Conundrum

President Trump’s “go back where you came from” Twitter jape against The Four Horsewomen of the Derpocalypse (hat tip to Sean Sorrentino), Reps. Omar, Pressley, Tlaib and Ocasio Cortez may be his dumbest yet.

But let me ask you this:

Let me describe someone who is:’

  • Not really cut out for their office
  • Given to petulant ranting on social media
  • Elected by people whose politics and logic I frequently don’t respect a lot
  • Supported by a lot of people, staff, and a narrative intended to logroll and gaslight skeptics into silence and submission
  • Does, seemingly, little but jab back at their many, many critics, to the point where you wonder if you’re watching someone in junior high

Which of the five am I describing?

By the way – if you’re a Democrat, it is your duty to rally around the Four Horsewomen, to the exclusion of all else (except working toward impeachment). If you do not, the ghost of Wellstone will cry.


63 thoughts on “Conundrum

  1. Let’s be clear, Donald Trump is NOT “a woman of color.”

    Glad we cleared that up.

    BTW, don’t cha love the way “women of color” rolls off the tongue. It’s incandescence is irresistible to the media. NPR played with it all day. MPR filled the holes in NPR’s schedule with it and ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN played it like a pop-tune.

  2. your analysis as far as it goes is correct. What Trump did was firmly establish “The Squad” as the unequivocal face of the Democrat party heading into next year’s election. It seriously erodes Nancy’s control of the House and if Trump takes a jab at “The Squad” every couple months by this time next year Nancy will be just a figurehead unable to enforce party discipline upon a cohort that sorely needs it.
    Besides what Trump said is nothing an Irishman didn’t hear on a regular basis 100 years ago – how racist can he get?

  3. Greg, who are you to assume that Trump doesn’t identify as Orange Woman Bad?

    Wheeler, I think that Trump if fact did harm the Dem party by hanging the Squad more firmly on their mantle. Question, did he pay a price for the way he did it? If he did, was it worth it?

    Because, like it or not, in ’20, it’s either Trump and his administration that has been better than expected or Someone in the Clown Car and all the Dem apparatchiks….

  4. BUrns me that the only portion of the comment people read is ” go back where you came from.” Ann Althouse had a good analysis. He actually told them to go back where they came from, implement their proposed improvements, then let us know how it works. Come back here to improve America, AFTER you’ve improved some other country. Prove it works.

  5. Unless I’m mistaken, Modishu Barbie is the only one of those miserable slags that was actually born in a 3rd world shithole. So, Trump was wrong to say “they” could go back to where they came from.

    But he was 100% correct to say that people who spend all their time sliming America can do everyone, including themselves by GTFO.

    IMO he should keep the pressure on, but he needs to be more precise in his verbiage.

    Speaking of MoBarb, there was a story in the StarTrib couple weeks ago revising the issue of her immigration and federal loan guarantee fraud. That needs some attention from the DOJ, IMO.

  6. If the democrats do not impeach, the ghost of Wellstone will die.

  7. To me, it is never clear what Trump is trying to do. But, he hasn’t done too much harm, which is better than expected. He has managed to stay out of wars, which is great.

    I see much of his rantings as apparently cathartic to people in the country- he is opening up discussions within the country about race, equality, etc that apparently have been simmering under the surface for a long time. Issues that I thought we were past since I see lots of opportunity that hasn’t always existed here.

    It’s hard for me to tell if his comments were meant to harm the Democratic party. When he was running in 2016, I always believed his outlandishness was an attempt to try to lose. I wasn’t sure that he actually wanted to win or if he entered just to help boost his brand. He seems like a moderate, having supported both major parties and also had a run as a Reform Party candidate.

    Now that he is President, he might as well continue to run for a second term. I am not sure how committed he is to winning. For Trump, either outcome will work out for him. That he hasn’t done any real harm to the economy that I can see works out for the country. But, Trump can count on the media to focus on the outrageous rather than policy. And when I read about this latest comment, as I indicated above, I am not sure which base it was meant to rally.

  8. Emery, what came first, Donald Trump or 8 years of “If you disagree with Obama’s policy prescriptions then you are a horrible inveterate racist that wants to enslave black and brown people. Check your white privilege!”?

  9. Walter Hudson made a great point last night. AOC insists that it’s more important to be morally accurate than factually accurate, therefore the democrats are hypocrites for their response that “Trump’s an idiot because 3 of his targets were born in the U.S.”

  10. The problem is not the US president trying to enforce immigration laws.

    The problem is the US President making racist comments on 4 US Citizens, who all happened to be woman, non-white and Democratic Congress members.

