You could use this same technique for a "Obama and Hitler: Two of a Kind" or "Obama and Leatherface: Two of a Kind" story. But how does Hanson support the interesting concept that "Obama is Trump’s doppelgänger"? This'll give you some idea and believe me, even if you're familiar with Hanson's work you may be surprised:
Donald Trump believes he can oversell America abroad in the manner of Chamber of Commerce boosterism; isn’t that the twin to Obama underselling the country in the fashion of a wrinkled-browed academic? Both are stern moralists: America is too often shorted, and so Trump is angry over the sins of omission. For Obama, past genocide, racism, and imperialism vie as sins of U.S. commission.Ahh, we are not so very different, Mr. Trump! I think America has too much, and you think it has too little! No, wait, that didn't come out right -- how about:
The two see the world in similarly materialist — though, again, opposite — terms: Trump wants net worth to be the litmus test of political preparation (“The point is that you can’t be too greedy”), even as Obama professes that big money is a Romney-like 1 percent disqualification. Obama’s infamous communalistic quotes to the effect that you didn’t build that, at some point you’ve made enough money, and this is no time to profit are just bookends to Trump’s money-is-everything ideas that he built everything, he’s never going to make enough money, and it is always time to profit.Ahh, we are not so very different, Mr. Trump! We are both materialists, unlike the rest of America -- you in your money-is-everything way, I in my communis -- my commonalist -- my supercommunalisticexpialidocious way oh fuck it.
In some ways it's vintage Hanson -- there's even an obligatory VDH Obama/Jay-Z moment -- but in other ways it's uniquely awful, just like so much stuff coming out of National Review anymore. They're actually breaking the Jonah Goldberg paradigm, and I didn't think such a thing possible.
Obama will rue the day he stole that chainsaw.
ReplyDeleteOK, I've always been too literal and thus incompetent at parsing literature and philosophy, but how does a guy who thinks there is such a thing as too rich for politics get painted as a materialist ? Especially when compared with a greedy bastard who feeds at the public trough every bankruptcy chance he gets (4 and counting) like Trump? This is not unlike looking at a color bar that goes from red to green, and declaring red and green as exactly the same because colorblindness, or some such crap.
ReplyDeleteMLK and George Wallace: Two of a Kind
ReplyDeleteYoda and Darth Vader: Two of a Kind
Ben and Jerry: Two of a Kind
...whereas Trump will rue the day he left that chainsaw on VDH's land?
ReplyDelete(And by "left that chainsaw", I mean "built a ginormous, monstrously vulgar luxury hotel for the sort of people who buy Vertue cell phones", and by "VDH's land", I mean "land that used to belong to VDH yet somehow got mysteriously eminent-domained just before being sold to Trump". Rue the day, because project soon bankrupt, obvs.)
That's easy, SOAS. In Conservaspeak, "materialist" means "do not like!"; just like "liberal", "Kantian nihilist" and "two legs bad".
ReplyDeleteThe two see the world in similarly materialist — though, again, opposite — terms
ReplyDeleteDialectical Farcism
...just like so much stuff coming out of National Review anymore.
ReplyDeleteYikes. Even Roy has been infected by the "anymore" virus. There's no hope for humanity!
They try. Maaaaaaaaaaan, how they try.
ReplyDeleteThis really is a lazy Victorianus kvetch. It must be harvest time and he's out riding the mule around, hectoring the help.
ReplyDeleteLike two faces of the same coin, these are the daze of Victor's life.
ReplyDeleteIt's rare to see the "These things are very different, but also very similar" argumentative style outside the freshman term paper written 30 minutes before it was due.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Obama is a land of contrasts.
ReplyDeleteA short list of wingnut tropes that appear in Hanson's column:
ReplyDelete1.) Jay-Z
2.) Beyonce Knowles
3.) Teleprompter
4.) "fundamentally transform"
5.) Greek columns (anyone remember that one?)
6.) "you didn’t build that"
7.) Obama is a narcissist because he says "I"
8.) Trayvon Martin/Michael Brown/etc.
9.) community organizer
10.) apology tour
I'd swear that a computer was writing VDH's column for him, except that a competently programmed machine wouldn't pack in that much Dubya apologia.
