one-hit wonder Democratic strategist, person of privilege: “It’s
really about the misogyny and the racism that drives the thing, and we
got to recognize that. It’s not about any policy prescription. And the
reason I suspect that most of these people [scil., Republicans] describe
themselves as pro-Israel is because the Jews are whiter than the
Palestinians, which I think drives a lot of what they are.”
Corporal Cueball August 26, 2024:“I
really feel sorry for the Kennedy family because I will remind them,
you can pick your friends, you can’t pick your relatives. And
if Bobby Kennedy lived in a more humane country, they would have him in
a nice rubber room and you know, three hots and a cot and take care of
this guy. He has no business being out on the street mixing and
mingling with people. But this is where we are in this country. We have a
mental health crisis and he’s at the top of it.”
Corporal Cueball September 27, 2024:“I
really think he is such an odious and despicable man that he should not
be accorded the most basic courtesies that one human being would extend
to another human being. I think he is a grotesque, immoral man who is
incapable of understanding anything or anybody that’s not him. And I’ll
just be very honest, I cannot stand the son of a bitch. ... We’re not going to accord this rotten mothaf*cka one iota of humanity or respect because he has given up any idea that he should be afforded this.”
Corporal Cueball October 14, 2024:“Just
from what we learned in the last 48 hours. We had General Flynn say
that the gates of Hell are going to reign on Trump’s enemies when he
wins. We had General Milley say that he is a fascist to his core. We
heard Trump on Fox this morning say he’s going to use the military to
round up his political enemies. Trump has announced that he will be
giving a speech at Madison Square Garden on October 27. Please
Google Madison Square Garden February 10, 1939, and see what happened
there. They are telling you exactly what they are going to do. They are
telling you we are going to institute a fascist regime.”[NB: Cueball uses subliminal Hitler trigger 94 and 29 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
“MarthaJamie, do you hear yourself?”August 19, 2024 JAMIE RASKIN, Congressman (MDCD8-D) & impeachment fetishist, person of privilege: “When
I say we will support a free and fair election, no, we we're not going
to allow them to steal it in the states, or steal it in the Department
of Justice or steal it with any other election official in the country.”
“MarthaStacey, do you hear yourself?”September 25, 2024 STACEY PLASKETT, non-voting delegate (VI-D) & attention queen, person of privilege: [Having a partisan orgasm during a session of House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.] “The
outcome of hearings of this committee have supported my claim that from
the very beginning of the creation of this select subcommittee, that
this has been the gaslighting to the nth degree, a tremendous projection
of the highest order, that the evidence is the words of their leader, their would-be Führer, Donald Trump, and Project 2025, a 900-page manifesto of a transformed America.” [NB: Plaskett uses subliminal Hitler trigger 75 and 10 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
“MarthaGina, do you hear yourself?”September 25, 2024 GINA RAIMONDO, Biden-Harris clueless Commerce Secretary, person of privilege: “How did we get here? Let's extinguish him [Trump] for good. ... Let's just get it done.” [NB: Raimondo uses eliminationist language 5 and 10 days, respectively, after two separate assassination attempts on DJT.]
“MarthaMaria, do you hear yourself?”September 30, 2024 JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC: “Vice President Harris at 54%. ... Why is the Democratic share of the Latino vote shrinking?” MARIA HINOJOSA, NPR hostess, nonentity: “What I said to you when we asked the question was, Latinos want to be white.
They want to be with the cool kids. ... [T]hey don’t want to be
identified with all of those other immigrants that Donald Trump speaks
so badly of, including me as a Mexican immigrant, so they’re like,
‘Let’s be with him.’ Those numbers, they could cost Kamala Harris the election.” [NB: NBC News exit polls:
KA-mala finished with 53% Hispanic voters, Trump received 45% of the
vote, a 13-point jump from 2020 and a record high for a Republican
presidential nominee; Trump won Latino men 54%-44% over Harris.]
