When The Frogs Come Up

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

My husband has acquired a new and strange habit of listening to podcasts while working. I completely understand this, as his work is mostly numbers and patterns and words don’t intrude. Yes, it plays havoc with my writing, which is why I have headphones and Sabaton.

Sometimes, occasionally, when I’m doing visual or animation work, though, I will listen to what he’s listening to. Not because of interest but by sheer inertial. If it’s not bothering me, I passively-listen, the same way I passively watch TV by catching bits of whatever he’s watching in between work and such.

One of the podcasts I thus consume was an interview with a figure on the right who is a Trump supporter, but almost exactly in the opposite way of how I look at Trump and his administration. This person is enthusiastic about everything the administration does, but horrified, appalled and even shocked at Trump’s “uncouth behavior.” Meanwhile, I look at a lot of things the administration does with a weather eye even when I agree with the objectives, because I can see doors being opened that terrify me. (And yet, I also don’t see a way around it.) On the other hand Trump’s oh, so rude, terrifyingly crass behavior? Meh. I think he’s a little salty and a tad-bit mouthy at times. So what?

Perhaps this comes from having grown up in a Latin culture, where you can call your best friend a mother lover at the top of your voice, and accuse him of having raped and murdered his own grandmother, and it’s all taken to mean “I’m really mad at you” and no more. By evening, you’ll be having dinner together in the best of moods.

Or perhaps it’s because I understand the dynamic between “Trump Mouth Eruptions” and sympathize.

Look, yes, a lot of what he says that sounds absolutely crazy is intentional. And a lot of it is clear to anyone who read The Art of the Deal. And a lot of the times when he’s rude it’s also intentional, to distract you — or at least the main stream media — from something he’s doing or working on.

BUT–

There’s more going on there, because some of his outbursts don’t help him, and in fact might hurt him. Or at least horrify a number of the more delicate flowers on the right.

Which brings us to why they happen, and how I understand him.

To begin with I’m going to quote Mike Resnick of blessed memory, at the beginning of the indie possibilities. Mike Resnick, a gentleman in every sense of the word, said, “If this works out, I’m going to be very rude to a lot of people.” Why would a gentleman say that?

To understand it, you have to understand the regimen of frogs that traditionally published writers lived under.

Traditionally publishing houses were — literally — the only game in town, if you wanted to bring your book in front of enough readers to make even “underpaid secretary” money. The. Only. Game. In. Town.

Staying employed over the long run, meant swallowing a lot of frogs even if you weren’t from a “cancelled” political persuasion, like me, which had other difficulties, like keeping your mouth shut while the editor you worked for kindly informed you that libertarians wanted to abolish the internal combustion engine. (No, of course not Baen. DUH.)

You had to, for instance, shut up when they told you the book hadn’t sold, which was of course your fault, or at best “genre isn’t selling” even though you knew they’d done the florid stupid with cover or release date or whatever. You had to stay quiet while you watched them do the florid stupid. After six or seven of these, you had to accept their verdict that you just didn’t have potential and were stuck as a low level scribbler. Etc. etc. etc. You had to see them ignore contacts from movie producers who contacted you first, and shut up because it wouldn’t get you the movie deal (the house controlled the right to negotiate that) but it would destroy your ability to publish anything ever again and not just with that house, because it’s a small incestuous field. You had to accept being sent to a conference for middle school teachers to promote your book that wasn’t remotely suitable for middle school. And accept being sent over your 40th birthday. And keep your mouth shut and not blow up when you came home to a notice that this book was being taken out of circulation, a decision made before the print. And through all this, you had to meet these people at cons, and act like they were your best friends. Because as a friend whom I won’t out, though he too is beyond their reach told me, “They see your expressions. They watch how you react and what you laugh at. And what you DON’T laugh at.”

I refer to it as a regime of eating live frogs. You swallowed a frog a day as a minimum condition of being employed, of practicing the craft you wanted to work at since you were cognizant it existed.

