Well said T. I agree. I have read this for awhile now and find Journalist Labash to be a credit to writing. Agree or not, he is a compeling thinker and quite erudite. Well worth a read and reread each installmet.
The reason I subscribed to Slack Tide was because Matt made me laugh when everything else that I was reading about the direction this great country of ours was heading was quite frankly scaring me. Everything I was taught as a child about treating others with kindness. Caring for those less fortunate. The importance of honesty and humility and above all else. Character. So it was good to be able to laugh about the craziness that has become the norm in our country. Ever the optimist, I truly believed there were more Americans that believed that character DOES matter in our leaders than those that have lined up to support a man full of hatred spewing lies and division. But. I was wrong. And I am devastated. We truly are the “ugly Americans”.
This election was not a quandary for me because I detest President Trump's character however even more I cannot vote for a Democratic party that seems hell bent on destroying this nation. We are going to fall, make no doubt about that, however I see my vote for Trump the lessor evil here. We Americans are truly the most horrendous people on the face of the earth when it comes to infanticide less the Chinese of the Mao era. We are literally damning ourselves before God with each infant killed in the womb for reasons that border on insanity - I am not talking about rape or true potential life ending health issues - these I let a person's our decision making but to kill a child in the womb is really resurrecting Hitler in our society.
I have faced this decision before and am resting knowing that on both sides there are tremendously evil people and VP Harris with all her nicety would have a viable living infant cut into pieces in the womb at the last minute for a doctor's declaration that it was best for the woman's life - yes - President Trump is an awful, awful man who should only be a role model for a fool but now I am betting that his 2nd administration will be better staff and that the Democrats in Congress teamed with normal level headed Republicans will limited idiotic ideas. No one is going to use the US Military in a manner to suppress legitimate matters of disagreement, but they will be used to stop an actual rebellion from occurring as the morons of January 6, 2020, tried to instigate. May they enjoy their prison time and loss of citizen rights to ever vote again.
My pray is for this narcissist to wake up and his demons purged, and he rises to become a statesman vice a spoiled child in office. This is our best hope given the craziness of the Democrat party which once was the party of FDR, Truman and JFK, Jimmy Carter ( a true Christian gentleman but unfortunately a micro-manager) as well as Bill Clinton, the great pragmatist who was the last man to balance the budget.
Today, unfortunately, the soft talk hidden evil of the Democratic party is so institutionalized now in its regard to the average American as defined by the parent who wants the best for their child, the adult who actually is glad to work, the business owner or corporation that treats their employees well, the neighbor who is kind and generous......the citizen who truly supports freedom of religion and fair treatment for all and recognizes that we should give hands up not misery help and force others to continue in poverty. Welcome to the Democratic party I left in my mid-forties over 25 years ago. We need men and woman who want to lead America as servants vice narcissists and cultural dictators.
I am sorry this election was so hard for you but luckily, I love Matt's humor and insight too!
It will take a miraculous total transformation of his character, but I'm praying for it to happen, too. I don't however vote for miracles, but just based on present realities. So, while I join you in praying for such a miracle, I didn't vote for Trump (or Harris for the reasons you give).
Oh my goodness. You are verbose! I will agree to disagree. Time will tell. But. He has shown his character. He cares nothing for anyone but himself. And he surrounds himself with like minded men. Again. Time will tell.
To say I was disappointed about the results of the election would be a gross understatement. So I got up at 6:30 the day after the election and went for a walk on our neighborhood trails. It was an unHoustonlike 59 degrees after months of unrelenting heat. A great egret made short flights to stay just ahead of me on the bayou. Our resident red shouldered hawk made a low pass in a blur of grey and white. A neighbor approached with his dog off the leash, just as I did with our last two dogs who are now in puppy heaven. I miss them. His dog barked at me furiously as they approached. “Stranger, danger” I said and we shared a laugh about the mock ferocity. The trail twists and turns and on the second pass the dog dog deigned to sniff my hand. On the third encounter, she couldn’t get enough of the scratching behind her ears.
It all made for an effective attitude adjustment.
