Binders Full Of Oppressed Women
Video has been deleted. Transcript below.
Listen, I'm not here to push the idea of a Trump presidency or a Trump nomination or even a Trump casino. The best thing I can say about such a thing is that the last time this country elected an actor/TV personality/know-nothing, his name was Ronald Reagan and he was responsible for the greatest turnaround this country has seen since the Battle of Midway.
But if you didn't find this exchange and its aftermath to be one of the most important things that has happened on the public stage this year, you're not paying attention. And if you contrast it to what happened at the Netroots Nation conference a month and a half ago, it's even more instructive.
Let's discuss the question first:
KELLY:You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. On your Twitter account, your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks...
TRUMP: Only Rosie O'Donnell.
(Audience applause)
KELLY:No, it wasn’t. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?
The fact of the matter is that insulting people is part of Trump's public persona. Someone has made a ten hour supercut of Trump insults. But the question isn't really about his temperament; it's about his decision to insult women the same way he insults men.
Isn't that one of the goals of the equalist society? To have men and women treated in exactly the same manner? To eliminate all vestiges of charity, chivalry, and deference? Ask any feminist and that's what you will be told. But when it actually happens --- when men dare to treat women like men, all of a sudden IT'S AN ISSUE.
Note, for example, what happened to poor Rayon McIntosh. Warning, clip contains strong language:
If that's two men who jump over the counter to attack the guy, you can't tell me that anybody's going to have a problem with it. It's self-defense, plain and simple. But change the sex of the attackers, and the Huffington Post decides to describe it as "A McDonald's cashier is caught on a horrific cell phone video using a metal rod to brutally beat two female customers who'd jumped the counter of his West 4th Street restaurant early Thursday during a fight over their order."
A fight over their order? There was no fight over the order. He scanned the $50 bill --- which is his job --- and the women taunt, threaten, and, after he retreats, chase him with the purpose of injuring him. The HuffPo helpfully tells us that McIntosh murdered someone when he was 19, by the way, just in case we failed to get the message that he is a terrrrrrrible Black Man.
Why didn't Rayon McIntosh receive the same benediction given by the media to Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Because he hit a couple of women. This, by the way, is what happens when you let FeelsVille identity politics rule the day.
Let's make up a sign that stands for "is automatically guilty in any confrontation with, no matter what the fuck actually happened" and let's make that sign, oh, I don't know, "!!!!*!!!!". So, in the world of FeelsVille:
Cop !!!!*!!!! Black Man
but
Black Man !!!!*!!!! Black Woman
and
Straight Man !!!!*!!!! Lesbian Woman
so you can plainly see why Rayon was judged guilty by the HuffPo. Now, when the cases actually came to trial, Rayon was exonerated and his two attackers were convicted. That's why we need an actual rule of law in this country as opposed to the dictatorship of the media or the proletariat.
And I'll tell you something else: everybody at that restaurant knew Rayon was in the right. How do we know that? Because of the white woman screaming "STAHHHHHHHHP IT!!!!!" She wasn't saying anything when the women went after Rayon. She knew, somehow, that Rayon might listen. That he was actually not the aggressor and she might convince him to lay off. Had two thugged-out brothers come in there and started beating Rayon within an inch of his life, do you think she'd have spoken up?
Okay, long digression here, but let's return to Mr. Trump and his response to Ms. Kelly:
I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been – I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China and Mexico in trade at the border. We lose to everybody. Frankly what I say and often times it’s fun, kidding, we have a good time. What I say is what I say. And honestly, Megyn if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably not be based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.
Was the headline the next day "TRUMP CALLS OUT COUNTRY FOR LOSING TO CHINA AND MEXICO?" Of course not. The only people to even notice were the folks at the Washington Post who then wrote a totally fucking Orwellian article assuring us that China is actually not kicking our ass at all:
The China he conjures is strong and powerful, while the U.S. is beating a lame retreat. It is a narrative that seems to resonate stateside but is starkly at odds with how China sees itself. China, in its own eyes, is not a "winner"—yet—but an emerging economy trying to get back on track after a century of humiliation. What, they might ask, did America "lose?" (Trump did not specify.)
Tell me you can read that without feeling nauseous. What kind of through-the-looking-glass world does the Post live in if they cannot see that China has assumed control of everything from textiles to supercomputing? Is it willful ignorance or outright treason? It's beyond a sick joke. Trump didn't have to "specify what America lost" because he was speaking to a nation of 330 million people who know perfectly well what America has lost.
Jobs. Manufacturing capacity. Engineering capacity. Scientific capacity. Military capacity.
We know these things because we live in the real world where you literally cannot purchase an electronic device with the majority of its parts made in the Western world. We were all told that the "tech economy" would make up for the wholesale transfer of our manufacturing base to China but it turns out that in the "tech economy" it's 80% Indians doing the white-collar work and 95% the Asian tigers doing the manufacturing. What do Americans do, exactly? Drive the Google Bus?
