By slackened I intended “loosened” or “relaxed” - which I’m not entirely sure = “falling.” I’m pretty confident in stating that prior “decency” standards regarding both language and images have changed, and I think slackened/loosened/relaxed is a fair description of that change. I recall when “suck” used to be considered inappropriate language - both in many social situations and over the airwaves. Hell - go back further to Ozzie and Harriet’s twin beds and Jeannie’s covered navel. It does not necessarily involve a judgement to observe that standards have slackened.
Of course, some aspects change the other way. It often amuses me to see the warnings about smoking being depicted in a TV show…
The word you’re looking for here is “stupid”. I know that word is thrown around carelessly all the time, but every one of these clowns is literally of very low intelligence, completely unqualified and grossly incompetent.
In Trump’s first administration, he had a small number of people who were actually competent, like Rex Tillerson, the former chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, who Trump made Secretary of State. He once referred to Trump as “a fucking moron” and lasted just 13 months. Trump cannot relate to or get along with intelligent, competent people, and that’s not the kind of mistake he’s going to make again. Every one of his current appointees is made in his own image – a fucking moron. They are also, of course, all loyal sycophants, and comically incompetent.
Almost all of them. Rubio isn’t entirely incompetent but he’s certainly a sycophant and an abject moral coward. And, of course, as a result, he’s forced to wear multiple hats because, as one of the few who aren’t totally incapable, he’s forced to take on their work as well as his own. It amounts almost to the same thing - he doesn’t have time to actually do a good job at any of them.
I doubt his eventual (and no doubt doomed) Presidential bid is worth it, but he made his own bed
Is Scott Bessent one of the morons or one of the sycophants who has glommed onto Trump for the money?
Because he presumably knows who pays the US tariffs, but keeps spouting the Trump line that they are making the US lots of money from other countries. He says a lot of incredibly stupid, stupid things that anyone with a basic grasp of economics knows are just idiotic.
Supposedly he supported Democrats in the past, but jumped ship after Trump’s first election and attached himself like a remora onto Trumps backside.
Not entirely incompetent, anyway. Success as an investment banker is not the same thing as an economic policy expert, after all.
Most of them are flat out incompetent. Of the rest (a small minority), most are grifters and know they’re damaging the country (as opposed to the incompetent grifters who don’t realize it). Basically, they’re all grifters of one stripe or another.
There’s a hypothetical 3rd group of highly competent true believers, but I think finding a unicorn in the wild is more likely.
Good point. There are probably a few others, like Bessent, as mentioned. I was thinking more of comical pea-brains like Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr, and others of that ilk.
Agreed, though some other recent Secretaries of the Treasury (Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, to name two) came from investment banking backgrounds. But, yes, generally, I think I’d prefer a guy who is an economist or a central banker in the role.
So, it’s certainly possible that Bessent is over his head at Treasury, but it’s also possible that he’s just supporting the “tariffs good!” line to suck up to his boss (and, probably, to profit in the meantime).
I don’t think anyone in Trump’s administration can suck up harder than Pam Bondi during her testimony, where she called him “the greatest President in American history.”
Stephen Miller is a competent true believer, but what he believes in is establishing his White Ethnostate wet dream. He knows enough to know Trump’s economic plans are trash, but he doesn’t care if the US economy tanks, so long as he gets to deport all the minorities. He knows he’ll never miss a meal, and he doesn’t care if others have to, in order to carry out his ethnic cleansing of the US. Hell, he probably figures a nice little economic collapse will make his job easier - fewer people will try to move to the US for the economic opportunities.
Those who know Rubio know he’s a career climber and yes, cowardly in many senses including not being willing to risk being left outside. Recall how he anounced he was “retiring” from the Senate to run for President in 2016, then when he bombed in the primaries he turned and went right back to file to run for the Senate again.
It would do him well to recall how his background group tends to do in environments of “cleansing”.
He’s certainly a grifter, but I’m not sure how competent he is, at least in terms of performing his putative job, which is deputy Chief of Staff, rather than a cabinet official or political strategist.
So, sure, he’s good at the grifting part insofar as ingratiating himself and getting his priorities out there (they all seem to be at least minimally competent at this) but I’d like to see evidence he’s good at the staffer part of it. In those terms, he seems to be on par with Pam Bondi - not good at his putative job but at his real job of playing sycophant.
He has also made some extremely stupid statements. I don’t mean the evil shit he has said, I mean simple things he seems ignorant of, like thinking Venezuela is an island.
He might be one of those people who get myopically focused on a few things that he obsesses over, while being woefully ignorant of things that most any somewhat educated adult should know.