I think that I will quit obsessing over the news and our country’s place in the world. I’ll enjoy the time I have left with my wife of 62 years and concern myself with the wellbeing of our large family. Maybe I’ll take up meditation, or maybe that’s what I was really doing on the trail. Maybe I’ll get those hearing aids everybody tells me I need; or maybe they’ll all just stop mumbling.
What will be interesting, in a year or two, when Ukraine is obliterated due to " the indispensable nation's " neglect and abandonment, and tariff-driven inflation is bubbling along at 12% annually, if his oblivious, knuckle-dragging , mouth breather supporters will reconsider.
Oh, they'll reconsider when their next new flat-screen TV is $4000 instead of $900. Because consumer electronics will never be made in this country again. The rubes have not though that through yet.
I can certainly appreciate how anyone and everyone can have different feelings, thoughts, and concerns regarding the election results. I think most voters had to hold their nose as they voted -- no matter who they voted for. The top of the ticket for each party was...well, lacking gravitas, to put it mildly.
My prayerful hope is that Trump is truly a changed man after his near-death experiences. While I do NOT expect a change in his love of country (or especially of himself) ... but pray that he understands after his first term how "government works" and that he will need to work within process, as slow and painful as it may be.
At the same time, I hope that all of the media -- can return to the old days of reporting the facts for news stories, regardless if they approve or disapprove of it personally/institutionally. Keep the opinions and slanted commentary for clearly marked editorials.
OK - now that is my utopian dream.
I expect that this dream will end in less than 3...2...1
Wake up and open the packages Santa brought you. Oh look! There's a new bicycle over here. Come over and let me take your picture standing next to your new bicycle. It's 1964 and you've just woken up on Christmas morning!
You totally the weakness of Harris.President, you must be kidding. Never mind that Obama, the Puppet Master, has a total disregard for many of the same things Trump is guilty of. The best news from this outcome is that both parties should tack toward the middle in the 2028 election.
Obama wasn't perfect. But I will say this for him: he didn't get accused by nearly 30 women of sexually accosting them in some manner. He didn't suggest ditching the Constitution, as Trump did on Truth Social. He didn't refuse to acknowledge the results of an election, then try to overthrow the country when it didn't go his way. He hasn't been indicted four times, one of the times, for trying to fix that election. So I'd say Trump is still way ahead on points.
Not needed. Write about something else. (I know you can because you reflexively list pieces you’ve written on other topics anytime someone like me objects to your redundant vilification ofTrump.). Stale epithets and graceless hyperbole aren’t what I signed up for.
Non sequiturs, Matt. You know nothing of my interests, “unique” or otherwise. And why would I start my own Substack? To onanistically read about my interests? But you’re right: I’m more than ready to move on from this election—which, by the way, won’t be the most controversial or protracted of our time unless “our time“ began in 2023. You do remember 2000, right? Or 2016, with its fake dossier, rogue FBI director, and scofflaw candidate.
Anyone who uses the word "onanistically" so well in a sentence should have his own Substack. I hope you reconsider. You can count me as a future subscriber.
Oh, heck. First Matt, then the better angels of my wife (even though I don't believe in angels -- or the efficient market theory) telling me that I'm being mean. (Didn't even think it was funny.)
Fine. No kicking away your walker. No ripping the velcro off your diaper. But I do challenge you to a mano a mano game of Scrabble. Or chess. Or thumb wrestling. Or Wordle. You choose. Let the better snarker win!
Yeah, I covered 2000. I remember it well. Al Gore, who I was no fan of, graciously conceded an election after a month or so of bitter jockeying on both sides, even though he won the popular vote, and the Supreme Court effectively ended the recount with Bush winning Florida by a mere 537 votes. "Conceding" being something Trump never managed to do since 2020. Not even after he tried to overthrow his own country, getting people KILLED in the bargain. So feel free to be as pedantic as you want, but "our time" includes the entire last four years, in which he never stopped claiming (falsely) that he won, and which saw him getting caught on tape trying to fix the election in Georgia. You want everybody to just move on from Trump's habitual dishonesty -- nothing to see here! -- except for the guy who never stops perpetuating the laughable fictions. And who made sure his electorate never moved on, as he kept them all hopped up on acrimony and paranoia.