“MarthaSpike, do you hear yourself?”October 21, 2024 SPIKE LEE, filmmaker & stuff, person of privilege: “Well,
I’m voting my sister, the vice president. She used the language, the
word forward, not backwards. This guy, I don’t call him by his name, I
say Agent Orange and the stuff that he is saying, he’s not being shy, he
is saying exactly what he wants to do if he becomes the next President
of the United States. He said there should be no more elections. ... It’s not a joke, it’s not funny, this is like life and death.”
“Martha Amanda, do you hear yourself?”November 9, 2024 JOY REID, MSNBC: “Do you recommend, justfrom a psychological standpoint, being around [family and friends Trump voters]? We've got the holidays coming up.” AMANDA CALHOUN, Yale psychiatrist &“mental health expert”, person of privilege:“I think there is a societal norm that if somebody is your family that,
they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely
not. So if you are going through a situation where you have family
members, close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against
you, like what you said, against your livelihood, it is completely fine
to not be around those people and tell them why. To say I
have a problem with the way that you voted because it went against my
very livelihood and I’m not going to be around you this holiday.”
“Martha Jonathan, do you hear yourself?”November 11, 2024 JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC anchor & house negro, person of privilege:“The thing that I’m grappling with is that someone was elected who ran a campaign that was openly hostile —
openly racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, transphobic… [H]ow do we move
forward when we know there are people in their families who voted for
him [Trump]?… How should we deal with those neighbors, co-workers, family members?”
“Martha Laura, do you hear yourself?”November 9, 2024 LAURA HELMUTH, Scientific American Editor-In-Chief & bad science propagandist, person of privilege:“I
apologize to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of f*cking
fascists ... Solidarity to everyone whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted
high-school classmates are celebrating the early [presidential
election] returns because f*ck them to the moon and back”[Tweets since deleted.]
“Martha Sheryl, do you hear yourself?”November 9, 2024 SHERYL LEE RALPH, Wicked actress & POC diva, person of privilege: “Now we really see America, we really see what America is all about, and it’s frightening.”
“Martha Rachel, do you hear yourself?”November 13, 2024 RACHEL ZEGLER, Disney POC Snow White actress & self-unaware diva, person of privilege: [Across several tweets (without cap shift).] “i find myself speechless in the midst of this. another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world i do not want to live in. leaning us towards a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in. leaning us towards a world that will force her to have a baby she doesn't want....may trump supporters and trump voters and trump himself never know peace. ... there
is also a deep, deep sickness in this country that is shown in the
sheer amount of people who showed up for this man who threatens our
democracy. it is terrifying the number of people who stand behind what
this man preaches. ... there is no help, no counsel, in any of them.
... get off elon's app btw. ... okay. that's all...i will love through these four years as best i can. f*ck donald trump.”
Holy Mary! Enough! It just goes on and on and on and on. [Break for a bit of fresh air.]
[Several hours later.]
No matter the intelligence level, the very sad thing about being
stupid, being a ridiculous person, is that with a little effort one need
not be. Make the little effort, but few stupid, ridiculous people do.
There are at least two generations going to the grave stupid. They
weren't born stupid. Many are quite possibly highly intelligent. Sadly,
these
two generations have been taught not to think, yes, intelligentia possibilia undisturbed
by thinking. Instead they have learned to vogue, to vogue for applause
and smiles and clicks and likes from their fellow possibly highly
intelligent voguers. When native intelligence, great or limited, becomes
invested in stupidity, stakes its fortunes in stupidity, it becomes
hostage to stupidity, and the intelligence forms a trauma bond with its
captor. The captor becomes consolatory, the gaol a safe place to be, a
nice place to be. Heart emojis, likes, follows, clicks, monetized views, cat videos -- two generations going to the grave stupid. Ah, but within the claque, stupid and happy.
If
you are to meet N5 traumatized relatives or friends over the holidays
-- at a well-appointed Thanksgiving dinner table, around a festive
heavily decorated Christmas tree, clinking flutes of Biden-flated Verdi Spumante on NYE, or wherever, whenever -- emulate John Milton touring the Vatican, no talk of religion (or politics) unless another brings it up for dispute. But once assailed, have at it hammer and tong. Make them cry.
