#groveling | ¿#WhatTheyVotedFor?
When I picked up on the story earlier today, an msnbc guest on former Republican strategist Nicole Wallace's daytime show was saying something or other about how plaintive and desperate Trump's part seemed in a discussion with the President of Mexico. And that actually seems the resounding echo, how pathetic and weak the tough-talking, wannabe gangster, New York businessman and television star apparently is under pressure.
President Trump made building a wall along the southern U.S. border and forcing Mexico to pay for it core pledges of his campaign.
But in his first White House call with Mexico's president, Trump described his vow to charge Mexico as a growing political problem, pressuring the Mexican leader to stop saying publicly that his government would never pay.
“You cannot say that to the press,” Trump said repeatedly, according to a transcript of the Jan. 27 call obtained by The Washington Post. Trump made clear that he realized the funding would have to come from other sources but threatened to cut off contact if Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto continued to make defiant statements.
The funding “will work out in the formula somehow,” Trump said, adding later that “it will come out in the wash, and that is okay.” But “if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that.”
He described the wall as “the least important thing we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important.”
The heated exchange came during back-to-back days of calls that Trump held with foreign leaders a week after taking office. The Post has obtained transcripts of Trump's talks with Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
(Miller↱)
In truth, one of the reasons I want these reports to be wrong is that I
get that a bunch of conservatives, masking their fear and anger as ennui, voted a game show host into the White House, as a cure for their alleged boredom, and thus invoked the sort of disaster they never, ever, ever want to be associated with. They deliberately betrayed their country because the staid politics of realistic compromise that
their leaders insisted on, and everyone else has been sick of for generations, made them sad and angry and afraid enough that they had to pretend they were bored and go setting the place on fire for kicks. Yeah, we get it. In basic terms, doing stupid shit is part of being human, but, you know, there comes a point at which it's not just stupid shit, and oh, wasn't that hilarious. There comes a point at which it's not just stupid shit, you fucked up badly and people are hurt
because of you, and if you
really want us to believe it's not your fault because you're just that damnably stupid, then you better get your fucking shit together
right fucking now!
Do, do
you get it? Because, yeah,
we get it. You were bored. And other human beings, and ideas like civilized society, and these United States of America, these were just trashy kitsch fucking up your view of an imagined landscape.
Look what you elected.
Look at the sniveling, weak, wannabe swindler who isn't even smart enough to deal with the Mexicans you want us to believe you don't actually hate, but he was smart enough to con
you.
By Columbia's light, not a single one of you has an excuse. But what absolutely cracks me up in this moment is that you solved your ennui problem by electing a fragile, whimpering,
groveling poseur who never could measure up to any of the merits he inherited, and who now cannot help but continue to diminish American prestige while fretting over some pretense that he can still hide from the world the fact of his utter deficiency.
Though I really must admit, eighty-two percent is an impressive low. I mean, you know, as long as we're handicapping.
Still, I want these reports to be wrong because, you know, look at what you elected; and at some point, that means you cannot ever again be trusted.
No really. He's
not a very good swindler; he's relied on hustle and juristic brutality throughout. And yet,
you fell for it.
Oh, right, right. No, you didn't. You were just bored.
(No, seriously; don't tell us about corruption, or betrayal of Main Street, or anything like that. Just look at what you elected. Any of those principles you might purport, you betrayed. Either you fucked up that badly, or you're just that awful. In other words, never again can you be trusted. I mean, seriously, when we cut through it, even the bluster is bullshit; he's just a blithering, cowardly, cheap, halfwit hustler. And you either fell for it, or wanted it. That is to say, when you betrayed your country, you either didn't realize what you were doing, or you did, but in either case, you don't really have any excuse. Just tell everyone ennui, and, I don't know, maybe you can plead depression and say you didn't think it through because you were otherwise predisposed.)
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Notes:
Miller, Greg. "Trump urged Mexican president to end his public defiance on border wall, transcript reveals". The Washington Post. 3 August 2017. WashingtonPost.com. 3 August 2017. http://wapo.st/2vuTJnp
