Santa Ana Court, Orange County, CA
In most historical understandings, there’s usually a catch-phrase, a distillation if you will, of some newsworthy event which just transpired. For instance, in 1936 in the UK it was a simple one-word headline in the Times of London: ABDICATION! On December 8, 1941 here in America it was WAR!. Things like that.
In legal proceedings that gripped the public’s imagination, more words were needed –but not many more. During Watergate we had “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”. During the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, the catch-phrases were “pubic hair on a Coke can” and “high-tech lynching”. The entire McCarthy era is summarized by “Are you now, or have ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”.
This includes political slogans. All the best are the simplest and most plausible: “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” “A chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage”. “I like Ike!” and “It’s morning in America!”. This type of verbiage is propaganda at its finest: short, succinct and memorable. They work, whether they describe positive things (such as a successful political campaign) or negative things (e.g. Watergate). They digest things making them easier to regurgitate in the future.
It’s kind of like conjuring a meme out of thin air, making it a verbal weapon that takes on a power of its own. Think of something like “Samaritan”. Instinctively, you mentally put the word “Good” in front of it, even though (ironically), there was nothing good about a Samaritan in the first place. That’s what I mean by memetics: They have the power to turn something negative into something beneficial, and visa versa, carrying their power forward into the future.
So what did the Democrats do? They not only fell into a trap (possibly of Trump’s making) but also gave him powerful weapons to use against them. And how did they do this? They got three very unattractive and obviously biased partisans to somehow try to convince the American people that somewhere in this boring game of inside baseball called Ukraine, there was a high crime and/or misdemeanor buried deep in its bowels. They not only failed but they magnified, for all the world to see, their abject hatred for the President. It was so boring that Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was caught falling asleep during the proceedings. (And nothing screams “sexy” about a scandal like people falling asleep.)
The lowest point came when a singularly unattractive professor, Pamela Karlan, personally insulted a thirteen-year-old boy. And please don’t give me any crap about how she was using a pun to make an argument: Ed Muskie never cried in New Hampshire, Jimmy Carter never said the word “malaise” in his speech, and George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree.
At the end of the day, what will be remembered is that a reprehensible, hateful woman led the crowd in mocking a kid. And yes, judging by the applause she received, those in attendance mocked Barron Trump, too, a thirteen-year-old boy who may or may not be autistic. This is how far we’ve fallen, folks. The men and women who think of themselves as leaders in this country are bullying kids on the political playing field.
I don’t know what it is about Trump, but I’d have to say his superpower is to drive his enemies mad. I realize that I’m being snarky but for the life of me, I can’t figure what it is that makes adult professionals act like a bunch of savages whooping and hollering as they get ready to eat their enemies.
I’m open to any suggestions.
In the meantime, they mocked a kid. Really, they did. And they’d do it again if they could get away with it. Why? Because they hate Trump, his family, his friends and more importantly, the tens of millions of people who voted for him. In the eyes of people like Professor Karlan, at best, middle-Americans are not human and deserve nothing but contempt. That’s so obvious now that a blind man can see it from a mile away.
Be that as it may, the GOP, having suddenly acquired a backbone, is going to be playing a video of this hateful woman’s vitriol from now until November 3, 2020.
Sorry, George, but we’re not on the same page about this at all. You’re doing what we always complain the Left does, i.e. making something out of nothing.
This woman did not insult Barron Trump. She wasn’t talking about President Trump’s child or ANY child. She was talking about the N-A-M-E (not the kid) Barron.
The only Barron I ever knew belonged to the beloved dachshund of my best friend’s grandfather and had she, Pamela Karlan (did you really have to say she was unattractive, George – really????), referenced the dog instead of the president’s son, her point would have been the same: Just because a person (any person) has the name, Barron, does not make him a baron. End of story.
… She was mocking the kid, another smug leftist.
Thanks, Gail.
I was scratching my head. I assumed that I’m just too obtuse to get it. Which I often am, so I was deferring to George’s superior knowledge about things. 🙂
Everything else you wrote, though, George, is spot on. Your analysis of how Trump is able to drive the Left crazy. Their TDS is getting worse and worse. I have Orthodox friends who are lighting their hair on fire out of hatred — they say it’s not hatred, but — of this guy.
