STRAUBINICAL NEWS DIGEST One.

STRAUBINICAL NEWS DIGEST One

My epic post, "STRAIGHT OUTA COMPSON," didn't get much response. I assume that some people didn't agree with it, but I also guess that it may have been a bad call to post a screed of Faulknerian prolixity hours after people's coffee buzz has worn off.
  Anyone who was waiting for me to address at more length issues of racism, etc., might want to give it a look during those slack triptophan-infused hours following your alt-poultry orgy. If you are sequestered with any Trump voters, reading it could help you two ways:

1. Keeping you from making eye contact with right wing kinfolk
2. Helping you talk to them without rancor, should you be forced to.

In the meantime, here are a few items from the news, with my commentary, that I hope will reassure concerned readers that I'm not exactly holding hands with Trump.

Geff King take note: white nationalist Richard Spencer stole your gag at the recent racist gaggle, saying out loud to the assembled identitarians (his preferred term), "Let's party like it's 1933!" He has referred to Bannon as "alt-light." I suspect, based on much less reading than many of you, that Bannon may be worse than you, but he's not as bad as this guy. Before you all post links to a thousand articles to correct my naïveté (I'm looking at you, Michael J! ), I'm just trying to put the rogue's gallery in some kind of perspective. My guess is that Bannon is more racist than Trump believes, and less racist than some of you believe. That's hardly a defense of him.

A psychological profile of Trump is emerging that I think is intriguing. While Trump is quick to lash out in ugly ways when criticized, or even when quoted accurately, I don't think that has much to do with ideology. He seems to be receptive to dissent from people who he likes. (And he goes from hatred to bonhomie quickly; as far as I can tell, all it takes is for the former enemy to kiss his ass for an hour or so. This is good, if he takes calls from Obama sporadically during his reign. Not so good, perhaps, if he's being played by Ming the Merciless.) He's softened several of his more contentious positions of late, in some cases following brief fawning conversations with sane people. I admit that the softening is somewhat like the glacially slow thawing of a solidly frozen turkey, but it does seem like a cold comfort breakthrough when a GOP president elect says there is "some connectivity" between climate change and what humans do all day.

Also-- the statements I've read from GOP about how they're going to pay for all of Trump's unholy wish list have the tone of a guy looking around to see what stuff he can sell to pay for coke. At least that was my first reaction. The more I read, the more it sounded like Jack talking himself into trading the cow for a handful of magic beans.

Ok, fair warning-- I have another long piece on deck that I may post during Thanksgiving. It's not as long as my last one, and it's packed with criticism of the GOP, so if you can only stand to read one Straubinical epic this holiday, you can choose your poison.