Thursday de Mayo

Thursday de Mayo May 5, 2016

• Eleven years ago today, I walked into a bar and found my friend BD talking to a woman. I guessed, correctly, that he was yet again trying to secure a date for our very nice, but painfully shy, buddy who was hunched in a booth on the other side of the room. And I guessed, incorrectly, that the woman was more interested in BD than she was in our shy friend. What I didn’t know was that she was delicately explaining that while he seemed like a good guy, she wasn’t really looking to date anyone, and that he wasn’t really her type.

“So what is your type?” BD asked her.

That guy,” she said, pointing to the door. “If you could set me up with that guy, then maybe I’d be interested.” BD looked over at me and smiled.

Reader, I married her.

• Related: Annual reminder that Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.

TacoBowling

Very important point from Jamelle Bouie: “But something happens in this discussion of working-class anger. Sullivan, like others tackling the subject, moves from an analysis of the ‘working class’ to an analysis of the ‘white working class,’ gliding between the two as if they’re synonymous.”

This is a deliberate move in the white-resentment politics of Donald Trump and Frank Rizzo — a way of suggesting that the white working class is “deserving” but that people of color are undeserving, that they do not and will not work. That’s racist, ignorant crap — but that crap gets repeated and reinforced in dozens of articles every day about Trump’s appeal among “working class” Americans.

• Here’s an article about Syrian refugees in Calgary who are helping out with the efforts to assist evacuees from the massive wildfire that forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray, Canada’s sixth-largest city.

Contrast the outpouring of support and hospitality all Canadians have been displaying with the logic and instincts on display here in the U.S. from Donald Trump and the political right. That logic — as shown in the resistance to welcoming Syrian refugees here — would say that evacuees from a wildfire must be turned away lest “those people” bring the threat of a wildfire with them and our cities start to burn.

• Team Hillary has released a devastating video of Republicans criticizing Donald Trump with the kind of candor and bluntness that would seem to make it impossible for any of them to “pivot” back to supporting his candidacy in the general election (although, I expect, many of them still will).

A friend highlighted the sour note of the final snippet, featuring Jeb Bush saying Trump “needs therapy.” That’s unfairly disparaging of those who do, in fact, struggle with mental illness — suggesting that they’re somehow akin to Trump or that he is somehow akin to them, which is about the most vicious thing one could suggest about anybody.

I don’t doubt that Trump, like Tony Soprano, might benefit from some counseling. But just like Tony, I think Trump’s anxieties are primarily due to his moral choices, not to any psychological malady. Tony Soprano was unable to find peace of mind not because he “needed therapy,” but because he was a violent predator whose livelihood and identity was built on harming others.

All of which is to say that I don’t think Trump “needs therapy.” I think he needs to be visited by three ghosts. He needs to repent.

Related: Jeff Sharlet on “13 Things to Consider About Donald Trump Right Now.”


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