Applause
I am so using this.
See post #18.
Do I think the theatre is an appropriate place to do this? No. Would I have done the same? Probably.
And I am so using the Lincoln Line.
You, being the magnificent bastard that you are, have just won the internet for the remainder of 2016.
Considering the topic of the play, and Trump’s disdain for the Constitution, I thinks it’s more appropriate than most performances.
El_Kabong, that was brilliant.
And come on, Donald – the man who has built his whole schtick on that he never backs down or apologizes and he stands by what he said and who cares if it upset you, is demanding apologies? Oh sure, EVERYONE ELSE is rude and unfair, YOU just tell it like it is. Hairball.
A good political leader would use this as an opportunity to respond with something that adds up to “yeah, I know you are scared, but believe me, you’ll be surprised how great it’s gonna be for you, you’ll see”. Instead we get someone who is not at all embarassed to be seen punching down.
The “hush, you should not say that, people will be upset!” argument did not work against him or his followers. There is no reason for his opposition to be the ones who submit meekly to it.
Not “bury your head”; stop focusing on his trivial offenses with no real lasting impact and turn a shining light on his more abominable actions with horrifying long-term consequences. During this campaign, the media gave Trump a virtually free platform, to the tune of an estimated US$2B, to espouse racist, isolationist, hateful rhetoric in exchange for the recreational outrage of being able to laugh at a clown who is so spitefully petty that he’s maintained a grudge to a beauty pagent contesistant and he can’t help but respond to a satirical allegation about the size of his hands that has been running on approaching three decades. Guess who got the better side of that deal? In fact, it’s probably the best actual deal Donald Trump has ever made. Sure, it’s hard to find something substantive to say about a candidate so superficial and desultory as Trump, but even when the media had stories of genuine substance such as Trump harassing black residents or boasting of sexually molesting women, they carried them for a few days, relying on the outrage factor of being able to say “pussy” on air (or tap dance in amused perfunctory prurience around it), and then moved on to the next bizarrely inappropriate but inconsequential Twitter message or vacuous campaign pledge to do something mildly outrageous.
The real horror of this entire election has been the normalization of deviance; the things no candidate short of a radical white nationalist movements should be able to espouse without retreating into hiding in a small Caribbean nation from public shaming became the background noise to Trump’s daily antics and fretting over Clinton using a private email server when it is plain that a large number of legislators and officials frequently email sensitive and FOUO information to their Yahoo! and Gmail accounts like they’re sending recipies to their in-laws. The truth is that nearly half of the people who turne out to vote elected a loud-mouthed blowhard who demonstrated zero intent or aptitude to actually following through on the hollow promises and bombast that shat out of his mouth faster than diarrhea from a night of binging on Taco Bell specials, and the opposing main candidate was so poorly received that people literally couldn’t decide against voting between her or a reality show figuring dipped in Nacho Cheese Dorito crumbs.
In a normal election you have two (or occasionally three) candidates who are critical of each others policies, prior performance, and character to uphold the duties of the office, but never in living memory has a candidate openly leavied unshrouded insults, vengefully threatened repercussions upon taking office, or transparently suggested that his followers should assassinate the opposition. Even if you distrusted or hated Hillary Clinton for any of a number of valid, exaggerated, or totally manufactured reasons, the fact that Trump resorted to this behavior in the course of a campaign, and even in the middle of what was supposed to be a policy debate, this is unacceptable behavior by someone seeking the office of municipal dog catcher, much less President of the United States.
This is not normal. This is historic abnormality in the making. It’s the kind of gross abnormality that gets mentioned in history texts right before a nation goes completely fucking off its rocker and starts killing its own citizens or annexing other nations because it wants a better view. The resigned acceptance of this behavior and of Trump’s “tear down the system” rage-making as being somewhere on the spectrum of things that sometimes happen in a democracy because employment/trade agreements/corrupt banks/whatever is not remotely normal. But by turning away from this behavior and the tacit approval of the Republicans who gathered behind him (and from whom he stole nearly the entire rhetoric from whole cloth, only saturating it with lighting fluid and setting it aflame), and focusing on whatever stupid or offensive thing that Trump tweeted out to the world while taking his 3:40 AM dump, makes it all seem about equivalent in significance and impact.
Every news story about Donald Trump for the next four years (or however long he remains in office) should start with the words, “This is not normal! (Apologies to John Oliver for stealing his new catchphrase.)” and followed by a detailed examination of how Trump blatantly reneged on some promise to bring jobs or build infrastructure, or how he has issued an executive order in clear violation of Constitutional rights or how he has used his position to increase his personal and family wealth. It shouldn’t be about which beauty pagent contestant or talk show host he said something mildly offensive about, or how he plans to redecorate the White House in gilded gold, and it sure to fuck shouldn’t be about his latest nearly incoherent Twitter war with a comedian or singer. Doing mildly offensive amusing things to keep the outrage meter pegged so that when something actually worthy of outrage comes along (as it inevitably will on a regular basis) is doing a grave disservice to the principle of informing the public about things they actually need to know to make informed decisions.
Oh, and they also need to stop giving a fuck about Kanye West, too, and any other celebrity who decides to take a ride on the recreational outrage profit train. If you ignore the trolls, they will eventually get bored and go away.
Stranger
Is it not like, really really embarrassing for a country to have its president constantly posting drivel on Twitter like some stupid little child?
Not any worse than it was, nor will be.
Go ahead, Donald. Pick a fight with Aaron Burr. What’s the worst that could happen?
Wait until he discovers Dubsmash. And then realizes that he’s not nearly as popular on it as celebrities in Marvel films who actually have a greater net worth than him.
Stranger
I disagree. Sure, Trump’s policies are wrong and it’s important to keep pointing that out. But a lot of people ignore policy issues. So we also need to shine a light on Trump’s character flaws.
They like his character flaws.
By all means, let’s focus on his attitudes toward women, his willingness to throw in with open racists, his vengeful spite toward real and perceived enemies. But following his tweets as if there is any new information to be divined from them is an exercise in angst fatigue. Trump is going to do enough stupid and avaricious things in his first three months to dwarf the administrations of the last forth years combined, and maybe Nixon, too. Focusing on when get makes a tweet about how his VP was treated by the cast of a Broadway musical just reinforces the notion that he’s not one of the “establishment elites”. In terms of how the people who voted for Trump will think, it’s a net positive. The best possible thing to do is deny him that exposure, and focus on the actually shitty things he is almost certainly going to do that have real, lasting consequences.
Stranger
How in the hell did Trump ever express himself before Twitter? I bet he left little passive-aggressive sticky notes all over the place.
Dishes in the sink are dirty, Sad.
If he washed a dish in his life, I’ll eat it.
I think it was very rude of them.
I agree with what they had to say but that is not the time or place.
He paid to watch a play and relax. He did not pay for being subjected to a public berating (no matter how gently worded.)
I don’t like anything I have heard of Pence but I think it showed character that he stopped to listen.
It didn’t happen DURING the show. It happened at the curtain call. And the cast, prior to the statement made, told the audience not to boo him. It was respectful and dignified, much more so than Pence or Trump have been this entire campaign.
Bravo.
I suggest we don’t need a “Trump Twitter” thread - the “Stupid Trump Idea of the Day” thread will do, until something astonishing happens and Trump starts using twitter to say things that are intelligent rather than just reactionary, self-pitying and/or asinine.
And his use of “safe space” sounds like what Orwell described as an aspect of Newspeak - words that can praise a friend or scorn an enemy, depending on context, like blackwhite or duckspeak.
Bastard keeps adding me on snapchat.