Trump and the Pungent Politics of Exclusivity

Donalnd Trump trumpets the politics of exclusivity in Richmond, VA. Former capital of the Old Confederacy.

Donald Trump trumpets the politics of exclusivity in Richmond, VA, the former capital of the Old Confederacy.

Donald Trump is a boorish, brash, braggadocious blowhard. He’s the kind of guy who’s richer than — and therefore better than — you, and if you don’t agree, then you’re an idiot. He’s tailor-made for the shame-drained slime bucket that is American politics. This fact ought to be a no-brainer at this point in the 2016 presidential campaign, but America’s over-paid beltway media fluffers still can’t comprehend why the GOP voting base laps up Trump’s uncouth stew of xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, and overt plutocrat sanctification like a St. Bernard who’s jowls-deep in a bowl of gravy-slathered kibble.

In an article for Reuters, for example, Bill Schneider claims that Trump is a new kind of candidate, an unholy, Frankensteinian daemon cross between “the political outsider and the fringe candidate.” This makes the blustery, ball-capped billionaire all the more perplexing to Schneider, who observes that, “Trump is a multibillionaire running against the establishment. He’s a candidate with no coherent political philosophy running as a conservative champion. It doesn’t make sense. But, so far, it’s working.” Trump’s conservative grass-roots appeal confuses the American punditocracy because they don’t want to admit that the secret to U.S. politics is exclusivity: that those with their grubby white maws already stuck in the national cookie jar will always vote to exclude other groups who are demanding some crumbs of their own.

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Indiana: Jim Crowing Religious Freedom?

Indiana: the place where some Christians denounce gayness, all in the name of Jesus, a guy who hung out with twelve dudes all the time.

Indiana: the place where some Christians denounce gayness, all in the name of Jesus, a guy who hung out with twelve dudes all of the time.

What in tarnation is happening to America? It seems like everywhere you look, the gays are taking over, demanding to be treated like human beings instead of being the go-to pariahs for self-righteous, sin-selective, persecution-complex-racked, judgmental neo-Pharisees. The nerve. Take Indiana, for example, where Republican Governor Mike Pence’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act — a form of legislative red meat for holier-than-thou moral crusaders passed with the express intention to not discriminate against the LGBT community — hasn’t gone over as smoothly as the Governor expected.

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The Enduring Popularity of Nazi Comparisons in American Politics

To some strains of the American electorate, fears of Nazi-style impending rule trump both political nuance and common sense.

A sign paid for by an Iowa Tea Party group. To some strains of the American electorate, fears of Nazi-style impending rule trump both political nuance and common sense.

Americans just love Nazis. Have I got your attention? Great, now let me explain. What I mean is that American politicians — and some of the public at large — often invoke the specter of Adolf Hitler and Nazism as the go-to example of political evil. Depending on their political preferences, some Americans like to accuse their political opponents of bringing on the Second Coming of the Third Reich in America. No matter that far too many people in the good ole’ U.S. of A know precious little about ACTUAL Nazism and the historical context from which in sprang in 1930s Germany; if they don’t like the other side, then the other side must be de-facto Nazis. Because Nazis are bad.

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Busting the Filibuster: Some History Behind the Senate’s Reactionary Procedure

Nevada Democratic Senate Goliath Harry Reid has hurt the Right's feelings.

Nevada Democratic Senate Goliath Harry Reid has hurt the Right’s feelings by limiting their capacity for throwing tantrums.

Last week, Harry Reid, the Senate’s mousy, soft-spoken, bespectacled Mormon Majority Leader from the land of perpetual vice colloquially known as the state of Nevada unleashed his inner Incredible Hulk. The normally mild-mannered — but politically shrewd — Reid opened up the ultimate can of senatorial whoop ass by invoking the so-called “nuclear option,” a procedural act in the Senate that disregards a century of precedent by voting to end a filibuster with a simple majority rather than requiring the traditional votes of sixty senators. Reid justifiably dropped this bomb in order to overcome years of Republican filibustering of President Obama’s executive branch administration nominees.

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