[Ann Drysdale]

I'm sorry. I hadn't suspected there was a sub-agenda to this. I should have guessed.

Many of us Britons who are living through this situation have known for some time that a closer economic liaison with America would be one of the inevitable results of a severance from Europe and are, for the most part, unhappy about that. Me, I am quietly terrified and l offer this as an honest answer to Aaron's initial question.

Beyond that, I am lost among rancid ballsacks and spurts of jism from Satan's cock and I am too tired and sad to take part in a return match between old adversaries.

[James Brancheau]

Boris looks a lot like the snowmonster in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Has anyone seen that, or am I late on this? My opinion is Boris is a buffoon, but disposable. I think Trump is quite a bit more dangerous. He roots in a hatred that's viscerally apparent in the US. It was always there, and it was the easiest path for support.

[Roger Slater]

Quincy, "taunting machismo" is "taunting machismo" no matter what hairs you want to split. To say it's okay but only if people aim it at your personally pre-approved list of those who really deserve it isn't really a practical distinction since most people don't have instant access to your database of who it's permissible to taunt in a macho manner and who it's not. I generally disapprove of taunting machismo as well, but that doesn't make you the ideal messenger for the cause.

[Quincy Lehr]

Ummmm...

That’s.... ummmm... completely, radically wrong, Vulgarity, like any mode of discourse, has, well, meaning. In this case, the key argument is that Boris, as Trump’s “bitch,” has gay sex with Trump in a fundamentally subservient way. It’s not particularly offensive, more that, like the common memes of Trump and Outin being intimate with each other, it’s more obfuscatory than clarifying, and tends to, well, recast the complete $#!tshow that is the current political moment as a matter of who, well, fucks whom. It’s not the biggest deal in the world. (The deadly serious smears of the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders to the left of the neoliberal establishment will almost certainly have far more serious consequences), but it’s a bit silly, when the Donald and Boris are, well, more feckless co-thinkers who were able to ride a wave of dissatisfaction that a left-punching establishment has a great deal of vested interest in insisting isn’t broken.

[Jim Moonan]

x
We have not lost our ability to accept political vulgarity, we simply won't let it be weaponized. Trump could have pivoted on election day and tempered his language, re-stated his campaign promises so as to appease his base AND appeal to a broader swath of the electorate. But true colors are true colors. He's Frankenstein's monster of narcissism and little else, ravaging institutions and tearing the fabric of our ideals. And it hurts.

Roger, thanks for the link. When words fail (and words are failing big time these days) imagery is a secret door to revealing truth.
x

[James Brancheau]

So, Jim, act like it. We're not going to have a roundtable featuring the views of every right wing fruitcake and then call that productive. And they're growing. Liberals are often last to know they're in a war. God bless us. But come on.

[Julie Steiner]

The whole metaphor is based on the premise that a person who inserts a penis into someone else is inherently superior to the penetrated person.

Why are people who (presumably) don't endorse this view, and who envision a more fair and just society, still using these sexist and homophobic metaphors?

[Mark McDonnell]

Apart from what Julie said, the whole idea that I should 'feel' a certain way about any of this by virtue of being British is beyond me. What a silly question. And if it was a 'joke', what a shit joke.

[Roger Slater]

Quincy, so you're saying that "Trump's bitch" is more offensive and homophobic than your image of "fellating Satan's cock with worm-jizz running down its chin" (with the added suggestion that Don Share is responsible for the "rancid ballsacks" and "worm-jizz" in question)? Okay, I get it. Maybe it's just that you consider being a bad poetry editor a bigger offense than being a bad world leader?

But Julie's point is well taken. All I would say in defense of the name-calling is that it is an expression whose metaphoric origins are often lost in the netherland of etymology. Once the etymology is exhumed, however, I would wish there were another equally angry and accustory way of expressing the idea that someone is degradingly subservient to another.

[John Isbell]

The going phrase at the time of the invasion of Iraq was that Blair was Bush's poodle. FWIW.

Cheers,
John