Now I’m a pedant? Because I’m not a mind-reader and didn’t know how you defined “our time”? Your didactic rehash of 2000, aside, I’m sure Al Gore will be thrilled to learn the inconvenient truth that Trump makes him look good. And again you call my attention to Trump’s mendacity and misdeeds, as if you haven’t expatiated on them before. You must have a very low opinion of my reading comprehension or my awareness of current events, or both, to think I need to be told Trump is a capital “A” asshole. But I am not delusional enough to “want everybody” to share my opinion. Thankfully, they’re free to do as they please. I am not the Don Quixote who will try to change their minds.
Why yes, you're a pedant! You're even being pedantic about me calling you a pedant. Surely I'm not the first person to tell you this. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but if you come into my ring throwing bones, don't cry when you get clipped with an uppercut. (I'm not like the others, I hit back.) And I haven't expected everybody to share my opinions, ever, let alone in the last nine years, where the only way you might have a shot at changing minds is if you're a cult de-programmer. But, and not to be a pedant here, you were trying to change my mind -- that's how this entire ridiculous thread started -- by you suggesting I shouldn't write about Trump the morning after he won an election in what your heroes at the Wall Street Journal and Fox News keep telling me is the greatest comeback in political history. I mean, hell's bells, I like history! Why wouldn't I want a piece of that action? I am running a subscription site, here.
As I've said about a hundred times in print, if people don't want me to continue writing about Trump, they should stop voting to keep him relevant, and quit bitching when they make him so. If you're in the current events business -- and I am, at least some of the time -- he's a pretty hard event to avoid. He's basically overrun every other news cycle for the last decade. And when he does things like say, reject our entire system of government by trying to overturn an election that he lost, it's not a small matter. And when he makes a bunch of strongman noises while he trying to get reelected, when he should probably be in jail, that's kind of unavoidable, too. It's pretty hard to go back to good-naturedly jousting over the carried interest loophole. Don't get me wrong -- it'd be fun if this was still 2013 or whatever year you prefer to pretend time stopped during. But it's not. Hence, the regular Trump talk.
You sound a lot more earnest about all this than I am. I didn’t call you a pedant. I said you were being didactic. Not the same thing at all (besides being said facetiously). Yes, my heroes are on the editorial page of the WSJ, but please don’t conflate them with Fox News, which is insulting to the former. I’m sorry you thought my request you write about something else was too peremptory (or whatever), but me trying to “change your mind”? Ridiculous.
As for your apologia pro vita sua, knock yourself out. I won’t comment on your subject matter choices again, a sensitive topic it turns out. It’s true I prefer what you call “good-natured jousting.” Not sure whether it’s because I have too little time left to waste on absurdity, or because I’m homo ludens—probably a little of both. But you are mistaken that warming up the old DeLorean for a trip to the past is what I hanker for.
Do any of you think that culture was just changing so fast for folks and it scared the s*it out of them? As in, so scared that they'd fall for anything? After all, cultural identity is as, or more powerful than personal identity.
Think about it. People have been giving their lives for their cultural identity since there have been cultures.
Sure feels exactly like that. Barf.
Well said T. I agree. I have read this for awhile now and find Journalist Labash to be a credit to writing. Agree or not, he is a compeling thinker and quite erudite. Well worth a read and reread each installmet.
The reason I subscribed to Slack Tide was because Matt made me laugh when everything else that I was reading about the direction this great country of ours was heading was quite frankly scaring me. Everything I was taught as a child about treating others with kindness. Caring for those less fortunate. The importance of honesty and humility and above all else. Character. So it was good to be able to laugh about the craziness that has become the norm in our country. Ever the optimist, I truly believed there were more Americans that believed that character DOES matter in our leaders than those that have lined up to support a man full of hatred spewing lies and division. But. I was wrong. And I am devastated. We truly are the “ugly Americans”.
Sandy,
This election was not a quandary for me because I detest President Trump's character however even more I cannot vote for a Democratic party that seems hell bent on destroying this nation. We are going to fall, make no doubt about that, however I see my vote for Trump the lessor evil here. We Americans are truly the most horrendous people on the face of the earth when it comes to infanticide less the Chinese of the Mao era. We are literally damning ourselves before God with each infant killed in the womb for reasons that border on insanity - I am not talking about rape or true potential life ending health issues - these I let a person's our decision making but to kill a child in the womb is really resurrecting Hitler in our society.
I have faced this decision before and am resting knowing that on both sides there are tremendously evil people and VP Harris with all her nicety would have a viable living infant cut into pieces in the womb at the last minute for a doctor's declaration that it was best for the woman's life - yes - President Trump is an awful, awful man who should only be a role model for a fool but now I am betting that his 2nd administration will be better staff and that the Democrats in Congress teamed with normal level headed Republicans will limited idiotic ideas. No one is going to use the US Military in a manner to suppress legitimate matters of disagreement, but they will be used to stop an actual rebellion from occurring as the morons of January 6, 2020, tried to instigate. May they enjoy their prison time and loss of citizen rights to ever vote again.
My pray is for this narcissist to wake up and his demons purged, and he rises to become a statesman vice a spoiled child in office. This is our best hope given the craziness of the Democrat party which once was the party of FDR, Truman and JFK, Jimmy Carter ( a true Christian gentleman but unfortunately a micro-manager) as well as Bill Clinton, the great pragmatist who was the last man to balance the budget.
Today, unfortunately, the soft talk hidden evil of the Democratic party is so institutionalized now in its regard to the average American as defined by the parent who wants the best for their child, the adult who actually is glad to work, the business owner or corporation that treats their employees well, the neighbor who is kind and generous......the citizen who truly supports freedom of religion and fair treatment for all and recognizes that we should give hands up not misery help and force others to continue in poverty. Welcome to the Democratic party I left in my mid-forties over 25 years ago. We need men and woman who want to lead America as servants vice narcissists and cultural dictators.
I am sorry this election was so hard for you but luckily, I love Matt's humor and insight too!
Sincerely,
James
It will take a miraculous total transformation of his character, but I'm praying for it to happen, too. I don't however vote for miracles, but just based on present realities. So, while I join you in praying for such a miracle, I didn't vote for Trump (or Harris for the reasons you give).
Oh my goodness. You are verbose! I will agree to disagree. Time will tell. But. He has shown his character. He cares nothing for anyone but himself. And he surrounds himself with like minded men. Again. Time will tell.
I'm with you. And I hope the people who voted for him (i.e., "the garbage," er, young Latino men)
suffer -- which I believe they will.
Yikes, Margo! I never said young Latino men were garbage!
Of course not. Trump's rally comedian did. In fact, he said the whole island of Puerto Rico was.
Oh yes, right.
No one blames you for not remembering all the Trump-generated trash talk.
I know. You could fill a dumpster of brain with all of that.
To say I was disappointed about the results of the election would be a gross understatement. So I got up at 6:30 the day after the election and went for a walk on our neighborhood trails. It was an unHoustonlike 59 degrees after months of unrelenting heat. A great egret made short flights to stay just ahead of me on the bayou. Our resident red shouldered hawk made a low pass in a blur of grey and white. A neighbor approached with his dog off the leash, just as I did with our last two dogs who are now in puppy heaven. I miss them. His dog barked at me furiously as they approached. “Stranger, danger” I said and we shared a laugh about the mock ferocity. The trail twists and turns and on the second pass the dog dog deigned to sniff my hand. On the third encounter, she couldn’t get enough of the scratching behind her ears.
It all made for an effective attitude adjustment.
I think that I will quit obsessing over the news and our country’s place in the world. I’ll enjoy the time I have left with my wife of 62 years and concern myself with the wellbeing of our large family. Maybe I’ll take up meditation, or maybe that’s what I was really doing on the trail. Maybe I’ll get those hearing aids everybody tells me I need; or maybe they’ll all just stop mumbling.
What will be interesting, in a year or two, when Ukraine is obliterated due to " the indispensable nation's " neglect and abandonment, and tariff-driven inflation is bubbling along at 12% annually, if his oblivious, knuckle-dragging , mouth breather supporters will reconsider.
Oh, they'll reconsider when their next new flat-screen TV is $4000 instead of $900. Because consumer electronics will never be made in this country again. The rubes have not though that through yet.
"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know whatcha got till it's gone..."
Joni Mitchell's, Big Yellow Taxi...
Sometimes we never knew how patriotic we were until today.
https://youtu.be/ratQlft_G5c?si=pH63Z8dhvvKP4OKj
Of course, Stevie '3 shirts' Bannon had to add his Leninist 2 cents in a rant you can read here:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/you-people-suck-bannon-vows-doj-and-fbi-will-pay-the-price-when-trump-re-takes-office/
It's the full employment act for never Trumper pundits.
I can certainly appreciate how anyone and everyone can have different feelings, thoughts, and concerns regarding the election results. I think most voters had to hold their nose as they voted -- no matter who they voted for. The top of the ticket for each party was...well, lacking gravitas, to put it mildly.
My prayerful hope is that Trump is truly a changed man after his near-death experiences. While I do NOT expect a change in his love of country (or especially of himself) ... but pray that he understands after his first term how "government works" and that he will need to work within process, as slow and painful as it may be.
At the same time, I hope that all of the media -- can return to the old days of reporting the facts for news stories, regardless if they approve or disapprove of it personally/institutionally. Keep the opinions and slanted commentary for clearly marked editorials.
OK - now that is my utopian dream.
I expect that this dream will end in less than 3...2...1
Wake up and open the packages Santa brought you. Oh look! There's a new bicycle over here. Come over and let me take your picture standing next to your new bicycle. It's 1964 and you've just woken up on Christmas morning!
I don’t know that there is a bright side. For four years ahead I will read and reread Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison. And ML.
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1854193548717126030?s=42
You totally the weakness of Harris.President, you must be kidding. Never mind that Obama, the Puppet Master, has a total disregard for many of the same things Trump is guilty of. The best news from this outcome is that both parties should tack toward the middle in the 2028 election.
Obama wasn't perfect. But I will say this for him: he didn't get accused by nearly 30 women of sexually accosting them in some manner. He didn't suggest ditching the Constitution, as Trump did on Truth Social. He didn't refuse to acknowledge the results of an election, then try to overthrow the country when it didn't go his way. He hasn't been indicted four times, one of the times, for trying to fix that election. So I'd say Trump is still way ahead on points.
Preach brutha, Matt...you might add that Obama wasn't responsible for 40% of the COVID deaths either...bonus pts. for Donvict there...
“I’ll have a longer piece at a later time.”
Not needed. Write about something else. (I know you can because you reflexively list pieces you’ve written on other topics anytime someone like me objects to your redundant vilification ofTrump.). Stale epithets and graceless hyperbole aren’t what I signed up for.
How about this?
I'll write whatever the hell I want to write about whenever I wanna write about it.
If you want to read about only your unique interests -- instead of the most controversial, protracted election of our time -- start your own Substack.
Non sequiturs, Matt. You know nothing of my interests, “unique” or otherwise. And why would I start my own Substack? To onanistically read about my interests? But you’re right: I’m more than ready to move on from this election—which, by the way, won’t be the most controversial or protracted of our time unless “our time“ began in 2023. You do remember 2000, right? Or 2016, with its fake dossier, rogue FBI director, and scofflaw candidate.
Anyone who uses the word "onanistically" so well in a sentence should have his own Substack. I hope you reconsider. You can count me as a future subscriber.
Isn't "onanistically" how Fox viewers watch Hannity, Ingraham, Watters, et al.?
Based on your comments, this might be more to your liking: https://tuckercarlson.com/
Snarky, Ray! Thank you for playing.
Never mind him, Dennis. Ray gets feisty when he gets into the Jesus Juice.
In vino veritas!
Oh, heck. First Matt, then the better angels of my wife (even though I don't believe in angels -- or the efficient market theory) telling me that I'm being mean. (Didn't even think it was funny.)
Fine. No kicking away your walker. No ripping the velcro off your diaper. But I do challenge you to a mano a mano game of Scrabble. Or chess. Or thumb wrestling. Or Wordle. You choose. Let the better snarker win!
So Matt gets "didactic," "mendacity," and "expiated" and I only get "snarky"?
Gloves are off, old man! Don't cry when I kick away your walker and rip the velcro off your diaper when I take you down.
It’s expatiated. Expiated means something else. (Just thought I’d get that in before my 911 call.)
Yeah, I covered 2000. I remember it well. Al Gore, who I was no fan of, graciously conceded an election after a month or so of bitter jockeying on both sides, even though he won the popular vote, and the Supreme Court effectively ended the recount with Bush winning Florida by a mere 537 votes. "Conceding" being something Trump never managed to do since 2020. Not even after he tried to overthrow his own country, getting people KILLED in the bargain. So feel free to be as pedantic as you want, but "our time" includes the entire last four years, in which he never stopped claiming (falsely) that he won, and which saw him getting caught on tape trying to fix the election in Georgia. You want everybody to just move on from Trump's habitual dishonesty -- nothing to see here! -- except for the guy who never stops perpetuating the laughable fictions. And who made sure his electorate never moved on, as he kept them all hopped up on acrimony and paranoia.
Now I’m a pedant? Because I’m not a mind-reader and didn’t know how you defined “our time”? Your didactic rehash of 2000, aside, I’m sure Al Gore will be thrilled to learn the inconvenient truth that Trump makes him look good. And again you call my attention to Trump’s mendacity and misdeeds, as if you haven’t expatiated on them before. You must have a very low opinion of my reading comprehension or my awareness of current events, or both, to think I need to be told Trump is a capital “A” asshole. But I am not delusional enough to “want everybody” to share my opinion. Thankfully, they’re free to do as they please. I am not the Don Quixote who will try to change their minds.
Why yes, you're a pedant! You're even being pedantic about me calling you a pedant. Surely I'm not the first person to tell you this. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but if you come into my ring throwing bones, don't cry when you get clipped with an uppercut. (I'm not like the others, I hit back.) And I haven't expected everybody to share my opinions, ever, let alone in the last nine years, where the only way you might have a shot at changing minds is if you're a cult de-programmer. But, and not to be a pedant here, you were trying to change my mind -- that's how this entire ridiculous thread started -- by you suggesting I shouldn't write about Trump the morning after he won an election in what your heroes at the Wall Street Journal and Fox News keep telling me is the greatest comeback in political history. I mean, hell's bells, I like history! Why wouldn't I want a piece of that action? I am running a subscription site, here.
As I've said about a hundred times in print, if people don't want me to continue writing about Trump, they should stop voting to keep him relevant, and quit bitching when they make him so. If you're in the current events business -- and I am, at least some of the time -- he's a pretty hard event to avoid. He's basically overrun every other news cycle for the last decade. And when he does things like say, reject our entire system of government by trying to overturn an election that he lost, it's not a small matter. And when he makes a bunch of strongman noises while he trying to get reelected, when he should probably be in jail, that's kind of unavoidable, too. It's pretty hard to go back to good-naturedly jousting over the carried interest loophole. Don't get me wrong -- it'd be fun if this was still 2013 or whatever year you prefer to pretend time stopped during. But it's not. Hence, the regular Trump talk.
You sound a lot more earnest about all this than I am. I didn’t call you a pedant. I said you were being didactic. Not the same thing at all (besides being said facetiously). Yes, my heroes are on the editorial page of the WSJ, but please don’t conflate them with Fox News, which is insulting to the former. I’m sorry you thought my request you write about something else was too peremptory (or whatever), but me trying to “change your mind”? Ridiculous.
As for your apologia pro vita sua, knock yourself out. I won’t comment on your subject matter choices again, a sensitive topic it turns out. It’s true I prefer what you call “good-natured jousting.” Not sure whether it’s because I have too little time left to waste on absurdity, or because I’m homo ludens—probably a little of both. But you are mistaken that warming up the old DeLorean for a trip to the past is what I hanker for.
Amen.
Maybe people need to vent today. Maybe this has been shockaroony.
This too shall pass and we'll talk about fish and birds before you know it.
Let us do our Ernest T. Bass, brick throwing, impulsive screaming, and get it out of our system.
CHARLENE!!!!
Do any of you think that culture was just changing so fast for folks and it scared the s*it out of them? As in, so scared that they'd fall for anything? After all, cultural identity is as, or more powerful than personal identity.
Think about it. People have been giving their lives for their cultural identity since there have been cultures.
Here it comes again, good and hard.
I must be homophobic. That doesn't sound good to me.