2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhat every New Yorker knows about Donald Trump - By Garrison Keillor
By Garrison Keillor September 21 at 3:26 PM
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A week ago, a panhandler in Times Square sat holding a sign reading, Give me a dollar or Ill vote for Trump, and people laughed and reached into their pockets. His bucket overflowed. He stuffed the bills into his jacket, and other panhandlers looked at him with admiration. The man couldve sold franchises and retired to Palm Beach.
The panhandler knows what every New Yorker knows, which is that the biggest con job since the Trojan horse is taking place in our midst. Millions of Americans are planning to cast their votes for a man who has lived his life contrary to all of their most cherished values. They are respectful, honest, generous, loyal, modest, church-going people with no Mafia connections and good credit records who try not to spout off about things they know nothing about.
His followers out on the prairie were brought up to be wary of slick-talking New Yorkers but here they are, falling right into line behind the biggest braggart ever to hit the sawdust trail. Its going to be an education for them, watching him cut taxes while expanding the military and building a wall and deporting 11 million people. In America, you cant send gendarmes through the streets to round up people in trucks and load them on boxcars and ship them away. There is a judicial process. Lawyers are involved. People have certain rights.
His boast after the Manhattan pressure-cooker bombing Saturday night was revelatory. I called it! he cried on Fox News, as he had after the Orlando nightclub shooting. It wouldve been classier for him to have congratulated New Yorks Finest but instead he took it as a personal coup. What the bombing showed was the courage and smarts of the NYPD, arriving on the scene in time to defuse a second bomb, identify a suspect and track him down Monday morning. Weve got to be very, very tough, cried the candidate out in Colorado, but back in New York, the work was being done by people who know how to do it.
Ah, chutzpah! There was once a mayor of New York who overruled the NYPD and the Secret Service and put the citys Emergency Command Center on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center, and whose emergency plan for the towers led to massive confusion and miscommunication, with some desperate people directed to climb up and others told to stay put, as the mayor stood in the streets below and urged residents to be calm, and thereby became a national hero and started his own security consulting company. This is like the captain of the Titanic, had he survived, writing a book called The Art of Navigation. The mayor is now a close Trump adviser.
-snip-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-biggest-con-job-since-the-trojan-horse/2016/09/21/a8354d9e-8023-11e6-8327-f141a7beb626_story.html?utm_term=.8b631a8f3980&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)How do they establish place of residence?
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)And depends on ID rules.
MyOwnPeace
(16,926 posts)Garrison's doing a great job after entering "retirement!"
Wish Jon Stewart would do the same - can you imagine what he would be saying,,,,
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)One born every minute I guess.
liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)annabanana
(52,791 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)I think I'll make some signs like that and hand them out.
JDC
(10,127 posts)Of Celanese decent with vitamin deficiencies. Great stuff.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)I spent the weekend in New England saw a couple Trumps signs. When in groups, an apparent Trump aficionado, would mention him and other people would just laugh and crack jokes about his wall etc. I think it was the "Stop laughing at me", that made them shut up. If your from NY you know he's an asshole, braggart, loud mouth.
viguy2016
(47 posts)It is the Midwest and rust belt.
yardwork
(61,599 posts)The Polack MSgt
(13,188 posts)I know the Prairie Home Companion's whole conceit was simple quiet decent people living their lives with both quiet dignity and low key absurdity.
I've lived out in the corn covered flat lands for almost 20 years now and yes, there is a strong vein of truth to that story line. Regarding Trump though? Nah, that is not what is at play out here.
So I have to take exception to this - this right here:
"They are respectful, honest, generous, loyal, modest, church-going people with no Mafia connections and good credit records who try not to spout off about things they know nothing about."
This. Is. A. Lie.
It is a whitewash and deflection that attempts to hide what else we are on the prairie - Racist close minded hateful little people willing to cause suffering for others "for their own good"
Peace
Wounded Bear
(58,648 posts)"small town" people do tend to be nervous and closed to outsiders, especially if those outsiders are somehow obviously different.
People with that mind-set find the idea of a "wall" to be a good one.
viguy2016
(47 posts)But most of them are as Garrison said, but they are afraid. They see a changing world and country and they are afraid. The TV is their window into the world, and the violence and hate they see on it does not paint a pretty picture. It is not what is, it is what is perceived as being which is accepted as truth. They are afraid for themselves and more so for their children. They see change as threatening their way of life and they want to prevent it, while we on this site welcome change that will improve the lot of people. Fear makes people conservative or reactionary. "Make America great again" is their dream to return to a time in the past that did not really exist. A time of Mayville and "Leave it to Beaver' and "Father Knows Best". Trump know the anxiety they feel and bases his whole campaign on maximizing that fear.
niyad
(113,279 posts)The Polack MSgt
(13,188 posts)And welcome to DU.
I may be overly harsh in my assessment of all Trump backers... MAYBE.
