"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Sunday, July 30, 2017

One of a Kind

Digby has a fairly short post this morning on how the comparisons between Trumps and the likes of Nixon, etc., don't really fill the bill, but her summation is something that I can't emphasize enough:

Many people fail to see what an anomaly Trump is and it's a real problem. They are driven to put him in the same category as previous presidents or fit him into a convenient slot in the partisan ecosystem.

He's something new.

That's not to say that the conservative movement and the GOP aren't responsible for him. They are. They created the political environment and the propaganda mill that made him possible. He is their creature. But he is unique and it's important to recognize that and remember it. This is not normal. And anything can happen.

My own take is that the Republican party has been working on a long-term solution to the problem of American democracy -- the problem, in their eyes, being that it is democracy. Now they've got Trump, and he's more than they bargained for. If we survive the Kim Jong-Uns (the one in North Korea and the one in the White House), there's still going to be a major mess in this country that we're going to have to clean up.

Somehow.


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