Zorral Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Among women I know, 'womanizer' denotes a guy who is more than willing to employ coercion of any sort to get his way. Not necessarily, but it can never be ruled out with their kind. maarsen, Tears of Lys and Bironic 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 The son of Stewart Rhodes, founder of the extremist Oath Keepers, has decided to enter politics as a Democrat https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-son-of-stewart-rhodes-founder-of-the-extremist-oath-keepers-has-decided-to-enter-politics-as-a-democrat/ar-BB1ksd6F? Oath Keepers’ son emerges from traumatic childhood to tell his own story in a long shot election bid https://apnews.com/article/oath-keepers-stewart-rhodes-dakota-adams-montana-e0b46f25dfe319afe29617fd7325eb10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martell Spy Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 McCaul expects Johnson to bring Ukraine aid bill to the floor after Easter “His commitment is to put it on the floor after Easter,” McCaul said Sunday during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/24/ukraine-aid-bill-easter-mccaul-00148727 Quote House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday that he expects Speaker Mike Johnson to bring a Ukraine aid bill to the floor after Easter, despite the risk that it could drive support for a vote to oust him from leadership. “His commitment is to put it on the floor after Easter,” McCaul said Sunday during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 There Is a Twisted Logic to Trump’s Obsession With Al Capone https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/opinion/trump-al-capone.html Quote .... In recent months, Donald Trump has been trying out a new routine. At rallies and town halls across the country, he compares himself to Al Capone. “He was seriously tough, right?” Mr. Trump told a rally in Iowa in October, in an early rendition of the act. But “he was only indicted one time; I’ve been indicted four times.” (Capone was, in fact, indicted at least six times.) The implication is not just that Mr. Trump is being unfairly persecuted but also that he is four times as tough as Capone. “If you looked at him in the wrong way,” Mr. Trump explained, “he blew your brains out." Mr. Trump’s eagerness to invoke Capone reflects an important shift in the image he wants to project to the world. In 2016, Mr. Trump played the reality TV star and businessman who would shake up politics, shock and entertain. In 2020, Mr. Trump was the strongman, desperately trying to hold on to power by whatever means possible. In 2024, Mr. Trump is in his third act: the American gangster, heir to Al Capone — besieged by the authorities, charged with countless egregious felonies but surviving and thriving nonetheless, with an air of macho invincibility. The evidence of Mr. Trump’s mobster pivot is everywhere. He rants endlessly about his legal cases in his stump speeches. On Truth Social, he boasts about having a bigger team of lawyers “than any human being in the history of our Country, including even the late great gangster, Alphonse Capone!” His team has used his mug shot — taken after he was indicted on a charge of racketeering in August — on T-shirts, mugs, Christmas wrapping, bumper stickers, beer coolers and even NFTs. They’ve sold off parts of the blue suit he was wearing in that now-infamous photo for more than $4,000 a piece (it came with a dinner with Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort). Commentators have long pointed out that Mr. Trump behaves like a mob boss: The way he demands loyalty from his followers, lashes out at rivals, bullies authorities and flaunts his impunity are all reminiscent of the wiseguys Americans know so well from movies and television. As a real-estate mogul in New York, he seems to have relished working with mobsters and learned their vernacular before bringing their methods into the White House: telling James Comey, “I expect loyalty”; imploring Volodymyr Zelensky, “Do us a favor”; and pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, “Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.” But before, he downplayed the mobster act in public. Now he actively courts the comparison. Mr. Trump’s audacious embrace of a criminal persona flies in the face of conventional wisdom. When Richard Nixon told the American public, “I am not a crook,” the underlying assumption was that voters would not want a crook in the White House. Mr. Trump is testing this assumption. It’s a canny piece of marketing. A violent mobster and a self-mythologizing millionaire, Capone sanitized his crimes by cultivating an aura of celebrity and bravery, grounded in distrust of the state and a narrative of unfair persecution. The public lapped it up. “Everybody sympathizes with him,” Vanity Fair noted of Capone in 1931, as the authorities closed in on him. “Al has made murder a popular amusement.” In similar fashion, Mr. Trump tries to turn his indictments into amusement, inviting his supporters to play along. “They’re not after me, they’re after you — I’m just standing in the way!” he says, a line that greets visitors to his website, as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 3 minutes ago, Zorral said: There Is a Twisted Logic to Trump’s Obsession With Al Capone https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/opinion/trump-al-capone.html Trump has always behaved more like a mafioso than a businessman or a political leader. Always. That people find this admirable is bizarre and disgusting to me. Tears of Lys 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Trump has always behaved more like a mafioso than a businessman or a political leader. Always. That people find this admirable is bizarre and disgusting to me. I guess ... you haven't been watching television or movies for the last century -- or reading, say, 'grimdark' novels? I seem to be the only person on this board, for instance, who objects to having drug kingpins, gangsters, etc. as the characters with whom I'm supposed to be identifying. Look how much everyone admires The Godfather Brando character, and Scarface, which film was then supposedly a homage to previous films of Capone. So many movies have been made centering Capone -- even the gangsters love and model themselves after these movies -- and you know the fascist has watched all of them many times. https://movieweb.com/al-capone-best-movies-ranked/ Ser Scot A Ellison 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 Brando's Vito Corleone is not modeled after Capone tho. It's mainly Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello that Don Vito was based on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 4 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said: Brando's Vito Corleone is not modeled after Capone tho. It's mainly Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello that Don Vito was based on. Other than surviving an assassination attempt and retiring, like Costello, Vito is almost entirely based on Luciano in terms of his role in the development of cosa nostra in the US. That being said, Luciano was an entirely different "character" than what we see with Vito being the lovable grandpa in 1 and even his stolid character depicted by De Niro in 2. Vito - and Michael for that matter - can't directly be related to any real-life figure specifically. They are distinctly Puzo's creations. Ormond and Tears of Lys 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrackerNeil Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) 