    Leading by example in order for others to follow.

  11. Smithstcroix: Anyone who voted for this man (and I use that term loosely) and continues to support him needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and reset your moral compass.

  12. Greg, who are you to assume that Trump doesn’t identify as Orange Woman Bad? – gl whisler

    gl, who am I and what gives me the authority to speak for a vast swath of the American electorate?

    I am a Carhart wearer, that’s who.

    “People of Carhart” have a long history of oppression (since 1889). We have been laughed at, picked on, denied seats on the school bus and called hurtful names. This gives us moral authority and political power. It is time we stood up and took our rightful place as the gatekeepers of culture.

    ROAD-SAFETY YELLOW POWER!!

  13. Ilhan Omar: My family left Somalia because it was a s*******. We came to America for a better life. But America still isn’t good enough for me, I want to fundamentally transform it.

    AOC. My family left Puerto Rico because it was a sh******.. We came to America for a better life. But America still isn’t good enough for me, I want to fundamentally transform it.

    Trump: How do you know your ideas will work? Maybe you should go back where you came from, transform those countries into successful societies, then come back and show us how it’s done.

    Emery. Racist! Hater!

    Emery.

  14. Since “racist” means whatever a person wants it to mean, these days, then not only were Trump’s comments racist, but so were Omar’s, and so were Emery’s.
    If I tell a Canadian to “go back where you came from” is that racist?

  15. It’s worth noting here first of all that AOC appears to be racially predominantly Caucasian, a point seemingly lost on Trump’s critics, who seem (like AOC) to want to blame racism for every disagreement they encounter. Moreover, while clumsy and probably ill-advised in its phrasing, Trump is right to point out that the politics this “Gang of Four” espouse are precisely the politics which have made Somalia, Puerto Rico, the Gaza Strip, and the American inner city into dumps. If these ladies think that their politics are so great, why not go there and enjoy it?

  16. Woolly: the locals on our lake wish the city folks would leave too 😉

    Well, I certainly understand why Trump thinks the so-called “Squad” hates America, as they are always criticizing it.

    They consistently describe the state of the United States in bleak terms, referring to it as a nation in dire peril that is plagued by lawlessness, poverty, and violence, constantly under threat, and at risk of having “nothing, absolutely nothing, left.”

    They also said “America in crisis and decline, and pledged to end “American carnage,”depicting the United States in a dystopian light—as a “land of abandoned factories, economic angst, rising crime”—while pledging” a new era in American politics.”

    Oh wait—that was Trump

  17. Trump also says good things about America. None of his enemies in the “squad” ever do. No one believes Trump hates America. It’s hard to believe that AOC, Omar,etc., feel anything but hate for America, since that is all that they talk about.
    Certainly I and other commenters at SITD have heavily criticized the United States government.
    Imagine Trump critics hugging the American flag or saying that they love the US. Can’t do it, can you?
    In the old USSR, after the October Revolution, government ordered murders and imprisonment were going at a slow pace, until the commies decided that simply being declared a certain class of person (rather than committing a crime) was a criminal offense. A judge could declare that a person was a kulak, and that person would then be subject to death or imprisonment. The number of court ordered murders and imprisonments increased by a thousand fold. Whole populations of villages and regions could be declared to be kulaks.
    “Racist” is the new kulak. It is not defined, so the charge can’t be defended against. The crime is being a class of person, a racist, rather than taking any particular action, again so the charge cannot be defended against. The same is true of “sexist.” Harvey Weinstein is being denied the counsel of his choice based entirely on his giving career boosts to actresses who otherwise would have vanished into LA’s porn industry.

  18. Trump is a narcissist. None of that matters to him. What matters to him is that these people oppose him. Trump is determined to break the discipline Pelosi has imposed on her party and to empower the Democrats who want to win Twitter today, rather than win the White House in 2020.

  19. Trump is determined to break the discipline Pelosi has imposed on her party and to empower the Democrats who want to win Twitter today, rather than win the White House in 2020

    Bingo. Turning hubris against “The Squad” and their party.

    I love it.

  20. If narcissism means “unwarranted self regard,” the charge of “narcissism” can be made against, not only any president, but any person, in certain contexts. Obama was a narcissist (“I think that I’m a better speech writer than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors”).
    If narcissism disqualified qualified a person for politics, the halls of government would be empty.
    When most people complain about Trump’s narcissism, they are complaining about his style of narcissism. It rubs them the wrong way. They weren’t bothered at all by Obama’s claim that the junior senator from a state famous world wide for its corruption knew how to fundamentally transform the United States of America for the better.

