I Knew Yesterday's Post Would Strike a Nerve

I may have joined Donald Trump as a serial insulter because of yesterday's post, but I stand by my position.

Two people, both acquaintances from another website whom I like and admire through what I've learned of them there, say Trump is a misogynist. I've said before that he's not, and I still don't believe that he is. Particularly after doing research for this post.

According to Merriam-Webster, misogyny is the 'hatred of women'. Just Googling the term comes back with 'a person who dislikes, despises or is strongly prejudiced against women'.

So that's the baseline. If we believe the misogynist label, Donald Trump either outright hates women, or he dislikes, despises and/or is strongly prejudiced against women - all women. Not one, not two or this one or that one or the other.

I don't buy that. I think he is an equal opportunity insulter without the sense God gave a chicken when it comes to shutting up.

If Donald Trump is a misogynist, why has he been married three times, to three women who are unarguably better looking than most and who are, independent of their marriage to him, successful?

Ivana Trump, Marla Maples, Melania Trump

If he hates women, why did he appoint Ivana to several high-profile positions within the Trump Organization? She was the Vice President of Interior Design and had a hand in the design of Trump Tower. In 1990, she was named Hotelier of the Year when she was president of Trump's Plaza Hotel in New York. This is hardly the profile of a weak woman, or one overrun by her husband.

And, if he 'hates' women, why did he put her in a position of apparent power? Why not show his disrespect by making her some low-level worker bee, or keep her out of his company altogether?

Marla Maples was a model who, after her divorce from The Donald, became an actress in movies and on television. She's had a radio talk show. I don't think a weak woman could be successful in the shark tanks of talk radio and Hollywood.

Melania certainly had plenty of opportunity for a successful life without Trump. She has a degree in design and architecture from University of Ljubljana, Yugoslavia. She was a successful model. She currently runs two businesses - one for jewelry sold on QVC and another for a high-end moisturizer. This is not your typical abused woman hated by her husband. She is successful in her own right and has plenty of opportunity to stand on her own two feet if things were ugly in her marriage.

Googling 'Donald and Melania Trump news' doesn't come up with lurid headlines about troubles or fights or splits or gossip. They appear to be a solid couple and the pictures of them together don't show any sign of discord. In fact, if you look at his expression in those pictures where he's looking at her, they're almost prideful. They're certainly admiring.

He's got his daughter Ivanka out there stumping for him and, according to some I've listened to on the chattering shows, she is one of his strongest advisers. Another woman whom he respects.

But those are family - of course he treats them well. Yet - if we go back to the original basis for the label, it's a universal behavior. He (supposedly) dislikes women - all inclusive. I hold that he doesn't.

Take a minute and read this article from last November's Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-a-champion-of-women-his-female-employees-think-so/2015/11/23/7eafac80-88da-11e5-9a07-453018f9a0ec_story.html

Or this, from Yahoo:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/whats-up-with-donald-trump-and-the-women-not-090043983.html

In this, the position I take is confirmed: Donald Trump is a serial insulter. He is even-handed in his opinions - men and women - with just two tags for people: 'Great' or 'Loser' and once on the list it's hard to get off.

Based on reading both of these articles and a few others, he is superficial in his judgement of people - appearance matters. That does not make him a misogynist, though. It just proves he is shallow. Just like most people who make snap judgements based on appearance rather than character.

After all, if you climb aboard a bus or train or a shared transport of any kind, or are even at an airport terminal waiting for a flight and you have the choice between taking the seat next to someone good looking and well groomed or someone who is, at best, lazy about their appearance, which seat will you choose?

That's a superficial judgement. For all you know that sharp well-dressed person is a perv and the lazy slob is another Einstein. Looking at these two guys in the pictures above, and given the choice of taking the empty seat, guess which I would pick. And, I suspect you'd do the same.

We all make judgements about other people's appearance. We just have the sense to keep our opinions to ourselves.

Oh, and those two guys there? One is a serial killer and the other is a multi-billionaire - Ted Bundy and Mark Cuban, respectively.


I liken Trump's behavior to Tourette's syndrome. That is a condition where a person has an inexplicable, unfortunate and uncontrollable urge to spew whatever hits their tongue no matter where they are or who they are with. Tourette's is also linked to ADHD - a tendency toward impulsive behavior. I don't believe that Trump has either of these things overtly or clinically, but based on observation - the tendency to jump from topic to topic to topic and back again, to say precisely what's front and present in his awareness, perhaps there's a touch there.