I was thinking the other day that although I didn’t vote for him, I wish I had. When I was a kid I had the idea that any American could become President of the United States. Anyone! I probably got the idea partly from the movie MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON.
That probably happened a lot early on in our history, eh? But now you have to BE a politician already to get there.
That is one of the things I love about Donald Trump being president. Although of course he isn’t exactly Mr. Smith. 🙂
Rush Limbaugh talks about this a lot, George. About how Trump is running circles around the Swamp and his detractors elsewhere. It’s quite enjoyable, really. I’m having more fun watching than I ever had when I was actually involved in politics. That was downright deadening.
https://youtu.be/zPv0S1-ETdI
The mod is unable to resist using misogynist tropes of his hero. Sad.
Trump drives the left crazy because they were terrified about everything he campaigned on. Lucky for them (and sadly for heritage America), he hasn’t done much of it, and probably won’t.
Still, he has proven that a president who actually would fight the cultural terrorists like a war and not like a gentleman’s duel is electable. (Again, sadly, the worst fears of those ladies marching on Trump’s glorious inauguration day have not been realized.) But so many conservatives are happy to conserve nothing, as long as we lose with dignity and principles.
Is it hyperbolic to make this situation into an attack on Barron Trump? Maybe. What matters is whether it’s effective in beating back (or embarrassing, or even making them blink and have to apologize) those who would throw our children into a pit of demon-trannies and rapefugees, if they don’t abort them first, and their last words will be, “At least I still have the constitution.”
Until we have the stomach to fight like we want to win, we won’t.
Very much agree with you, AS.
Although I do think that Trump has done more than we know regarding immigration (of all kinds). This is a battle that will continue after he’s gone.
That is why the deep state wants Trump gone. His seeming friendship with Putin would be another reason. A priest friend of mine( himself EP, but very much against the Ukrainian fiasco) put it this way. The U.S. cannot tolerate a church which says no to our permissive lifestyles; that our caving in to the gay jihadists and every other special interest group is wrong. The fact that Russia has such a church, and that this church has the support of the Russian state, makes Russia the enemy. Thus, Russia is a far greater threat to certain people here than was the Soviet Union. A monastic father of the Russian church did make this prediction back in 1930, ” what is going on now in Russia will end up in America.
Spot on.
Well, George, the President yesterday said to (Mrs) Rep Dingle, who took over for her husband, the late Rep John Dingle (who was respected and loved by just about everyone on both sides of the aisle), that he was sure he was looking “up” (get it?) at her. Do you think this is ok? Certainly as shameful as the subject of this story.
No, I don’t think this is OK. Not by a long shot. I don’t like it when Trump tweets/says some things.
Having said that, were you offended when Snoop Dog did a video in which he shot Trump in the head? Or when Kathy Griffin went all jihad and held up the severed head of Trump? Or when Samantha Bee called Ivanka a c*nt?
The list is endless.
And then those of us who voted for him are “deplorable” and “irredeemable”. Trump punches back, twice as hard. That’s why we love him, because we can’t.
This was a pun on the boy’s name in comparison to the U.S. Constitution’s prohibiting titles of nobility. It was not an attack on him personally, and no form of mockery at all.
The political correctness police who forced Pamela Karlan (the professor who used the pun) to apologize for it should be ashamed of their low-brow distortion of words and their meaning
BTW dear George, your describing Prof. Karlan as ‘singularly unattractive’ was unnecessary and unkind, and considerably beneath your dignity.
Karlan is an unabashed, militant lesbian Socialist who flaunts her more attractive female lover (who may be an illegal alien) in perverse social circles. The questions put to Karlan were given to her in advance. She, therefore, intentionally concocted an answer to a known question that would drag Barron into this political circus. She wanted controversy involving Barron, a child. She deserves no sympathy or empathy on this matter. Her actions were MEAN.
Annnnnnnd then militant lesbian, Socialist Karlan inserted an insult in her apology which disqualifies it as an apology. Stop feeling sorry for her/it/them/whatever.
Spot on, Elizabeth. The socialist militant lesbian should be ashamed of herself and the communists…er…I mean…Democrats…have reach a new low.
Gail, AS, Elizabeth, Mikhail, et al: I stand by my criticisms of Karlan –including (especially) her physical appearance. It is my belief that people who drink from the well of the demonic eventually acquire a physical repulsiveness that betrays their inner spirit.
