Confessions of a recovering Anger Porn Addict

I am a recovering anger porn addict...

The first step is admitting there is a problem.
This morning I got a notice about an incident in Atlanta where a server at a local restaurant treated the guest badly and was not tipped.  The guests were black women and the server was a homosexual male.  It is funny to look at the different versions of what played out.  It turns out that the women did not tip the server and he in turn gave his partner the receipt who went on to track down the women and send them a series of harassing messages as well as post their slight on social media.  The day after the incident that happened three weeks ago, the owner of the restaurant came in on his day off to personally fire the server, ban him from the restaurant, and issue the guest a gift certificate.  Problem solved?  Well yes, but I just heard about this incident this morning so what does that mean?  That means that people are still trying to push this narrative and are still very mad about an issue that was addressed and remedied.  People are still calling for the boycott of this particular restaurant...three weeks after the incident.

John McCain made a scarred return to the floor of the Senate to vote to move the Republican Health Care Bill forward.  He delivered a stirring speech about the responsibilities of the Senate and the imperative that we move forward,  Cue the anger.

Many people were angry that he was even able to speak about these issues.  People brought up the fact that he would not be there making that speech but for having great health care himself.  McCain's speech was largely self effacing and looked at the fact that he was guilty of engaging in purely partisan hackery himself, but above all it was time to get on to doing what the people sent them there to do.   And then he went and voted for the bill to move forward.

Regardless of what happened next, the speech was rousing and spoke to a lot of the issues that are holding up so many issues in our country.  Aside from that, there was really nothing in the speech that contradicted him then going to vote to put the Republican's bill or lack thereof to a vote and amendment.  He even said he would not vote for the bill as it was and later, he didn't (he voted no in spectacular fashion, but...) The backlash from the left was swift.

What we are seeing is a need or want to be outraged and angry.  Looking at the things that have happened in the last week could give you an anger overdose.  Trump is trying to ban transgender people from the military.  He is trying to fire the Attorney General or maybe not.  He is trying to fire the independent counsel or maybe not.  More young black people are getting shot and or harassed by the police (even as I am writing this, a notice appeared in my feed telling me that Trump endorsed police brutality in a speech).  Women are getting discriminated against and on and on and on.

I wonder about the things that are showing up in my Facebook feed along with a message that says essentially "like" this if this  post makes you angry. Are these the things that I bring on myself based on what I look for and at?

More than that, what are we supposed to do with all of this anger?  Let's take a moment to look at what we are seeing even from the White House and the new communications director.  Anthony Scaramucci apparently called Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker just to complain about how hard his new job is and how everyone is out to get him... Oh and how everyone ELSE is paranoid.

Apparently, he hates Reince Priebus.  Reince hates him. They both hate Steve Bannon and he hates them both.

Are we not playing into his hands?  Note in his recent speeches he is talking a great deal about what the media will say when he makes a comment, signaling that he knows that what is about to come out of his mouth is going to be divisive.  During one of his recent speeches, he said "he could be on Mt. Rushmore."  I doubt it will ever happen but what was most telling was what he said before that.  He made it a point to say that the media would skew his words.  He is at times leaving his language intentionally vague and annoying so that people will pick it apart and find something to get mad about.

He will say something angry and hateful and immediately his army of surrogates go out to tell liberals that we did not hear what we heard so not to get up in arms about it and that same army of surrogates will go out to tell conservatives that they heard EXACTLY what he said and that we liberals just don't get it.

Hate is starting to be profitable, too.  As soon as Trump banned transgender people from serving, there was a race to get to Youtube.  Tomi Lahren could not even wait to get to any kind of studio so she appears to have posted a video from her car about how the military is not a social experiment.  I might note how she posted this from the safety of her car while transgender people are knee deep in sand and dodging bullets and IED's wondering if their country even wants them there as we speak.  How do I know she posted this video?  Rest assured it is not because I am a Tomi Lahren fan, but because someone I know posted a video from someone who posted a video rebuttal to her.

And then comes the posts and reposts.  "So and so shuts down so and so on Twitter" or "So and so just responded to so and so and the the response was epic!"

Over and over and over and over again.  I find myself in a constant state of anger over something but I also find myself wondering what we are going to do about it for the next three years.  Impeachment may be coming, but not for some time.  We have some victories coming but when all is said and done, what good is all this anger doing?  Do I have the energy and the adrenaline?

Oh, and by the way... Reince Priebus just resigned...was fired...at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday... *sigh*

And Anthony Scaramucci's wife filed for divorce....*sigh*

The Trump Bandwidth Test...Trumpwidth?

As of this writing, the senate is scrambling to wrangle votes for the repeal of the ACA but yesterday, he made a speech at the Boy Scouts Jamboree in Virginia and it was truly what we thought it would be.

Trump made a series of comments about how he won the election.  He talked about President Obama not attending a jamboree in person, but not the fact that President Obama was himself a Boy Scout.  He talked about fake news, loyalty, and draining the swamp or rather the "sewer".
It is really very odd that he would make such a speech the day before voting to begin debate on the bill to repeal Obamacare and this lends itself to a bigger question; do we have the bandwidth to deal with all of this?
Kellyanne Conway debated Reliable Sources anchor Brian Stelter a few days ago and each of them looked at a graphic that said that only 6 percent of people in the U.S. were interested in the Russia story.  Conway pointed out that there was a disproportionate amount of coverage for something so few people were interested in.  Stelter replied with something that I have often thought but rarely is presented; can't we care about more than one thing at one time?