  21. Ocasio-Cortez, this AM, condemning Trump as a type of person, rather than condemning his actions: “You’re right, Mr. President — you don’t have a racist bone in your body. You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest”.

  22. Ocasio-Cortez: “So I am not surprised when the president says that four sitting members of Congress should, quote, ‘go back to their own country’ when he has authorized raids without warrants on thousands of families across this country.”
    Except Trump did not say that members of congress should ‘go back to their own country’.
    Not called on it by our far-left MSM media, of course.

  23. Emory said: “Anyone who voted for this man (and I use that term loosely) and continues to support him needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and reset your moral compass.”

    Hard look taken, completely comfortable in my choice.

  24. I remember all the times that people would count the number of times Obama used the 1st person singular from 2008 to 2016 (and beyond), and it’s incredible in that light how so many people see Trump, but not Obama, as the narcissist–seems to follow political lines, really. I’d argue that both have a “more than healthy” esteem of themselves, but what’s really going on is that Trump speaks a lot more like a workingman, while Obama has affected the cadences of “educated elites”/(educated idiots). Hence those who are, or who would pretend to be, high end white collar see the problems with Trump, while those with sympathies to the blue collar see the problems with Obama.

  25. I was going to go on a Mitch shows his his true #NeverTrump colors and doesnt understand the current political landscape but then he comes up with that last comment and goddamnit I dont know what to believe anymore.

  26. Glenn Beck had an excellent take on MoBarb’s illegal activities and sham marriages on his show this morning. He was using Sunday’s write up in the Red Star by hard left apologist and propaganda spewing Patrick Coolican for his base information. Funny how her social media posts which proved her a liar and bigamist were removed when she started running for office.

    Ah, Emery, your hypocrisy is on full display today. Your self righteous view of Trump supporters, makes you a racist. I mean, since there are so many a minorities in that group, that’s a fair assessment.

    Further, his excellency Barackus Obamanus I, was the most narcissistic POTUS we’ve had yet. Listen to a few of his talks and listen to how many times he says, “I”.

  27. #nevertrumper George Will has recently published a book, The Conservative Sensibility. Will has been appearing on conservative talk shows and blogs to general acclaim.
    Matthew Schmidt, at First Things, gives a us a skeptical take on Will: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/08/the-true-con

    Schmidt notes that if you look at what Will has written over the years (rather than his claims about he has written), the George will of 2019 is much less conservative than the George Will of 1983 — 2019 George Will is much more liberal and libertarian, much less willing to give the government a role in shaping society.
    Will is an admitted pessimist. Personally, when I listen to the #nevertrumpers, I wonder what country they think that they live in. I am particularly dismayed by #nevertrumpers who want conservative voters to remember the battles won by conservatives over the last 30 years, when those victories are more libertarian than conservative. It should not be counted as a “victory” when conservative students retain the right to have a YAFF club at a state university. That is baseline treading water, and even these “victories” are few.
    What part of the Equal Rights Amendment, fought by conservatives for 45 years, and never passed into law, has not been implemented into law? Unisex rest rooms? Women in the military?

  28. PoD, I think our esteemed host likes to wind up his patrons in service to his wish that Reagan was alive and president again.

    Notwithstanding Reagan’s achievement in breaking the back of the USSR as well as that nasty state of the economy he inherited, I actually prefer Trump. So far. Times have changed and the evil that is the left in its present embodiment of the Democratic Party would have left a nice guy like Reagan rudderless. For example, to essentially be a nice guy, Reagan signed and presided over the law that provided for the first illegal immigrant amnesty. Which failed. Miserably.

    Also, the language used by the Democrats and their followers nowadays would’ve left Reagan speechless. A new person, someone perhaps a bit, or maybe a whole lot more coarse is needed to tackle the culture war that Reagan pretty much left alone. I very much like Reagan’s comment about how “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”, but the problem is that they are neither liberal nor friends anymore.

    It is only the most obstreperous and obstinate of the Never Trumpers who refuse to accept that Trump is doing a pretty darn good job given the circumstances or even that maybe Trump isn’t so bad after all (look at the the comments to the couple, three Hinderacker posts about Trump’s so-called “Blunder of Epic Proportions”). I see our host as neither obstreperous and obstinate (well, perhaps that crush he has on Springsteen ;-), so I think he’s just poking the bears a bit.

  29. Emery-“the problem is the US President making racist comments on 4 US citizens who happen to be non-white.” Total BS- the comments were made not because of their color but because of what they said. But better yet, please show your proof of “racism”. Good luck.

  30. JDM, I was probably the closet thing you could be to a #NeverTrumper up until the point he got the nomination fair and square. I, incredibly reluctantly, voted for him and had zero expectations for him. But Im fully on board for his re-election campaign and will volunteer for him big time in 2020.

