10:15 Thursday Night

Mitch BERG is walking on the sidewalk past the “Safe Space” – a Saint Paul bar catering to “progressives”, featuring free-range beer, organic locally-sourced chips and pretzels, and gluten-free “everyone wins” dart boards.

Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE gets off the bus, and removes a set of Apple earbuds connected to an iPhone.  LIBRELLE notices BERG.  

LIBRELLE:  Hey, Merg!

BERG:   Ugh.  I mean, hi, Avery.

LIBRELLE:   So.  Donald Drumpf’s speech was dark and dystopian.

BERG:   Well, that was quick.  The speech ended literally a minute ago.   So you listened to it.

LIBRELLE:   Oh, hell no.  I listened to NPR’s wrapup after I heard on Snapchat that the actual speech was over.

BERG:   So – less than thirty seconds after the speech was over, NPR and the rest of the media, more or less at the same time, labelled the speech “dark and dystopian?”

LIBRELLE:  Yep!  Because it was!

BERG:  And you don’t think these are dark and dystopian times for a lot of the people who’ve come out of the woodwork to support Trump?

LIBRELLE:  Mark Shields and Gwen Ifill and David Brooks said it’s a great time to be optimistic!

BERG:  Sure.  It’s a great time to be part of the DC echo chamber, with an inflated, legacy-media salary.  But if you’re a WalMart assistant manager in Mississippi, or a machinist in Milwaukee, or a coal miner in West Virginia, it’s kinda scary out there.

LIBRELLE:  Bla bla bla.  After eight years of Barack Obama, America is a wonderous place!  Drumpf is a traitor for accentuating the negative!

BERG:  So you’re saying it’s wrong to accentuate the negative…

LIBRELLE:  Yes!

BERG:  …when things are either positive or kinda in between, overall?

LIBRELLE:  Absolutely!  It’s utterly and completely dishonest!

BERG:   Ah.  So in general, when someone talks about something that’s improved as if it’s been going the wrong way, it’s a lie?  Or even something that’s been net-neutral as if it’s been a complete negative?

LIBRELLE:  Lies, lies, lies!

BERG:    So when a candidate says “gun crime is out of control” when it’s dropped 50% in 20 years?   Or that “women get paid 76% of what men make” when it’s actually pretty close to even when you compare men and women with the same backgrounds in the same fields, and women under 30 are actually starting to out-earn men?  Or that “one in five women in college will be raped” or “black men are astronomically more likely to be shot by the police, and it’s because of racism”?

LIBRELLE:  Yeah!

BERG:  (Waits two beats)

LIBRELLE:  Heyyyyyy!

(And SCENE)

23 thoughts on “10:15 Thursday Night

  1. Amazing coincidence that EVERYONE in the democrat/media complex picked the same adjective to describe the speech?

    Dark.

  2. It’s sad that to make your point you have to make up shit. Maybe it means your fact is simply hyperbole.

    The Donald said last night he’d fix it all, immediately, so not to worry, he’s Superman. For example, he’s going to be able to stop attacks like the one in Nice, or Istanbul, or today in Munich. Clearly blocking immigration from nations which have a problem with terrorism will stop the attacks in other countries. Equally clearly blocking immigration from France, Germany and Britain is going to protect us. I guess we only care about US deaths. Oh, and obviously that ban would have stopped the attack in Orlando and San Bernadino and Dallas.

    Your candidate was seething. He portrayed the US as a country in peril, he spent his time talking about the dangers of ISIS, which have claimed something like 75 US lives this year (not to downplay it, but let’s put it in perspective). Two deranged gunman killed 8 police officers, which is horrid to be sure, but what constitutes a crisis really? Two gunman? Really? By that standard the early 1970’s were bedlam. We lose 12000 people a year minimum to murder, Trump commented that murder is up 17%, which was true from 2014 to 2015, but it is also VASTLY down from 1995 or even 2003. Are we really in crisis? No. We just feel like we are and “Donald the Fear Machine” is plenty happy to hype that and YES Mitch, to claim everything is broken and that he’s superman and can fix it all. His speech was dark (at best), full of fear mongering, full of whipping up hate. He is no FDR, he did not utter “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (meaning the reaction to it), but instead is hoping to use the reaction to fear to win an office he doesn’t want to do the work within once elected (which is why he asked John Kasich to do his job after the election). He’s a fraud, a hate-mongering, personality cult, fact devoid and policy devoid fraud.

