Is Nothing Funny, Mr. President?

By stepping up to the line without crossing it, a commander in chief tacitly acknowledges that a line exists.

.. President Trump does not possess the sense of nuance a well-told joke requires. He does not seem to know when he is pushing the envelope.

.. This refusal to recognize the unwritten rules that govern us, so evident during Mr. Trump’s failed attempts at humor, is a central feature of his presidential tenure thus far. If a leader does not understand the idea of benign violations, blatant violations inevitably occur.

.. Presidents can either laugh at the strangeness of their circumstances or be consumed by them.

.. Without the qualities that laughter both demonstrates and fosters —

  • a willingness to find common ground,
  • the respect for agreed-upon norms and
  • the awareness that we are all only human —

Mr. Trump’s attitude toward the presidency is defined by the one characteristic that remains: a lust for power.

.. Thanks to the power of the internet, there is proof that our president has indeed laughed at least once. This was during a campaign rally in January, when Mr. Trump’s speech was interrupted by a barking dog.

“It’s Hillary!” an audience member shouted. And the candidate tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide and laughed without reservation, quite possibly for the first time in his political life.

This documented incidence of Trump laughter is as illuminating as all the grim smiles that preceded it. For they reveal a president who is constantly, endlessly preoccupied with status.

Make no mistake about it: the alt-right is a cult, and this is how its members lure people in

They have created an esoteric private language with terms like cuck, red pill, deus vault. People are seduced by a combination of humour (everything is ‘ironic’ so it has plausible deniability) and a secret language

the alt-right is a moving target, able to tease, and able to deny the authenticity of their content because of its comedic packaging; in the words of Jason Wilson, “the alt-right have stormed mainstream consciousness by weaponising irony, and by using humour and ambiguity as tactics to wrongfoot their opponents” . It is rare that they advance a straight argument, or in fact any argument at all.

But they are indeed a cult. Their power comes from a series of social media sites such as Elders of the Black Sun; Stop Degeneracy; Nazi Tinder; Art of the True Right; Strictly Ubermensch; Men Among the Ruins; Trumpenreich. The subcultural and cultist elements effectively disarm potential critics via their very oddity.

.. This occurs precisely at the point in American history where the nation is poised to lose its white majority, a critical juncture.

.. African Americans are a particular target. One crime of a black person is the crime of all black people everywhere, a familiar Goebbels-style rhetorical trick. The alleged mannerisms and culture of African Americans are caricatured in parodies which are beyond crude. They also mock the aspirations of African Americans to their own heritage: “we wuz kangz (kings) and sh*t”.

.. Yet the alt-right is not an organisation but a disorganisation. The process is essentially crowd-sourced, originally via the message board 4Chan. Exactly like Isis propaganda

.. Here then is the gathered harvest of personal bitterness. Lonely individuals map onto these causes their own frustrations. Underlying it all is an appeal to solidarity, the community of shared views and values.

.. The common denominator is a hatred of American and European liberalism

.. It seeks neither to harangue with argument nor beguile with rhetoric, but to ridicule, and to elude the scrutiny of conscience by virtue of its levity and lack of seriousness.

 

James Mattis: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy

This overwhelming support goes beyond enthusiasm for his record of military competence. His sometimes shocking public statements and quiet triumphs point to both an extraordinary level of compassion and the capacity for ferocious lethality.

.. Mattis chose a path in life that has brought him repeatedly into mortal combat with the most barbaric evil of our time, Islamist terrorism. Yet he continues to defeat it with insight, humor, fighting courage, and fierce compassion not only for his fellow Marines who volunteer to follow him through hell’s front door but also for the innocent victims of war. He encouraged his beloved Marines in Iraq with this advice: “Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

.. Robert H. Scales, a retired United States Army major general, described him as “one of the most urbane and polished men I have known.” Mattis’s personal library of more than 7,000 books — including many obscure, scholarly titles — is as famous as his habit of carrying a personal copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius with him into battle.

.. People perhaps mistake his ferocious aggression for a lack of discipline. Anyone who has served with him will tell you just the opposite: As a field commander, he maintains strict discipline, even sleep discipline, continually striving for “brilliance in the basics.”

.. His competence and level-headedness are so trusted that the president of the United States has given him essentially a free hand to fight America’s wars as he sees fit. Characteristically, in announcing the change of policy toward ISIS from one of “attrition” to “annihilation,”

.. The Art of War, a recently translated treatise dating from the fifth century b.c., by Sun-Tzu, a legendary Chinese general. The emphasis on duality in Sun-Tzu’s philosophy, the yin and yang of war, coincided with Mattis’s deep appreciation for the ebb and flow of the natural world and human interaction. Sun-Tzu’s concept of “winning hearts and minds” was a natural fit for Mattis and would serve him well in the wars to come in the East.

.. This human aftermath of the American military retreat from Vietnam and resulting political instability crowded every available inch of deck space around Mattis. Refugees filled the sweaty hold of the ship, clutching their children and meager possessions and often shaking with fear and trauma. This was Mattis’s first real-world experience of war as a Marine. As the Navy’s ground troops — the first in and often the last out of smaller, Third World conflicts — Marines frequently end up with the responsibility for evacuation of war victims. Compassion is a necessary part of an officer’s training, and Mattis’s was put to the test as he shared overheated sleeping spaces, food, and few toilets, often for days on end, with successive swarms of desperate, frequently ill people who didn’t speak English.

.. A few days before departure, Alice suddenly realizes that as a Marine’s wife, she will move frequently to different parts of the world and will face the constant threat of having officers knocking on her door one day in full dress uniform to deliver the worst possible news. As much as she respects the sacrifices that Marines make, she is not prepared to do the same. She insists that Mattis resign, that he choose her or the Corps — he cannot have both.

.. “Y’know, Dave, the privilege of command is command. You don’t get a bigger tent.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450464/james-mattis-no-better-friend-no-worse-enemy?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20170819%20Weekend%20Jolt&utm_term=Jolt

.. He will never marry. Instead, he will devote himself to his adopted family of Marines.

.. Mattis told Krulak that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas Day had a family, and he had decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family. So he chose to have duty on Christmas Day in his place.