And before you say “Sarah, everyone has to do that.” Sure. Sure. BUT there are degrees. Of course the overworked retail worker doesn’t tell his boss to shove it. BUT if he/she did, all it would take at worst is a move to another town to find work again. While if you ran your mouth in trad pub, you were done. Because it was a small field and they all talked to each other. And you couldn’t go down the street and find a similar job. You were done-done. (In fact a lot of us tended to assume some favorite writer had died, when he/she had been cancelled for a minor offense, not even saying what they thought.)

But it was more than that. Recently someone commented that No Man’s Land has more “life” than all my other work, and why didn’t I do stuff like that while I was publishing with trad pub?

Well, because trad pub is the art of the possible. And No Man’s Land and the world it explores is weird. So weird that the only hope for it would be Baen AND EVEN THEN they wouldn’t have much clue what to do with it. Because they would have to sell it to distributors and stores and…. there was a good chance their own reps would think it was weird. (This is what pushed the conformity trend in SF/F, where changes and originality had to be in tiny dosages.)

So your very mind got invaded. Not just explicitly by the publisher saying “No. Ew. We won’t publish that.” But by your perception of what they would or would not take and were or were not interested in/hot for. All while keeping your mouth shut on the bad things.

It was tough. I mean, really tough. And you really had to act as though agents, editors, etc. were your besties. (I did like one of my editors/publishers. Well, and a couple of people in the house. Yes, you guys know which house. BUT I had to act like it for ALL houses, even the ones that I was actively becoming blocked on projects because the people were so hard to deal with.) How much did we have to “act” — well, recently while at dinner with younger son, he asked if he could taste my dessert. And I said “Why not. EVERY ONE of my agents and editors reached over and took food from my plate without asking, at a work dinner.” That much.

Am I salty about this? Weirdly, not that much. I have the temperament that blows up on very little, but then forgives and forgets. I mean, I’m describing how bad it was, so you understand what it might do to other people.

I don’t know if other people who ran to indie are ‘being very rude.’ I don’t have much interest in most of the field at this point, except “books I enjoy reading.” To me writing has become an intensely personal/freeing thing, where I work at what I’m passionate about, promote it as best I can, and that’s it. (Weirdly, for the first time in my life that’s pay. Still slightly underpaid secretary, but will improve once the move is done and I work more.)

The thing I want to show is: you eat a lot of frogs, the frogs eventually come up. You become …. very rude. Because you can be.

Trump’s working life, most of it, required being self-abashingly-subservient to a lot of leftists in the one-party rule of NYC. Worse, over his lifetime he probably saw the left become more narrow, more totalitarian, more incapable of leaving anyone alone, even in the privacy of their own thoughts/words. And he had to act like he was their besty.

Which explains why he hit the political stage saying the things that most of the public was afraid of saying.

And btw, the public being afraid to say things? That’s a sign everyone is eating at least one small tadpole every morning. And the pressure builds.

And then he endured four years, after what was obviously to anyone with the mathematical intuition of a tadpole (which is about my level) a stolen election, of being persecuted for whatever crime the left establishment could dream up, some of them improbable enough to give this fiction writer pause. Granted, he wasn’t as much swallowing the live frog as having it force fed at that point since they slapped various gag orders on him that would ruin him if he spoke.

So — Trump is rude. And sometimes thoughtlessly says things that sound weird or hurt people who don’t deserve to be hurt.

That’s fine. I don’t care. The frogs come up. The more you force people to swallow, the more they come up.

There are things to worry about with the administration, like the offer of 5k (just let us keep the 5k dudes!) and other weirdness.

BUT the “rudeness”? Stop clutching your fricking pearls. If you force people to swallow live frogs, sooner or later they have a belly full and the frogs come up.

Ribbit!

119 thoughts on “When The Frogs Come Up”

      1. On the other hand, my Aged Mother thinks that gossip is just fine as long as it’s TRUE. Intimate medical details? She’ll tell half the county, because it’s true. That makes it okay.

        I once (only a couple years ago) walked in on her mocking my speech and mannerisms to my uncle. I told her, later, that this was upsetting and I would prefer she not do this. Cue crying and wailing “But it’s TRUE!!!”