Nobody but the Post bothered with that, however. They focused on DONALD TRUMP'S OMG DISRESPECT TO ROSIE O'DONNELL. Okay, he was disrespectful to her. So what? How the holy hell is "respect to Rosie O'Donnell" one of the criteria for election to the leadership of the free world? So he called her a "fat pig". She is a fat pig. That's as true as calling me "forty pounds overweight" or the endless criticism Trump gets about his hair. She's a public figure who makes a living being fat and loud and gay and obnoxious. If he'd called Chris Farley a "fat pig" before Farley's death, would this be a matter for the nation to consider?
With that said, let me tell you why we could do worse than Donald Trump for a president: He's not afraid of conflict, and he understands that you can often accomplish with aggression what would cost money or blood otherwise. Look at Mr. Obama for a counter-example. Has there ever been a milder, weaker, or more feminine president than Momma's Boy Obama, product of an adventurous single mom and a special-snowflake upbringing? Has there ever been a president more likely to appease our enemies, bow before our critics? And did any of this meek-mugging save a single American life? Did our enemies ever decide not to kill an American soldier or civilian because they were impressed by Mr. Obama's self-abasement and sense of shame about being American? Did Mrs. Obama's well-known contempt for Americans ever stay the hand of an Islamic militant?
Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, was a loose cannon who was portrayed as an insane, mentally ill old man by the world media from New York to Moscow --- and it worked.
Just think about that.
I don't know if anybody serious expected Trump to apologize for the capital crime of DISRESPECTING ROSIE. Maybe they did. I mean, look what Mr. O'Malley did in a vaguely similar situation:
Tia Oso of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, who represented the demonstrators, climbed onto the stage, secured a microphone, and delivered a speech while O'Malley looked on.
"We are going to hold this space. We are going to acknowledge the names of black women who have died in police custody. And Governor O'Malley, we do have questions for you ... As the leader of this nation, will you advance a racial justice agenda that will dismantle -- not reform, not make progress -- but will begin to dismantle structural racism in the United States?"
"Yes," O'Malley replied, but before he could say more, the demonstrators in front of the stage shouted over him by reciting names of black women who have died in police custody. While they shouted, O'Malley stood in silence... The demonstrators started shouting and booing again when O'Malley said: "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter."
O'Malley later apologized for the remarks, telling This Week in Blackness, a digital news site, that he "meant no disrespect" to the black community.
"That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect," O'Malley told the outlet. "I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue."
And when he stepped off stage, he chanted, "Black lives matter! Black lives matter!"
BLACK LIVES MATTER! BLACK LIVES MATTER! FOUR LEGS GOOD! TWO LEGS BETTER!
This milquetoast mook apologized for implying that "All lives matter". Think about that. He apologized for saying that all lives are of equal worth. Isn't that a key component of secular humanism? But he abandoned it without even the pretense of courage. And having quickly read which way the wind was blowing, he adopted the chant forced on him before he even left the stage.
You want that guy dealing with Vladimir Putin? He'll leave the conference room chanting "Mother Russia must rise!" Imagine you're a leader of one of the many East Asian nations whose security against China is guaranteed in part or whole by the United States. You want us to elect a guy who can't even face down a bunch of loudmouth demonstrators without immediately capitulating, apologizing, then parroting their demands?
Then poor Bernie Sanders got up. Bernie's credentials as a progressive were unimpeachable --- until that moment. They didn't care that he's spent fifty years in the corner of African-Americans. They wanted him to chant or shut up. To his credit, he refused:
Sanders proceeded to deliver his usual presidential stump speech over sporadic shouting from below.
After talking over one another, Sanders eventually ditched pre-planned remarks and tried to address questions from demonstrators.
"Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed," Sanders said. "It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system."
When Sanders cited the Affordable Care Act as a law he supported that helped people of color by making health insurance more accessible, one man shouted, "we can't afford that!"
Before Sanders finished speaking, many of the protesters walked out on him toward exit doors in the back.
They left because they weren't interested in doing anything other than displaying their power. And Bernie didn't give them exactly what they wanted, so they left.
Note that Bernie hit the economic note hard --- over 50% of young Black people unemployed --- but nobody listened, or cared. The coverage the next day was "SANDERS STUMBLES ON #BLACKLIVESMATTER."
In many ways, our media functions exactly like a compressor does in the creation and recording of music. Anything within range gets boosted; anything outside the range simply disappears. Nobody's talking today about jobs, or economic competitiveness, or whether Trump's right about China. They're talking about Rosie O'Donnell and disrespect to women. But it's worth noting that the audience that tuned in for the debate was the largest in history. Some of it was just to see Trump, obviously. But one wonders how much longer people will be interested in that media filter. How much longer people will want their news Auto-Tuned. (Insert Gregory Brothers joke here.) How much longer people will have any interest in being told who and what they're allowed to consider as worthy of consideration. About one in ten adult Americans tuned in last night to hear Mr. Trump speak for themselves.
I'd call that a victory for democracy, no matter who wins this election.