My hair isn’t what I imagine it is, flowing locks of youthful rebellion, blinding the establishment with it’s vibrancy. Instead, it’s more of a matted mess. Finally, when I can no longer deny I look and feel like I live under a bridge, I head to the barbers to return me to civilization.
I go when no one else is there, midday. Less waiting. I have nothing better to do at that time other than write lengthy diatribes to you about modern living, but I prefer to do my sulking at night anyway, while most Americans sleep and the mythological truths of life are at their most apparent.
The American barbershop is an inherently political establishment. It is one of the few areas where the working class still gather and the presence of a television is minimized or outright absent. People really talk at a barbershop, and although the discourse is underdeveloped, its still more substantive than anything you’ll hear from the elites on the Sunday morning talk shows.
“He tells it like it is,” the chorus sang as I walked in. “He ain’t beholden to no one,” one customer pipped up. “And he can win.” I immediately recognized the topic of discussion, but said nothing.
They were ready for me right away. I sat in the stool by the window, just like always. It’s the same one I’ve had my hair cut for over 20 years now. Always on a Saturday, because it’s the only day I’m sure I’ll be able to get that seat and that barber. Fear of change keeps me from going anywhere else.
“It looks like your hair is coming in a bit thicker on the top,” my barber, Rinaldo said. “I know the day after they bury me, they’ll find a real cure for baldness.” He’s a stocky guy who never misses a chance to lament his lack of hair. He’s also very political in a non-partisan everyman way. He and every other person there was convinced of presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s authenticity.
“Trump says we can stop ISIS by taking their oil,” a customer said loud enough for everyone to hear. “You take their wealth and they can’t fight anymore.”
“Yeah, that might work,” Rinaldo replied. “Those ISIS guys are bad news… a bunch of lunatics.”
Trump recently called himself the most “militaristic person in the room,” but says murderous violence needs to be used correctly. To what end is never addressed, but the implication is that force is preferable so long as there is no blowback.
Trump has what I like to call a Transformers-esque foreign policy. What’s the plot? What do the bad guys want? Who cares?! These racist robots with testicles don’t need a reason to kick Decepticon butt. Now let’s get to the explosions. It’s no wonder he’s so popular.
Donald Trump truly is the voice of the people. Trump is brash, unapologetic, and completely without pretense of unsophistication. His political views appear to be based on gut instinct and have no cohesive or specific qualities. In all, a perfect match for the American public, especially the Republican Party which always prefers direct violence to anything resembling a measured response.
“There’s just one problem with his approach,” I interrupted. “ISIS, those are our guys… CIA and the Obama administration I mean. They helped create ISIS to fight Assad and the US military still needs them to fight in Syria.”
According to a new memoir by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the now retired head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the military fully intended to arm and fund Al Queda in Iraq to fight against Assad in Syria at least far back as 2011. Many anti-war critics predicted arming “moderate” Syrian rebels might backfire should they ever gain power in the country or expand their operations elsewhere. We now know not only was this exactly what happened, but the Pentagon knew this outcome was likely.
“Even if that’s the case,” Rinaldo said. “What are we going to do about them now? This Frankenstein monster you say we’ve created? We’ve got to hit them.”
My reply, paraphrasing Jesus, “You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”
“Well, yeah that’s true,” he said. That about killed the conversation, as my opinions tend to do. I’m such a buzzkill. The few remaining customers paid and cleared out, but we weren’t done talking about Trump.
“You know, in Germany… before Hitler I mean, the political parties were a lot like ours,” he said as he clipped about scatter-shot around my head.
“Yeah, they were totally hated.”
“Right. And Hitler came in and started telling everyone what they wanted to hear. What were their two main political parties again?” He had just about stopped cutting my hair by this point. “You don’t have any where to go do you?”
“No. It’s fine.” I said. “I can’t remember their names, but they were a part of the Wiemar Republic.”
“Wiemar… Well, it doesn’t matter. Basically, they couldn’t tell their heads from their backsides and really messed up their country. Hitler came in and called them out on their baloney. That’s how he got in.”
“So you’re saying Trump is a demagogue?” I asked.
“Well, I think a lot of people just want someone to do something.”
That really cuts to the heart of Trump’s appeal. So tight is the grip of the establishment oligarchs, so mechanized is seemingly every component of life, that voting for someone who retains even the slightest passion and individuality is appealing.