But if after more than a year of listening to this clown you still feel he is the better choice, I can't be sympathetic to you and your "fears"
calimary
(81,225 posts)I struggle with this realization all the time. I think your characterization and analysis are both quite accurate. They see a changing world, and a changing country, and they don't feel comfortable. Change is jarring, just ANYWAY. But change is INEVITABLE. So it seems to me the best way to deal with change is to try to roll with it and figure out where your place is in it.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)radius777
(3,635 posts)who live vicariously through 'strongmen' like Bush/Cheney, the Tea Party and now Trump.
It's about time these people are called out for what they are, because after all, it is they who are voting in all of these right wing politicians.
Beartracks
(12,809 posts)... see themselves as the people Keillor describes. And that would help them tune into his message, should they happen to read his essay.
It's an important literary choice: always compliment your reader.
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The Polack MSgt
(13,188 posts)I can't disagree
niyad
(113,279 posts)rivegauche
(601 posts)although I moved to the southwest a few years ago. But I remember VIVIDLY the disgusting behavior of that orange pile of dogshit for my entire life. I've tried to tell people out here in the glorious west what an asinine, lying scumbag he is, and there are literally countless examples of it. He has NEVER given one microbial shit about working class and middle class people. He evicted thousands of working families so he could build his gaudy-ass luxury towers. He busts unions IN HIS OWN HOTELS. He openly ridiculed poor people for fucking decades. And all that is aside from his criminal activities and stiffing his own contractors.
I hate him, and have hated him for a very long time. He's the most appalling, despicable creature I can think of. This election season, for me, has been so shocking, so outrageously appalling that I haven't had a decent night's sleep in months.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)Everything you said, and more. Build a wall around Mexico? If he could find a way to deny Puerto Ricans US Citizenship, he would do that too. "No Spics will ever live in my buildings". He said that almost 40 years ago, and I will never forget his words. I won't even get into his "lines" to women. Who the hell do you think you are? Get LOST.
We Native New York Women, who have met him throughout his life, could write a book.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)owe it to the world (and me, mostly!) to share every detail! please......I'll pay you!
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)as a young woman. On my lunch break. Passed the opening of some building which I do not remember. Big crowd around it so I stopped by to look. A man came up to me and asked me if I wanted a personal tour. Why? Who are you? I am Donald Trump and own this building. Ok, heard of him, but big deal. I can't afford this so why would I want a personal tour? That is when he started on about "Spics" living in his buildings. How did he know I myself wasn't one of "those people"? Just because I did not have an accent?
No thank you I have to get back to work. I will call your boss and tell him you will be late. When I tell him my name and why you will be late, he won't say anything. Really? Ever consider that I don't WANT a personal tour of your building with YOU? Goodbye, Donald. You are CREEPY and I do not care about your money and how much influence you might have with my boss.
Native New York Woman. We know from a very early age when men, especially RICH Men, are trying to do a number on us.
rivegauche
(601 posts)spiderpig
(10,419 posts)I've been aware of his creepy self for decades and he's always exuded sleaze.
With all of his so-called wealth and self-aggrandizement, I have not heard one word about a charitable action or a kindly act toward a single soul.
He is vile and disgusting, and it appalls me that he's accrued enough of a base to run a viable campaign.
(Insert name of human rights trailblazer) weeps.
rivegauche
(601 posts)NEVER. Any "charitable" endeavor by him was always and only to enrich HIMSELF, how do people not see that? Do you remember back in the 90s, he gave an interview with People Magazine (when he was a Dem, barf) and he said that if he were ever to run for POTUS, he would run as a Republican because the base is stupid and gullible. He really said this, and now look where we are. I swear I'm getting an ulcer.
ProfessorPlum
(11,256 posts)and thank you for putting it so accurately into words.
I simply can not believe what is happening.
rivegauche
(601 posts)I truly believe that this is that grifter's biggest con yet. He is only running to see if the can do it, to see how many suckers he can con. It kills me that he's getting away with all his scumbaggery, and people want more! WTF!
Tikki
(14,557 posts)Last edited Sun Sep 25, 2016, 10:54 PM - Edit history (1)
Their life becomes the entertainment on tv. trump was yelling at people, something many tv trumps would like to do.
Politics are cumbersome and not very flashy to these folk and their preachers says Hillary is the demon
in this picture.
These are neighbors, co~workers and, gulp yes, friends.
My granddaughter, age 8, sings a trump wall song...until I showed her the video of trump
mocking a disabled man...she has a disabled friend.
I asked her how she would feel if her daddy mocked her friend?
She doesn't sing that song or watch that video any more.
Tikki
pansypoo53219
(20,974 posts)i finally thought of a good response. no, he does the BUYING.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,185 posts)Much of it to Russia, China and the Saudis. It's not an issue of whether or not he can be bought. He has already BEEN bought.
Jade Fox
(10,030 posts)lupinella
(365 posts)Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)RG is far more repugnant to me than even DT
spittle faced shitslinger.......
spiderpig
(10,419 posts)In his latest appearances supporting Trumpler, he actually looks like the silent version of Nosferatu.
Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)Bernie kerik forever!
JHB
(37,159 posts)...never involves plunger handles.