Posted on 01/20/2016 8:02:03 AM PST by Kaslin
"Power," Henry Kissinger once told The New York Times, "is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Kissinger might amend that statement today: Now, fame is power, and thus replaces power as the ultimate aphrodisiac. In fact, fame isn't just an aphrodisiac -- it's the ultimate nepenthe, a drug causing forgetfulness. The more famous our politicians are, the more we neglect their positions and character. No wonder the most admired woman in America is criminal Hillary Clinton, the most admired man is criminal Barack Obama, and the second-most admired man is loudmouth Donald Trump.
We assume that fame inoculates our politicians for the same reason we check Yelp reviews: If there are tons of people who recommend a restaurant, they can't all have been bribed. If tons of people like and support a politician, then, he or she must be worthwhile.
But this logic doesn't always work. If several people stand on a street corner and simultaneously look up in the air for no reason, passersby will begin staring up into the air, looking for the rationale behind the mass gaze. Our human desire for informational shortcuts -- our willingness to take another's word for it -- means that we end up looking like idiots when someone points out there's nothing up there.
Our media-reinforcing cycle of fame is more like a street corner of skyward-looking nincompoops than an aggregation of Yelp reviews. Our elites tell us that we ought to look at a given candidate in a given way; we then react to those elites by following their spotlight. Donald Trump has received nearly half of all media coverage in the Republican race since he announced his campaign. That means that a lot of people are willing to overlook his flubs and his foibles -- he's a known face, and that fame protects him from comments that would hurt any other candidate.
The problem here isn't Trump. It's our entire culture of politics. Barack Obama has made ubiquity an art form -- it's hard to imagine that someone who appears regularly with YouTube stars to talk about tampon taxes could actually be malignant. Joe Biden appears on "Parks and Recreation." Hillary Clinton dances with Ellen and makes awful jokes on "Saturday Night Live." Our politicians know that exposure makes us comfortable with them.
In truth, we should never be comfortable with our politicians. We should never trust them. Star worship of Ronald Reagan on the right leads establishment Republicans to idolize even his worst failures, like amnesty; star worship of Bill Clinton on the left leads Democrats to pooh-pooh his brutal treatment of women, and his wife's enabling of that behavior. Our celebrities have become royals, and our politicians have become celebrities.
That means we crown ourselves a king or queen every four years. And America needs no kings and queens. We need unimportant, decent people who focus on how to make themselves unimportant in our lives.
But that's not what we get. Instead, we get glitz and glamour, fun and frolicking with the people who control our freedoms. That's dangerous. We are dangerous, not Trump or even Obama or Hillary Clinton. Until we check our own impulse to blindly follow our celebrity political class, we shouldn't be surprised when our celebrities become politicians and our politicians become tyrants.
The salient word is “cult”.
Wait a second, now.
Cruz folks are the ones who act like they think Ted Cruz is the Messiah, and if you support some other candidate, then you’ve betrayed America and hate Jesus.
Trump’s folk seem to accept that he’s a flawed candidate.
If there’s someone who’s cultish - it’s the Cruz supporters.
Perhaps the problem here isn’t the “culture of Yelp politics” that doesn’t got he way the RINO establishment wants, but one of overall complete distrust in how that RNC-RINO go-along, get along establishment has bent us over that table all these years and rammed it up our keester.
This seems to me nothing more than a backhanded chickensh!t way of inferring the endorsement of Sarah Palin doesn’t mean sh!t in the scheme of things.
If you believe this, then I guess we’ll all see come this November.
Wait a second, now.
Cruz folks are the ones who act like they think Ted Cruz is the Messiah, and if you support some other candidate, then you’ve betrayed America and hate Jesus.
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That’s simply disingenuous.
All the hyperbole that Trump is the only one who can save America coming from the Trump supporters is no different than what you attribute to the Cruz supporters.
It’s 2016. It’s not that surprising that a potential politician who has been on reality TV crap and pro wrestling for years and years is so popular. He probably would be no matter what views he actually espoused, as long as dissatisfaction with the status quo is also expressed.
I think he has a really good shot, you have to think swing voters and the 50-40% of eligible voters that don’t vote are at least more familiar with him as opposed to most regular non celeb type pols.
Freegards
Isn't it comforting to know that the GOPe writers coordinate their columns :- )
At this point, these Town Halls lectures are merely cries of desperation, but we'll see more of them till the GOPe donor money dries up. And that would be about the time that Jeb's campaign gives up the ghost.
I guess I’m a cult member then. I just think the
DNC will tear preacher Ted apart next November.
Why is it that now all these so-called conservative pundits are furiously lecturing the GOP base?
Once upon a time, they were anti-establishment. They claimed that the RNC was preventing conservatives from taking over the party.
Now they have a frontrunner with billions of dollars and an incredible ability to attract new Republican voters.
Most importantly, he is serious about the three biggest issues the country faces today: immigration, Islam, and a DEAD ECONOMY.
If Donald Trump ONLY solved those three problems, he would rank as a GREAT president.