        I don’t talk to her anymore. And I hide my medical issues. Possibly because of this Horrid Example, I feel SOME things are private.

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    2. Quite correct, they don’t want to hear the truth, therefore anyone who speaks it is rude………….. And exposing the level of denial they live in.

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  2. ribbit, ribbit
    For the record, I did not eat the frog I pulled from a stack of pallets this morning.
    And I’ve been called rude, and blunt. Every time Trump’s said something that made me wince a little, I see who really takes issue with it and I’m like “You know what? This is fine.”

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    1. “You know what? This is fine.”

      This. Disregard any initial emotional reflex or kindergarten rules reversion and just roll with it.

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  3. I think the latest one is the claim that Trump wants Iran to nuke two of our cities.

    I’m utterly certain they’re taking something massively out of context, since that’s SOP for the progs.

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    1. They are. He actually said something along the lines of if he hadn’t taken action to take out the Iranian nuke program we could have easily had two of our cites nuked, and taking out that program was a good thing. That was edited to say taking out two CA cities would be a good thing.

      You really, really don’t hate the media enough.

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      2. Trump would not be impolitic enough to say taking out two U.S. cities is a good thing.

        I, on the other hand, have days when I would say, “Which cities are we talking about, precisely?”

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        1. “Why would they do us such a favor?” is the proper response when the possibility of someone nuking D.C. is broached. That and, “We’ll attach a thank-you post-it note to the responding missile.” :imitates Dirty Harry: “Go ahead. Make my day.”

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            2. There was a rather shocking moment watching “Independence Day” in the theater.

              As the alien ship destroyed the US Capitol Building, some of the audience cheered.

              Nothing else got a cheer.

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        2. I’d go for LA and San Fran or Seattle, but their own Laws are doing that for them anyway, so I don’t care about those cities other than to laugh at the idiots left their. Simply put once the money leaves, and it is leaving, their perceived power goes with it. May the Left coast go gloriously broke and their own liberals hang the bastards in the streets.

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          1. LA, Seattle, NYC because commie mayors, and either Detroit or Minneapolis, depending which cauterization would be most effective.

            I do think The City and County of SF has a slim chance, if given sufficient shock incentive. Kinda like a pool gone all green and icky – if you shock it hard enough it can come back clear again.

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            1. Wait, we weren’t nominating for The List?

              Okay, I hereby propose The List, for aspiring authorial use, ranking preferred cities to authorially nuke in authorial endeavors going forward.

              Nominations open.

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        2. I used to consider, say, Cuba putting a leftover Soviet nuke in the luggage compartment of an elderly plane, loading it up with dissidents, and sending them to Washington as a “peace offering.” More likely to work in a Democratic Administration.

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      4. This isn’t something I mention lightly being aware how damn cold it is, but were a few big cities nuked, the Democratic Party would be rendered combat ineffective, at best.

        There aren’t really any “blue” states, just states with large “blue” concentrations (see “Clinton Archipelago”). Take any of those concentrations out of the picture, and the states they’re in will take on a decidedly reddish tint.

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        2. Just imagine if a president again invokes “insurrection”. And given the ongoing antics in places like Seattle, one very well might.

          Those nincompoops might very well get what they say they want. Which would tend to mean “no polls then”.

          But since the ballots are injected elsewhere, a 105% turnout would be even more remarkable.

          “Go lemmings Go!”

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          1. Considering what the Lefties say will be necessary in order to “save our democracy,” it appears they will do literally anything, from insurrection to outright murder.

            Oh. Wait.

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          2. 105%? Those are rookie numbers! 😛

            In 2020, several Detroit precincts had over 200% turnout. That’s right, they ‘counted’ more than twice as many votes as there were registered voters — including the ones over 120 years old. Investigations found hundreds of ‘voters’ over 140 years old. No court would even look at the evidence.

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      5. You really, really don’t hate the media enough.

        Or the Academy whot trained them.

        So I try to remember what they were and could be lo, these 100 years ago, when the Fabian project got going.