Another possibility might be found in research done by the Max Planck Institute on the psychology of speech.

It has been studied and proved that we start to speak before we decide precisely what we're going to say. Unlike in writing when we at least have the opportunity to go back and edit before releasing our wisdom into the world, speech is immediate and difficult to correct because there is a delay between our starting a sentence and what we end up deciding to say.

Perhaps Trump's linkages are weaker than most or maybe they're quicker. Instead of having time to apply the filter the majority of us use, the synapses are so fast that the words escape before his brain has a chance to intervene.

Does this excuse what he says? No. But it is one explanation and I still say that the 'misogynist' label is misapplied when it's applied to Trump. Not because I'm stubborn, but because I judge people on what I see and weigh them on what I hear. He's not perfect, not by a long stretch, but I recognize the good things about him. Based on what I've read about this particular person, I'm comfortable defending my support of him.

Does this proclivity to speak what's on his mind disqualify him from public office? I don't think so. I would much rather have someone who speaks what he thinks, even if I don't like hearing it, than have yet another snake oil salesman who thinks and rehearses every single thing and makes promises he has no intention of keeping.

In my opinion all of the other candidates in this horse race are just another snake oil salesman, aka Professional Politician.

Clinton has been in politics almost all of her adult life - from when Billy-Jeff was governor of Arkansas in the 1980s to today.

Sanders is a career politician who has been around Washington for decades, getting started as a mayor in Vermont back in the 1970's.

Cruz is another career politician - first working at the Federal Trade Commission for four years (1999 - 2003), serving as an advisor to Bush II during his campaign, working as Solicitor General of Texas and, more recently became a Senator.

None of these choices will change anything in Washington - so I would rather have a Tourette-tainted equal opportunity serial insulter in the Oval Office who might actually have the stones to get something done. At the very least it'll shake things up an awful lot.

So, with that out of the way, I hope your day is wonderful.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Fox News: The New Pravda

In my opinion, Fox News Channel has reached Dante's Fifth Level (Anger) in their descent to Journalistic Hell. For months, they have been diligent in digging toward this tier by ignoring anything that begins to look like  'journalistic objectivity' or 'journalistic integrity'. Instead, 24/7, they shriek how horrible Trump is, how terrible a president he will be. Never mind that they have no way of knowing what kind of president he will be since he's never held public office. Instead, their matra is 'We'll ignore that and don't bother us with the facts, they're unimportant'.

Fox, as a 'news' outlet, has the obligation to be objective - not biased. Trump, on the other hand, has no such obligation. He is just being Trump and he has every right to be Trump. Smart or stupid, good or bad, on point and fact or not - he has just as much right to be who he is as any other individual. Although, given that he is running for the highest office in the land, he does have an obligation to stop being stupid, start being smart, and be presidential in demeanor.

Fox, as a news organization, has a responsibility to remain objective, to report and let viewers decide. If they are going to slant things as they see fit, regardless of the facts, they are no longer a news organization. They are an opinion organization and the 'PRESS' credentials can be flushed. It has gotten so bad that Fox News has openly become the television equivalent to the old Soviet news outlet Pravda. They are nothing more than a propaganda outlet for the #NeverTrump campaign.

Look at who they talk to: Rich Lowry of the National Review which put out an entire edition dedicated to #NeverTrump blathering. George Will - also of the National Review and another card carrying member of the #NeverTrump group. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard and another Washington Insider who Trump scares the pants off. Karl Rove, a worn out political advisor with a white board. He's the one who brought us George Bush II who brought us the economic melt-down that just won't go away.

When Fox does fumigate its hallways and allow one of Trump's supporters in, they are so snotty, so rude and obviously in pain to allow that person to speak, it's palpable in my living room. It's disgusting.

Fox's tagline should be changed to 'Unfair and Biased', which is observable fact, or they should change their name entirely to Pravda-USA.

Twenty-five years or so ago, CNN was the network 'everyone' watched. It was the first 24-hour news outlet. At first we watched because we didn't have a choice. If we wanted to know what was going on in the world, CNN was the only choice but we still, at the time, adopted from others that CNN stood for 'Clinton News Network'. It was all Clinton, all positive, all the time - and it left us feeling cheated. We saw it as nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the Clinton administration. No matter what Billy-Jeff did, CNN would ignore or parse the truth until the truth became unrecognizable.

