S.E. Cupp's thoughts on Trump hugging Old Glory at CPAC
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
The conservative columnist?
We do need to burn that f**g, it was defiled
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
"All categories of people as pariahs", "insane purity test" is to Trump's advantage?.
Please explain how so?.
Because I really don't know.
You watch the latest Cross Talk hosted by the American living in Russia Peter Lavelle, and his closeness to Bolton made me abandon my exercises and impulsively post on OPP which is what this is an impulsive post.
Quintessential got me in, words should do but rarely does it happened why the last time I scored, hummmmm that one is better left forgot.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
Wow!!!!..That was a BS article...I saw his CPAC speech..There was nothing profane or insane in his speech....Articles like this that are divide the country... You cant say with a clear conciense that President Trump was the only President that divided the Country..I believe that last President was pretty d******e also...But of course the h**e for this President is soooo overwhelming that it will give pass to Obama and blame everything and anything on this President!!!!....Its getting very tiresome and it really disgusts me!!!!
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
The quickest and surest way to confirm someone's bias................is to question it. Hillary Clinton's "deplorable's" wore the moniker as a badge of honor, even drew folks who were not originally included in that group.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
Glad to see that you are feeling better and that you are up posting again.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
That was an interesting article.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
Excellent article...
The writing took me for a run...
At first I was angered and somewhat offended... Then I found myself going 'can't argue with that'... By the end I was nodding and truly engaged with the premise...
Different style of writing... Provocative...
Heading back to bed... But will read the second one when I get up...
(I found Trump's CPAC speech fine.... Neither his best nor his worst in my opinion..)
woodguru wrote:
The conservative columnist?
We do need to burn that f**g, it was defiled
God forbid Americans who love their country show affection for our f**g.
Best get cranking, hypocrite, lots of f**gs out there to burn.
.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
Who the hell is S.E. Cupp and why should we listen to her?
Blade_Runner wrote:
Who the hell is S.E. Cupp and why should we listen to her?
All are free to listen/read/watch whomever/wh**ever they wish. However, if you're truly interested in S.E. Cupp, she's readily available on radio, TV, the internet, and in the bookstores. I did include a mini-bio on her with the article posted.
Rose42 wrote:
That was an interesting article.
Thank you, Rose. I thought so, too.
slatten49 wrote:
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television host, political commentator, and writer as a conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, and contributor for TheBlaze.
By S.E. Cupp
It would have been a jarring image no matter the president.
We're used to seeing the American f**g handled in a number of ways. It can be hoisted, saluted, folded in honor of the fallen, even burned in protest.
But it's not every day you see the leader of the free world hug the f**g in front of a crowd of adoring followers.
Enter President Donald Trump on Saturday at the annual gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He grabbed an unassuming Old Glory by its stand like a prom date, and gave it a brief, slightly terrifying, slow-dance to "Proud to be an American."
In that moment, in a way, the f**g was so many of us -- Americans recoiling at the smothering and unwanted advances of an unstable lech. On behalf of the f**g, I wanted to shout: "I beg your pardon, sir! Get your hands off of me!"
But as off-putting as Trump's grabbing of the stars and stripes felt to many, it was clearly a consensual act to his supporters, who loved every minute of it and the 122 that followed.
The rambling, unedited and lurching two-plus-hour performance at CPAC was more a series of disconnected blurts than a speech. From musing on the history of tariff policy in the US to praising Rep. Mark Meadows' wife to extolling the benefits of TiVo, Trump did what he arguably does best: He put on a show for a crowd that worships him.
He whacked all their favorite enemies: the press, Democrats, the Mueller investigation, Republicans who would go against him. Many conference attendees called it one of his best performances.
But Trump's "best" performances are almost always at the nation's expense. They are "best" because they are memorably d******e, unfiltered, often profane and seething with animus for enemies perceived and real. And they are all about love for him.
Manhandling the American f**g was a perfect representation of this dichotomy. Half the country likely saw it as a fitting metaphor for his presidency writ large: an assault on our most cherished values. He took what was not his, robbed it of all its virtue -- and then presumably moved on to his next conquest.
But to the rest, those who support Trump, it was the quintessential way of showing his unapologetic patriotism. It was honest and earnest. It wasn't fancy or philosophical. It wasn't intellectual or complicated. Hugging the f**g is nothing if not literal. It was the way Trump approached his entire presidency, much to their great satisfaction.
The wide chasm separating these two interpretations of the f**g moment is also illustrative of another great divide. It's not between left and right -- there are actually a number of crossover issues right now that have found strange bedfellows among Democrats and Republicans, criminal justice reform being just one.
The divide is between Trump supporters and Trump opponents. That may sound obvious in an era when some are allegedly punching each other out. But the interpretations of all things Trump are so divergent, so disparate from one another, that there isn't even a common language set to describe what each is seeing.
This plays out most vividly on social media, where Trump opposition and support are marshaled and weaponized to absurdist degrees. An opinion is voiced, and a hoard of barbarians immediately descend to deem it insufficiently extreme. An anti-Trump comment is almost always denounced not only by Trump supporters but by Trump opponents who don't think it went far enough, encompassed enough targets, condemned enough people. And vice versa for a pro-Trump comment.
There's no room for saying this piece was rotten, but the whole is healthy. There's no gray area, no nuance, no fine lines, no "let's meet in the middle." I've fallen into this trap myself, demeaning some Trump supporters as "Trumpkins."
These insane purity tests of loyalty and disloyalty to a single person, albeit the President, and the urge to cast entire categories of people as pariahs are all to Trump's advantage and not to ours. In making his presidency a referendum on fealty to him, he has sown a toxic and corrosive division in the country that makes even the simplest of images -- hugging a f**g, for instance -- impossible to interpret.
The same will go for his presidency. Americans will have vastly different views of what these years meant for the country. The long view of history usually reaches some consensus version of what happened, but there might never be one for Trump's tenure. Was it an assault on the nation? Or its greatest love affair?
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp is an American television ho... (
show quote)
given Trumps past molesting our f**g seems pretty minor... just creepy
...
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