        The codicil to IowaHawk’s laws of SJW institutional capture ate that once the skinsuit is visibly crawling with maggots, claim it was ever thus. Jerks.

        I get weirdly optimistic these days: watching the various clownworld aristos, court eunuchs, useful idiots, and degenerate pets fight tooth and nail to stop SAVE, or the redistricting, or the Post Office rule changes…

        Why would they go to the wall if our republican electoral system was already lost?

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          1. (shouting hysterically)

            “EVERYTHING IS FINE! REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL! ITS UNDER CONTROL! REMAIN CALM!”

            …

            How is the Left -not- recreating that memorable character in that epic scene in their own charming way?

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    2. It’s just another case of pretending not to understand to annoy people into silence. No one misunderstood him saying this was a risk if we didn’t stop Iran, but they’re intentionally pretending otherewise.

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      1. If the Left and Media thought it would work, they would sodomize their own parents and children to death and blame Trump. They are thoroughly without any redeeming qualities and we don’t hate them enough.

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        1. That is essential what they did with Clancy, the women whose execution was botched and the Cornell tumult. It is them raping and doing heinous killing with the idea this will motivate the base or get Trump

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            1. I suspect too that some of the not-Left got wary when it turned out that she had not gone to the actual police to get help, not had she sought assistance from medical personnel. Accusations after-the-fact have turned out to be either exaggerated, untrue, or not-as-initially-reported so often that a goodly number of us are (perhaps unjustly) suspicious of delayed reports and claims.

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              1. Anyone who heard or read about what she herself said in the statements that she made should have misgivings about the claim of rape. It really is that bad of a case.

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      2. According to Erickson, this time a few left-wing outlets defended him. When the Guardian says, “Uh, that’s not what he said,” you can figure this whole shtick is losing its legs.

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      1. It boggles that the Cornell thing gets blamed by the CNN crowd (and actual CNN anchors, unchallenged) on the guy who was not elected yet. Dude, the Autopen was POTUS when that happened. I mean, time travel would be cool and all, but really?

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        1. Not really. Remember that they also blamed “kids in cages” on Trump, even though the pictures that they were brandishing to everyone were taken in 2015, when Obama was in the White House.

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        2. But don’t you realize that any attempt to challenge or correct them would be censorship?

          Personally I think that provable lies should have no protection under constitutional law, but that would wipe out the media and politics.

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  4. like keeping your mouth shut while the editor you worked for kindly informed you that libertarians wanted to abolish the internal combustion engine

    Huh? I mean I’ve heard some pretty crazy “libertarians/conservatives want to get rid of $FOO” claims for a lot of values of $FOO. But those I could at least contort myself into enough of a pretzel where if I assume I had leftist brain damage I could see them up to and including “libertarians want to bring back slavery” and “libertarians don’t understand Swift was engaging in humor” but I can’t figure this one out.

    As for that feeling about eating frogs, I think that’s where my real anger at all the “You have to vote Republican or you get communism” this cycle is coming from. It’s nothing new and I’ve done it a lot. Prior to Trump it was the only reason I planned to vote post 2012. I’m not angry about the idea. I’m angry about the reminders.

    And the reason I’m angry about them is they are the same things as “teach men not to rape”. The people who are the problem aren’t the people it is aimed at. If we lose the Texas senate seat to the Democrat (to pick the biggest ticket example) isn’t Trump voters mad about Iran/Israel/etc (and I’m on record questioning the wisdom of “2026 is finally time to deal with Iran). It’s going to be Cornyn supporters having a tantrum over their RINO losing a primary. Of course, how their RINO won they’d be yelling at me about “Vote Republican or communist”.

    The worst part is when we lose because they stayed home they’ll run around screaming it was our fault for staying home (when we didn’t) and being too radical (because Paxton is more radical than his “God is trans” opponent).

    In politics, at least, Trump isn’t just him getting fed up but a lot of people. And the people who should learn from that seem impervious.

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  5. Please excuse my being rather too direct here.  Trump was able to get his buildings built and serviced by the Teamsters in NY and NJ.  The Saudis honored him with their sword dance.  Xicut off shipping money and missiles to Iran.  And more.  The dainty little check-pants nancy-boys who gripe are just sore because they couldn’t do what he does under any circumstances.

