2026-03-15

Stimulus

Sanewashing remains rampant in coverage, with outlets either ignoring Trump's actual words entirely or framing them as mere crassness or hyperbole from an otherwise sophisticated, humane, well-meaning President while he gleefully admits he's a sociopath who is ordering textbook war crimes.

maxkennerly.bsky.social · source

Response

My first thought was, he lied in every word, / That hoary cripple, with malicious eye / Askance to watch the working of his lie / On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford / Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored / Its edge — Browning

My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

Robert Browning, “"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"”

Pipeline

Triage: This is fundamentally about the gap between stated principle and actual conduct, and the rhetorical machinery by which power justifies itself and persuades observers to look away—a core preoccupation of the canon.
The problem: Institutions and their interpreters possess a collective appetite to render intolerable speech tolerable, to reframe confession as crassness, and to preserve the fiction of legitimacy even when it requires ignoring what's plainly said.
Search queries: rhetoric masking reality power's self-justification, the gap between words spoken and deeds committed hypocrisy, authority sanitizing its own violence through language
Composition mode: quote_only
Chunk ID: robert-browning-complete-poetic-and--childe-roland-to-the-000
Source: bluesky_timeline