"Because THING A and THING B are opposites in so many ways, they are practically the same. Please give this paper a C so I can keep my scholarship."
ReplyDeleteYour typical wingnut pundit only paid enough attention in Into to Philosophy to learn that Marxism was a materialist philosophy.
ReplyDeleteThe first time as tragedy, the second time as farts?
ReplyDeleteNicely catalogued. It's always good to remember how they're trying to shoehorn synonyms for "uppity" into their rants, too. I suppose "narcissism" was supposed to be on the down-low once upon a time, but now it's an Uppity Klaxon.
ReplyDeleteThat shit's been going down for at least the last 30 years (and longer, I'm sure, in the Midwestern swamps where it began). The Family Linguist explained it to me, and I thought I understood her, but I never can actually produce it where appropriate. Maybe I'm immune?
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
ReplyDeleteI would curse VDH with a moment of clarity, of perfect self-awareness. It would scar his mind like a mind-meld with an Old One. Behold, Victor. Do not turn away. This is what you wanted, is it not?
I give this comment five fat farting ponies out of five.
ReplyDeleteI cannot figure out what the first clause is supposed to mean? Does Hanson think Trump thinks less of America but is trying to con people about it? And as far as wrinkled-browed academics, isn't that a description of Hanson and not the president who is, you know, president and not a professor?
ReplyDeleteVDH would tell you it has something to do with "postmodernism" because that is another thing that good conservatives aren't supposed to like.
ReplyDeleteHe missed postmodernism. VDH is off his feed.
ReplyDeleteSure! People who hate someone because of the color of her/his skin are exactly the same as people who love someone for similar reason. The leaders of the KKK are identical to Civil Rights leaders!
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, they're just standing up for the Original Civil Rights, those of wealthy, white, landowners.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were exaggerating, but clicked over to his column and saw that literally every trope is there.
ReplyDeleteLike most righties, he's using "materialist" as a stand-in for "secular". They hate "Darwinism" because it explains life in materialistic terms, with no need for supernatural agency.
ReplyDeleteWingnut bingo, wingo, if you will.
ReplyDeleteBe glad it's not a drinking game, you'd need a stomach pump.
Donald Trump believes he can oversell America abroad in the manner of
ReplyDeleteChamber of Commerce boosterism; isn’t that the twin to Obama
underselling the country in the fashion of a wrinkled-browed academic?
Fraternal twins. Who hate each other. And have different parents.
He's beating his sword into a buttplug.
ReplyDeleteConjoined twins, separated at birth with a stolen chainsaw.
ReplyDeleteMaterialists are kind of the Jews of philosophy. You know how Jews run the international Communist conspiracy and the international bankers' cabal at the same time? Materialists are greedy people who only value wealth and pleasure, and also Communists who want everybody to starve.
ReplyDeleteWhat, no VDH love for Kanye?
ReplyDelete"Outwardly they couldn’t be more different."
ReplyDeleteI dunno. I couldn't spot the difference. I'm like Stephen Colbert - I don't see color.
Materialists are filthy people who only want to deal with the material world, and measure stupid things like hungry kids, or count up the people mistreated by the state security apparatus, or talk about the money wasted on futile wars and boondoggle weapon systems, whereas the noble philosophers sponsored by the Hoover Institute wish to deal with higher, abstract concepts. Like why some souls cough--black!--cough will be improved by hard labor, while others are more suited to overseeing said labor, preferably from the veranda while holding a cold drink.
ReplyDeleteYup. None whatso-effin'-ever.
ReplyDeleteBe glad it's not a drinking game, you'd need a stomach pump.I still do.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Patty Duke show all over again, only with one cousin played by David Duke.
ReplyDeleteIf not a fast followed w/ a total body cleanse/emetic, etc.
ReplyDelete"...my supercommunalisticexpialidocious way..."
ReplyDelete"supercommiefragilisticexpialidocious"
{even though the wankery is really quite atrocious}
STILL on the Greek columns. Still. Forever and ever.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, with feeling, from the '04 RNC: http://cphcmp.smu.edu/2004election/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/George-Bush-waving.jpg
Reactionary elements believe that after eight yrs. enslaved in "he's-only-half-black"-est Afrika, they are about to be transported to Amazonia to be ruled over by a post-nubile (The horror!) Queen of The Libtards.
