Were They, Though?

President Trump: "There were numerous cases where women were paid money to say bad things about me. You can't do that. You can't do that. And those women did wrong things." pic.twitter.com/vdYUM1B8Dc

— The Hill (@thehill) June 23, 2019

One of Trump's "quirks", to call it something a bit milder than "pathology", is to claim that anything negative about himself is fake news. It works for his supporters, obviously. It works for Trump because, even if one was inclined to believe rather a lot of negative information, he has thrown out that seed of doubt. Are all negative stories true? Aren't some stories lies? Couldn't this one be a lie, too? So when presented with another credible accuser, he claims it's fake news. Women say horrible things about him because they get paid.

The problem with claiming fake news all the time though, is that the reverse is also true--is it likely that all these stories are actually fake? Can he produce receipts regarding the payment of these women? Does he want that investigated, or has he never considered putting that theory to the test? And doesn't it seem a little odd in light of his apparently paying women not to talk about consensual relations he had with them? Does he just assume everyone is motivated by money?

If women were just paid to make up stories about rich and powerful men, why even have a "me too" movement? Wouldn't stories like this be thick on the ground instead of painfully coming out over the years? And doesn't it seem interesting that there are just some men we might believe it of, and some men we know would never? As if things like pathological lying, misogyny, womanizing, intimidation, seem more probable with some people of note than others?

Also, why would E. Jean Carroll list Trump among her hideous men when she already has such notables? Isn't Trump just a little too much, I dunno, a leader of a country (to the extent that he was elected, I mean) to be shoehorned in for mercenary reasons if it wasn't true? That particular excerpt is the one we all end up reading without buying the book, thanks. And wouldn't she and her publishers be expecting an entire world of deep shit if it's not true?

Trump is, and has been, hideous, for a long time. This isn't some brand new revelation. And I'm not even sure that his biggest fans fully disbelieve the evidence in front of them. They just don't seem to care.

My Generation Didn't Burn Out, It Just Faded Away

Sure, Boomers "Tuned in, turned on, and dropped out", but apparently, Generation X just zipped past "Abort, retry, ignore, fail?" to "404 Error: Not Found".

This jpeg was bouncing around Twitter and seems to have to do with this Buzzfeed essay about "Millennial burnout". (I haven't come across the CBSN clip it's from). And I'm not going to snark about the idea of "Millennial burnout" at all--my generation was called "slackers" because of our perceived failure to "adult", when a lot of us were pretty self-sufficient but just weren't overtly ambitious because it looked like a scam. (Although, in lieu of getting jobs, a lot of my generation went in for start-ups, so, maybe not so slacky?) Our generation was also smaller than the Baby Boomers and Millennials. We were a little burned out, but made it look like disaffection because really? Who pays attention to us, already?

(I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like a lot of bloggers are Generation X, though. If Boomers were the first generation to grow up in front of the tv, we were the first to grow up at least partially in front of a computer.)

And if you think about it, we didn't get a cool name like "greatest Generation", "Silent Generation", "Baby Boomers", etc. Just a mathematic variable--solve for "X". The excluded middle generation, if you will.

I just found the graphic sort of dead-on: that's right, we aren't defined by our, like, birth year, anyway.

(Fast edit: I was thinking of Neil Young as quoted by the Kurgan in the first Highlander movie when I wrote the blog title because it included the idea of "burn out" and the erasure of Gen X, which is basically entirely on brand for my thought processes, but then I darkly recalled that this was the tag of Kurt Cobain's suicide note. Which as a reference, is shockingly on brand for my generation.)

Not That Surprised, But A Little Sick

So, given the ongoing reckoning over sexual harassment, I wasn't even that surprised at hearing that Matt Lauer had been let go from his association with NBC as the anchor of its long-running Today show. I've basically thought he was kind of a jerk and crappy interviewer for a while, and his performance moderating the Commander-in-Chief Forum last year was simply abysmal. I chalked it up to being at turns condescending and pompous, and although it looks like conservative media seems to be going with "the Liberal Media's Matt Lauer", I kind of thought he seemed biased against Dems. Maybe he has that unique mainstream media talent for being a universal putz. Anyhow, as to his sexism, it looks like there had been multiple signs, and as for the idea that Matt Lauer was so irreplaceable that NBC shouldn't have addressed his creepiness sooner, well, not so much. 

But the details are kind of sickening.  The intro to the Variety piece is damning enough:

As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.

On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.

He would sometimes quiz female producers about who they’d slept with, offering to trade names. And he loved to engage in a crass quiz game with men and women in the office: “f—, marry, or kill,” in which he would identify the female co-hosts that he’d most like to sleep with.

But I think the stand-out creepiest part is the button under his desk:

Lauer, who was paranoid about being followed by tabloid reporters, grew more emboldened at 30 Rockefeller Center as his profile rose following Katie Couric’s departure from “Today” in 2006. His office was in a secluded space, and he had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock his door from the inside without getting up. This afforded him the assurance of privacy. It allowed him to welcome female employees and initiate inappropriate contact while knowing nobody could walk in on him, according to two women who were sexually harassed by Lauer.

I'm just trying to sort out the rationale that made it seem totally normal to have that installed in his office--to prevent someone from walking in on him. Or to lock someone in with him? And I imagine what it must be like the hear a click behind you, knowing a door has been locked, and it can't be for any good reason...

Like I said: sickening.

Blame it on the Rain

Today, Donald Trump waxed voluble on Twitter while "working hard from New Jersey" and not at all watching cable news and being mad at stuff, which he obviously is too busy to do. It was raining all day in New Jersey, and therefore, it was too soggy to golf. Sad!

I suppose I could try to factcheck or...nah! Rainy days and Mondays, man.

Simply Ugly

Trump has a habit of lashing out in a very unattractive way when someone makes him feel bad. Calling the hosts of Morning Joe "Crazy Mika" and "psycho Joe" is demeaning and childish, but the comment regarding Mika Brzezinski's appearance is ugly and sexist.  And I see attacking individual media personalities this way as part of his larger war on journalism media.


I do not understand how someone this toxic is in the White House, and at the same time I know his fans will approve of this. I think it is simply uncalled-for.

Another Trumpworld Grab Bag

I just want to point out that this weekend is another weekend where President Trump visited a couple of his golf courses to hit the links and schmooze in familiar surroundings, like he does most weekends since he became president, and Fox Mushroom Farm is being a little less than honest in pretending that he literally spent the whole weekend at the White House. There is photographic proof he did not. Just because he went to the golf course that he owns closest to the White House does not mean he worked at the White House. He smacked a little white ball around. And I get that Republicans have very little trouble with Trump always being golfing. So Eisenhower! Very suburban! Oddly, they never liked to see Barack Obama smacking little white balls around.

But you know, this is Fox News, after all, the official sponsor of saying stuff out loud that Trump doesn't want folks to know came from him, except that you do. Sean Hannity, a very special Fox News personality, got told by one Ted Koppel just what he thinks of him. He's bad. (I note that Sean Hannity came off a bit defensive and threw a "with all due respect" in there like we don't know what that means--bless his heart.) It shouldn't be anything but transparent that Hannity is not merely an opinion-journalist (if you want to call it journalism) but an extreme partisan (and if you want to call that "propagandist", in my book, you go on ahead). I am reminded of the time Jon Stewart told Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala that their version of "Crossfire" wasn't helping anything at all. Except Koppel isn't a comedian who does news, but a guy who did straight news his whole career. And if Hannity wants to pretend this is some so-called "liberal media" figure he just dissed, nope. Just nope.