  3. BTW Mitch, I recall people saying the terrorists wanted Obama to win. I wonder, since part of their aim is to get Europe and the US to involve themselves with boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq and to oppress Muslims and so to validate the claims of Da’esh, who exactly they want to have win our election? Certainly the continuing attacks play into Trump’s message. More fear works for Trump. Consider that and then consider whether there’s justification for calling his speech last night “apocalyptic” as CNN called it (BTW, not “dark”). I guess the liberal media wasn’t quite so well coordinated as your commenter claims.

  4. Pen,

    You’ve never really been clear on the concept of “satire”, have you?

    I’m not endorsing anything Trump said, BTW. If you think I am, it clearly comes from the same place DG gets her “facts”. I’ve repeatedly lampooned his “big talk” schtick, in the blog and on the air.

    But let’s try to focus, here; I’m lampooning the media’s coordinated response to the speech.

    He’s a fraud, a hate-mongering, personality cult, fact devoid and policy devoid fraud.

    So – just like the incumbent.

  5. Pen,

    “apocalyptic” as CNN called it (BTW, not “dark”)

    Distinction without much difference.

    So if more fear benefits Trump, why do you think the media is amping up the fear factor?

    That’s an honest question.

  6. the death of police officers by gunfire is up 82% over last year that should be a cause for alarm that everyone recognizes

  7. The Donald said last night he’d fix it all, immediately, so not to worry, he’s Superman.

    And Obama said in 2008 that if we elected him, Christopher Reeve would walk again, and global warming would be solved.

    If it weren’t for double standards, liberals would not have any.

  8. If more fear benefits Drumpf, and Drumpf is more willing to bring the war to jihadis in the Middle East than is Hilliary, exactly why would the militants do something to benefit Drumpf? Sorry, Pen, but while your illogic is consistent, it’s still illogic.

    And having interacted quite a bit with liberals, sorry, but while this is satire, it’s reality.

  9. Oh, I think Pen may be correct in thinking ISIS thinks American troops in the Holy Land benefits them; they’re part of the ISIS Armageddon story.

    So Pen’s not necessariy wrong (from ISIS’s perspective) there.

    But why is the media pushing the “fear” narrarive?

  10. And Obama said in 2008 that if we elected him, Christopher Reeve would walk again….

    John Edwards said that in 2004.

  11. Not quite sure about that, Mitch. It’s mostly the Shi’a who are dreaming of the “12th Mufti” or whatever, but ISIS is Sunni. They could possibly desire a confrontation closer to home–might as well sleep in your own bed before fighting, of course–but the apocalyptic stuff is, if I remember correctly, mostly Shi’a.

  12. Ed Driscoll could be responding to peeve: “. . . it’s fascinating to watch a media that spent the last eight years hyping snipers, riots, racism, campus “rape epidemics,” Christian bakeries and pizza parlors, and the existential hell that is the gender-segregated bathroom suddenly having a Reagan-esque everything is wonderful “Morning in America” moment today isn’t it?”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/239411/#respond

  13. So Dog Gone isn’t the only one who doesn’t “get” satire and has the oddest definition in the world of the word “fact”?

    Well, that’s the opposite of refreshing.

  14. Pen-what’s your proof of Trumps’s “hate mongering”? Who or what does he hate and how do you know that?

  15. Reading the inchoate twaddle leftists spew gives me the same queasy feeling ya get seeing a hot girl pick her nose.

  16. My God. Have you seen Hillary give any of her campaign speeches? It is all anger and screeching at the wicked, who are, invariable, Americans. Today Obama made common cause with the president of Mexico against an American named Donald Trump. Oh, no the Democrats don’t hate America. Just Americans.

  17. Hello, Pen. Are you there? Simple question. Or are you from the DG school of blog posting?

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  19. From dog’s beloved BBC
    “Police said the gunman was a dual German-Iranian national who was born in Munich. His name has not been released”

    Heil Allah?

    Snicker

  20. but the apocalyptic stuff is, if I remember correctly, mostly Shi’a.

    The Sunni apocalypse story involves an Armageddon-like battle around Raqqah, Syria. Different armageddon than the 12th Imam.

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