ReplyDeleteExpect the outrage-the-libs/frighten the rubes hysteria to go well past 11.
Like a sub-atomic particle that is/isn't there/not-there at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same as someone who notices race being the real racist. If Obama weren't racist, he wouldn't see race. If Obama weren't a materialist, he wouldn't see material.
ReplyDeleteHaven't Jay-Z & Bey been in the show biz about 20 yrs., & are now about as old, square & in the way as V.D.H. hisse'f?
ReplyDeleteTrump gives out Lidsay Grahams personal phone number in a speech.
ReplyDeleteNext week: Trump calls the FBI to alert them of a "possible murder scene, and shooter on the premises" at Jeb Bush's house. Hangs up the phone and giggles.
Next week: Trump spreads a rumor that there's a really hot assistant of his who has a thing for Jeb. Plot twist: It's not true, and Jeb TOTALLY gets embarrassed when he texts her!
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to get all uptight about Greco-Roman symbolism, let's have a fit about the fasces in the Senate.
ReplyDelete"Obama and Hitler: Two of a Kind"
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I've been treated to a spot of that in the recent past. About a week or so ago I confessed on a message board that I find Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation to be motivational, and while on the same message board some lad (for so I picture him) disclosed that he once liked The Star-Spangled Banner, but only before Obama got elected. I couldn't resist. I admitted that The Hymn To Old Glory did sound better in the original German, and after that we were off to the races.
It seems that in the midst of his spectacular career of skulduggery Mr. Obama has had some guy named Nakoula Nakoula (a "we are not so different" kind of name if ever there was one) jailed. For a whole year.* This is like Hitler, you understand, because Hitler was also known (on occasion) to have people jailed. Once again, I was tempted beyond the bounds of my endurance, and remarked in reply that this was only proof that black men can never succeed, because while Hitler did the Nazi thing to perfection, here was poor old Obama, still flailing away fecklessly after six years of tyrannical power (Nakoula Dude went to jail in 2012 so he must be out now).
That comment of mine was never posted; it was marked "pending" and it's pending still.
*Explanation for those not in the know: Nakoula Nakoula is the perpetrator of The Innocence of Muslims and an all-around small-time crook. He was arrested for violating the terms of his probation but the real charge probably was (in fact) that he had embarrassed his country (America) — which is perfectly all right with me. He did embarrass America and he shouldn't oughta done that. Historically (my opinion) it's not going to matter whether or not Muslims are innocent if Americans look like dolts. History is not going to remember that Muslims were guilty; history is going to remember that Americans were stupid, and that's going to be all there is to that.
Yeah, but that was the Old Greeks, who were Great (virtuous); as opposed to the New Greeks, who are Broke (scoundrels).
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's my crummy Obama-'phone, but I tried Sen. G's. # several times & was advised "Network Busy".
ReplyDeleteI hope he runs as an independent on the Second Childhood ticket & annonces to America that Hillary has cooties & "smells funny".
Once upon a time (long long ago) I did a stint as a GradAss and God, does this ever ring true.
ReplyDeleteI've read this sentiment several times recently, but it's odd to me. To me that use of "anymore" is an old-timer thing that has become much less common over the years. My grandpa said it. It seems like the stirring-up and admixture of dialects that the Internet has caused has resulted in people interpreting old usages as innovative.
ReplyDeleteWhere have I heard that before? Oh, right:
ReplyDelete“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
John Roberts, 2007.
Our Cathy adores Obamacare
ReplyDeleteArugula and treaties fair
While Patty makes the dice to roll
Mexicans make her lose control
What a crazy pair!
Cause they're cousins. . .
You'd think that if anybody understood the concept of the Procrustean Bed it would be Victor Davis Hanson, classicist.
ReplyDeletePericles? Polonius? I always get them mixed up.
ReplyDeleteQuantum racism!
ReplyDeleteHa ha, I thought you meant "feces" and then I realized I was wrong. But then I kept laughing because "feces in the Senate." It's too funny!
ReplyDeleteAnd ruled by the very Amazonian libtard who told the world ten years ago that she'd figured out their game and understood quite well what they were trying to do to her husband (and her, by extension). Let's hope she hasn't forgotten her own sage advice.