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  8. I got over Trump’s “rudeness” by…oh, 2017? Maybe 2018. At some point in there, I stopped paying attention to the pearl-clutching because it was all misquotes turned into accusations. If I hear “TRUMP SAID X” at this point, I assume someone, somewhere, is either repeating a misquote or has deliberately misquoted him. This has made life much, much happier for me and left me free to only dig into what he said when it actually matters.

    As for Trump “wishing” Iran would nuke two of our cities – if he had actually said that, ALL of the media would be screaming it. Not even half of them are. Meh. Geese are going to honk, donkeys will bray, and the media will shriek to get their newspapers bought. Moving on….

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  9. I could not care less what the left and liberal traitors feel, because we know the bastards don’t think. I am more concerned with living day to day than worrying what comes out of Trumps mouth. To the pearl clutching wimps out there, my only hope is that they don’t strangle themselves while clutching those pearls. To the Liberals, may God have Mercy on your souls. Personally I wouldn’t walk across a sidewalk and urinate on you if you were on fire. Pass the marshmallows please. While listening to We Didn’t start the Fire by Billy Joel. maybe Fire by the Ohio Players, Can’t do Burning for You by BOC, that’s about sacrifice, which the left never does. The only sacrifice the left wants to make is of you for them, you know where to shove that.

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  10. My Grandpa on one side did purchasing for a giant corporation. He was a good man, a gentleman, and also spoke his mind (at home, and allegedly on the job to his own corp) a lot more than Trump does.

    When I first started working, I worked temp jobs for several businesses where people did not mince their words. I did not take it badly, and they did not cross the line of what was fair or acceptable.

    Seriously, these people have NO IDEA about old school businessmen, tradesmen, etc. Or women, for that matter.

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  11. Even the “rudeness” often serves a point – in that it moves Overton window, in a way politeness never does. Trump: “Hey, I’m going to FIX That. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”Press: “OMG you can’t talk about That! Everyone knows you can’t say That! Ist! Ism! Phobic!”Left: “OMG can you believe Trump said That! Ist! Ism! Phobic!”Some of the Right: “That. That. That. That-That-thatity That!”Middle: “…you know, That does actually happen and need to be addressed. Even if it’s awfully rude to say.”People actually affected: “That do be true, though.”Left: “SHUT UP!!!!”Middle: “No, actually, let’s have a conversation about That.”Right: “That sucks. We need to Do Something about That.”Trump: “I did an executive order addressing That.”Left: “HOW DARE YOU THINK OR SPEAK ABOUT THAT!!!!! YOU ARE ALL IST NOW!!! LAWFARE!!!”Right: “The executive order doesn’t go far enough!”Middle: “You know, going to have to go with supporting the right on That. Even if I can’t stand Trump, he’s not wrong about That.”Does he manage it every time? Nope. But he’s prolific enough that the volume of good ones is a whole lot higher than people who only try once or twice.

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      1. And we don’t take enough shots at the press, figuratively not literally, if we did have a boog, It would not be us shooting them, but them cowardly hiding behind IED’s and sniper attacks, just like the cowardly diseased scum are now. WE Don’t Hate The Press ENOUGH.

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      1. President Reagan was one of the classiest, and polite people ever in politics, and the same people savaging Trump now for being a boor used to treat President Reagan the same way. They also used to trash his wife, the same way they do the current First Lady. Its always the same script from them, they just same the names. I am old enough to remember when milquetoast Mitt Romney was declared by Democratic Party media to be the second coming of the entire leadership of the Third Reich.

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  13. It’s reminiscences like this — and from other writers that I know who did the trad-publishing merry-go-round, and perforce had to swallow a daily diet of frogs — which makes me ever so glad that I was able to independently publish my own books (and those of others, through the Teeny Publishing Bidness).

    No, I can’t afford to purchase my own mountain, like Larry C. or hit it big with a smash like Andy Weir did … but I can get them out there and find readers who love my books and my characters, which brings me in a small but satisfactory addendum, moneywise.

