First, thank you to my friend Alicia for the title of this column. It’s the sign her daughter’s roommate held at the second presidential candidates’ debate at Washington University in St. Louis.
We have to endure only two more weeks. Then this toxic election will be over. Let’s be clear: there is one sinister person—the orange predator—who has made it toxic. No more false equivalencies.
Friends tell me how they are coping. Some refuse to watch the debates. Others are foregoing newspapers. Some shut off the radio. They never go to Twitter. Others, like the Washington University student, are turning their disgust into great word play.
I have a strategy for getting through. First I explore all the possible names I can call that repellant braggart. Then I collect the ironies. Some are delicious.
For example, a Bush finally prevailed over that dirty old man who’s running for president. It wasn’t Jeb, but Billy, his apparently low-life cousin.
It’s juicy to follow the creepy bully’s sycophantic male hypocrites, who continually remind us about Bill Clinton’s sexual exploits, and in doing so, remind us also of theirs. Here’s a partial list: toady Rudy Giuliani, known for dumping wife two for wife three without telling wife two; repulsive Newt Gingrich, famous for carrying on with a congressional aide while his second wife was in the hospital battling cancer and he was impeaching Bill Clinton for an extra-marital affair. There is rich fodder here.
Poor, clueless Melania. She doesn’t have an ironic bone in her body. Yet she gets pulled out from time to time to undergo humiliation and show us what irony is. She copied Michelle Obama’s words. After her husband’s remarks about his success in “grabbing pussy,” she sported a pussy bow. She traded a good career for a boring life in the Trump Tower ghetto. Just because you’re young and hook up with an old, serial bankruptee doesn’t mean you should be put at risk of plagiarizing a first lady’s words or wearing clothing that emphasizes that bankruptee’s sordid sexual behavior. Melania is not up to the task, and the campaign is cruel to use her.
Locker rooms have also become ironic. How wonderful that the menacing 70-year-old trash talker managed to victimize men as well as women when he chalked up his degrading remarks to the locker room.
Ridiculously, when the slimeball criticizes his opponent, he is actually describing himself. After people suggested a cocaine habit might be causing his snuffles, he said Hillary should have a drug test before the next debate. He has no insight into what his remarks reveal about him. It is so weird.
So many ironies. So little time.
A more serious irony involves Republican dogma for the last 30 years.
What happens when you pass state laws restricting the right to vote, falsely claiming American elections are fraudulent? You get a narcissistic blowhard as a candidate who shouts “rigged” because he’s losing an election.
What happens when you reduce government spending and initiatives? You get a rotting America—bad roads and bridges, declining public universities that bleed students dry, messy health care that can’t be fixed because Congressional leaders would rather see Americans die or go bankrupt instead of giving their fellow citizens an affordable health care system that works.
Americans, you get no paid parental leave, no gun control, no government-subsidized day care, no speedy trains, no affordable colleges and no universal pre-K, unlike the rest of the developed world. Live with it, McConnell and Ryan say, and don’t complain since we are keeping government out of your lives—except, of course, when it involves women, who aren’t smart enough to manage their own reproductive systems. That’s where we’ll let government intrude.
No wonder people want to make America great again. I do too. And we’re groping for ways to do that.
Maybe it has less to do with nostalgia for an America that was more white and more to do with remembering when America dreamed and spent big. We built the interstate highway system, put men on the moon, fueled the fastest-expanding economy ever while the richest paid 90 percent of their income in taxes, declared war on poverty and passed some of the most important civil rights legislation ever. We funded public universities so well that in 1965, when my husband, who had graduated from two of those distinguished public universities, arrived at the law school of the “World’s Greatest University,” we looked around and said, “This is kind of shabby.” Those were the days.
Best of all the ironies will be on November 8 if that insulting, misogynist, blubbery sexual predator loses. A woman will be the one to take him down.
Downtown View is a column by newspaperwoman Karen Cord Taylor who founded The Beacon Hill Times in 1995 and served as its editor and publisher until late 2007. She also founded and served as editor and publisher of the Charlestown Patriot-Bridge and The Back Bay Sun weeklies. Karen now works from her home in downtown Boston and blogs at BostonColumn.com. Please feel free to leave responses in the comments section below.
Wonderful that you have a vehicle to spew your left wing junk to the masses. This blog should be ashamed of itself for allowing itself to become a campaign speech. Thought you were above this. (Btw, pretty sure this won’t get posted….keeping with the bias theme)
Joey:
Left wing junk? What rock in the North End do live under?
Very surprised at hearing this hatred on North End Waterfront News. It’s upsetting.
I don’t care how you feel about Trump, but I trust him over Hillary any day. Bengazhi was enough
for me.
The Middle Class will be affected big time if she comes in. I am tired of funding abortions & child
care for women who made a career out of having babies. The immigrants coming into this country
know the system better than we will ever know it. I believe in helping people but not when our
own have been neglected for years.
I advise everyone before voting to go on Comcast & watch the movie ” Hillary’s America.”
Charity starts at home, we have people living in deplorable conditions, such as FLINT & we
can’t afford to help anyone else as long as these conditions still exist in the U.S.A.