ReplyDeleteIt'll take more than that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#Fasces_in_the_United_States
ReplyDeleteExactly what I was going to say. This also partakes of the strained, how-many-pages-did-he-say-it-had-to-be?, who-cares-if-it's-true arbitrariness of wingnut cultural writing, e.g., "Candy Crush and the Triumph of Hayek."
ReplyDeleteDamn, don't tell him that. He just might win.
ReplyDeleteI am sorely disappointed that no one has written "Candy Crush and the Triumph of Hayek."
ReplyDeletePresidents and SCOTUS justices are readily demoted to some lesser station when an outcome or state of affairs is not to a wingnut propagandist's liking. Hence, to Rafi "Grandpa Munster" "Ted" "Cruz", the SCOTUS comprises "unelected lawyers, oh noez!" instead of distinguished jurists, depending on the particular decision. POTUS is some pointy-headed effete intellectual not worthy of the mantle of power inherent in that office. Plus, if you haven't noticed, he's black!
ReplyDeleteIt's forthcoming, from Der Pantload; of course he has to wait until there's an actual, edible version of Candy Crush.
ReplyDeleteTruth, or analogy?
ReplyDeleteWait, this isn't a teleprompter joke?
ReplyDeleteI see that Trump was on the "only losers use teleprompters" jag today. I figured that one had been worn out but no, the people who love Trump still do the "Obama, teleprompter, hur, hur" tribal signifying behavior. Like a 6 year old on his 12 iteration of the same knock-knock joke.
shorter vdh: HARUMPH HARUMPH
ReplyDeleteWhat, no Fast and Furious? No snatching defeat in Iraq? No BENGHAZI!!!??? Hanson is losing his touch.
ReplyDeleteWell, can't we have the Marxian "interposition of opposites" in here? Oh. No quoting Marxian doctrine here? Ummm, sorry, nevermind....
ReplyDelete"Tell me more about your mother...."
ReplyDelete"It's the Patty Duke show all over again, only with one cousin played by David Duke."
ReplyDeleteNot enough likes available for this one! Except you left out the part where the cousins get married....
She, We Must Be Dismayed?
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump believes he can oversell America abroad in the manner of Chamber of Commerce boosterism; isn’t that the twin to Obama underselling the country in the fashion of a wrinkled-browed academic?
ReplyDeleteNo. Next question.
In high school writing something execrable and stupid will get you at least a D, possibly a C, or even a B- if experience has really kicked the hell out of the teacher's standards. Handing in nothing will get you an F, even that nothing is more intelligent.
ReplyDeleteHigh school never ended for Hanson, is what I'm saying.
VDH: Praise Bush's Iraq War leadership again, Dell.
ReplyDeleteDell 3000: I'm so sorry, Victor, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Victor Davis Hanson: Destroying UC Santa Cruz's reputation one word at a time.
ReplyDeleteIf Trump thinks Hillary has more than one cooter, he's definitely dumb enough to be the GOP nominee. Be afraid, America.
ReplyDeleteWell, just LOOK at them! They both have eyes, and mouths, and that pair of tiny holes they breath through! They're practically identical!
ReplyDeleteWow, that's a lot of fasces.
ReplyDeleteI never noticed that about the Lincoln Memorial.
There you go again, with your judicious study of discernible reality. They're just out creating their own reality again.
ReplyDeleteIt is always fun to watch rightie academics rag on academics. Even their intellectuals are anti-intellectual.
ReplyDeleteAnd they've been saying the same things (Dems are weak! Dems are commies! We'll cut taxes and all will be well!) in every election at least since Carter. Well, longer than that, but that's the first election I remember. I was 9. They haven't changed.
ReplyDelete"That joke is FUNNY, Goddamn it, and we're gonna keep repeating it until somebody LAUGHS!!!"
ReplyDeleteThat cat is still pissed, you know.
ReplyDelete"I didn't get a harumph outta that guy!"
ReplyDeleteUnless it isn't.
ReplyDeleteHey hey, watch what you say. The Saw is Family...
ReplyDeleteVictor Davis Hanson and a Large Yellow Slug: Two of a Kind
ReplyDeleteTry Petronius. The uncensored version. That will open some eyes.
ReplyDelete