House of Eratosthenes

So South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley delivered a rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address. About four minutes in, she got off-topic and began scolding the supporters of her own party, with some sort of business about “the siren call of the angriest voices”…

She later elaborated, yes she was talking about Donald Trump, and others. Odd. How much is the nation to trust a political party, within which, one candidate cannot say what the problem is that the party seeks to solve, without other members of the same party jumping all over him for saying it?

She’s not the first to criticize DT for being angry and she won’t be the last. But these critics do not speak for everyone; and there is a problem with the criticism. It misrepresents what it is criticizing.

Doug Giles went off on the Haley speech…

Look, I hate to break it to the governor from SC, who begged money from Trump when she was clamoring for that job, but for your information, people are pissed and Trump’s massive rallies and Jeb’s and Lindsey’s underwhelming events prove the nation shares Donald’s rage regarding how BHO has decimated this nation.

Telling us to calm down is like telling the patriots in 1773 to chill out. You’re way out of touch, sister.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t remember your saying shizzle about Al Sharpton’s demented rhetoric when you shared a stage with that tax-evading, slick-haired, hate merchant. Why didn’t you chastise him when you were hugging him, since you’re now the self-appointed Rage-Aholic Rebuke Queen?
:
Say you’re overweight. Remember what it used to be like to walk across Walmart’s parking lot without having to be gurneyed to your minivan by Randy Mantooth? Remember the joy of not being able to hide small toys and half-eaten sandwiches between the folds of blubber on your body; and being able to actually see the toilet when you use it? Remember those simple pleasures? You do? Does it make you mad that you don’t get to enjoy them any longer? It does?!? There you go . . . see how positive anger can be?

Folks, this righteous wrath not only works for personal improvement, but it can also change for the better all aspects of our society—if we’ll get righteously P.O.’d in a precise direction. And there’s the rub . . . Our neutered nation tells us it’s a big no-no to get mad anymore. Especially if you’re a conservative.
:
Because we have allowed ourselves to be programmed by “them” to be nice and not heat up (unless, again, it is at something that upsets the left), we don’t even blink an eye when we see the base and the vile; instead we force a smile. What a bunch of bunkum we’ve been sold vis-à-vis this whole uninterrupted “nice” wave we’ve been told we’re supposed to surf. Today, people can do something appalling, say something contemptible and delve down the funnel exalting the lowest parts of humanity—and what’s to be our response? We’re supposed to stay sedate.

So, why do we show mock civility towards things that mock civility? Well, because “anger is bad.” And we don’t want to be bad, do we?

“Programmed.” Yes, that’s a perfect description. It reminds me of marital infidelity; The Left does it all the time and it seems nobody notices. It seems that way, because it’s true. So relaxed are the expectations against The Left, that The Left doesn’t, and can’t, fail them. How do you fail to achieve a benchmark that isn’t there? Don’t fuck around on your wife, and don’t get angry…The Left gets a pass. And what a short path it is, from granting The Left a pass, to doing everything the way they want it done — putting them in charge of everything.

From the comments:

Gov. Haley has fallen into the trap that comes with receiving adulation from the media. It started with the flag debacle when she caved to the PC police. The media began to laud her with praises. She got a taste of that and tried to go after more Thursday night. When you go down that road you quickly become an unprincipled RINO.

And,

I live in a zip code with a LOT of self-righteous hippie bumper stickers. (God knows why).

One I see a lot is “If you’re not angry, you must not be paying attention!” So, apparently it’s okay to be angry if your a Prog/Commie who thinks the taxpayer owes you everything you want in life, but it’s NOT okay to be angry to see what made this country great, being tossed into the garbage. Okay, got it.

I don’t think we’re talking about anger at all. Those who promote Rubio over Trump, Jeb Bush over Trump, Clinton over Trump because Trump is too angry…how would they feel if the reaction was one of “You’re right! I’m going to vote for Rubio/Bush/Clinton, because I’m so angry!”? Let’s be honest. They’d like that just fine.

