How do we get Trump to IKEA?

We had a small gathering at our house the other night in celebration of Robin achieving another year around the sun.  As sometimes happens the conversation turned to politics.  At least in our circle, these conversations never last a long time as we are all in consensus in being appalled and distressed at the current state of the country and the country’s politics.

I made the comment that Trump had started me praying again, a funny thing for an agnostic to do.  I do pray sometime, but I look at it as a way of focusing on what is upmost on my worry prone brain.  I elaborated by explaining that I pray every day that  Donald Trump Continue reading “How do we get Trump to IKEA?”

You have already arrived

Robin and I are driving from St. Louis down to Fayetteville, Arkansas to see our granddaughter and incidentally, my son and his wife.  I do not quite remember what it was, but something occurred that started me grumbling.

Realizing what I was doing I remarked, “I’m turning into a grumpy old man.”

Without missing a beat by ignoring the rest marked on the score, Robin replied, “Turning? You have already arrived.”

To which I said, “Thanks… I love you too.”

Her question back to me was, “You did say dirty old man, right?”

Thinking she is trying to recover her faux pas, or perhaps she really did mishear, I clarified, “No I said grumpy old man.”

Again ignoring the rest marked on the score, she barbed, “Well that too.”

Must read article from The Atlantic – How to Build an Autocracy

From the article in The Atlantic How to Build an Autocracy:

“Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit. And the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unwearying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them. We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. This moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”

We should all be very concerned.  Part of me wants desperately to run and hide from this cluster fuck that is happening to us.  We need to heed David Frum’s advice.

Support of Trump is a Litmus Test

Rightly or wrongly voting for or supporting Trump has become a litmus test for me. In an attempt to articulate my arbitrary position I have come up with the following reasons:

  1. If you voted for Trump you are possibly intellectually challenged. I deal with enough mentally deficient people, I do not need another one in the hopper.
  2. If you voted for Trump simply because he was the Republican candidate and you always vote Republican, or you did not want to split your ballot, then you are lacking in key critical thinking skills. See number 1.
  3. If on the other hand you have a reasonable level of intelligence and still voted for Trump then you have a twisted world view. And I am sure it is a world view I do not care to associate with.
  4. And finally if you voted for Trump because you thought it would be entertaining to have a narcissistic reality TV star in the White House… I only have a string of malas palabras for you.

In past elections I could at least see where there were some basic philosophical differences that would cause us to vote differently.  That is how is should be, that is why we have elections.  However, this election resulted in putting a thug in the White House.  There was a stark difference in an America for the people versus an America for Trump’s ego.  And if you are responsible for enabling that egomaniac, do not expect to see a Christmas card from me.

Word of the Day – Kakistocracy

  • Noun:

    1. “government by the worst element of a society,” 1829, coined (by Thomas Love Peacock) on analogy of its opposite, aristocracy, from Greek kakistos “worst,” superlative of kakos “bad” (which perhaps is related to the general Indo-European word for “defecate;” see caco-) + -cracy. Perhaps the closest word in ancient Greek was kakonomia “a bad system of laws and government,” hence kakonomos “with bad laws, ill-governed.
  • Synonyms:
    1. ochlocracy
    2. mob rule
    3. choas
    4. misrule
    5. dystrumpia
  • Usage
    • “Luckily we have one word that sums it all up: a kakistocracy, which literally means government by the worst element of a society. A kakistocracy is a government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens. Trump plans to bring us the worst of both.”
  • Encountered

Trump mistakes LBJ quote as a guideline

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”  ~~ Lyndon B. Johnson

I went to Snopes.com to verify this quote.  At the end of the article they stated:

” In the blunt vernacular that he loved to use, LBJ was describing what the television pundits of today would probably call the politics of resentment and divisiveness. It is still very much with us.”

Trump uses Joseph Goebbels play book on the “Big Lie”

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”  ~~ Joseph Goebbels, German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.

Below is from a New York Times article, With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift

He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved.

Later, at the White House, he dispatched Sean Spicer, the press secretary, to the briefing room in the West Wing, where Mr. Spicer scolded reporters and made a series of false statements.

He said news organizations had deliberately misstated the size of the crowd at Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Friday in an attempt to sow divisions at a time when Mr. Trump was trying to unify the country, warning that the new administration would hold them to account.

Strap on your seat belts, while he has been lying all along, it is going to get much, much worse.  At one level, I do not believe this man is in touch with reality.  His brain is operating in some alternate, dysfunctional dimension.

I will have to agree with Trump on one thing he Tweeted, ““Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote?

The fact that this so called leader is still ranting on Twitter should be scaring the shit out of any reasonable person.  I know that there are certain types of people that will always be drawn to power, but it perplexes me why any sane person would associate themselves with this obscenity masquerading as a human being.

Rev. Joe’s Random Thought # 6,985

yeah I know you did not ask!

Like a lot of men I have fantasized about a ménage à trois. My favorite fantasy involved Rachel Ray and Samantha Brown…like I had a chance with either one separately let alone together.  But if you are going to fantasize, go big.

What I ended up with  was a ménage à twit.  The dog snuggled up on one side, and the cat on the other as I tried to sleep.