Bedazzled by alternate truth

TPP once bet a colleague that no one dumber than Ronald Reagan could ever be elected president, a bet he's lost now at least twice. Living in an intellectual bubble, which is rather hard to avoid when living in a smallish city having a university, it seemed quite impossible that such pathetic rhetoric could sway enough people to win an election. Well, so much for this pundit's ability to assess the general public. My afore mentioned colleague brought this home, "We are part of the 1% my friend, not in terms of money, but in terms of thinking." "So they'll be coming for us sooner or later."
The T-rumpkin administration, including the cabinet (in making) with the highest IQ (= net worth?) ever, is off to a sad start by using alternative facts to counter an easily verifiable claim of the largest crowd ever. Such speech displays a bedazzling audacity TPP did not think possible. No more betting on what couldn't possibly be worse. Clearly TPP is not equipped to deal with an alternate reality. Are we soon going to get a Ministry of Truth? This shows someone needs a vacation to get his head back on straight, and that's the truth. Coming soon, vaca blogging!  

Newtron Bombs

Yes, the Phactor can spell, but for 30 some odd years we've been the targets of the verbal bombs of Newtron Gingrinch, the worst rhetoric since Spiro Agnew. At least Spiro used big words and alliteration (e.g., "nattering nabobs of negativity"). For those of you fortunate enough to have purged your memories, or those of you too young to have such memories, and those in neither of the previous groups but who need reminding what a two-faced, hypocritical little wart Newtron is, Mother Jones has a nice sampling from across the years. Here's some thing typical from 1989 where Gingrinch lays out his electoral roadmap: "The left-wing Democrats will represent the party of total hedonism, total exhibitionism, total bizarreness, total weirdness, and the total right to cripple innocent people in the name of letting hooligans loose." Hey, with Newtron running (off his mouth) the campaign will be colorful and he's sure to please all those conservative values voters. Read the list, it's real presidential material.
HT to Ed.