Bill Kassel's Blog

Occasional reflections on religion, culture, politics, and anything else that comes into my mind...

bill kassel

Trump

In Praise of Hypocrisy

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PRUDENCE IS A VIRTUE EVEN
IF IT SEEMS LIKE HYPOCRISY

In a play I wrote some years ago* the ghost of Erasmus, a leading Christian Humanist and one of the great wits of the Renaissance period, comments on the subject of hypocrisy…

“Hypocrisy is like human waste. It’s obnoxious, but we suffer when it doesn’t come forth with a certain regularity.”

This line springs to mind amid the firestorm currently raging over that crude description of certain Third World countries attributed to Donald Trump. It’s particularly relevant in two ways:

First, of course, is the human waste imagery.

Second is its reflection on the role of hypocrisy (not to mention regularity) in easing life’s discomforts.

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The Speech

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TRUMP’S ADDRESS ASSERTED
OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER

The inaugural address was more than just Trump being Trump.

For one thing, it was a ringing and unashamed declaration that America is going to reassert its Judeo-Christian cultural and religious heritage. We saw as broad a representation of clergy as might be expected after eight years of strained multiculturalism.

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The Prophet

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HIS WIN WAS DOWNRIGHT RELIGIOUS
CAN HE SATISFY THE HOPES RAISED?

Let’s be honest. Relieved as we are that the nation’s leftward march has been interrupted — and despite expectations of positive change — there’s no denying that the Trump Era is beginning in deep uncertainty.

We’ve come through a very odd election that offered a choice between two candidates with unusually high negative poll numbers. And while I believe that people decided early on how they were going to vote, most still went into the booth with conflicted feelings.

As I observed in a blog post back in August…

“…Republicans and Democrats alike don’t really support either candidate. Rather, they feel they must cast their ballots against either Clinton or Trump — choosing to oppose the one they’re most desperate to keep from winning….

“…this year, people really aren’t voting to elect their favorite candidate. They’re voting to avoid their worst nightmare.”

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The Destroyer

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OBAMA IS DOING DAMAGE
RIGHT TO THE LAST MINUTE

Now then, do you really still have any doubts about the destructiveness of Barack Obama?

Twenty-two days before he’s set to leave office — three weeks — he tries to instigate a major diplomatic crisis over the assumption that Russian hacking influenced the outcome of our presidential election.

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A Wicked Game

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THE NATION’S COURSE
STILL ISN’T DETERMINED

alt-right-otb-mastheadTwo weeks after the election that signaled the end of the Obama Era, it’s beginning to dawn on some people — if grudgingly — that Donald Trump’s win was something other than an assertion of “white privilege” on a national scale.

It really did represent a reaction to actual problems.

Now, to be sure, a few folks are holding onto the theory that for eight years…

“Those damned Republicans were determined to block everything Obama tried to do.”

Others persist in writing the situation off as…

“Things were so bad after Bush, that Obama couldn’t bring us back no matter how hard he tried.”

And in certain quarters there’s a lingering assumption that…

“This country was just never going to let a black man succeed.”

…as if all businesses and workers colluded — out of sheer racial orneriness — to preserve Obama’s record-low economic growth.

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Mirror, Mirror

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VULGARITY AND TRIBALISM ABOUND
IN THE LEFT’S REACTION TO TRUMP

Reaction to Donald Trump’s victory puts me in mind of that 1967 episode in the original “Star Trek” series (the one titled “Mirror, Mirror”) where a transporter malfunction sends Kirk, McCoy, Scott and Uhuru to a different Enterprise in a parallel, alternative universe.

Everything is the same — sort of — but all actions and decisions are motivated by evil.

It’s become clear in the days since the election that those folks who’ve been raging and rioting over President Elect Trump see the United States as something akin to that wicked cosmos. Themselves they see as the good Enterprise crew members trapped in a reverse reality where all is greed, hatred and malevolence.

To be sure, a lot of the turmoil we’re watching is organized and paid for by MoveOn.org and other elements of the George Soros-funded global subversive network. These antics are part of what I called in my blog post of November 2 “Plan B”: using a Trump win as an excuse for civil disorder.

But aside from their functionality as political theater, they give clear voice to the vulgar disdain for America that is at the heart of so-called Progressivism, and that permeates Leftist media commentary on Trump’s win.

