Are you ready for some football!
According to his Wikipedia page, Rex Ashley Ryan (who is two month younger than my brother) is...
...a former American football coach and current ESPN analyst. Ryan was formerly the head coach of the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL), and also held various coaching positions with eight other NFL and college teams.
He is, in other words, a grown-ass Trump-supporting white man living a life of privilege in the United States of America who would have you believe that he literally did not notice until yesterday that President Stupid is a racist asshole:
“I’m pissed off I’ll be honest. I supported Trump, and I’m appalled at these comments. SOB’s? Not the men that I know.” - Rex Ryan just now pic.twitter.com/hsJRRktlsv— justin kanew (@Kanew) September 24, 2017
Boy howdy is Rex Ryan ever gonna be shocked when he finds out that the reason Donald Trump was nominated by the Republican Party last summer and elected last November was not in spite of the fact that he is an ignorant, racist asshole but precisely because he is an ignorant, racist asshole. An ignorant, racist asshole with whom the tens of millions of other ignorant, racist assholes who make up the base of the Republish Party very strongly identify.
I would also note that, according to his Wikipedia page, Mr. Ryan's suffers from dyslexia and that a lesser man might be tempted to make some crude joke at this juncture about not him not being able to see what was staring him right in the fucking face all along. And make no mistake -- I am a lesser man. But after all, Mr. Ryan is just an ex-jock who talks football on the teevee machine for a living, so even though he endorsed Donald Trump at one of his Thunderdome fun fairs just a year ago, perhaps Mr. Ryan can be forgiven for being too stupid to see what was staring him -- and the rest of us -- right in the face all along.
What is inexcusably more dishonorable and toxic is the behavior of so-called experts and political analysts who have been steeped in this shit for decades. Because once again the same fucking clowns who helped dig this grave and drag of us into it are not only being allowed to skip out on the butcher bill they have racked up. And not only being allowed to pretend that they, too, just now noticed the looming shadow of the monster they helped to create (from life-long Conservative radio goon and newly-minted Respected MSNBC Contributor, Charlie Sykes, with emphasis added):
For a quarter of a century, I was a major part of the conservative movement. But like many on the right, in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory I had to ask some uncomfortable questions. The 2016 presidential campaign was a brutal, disillusioning slog, and there came a moment when I realized that conservatives had created an alternate reality bubble—one that I had helped shape...
But they are also being allowed to turn what should be time spent atoning for their sins, shutting the fuck up for the next 20 years and exiling themselves from the company of decent men and women into just another a marketing angle that lets them make one more buck off of the evil they have done to the rest us:
You got t-shirts. I got hats. pic.twitter.com/bYoCMnVpsI— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) September 23, 2017
See? One, big, happy Beltway Media family, giving itself one, big happy, cross-marketing reach-around.
Oops. My apologies. Ever since President Stupid took a big ol' steaming Trump on their favorite locution, the boys and girls of the mainstream media village have been forced to hawk their same-old snake oil under its new, focus-group-tested label: Tribalism.
From "Box Turtle" Ben Domenech, who now gets column inches in The New York Time because reasons --
It is now impossible to consume media without the constant encroachment of political divisiveness and partisan tribalism, Breaking down the walls between us is easier to do when our culture is not so politicized—when we can feel free to watch, laugh and cheer alongside our fellow Americans without catching ourselves wondering how they voted. That is the healthier way to live, particularly in the era of Donald Trump.
-- to Andrew Sullivan --
I mean two tribes whose mutual incomprehension and loathing can drown out their love of country, each of whom scans current events almost entirely to see if they advance not so much their country’s interests but their own. I mean two tribes where one contains most racial minorities and the other is disproportionately white; where one tribe lives on the coasts and in the cities and the other is scattered across a rural and exurban expanse; where one tribe holds on to traditional faith and the other is increasingly contemptuous of religion altogether; where one is viscerally nationalist and the other’s outlook is increasingly global; where each dominates a major political party; and, most dangerously, where both are growing in intensity as they move further apart...
-- it's all the rage, kids, so look for it coming to a local paper and Thanksgiving dinner you!
Meanwhile, down on Maxwell Street, between the bags of tube socks and the rims-of-dubious-origins the Professional Left has some merch of its own, bearing much-less Beltway Media family friendly messages:
Let me leave you with this from Vox because of the last sentence (with emphasis added):
How have they found themselves here again, after their previous repeal bills failed in July? The underlying truth, the beating heart of Obamacare repeal that refuses to let it die, is: Republicans just want to pass a bill, any bill, to say they repealed Obamacare. Whatever standards they’ve set for their health care plan, whatever promises they made before, don’t matter.It is time for all good Liberals to once and for all get over the idea that any of this is surprising or shocking or jaw-dropping. Or that the reaction to the ongoing, escalating sadism and depravity of the American Fascist Party from men and women with a financial or psychological stake in defending the Both Sides narrative will ever amount to anything other than, "Yeah, but the Liberals..."
Anything other than, "Yeah, but Tribalism...".
Because by now we should all be well past the antediluvian conceit that there exists on the Right anything like a Reasonable Republican or a Conscientiousness Conservative faction. By now it should be perfectly clear that on the Right there are only the various tentacles of an American Fascist Party, which is the enemy, and which absolutely will not stop trying to wreck this country until they are forced to stop. An American Fascist Party...and their could-not-survive-one-fucking-day-in-the-Real-World enablers from the Beltway media hothouse whose common reaction to plain, clear Republican depravity is to reflexive conjure up some imaginary Liberal misconduct to justify their ludicrous fence-straddling.
Some of us have been living the outlaw life beyond of the comforting conformist confines of these lobotomizing but intoxicating media fairy tales for a very long time now. Which is why the places from which we write and speak and think are sometimes a little frightening and thoroughly unwelcome at the big, happy Beltway Media circle-jerk.
