I’ve heard the things they’re saying about him and I do not agree and it makes me wonder if they’ve never done anything by committee. I’ve done things by committee or no, not done but been part of, and committees and split-up power, I know, are how you get results that nobody loves. Results everyone tolerates and nobody loves.
And with committees and split-up power, “compromise” cannot become a bad word or else nothing gets done. You probably know this, already you know this of course, what am I saying, and maybe you don’t want anything to get done and that’s fine but if you do, then “compromise” cannot be made a bad word. Committees + split-up power = compromisocracy. Watered down middle ground both you and I can live with.
It’s like… music you’d hear over the PA at Walmart. If I were picking the music, it would not be Michael Bolton and Nickelback but if I were picking the music, a couple people would love it and many people would hate it. Reeeeally hate it. Many people would stop shopping at Walmart.
Music I’d pick would never survive committee.
So when the President of the country where I live compromises and everyone laughs at him and everyone says he caved then I say, “No, no, don’t do that” to everyone. Don’t laugh if you want him to compromise again. If you want anything to get done which maybe you don’t but if you do then encourage him.
It’s not caving, it’s Walmart music for all of us until we tear it all down and start over.
I don't think it was so much a compromise as it was a stall tactic. Trump is a moron, but a shrewd moron. The shut down didn't work and he still needs to appease his base, so he will issue an executive order in a few weeks to build his wall. A fellow blogger posted photos on January 23rd of a large military troop movement toward the border (http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2019/01/a-drive-through-organ-pipe-cactus.html). Just a few days before the shut down ended. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any alternative for him but the whole "national emergency" thing, but I'm wrong a lot.
DeleteWe are indeed suffering from political muzak. I can't help but think that the public is being distracted from the kinds of weighty issues that would perhaps bring about panic if they were to rise to the fore of national consciousness. I pay attention to the music going on in the background. I'm kind of relieved to hear disparaging words from you about Michael Bolton. I have to say though, that the worst muzak I ever heard was a Christmas rap song in Spanish that I heard in a recently opened grocery store. It was memorable because it was so horrible... perhaps much like the recent government shutdown.
ReplyDeleteI was being really lazy by picking Bolton and Nickelback as my targets. Should have said U2 and Beyonce or something that someone would have been more likely to disagree with me on. I went with the obvious targets but I was writing quickly and didn't feel like arguing.
DeleteI don't see it as a cave so much as a sloppy strategy to begin with. I don't really even see it as a strategy so much as a tantrum. It's not even to "appease the base" as most pundits attribute it to. It's just Donald, acting like a baby that can't get his way.
ReplyDeleteCompromise is good, and I will applaud him if this ends in compromise. At the moment it looks like it'll end in another shutdown or an executive power play. I'll compliment when he acts like an adult. In the meantime I'll chide him like a child. Bad president! Sit!
I do worry that if he'd gotten his wall, that we'd have government by blackmail. The next democrat could get in and say, "Nothing will happen at all until I get X [Medicare For All or whatever the big campaign issue turns out to be]."
DeleteSeparation of powers is meant to be a pain in the ass, and it takes a certain temperament to deal with it.
I can't comment on Trump, it gets my blood pressure too high
ReplyDeleteI am breaking my own rule by even bringing him up here but my rules are made to be broken.
DeleteUnfortunately I don't think he learned anything from this. Ok, someone did spell "prerogative" for him on one of his tweets (or he learned spellcheck). He creates a crisis (remember the attack of the caravan and the need for troops) to provide a diversion and maybe jack-up his base. Yes I wish compromise was more common in out government. I don't see him changing. He loves a fight and in his distorted world he has never lost a fight.
ReplyDeleteThese caravans do seem to pop up at convenient times and then disappear just as quickly. I just hate to be a conspiracy theorist like that, but...
DeleteI don't call that conspiracy thinking. It's just paying attention to how he operates.
DeleteI have said that, you know, I'm in Houston. I have observed undocumented people for many years. They succeed by operating in the shadows. You don't notice them. Housekeeping comes into my office and most people don't even see the woman cleaning. Etc. I work at a non-profit, and undocumented folks hardly even seek free services.
