No Such Thing as Peak Trump: Rush and the Medal of Freedom

Last night, Trump gave the Medal of Freedom -- the highest civilian honor available -- to Rush Limbaugh.

Previous winners include Georgia O'Keefe, T.S. Eliot, Elie Wiesel, Aaron Copeland, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

What has Rush done to deserve such an honor?

• Invented the term feminazis
• said women who use birth control are sluts
• Promoted creationism
• said that evolution can't be factual, since apes in zoos don't "evolve" into human beings
• denied climate change, because "God wouldn't do that"
• promoted the anti-vaxxer position and blamed immigrants for recent measles outbreaks
• mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease
• mocked a Chinese president in a racist segment
• told a black caller to "get the bone out of her nose" 
• said that "all newspaper composite" crime photos look like Jesse Jackson
• claims that Democrats deliberately keep Latinx and black voters poor and ignorant in order to create their base
• calls AIDS the "only federally protected virus"
• denies that AIDS has ever spread to the heterosexual community -- claims it's "just" a gay disease
• claims that, in sexual relationships, guys know that "no means yes" in most cases
• Likewise, thinks consent is nonsense -- guys don't need and shouldn't seek consent before sex with women 
• Defended the Christian terrorist group, the Lord's Resistance Army
• Spent years railing against those addicted to drugs, calling for harsher prison sentence, while himself abusing drugs pretty much non-stop

Said this about Sandra Fluke (among other, even worse things):

What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps.

He also frequently makes the claim that there are more trees in America now than there were when the Europeans first came to Plymouth. This was how I first became aware of his existence. My previously rational brother, who had started listening to Rush, came to my room to explain this to me. As someone who was even then being educated in how to judge and evaluate an argument, I looked at him like he had two heads. (No, there are not more trees now than there were then. See here for more.)

Rush was an early proponent of this sort of thing -- telling huge and obvious lies, which then people who should have known better would at least pretend to believe. Many people actually did believe his lies.

His success, because it turned out there was a market for people who preferred lies that made them feel better over facts and truth, led directly to Fox News and such vile hate-mongers as Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones. And that, as we know, led directly to Donald Trump being elected president.

In other words, Rush has done far more than most people to destroy this country.

But of course Trump gave him the Medal of Freedom.

We have always been at War with Eastasia, after all.

ETA:

Rush Limbaugh broadcast an actual 21st century minstrel koon show back in 2007, 'Barack da Magic Negro.' Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award a US Pres can bestow. Black folks shipped in from all corners to stand by as Trump honored this. #SOTU was a racist spooj dream. pic.twitter.com/ovpcMUZPDi

— Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) February 5, 2020

Losing Reality

It's been a while since I checked in on Rod Dreher. Frankly, he just got too bizarre to be interesting.

But I dropped by this morning, and...wow.

You'll be glad to know that trans people are a poison in our cultural groundwater.

Also that Rod is still racist, even though he's stopped screeching about how "black culture" is destroying America in favor of screeching about how Trans people (World War T, he calls this) are destroying America.

More racism here. (Multiple studies have shown that black children are far more likely to be punished and punished harshly for the same behaviors that white children are indulged in. Rod's claim that black kids are punished more often because they behave worse is simply not the case.)

And of course white men are the real victims.

So yeah, I haven't missed anything. He's just sliding further and further into Old Man Yells at Clouds territory.

Of course, that's where his remaining readers -- pretty much all MAGA Americans -- live, so he gets plenty of affirmation for these views. If you want to be really horrified, read his comment section. Horrifying bigotry and horrifying ignorance. And Rod encourages all this, because of course he does.

Obviously, none of this is worth reading, and I don't advise anyone to read it, except that it's useful for knowing exactly how appalling and hateful the "Religious Right" had become. There truly is no bottom to these people.

Once Upon a Time

...in 2016, before the election, some my students asked me what I thought of Donald Trump.

This was in the dream-like days when I still believed Americans could not be hateful and stupid enough to elect this conman president, so I laughed.

"'Make America Great Again,'" I said. "What a joke. Make America White Again, more like."

To my surprise, half the class nodded seriously. I saw they liked the idea of that. I saw, in fact, that this was why they were voting for him. The inside of my stomach went a little cold at that moment.

I will never forget the way my brown students and my Latino/a students look at me, the mix of pity and amusement in their eyes. What world have you been living in, tonto? they were thinking.

Not this one. Not this one.