  31. I still think it’s harder to win the Presidency with a white nationalist agenda. Trump disagrees.

    We’ll see in 2020.

  32. Emery, butt-hurt over ISIS losing? Wow, do the Democrats have ethics, like blacks are 13% of the population but the Democrats back the slaughter 33% of all black babies, so immoral, all you’ve got is the race card. Piss-poor pitiful, really is. Oh, yeah, blacks and Hispanics have an all-time low unemployment rate, crime is in decline. Maybe if a nuclear war with Korea breaks out, the Democrats will be happy because they don’t do jack; except pull the race card.

    And if we let the illegals in, amnesty, watch for the black percentage of the population to dip down to, maybe 10%, yeah, the Democrats were your big big friends alirght.

  33. Looks like it’s the Democrats who are developing into neo-nazi light. I’d forgotten about Omar’s statement about the Jews having duo-loyalties or not being loyal to America or however that was she talked, I tend to always remember just the parts about the Jews hypnotizing the world and all of that. What that party stands for really turns one stomach.

  34. The Democrats smear, their crappy party with roots in the Klan, party of slaveyr, party of abortion, party of Jim Crow. Smear Kavanaugh, smear whomever…

    Here’s a great editorial.

    https://tsarizm.com/opinion/2019/07/06/the-hi-tech-traditionalist-this-is-why-the-american-progressive-left-loves-violence-but-abhors-the-military/

    There is no compromise with the cancer that is Bolshevism. There is no curing it with half measures and the time for that is long past anyway. We ignored many warnings from McCarthy and Eisenhower and Reagan to name but a few and are now in a do or die situation.

    ——–

    And Omar and AOC’s popularity is way way down there, oh, Tlaib, “I get a warm feeling thinking about the genocide”, that. Yeah, run with that, real popular sentiment.

  35. Real white supremacists are such a tiny part of the population — < 05%? That it would be incredibly stupid to think that you could win the presidency by appealing to white supremacists. Needless to say , the Dems believe that the US is chock full o' white supremacists who voted Trump. Shitty to try and win an election as a progressive when half the population are KKK wannabees, I guess. If we had a functioning press, the Dems would be disabused of that insane notion.
    Trump won, fair and square, because the Dems put up the only person who could lose to Trump, the execrable Hillary Clinton, a person even most people on the left would agree was both corrupt and, shall we say, lacked charisma.
    Omar & Ocasio-Cortez are unpopular outside their districts (or inside their districts in the case of Ocasio-Cortez), Why do they get so much media attention? Because they are popular with most of the so-called journalists in the MSM.
    Conservatives, both Trump supporters and #nevertrumpers, understand the real world better than liberals do. You can't be in a bubble when all the nespapers, all the news networks, facebook, twitter, google, etc., are liberal or far-left.

  36. Jape: To say something in jest or mockery.

    The comment was not mockery, he was not mocking their place of origin. THe comment wasn’t a joke, the following day he said they hated the country and should leave the country, so clearly he meant they should leave when he said they should “go back.”

    When Louie Gohmert likened Obama to Hitler, on the floor of the House, was that respectful?

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/speaker-louie-gohmerts-14-best-moments/

    Did Louis Gohmert hate America? When Donald Trump called W out for the Iraq invasion, did he hate America?

    THe President created (in part) the crisis off the border by insisting that people be detained and families separated. He helped create it by insisting funding for border security MUST include funding for a wall which Mexico was supposed to pay for. HIs language over the weekend was nothing other than ugly and vulgar race-baiting – and like so many things from Trump, ignorant of the facts regarding at least 3 of 4 women’s background. It wan’t a jape, or a joke, or mockery, it was the same ugly and vulgar epithet spewed at immigrants across this country for the past 100 years. It’s heartfelt by those who scream it, whether at Hmong refugees who fought by our side in Vietnam or by a President in a twitter-storm.

    We can reasonably object to the conduct of a President without be labeled disloyal, I did not, not once, ever accuse Republicans of hating America when they condemned Democratic leaders. I wouldnt because I don’t believe it and more importantly, I consider it entirely American to object to governmental overreach or blatant corruption.

    If you feel this is about political calculus and are OK with that, then you are saying you are ok with using race-baiting and the most base behavior, including your neighbors of being disloyal (or as Trump has said about similar issues, traitors). There should be some things where we rise above our disagreements on policy and stand up for the rights of our fellow countrymen. This happens to be one of those times. I disagree strongly with a comment AOC made yesterday and i’ll call her out on it (she wrongly claimed no Republicans voted to rebuke Trump, untrue, 4 did). She’s unreasonably strident. Why will you (Mitch and the vast majority of commenters, excepting Swiftee) not do the same regarding the President’s “jape”?