But somehow this logic doesn’t penetrate the heads of our so-called pundits. They either don’t think America is in real trouble, they’re plainly jealous, or something isn’t working right in their brains...
Now isn’t the time for the faint-hearted, and especially not the faint-headed.
That bad boy was just "too pretty" to put in jail, so our hormones put him in the White House twice at a time when we certainly were well past being old enough to know better.
How many grew up during those eight years of debauchery thinking that was how it's supposed to be and then graduated into life playing by those rules?
Consequences, followed by consequences, followed by consequences...how about we break this chain and start over!
Absolutely none of Trump’s long held positions matter to Trump supporters. They have all eagerly pressed the “I believe†button,and willfully disregard any possibility that they are being bamboozled.
Trump plays the media, who we all hate, like a fiddle, and that is enough apparently. Big government is now acceptable, if we are in charge.
I sure hope his supporters are right, but my five decades of life tells me that P.T. Barnum is usually more correct.
Facts:
1) Except in the very odd/exceptional election year of 1964, the Dems haven’t cracked 50% of the whites in a Presidential election since 1932.
2) Once the ‘64 election was over, the Dems understood that they would never win another Presidential election again unless the Republicans REALLY screwed up...or unless they changed the electorate in a dramatic way.
3) The Dems, courtesy of Bobby Kennedy who wrote the law, and Teddy Kennedy who pushed it in the Senate, passed the 1965 Immigration Act. That law dramatically reduced immigration from our then-traditional large sources of immigrants - England, Ireland, Holland, Germany, etc. - and replaced them with vast numbers of Turd Worlders...whom everyone knows vote around 80% for Dems, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, as new immigrants have traditionally done.
4) As a result of the ‘65 Act, and due to the Dem’s outright lying in ‘86 regarding an effective (or any) fence, there are now probably 30 - 40 million illegals in this nation. Note that the (probably low-ball) figure in 2005 was 11 million...we have 2-3 million come in every year, so simple math says that the number is actually somewhere between 31 and 41 million). If any substantial portion of these people ever become citizens, then the Dems will have accomplished a complete shift of the electorate, and will be virtually invincible on the national level. Every state will become like California, both politically and economically - which is to say, overwhelming Dem and broke. But at least if you don’t like California now, you can leave for a better place without much trouble - where are you going to go if EVERY state is like that?
5) Every Republican, and every Conservative voter MUST UNDERSTAND that if such a state of affairs comes to be, NO OTHER ISSUE WILL MATTER AT ALL, because we will ALWAYS AND FOREVER lose on those issues. Immigration is THE issue of this election, and this election is as critical as the 1860 election was - and for the same reason, because it will determine whether this nation continues on as it has existed in the past, or becomes a new and unrecognizable entity that simply occupies the same geographic territory.
Please wake up, and help others to do so by sending them this post (or recommending “Adios America” to them). It really is THAT important.
Lol, then you haven’t said anything not complimentary about Trump.
Someone posts a picture of Trump with Reagan taken in the 80’s. I mentioned That they really should post the picture of him with Bill and Hilary at his wedding, and Trump supporters were all “you’re just jealous because he didn’t invite you.”
one on thread a Trump supporter kept saying “he’s going to make america great again.”
Any question of how was greeted by “He’s going to, he said so.”
He endorsed Mayor DeBlasio and there are people defending that.
He wants his sister, a staunch pro-abortion judge on the Supreme Court, freepers are ok with that.
He wants to bring jobs back to America, yet freepers are ignoring that his clothing line is manufactured in Mexico and China.
He donates money to Democrats and freepers are ok with that, and are willing to vote for this guy, yet when a Hollywood actor says that they support a liberal idea or candidate, it’s a race to pile on the celebrity.
I can’t explain it any other way than it being a cult of personality.
Trump’s personality sucks, he is a pompous blowhard braggadocio and a Yankee to boot. I am still voting for him DESPITE his messed up personality.
The Media and especially comedy will Palinize Ted Cruz x10. He and his father will be sent up day and night. Trump is immune to this, Ted is not.
Messiah? No, but Cruz is an ideological match for Constitutional, small-government conservatives.
He’s extremely intelligent and a gifted speaker. Finally, he’s a fighter.
Before a NYC liberal captured so many Freeper hearts, Cruz was considered to embody the best mix of attributes..
Borders, language, culture. These are the defining characteristics of a nation and must be enforced to ensure its’ survival.
Trump is the only one speaking to this issue through his immigration proposals. Nothing is more important to our long term survival. Nothing.
I like them all and will vote for any of them, I want to have a winner.Look at the Dem candidates all duds, what is keeping their good people from stepping forward, they are controlled by a few.The GOP is open for new talent.
Nope. There are a powerful lot of Cruz supporters who go way beyond merely thinking he’s the best candidate, and who delve into the sort of apocalyptic “Ted Cruz can set everything right” territory. Probably some Trump supporters do too, but the Cruz folk seem to be the ones who really go at it with the sort of messianic fervour of the true believer, which is probably why so many of them are turning into insufferable [deleted].
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