Attempting Discourse with Trump Supporters

After spending months at it now, I have reached the conclusion that it is useless to attempt an exchange of ideas with Trump supporters in the market place of ideas.

Here is what always happens:

Trump supporter: (Says something bizarre and obviously untrue, such as that schools in Oklahoma have banned the Pledge of Allegiance.)

Me: "I don't think that's true. I have several ex-students who teach in Oklahoma, and all their schools say the Pledge every morning."

Trump Supporter: "Well, I know it's true, because it happened at my friend's school! Where she teaches!"

Me: "What school is that?"

Trump supporter: "And it's happening everywhere, because LIBERALS hate the flag!"

Me: "Do you have examples of the places where it is happening? I've just done a google search, and I don't see any reports of anything like that happening any reliable media sources."

Trump supporter: "What do you consider reliable? The New York Times? LIBERAL BIAS!"

Me: "Do you have a reliable source that says this is happening in Oklahoma?"

Trump Supporter: "Why are you so ANGRY about this?"

Me: "You've given no evidence, except an anecdotal claim. Why should we believe this is true? Surely if this were actually happening, someone would be reporting on it somewhere."

Trump Supporter: "Why don't you give me evidence that it's NOT happening?"

Me: "I did. There's no media coverage. If all the schools in Oklahoma had banned the pledge, Fox News would be talking about it non-stop. You know that's true."

Trump Supporter: "I don't even watch Fox News! Stop condescending to me!"

Me: "You're repeating lies as if they were the truth, and getting other people to believe them. That's not okay."

Trump Supporter: "Don't call me a liar! Just like a liberal, always start insulting people when they're losing!"

And so on, endlessly. Trump supporters will never admit they're wrong, even when they obviously are. They will dismiss any evidence you give them as "liberal bias" or "liberal lies." And they will go straight to the "why are you so angry/mean/elitist" as soon as they start losing.

I'm an educator, and I have kept giving in to the urge to educate, certain that if I just present evidence and data in a reasonable way, learning can occur. People can change.

But Trump supporters dismiss any evidence or reason that contradicts their worldview. They are not using rational creatures. They are a cult.

Trump's America

Here's what Trump tweeted before the election:

Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2016

My Kid's Art

It's true that Trump is wagging the dog, and America is falling for it like the boot-lickers they are.

But! Look what my kid made for me in her craft class:

Is she not the best kid ever?

TrumpCare: Burn, Baby

TrumpCare fails at the legislative level.

Trump is reaching out to Democrats now. That's... droll.

Costa on MSNBC: Trump says bill won’t be coming back in near future & he’ll see if the Dems want to work with him on healthcare.

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) March 24, 2017

Further Thoughts on Trump Supporters and the Limits of Free Speech

Nicole and Maggie point out in the comments to my last post that appeasement isn't a tactic, historically, that has much of a success rate.

This is true.

I think one mistake I made in the beginning with Dick Johnson is one we often make when dealing with bullies. Slightly amused at his mistake (ha ha, he thinks I'm a guy, isn't that fun), I ignored the stupid insults he threw my way.

This was when he thought I was just a guy, not a gay guy.

A Curious Encounter

So from time to time -- as many of you do -- I comment elsewhere in the blogosphere.

When I do so, I comment under my blogosphere name: as delagar, in other words. This is a name with no apparent gender. Often enough, out in the 'sphere, people assume I am male. (Go figure!)

The Five Stages...

I finished a short story. This is the first story I've written (started and completed) since the vile one won the election.

I might be emerging from the depression stage. MAYBE.

Whether it's a good story or not, meh -- I'm still deep enough in the depression stage that everything looks terrible. But it's a competent story, and it's finished. I'll take that.

The trouble with leaving depression is that I'm supposed to move onto the acceptance. And frankly, yeah, I don't see how to do that. Accept Trump as our president? What are you, nuts?

White Moderates

Yesterday, I wrote about a hate-group putting up vile posters on our campus.

Other people on campus also wrote about this, several of them on their FB pages. On several of these pages, people got comments about how “we” should just ignore these posters. Some said we should ignore them because we had better things to do; others claimed it was their free speech right to put up the posters.

Trump's America

So this happened on my campus.

This got posted on the building where my new office will be:

Hilarious New World

So we've elected a whiny baby to be our next President.

When he's not appointed racists and bigots and sexists to important post in our government, or using his new position to make himself richer, he's firing off tweets demanding that American citizens stop saying mean things about him.