  37. As sad as it is, Omar raked in over $1.6 million for her reelection campaign. Of course, over $1 million of it came from outside her district, because very of her constituents can afford to contribute to her. After years of communist rule by Minneapolis apparatchiks and terrible representation by Keith “wife beater” Ellison before her, I doubt they have much disposable income. She won’t even get primaried. As we all know, Democrats could have elected officials come into their houses, take their food, money and possessions, and they wouldn’t care, so long as the elected officials had a “D” after their names.

  38. Emery, you’re forgetting the last election. Trump already stole the Presidency from Hillary by appealing to White Supremacists; at least, that’s what the media assured us had happened. Liberals invented racial identity politics and White people finally started playing by the same rules as other racial groups. Why is that a bad thing?

    Let’s say, for a minute, that White people stole this land from the Indians and built a strong and prosperous nation on it for their children to inherit. Let’s pretend we live in a society built by White people, for White people, and that 75% of the residents are still White people who want to leave a better place for their children to inherit. Why is that a bad thing?

    The success of Asian immigrants proves non-white people can succeed in White society, by “acting White:” stay in school, get a job, delay children until married, live frugally, obey the law. Why is that a bad thing?

    America isn’t Paradise but we never said it was. If you want to live in a Worker’s Paradise, Americans won’t stop you from moving to Cuba, or North Korea.

    White parents want their children to succeed, same as every other parent. Why is that a bad thing?

  39. This is good. Now let’s go back to scrutinizing his connections with a known pedophile. It’s a little convenient that he tweeted something particularly racist just as we were looking into Trump’s personal connection to Epstein, or the fact that his Labor secretary gave him a sweetheart deal.

  40. This is why it is frustrating with Democrats, failed Russian investigation, let’s find something else, last week, Trump is one thing, the next, he’s something else. And, forgive me if I ever have a short fuse, but clearly, they are doing nothing for the nation, nothing at all except trying to sow division, being destructive, etc. etc.

  41. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
    “I did . . . have sexual relations with that woman.”

    To people like Emery, these sentences are both perfectly valid quotes. True, one has been slightly edited, and it does completely reverse the meaning, but distortion, misquoting, innuendo are acceptable if the person being discussed is objectionable.

    That’s why it’s okay to use phrases like “known pedophile,” (everybody knew it, same as Weinstein, they just looked the other way because that’s how it’s done in their circles); “connection” (none, aside from the ordinary casual contact everybody else had); “personal connection” (none, aside from the ordinary casual contact everybody else had, and which he terminated when he learned Epstein had harassed women at the club); “racist” (it had nothing to do with race); “gave him a sweetheart deal” (not while he worked for Trump – that deal occurred a decade ago).

    Emery, you were born in the wrong age. You would have made a wonderful ‘yellow journalist’ a century ago. Have you applied to MSNBC? They’re still in that business.

  42. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has written specific rules that protect people, mostly immigrants, against employment discrimination on the basis of their national origin. The agency is responsible for enforcing laws that prohibit discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age and disability.

    “Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities,” the commission said on its website to describe harassment based on national origin.

    “Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person’s foreign accent or comments like, ‘Go back to where you came from,’ whether made by supervisors or co-workers,” it continued.

    Some joke. Funny stuff.

  43. Does this mean Trump can be sued for harassment by any of the roughly 3 million federal US workers who happen to be immigrants or 1st generation descendents of immigrants. Again, funny, funny, hilarious stuff.

  44. I’ve heard Trump’s sons speak on the radio and other interviews. This almost sounds like something one could have been conversing in private about, nothing unseemly is meant, one puts it in a tweet and it doesn’t come out the same way to some people. Some would say this warning on these women is warranted. I lean that way.

    I got through Richfield from time to time. I’d think maybe some areas of CD5 would not want to see Omar return to DC come the next election but who knows.

  45. Regarding the claims of “white supremacists”, it strikes me that what’s really going on is that when government reduces the degree to which it discriminates against whites, that is interpreted as “white supremacy”. At the very least, a strong rise in black employment is an odd thing for an alleged white supremacist to achieve.

  46. Trump started with a racist slander questioning the citizenship of the first black American President and it has been down the xenophobic racist gutter ever since.

  47. And Emery continues the racist slander against Trump for simply trying to ensure that our first (half-)black American President was qualified to run and it has been down the oikophobic racist gutter ever since.

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