Simeon Salus
Simeon Salus's JournalThe Kayfabe President (a bit of a ramble)
Donald John Drumpf has never shied away from wrestling fandom, having promoted WWE events billed as appearing at Trump Plaza (but actually held at Atlantic City Convention Hall) in the eighties WrestleMania IV & V, joined the festivities personally in the "Battle of the (dubious) Billionaires", and is a member of the 2013 class of WWE Hall of Fame, such as it is.Drumpf relishes attention, even when it comes from the unwashed masses. Vince McMahon is a frequent companion and Linda McMahon is (for gods know what reason) the 13th United States Secretary of Education. Wrestling culture goes deep into the Drumpf campaign and no excuses are made about it. This is not news; many publications have covered the connection (Politico, NPR, The 19th).
Other DUers can explain Kayfabe better than I. It's the wrestling translation of Yes, and.... Everyone knew pro wrestling was "fixed", but everyone quietly denied it. These days Kayfabe, the wink and the nod to the fix, is itself a fixture of wrestling television culture. Fans know it's fake, but they love to talk about it as serious (or partially serious) athletic competition.
Kayfabe is the portrayal of staged elements within professional wrestling (such as characters, rivalries, and storylines) as legitimate or real. It acknowledges the staged, scripted nature of such games. Historically the scripted nature of professional wrestling was an open secret, it was not generally acknowledged by people in the business. In pro wrestling, competitors fall into two broad categories: faces and heels. Faces & heels participate in semi-scripted shouting contests and develop grudges and alliances with others of their type. Often a character will turn from heel to face or the opposite.
Because the Kayfabe event is highly scripted and heavily covered by sports media, nothing is left to chance. With the exception of occasional catastrophic injury (and primarily because of the need for safety for the performers), virtually nothing happens on a wresting tv program that wasn't discussed and rehearsed long before filming at the live event. It's fiction, not competition. It's always been that way. But these days performers often slyly wink at the camera, daring the audience to fight among themselves whether an onscreen controversy is real or Kayfabe.
Drumpf's entire television history is based on such semi-scripted activity. Throughout his career, Drumpf has actively acted in a manner adopted to overawe business opponents. The Apprentice itself is a Kayfabe wrestling show, with business as backstory and celebrities as contestants.
Living like this is unsustainable.
This administration deals with reality by papering over it and brazening it out.
Drumpf started this term out by firing the nation's inspector generals, making certain that anyone in such position was beholden to Drumpf. He then blamed an unfortunate aircraft accident on DEI. Years ago, face Karl Rove famously bragged "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." Drumpf has taken this governing technique to a high level, such as when his sharpie changed a weather map.
I can't imagine I'm alone in the view that Drumpf, News Corp, the Heritage Foundation and his many other allies are deliberately manufacturing a false reality, certainly false events ,and deliberate misdirection daily. Invented memes are broadcast each day on corporate media, backed by a somewhat unified and libertarian group of monied elites, and supported by wingnut welfare, so even scumbag heels like Toensing and diGenova keep getting paid no matter how many times they've been humiliatingly incorrect.
"Defund the police" is a phrase which was historically rarely used on DU, but the phrase was painted all over every one of us after George Floyd was killed. As an idiom it's a sort of false flag, something most of us agree with but didn't call for. I agree that police are overfunded, but that's what the right wanted.
"Trump Derangement Syndrome" is obvious gaslighting, since by now it's clear to anyone with YouTube and a memory that Drumpf has long exhibited signs of derangement. By labelling any legitimate criticism "deranged", the right prevents any actual discussion about his inevitable senility and demonstrated poor judgement.
"Antifa" is a non-existent organization said to be anti-Trump and by gaslighting painted over anybody who reasonably agrees fascism is a bad idea. We're so afraid of saying the word Nazi, but historians agree this is how it started last time, too.
Ignoring projected meanings like we do is unsustainable.
It's time to eat the rich
This deliberate mass-delusion of society, presciently called out by both Orwell and Huxley, is the problem Americans today. How can one stand when the sand beneath one's feet is being removed grain by grain by those who wish to keep the masses enslaved? When I look around today, I see a popular culture absorbed in self-reflection, self-adoration, self-satiation. Why? Because Americans haven't faced an actual crisis for eighty years. The successes of the New Deal, collective bargaining, post WWII economics, the oceans between us and our rival powers, have made Americans fat, egotistic, and clueless. Our model is conspicuous consumption, spending merely to flatter ourselves. Just enough to keep us from revolting.
Being eaten ourselves is ongoing but unsustainable.
To Drumpf, this is just another television show in which he stars.
And everyone else in his world is hired with mind towards Q score. The best thing about this situation for Drumpf is all he has to do is say controversial things to which his opponents get to react. This keeps him on today's television news outlets, designed for pure profit, not investigation. All the personalities we see on television are present because they are paid to engage us. He's only successful because he's convinced us to oppose (or support) him. He's got a serious group of deep pocketed supporters who go along with his confidence scheme even though it's almost end-of-the-planet time. They'll retire to their John Galt retreats, bolt the doors, and let us battle it out.
