Blow had a good, no great, column today:

[kpete]

It is hard to know where the hard bottom is beneath this morass of lies and bile. He has changed the very definition of acceptability as well as the expectations of the honor of one’s words. He has exalted the art of deceit to a new political normalcy.

This has made him nearly impervious to even the cleverest takedowns, and trust me, many have tried, comparing him to everyone from P. T. Barnum to Hitler.

...........................

We are a society in search of an instant fix to some of America’s most intractable problems. Politicians of all stripes keep lying to us and saying things are going to be O.K.; that broad prosperity is just around the corner, only requiring minor tweaks; that for some of our issues there are clear good and bad options, rather than a choice between bad and worse options.

.................

this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

Supporting Trump is a Hail Mary pass of a hail-the-demagogue assemblage. Trump’s triumph as the presumptive Republican Party nominee is not necessarily a sign of his strategic genius as much as it’s a sign of some people’s mental, psychological and spiritual deficiencies.

It’s hard to use the truth as an instrument of enlightenment on people who prefer to luxuriate in a lie.


.........

So Much More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/trumps-asymmetric-warfare.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region

[cwydro]

1. He's a good writer.

One of my favorites.

[eissa]

2. Brilliant! It's not Trump, it's the deficiency of his supporters n/t

[libodem]

3. I'm wild about Charles

He's my fella.