MIDDAY MINI-RANT

I see a lot of friends on FB (including poets and academics who have no trouble with the most difficult passages in literature) ranting and/or laughing about this section of a speech the con artist gave, as if—or perhaps actually meaning—they can't interpret it. But his supporters get it, and it isn't difficult for me to decipher. He's saying he can break audience-size records without playing a musical instrument or a sport, just using his brain and his mouth.

It's garbled and almost inarticulate to many, including me initially, but listen to people talking these days or read their comments online and it's clear the language in daily use is becoming more and more garbled and inarticulate by our old standards, and he represents the worst of that, and yet he is communicating his meanings to many, by repetition, gesture, cliche, innuendo, symbols, shorthand, etc...

I got angry during W's first four years as many friends on the left laughed and made fun of his apparent lack of intellect, while he was strengthening his support and carrying out policies that hurt poor and working people and helped the richest among us, the standard Republican agenda since Reagan (and before in milder ways). And then many leftists and liberals acted surprised when W won another four years of doing even worse damage.