Morning Joe & The Failure of Form

The internet has recently been awhirl with the barbed, blow-trading occurring between US President, Donald J. Trump and the hosts of MSNBC’s flagship talkshow, Morning Joe (get it, because Joe Scarborough is named Joe and its in the morning when people drink coffee, which is colloquially referred to as “a cup of joe” – mildly clever) which is generally hosted by Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

The hub-bub concerns a series of tweets which the POTUS sent out attacking, “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” claiming that Ms. Brzezinski was, “-bleeding badly from a face-lift,” when she and Scarborough (whom he referred to as, “Psycho Joe”) had visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club during New Year’s Eve.

Here are the messages in question to provide better context:

[POTUS, Jun 29, “I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..”

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump Jun 29:
“…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”]

Naturally, both Ms. Brzezinski and Mr. Scarborough took the utmost offense to this statement with Ms. Brzezinski playing the swooning damsel in distress and Scarborough donning the armaments of a true white knight; shooting back, just as ruthlessly. I shan’t delve any further into the particulars of their feud as that would merely be a waist of time; it was childish and wholly unnecessary. Rather, I should prefer to grapple with the failure of form demonstrated by our most colorful world leader.

The left is most certainly correct in decrying the POTUS on this particular issue – it was wholly uncalled for – and those few, level-headed public commentators amongst their ranks have issued forth a sentiment of, “Why can’t he act more “Presidential?” The GOP-right and Nu-Right respectively have decried this position; to them, Trump is, “Sticking it to the Lefties!” He’s, “Triggering SJWs.” This is a completely ludicrous position.

It is entirely irrelevant whether or not the Morning Joe team deserved the comments they received the only thing that matters is that they received them. This, as previously stated, is a tremendous failure of form, that is, form of leadership which might, itself, best be described as the ability to restrain oneself from any action which does not project those qualities which one’s offices demands. In the case of the Office of the Presidency, it demands vision, energy, emotional discipline and a tunnel-visioning of objectives, that is to say, a complete and utter disregard for all that is superfluous to those projects under the leader’s purview, both immediate and prospective. A leader in the position of POTUS should be relentlessly engaging in those mammoth undertakings that formed the bread and butter of his or her campaign, informed and modified by the wisdom of his or her advisers. Infrastructure tending, debt reduction, wealth creation, diplomacy with world powers, native political unification, ensuring the security of the US border and ending the sway of the Mexican drug cartels, officiating wars and their prevention where possible; these are the issues which should be absorbing the energies of the leader of the US, a world dominating empire in all but name.

It is irrelevant to all aforementioned “bread & butter” issues that our current president is “triggering” the left or verbally vomiting on annoying news anchors online.

In place of bread and butter the American People have received bread and circus.

The Respect Demand, Or, How To Refute Yourself Without Realizing It For The Sake of Appearing Non-Partisan

Consider this most common of political responses.

“I don’t agree with your argument, but I respect your opinion.”

Scarcely has there been a more popular and simultaneously ridiculous statement made in the whole history of modern American discourse than this one. Yet, it is one that you, whoever and wherever you are, have doubtless heard a thousand times over. It is a tempering tactic utilized primarily by political Centrists (or those who are aping as such), and may also be heard a great deal by the acolytes of individuals who proclaim themselves to be “Freethinkers,” or, “Rationalists” (which usually do not use the word to denote the philosophical school). But it is wholly wrongheaded, given some contingencies, for if the opinion which one respects is inexorably tied to the argument that one disagrees with, and one does not respect the argument then by parsimony, one cannot, also, respect the opinion. If, however, the opinion is suitably disconnected from the aforementioned argument than the equation swiftly changes.

That is to say, if A [the argument] is not equal [congruent] to R [your respect/admiration] but IS equal to O [the opinion informing A] and A = O then so R MUST also = A. And yet it fundamentally cannot because, though A = O, R cannot equal A, and thus one reaches a inescapable logical impasse. The equation is self-refuting.

There are also other linguistic formulations very similar to the aforementioned such as, “I respect your opinion but I disagree.” This presents a slightly different problem and thus a slightly different solution but the core of the issue is still quite the same which is that in the effort to appear polite, one dons a mask of fawning adoration and pretends of the man or woman who stands in starkest opposition before him as if they were some esteemed colleague when in reality nothing of the sort could possibly be any further from the truth. If one disagree wholeheartedly with a position then one clearly has no respect for it and if that same position informs a suitably portion of the personality of the person who is holding it then that same person is also, not worthy of respect. What people mean, if they were being truly honest with themselves, is that they do not respect opinions they disagree with but rather that they respect the rights of others to have them. This too is a vexed question, for “rights” in any objective sense do not exist. All rights are merely those with the ability to crush you restraining themselves and their like cohorts from doing so. Accepting this, one should have no respect for rights, either, but rather, one should have respect for the powerful whom are cognizantly self restrained.