Trump’s presidency: two different worlds
“Two Different Worlds” was a love song from the 50s about lovers from different backgrounds who were going to beat the odds and make it work. Looking at the news lately, the phrase pops into my head—but not in the optimistic way of the song.
Remember Obama’s 2004 DNC speech? Well, I don’t—remember it, that is, because I didn’t watch it back then (not particularly into watching speeches at all). But I’ve certainly read about its effect on people, and the lines that apparently resonated most were—well, I was going to quote him, but I thought it might be more instructive to see and hear him once again:
It’s painful to look back and reflect that one of those “who, even as we speak…are preparing to divide us” seems to have been the speaker himself, Barack Obama. He did a mighty fine job of it too, although he certainly wasn’t alone; he had plenty of help in that endeavor.
Which brings us to now. Every day I open my phone or my computer and check out the news and I see that division quite starkly. Memeorandum.com, which I’ve long used as one of my sources for the most talked-about topics and articles of the day, features links to pieces that are uniformly, predictably, and almost unrelievedly not just anti-Trump but profoundly so. And Memerorandum is quite typical rather than unusual in that respect. Meanwhile,, for the most part periodicals and pundits on the right soldier on in a different world, one in which Trump is making many excellent appointments, giving some good speeches, and generally going about the business of setting up his presidency while the stock market climbs (for now, anyway).
Two different worlds, we live in two different worlds. And never the twain shall meet—at least, hardly ever.
I did have one interesting experience the other day, though, talking to a liberal friend of mine who is not especially political or especially extreme in her politics. She most definitely doesn’t like Trump, but not in any rabid or irrational way. She mentioned that she had watched part of Trump’s recent press conference, the one where he’d been giving the press what-for, and she’d noticed in particular three things. The first was that some of what he said made sense. The second was that he predicted the press reaction when he said, “Tomorrow, [the press] will say, ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.’ I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you.” She agreed that she hadn’t seen him “ranting and raving” during that press conference, and she also noted with some surprise that Trump had predicted correctly, because that was exactly and precisely the spin the press gave his performance.
How common is that sort of reaction in a liberal watcher? I doubt very; but I report at least one, anyway. What difference will it make? I don’t know; perhaps little or none. But the farther the press goes with the extremity of its negative spin, the more some people who are paying attention are bound to notice that something is amiss.
My 95 year old Father is beginning to notice it. He’s mentioned it a few times now on his own. So it is happening. Only time will tell whether that perception will deepen and spread.
Much will depend upon whether the GOP works with Trump or obstructs him.
I agree that the escalating hysteria and unhinged nature of Trump’s opposition has the potential for opening more eyes, especially those of people who were never hyper-partisan (but still counted themselves as loyal Democrats/liberals). However, those people still face sever social pressures against expressing what common sense (not to mention their own lying eyes) tells them. Within a good chunk of “polite society” it is still the equivalent of a turd in the punch bowl to show any recognition of the validity of a Trump position or statement. We need to create safe spaces for those folks to come out and realize they are not alone.
Your friend may soon be neo-neo-neocon…
and as Dan Aykroyd shouted near the end of the (well worth a watch) movie 1941: “Americans fighting Americans! You all are acting like a bunch of Tojo stooges!”
I didn’t like the insults, but I wound up voting for Donald Trump because he kept saying common sense things that, amazingly to me, no one else dared to say: If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country. ISIS is from the Middle Ages, wipe ’em out. America first. I even liked that he doesn’t suffer from gender confusion. So, I’m hoping he gets some policy victories, and people start to see them work and realize the anti-Trumpers have nothing to offer. But most of all get the economy going. When everyone is making money, everyone is so-o-o much happier.
The hope and change POTUS has created so much rancor and division. Is there any possibility that some calm can be restored?
parker:
I see very little chance of calm, if the left or the MSM has anything to say about it.
“But the farther the press goes with the extremity of its negative spin, the more some people who are paying attention are bound to notice that something is amiss.”
I hope so, but will it be enough?
Even thought I’m now conservative and have been aware of press bias for a long while, I have severe outrage fatigue and find myself tuning out the hysteria on a regular basis…even as I continue to consume the usual mainstream news.
I would imagine this is true for many of the average liberal news consumers as well. You can only absorb so much outrage before you start ignoring it and/or become a bit numb.
But the farther the press goes with the extremity of its negative spin, the more some people who are paying attention are bound to notice that something is amiss.