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    1. Andy Weir published The Martian serially on his web site long before any trad folks came knocking. His readers requested a collated version of the serial on Kindle and that hit the bestseller list there, which then led to hardcopy rights being purchased by CPG for Random Penguin, but it was arguably a hit before that happened.

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      1. IIRC Larry C first serialized his first M. H. Inc on the old FALFILES website and then self published 1000(?) trade paperback autographed copies at $30.00 each. (somewhere I have one.)

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        1. Dead Six was also serialized, this time on a forum. Mike Kupari had started writing a story with the “Nightcrawler” protagonist. ILOH read what had been posted, liked what he saw, and got Mike’s permission to create Lorenzo and start adding segments from Lorenzo’s PoV. IIRC, after MHI was picked up by Baen, ILOH was asked if he had anything else ready to go. He brought up the forum posts, and Baen published that, too (more or less; some plot elements were rewritten before the novel was published).

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          1. I have actually read those forum posts! Not in real time as they were posted, but before the Dead Six books hit the market. Really fun stuff.

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    1. Tastes a little like chicken. (The local seafood buffets sometimes include them, though I always see that parade of legless frogs wheeling out of the kitchen).

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  15. In 2016, I gritted my teeth and voted for him in spite of his unPresidential presentation because of what the alternative was. Silly me still thought the wise solon diplomat personality meant something. But that year, I really felt in a unique way that I was gambling in my vote for him, but absolutely NOT gambling in my vote against her. If that makes sense. Now, all these 10 sturm und drang years later, I’m thoroughly enjoying what made me grit my teeth back then. More rude please, gives me a daily giggle.

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    2. I was much the same in ’16. I wasn’t much enamored with the Donald, but I would have walked barefoot through a roomful of broken glass to vote *against* her shrillness. No regrets.

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      1. I have said here before that election that “I would low-crawl naked through broken glass to cast my vote for a syphilitic camel to vote against the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua” and I stand, fully clothed, behind that statement.

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      2. A common theme with a lot of us here.

        Count me as someone who voted for President Trump, not once or twice, but all three times. First time against Shrilerey. Remaining times, all in. No regrets.

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    3. Ever since the Reader was old enough to vote he has always followed Heinlein’s wisdom on voting. It has never steered the Reader wrong. He has never voted FOR anyone or any thing. Voting against the female ogre in 2016 was easy.

      If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for, but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against.

      Robert A. Heinlein

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    4. Crooked Clinton actually published a book titled ‘What Happened?’

      Me: “It’s very simple. You were the most repulsive Presidential candidate in living memory and a majority of Americans voted against your skanky ass.”

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      1. That and she was so arrogant that she didn’t campaign in several key swing states that Trump ended up winning. She was so sure that the fix was in and that “no one could possibly be serious about voting for Trump”, she thought her landslide was assured the moment Trump was nominated. This of course is why they pushed so hard for Trump to be the Republican nominee and then went insane when he actually won.

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    5. I not only voted against her the first time, I (after avoiding all news election day) was pleasantly surprised when I saw he had won by how pleased I was with it.

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      1. We avoided the news before heading to bed 2016 election night. Got up ~2 AM PST, usual bathroom run. Broke down and turned on Fox News (so ~5 AM EST). They were calling the overwhelming result (without CA, naturally), for President Trump.

        My response? “OMG! OMG! He won! OMG! OMG!” I figured the fix was in. I was shocked.

        Of coarse 4 years later they did fraud in auto pen. Then in 2024, they could not repeat, although they tried, because you know they tried, the fraud, at least not everywhere.

        Until the SAVE act is passed nationally, states like CA, WA, OR, and CO, are lost causes. But if enough states have their own SAVE acts, and a lot do currently, then these states have less influence nationally. Especially if the census eliminates non-legal residents (not against census counting legal non-citizen residents, just the illegal ones). Plus the demographic exodus occurring.