The commodity culture that rose out of the advertising age told people they could purchase a sense of identity through the pride of ownership. This is problematic in a country with so much debt it eclipses the faint illusion of dignity that debt buys. Similarly, politics promises one can vote for an identity. It may seem completely illogical that voting for a politician could ever fill the massive hole in their lives roughly shaped like a soul, but so too is buying a car, or a house, or any other plastic piece of junk.
Trump’s pompous and aggressive behavior appeals to the Republican base, who would settle for a kick in the face for every man, woman, and child if it would give their lonely lives just the slightest bit of meaning. But his broad support extends well beyond the Republican party. However misplaced, Trump benefits from the desperation of a dispossessed middle class as the nation’s institutions prove incapable of solving virtually any problem.
Americans are becoming desperate in their rejection of traditional politics. Nihilism is emerging as the dominant political movement of the 21st century. And when nothing is true, everything is permitted… even voting for a total lunatic.
by Karl Denninger
Janet Weighs In On Trump
Janet says it well….
Those of you who read my last post, “Wall Street Tale of Sex, Suicides, and Skullduggery,” know I have experience working with aggressive men. At the start of the debate, Megyn Kelly brought up some unflattering comments that Mr. Trump made about a few women, and Kelly said some might feel this is part of a “war on women.” Really? It seems to me that people who categorize brash remarks as “war” have no sense of proportion.
Of course not. But a fair question is who crafted — and approved — the question? Notice that there has been zero exposition on that point. Gee, I wonder why.
I’ve had some experience with actual war on women. (See: “Fundamentalist Islam and the Roots of Terrorism.”) In Iran, men brutalized women about their clothing. Men took away women’s rights to appear in public, play public sports, and participate in many areas of public life. As for women controlling their own bodies, a woman can be stoned to death for adultery. The marriage age was lowered to nine for girls, then raised to thirteen, and now there is a proposal to lower the age to nine again. Moreover, there is a proposal to allow men to adopt girls, and as their “father,” they can give consent for their adopted daughter to marry them; it is a pedophiles dream. That is my idea of a war on women. Yet I have heard no criticism of President Obama for doing an Iran Deal with men who wage physical war on women.
Of course not. Nor is anyone going after our government (on both sides of the aisle) for all their “deals”, including selling and giving arms away, to Saudi Arabia which has a long and current history of brutalizing and belittling women. That too is an actual, physical war.
It seems that Mr. Trump is correct that national policies need to be changed. While only a small percentage of illegal immigrants may commit crimes, if illegal immigration were completely stopped, the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants would drop to zero.
My point exactly, as put forward here.
As for Trump’s point on H1Bs, tell me again why you use and buy products advertised on Facebook given the revelation that the firm’s CEO is actively trying to triple the number of foreigners who will take high-paying jobs from Americans?
Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
How has that revelation not resulted in an immediate detonation of the firm’s userbase and organization of advertiser boycotts?
ARE YOU REALLY SO STUPID, AMERICA, AS TO SIGN YOUR OWN LAYOFF NOTICE?
I was enjoying this write-up until he said this: “And when nothing is true, everything is permitted… even voting for a total lunatic.”
Trump is kicking the hornet’s nest that needs kicking. I’m a rebel so I identify with him. Whether or not he can/will win is another matter, but I like him spitting in the Establishment’s face.
The fact that Trump even mentions the debt and our loss of jobs is appealing. The rest act like everything is going great. I noticed Ben Carson saying Trump like stuff about our border. Carson seems pretty smart.But he is so quiet and its like he is lecturing when he speaks. We have a ways to go with our next election. I hope the country is still in one piece then.
Agree with most of the above comments, yet I still wonder of motives. Is Trump just another ploy to split the GOP and insure a Demo president? I think that most agree that the current group of politicians are worthless to the public. The Donald certainly taps into that discontent…but to what end. After all, who is he really? He has been a participant in the rape of this country, has he changed? Yes, a money making machine… at whose expense? Confusingly, despite the contradictions, I lean toward him and his ‘crazy’ proposals. Just saying…
“However misplaced, Trump benefits from the desperation of a dispossessed middle class as the nation’s institutions prove incapable of solving virtually any problem.”
That assumes that “the nation’s institutions” are trying to solve problems. A much stronger case could be made that they are trying to create problems so that they have something to solve, thus continue to exist. And why would the nation’s middle class be dispossessed if they weren’t actively being dispossessed by their nation’s leaders and institutions? I don’t pretend to have any answers, but the author sure as hell isn’t asking the right questions.
I would love to see a race between Trump and Sanders.
I suppose I’d vote for the Donald, but either way, it would be one gigantic ‘fuck you!’ to the political establishment that runs this country.