I don't have any answers, but I've been gathering these thoughts for a while, and thought I might share them.
They are all literally just programming us. To paraphrase Glen Cook, we are mere mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shite.
This is unsustainable.
Every show gets cancelled eventually (except 700 Club, which is still on even though the asshole died years ago).
Gods help us.
POTUS's pathetic little sharpie
Some DUers might remember the incident in Drumpf's last term when out of nowhere, pesky scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration failed to accurately predict Drumpf's extension of a warning area to Alabama. POTUS took his sharpie and comically drew a circle around the unaffected area.
GOP presidents ever since Lincoln have faced this tiny obstacle: they continue to be hamstrung by the facts.
Some among us may recall Karl Rove's famous dismissal of the reality-based community : "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
For those of us not around during Rove's 2002 midterm election campaign (9/11 means we can do any crazy thing we want), it is useful to remember that on the day Jethro Bush intended to put forward a vote to allow US to invade Iraq unilaterally, a snow storm blanketed Washington D.C., preventing all but essential travel in our nation's capitol. Mother Nature gave the media almost two more weeks to talk about the pending invasion.
Sometimes empire builders need to deal with actual reality, especially since today there is no mainstream media to hold them accountable. In the runup to invasion, Rove fired generals who accurately predicted America was going into Iraq without sufficient manpower to win the peace afterwards. Later, the same Bush's brain demanded that everyone accept "The Surge" as the greatest victory since Waterloo.
So Drumpf may wave his sharpie like a sword, may pardon criminal gang members engaged in actual rebellion against our country, may incite death threats against congresspeople in his own party, may sign dozens of EOs which a threatened congress would not pass, and may even authorize the arrest and prosecution of his political opponents.
But POTUS must face the fact that America is more than his pathetic little pen. He will ever be America's most hated president. The idiocracy may feel overwhelming today, but the reality of NOAA's 6/14/25 weather predictions demonstrate how truly powerless our POTUS Drumpf remains.
This is terrorism plain and simple. Planned, weaponized, and deliberately targeted at political opposition.
I'll begin by reminding DUers I lived in NYC on 9/11, and it was worse in person than on TV.
I was far enough away to be safe but close enough to see everything in realtime. My family and I were very fortunate, but I lost friends. I'm still deeply affected by the events which followed that disastrous day, including the anthrax attacks a week after.
A friend was contaminated at a network but recovered. I still struggle to open mail. I know many, many people who suffered worse (and continue to suffer) from the events of the day and the malicious wreckage of our society that followed. I'm sure lots of other DUers feel the same way.
The first plane flew southward directly over my head before it crashed. I thought it was a strange sound as the engines were speeding up over the city. Some days I wish I could unsee what I saw.
I don't say any of this for sympathy. I say it so I can admit something to you.
I'm more terrified now than I ever was then.
For 23 years I've always wondered what it felt like to be in United 175 or United 93, knowing something bad was about to happen, but not knowing how to think myself out of the situation. In my bad dreams I'm never sure how to act in my final seconds.
Bin Laden wanted us all to be afraid, and in response to his terrible success, terrorism is now truly global.
The same people who slapped China-made little flags on their antenna in 2002 are now flying the planes.
In gaming, I utilize D&D's alignment chart as a way of graphically plotting behavior to establish a personality type
The alignment chart is a tool of the game which helps players understand monster and character behaviors.
On one continuum you have from Lawful to Chaos (reliability vs. flexibility), on the other you have from Good to Evil (altruism vs. selfishness). In D&D, the Paladin is the knight who is always true and acts to defend the weak and innocent. This guy is no paladin. He is the opposite. Even his allies can't trust him. He's a looter.
By my reading, when his various behaviors are plotted, Drumpf's alignment plot shows him as both chaotic AND evil.
I'm still not sure why it says that. The date change happened during some software upgrade.
I remember precisely the day I joined the Democratic Underground. 9/24/2001.
I was working in Manhattan at the time. September 11 was the NYC mayoral primary that year. Mark Green was going to win the Democratic Party nomination. I voted for Mark Green in that primary before I got to work. But after the terrible events of the day, they rescheduled the primary for two weeks later, which seemed reasonable. All of a sudden lots of money was flowing into Fernando Ferrer's campaign and Green had to keep pace just to win a primary he was predicted to win easily on the morning of September 11.
Billionaire Mark Bloomberg, who'd been grooming the NYC electorate for years (I still have a Bloomberg Business Radio he sent out to every NYC address in 1998), was able to outspend Green easily in the general.
On September 24, out of nowhere Rudolph Giuliani (recently anointed as America's mayor by Fox and Friends) announced he was going to run for a third term, which was illegal. Everybody laughed him down.