Behold, a Tip Jar!
9 comments:
I live and work in blue MD/DC but we have a farm in rural Shenandoah Co. VA, a beautiful area. Lots of Confederate flags flown in farmhouses but not everyone and also a lot of Mexican-Americans living there (but in the towns). I've interacted a lot with the locals over the years. Most don't seem to have any problem interacting/working with African-Americans or Latinos while, I suspect easily voting for their hideous representative Bob Goodlatte or Trump for President. It's a cultural thing. It's still awful but it's also changing. This region is being "polluted" by liberals moving to the region and opening up small businesses (craft breweries, wineries, small farms, and, in the towns, tech and renewable energy businesses).
This is a long term project that begins with Democrats advertising the jobs they are actually creating vs. the destruction the GOP is actively causing in those regions. This also requires a Democratic/Liberal media that reaches rural voters. That requires deep-pocketed Democratic donors to do basically what Sinclair has done (or something equivalent).
What with Our Wonderful Newsmedia becoming ever more cost-conscious, it's only a matter of time before someone decides that they can just automate away the Matthew Dowds of the world. "Both sides are to blame" is an entirely reflexive argument that doesn't require judgment, knowledge or wit, and even takes pains to avoids them. Hell, this latest round of idiocy isn't even specific to the actual issues most of the time. Build up a decent database of platitudes, and you could replace half of our elite media corps with an Apple IIe. If that's too much effort, you could always fill a Lucite tumbler with ping pong balls and have an intern type up what comes out.
@Jimbo: While you're right about the long-term, there is a critical problem - the target audience has been socialized by a few decades of right-wing media to assume that all liberals are liars and/or dupes. Most people go from the gut when deciding if things are getting better or worse, and likely Republicans are inclined to assume that things are getting better when Republicans are in charge. I live in a state that's been crushed by bad GOP governance and that's exactly how it works here.
If you have an idea as to how to reach people who won't listen to a thing you say, then I'd love to hear what it is.
I find myself disappointed that in your coverage of Rex Ryan's issues of not being able to see what has been right in his face that you ignored what has been literally in his face for a number of years: His wife's feet. Indeed, on his desk is a photo of the pair of them (no, not him and her, her two feet). There is a series of videos of him adoring her feet extended out the driver's side window of an SUV and the audio is simply hysterical. Just this year at some bachelorette party....oh fuck, never mind - no one is ever going to click on that.
I know, I know, we all have our little issues, but the video is what makes this little tidbit beautiful.
As Trumpy can't focus on all those best people he knows and will hire. Oh, and fire.
He can't seem to focus and must call for football players to be fired along with reporters and everyone else he doesn't like.
A republican president infusing himself into the private sector and demanding these companies fire people he wants them to.
That it is hollowed sanctuary in the arena at the NFL game. So that the American theme song must be played and everyone must obey and assume the position.
But the same GOP whine of signers at concerts *their own performance ones) not speak out if the please between songs. "shut up and sing" they cry. Well, don't buy a ticket. If you don;t like the show, go home.
How did those GOP'ers take it when they had the Boy Scouts as a captive audience? The parents wren;t happy with the Trumper discussing how to use bankruptcy court. How he enjoys groping wemon (like their mothers).
He is what I want to see next,
As the players take a knee during the theme song at the game onset.
--All the fans in the stands take a knee with the players.
Will Trumpy demand the fans be fired on his Twit?
What that would look like on the TV. Trump wouldn't know it until his FloCK and Fiends talks about it.
And if I may,
The Treasury Secretary(just another rich white nationalist) Steve Munchkin.
Shut the hell up and get back in you treasury Secretary duties.
But then again, if you flying to Fort Knox to watch the eclipse from its roof and your on the TV ordering citizens how you believe they need to act. maybe you have less time to steal from Americans.
"...are sometimes a little frightening and thoroughly unwelcome at the big, happy Beltway Media circle-jerk."
We traded on that here in Oakland for years and years. The "dangerous" reputation used to repel the lightweights, idiots, and assholes, but sadly enough, gentrification has run that down the tubes and now everyone and his brother wants to live here...
-Doug in Oakland
Rexy is indeed the typical Wealthy Privileged White Conservative Male who was a C- head coach that he and his brother only got their NFL jobs because daddy is the "legendary" Rex Ryan Sr.
He took a Jets team someone else built, had a few good seasons, then as his decisions accumulated, ran it into the ground. Getting the Buffalo job was even purer nepotism. But of course he is one of those people to scream I WORKED HARD AND EARNED IT!!
The pro-Trump NFL owners (cause TAX CUTS!!) only about faced on Trump over his twitter storm for three reasons:
1) the Players Union and the threat of a strike. We're in Week 3 people and the NFL needs to get that other vocal Pro-Trumper Tom Brady another ring. The last thing they need is the unionized help getting uppity and walking out.
2) Trump is temporary, elections swing both ways and the NFL's anti-trust exemption the congress can take away must be protected at all costs! Without the anti-trust exceptions, pro sports economically don't work.
3) Trump was part of the attempt to create a competitor pro football league in the 1980's. See point 2 of why the owners wouldn't forget that.
..."various tentacles of an American Fascist Party, which is the enemy,".
thank you, Your Driftness.
(Go Bills.)
"3) Trump was part of the attempt to create a competitor pro football league in the 1980's. See point 2 of why the owners wouldn't forget that."
And was also the principle cause of said league crashing and burning, since he was the one who insisted the USFL could totally take the NFL head-to-head on TV... As a giant plan to get the USFL crushed and his team merged into the NFL. And then he sued the NFL when it didn't happen, because Donald Trump.
Post a Comment