I am an independent, I always vote for the Person, never the Party. What have the Democrats
done for the African Americans? They have been conning these poor people for years.
Abraham Lincoln was a Republican & he truly cared about the African Americans, and they killed
him. I only pray & hope Trump comes in & we put a halt to all Immigrants until we know what
the hell is going on in our on country.
Joan of Arc, you are very misguided.
Suggesting that Abe Lincoln and Trump are a Republicans and therefore the same, do you really think Trump would have signed the Emancipation Proclamation?
Where is your mind and knowledge and are you at all listening to what is going on?
JGH….you are doing nothing but listening, and therein lies the problem. Do a little research and you’ll find that you are being played for a fool.
Joan, I wouldn’t buy bonds from Trump (and thank God I didn’t) and I don’t have enough to buy influence from the Clintons. I don’t really know Johnson, McMullen or Stein. But I do recognize party propaganda and this what this represents.
Well, it’s all true, which is more than you can say about a lot of other election rhetoric.
Absolutely GREAT comment Jeanne. I totally agree with you.
This article reeks of another one of the misinformed, quoting media headlines without understanding the root causes of where we are today.
This is not what I want to read on this site. I thought it was supposed to be about the North End and the Waterfront. You have opened up a can of worms Not good
I agree
Why does northendwaterfront.com publish this tripe? I susbscribe to find out what’s going on in the North End, not to hear what some far left leaning writer has to say about her particular skewed version of Republicans and conservatives. You’re not influencing anyone lady, you just annoying people. Most of us really don’t care what you believe, and most of your columns are not very interesting or well crafted. “Blah, blah, blah” is a summary of your writing.
I agree with the other comments re: this is not the platform for this type of content. Had it been written about how the election outcome (from both party perspectives) will effect the NEWN – that’s a story I would find interesting.
I blame the yuppies 🙂
Francesco…..you cannot be serious! You are aging yourself pal. By the way, the term ‘yuppies’ is not longer in use. It is old hat. The word used in these modern times is ‘millennials’. I cannot believe the thread of comments ended with yours. Unbelievable.
John Sutton:…..mean comment about Karen’s column. Very hateful.
I might be wrong but with the smiley face I took Francesco’s comment as sarcasm?
yes, Michael. A part of me laughs every time someone on this site uses the word “yuppie” 🙂
It makes me want to go home and watch Miami Vice.
I didn’t even have to read the writers name .This is more of the bias this writer is known here for.
Writers can write whatever they want, free country I guess. But it’s this blog owner’s decision as to if he posts it, or not.
Didn’t think this was the objective of the blog. I’ll be done with it if it is.
is she talking about donald trump or the college students/yuppies/young professionals/newcomers/anyone that did not inherit property here that have taken over the north end, drove down real estate values, defecated on every door step, thrown cars off buildings onto baby rabbits, and turned it into a third-world, isis-controlled outpost? hard to tell somedays after reading the back and forth on this site.
Oh, woe is me, there are younger people in MY neighborhood, whine, whine whine…….
Sarah, my comments were not intended to be mean or hateful. I regret you found them to be such. My intent was to express my opinion that this column in this blog should reflect nonpartisan, non ideological views of events impacting the North End. That, I believe, is what most readers are interested in and why they are reading it. If I wanted political commentary, I would read the opinion pages of the local newspapers.
To J. Sutton: I just read your comment again, and it is very harsh talk. For example, “you’re not influencing anyone lady, just annoying people” and your ‘blah blah blah” – you think that is acceptable to write in a neighborhood paper about a columnist???…nasty comments, my boy. Or perhaps that is your mode of expression about everything.
Read the column. Pretty nasty stuff in there too. Or is it OK when it’s owning from your side of the aisle? Hypocritical much?
I hope that is not directed at me JOE. I was responding to Sutton about his harsh words for someone. No reflection on what side of aisle I’m on. Boy, you guys are tough. Sick of it.
Yeah…me too. Outta here…
How, how, how, can anyone morally and honestly believe, support, defend or otherwise pretend that Donald T Rump is anything but what he is preaching and fabricating hourly. He is illiterate, ignorant, mysoginistic, biased, hateful, pompous, narcissistic, egotistical, a pathological liar and an absolute dope, Karen’s comments are only the truth being told, grow up.
And, please, don’t suggest that both candidates are bad, one might be bad, in your mind, but the other is the absolute worst….a shame and an embarrassment.
It is not about one side versus the other side, in this case there are no sides, the orange haired wonder is all by himself, just ask most of his REPUBLICAN colleagues.
Thanks to a Karen Cord Taylor for her comments and this publication for allowing all people to speak their mind, now, please go vote.
More headlines in an attempt to sway the masses……do you dig at all or just watch CNN?
This is NOT the place for a biases column such as this. NOT good.
This is a good one.
Gregg Jarrett: The perpetual cloud of dirt and scandal that hovers over Hillary Clinton
If not for the cosmetic surgery, Richard Nixon would come to mind.
It’s become less of a campaign for president as much as a campaign of competing lows.