DeleteThis caravan seems a LOT different than the southern immigrants' usual MO.
Democrats should have offered Trump his wall, for an ageless restriction on Medicare. Pretty damn good compromise to me.
ReplyDeleteEspecially since long stretches of the southern border had walls and fences under prior Presidents. I remember reading a story about Bush and Obama taking ranchers' land under eminent domain and how it was getting tied up in the courts. Even in the era of Trump, I am consistently disappointed by how consistent a lot of the questionable stuff we do remains from administration to administration and how few of us seem to notice.
DeletePolitical analysts said right from the start that Trump was painting himself into a corner on this issue. They were right.
ReplyDeleteIt's a real mess but it retains the issue for the 2020 campaign so mission accomplished maybe.
DeleteI didn't notice they played music in Walmart. That says it all. As a dj it's my job to work out what the party want to hear, often it's not what I want to play, but I don't care, as long as I get people dancing. My days of being a music snob are over. If they want Boney M, I give Boney M.
ReplyDeleteI was in Walmart the other day (a rare event but one which I had little control over), talking to my brother with blue tooth headphones in, so he could hear what was going on around me better than I could. He asked, "Where are you that they're playing Creed?" I hadn't noticed it was playing.
DeleteI've given up watching the news because the sight of that mans face sends me into a blind rage and his face is everywhere so I'm angry a lot. So he compromised did he? And I suppose he's on every example of social media that exists complimenting himself?
ReplyDeleteDo you feel better not watching the news? I do. I've been keeping up with local politics more, national politics less, and I feel more informed and way less angry. I think I'll do some more of this.
Delete"Be nice to the Monster and he'll be our friend." eh? "Forget he's a monster, give him a break f'cryin' out loud!" you say? um. sorry. it ain't me, babe. I'm the guy poking sticks in the monster's eyes. He deliberately created the problem, then he deliberately UNcreated the problem. For a minute. Changing the drumbeat at will.
ReplyDeleteI want his flaying and eventual evisceration to be played out as the very publicly public spectacle that Trumpenstein himself wants it to be. Meantime? I'll be over here making popcorn. and sharpening more sticks.
beej in TN
At the end of Mussolini's reign, some villagers shot him and his girlfriend and then hung them upside down in the town square so the villagers could beat their bodies with sticks.
DeleteMuammar Qaddafi was sodomized with a knife.
Bad governance can end badly. I'm an optimist. I wouldn't like to see that happen here. At the very least, I wouldn't go out to the town square with a stick.
Mussolini? Too late. Hitler? Too Late. Everyone convicted and HUNG ... AFTER ... the Nuremberg trials? TOO LATE for the ones that died BEFORE them and because of them. Bad governance can end badly, alright. None of those villagers WANTED to see that happen over there. They didn't want to pick up a stick, either. Most of them didn't. Sharp Sticks decided the issue, though. Wouldn't you agree? As long as big eyed monsters exist there will be a need for sharp sticks. Regardless of how optimistic you are about the monster's behavior. Having Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes as President is just a reminder of that.
DeleteI'm not optimistic in the least about national politics. Not even a little bit. I'm just slowly getting as frustrated with "liberals" as I have been with "conservatives."
DeleteNever been on a committee, but I've been in a few bands, and that felt kinda feckless and ineffective, so similar, maybe?
ReplyDeleteCompromise would perhaps be a good thing to teach him, were he teachable on any subject whatever, but should definitely get in line behind empathy and human decency.
Then there's inescapable reality, and how do you compromise with someone arguing in bad faith over an issue they don't actually care about that was given to them by handlers as a device to keep them on topic at rallies?
I, myself, am more concerned with his malignant narcissism as a danger to our safety, and wonder if perhaps publicly losing to Nancy Pelosi will teach him that losing is something that happens to everyone in politics and doesn't require a military response to demonstrate his manhood.
So put me in the "there should be consequences" column, for all the damn good it'll probably do.
-Doug in Oakland
I've thought about that with bands, especially bands that I know had a megalomaniac in them. I've read about how Genesis and Yes did things in the very early Seventies, where everybody got at least one song on the album and things were done pretty democratically.