44 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Trump has always behaved more like a mafioso than a businessman or a political leader. Always. That people find this admirable is bizarre and disgusting to me. There's something very American about that admiration, though, isn't there? I remember well the defenders of Walter White from "Breaking Bad", who seemed to really groove on the character's descent into thuggery. When White would do something even they felt was indefensible, they'd blame "bad writing", or else say that the character's wife was a harridan who was undermining him. Actress Anna Gunn even wrote an editorial about it! Superhero stories, which are often just power fantasies, touch the same fondness. I mean, Bruce Wayne would do better to spend his vast fortune on reform instead of putting on tights and punching muggers, but of course the former is dull while the latter makes the reader feel vicariously strong. All this is to say that Donald Trump's appeal to a subset of Americans makes perfect sense to me. Edited March 25 by TrackerNeil Mr. Chatywin et al., Larry of the Lawn and Ser Scot A Ellison 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 9 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said: There's something very American about that admiration, though, isn't there? I remember well the defenders of Walter White from "Breaking Bad", who seemed to really groove on the character's descent into thuggery. When White would do something even they felt was indefensible, they'd blame "bad writing", or else say that the character's wife was a harridan who was undermining him. Actress Anna Gunn even wrote an editorial about it! Superhero stories, which are often just power fantasies, touch the same fondness. I mean, Bruce Wayne would do better to spend his vast fortune on reform instead of putting on tights and punching muggers, but of course the former is dull while the latter makes the reader feel vicariously strong. All this is to say that Donald Trump's appeal to a subset of Americans makes perfect sense to me. Fair. The outsider “fighting” for the oppressed “decent folks” has long been a fantasy in American populism. That doesn’t make it good or lesss dangerous (but I’m confident you see that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Horse Named Stranger Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 22 minutes ago, DMC said: Other than surviving an assassination attempt and retiring, like Costello, Vito is almost entirely based on Luciano in terms of his role in the development of cosa nostra in the US. That being said, Luciano was an entirely different "character" than what we see with Vito being the lovable grandpa in 1 and even his stolid character depicted by De Niro in 2. Vito - and Michael for that matter - can't directly be related to any real-life figure specifically. They are distinctly Puzo's creations. Yeah, but Costello and Luciano both had way more guile than Capone. Capone would've been incapable of building anything as sophisticated as the comission. Ironically, the most Capone like Corleonesi was Toto Riina. But Capone lacked Riina's ruthlessness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, Zorral said: There Is a Twisted Logic to Trump’s Obsession With Al Capone https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/opinion/trump-al-capone.html Well then, we can only assume that Trump will end up in the same state as Capone; in prison and dying of brain rot due to syphilis. Good enough for me. Zorral, LongRider, Ser Scot A Ellison and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 4 minutes ago, maarsen said: Well then, we can only assume that Trump will end up in the same state as Capone; in prison and dying of brain rot due to syphilis. Good enough for me. It. must. be. posted: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) I don't know that there's anything wrong with artists centering horrible people in their works. I think it's a bad artistic choice to do that uncritically, or to romanticize antisocial behavior, but I'm not going to blame the artist if a bunch of people miss that criticism or decide to glorify the violence of a character on their own. For a well funded TV show or movie maybe there is a bit more social responsibility involved. I think Breaking Bad was pretty clear that Walter White was a horrible person who likely could have given his family comfort and security without turning to a life of crime. I also think there's an argument to be made that the network leaned into lionizing the [ character 's behavior] at times to some extent. I guess I'm saying I'm not going to blame an artist for the violence-worshipping, misogynist, or otherwise unhealthy response to their art unless it's actually making an appeal to those tendencies. I'm not sure that the Godfather (especially if you include the entire trilogy) or Breaking Bad are doing that. America does have some unique indulgences towards putting figures into the iconosphere, where most of the actual character or person is stripped away and they instead become a symbol or slate for whatever people need or want them to be, and I think there's a pretty established link to fascism down that path. Edited March 25 by Larry of the Lawn Clarity Prince of the North 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phylum of Alexandria Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 It speaks to my great distrust of the current Supreme Court majority that every new case like this (where a minor technical dispute could be used to great destructive effect, to those so inclined) gives me acid reflux: https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/3/25/24108640/supreme-court-january-6-insurrection-fischer-united-states-obstruct TrackerNeil 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 (edited) "Plato y Plomo" Trump is no Corleone or Escobar, he's just a weak, greasy, slob with a completely irreconcilable relationship with the truth. Edited March 25 by DireWolfSpirit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRider Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 minute ago, DireWolfSpirit said: "Plato y Plomo" Trump is no Corleone or Escobar, he's just a weak, greasy, slob with a completely irreconciable relationship with the truth. Yesterday on Mastadon some were referring to Trump as 'Don Poorleone'. Prince of the North, Mr. Chatywin et al. and DireWolfSpirit 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: The outsider “fighting” for the oppressed “decent folks” has long been a fantasy in American populism. As I've mentioned on this board many a time, Richard Slotkin's Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860, lays out that this entire foundational US mythology of the single violent man putting things to right has been here since the beginning. Ser Scot A Ellison 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 hour ago, maarsen said: Well then, we can only assume that Trump will end up in the same state as Capone; in prison and dying of brain rot due to syphilis. Good enough for me. Damn betcha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 34 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said: "Plato y Plomo" Trump is no Corleone or Escobar, he's just a weak, greasy, slob with a completely irreconcilable relationship with the truth. Except -- they never were POTUS, were they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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