I almost never read New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s essays. I used to. But he has gone so far over the deep end so many times that I have found him not worth the effort.
But the paranoia-laden piece he wrote for last Friday’s Times, which I just read today, requires a response.
Here, it is – in rust, with my comments in blue:
A lot of people in politics and the media are scrambling to normalize what just happened to us, saying that it will all be OK and we can work with Trump. No, it won’t, and no, we can’t. OK, we start with Krugman’s apparent belief he is a fortuneteller. The next occupant of the White House will be a pathological liar with a loose grip on reality; was this column written about Donald Trump after the election, or about Hillary Clinton when he still thought she would win? That description makes it hard to tell. he is already surrounding himself with racists, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists; his administration will be the most corrupt in America history. UI keep waiting for any more than the flimsiest basis for these claims, and never get to see any. How come?
How did this happen? There were multiple causes, but you just can’t ignore the reality that key institutions and their leaders utterly failed. Every news organization that decided, for the sake of ratings, to ignore policy and barely cover Trump scandals while obsessing over Clinton emails, every reporter who, for whatever reason — often sheer pettiness — played up Wikileaks nonsense and talked about how various Clinton stuff “raised questions” and “cast shadows” is complicit in this disaster. Holy excrement. Krugmen is accusing the media of PRO TRUMP BIAS?????? There has to be a special rubber room for someone who believes they were easier on Trump than Clinton. Earth to Mr. Krugman: the only thing they really went after Clinton on was the email scandal (not benghazi, not her utterly disastrous 4 years as Secretary of State, not her 8 entirely unproductive years in the Senate, not the Clinton foundation – despite massive reasons to do so). And the only reason they went after her for that was that she couldn’t stop lying about the email scandal every step of the way, so they were forced to. And then there’s the FBI: it’s quite reasonable to argue that James Comey, whether it was careerism, cowardice, or something worse, tipped the scales and may have doomed the world. Make that a double holy excrement! James Comey, by announcing he was continuing an investigation, doomed the world? Does that mean just planet Earth, Mr. Krugman, or other worlds as well….maybe the one you seem to have come from?
No, I’m not giving up hope. Nah. You just told us the country is being run by racists and anti-Semites, the world is doomed, but you’re just loaded with hope. Maybe, just maybe, the sheer awfulness of what’s happening will sink in. Maybe the backlash will be big enough to constrain Trump from destroying democracy in the next few months, and/or sweep his gang from power in the next few years. But if that’s going to happen, enough people will have to be true patriots, which means taking a stand. What stand would that be, Mr. Krugman? Demanding that he be assassinated – which is all over social media, but you haven’t said a bad word about? Is that the “hope” you have in mind?
And anyone who doesn’t — who plays along and plays it safe — is betraying America, and mankind. Hey, why not betray mankind. I mean the world is doomed anyway, so mankind is just small potatoes. And, by the way, what about womankind, you misogynistic retro pig?
Yes, they pay Paul Krugman to write this stuff.
No wonder the Times is in its current shape.
