Week of 09/17/2018

Only Conservatives Are “Allowed” To Go Negative On Trump
– by David Matthews 2

In a recent “New Rules” rant in the HBO series “Real Time With Bill Maher”, host Bill Maher whined about why conservatives are the only ones to come up with zingers on our narcissistic president, Donald J. Trump.  Maher listed the various ways certain conservative people are able to refer to Trump as an “idiot” or a “moron” while the liberals and the progressives and the rest of the failed Democratic Party say less than nothing. 

It should be noted that most of the quotes that Maher pointed out made about Trump were never made in front of a camera.  In fact, they were second-hand quotes, from someone who heard that person say something supposedly in confidence and then they blab it to someone like Bob Woodward, who then publishes it in a book, and then that person has to publicly deny ever saying it to keep their job.  Very rarely do you have someone like Steve Schmidt with the courage to go in front of the camera and lay it all out and weather the consequences.

It’s funny too, because earlier in that same broadcast, Bill interviewed former Secretary of State John Kerry, and Kerry laid in some pretty choice words about Trump.  So it’s not like there is a lack of criticism from the left.  Hell, Maher and the rest of the liberal media personalities in places like Sirius XM and the late-night network shows have an endless stream of choice words and zingers.  That’s their bread and butter.  That’s what keeps them in the media spotlight and keeps generating interest and keeps them employed.

I would presume, then, that what Maher really wants to know is where the scathing criticism is from those in office.  Where’s the criticism from those with a “(D)” next to their names?  Where are all of the zingers about Trump’s perceived ignorance and sickening narcissism from the party that should be looking to assume control in the upcoming mid-term election hoax?

Well, since those people with a “(D)” next to their names will not answer that, Bill, I guess it’ll be someone like me that will have to answer it.  And, for that, I’ll start with a scene in the classic movie “Animal House”.

In “Animal House”, Delta House seniors Otter and Boon are watching as one of the pledges gets verbally abused by his ROTC superior.  Dressed in golfing attire and getting ready to putt a few golf balls, Otter says “He can’t do that to our pledges!”  To which Boon adds “Only *we* can do that to our pledges.”

And thus we have the “rule” that the failed Democrats have been adhering to, much to the dismay of the rest of America.  You don’t speak ill of the other party.  You only speak ill of your own.  And, of course, Dems don’t speak ill of their own party, lest they find themselves on their own.  Just ask Bernie Sanders.

From a highbrow intellectual standpoint, it sort-of makes sense.  If the Democrats criticize the GOP, it’s dismissed as nothing more than a cheap partisan attack at best.  It makes them look petty; whining simply because they’re not the ones in power.

And, sadly, that perception is not far from the truth.  Whenever I see that power-monger Nancy Pelosi or the failed Chuck Schumer criticize anything from the GOP, I cannot help but see the petulant whining of a failed and impotent party.  To hear them say “that’s not right” and “that’s not fair” when it comes to Trump and the GOP is like hearing a spoiled daughter whining because her daddy won’t buy her a pony.  They are every bit the entrenched entitled career politicians that not only need to be replaced, but their continued entrenchment has given cause for the extremists in the GOP to be as belligerent as they are today.

What doesn’t help the Democrats is their perceived role in American politics as being the fallback party for when the GOP fails.  For years, the Democrats have been operating as the fallback choice when the GOP goes too far or when they become too scandal-ridden to keep their majority control.  That’s how they got back control of Congress in 2007, only to lose it four years later without so much as a single complaint or cry of outrage.  They just assumed and accepted that it would happen.  Even today, with mid-terms coming up, the Democrats are not trying to prove that they are the “better choice”, only that they are not “the worst”.  There is a distinct difference between the two concepts.

So let’s get brutally honest here... as unfair as it may seem, only those in the GOP can be seen as criticizing Trump and the rest of the conservative neo-fascist lot and have it mean something.  Only the conservatives can stand up and say “Hey, you’re betraying everything our side stands for!”  If it comes from the Dems, it gets dismissed as partisan whining.  If it comes from someone like me... well, then nobody really cares.

Of course, the GOP doesn’t abide by that kind of rule themselves.  They’ve been attacking Democrats endlessly and without mercy, honor, respect, or morals for decades now.  They certainly showed no morals or respect whatsoever when it came to the eight years of Barack Obama.  But, then again, what do you really expect from a gang of narcissists and sociopaths?  That’s how the world ended up with Donald Trump in the White House.

What Democrats need to do is not only clean up their act, but also start pushing for serious retribution on the party that has been kicking them around.  When Richard Nixon was forced out of office – showing more respect for the office than Trump ever will – the Democrats started putting in new rules to make sure that future abuses of office would be exposed and punished.  The very independent prosecutor that the GOP used against President Bill Clinton came from those rules.  For the past few years, the GOP have been the ones coming up with – and negating – the rules.  Now that the abuses of the GOP have become public and brazen, the Democrats will need to step up and push for those abuses to end and for the abusers to be held to account.

Sadly, such a concept would be beyond the scope of the current batch of Democrats in office.  They don’t know how to govern.  They only know how to play the game that has been set up and to keep the seats warm until the GOP get their act together.  It is up to the newer players, the so-called “upstarts” of the Democratic Party, to replace the failed old guard.  Or wait until the remaining members of the GOP, the ones who still stand against Trump and his cult, find the courage to end the madness from within.

What we are witnessing is the absolute failure of our dominant political duopoly, where zero-sum extremism between both parties have led to one side being impotent co-dependents and the other as belligerent extremists increasingly divorced from reality, no different than the extremists in the Middle East that we are so fond of detesting and mocking.  Bill Maher and the rest of the liberal and progressive personalities can chide the Dems all they want, but, ultimately, this is where the hyperpartisan extremism has led us to.  It’s too late now to ask where that party’s spine went.  They sold it along with their souls to keep their cushy entitled seats at the expense of the rest of the nation.