. . .
K “The national political stage is now showcasing a burlesque reality show with America’s Silvio Berlusconi at center stage. Donaldo Trumpi.”
J “If you want to be the laughingstock of the world, you need a fool to make ‘em laugh.”
K “And to fool them. Washington has devolved into Rome, so the populace might as well coronate Nero to oversee the cesspool.”
J “Circuses and bread . . . and Trump. P.T. Barnum would be amused. He only took the peoples’ money and yet gave them a spectacle in return. The people soon will see that Trump will take their dreams and give them nothing.”
. . .
K “Post Trumpatic Stress Disorder (PTpSD) is haunting three cohorts this week. The reflective Bernie supporters who voted for Trump or others in protest are stupefied. The disconnected voters who did not want Trump in the White House but could not vote for Clinton and were confident she would win are horrified. And those who simply cannot accept Trump in the White House are terrified.”
J “We need to adopt a provision from consumer protection statutes to allow voters to reconsider their decisions within seventy-two hours.”
. . .
K “I thought the ‘e-pocalypse’ would be an economic apocalypse not an election apocalypse.”
J “Don’t panic. That is coming.”
. . .
K “Trump is the only candidate who Clinton could beat. Clinton is the only candidate who Trump could beat. The rules were written so that the voters could not vote for both of them to lose at the same time. Someone was forced to win.”
J “In a nation with millions and millions and millions of potential candidates, the number ‘n’ candidate and the number ‘n – 1’ candidate were engaged. Long before the election, however, the Democrats elected to lose with Clinton rather than to win with Sanders.”
. . .
K “For the last few months, I could see something bubbling in the background and hovering on the horizon. The media were trapped in a bubble. The Clinton campaign was trapped in a bubble. Neither had an air vent to the real world. The double bubble was leading to trouble for Clinton.”
J “An old boy once told me that you should never breathe your own fumes.”
. . .
J “The decision by the FBI director James Comey to revive the inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server was a factor that caused her to lose. He should be indicted.”
K “The system is so corrupt that the FBI director can do anything and is above the law. Only the poor and downtrodden get indicted in America.”
J “The successful efforts by Republicans in some of the battleground states to purge their voting roles had an impact that needs to be analyzed with care.”
. . .
K “Madeline Albright’s threat that women who do not vote for Clinton will find a place in Hell did not play well. Too many citizens are already living a hellish existence. Telling someone that you have no choice except to capitulate to a candidate rubbed many the wrong way. Voting the opposite way is the only way to proclaim one’s freedom and independence.”
J “And worth. The simple truth is that many uneducated white males were threatened by and unwilling to vote for an educated white female. I told others to disregard her smug, privileged, arrogant and sanctimonious attitude and vote for someone who is at least somewhat stable.”
K “Romney’s disdain and dismissal of the ‘47 percent’ in 2012 before a private gathering of old White boys played a decisive role in his defeat. Why Clinton decided gratuitously to take a page from his play book, disparage the ‘deplorables’ in public and leave voters wondering whether they were worthy of voting for her is stupefying.”
J “And stupid. There is no other word for it. She spent time in Arizona and Georgia seeking to win by a landslide but was unaware of how the tectonic plates had shifted under her. She never even went to Wisconsin to touch base with the folks. All she had to do was listen to one legitimate grievance and show some empathy. Every newspaper in the Badger State would have covered the trip. Some attention to Michigan and Pennsylvania and perhaps Ohio suggesting a positive message rather than carping about Trump would have served her well.”
K “If she had truly labored on a salmon slime line in Alaska and learned some life lessons rather than just logging a novel resume entry, she would be POTUS-elect.”
. . .
J “Some projected that if Clinton were elected, Whites would flock to and flood gun stores. With Trump’s election, the flood gates are now open to inflict violence on Blacks and Browns who now need to flock to gun stores. The threat to them is much more real today.”
K “The National Rifle Association did more than any other institution to put Trump in the House for Whites.”
J “And the grand irony in this year of absurd consequences is that the NRA followed the practice of so many voters by voting against its interest. If Clinton had been elected, gun sales would have exploded. Gun sales and gun stocks now may go down.”
. . .
J “His antics earned him a billion dollars’ worth of free media coverage particularly when he was outrageous and offensive and himself. There is a take home message there for future candidates.”
K “The candidate who spent more money has won every modern Presidential election. Except this election. That fluke likely will never happen again.”
J “The new ‘antisocial media’ allowed streams of vile and unfounded invective to pass for political insight and surpassed the effectiveness of Anger Mongering (AM) radio. Elections may soon be fact-free and issue-barren.”
. . .
J “Compare the list of endorsements for President published by the top hundred newspapers since the 2000 Presidential election. They were divided about equally between the two candidates. Never has a major party Presidential candidate received one and only one endorsement and that from a regional paper.”
K “The media bubble again. He also received the nod from the Klan rag. Not receiving one endorsement from a major newspaper was the most compelling and convincing endorsement for many.”
J “The hate and fear newspapers present a daily gauntlet of hate and fear to everyone going through the checkout lines at grocery stores. Repetitive subconscious subliminal messages conveyed on the small bill boards that box in the consumer, even if the rag is not read or even picked up, increased the population’s susceptibility to the messages of hate and fear. Toss in the trip hammer of hate and fear spewing from the Faux Network at home. Trump only had to whistle.”
. . .
K “Trump should read the discussion in “‘Mericanize: Monetize, Mechanize And Militarize (December 30, 2013)” over at e-commentary.org. The landscape has not changed since then. Factories are all automated. Factories, wherever located, do not employ and will never employ many workers.”
J “He does not care about ideas.”
. . .
K “By November 5, the Republican Party was pronounced dead on a few websites and then resurrected three days later. During the early morning hours of November 9, the Democratic Party was put on life support and left in a coma.”
. . .
K “The undigested anger is still festering. None of the underlying problems will be addressed. The anger will find another outlet.”
. . .
J “Now what?”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at “Boycott Red America (January 3, 2005)” and “‘Mericanize: Monetize, Mechanize And Militarize (December 30, 2013)”.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
The election apocalypse (hereinafter “E-pocalypse”): Coming to a Republic near you
Did America just repudiate its sanity, decency, humanity and integrity?
Fake quotes will still ruin the Internet. Benjamin Franklin
The future is certain and the end is already here.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you get what you do not need.