Consider the ostentatious vulgarity of Rebecca Schoenkopf, proprietress of the Wonkette blog, as she vents her offended spleen on Trump voters (OBSCENITY ALERT!)…

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A Generational Thing

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THIS DEBATE SURE WASN’T
KENNEDY VERSUS NIXON

hofstra-debate-trigger-warningI should have been more appreciative of the trigger warning posted for Hofstra University students before the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, which was held on that campus. This event did indeed prove to be an unsettling experience.

My initial reaction was summed up by commentator John Podhoretz, who observed in the New York Post that…

“Hillary Clinton was boring and exceptionally well-prepared. Donald Trump was exciting but embarrassingly undisciplined.”

Podhoretz expanded on his observation, channeling my thoughts about The Donald…

“…by refusing to prepare properly for this exchange, by not learning enough to put meat on the bones of his populist case against Clinton, he displayed nothing but contempt for the people who have brought him this far — and for the American people who are going to make this momentous decision on Nov. 8.”

I was actually angry that Trump would approach such an important moment in so cavalier a way. Then my son called…

“Did you see the debate, Dad?” he gushed. “I thought Trump did great!”

Clearly, it’s a generational thing.

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Your Worst Nightmare

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ELECTION FEELINGS ARE
WAY TOO COMPLICATED

I am at a total loss trying to assess the current White House race, and I suspect a lot of other people are as well.

No projections I’ve seen — for either Hillary or The Donald — are convincing. No campaign news I hear or read seems trustworthy.

The Web keeps telling me that Wikileaks is about to release information that will get Clinton indicted. Yet no such revelation is forthcoming.

Network news keeps telling me that Trump’s campaign is in shambles and his poll numbers are in the pits. Yet, survey organizations like Rasmussen claim no clear frontrunner, and even the Los Angeles Times’ daily track continues to show every count within a margin of error.

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Lefties for Trump?

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MAYBE PROGRESSIVES
PREFER THE DONALD

The Right GuyIf I were of a more conspiratorial turn of mind, I might suspect that agents of Donald Trump are secretly hiring illegal aliens to foment violent demonstrations like the one witnessed in San Jose, California last week.

Such is the ease with which The Donald’s case is being made for him — a point noted by this graphic currently in circulation online.

Mexico may or may not be sending us its “best,” as Trump so controversially explored. But assaulting Trump supporters, burning the U.S. flag, aggressively waving the flag of Mexico, and calling for California to be restored to Mexican territory make Trump’s impolitic words and elaborate wall-building schemes hard to dismiss as the ravings of a jingoistic paranoid.

Indeed, The Donald is sounding more prophetic by the day.

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Give ‘em Hell, Harry!

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A TRUMAN BIOGRAPHY PROMPTS
REFLECTIONS ON THE DONALD

Truman Book CoverIn my brief stint as a newspaper reporter, the one story of mine that got picked up by the wires was a short piece about the “‘Give ’em Hell, Harry’ Spring Dance” held in one of the townships I covered.

What made the event newsworthy was the fact that this affair honoring former-President Harry S. Truman on his birthday (May 8) was being staged by the local Republican club. Truman, of course, was a Democrat. But as the club chairman explained, Harry was much admired for his firm convictions and forthright manner.

That incident comes to mind because I’ve just finished reading David McCullough’s Truman, a sprawling, 1,000-page biography of our 33rd President.

Harry Truman declined the invitation to attend that spring dance (he was 86 at the time and in poor health). But judging from the portrait sketched by McCullough’s book, I’m sure he appreciated the Republican gesture.

In our current hyper-partisan atmosphere, it’s hard to imagine such cross-party respectfulness. Indeed, we’ve become so divided ideologically that even within parties, different factions pretty much loath each other.

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You’ve Got to Change Your Evil Ways

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Santana GP CoverAS THE PRIMARIES LOOM
REBELLION IS IN THE AIR

I’ve always gotten a chuckle out of the song, “Evil Ways,” which was Carlos Santana’s 1969 breakthrough hit. One can hardly think of a less feminist little ditty.

It’s about a guy who’s really steamed because his wife is out shopping with her girlfriends instead of making his dinner.

“When I come home, baby
My house is dark and my pots are cold
You’re hanging ’round, baby
With Jean and Joan and who knows who
I’m getting tired of waiting and fooling around
I’ll find somebody, who won’t make me feel like a clown
This can’t go on
Lord knows you got to change”*

The song is a real hoot, if you relish the annoyance of the chronically aggrieved. I’ve often wondered how it got so much airplay, given even the comparatively restrained feminist sensitivities of 1969.

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