The Left has priests to console people who are beginning to doubt their Faith.
Some Leftists who once visited and commented here, sometimes grew to doubt global warming or Hussein care. But after a week of regenerating their zombie energies and faith from the necromancers, they come back with renewed vigor, zealotry, and faith in the programs they once began to doubt as a result of debating and reading the words of the opposition here.
The Left isn’t sane or insane, they are human and thus fallen. Unfortunately for the rest of the country and species… so is everybody else.
“Two different worlds, we live in two different worlds . . . .”[Neo]
Scott Adams (Dilbert) has been writing about exactly this dissonance, his phrasing is that our culture has two different movies running simultaneously; one is which Trump is a vile neo-Hitler and the second in which is is a staunch and reasonable conservative.
He uses the former to explain the cognitive dissonance of the left; that facing the possibility that they may be wrong (i.e., accepting that second “movie”) they double down on the neo-Hitler theme to justify their self-righteousness.
Your friend might be “just one.”
But, as that ol’ saying goes: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a “single” step.
Even though I have been seriously ill since Jan 23rd and have little energy to expend on anything but trying to heal, the over-the-top hyper reactions of the progs to Trump sparks real anger in me. Ah, that I could ignore the news.
I console myself by studying Trump’s picks for cabinet, advisors, and SCOTUS. That activity fills me with hope. If accomplished people who know how to get things done can save this country, these are the people.
Had always meant to read H.R. McMaster’s “Dereliction of Duty.” Now I am. The man has a fine analytical mind that can weigh evidence and make value judgments. Such a valuable asset to our country. Soothes my soul to know he is in the lineup.
J.J.:
Hope you feel better soon!!!
Thanks, neo. It’s day to day with very slow improvement. The result of a routine surgery in which everything went wrong.
Note: There is no such thing as “routine” surgery. 🙁
J.J.,
Conserve your energy, turn away from witnessing the turmoil and violence of the left. It will be there when you recover your health. You can take that to the bank or put it under your mattress.
charles Says:
February 24th, 2017 at 8:58 pm
Your friend might be “just one.”
But, as that ol’ saying goes: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a “single” step.
* * *
I was thinking more of the “throwing starfish back in the sea” parable: it made a difference to that one.
A few articles for today’s topic and its tangents:
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/02/23/keep-calm-keep-calm/
“This won’t take very long.
The mainstream media and the leftosphere — to the extent they are two different things — aren’t going to stop telling you everything is in chaos and everyone hates Trump.
Meanwhile, everything is not in chaos, and everyone doesn’t hate Trump. Some of us have reservations and concerns about Trump. But unlike the people who seem to be unable to control themselves, we don’t find it either necessary or desirable to preface everything we say with “Trump is horrible!”
We had reservations and concerns about Obama, some of them greater than the ones about Trump, but we could get through years at a time without ever saying “Obama is horrible!” It was more important to talk about what we thought he was doing wrong. Not style, not personality, not what the media were trying to tell us he was doing, but what he was actually doing. We see Trump the same way. …
What’s happening in America right now is the very opposite of the mainstream narrative being spun about it. The people spoke, through a due-process election. The actual law is actually being followed and enforced (minus a handful of judicial rulings). A new president is doing what he said he would do. There is resistance to these things, but that’s not because the new president is Captain Chaos; it’s because there are major factions in the country that are deeply invested in preventing change, and continuing on a course rejected by the voters.
No matter what, those factions are going to keep telling us that Trump is screwing up, that he’s wigging out, that his staff is kung-fu fighting in the West Wing at night, that there’s a Russian penumbra battalion assembling in the back alley, and that Americans are so fragile and desperate that any minute now, we’re all going to surge into the streets and do something terrible.
None of it is true. It’s actually amazing how much of the supposedly factual reporting turns out to be false. But if even a quarter of it were true, you wouldn’t have woken up this morning warm and safe in your bed, able to turn on the lights and take a shower.
Blood would be running in the streets. You’d be able to see chaos, and not just hear someone telling you it’s out there somewhere – fleeting, spooky, like Bigfoot; like ghostly manifestations that disappear when the sane people show up, and that nobody can ever record clearly.
…”
http://www.dailywire.com/news/13294/fake-news-rap-sheet-last-week-msm-was-caught-john-nolte
“The media told FORTY lies last week, for a total of SEVENTY-SEVEN separate incidents of Fake News in just three weeks. …”
(that was on Feb 8; I’m sure the total is higher by now)
http://thefederalist.com/2016/12/05/mainstream-media-cant-hold-trump-accountable/
“The mainstream media have lost credibility. Under Obama, they were compliant. Under Trump, they’re hysterical. So who will hold Trump accountable now?”