Then Fox News appeared. It became available on our cable service and as soon as we could, we switched. We were tired of the ridiculous leftist bias and, for the past decade and more, it seemed to be the better choice. They didn't have an obvious bias. They did try to show both sides of the picture and then let the viewer decide.

That, however, has changed and the change is accelerating - sliding into a terminal downward spiral. They'll probably just leap right over Levels Six (Heresy) and Seven (Violence) and settle in at home at Level Eight - Treachery. When I do pause to see what's happening on Fox, there are strong whiffs of sulfur from that Level already.

In the past few years, chinks began to appear at Fox. Little things, like their coverage of breaking news events. We found ourselves glued to CNN because their reporting was broader, more incisive and, overall, better. When disaster struck, Choice No. 1 became CNN. Oh, yeah, we would flip back once in a while, but the majority of our viewing during times of crisis was kept to CNN. We still didn't watch regularly because they still had that heavy leftward tilt.

This election cycle, though, the tilt has gone wildly in the other direction over on Fox. They have such a hate thing going against Trump - almost across the talking-head spectrum - that they have become not just biased, but have made it perfectly clear that they are a major contributor to the #NeverTrump campaign. Perhaps not in dollars, but in free media time, and it's disgraceful.

The list of #NeverTrump campaigners is long: Megyn Kelly, Charles Krauthammer, Chris Wallace, Bill O'Reilly, Brett Baier, David Asman, Karl Rove and many others. Because of their open and flagrant opposition to one political candidate over the other, they have lost any journalistic qualities they might have once had.

Aside from that, they report fluff over substance. Case in point: This morning I turned on the news. It happened that the station was CNN. They were showing a Pentagon debriefing in which a couple of DoD types were talking about the killing of a top leader of ISIS. That is pertinent news - it's top of the stack for most people around the world because what are we all talking about when it comes to world affairs? ISIS. From that, CNN switched to reports about raids and arrests in Belgium. They showed video of one suspect being shot and taken into custody.

Curious, I flipped over to Fox to see what they were reporting and... Laughably, embarrassing to Roger Ailes and his Fox News organization, they were talking about some human interest story somewhere in middle America. Then they started talking about a new iPhone gizmo.

Really? A news outlet that has feeds to major breaking news around the world chooses to show and bloviate about cops shoveling snow (good for them, it's a good deed but not potentially of international import) and a new iPhone doodad. Fox has lost it for me - zero credibility across the board - although I will still watch Fox Business News over CNBC because they, at least have a brain and know where it's kept.

My leaving Fox is primarily because their bias / hatred of Donald Trump is so flagrant. Almost across the board there is absolutely nothing like 'fair and balanced' in their reporting on him. There are exceptions, but they are very few and very far between.

Sean Hannity is one. He does an excellent job of keeping it fair and balanced. My problem with him, though, is that he has a litany of ills that he repeats like the Catechism or a priest's penance after confession. Turning on his show I can count on at least ten minutes every night going through that litany as he ticks them off on his fingers. It's a waste of time after the third iteration and annoying after the fifth.

Lou Dobbs is another. I love that man - he's got a great sense of humor, he's quick and he's smart. When someone says something stupid or questionable, he's not going to give it pass - he'll ask for more or clarification or outright challenge the statement. He's also up to talking in a balanced fashion about the GOP candidates - and I appreciate that.

Neil Cavuto is pure smart / funny. I love him, too (although the constant 'thank you very, very much' gets to be very, very annoying). He's another who keeps it real, who doesn't openly take sides in this match.

Among these three I don't know who is supporting whom in this race - although I have my suspicions - but at least they aren't out trashing one candidate over and over again. If someone does or says something stupid, they report it and move on - they don't belabor it ad nauseum the way Fox Opinion / Pravda-USA does.

So for me, no more. It's open war on Trump, using their FCC license without compunction to sway voters and it's despicable. Fox News has become Pravda-USA - a political propaganda mouthpiece for The Weekly Standard, the National Review, the Washington Establishment and the Donor Class so, since I have a choice, I'll go back to watching CNN.
It is still, disgustingly, the Clinton News Network when the discussion is between the DNC and the RNC or the Dems and GOP, but at least there is some semblance of balance and, when real news is breaking, they're on it.

See ya Roger! Bye Megyn! Hello, Anderson and Don and Dana!

Hope you'll pass the word and then join me.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories