It is worth pointing out that the hero for the serial killer in Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho …

… and, yes, I know: everything is fantasy sequences from the CEO boardroom and there is no serial killer here per se …

… reflecting a sociopathy of 1980s corporate New York …

And the hero of Patrick Bateman is… Donald Trump.

(An earlier vintage, I suppose.)

A curious archtype we have here.  And that question swirls about… “How did he come to the summit as nominee of a major political party?”  As far back as the late 80s / early 90s, he was an obvious foil to fulfill this role in (controversial, a book described by an actual murderer as his “bible” and floats about lists for “banned book week”) literature.

And trying to analyze the appeals and dis-appeals of the candidates will lead one into a little trouble.  We got this one in 2000, and I’d wager George W Bush makes a better Paul Metzler than Donald Trump — but assemble Al Gore and Hillary Clinton for Tracy Glick, with now the gender bias coming fully into place.  So,when (sans movie) an editorial appears after the first debate describing the teen film motifs with the know-it-all honor student (girl) who’s done his homework and the sneering devil may care (boy) who “plays by his own rules” — an anti-hero who I suppose fulfills his role — I see this later derided in a liberal mag as an example of media sexism.  Which presents the problem / question of trying to analyze and spell out sometimes sexist motifs running across the American electorate.

Trying to churn Donald Trump into a sympathetic and redeemable character (and the ghost writer for Art of the Deal deeply regrets doing so) and you inevitably land on this contortion.  Another William Randolph Hearst / Citizen Kane.  And we await Donald Trump on the eve of his election walking to the balcony as his angry crowd of misguided true believers (who somehow think a Clinton 20 point landslide was “stolen” from the rightful winner Trump) is now desperately shouting “Rosebud!”

It might not fit strictly the definition of “moral panic“, or maybe it does.  There is an epidemic clown sightings, creepy creepy clowns — reported by “the kids” all over America.

I understand the “clown scare” problem as stemming from a psychological projection out of current events.  What creepy clown is running around out there that “the kids” are being bombarded by in the news media in this, the year 2016?

[…]

You know who looks like a total moron right now?  Ted Cruz.  Here is a guy who took a “brave principled stance”, risked and received boos at the Republican Convention by not endorsing him during his convention, obviously weighing his future political prospects against a possible Donald Trump implosion, and then at about the time Trump seemed to be riding high apparently reconsidered his political position and endorsed Trump, and now???

This makes for awkward viewing.  To be sure, it appears to be only one woman shouting “BOO!”, right up until the time that Republican Senate candidate Joe Heck calls on Donald Trump to step down.

Van Jones brings this back to the issue of the Central Park 5, where Donald Trump sticks by rape convictions that were not true.  Protesters shout out “U!S!A!” because — Trump and Van Jones…

… and I’m left pondering the matter of Van Jones.  Whose name surfaced on a “9/11 Truth” petition, and was thus summarily dismissed from his appointment in the Obama Adminisration — and wikipedia give a bit short shift to the controversy.  All too riotous — you can’t have any whiff of conspiracy mongering taint the White House like that.

Donald Trump’s twitter feed is pretty hilarious, retweeting comments from his twittering supporters, and declarations that every Republican abandoning him will now be going down to inglorious defeat.  The difference between a Walter Mondale as he faced defeat in the eye and a Donald Trump:  Mondale steered his end of campaign to save Democratic seats; Trump…

All eyes are on the big Green Bay Packers versus New York Giants game.  (Was Trump as concerned about the debates being scheduled against Major League Baseball playoff games?)  Theoretically, the debate will cover foreign policy.  And yet… no one will be covering whatever the candidates say about foreign policy.

The election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump…

… or, as I overheard one cynical Bernie Sanders supporter have it, “George W Bush and George Wallace”… and I suppose Assange’s much overmatched dumping of Clinton Wall Street speech material against the much more viral Donald Trump acting like a boorish buffoon sells him on the idea.

That’s one leak.  The other one… quite possibly spells the death of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign shot — the reason I’ve once thought that this campaign is anywhere between a close Trump victory and a historic landslide for Clinton —

Somewhere between Obama’s easy win but not landslide over McCain but not where you have Reagan over Mondale.  But who knows?

What needed to happen for the former, electorally and polling-wise, was coming into the focus during Hillary Clinton’s week off due to pneumonia.  What needs to happen for the latter — well, that will happen if (suburban Republican) women drop from Donald Trump EN MASSE, and it was never hard to figure out how that might end up happening.

I have this vision of  Hillary Clinton, and her campaign, trying to figure out how to effectively press the advantage and having a boat-load of Donald Trump material at the ready.  There’s a danger of it sliding into static background noise (like everything else with Trump’s campaign that would spell the end of any normal politician), and there’s a danger of it being “old news” by the time of the election, super-ceded by … oh, transcript revelations that Hillary Clinton was very chummy with Wall Street officials, for instance.

So you start by you run the theme-centering ad of kids watching Trump’s vulgarisms.  When you zero in the misogynistic angle for a follow-up on the ad, you do so at the time of the first debate.   The debate is where you bring up the issue of Miss Universe.  And you do so at the end of the debate, so it will be the thing most people will most remember, and where Donald Trump will have been worn out.

The comedy of Julian Assange knowing the timing of when to dump the damnable material out on Hillary Clinton — to confirm the biases to that guy who thinks this election is Bush versus Wallace… right before the second debate… is that Hillary Clinton and her campaign also know when to dump things and this is when  you leak this tape.

So Donald Trump can defend it as “Locker Room” “Private”, and most amusingly…

“Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close.”

Oh, if Bill Clinton’s private talk were public, he would not have survived.  Come to think of it, the same is the case with Richard Nixon, isn’t it?
Yes.  I am familiar with the armchair psycho-analysis on Bill Clinton with a “Saturday night Clinton” and a “Sunday morning Clinton”.  I’m also familiar with Bill Clinton having a Sunday Morning Clinton as distinct from a Saturday Night Clinton.  Which I’m not familiar with in regards to Donald Trump.  And beyond that… there’s that matte of …

The “golfing with Clinton” angle poses a question to a class of Trump supporters (out in “alt right” territory — though, for that matter also his constellation of angry white downtrodden men)… isn’t that a little too chummy — like, is Donald Trump then going to run with Bill Clinton to the Bilderberg Group meeting, or something?

Gary Johnson won’t play the media game of forcing him to name North Korea’s leader.

I do like this one.

Johnson recently failed to provide the name of a foreign leader whom he admires during an appearance on MSNBC. He subsequently attributed this to the shortcomings of the world’s leaders.

See tweet.

It’s been almost 24 hours…and I still can’t come up with a foreign leader I look up to.

Evoking Eisenhower on Nixon, eh?
Politico hates Jill Stein’s answer to the “Favorite World Leader”, because they don’t think they are real leaders.

Weird threshold, that politico.

Which presents Gary Johnson the problem.  You’re the leader of what is considered a fringe party.  By definition, the world leaders you would admire — if they align with the game you’re playing in American politics — would be outside the mainstream.

Jill Stein named the leader of Canada’s Green Party.  Surely other countries have Libertarian Parties?

Hey!  It could be worse!  Donald Trump admires Putin right?

Evan McMullin has chosen a running mate.
I don’t exactly understand his campaign…

The McMullin campaign acknowledges what an uphill climb they have up against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Most polling does not include McMullin, who announced his bid in August. Their strategy is dependent on attempting to block Trump and Clinton from obtaining 270 electoral votes and sending the election to the House of Representatives. An election hasn’t been decided by the House of Representatives since 1824.

“The path is difficult, but not as unlikely as people think,” McMullin strategist Rick Wilson told ABC News. “This is all about giving Americans a sense they can vote for people they can be proud of and have a more affirmative version of leadership in this country.”

… Stein and Johnson are “movement builders”, in one way or the other… McMullin wants an ahistorical election result?

Disappointing to be a protester supporting the cause of the Bundys.

Outside the downtown courthouse where the brothers, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and five others are on trial for conspiracy, their supporters have dwindled to a handful of self-described patriots carrying pocket Constitutions and lamenting their shrunken ranks.
“I had hoped there would be hundreds of people here, but there’s not,” said Jason Patrick, 44, tugging on a cigarette not far from a Black Lives Matter rally that had more than 100 participants. “Why wouldn’t you come to the most pressing court case of your time?”

I think I have an answer.
Attention is fleeing.  There’s 24 hours a day.  One is limited in the purview of causes championing, and movements you pull into.  It’s one thing at a time.

The supporters are being diverted into electoral politics, championing the cause of Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The “Bundy” story was all over the prisonplanet website when it was a’happening.  Now… it’s commenced into Trump-land.

Not knowing anything further, my first instinct is that these  these kids were brandishing some irreverent humor,  as opposed to hateful, trying to have some fun at the expense of the administration’s “game”.  It would be the first thought I would have had if I learned that my school was putting on a “color war”, though in my case I’d be limiting it to banter to a few peers with a sarcastic “Yeah.  This sounds brilliant”, at most lobbing an awkward question to a teacher or two.

Pursue the issue from whatever angle you want, but appreciate some possible limitations.  The problem for the kids is that, assuming the best, you’ll end up with a whole pile of support from white supremacists — making this stunt not worth it.