The motion to bring the repeal vote forward has been passed with a 50 to 50 vote pushed forward by Vice President Pence.

I am still outraged by Trump's self serving and petty speech made in front of a 40,000 boys at the Jamboree but I can also think about what we are facing as this bill moves forward to the debate phase. I am also very still very interested in Russia, Trump's tax returns, the fact that he claims millions of people voted illegally and so on and so on. The bill is moving forward, but can we learn about it?  Can we talk about what it means as it becomes public?

Rest assured Donald Trump is going to say or do something in the next week or more.  New revelations will come out about Russia.  Jeff Sessions is getting roasted in the media by his boss.  Jason Chaffetz is even engaging in a war with Hillary Clinton AND Chelsea Clinton about, of all things, Benghazi for goodness sake.  Are we so attracted to or distracted by shiny objects?

Is this part of a larger strategy?  Are we seeing that the goal is to so overload our liberal outrage to make it nearly impossible to focus our outrage?

Trump: Strength in the Negative

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump told The Christian Broadcasting Network that Vladimir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win.  I have to say that I agree with him.  Rather, it is not so much that Putin wanted her to win, but that he did not anticipate her loss.  In that respect, he is a lot like me, the rest of the world, and most of all, Donald Trump himself.


To understand this we have to look at the world the way that Donald Trump and Putin see the world; in the negative.  Their power comes from two places.  First there is what they say has happened.  Appending reasons and explanations to things that have happened that either are not true or could not be proven is the source of their influence.  In this respect, time is their friend.  President Obama is a secret Muslim?  He was not born in this country?  No, he is not and yes he was.  Still enough time has passed that he can say that he never said that or that Hillary Clinton started the rumors or whatever without ever taking responsibility for what part he has had in it.  As a function of time if he waits long enough or talks long enough, whatever he says is true or at least cannot be proven wrong especially to anyone who does not want to believe he is wrong.

Second, there is the more powerful aspect of what he says will happen.  Here, their power is in the ability to say things could have happened or would have happened if they were in charge.  This is the more powerful aspect of their influence yet it is the finest line they can walk.  During the campaign, Trump painted a picture of chaos and the apocalypse if Hillary Clinton won and people were willing to believe it.  He walked a fine line of having people scared enough to believe these things would happen yet not so much that they would actually elect him to solve those problems if he was actually elected.

Vladimir Putin did have a hand in hacking the election and was going to try harder.  I have a theory and this is just a theory, that this was to be a dry run.  The 2016 election was supposed to just be a pass at hacking to find weaknesses in the system and harrow Hillary Clinton on her way to a narrow victory.  I think the real "attack" would have come in 2020 when Hillary Clinton, fresh off of three years of a hard first term would run for re-election against a more qualified Republican candidate than Trump.  Then would be the hardest hack plans aided by an internal ally, Donald Trump.

Somewhere, in an alternate universe, Donald Trump lost that election.  In that alternate universe he is happy as can be because he lives in the negative.  Imagine an existence where Donald Trump is doing what he has always wanted to do; be in the public eye and catering to a demographic that is his base now; the "deplorables" without the responsibility of having to actually do anything.

If Trump had lost right about now he would likely still be on a whirlwind tour throughout the U.S. speaking to packed stadiums full of hardcore right wingers who swear he DID win and that Hillary Clinton stole the election somehow.  "Rigged" would be on t-shirts all over the country.  Every thing that Hillary Clinton did as president would be parsed and debated through his twitter account and his emerging television station and that old standby, Fox News.  He could rant daily and talk about how she should be arrested and how she is an embarrassment to the U.S.  all day, every day, from the safety and comfort of one of his ever packed properties.

Trump has even been tweeting on a regular basis lately that Jeff Sessions should be investigating Hillary Clinton and that she has gotten away with something.

If anyone said anything about his shady business dealings, he could chalk it up to political retaliation and somehow it would be Hillary Clinton abusing her power.  He and Putin could hang out as much as they wanted and plan for 2020 with Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, or whomever by the poolside.

In the alternate time line, Donald Trump is suing Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign, railing on President Obama and more, all because he can and it would build his ratings and his empire.

Instead, he won.  He is in an awkward position because now he has to make good on all the promises and we are seeing that he simply cannot do it.  He promised a better health plan that is not happening.  He promised a huge wall and while a wall is forthcoming, it is nowhere near what he promised.  He promised that ISIS would be ended in 30 days... nope.  He has been nothing but an embarrassment since day one and now he cannot work in the negative.  He can say that it is the media.  He can say it is the obstructionist Democrats, but it is not.  At a certain point, he is no longer going to be allowed to work in the negative and is going to have to own what says.

The irony is that now Hillary Clinton can now work in the negative.  That is not to say that she should "go low" but she, based on this relatively new way of looking at things, can make a good case for how things would be totally different if she had won.  There are debates about whether or not she made the right decisions while running and how those decisions led to her loss, but soon, those too will go away.  She is free to make speeches or not.  She is free to attack the Trump administration (goodness knows he is presenting a large enough target) and go hiking in the woods on the weekends.  She owes no one, anything.  The same is true for President Obama.  It must all be so liberating for them.  For Trump though?  Not so much.

In this time line Trump and Putin are under tremendous scrutiny.  They are the ones being watched and investigated, as well as their family and their businesses.  Rachel Maddow and MSNBC now have higher ratings than FOX.

I am going to keep writing about this phenomenon in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding of it and what is happening to our country.  We are seeing that people are leaving things at the water's edge when maybe we should be taking a deeper dive.

Follow on Twitter at @writlargepdcst