"Get Over It"

In a discussion thread about the potential consequences of a Trump presidency, one commenter offered me this hoary advice:

Get over it. Let a businessman take a crack at it.

I am certain many others have encountered similar admonishments. But what is this really telling us to do? In the interest of saving everyone's time, I have compiled a list of things that we are being asked to "get over":

• that members of the FBI up to and including its director materially tampered with the election by selectively releasing information about one candidate.
   
• that Russian agents hacked one political party with the intent of damaging that party's candidate and influencing the outcome of the election. The beneficiary of this responded to this not by condemning the cyberattack, but by attacking American intelligence services.
   
• that the "businessman" in question...
• has global financial interests and has refused to divest himself from his businesses, release his taxes, or offer any other assurance that he will put the country's interests before his own.
   
• has been embroiled in more than 3500 lawsuits, declared bankruptcy on multiple occasions, and in at least one instance, committed outright fraud.
   
• bragged proudly and publicly about adultery, sexual assault, and lechery.
   
• did no preparation for the job of POTUS.
   
• that the "winning" candidate lost by almost 3 million votes, but will be installed as the victor thanks to an antiquated system designed to empower rural white slave-holders.
   
• More repugnant than anything else, we are being asked to "get over" the fact that seemingly normal people made common cause with literal Nazis and Klansmen -- i.e., actual villains -- in order to elect a racist, plutocratic, authoritarian degenerate. 

Confidence Man

fast-talk (verb): to persuade with facile argument, usually with the intention to deceive or to overwhelm rational objections.

Gish Gallop (noun): the fallacious debating tactic of simply drowning your opponent in a torrent of small, interlocking arguments intended to prevent your opponent from being able to rebut your conclusions in real time.

OH NOES DONALD TRUMP TWEETED THAT THERE WAS VOTER FRAUD AND THAT FLAG BURNERS SHOULD BE PUNISHED AND HE LIED ABOUT THE BOEING CONTRACT FOR THE NEW AIR FORCE ONE AND HE IS STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE AND...

This is the the way Trump will have the media and his critics chasing their tails for the next four years while he goes about looting the treasury and implementing policy that enriches himself and his cronies: create a fountain of distracting and self-perpetuating bullshit. I'll give him this: when it comes to television, he is a puppetmaster. He's running a clinic on distracting fast-talk while tending to his business interests and assembling an administration which will be run by Goldman Sachs.

Trump will finally become the billionaire he's always claimed to be.

Orange Is The New Darkness

Here's what I can't understand: in this election, people who appear on the surface to be good and decent made common cause with literal Nazis and Klansmen in order to elect a racist, plutocratic, authoritarian degenerate. In this task they were abetted by a Russian dictator and his spies.

AND. FOR. WHAT.

A fucking tax cut? Because abortion is icky? Hillary had an email server? Because brown people are so scary? I just do not get it. I do not think I will ever be capable of getting it. Might be time to revisit Viktor Frankl.

The inimitable Driftglass, in July:

The Democratic Party held a brilliantly coordinated, four-day political convention. The Republican Party held a four-day, wingnut Ghost Dance intended to resurrect the Confederacy.

Here's the punchline: it worked.

Long will it be before I can forgive those who collaborated with Trump and his deplorables.