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        1. Actually, here in Kalifornistan we have Ballot Proposition 39 which (if passed) inserts voter ID requirements into the state constitution. In an honest election (I know, I know, but let’s pretend for a minute) it would pass with at least 80% approval. Can the Demokrats manufacture enough fraud to overcome that many legitimate votes? Only time will tell.

          Who wants to bet they’re still ‘counting the votes’ next April?

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          1. When it passes they’ll have their Supremes declare it unconstitutional. If that fails, they’ll allow for an x to be a legitimate signature.

            Working through all of this will take time (I think someone mentioned April?) so you’ll need to work like the devil to get the state on a more even keel before they run out of options

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          2. I had forgotten CA has a SAVE initiative on the ballot. Problem is, CA does not have it, yet.

            Also realize the odds that it does not get defrauded failed.

            If CA actually manages to pass it, would not surprise me if Oregon follows along. Heaven forbid Oregon PTB have an original thought.

            Same with Oregon initiative #114, which was passed despite certainty state wide that it would fail badly. Granted it is still currently blocked. Waiting for ruling from OSSC. Next stop District Court (9th circuit, oh joy). Finally SCOTUS, before final strike down.

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    6. As memory serves, I had three previous favorites in the 2016 campaign. The first two flamed out/ran out of money, and I slowly developed a dislike for some aspects of my #3 pick. (Oregon’s primary is damned late, so the choices were minimal to nonexistent by the time we got our ballots.)

      OTOH, with Trump, I saw a person who genuinely loved America, and Americans. #3 may or may not still harbor presidential ambitions, but one can hope he ends up on SCOTUS.

      I was as happy to vote for Trump as to vote against the Hildabeast. Am still happy with Trump. (Speaking unfiltered? Can happen right here.)

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          1. Yes. He was in an interview. And yes, he wants to be the Anti-Trump, because things have got out of control. Or something. Unfortunately I don’t remember interview WHERE? But I watched it.

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    7. Voted for Cruz in the primary. I didn’t like or dislike Trump – but he had absolutely no political record. (Quite a bit of record in dealing with corrupt NYC – and it didn’t feel likely that he wasn’t the same.)

      Took me a year to admit that I was wrong in the primary (absolutely not wrong in the general).

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  16. Trump is acerbic at times because 1) in that regard he is the stereotypical New Yorker; 2) he does not suffer fools at all, much less gladly, and generally doesn’t keep quiet about it, and 3) he does it intentionally at times to try get people “on tilt”. #3 comes from his being a poker player, which is why the talking heads and politicians who like to think of politics as chess have never understood Trump.

    One of the things poker players do is to try to get other players to “go on tilt”, i.e. make irrational decisions because they are upset or angry, enabling one to take advantage of the poorer play that is the result (there are countless examples that can be cited in poker tournaments and cash games of players who self-destruct by going on tilt) Indeed, putting people on tilt as a strategy can be found in Sun Tzu, someone whose writings and theories Trump is certainly familiar with.

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  18. Trump is very much like any of our Presidents up to Kennedy. Putting any two of them in the same room would result in immediate and total destruction.

    Those Presidents were brash, opinionated and often uncouth, men who knew what needed to be done (sometimes mistaken, never in doubt) and rammed it through against any opposition.

    It wasn’t until the television made the President a figure of social importance that we started voting for the smooth-talking pretty-boy con-men.

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  19. I once actually met the guy who came up with that saying. I asked him if he did it himself and how it was going. He grinned and said he’d swallowed a live frog that very morning, just like he always did, and it was going fine.

    Two hours later, he died of acute frog poisoning.

    Sooner or later, swallowing the frog will not be the worst thing that happens to you that day.

    (As Milton Berle said: ‘If I tell a lie, may I be struck by lightning on this spot!’ Then he took a large, theatrical step to the side.)

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  20. I can’t fake enthusiasm to save my life so I would never have made it in traditional publishing. That will probably get me shot if DSA types take power in the U.S.

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    2. Same.

      “They see your expressions. They watch how you react and what you laugh at. And what you DON’T laugh at.”