But that was the day I joined Democratic Underground.
On September 11, I was in Manhattan all day and didn't catch a train back to my neighborhood until well after dark.
Love, Abby: UConn Huskies' forever bond with one magical fan
Sam Borden, ESPN, this morning:
"Even though UConn players are royalty in Connecticut -- Bueckers is arguably the most famous athlete in the state -- there was little fanfare. The bat mitzvah girl, Abby Zittoun, ran up to them with happiness and hugs, but also apologetically informed them she had to keep bouncing around so she could spend time with aunts and uncles and cousins and classmates and her other friends who had come that night, too.
"The players nodded enthusiastically. They understood. This wasn't an appearance or community event. There were no coaches present, no administrators from the UConn athletic department. There was no PR person or team photographer telling them they should play with the kids now. They were, like everyone else, simply there to celebrate someone special. They were guests. (Really, really tall guests.)
"So, they played cornhole. They ate tacos. They barraged the photo booth and filled their Instagram stories. They cheered during musical chairs and the scavenger hunt. Azzi Fudd sat at a table with the grandparents and heard old family stories. When the DJ played the "Cha Cha Slide," Bueckers hopped into the middle of a group stomping and kicking and laughing and shrieking. The "Cupid Shuffle" brought even bigger shouts. Abby's mom, Gwen, whirled and spun. Even Caroline Ducharme, famously averse to dancing, joined in. You could hear Abby's giggles in the parking lot.
"No one talked about UConn's brutal loss in the Final Four a week earlier. No one talked about the upcoming season or injury rehabs or pains from the past or challenges that might still be in front of them. For the players, for the Zittouns, for everyone at the party, it was that rarest of gifts: a night of joy, of glee, of bliss. A night when the delight of the moment is so pure that, just for a split second, it covers over everything else that makes life hard.
"We were there," Bueckers says, "for Abby."
https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/43797060/uconn-women-basketball-paige-bueckers-azzi-fudd-caroline-ducharme-friendship-abby-zittoun
Looks like there WAS a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy after all
In 1996, Richard Mellon Scaife Scaife paid freelancer Christopher Ruddy to write about the Vince Foster case for the Tribune-Review and other right-leaning media.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife#Opposition_to_Bill_Clinton
Folks made fun of First Lady Hillary Clinton when she used the phrase on the Today show in 1998.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy
Today, Christopher Ruddy is the CEO of Newsmax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Ruddy
Mark W. Smith even wrote a joking 2006 book about it: Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_W._Smith
In his book Smith recommended "...conservatives start using "liberal" tactics, identified as judicial activism, rather than stay with the more typical conservative tactics such as judicial restraint, strict construction, or originalism..."
I know those of us who've watched it at work for years are boggled that most Americans don't see it. But now we're faced with the reality. Hillary's words made a great media catchphrase, but she was the first to say it out loud and be made fun of for it.
Lewis Black on voting in America
New video featuring an inspirational essay Lewis Black wrote back in 1986 when he was not yet quite so jaded.
This year GOPs at all levels of government have made it clear they have no interest is solving the country's problems
They are running for election on those problems. They raise money on those problems. In many cases Republicans have caused those exact problems by refusing to legislate.
Repukes don't believe that government is helpful; when they do legislate, they craft bills in such a way as to keep the government from being optimally helpful, usually in favor of profit optimization.
For them all government=bad, all companies=good.
They believe a company can do no wrong and the government can do no right. This is what they've trained to see.
And they have a Supreme Court which will continue to move us that way no matter what the electorate has to say.
Trump is "...trying to offend us..." Who are you calling "us", David Brooks?
A brief rant at David Brooks, millionaire columnist at the New York Times:
Over the many years you've been wrong time after time. You're NEVER right. I can set my watch by it.
Clinton, Jethro Bush, the market crash, Obamacare, Romney, you're always wrong.
Then TFG came along.
This year third-generation immigrant Trumpf has used you over and over like a rancid handi-wipe. And you got paid for that use. You got paid to look down your nose at him, your particular function at the Times.
David Brooks (who lives in a fortified garden) makes a commentary today that Americans live in walled garden. What a revelation! This is the sort of writer who actually uses the disparaging phrase "flyover country" in his editorials.
Occasionally, you deign to dip your toes in the waters of flyover land, David, savoring the edible food and always making a big thing about how the people are "authentic".
What did you discover in a christian nationalist church? That members were honestly moved by their sincere religious beliefs?
GOOD CHRIST, MAN! The residents of Salem, Massachusetts colony were honestly moved by their spiritual beliefs. Jim Jones's believers drank poisoned Flavor-aid because of their sincere religious beliefs. The Pharisees and Sadducees were honestly moved by their spiritual beliefs. Where does it F&*KING END?
David Brooks, you should be careful when you include yourself in a group which wouldn't have you.
Profile Information
Member since: 2001Number of posts: 1,608