South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State. To me, it’s the Saltine State, because it’s so loaded with crackers.
In fact, South Carolina could well be, politically speaking, the most horrid state in the Union. This is the state that kept putting proud Dixiecrat segregationist Strom Thurmond in the Senate until that dipstick finally keeled over and expired. This is the state with a black senator, Tim Scott, whose politics are, astonishingly, slightly right of Vlad the Impaler. This is the state that removed the racist flag of the Confederacy only after massive public outcry in the wake of the massacre of nine church-going blacks. In other words, South Carolina’s politics are routinely and constantly, decade after decade, execrable.
In the days before South Carolina’s primaries, a cable news host showed a poll of Republicans in the state, revealing that 10 percent of them consider whites to be the superior race (11 percent labeled themselves unsure). The commentator presenting this data did a poor job of disguising her disgust and horror at these figures. My reaction, though, was quite different. “Only 10 percent?” I marveled. “What a pleasant surprise! Hell, they’re makin’ progress down there in that rathole! I betcha ole Strom is rollin’ in his grave!”
What the hell, the Civil War has only been over for 150 years.
•
Remember a few years ago, when us libs used to amuse ourselves by calling John Boehner “Agent Orange” because of his blatant overuse of that tanning goop that orangifies one’s face? Well, the new Agent Orange is here, and it is Trump! Somebody on Team Donald (Ivanka?) better tell Dad to lighten up on that stuff before the press starts calling him Orange Julius. Lately, Trump makes Boehner look like Ziggy Stardust!
•
Speaking of El Donaldo, I’ve been noticing lately that most of the Huffington Post Trump articles finish with something like, “Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther, and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims—1.6 billion members of an entire religion—from entering the U.S.”
OK, I realize the HuffPo ain’t the New York Times or the Washington Post. I realize it’s now purveying a modified code of journalistic ethics that’s entrenched in this new celebrity-sucking digital age. But still, this egregious anti-Trump blast is … well, it chafes me like ill-fitting scivvies.
Call me old-fashioned. Call me old school. Fine. But HuffPo, how about you just tell me what Trump said/did, and let me figure out for myself if it’s racist, xenophobic, misogynist, etc., etc.? Okey-doke? I realize there are a bunch of dummies out there that perhaps benefit from this sort of ham-fisted electioneering/editorializing. I happen to not be one of them.
If you want to roast Trump every day, fine. Do it in your editorials. That’s what they’re for. But in your reporting, honor your inner Cronkite/Rather and assume I can handle the heavy lifting.