This is an argument about contentment and complacency. Anger, itself, has very little to do with problem solving, and for Gov. Haley to quibble about it is like a rescued hiker on a remote mountain trail complaining about the color of the car that’s offering him a ride. Although, it does have something to do with it; many’s the solution to a problem that was found by an angry person, that never would have been sought by a person not angry. Giles’ hypothetical of the fat, disgusting tub of goo getting mad at himself for being fat, is entirely valid.

And it cuts to the heart of the matter. Conservatives, today, don’t have to be angry at all before someone is shushing them, tut-tutting them, a good deal of the time from within their own party. Liberals can get as angry as they want. Even when they’re already running the government. Seven years it’s been, and they’re still hiding behind the excuse of “actually that started under George W. Bush” as a sort of generic, one-size-fits-all excuse.

What alarms me the most though, is the clarity-of-message that vanishes, in the blink of an eye, like a balloon being popped, with this shtick of don’t-be-angry. Let’s say that prevails. What then is the Republican position on…name it. What? Something like “If you’re wondering, go check the web site” or some such? That will win an election? No of course it won’t. It doesn’t. It hasn’t.

People don’t vote for people. They don’t have that much trust in their elected representatives. Even Barack Obama; people didn’t vote for Him because they thought He was a great guy, they voted for Him because they were afraid of what others might think of them if they didn’t approve of Him. There’s a difference.

People vote for go on some things, stop on other things. The candidate is just a vehicle for getting that done. These pushy tut-tutters and shut-uppers like Haley chanting their mindless bromides of “don’t be angry” seem to have forgotten all about that. And that’s the charitable explanation. The uncharitable explanation is that they know full well how ineffectual of a message this is to disseminate and act upon if the goal is winning an election, and they have ulterior motives in mind.

The uncharitable explanation is that they know full well how ineffectual of a message this is to disseminate and act upon if the goal is winning an election, and they have ulterior motives in mind.

Yeah. That. The word for this is “caesarism.” Better to “lose” than to “win” the wrong way, because nothing much changes if you “lose” — ex-Congressmen become lobbyists and tv talking heads, who run again next cycle, and if they win, then the “losers” fill those lobbying jobs for a while…. and if you did a blind taste test on the policies, you honestly couldn’t tell the “winners” and “losers” apart. Lather, rinse, repeat. An actual win — that is, winning the wrong way, the mandate-for-change way — means that the whole cushy system gets upset… and quite a few of those clowns might actually have to get real jobs. (That’s reason #2 I’m voting Trump, by the way — the mere possibility of Paul Ryan having to find a job as a 7-11 stockboy keeps me warm at night).

To be semi-fair to Republicans, though, this “don’t get upset” rhetoric should work…. if the culture weren’t thoroughly infantile. In some ways, that’s been the GOP message since Barry Goldwater: “These people are children. They freak out at the slightest pretext, or for no reason whatsoever. Everything’s the apocalypse to them — from the proliferation of nuclear weapons to the counter guy forgetting to supersize their fries, total meltdown is their one and only response. We simply can’t trust infants to make important decisions.”

But anyone who has been in a room full of squalling babies knows how well “being the adult in the room” works out. GOP politicians — assuming for the sake of argument that there are a few sincere ones — see that their opponents are perfectly calm, rational, and reasonable in areas that don’t engage their pwecious widdle feewings. So they conclude that the freakouts are an act. And we’re so used to seeing boomer narcissists in top positions that we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have adults in charge. But the freakouts aren’t an act; this is really how these people “think,” and the fact that Trump’s cleaning up shows that our side is pretty far gone, too.
- Severian | 01/17/2016 @ 09:52
Oh, I think Mr. Trump “owned” it quite nicely.
along the lines of “Damn RIGHT I’m angry, and I’ll GIVE you something to cry about!”
Time to start addressing Ms. Haley by her full legal name?
- CaptDMO | 01/17/2016 @ 14:42
If we are to measure “anger” by a departure from the realm of the rational into the realm of the emotional, Donald Trump hasn’t gotten angry according to any of the information that’s found its way to me.