      Higher-ed/academia is a bigger pool than publishing, but it operates the same way. The self-censorship became a form of daily torture after a while, and I’m pretty sure that my inability to do it completely is at least part of the reason why I was underpaid and passed over for years.

      The day I got a job outside higher-ed was the best day of my life. (Well, one of; it’s up there with my wedding day and the birth of two kids.)

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  21. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE RUDENESS AND CRUDENESS THAT PEOPLE SEE IN TRUMP IS JUST THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED:  If you ma

  22. And now the gatekeeping doors are falling apart in the face of popular choice.

    A few days ago I mentioned the “… except Malfoy is female” thing popular on X right now (it’s actually known by the original nickname used for the replacement character, but part of that name is a misogynist slur so I’m avoiding it). The alphabet people are pretty angry about it. They don’t like Rowling for her stance on trans-women. They are upset that the fans are very insistent that this Malfoy is a cis-woman, and not a trans-woman. They’re upset that she’s not a lesbian and involved with another female, but instead marries Harry at the end and they have seven kids (I’m not pulling that number out of thin air, either; that’s the number that people have settled on). They accuse the “chuds” of just wanting to make p*rn out of Malfoy, when almost all of the artwork and stories that people have posted (at least on X; I haven’t gone looking for it, so I’ve no idea what’s going on elsewhere) have been very tasteful (or at least if there’s something going on, it’s happening off-screen). I already mentioned that they chased at least one artist off of Bluesky after she(?) posted some artwork (the artist is now using her account on X). I’m hearing that they’re trying to get stories removed from fan fiction sites (using tactics such as copyright strikes).

    These are the cousins (figuratively speaking) of the people running the publishing houses.

    But they’re failing *miserably*. The artwork and story excerpts keep coming. People are mocking them left and right for their pathetic tantrums. The ideas have branched out somewhat with people adding little bits of craziness to the rest of the cast (I’ve avoided most of it… except for the idea of Professor McGonagall as a former magical SF operator who fought at Normandy, in Vietnam, and on other Cold War battlefronts, and berates Harry not for trying to sneak into or out of the dorms at night, but for being sloppy enough to get caught while doing so) that others decide that they like and incorporate. Sure, most of the text stuff is likely not all that great. AI can handle the pictures these days, while writing is still hard (and there are some decent artists making pictures without AI). But normal people are having fun with healthy content (i.e. that Harry has a healthy courtship and romance, marries the love of his life, and has a lot of kids), and the alphabet people are enraged by that.

    One of the things that’s come out of this is a new nickname for Harry – “The Boy Who Yearned”. It means that he falls in love with and yearns for the female Malfoy. People are noting that in a story like this, particularly with a tsundere love interest, that’s what it’s about – the yearning desire to spend the rest of your life with a particular someone, and how hard it can be to get that out (particularly if one of the people involved is a tsundere). It’s not about lust. It’s not about sex (though that’s obviously going to happen at some point if there are seven kids…). They still kiss, but there’s more to their relationship than just physical lust.

    Evidently, lots of people – including men – want that.

    The self-described gatekeepers would nuke it from orbit, collateral damage be <censored>, if they had the chance. Fortunately they don’t. I don’t know how long this will last. I don’t know how long I’ll stay amused by it. But in the meantime, it’s fun.

    One last bit – someone compared it to a recent character, “Petra Parker”, who was created after the recent Spiderman movie came out. But someone else noted that the character in question was basically a (my paraphrasing) hermaphroditic trans Spiderperson with grossly (seriously gross) exaggerated “characteristics” *cough*. IMO, that says quite a bit about the alphabet people, and suggests that they’re guilty of the “p*rn” charge that they’re hypocritically hurling now (and that I mentioned above).

    Also, related to the top topic, but not Harry Potter –

    Something else I saw today was a post by Brad Wardell, the head of Stardock Entertainment. Stardock is a company that publishes computer applications. They’re best known for video games, but also make various computer utilities. He posted a short video on X in which he quite literally was using Clairvoyant AI to rewrite a game in realtime as he played that game.

    Pretty cool stuff.

    Power to the people, if we know how to use it.

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