I say this because in spite of the fact that I am no Cary Grant. I have known or read about men and women who were not attractive (much less pretty) by secular standards but who radiated an inner beauty that can only come from a Christ-like, pure heart. Exhibit A would have been St John Maximovitch.
This Karlan “woman” fits the opposite bill, in spades. Not only are her ideas ugly but so is her personality. As Elizabeth just wrote, she went out of her way to script that specific answer. Trust me, people like her populated the Cheka in the 1920s and showed absolutely no compunction in executing peasants, priests and nuns by the tens of thousands.
I’m not in on all of it as not in USA but deff that type of harrigan populated every Russian shared room, let alone apartment, making daily life, if that were possible, in Stalin’s and Lenin’ s USSR, even more diabolical than it actually was. These people often yes, improved health care or education, or bringing electrification. But honestly you would rather be dead without it
har·ri·dan
/ˈherəd(ə)n/
noun
a strict, bossy, or belligerent old woman.
“a bullying old harridan”
George Michalopulos (December 7, 2019 at 7:12 am) says:
Gail, AS, Elizabeth, Mikhail, et al: I stand by my criticisms of Karlan –including (especially) her physical appearance. It is my belief that people who drink from the well of the demonic eventually acquire a physical repulsiveness that betrays their inner spirit. SNIP
~~~~~~~~~~~
And there’s a notion going around saying that people eventually begin to resemble their pet dogs.
I suspect that this theory of a (variously defined) ‘evil’ person’s developing a demonic appearance is at just about the same level on the credibility scale.
It was very wrong of you to criticize Professor Karlan’s physical appearance, George, and you really ought to retract your words. You can disagree with her ideas all you want, but you’ve descended here to an embarrassing _ad hominem _
I understand your point, Father James. It’s the same point I made BUT in George’s defense, he is right about a woman’s beauty coming from within. I don’t think you’d argue with that. I don’t know if you noticed, but when Professor Karlan realized she had landed her point, a swift, barely perceptible smirk came across her lips for the briefest of seconds before she caught herself and reined herself in. In that fraction of a second, she became less attractive to me, too.
Thank you Gailina!
Fr James, I see your point and I see a broader point as well: and that is we don’t want to become like our enemies. That is always the temptation that we must fight against when we are in physical or rhetorical battle. Ad hominem does indeed exist and one hurts one’s argument when one engages in it, even in retaliation.
I truly get that.
However, it is naïve for anybody on the Left to believe that they will always be immunized from the same tactics that they have long employed forever. People cannot be victims forever. What the Left has done to the person of Donald Trump, his family and now the millions of people who voted for him is unconscionable.
To all: Please don’t tell me that Trump doesn’t swing his own rhetorical club –he most certainly does. But he never castigates the children of his enemies or private figures (as Joe Biden did yesterday when he called an old Marine veteran “fat”). Trump is very selective in his insults and he never insults anybody on the Left who has never said anything about him. His motto is the same as Obama’s: “We bring a gun to a knife fight”.
In politics, it’s called “punching back, twice as hard”. What makes Trump odious to the Left is that he’s the first Republican president in –forever–who punches back. He has violated the principle rule of political cuckoldry, which is to let the Left get away with any insult, no matter how vile.
Anyway, forgive me for the ramble but I for one have had it. I’m tired of minding my own business and having random people yell at me because I wear a red MAGA hat. Seriously. What give anybody the right to do that?
Dear George, it might be helpful to realize that wearing a MAGA hat goes a bit beyond minding your own business.
You’re making a very public, even partisan statement by wearing that hat and carrying that message, and it’s perfectly within other people’s rights — at least in the United States of America — to express themselves right back at you.
They might not be wearing hats with political statements on them, but they still have something to say, and you should listen to them. This is America!
Unless you would forfeit your own right to freedom of speech, you honestly can’t deny other people that same freedom.
If you really do get my point, then please retract your criticism of Professor Karlan’s physical characteristics and deal only with her expressed positions.