This isn’t really on topic, other than as another example of how unhinged the Left has become.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/02/democrats-come-up-with-a-practical-way-to-banish-trump-witchcraft.php
“Men and women from around the world are planning to gather and cast a spell at midnight that will stop President Trump from doing harm while also possibly banishing him from office.
Mass rituals have also been planned in multiple covens, during which men and women will perform a spell to bind President Trump and all those who abet him by delivering a chant and holding a brief ceremony.
This is not an exclusive witches-only event wither, with Wiccans, shamans, Heremeticists, cunning folk, sorcerers and sorceresses, hoodooists, occultists, magicians, Ceremonialists and Ritualists also invited and urged to take part.”
Speaking of two different worlds, which one is the MSM in these days?
(PS I hold no brief on the actual reason some news organs were not invited to a “gaggle” whatever that was, but the reactions are hysterical – which is, BTW, a thoroughly misogynist neologism from Freud’s fraudulent pronouncements; but I digress)
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/02/24/jake-tapper-on-todays-press-gaggle-its-un-american-of-the-white-house-not-to-value-an-independent-press/
I found the comments particularly entertaining.
(The sad thing is, Jake used to be cited by the Right as one of the few honest journalists in the biz; maybe he still is, when his own buttons aren’t being pressed.)
“When did we suddenly get an “independent” press? Perhaps Jake will contact his counterpart who submitted his “report” to Obama’s WH for approval. And admitted that he was a “hack”.”
“Isn’t it also un-American for a supposedly “independent press” like what your news organization is a part of to not act as an arm of a certain politcal party?”
““Independent press?”
HAHAHA HA!
Yeah, Jake, having such a thing would be a really good idea. You planning on starting out on your own, bud?”
“Boycott the briefings!
It’s not like you need to be there to make your fake news reports anyway.”
“Who’s holding you guys accountable, Jake??? I’d hardly call a press that votes 90% Democrat, “independent”.
”
and one lone dissenter
“I think the move will solidify mainstream press against the administration. He won’t get a 2nd chance at this junior high nonsense. Next time, they’ll be ready and will walk out on him. I would be absolutely willing to bet that includes Fox News.
Tapper is right. The move was decidedly unAmerican and will not be tolerated.”
BUT, haven’t we heard the following from the Left every time they disinvite, obstruct, harass, and shout down conservative speakers:
“The First Amendment guarantees the right of the media to publish what it wants. Nowhere does it guarantee them access to anyone on demand.”
See this from Project Veritas:
“It’s time for us to expose the media”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf-0_dFnl-Y&feature=youtu.be
“#CNNLeaks: Project Veritas Releases Over 100 Hours of Audio From Inside CNN”
from 2009, (which means there is no Trump-bashing), but the media has already established that there is no statute of limitations on gotcha revelations, so it’s fair game about their general worldview and motivations.
You’re right. But what perhaps you didn’t notice, neo, is that Trump is making it on purpose.
Check the Swedish incident: Trump used a sentence that looked like he was talking about one incident happened the previous night, but that could be interpreted in other ways too. Then the press started ranting… and then the rant escalated… and escalated… and after quite a while Trump said he was referring to the TV program about Sweden broadcasted the previous night. And suddenly all the headlines and media articles about it became fake news.
He could have tweetted it sooner. He didn’t. And I think he didn’t on purpose. The whole think was a trap for the press. And it worked.
There is no way we can get out from under the bell curve. The more sketchy IQ’s where I work have been in a furor about all things Trump for over a month, now. I hear from them that Trump is deporting citizens of the US. To where? They don’t/can’t say They don’t even understand what deportation is, why convicted illegal aliens should be deported, what crimes that that class has committed. They are putty in the hands of the neogoebbalsists.
Perhaps the funniest thing I see is that when I profess not to know of some recent lie, they scream, “Don’t you watch the news?” Of course I don’t. I live in a real world, not an imaginary construct of Communist propaganda. One hundred and under can still vote, and they vote for Stupid.
Perhaps the funniest thing I see is that when I profess not to know of some recent lie, they scream, “Don’t you watch the news?”
These days, my reply might be “the news isn’t my bible, like it is yours”