DeleteThen there's what happened to Pink Floyd or, my favorite, Lou Reed's backing bands. Apparently, it would get so bad with Lou reed that his backing guys would call up record critics like David Fricke and ask them not to mention them in his album or live reviews because if they did, Reed would get jealous and fire them.
Lou was a leftist but seems to have had a few things in common with Donald Trump.
I liked Lou Reed well enough, even saw him play once (at the Amnesty show. He introduced "Walk on the Wild Side" as "The Honda Motor Scooter Song".) but I had a friend who developed a heroin problem and obsessively listened to Lou Reed when he was high on heroin, so now every time I hear any of his music past what they always played on the radio, I remember Matt and his girlfriend and their heroin habit in the early nineties.
DeleteI still have a hard time with the whole Laurie Anderson thing, even though I understand that it's none of my business...
-Doug in Oakland
Reed's 1992 "Magic and Loss" is in my top ten faves of all time - it's fantastic - and I like "Songs for Drella," VU's "White Light/White Heat" and a couple others. I wish I had never read anything about him, though.
DeleteLaurie Anderson said she kept Reed in line by not living with him, thereby not letting him bully her. Which sounds like it might have taken a jerk to control a jerk. His friends liked her, which is more than can be said for how Neil Young's friends talk about Daryl Hannah.
I'm such a gossip, jeez...
How could you not like a girl who put William Burroughs in a pop song.
Delete"You know I see two tiny pictures of myself, and there's one of them in each of your eyes..."
-Doug in Oakland
She did an album with William Burroughs and Brion Gysin in the early 80s. I mean, it was the three of them. Still, she's a little self-consciously artsy for me, which is a stunningly high bar considering some of the music I listen to.
DeleteI think he is compromised already by the Russkys. Kompromat is their word for it, I believe.
ReplyDeleteCompromise? I think it is a impossibility, but I hope I am wrong.
That sounds like it could be Rudy Giuliani's next Meet the Press appearance argument: "They say he's never compromised, but when we've listened in on Russian intelligence, 'compromised' is practically the only word used!"
DeleteIf we're tearing things down, can we start with the electoral college? It seems like popular vote is smarter than them. Popular would not have produced a president that can't compromise.
ReplyDeleteUnder the current system, YOUR vote is worth about 6-7 times mine in Presidential elections!
DeleteY'all get 3 electoral votes (which is the minimum) even though your population doesn't justify it, really.
I worry about having a Constitutional Convention in the current political climate but maybe it's time.
I don't seem to be able to discuss this issue without wanting to scream... at almost everyone. I think the physical wall is more than problematic and wasteful. But for anyone to think that that politics can be done without compromising is really silly. And laughing at the failure of a government that is not working properly--regardless of whose fault it might be--is just stupid.
ReplyDeleteYou know, though, I always felt like we could criticize prominent politicians of the past without their knowing. If I tweeted something mean about Bush or Obama (and I don't think I ever did, but if I had), I wouldn't have had this feeling that they were reading it and acting out in response.
DeleteI can't say that today. There's a reasonable chance that if I do a mean tweet against President Trump, he could read it, you know, get rid of TANF or something in anger in response.
Would Never Survive Committee would be a great name for a rock band.
ReplyDeleteYou know, um, yeah! That is... a fantastic name for a rock band. Bill the Butcher, coming back into the comment-sphere with a bang!
DeleteI don't know what to say? I just think of the John Lennon video, in bed with Yoko. Can't we all just get along? by the way, great photo!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stacy. Apparently, had I waited another half hour to take that picture on the night I took it, I could have gotten the moon in eclipse. I had no idea.
DeleteMusic????
ReplyDeleteI think that's the band playing while the ship's sinking!
There's supposed to be some great art made when societies fall apart.
DeleteApparently, the Titanic orchestra was playing a song called "Autumn" as the ship sank. A composer named Gavin Bryars has an entire album called "The Sinking of the Titanic" where it sounds like "Autumn is being played underwater.
American politics is a mystery to me. Then again, I like Nickelback, so maybe I'm a mystery too.
ReplyDelete