The writer has managed to discipline his rage, to fight it down until it calms into precise and powerful prose.

That is, the rage still storms, but the writer has been able to channel effusion into eloquence. Like most people who write about Trump, he is at pains to find strong enough adjectives to express his disgust (insulting, repulsive, crass, vulgar, defiling, horrific, reckless), but, more importantly, in invoking the specific sacred nature of this section of Arlington Cemetery (the writer is a veteran of the wars in which these men died), he establishes a compelling opposition (sacred/profane; sacrificing/selfish) that he sustains throughout the piece.

… today, an ice skating rink.

The headlines keep coming for the Trigger Temper Trumpers.

UD suggests the following response: “Yeah we shoved ’em. But we didn’t shoot ’em. Cry babies! They can go to hell.”

WHY are Vance and Trump so irritable all the time?

Likeliest answer: They have too many children.

The Surgeon General has just issued an advisory.

Sing it.

Disturbed again, perturbed again
The thought of those brainwashing pervs again
Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am I

Cannot sleep and will not sleep
Disorientation — it makes me weep 
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I

“I’ve been thinking of voting for him again because Biden’s been so bad for the economy and Kamala won’t be any better. But after [attending a recent Trump speech], I’m actually afraid of Trump being president again. I don’t know what he was talking about half the time. Perhaps he was always like that but he seems worse, more unstable.”

Luckily, the Republicans have expert communicators like Jesse Watters to keep the doubters at bay.

Peter Wehner:

… Public opposition to abortion is collapsing. Pro-life initiatives are being beaten even in very conservative states. The GOP has jettisoned its pro-life plank after having it in place for nearly a half century. And Trump himself is now saying he’d be great for “reproductive rights,” a position that pro-lifers have long insisted is a moral abomination.

This is not a surprise. Betrayal is a core character trait of Trump’s. He’s betrayed his wives, his mistresses, his friends, his business associates, people who have worked for him, and his country. There is no person and no cause he will not double-cross. The pro-life movement is only the latest thing to which he has been unfaithful, and it won’t be the last.

… How could an evangelical who claims to be passionately pro-life vote for a presidential candidate who now promises that his administration will “be great for women and their reproductive rights”? Especially when that person has cheated on his wives and on his taxes, paid hush money to porn stars, and been found liable of sexual assault?

… Much of the evangelical world has validated many of the worst indictments of the secular world. There are so many scandals, so much cynicism and hypocrisy, so much to grieve. Much of what evangelicals and fundamentalists have claimed to stand for, certainly in the realm of politics and culture, turns out to have been an affectation, an illusion.

************************

So much to grieve?

Let me not be hypocritical: If you’re looking for grief about any of the above, find another blog.

… New College!

He drew his sword out of its scabbard

Then proudly he stood up and slabbered,

“Our Bobby’s repulsy

But nae like our Tulsi!

Come on, Dems! Prepare to be Gabbar’d!!”

Trumpworld’s response to the latest sting of betrayal.

‘Foo Fighters say they did not OK

Trump using “My Hero” at Arizona rally,

will donate royalties to Harris-Walz campaign‘

This one I’ll write myself.

17 year old who Assaulted his Mother

for Withholding her American Express Gold Card from him

goes on to Kill his Passenger in his Mother’s BMW X3M.

 ‘It’s like she handed him an AR-15,’ says Victim’s Mother

***********************

This one has it all. As you recall, the DeLillo headline must refer to at least three status markers (prior examples here), and this murder trial is absolutely bursting with them: Gold Card, $80,000 BMW, and the repeated invocation of the AR-15.

I stand amid the roar

Of a self-tormented shore,

And I clasp within my coat

Little dwindled bits of votes—

How few! and how they slide

Through my fingers to the other side,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God!  Call down the pricks

That slashed and burned on January 6!

Is all that we see or seem

A horrid dream within a dream?

I’m pissing myself over Tuesday’s debate

And I’m wondering now if it isn’t too late

To throw out some crap

To get the thing scrapped.

I know nothing, and there’s so much at stake.

How clearly I recall James Galbraith (a conspiracy guy) excitedly leaning in to bestow upon me The Actual Truth of the JFK killing… UD stood in the living room of John Kenneth Galbraith’s Vermont farmhouse (stood for a long time; it’s an incredibly elaborate story) politely waiting for Jamie to finish, but he never finished. Dinner was announced, and I was rescued.

Now, centuries later, Trump, with similar excitement, attempts to stimulate ol’ UD with the use of titillating clues about the CIA, Oswald, Ruby, and the Trilateral Commission. Vote for me and you’ll see how Jamie’s conspiracy was TRUE!

But if much younger, higher-estrogen-level UD failed to respond to JFK conspiracy blandishments, imagine how little the much older UD responds.

And now think about how everyone born after 1953 is likely to respond.