Rolled

or Trump's Long Con

Even with his campaign falling apart around him, Donald J. Trump still manages to find love. According to Ben Carson, Trump prayed for forgiveness before Sunday night's debate, although you would never know it the way he came out with blood in his eyes.

James Robison administered the duties. One of several prominent televangelists and religious leaders who are sticking with Trump despite the lewd videos and audios. You needn't ask yourself why. Conservative Evangelists have long had a soft spot for fallen pastors like Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and countless others who have been tempted by the flesh. Usually, parishioners would like them to show some contrition, but in Donald's case a token apology seems to be enough.

Still, his evangelical support is eroding, largely among Mormons who didn't like him very much to begin with. Jason Chaffetz, a born-again Mormon, has publicly disowned Donald, as has Mia Love, another prominent convert, who said she can't vote for Trump. This puts Utah in play for Hillary, which would have been inconceivable any other election year.

As many red states turn blue, Trump remains undaunted, proudly proclaiming on Tuesday that the shackles are off and he will go after Hillary and ranking Republican turncoats alike in his defiant bid for the White House. If I didn't know better, I would say this has been one very clever long con to undermine the Republican Party. What more can he do to bring the GOP to its knees?

Hardly anything Trump says at this point makes sense. At a Florida rally he was encouraging supporters to go to the polls on November 28. He didn't even catch himself in the gaffe. Once again, he lashed out at Paul Ryan for turning his back on him, although Ryan has yet to "unendorse" him. He had a few harsh words for Mackie as well, but they ring hollow at this point. It is hard to imagine Donald thinks he can win the election with his motley crew of supporters. It brings to mind George Wallace's lost cause in 1968.

Nevertheless, there are those who still think Trump has a path to victory, although you would be hard pressed to find any major media outlet that finds it plausible at this point. Even Fox seems to have given up on Trump, except for Sean Hannity of course, who was lashing out at everyone this week for abandoning his American Idol.

Still there are four weeks to go and I guess anything can happen. It seems Julian Assange, with the aid of Russian hackers, is working overtime to find some juicy e-mails to expose to an eager public. It was pretty amazing last week when conservatives stayed up till 3 am for Assange's much anticipated statement only to discover they had been #wikirolled.

The only question now is how Trump's "second amendment people" are going to respond to a new Clinton administration?

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Rick DiguetteOctober 14, 2016 at 11:05 PM
And now the evangelicals are outraged--outraged, I say--by some less than cordial emails allegedly sent to John Podesta. Oy vey. (You can't make this stuff up.)
James FergusonOctober 15, 2016 at 10:33 AM
Hearing Carson defend Trump and claiming they had a prayer session before the last debate really takes the cake. Further proof the Evangelical movement is only about power.

Dispatches from Vilnius

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Rolled

or Trump's Long Con

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Dylan in America

Team of Rivals Reading Group