No, it really doesn’t, Father. Expressing one’s self by wearing a hat does not give others the right to express themselves in a way that’s threatening because they don’t like it. But that’s what we’re seeing. You might as well be waving a red cape in front of a bull. Their neck muscles swell, they snort, stomp the ground. . . and that’s on a good day. Some of them will hurt you if they get the chance. They go as far as telling you they’ll hurt you, too. You must have missed the story George told about some guy who just starting screaming at him, “Trump sucks,” over and over again, before he sped off in a car. Someone who is that out-of-control could just as easily run you over. I think one of our priests ran onto the same thing when he was at the gas pump only he was assaulted. His sin? He had the audacity to be wearing a cassock and a cross. That was just not OK with his assailant so he had to send him to the hospital.
Our laws on free speech don’t protect people who threaten the well-being of other people. We are only reinforcing their poor behavior by tiptoeing around and excusing them.
Why would you repeatedly ask George to retract his criticism of Professor Karlan? Doesn’t that suggest that he should defer to you when it comes to expressing his opinions? Why wouldn’t you just say to yourself: “That’s just George being George. He’s entitled to express his opinions on his own blog.”
https://nypost.com/video/man-claims-he-was-kicked-out-of-vape-shop-for-wearing-maga-hat/
Gail this was a great response!
Thanks for your thoughts here, dear Gail.
Wearing a MAGA hat is a political statement, and it should surprise nobody if people react to it.
The possibly offensive nature of some of those reactions is another issue — people ought to be able to disagree without being disagreeable — but wearing a politically charged slogan on our clothing is often perceived as a challenge by people of other persuasions.
Altogether, I suspect that it’s better not to advertise our politics in venues where we can’t be confident of the reactions they will provoke.
Not that I’m trying to make a personal statement by my monastic clothing, but I could tell you stories about some comments I’ve been offered because of my rason and cross, mostly — but not all of them — kind!
Thank you Gail.
Fr James, I know that you are a man of integrity and I am not averse to correction. And so for comity’s sake, can we just agree to disagree on this issue?
So an Orthodox monk is claiming that it’s okay to shout at people in the street? And we need to listen to them?
What went wrong?
The problem is that the Left is incapable of using reason or words, so they form Antifa cells instead, beat people half to death, and get off scot-free.
In all the debates I’ve seen, I can’t recall a modern leftist make a single point which can withstand logical scrutiny.
Bravo!!!
Elizabeth, if she “intentionally concocted an answer to a known question that would drag Barron into this political circus,” she succeeded.
With our help.
After she saw the reaction, a slight, self-satisfied hint of a smile quickly crossed her lips. I wonder if that would have happened if everyone had ignored her.
We give them the left way too much power by reacting to every stupid, inane thing they say.
Karlan, in some respects an intelligent person, deliberately made a pun that drew attention to Trump’s son. It is naive to assume that she was not aware that it would be treated by the Trump-haters as a way of ridiculing not only Trump but members of his family. I think it was mockery, but perhaps done in a manner so subtle that some folks failed to understand it. But for the partisans it was red meat, and Karlan cannot be so stupid as to be incapable of understanding how some people would react to what she said.
George, good article. I did not read where you said Karlan attacked Barron, only that she mocked him. That she certainly did. She mocked his name and his parents. If anyone did this to my children, I would say they were mocked. While she was not making a direct attack on Barron Trump, that she pulled a kid into her attack on the President was not just “singularly unattractive” it was repulsive. She is a dishonest and vile person. Unattractive indeed. Good on you for calling a spade a spade.
It would be a good idea for Perry Townsend to look up the meaning of ‘mock’, and understand the mining pf a play on words.
Professor Karlan did nothing like ‘pulled a kid into her attack on the President’. Only the most abject of partisans would accuse her of that. She was punning on his name, not attacking him or his father.
Not being a supporter or member of any political party, I have to say that the last few years of the tit-for-tat game in Washington disgusts me.
What does the American federal government actually do now? I see nothing going on to represent or support the concerns of the people, merely partisan warfare. Is this America? Really?
Corroborating, in his way, George Michalopulos’s earlier remark, Mr Townsend writes about Professor Karlan: ‘She is a dishonest and vile person. Unattractive indeed.’
I submit that Mr Townsend doesn’t know anything about Pressor Harlan’s honesty, and it’s ignoble of him to call her ‘vile’. and ‘unattractive indeed’.
Her moral stance is generally unknown to anyone, and her physical characteristics, or her relative appeal to him as any sort of feminine beauty are irrelevant, and it was very wrong of him to mention it.
This sort of vilification, while typical of politics, is unworthy of Christians. Mr Townsend’s cruel remarks tell us more about him than about her.
We should be able to disagree with people without being as ugly as we’d say that they are.
May the Lord grant us the intelligence to understand the events which surround us, and the wisdom love to interpret them well.
I reject your assertion that my comments were unChristian. To not call out evil is unChristian. And why I am the only one whom you call ignoble, unChristian, and mock, in a subtle and round about way? Is this not unChristian? I don’t think it is if that is what you truly think of my comments, but I do find it very hypocritical in context. Regardless, I fail to see anything ignoble or unChristian about my comments. Was her testimony vile? Yes. Was it dishonest? Yes. Did she mock not just Barron, but the President, and First Lady? Yes. Was her approach singularity unattractive? Yes. I’m sorry if you read into my comments that I was talking about her physical appearance. That was not my intent, but rather your misunderstanding. My God grant you the intelligence and wisdom to understand interpret what people write without casting dispersion on them. May He and you forgive my sarcasm. I do agree with George that people who are acting in vile, repulsive ways can appear physically unattractive. Lastly, I really don’t believe you are a monk, but I do believe that you are blind to the political and spiritual fight the US is in. Forgive me if I cause offense. Just like you, I am calling you out as I see you just as you called me out as you see me. Go in peace. We are never going to agree on this topic or on your opinion of my comments being unChristain.
Mr Townsend, you write as though your opinions were incontrovertible expressions of truth They’re not.
I’ll let someone else explain my monastic status in case anyone is interested.
My opinions may not be incontrovertible, though your rather unChristian and un-clergy like attack on me on rather than my opinions, gives credence to the possibility that they are. Else, you would have controverted them instead questioning my intelligence and Christian character. Perhaps, you don’t have the time or inclination. That is understandable, if it is so.
Being a lay person, I assume the ordained would possess a certain level of decorum. I do not expect them to publicly condemn someone, and accuse them of sin, and unjustly so in a case (at least based on the opinion of an Orthodox Priest friend of mine). Perhaps my sin is causing offense to you? I would accept that accusation if it is correct. If so, please forgive me, and accept my perpetual request as my opinions, approach, and style on topics of politics and religion are prone to give offense.
George, why seek out every occasion for discord, however insignificant?
Let’s try to keep the focus on the Orthodox Church, at least in some form or another.
TimR, I take your arguments to heart. Do not doubt that for a minute. But we as Orthodox cannot ignore that our government is actively sowing the seeds of schism in our beloved Church.
There is no “separation” any more between church and state. I am beginning to question whether such separation ever really existed or whether it was just a cleverly-designed distraction to lull ordinary Christians into fighting Satan’s battles for him, or at the very least, being neutral.
As of yet, I don’t have the answer to that question. However, I do know that our precious State Dept is pulling the EP’s puppet strings. And not for the betterment of our Faith, either overseas or over here. Of this there can be no doubt. As such, I cannot ignore the political sphere and like a skirmisher, I will throw whatever wrench I can grab, or beer bottle I can break, to either throw into this demonic machinery or at least defend myself from their attacks.
It’s not the criticism of this woman. It’s the elevation of her testimony to equality of those various past outrages you describe that I think lacks proportion. That’s all. Indulging indignation and outrage is not always a good thing.
I don’t disagree with you.
The Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves for having a vile, hateful, partisan, prejudiced woman like Professor Karlan at a Judiciary Committee hearing. A committee that is gathering information in preparation for making a crucial decision on whether to impeach President Trump. She was joined by two other professors who were what you would call Trump haters. In contrast to the three “experts” was Professor Jonathan Turley who like the other three did not vote for Trump, and had voted for Democrats in the past. But Professor Turley was fair, illuminating, helpful and he clearly explained to the public what our constitution says about impeachment. He was fair enough to point out were Trump erred. But I must say that Professors Karlan and Feldman had such hatred that they were truly ugly.To play on the word baron was an unfortunate choice by expert Karlan.
P.S. Some of the rare, true journalists checked into Karlan’s background, and found she has a history of spewing over the top anti-Trump stuff. That’s her First Amendment right, but why bring such a vile person to influence the crucial decision on whether to impeach President Trump and all the consequences that decision will have on the future of our nation?
Interesting take on the impeachment process by a Protestant pastor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c9CxqZJocA
The Boomer awakes.