Heck, Gov. Haley fits that description better than he ever did.
- mkfreeberg | 01/17/2016 @ 16:52
Comment by Severian:

“And we’re so used to seeing boomer narcissists in top positions that we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have adults in charge.”

Yes.

“But the freakouts aren’t an act; this is really how these people “think”…”

Yes.

“…and the fact that Trump’s cleaning up shows that our side is pretty far gone, too.”

Could you elaborate on this last point? Seems incongruous with the rest.
- Maple Curtain | 01/18/2016 @ 10:01
Sure.

Trump’s a Boomer narcissist, too. His freakouts are as pandering and demagogic as the Left’s freakouts — the fact that he’s pounding his high chair about our binky doesn’t make it any less infantile.

Since the 60s the GOP has been portraying itself as the only adults in the room. It was Reagan’s whole shtick, and Bob Dole’s — his campaign tagline should’ve been “do you want an overgrown child like Bill Clinton in charge?” Establishment GOP types — assuming there are any sincere ones — are still trying to do that. It doesn’t work.
- Severian | 01/18/2016 @ 13:47
@ Severian:

Thanks.
- Maple Curtain | 01/18/2016 @ 15:33
Leaving aside the “angry” issue since this post, including Morgan’s astute observations, and the comments, nailed it. So I’d just like to add –

Gov. Haley unintentionally exemplifies why we are indeed angry. She gives the GOP response to the president’s State of the Union by…attacking the GOP. Huh!?! WTF!?! Shut the fuck up if have nothing better to do that ignore the complete imbecile that bloviated for almost 90 minutes with more empty promises, empty rhetoric and wishful, disingenuous BS (while throwing in a halfhearted, childish promise to “cure cancer”) AND then you decide to criticize the people who oppose such destruction of our nation.

Damn fucking right we’re angry, at shit like that like you just pulled, with all due respect governor.

So since she decided to go completely off topic, I will too…I’d still tap that. Angrily.
- tim | 01/20/2016 @ 13:33
I’m with tim… on both counts.

The comments here have an interesting discussion going about the emotional — that is to say, girly — style of the managerial elite. The idea that we’re ruled, not by politicians or aristocrats, but by middle managers, is as old as the 1930s (James Burnham published The Managerial Revolution in 1941). But as Z Man notes, Burnham’s critics, like George Orwell, were wrong. Orwell feared that the “managers” would be soulless technocrats who were indifferent to the masses’ suffering. Instead, the Managers define themselves by how much they care… and, with unrestricted immigration, they’re caring us to death.

This seems to be a consequence of female suffrage. As anyone who has worked in a cubicle farm knows, women make better overall “managers” than men. Yes yes, you definitely want a guy in charge if the project has to come in under budget and on deadline, but for day to day operations, chicks are better — they live for solving (and/or exacerbating) the kind of petty interpersonal bullshit that defines office life in, say, a call center or sales office. And they have infinite patience for meetings, committees, “team building,” and all the rest of that stuff, which nobody with functional testicles would endure if skipping it wouldn’t get him fired. Naturally, then, the managerial elite in government is going to tend towards chick-style solutions — talk, talk, and more talk, and everyone’s just as pleasant as can be…. until the doors close, and the claws come out.
- Severian | 01/20/2016 @ 13:56
Or, as you originally implied, you need to buckle down and get some work done. In a scenario where there are no longer any of the testicular lower-class for this style of management to issue fiats to knock out the actual labor, production severely falters.
- P_Ang | 01/21/2016 @ 11:05
[…] Righteous Wrath […]
- God is Pruning the GOP | The Tree of Mamre | 05/01/2016 @ 20:28

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Righteous WrathSunday, January 17th, 2016

Righteous Wrath
Sunday, January 17th, 2016