Kellyanne and George Conway 2

[Exchange Atheist]

They apparently compromised by making Claudia‘s accounts private. Not sure how much good that will do (she still has over 110k followers on twitter alone) but it‘s some protection at least. 

I agree that Claudia will be served better by not being in the spotlight. I just wish that she wasn’t growing up in a family where hugely popularised twitter fights appear to be the norm. When Mom and Dad air their political grievances all out in the open, not being allowed to do the same has got to feel like being unfairly silenced. Hopefully she has an anonymous account elsewhere where she can speak her mind without being part of this sensationalised and dysfunctional mess.

[GreyhoundFan]

A good op-ed from George: "Trump’s name should live in infamy"

Spoiler

If there’s one thing we know about President Trump, it’s that he lies and he cheats. Endlessly. And shamelessly. But still, mostly, incompetently.

So it should have come as no surprise that Trump finally went where no U.S. president had ever gone before. In a tweet last week, he actually suggested that the country “Delay the Election.”

That trial balloon was a brazen effort to see if he can defraud his way into four more years in the White House. And why not try? After all, Trump has managed to swindle his way through life, on matters large and small, essential and trivial.

He paid someone to take the SAT for him, according to his niece Mary L. Trump. (He denies it.) A prominent sportswriter wrote an entire book, titled “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump,” on how Trump cheats at golf — golf! — through such methods as throwing opponents’ balls into bunkers, miscounting strokes and even declaring himself the winner of tournaments he didn’t play in.

Trump posed as a nonexistent publicist, so he could lie about his wealth and plant stories about his supposed sexual exploits, including one with actress Carla Bruni, who denied a tryst and called Trump “obviously a lunatic.” And his life has been littered with myriad alleged financial cons, including Trump University, which resulted in a $25 million settlement, though no admission of wrongdoing, and his “charitable” foundation, which regulators ordered be shut down.

His presidency has been of a piece. By The Post’s count, more than 20,000 falsehoods in 3½ years, on subjects ranging from his inaugural crowd size to the coronavirus, from conversations with foreign leaders to forecasts of a hurricane track. The untruths have accelerated, from five a day in early 2017 to nearly two dozen daily this year and last. With the coronavirus, his untruths have finally brought him down: No, concern about the virus wasn’t a “hoax.” No, the disease won’t just “disappear,” “like a miracle.” No, we’re not in a crisis because we’ve done so much testing. No, Trump hasn’t done a “great job” fighting the virus, and no, we’re not on the verge of a “tremendous victory” over it.

So finally, Trump’s credibility, such as it ever was, is shot — and his poll numbers with it. He stands on the verge of electoral oblivion. He’s capable of no response other than his lifelong mainstays: shamelessly lying and trying to cheat. He tried once before, of course, to cheat in this election, by using presidential powers to try to extort Ukraine into propagating lies about his opponent — and was caught, although not punished.

Now he peddles a different lie: that somehow extensive “Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good)” would produce “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.” Hence the supposed need to “Delay the Election.”

All untrue, of course. Voting by mail has a long, venerable tradition in this country, most notably the election of 1864, when 150,000 Union soldiers sent in ballots that helped ensure President Abraham Lincoln’s reelection, the preservation of the union and the abolition of slavery. Mailed votes leave a paper trail that renders them less, not more, susceptible to fraud. The fraud is Trump’s: He’s lying so he can buy more time — or so he can delegitimize the vote and blame someone other than himself for his defeat.

But Trump is apparently too inept, ignorant, desperate or deluded — probably all four — to realize or care: His suggestion is absurd. The electoral calendar is set in stone, by law. Title 3 of the U.S. Code makes clear that the election must be held on Nov. 3, that members of the electoral college must meet and vote on Dec. 14, and that their votes must be counted before a joint session of the new Congress on Jan. 6 at 1 p.m. sharp. And the 20th Amendment provides that, no matter what, Trump’s current term ends at precisely noon on Jan. 20, and that if no president has been elected, another provision of Title 3 would confer the presidency’s powers on … the speaker of the House.

Even the worst of Trump’s enablers in Congress dismissed out of hand the idea of delaying the election. But Trump’s suggestion was more than just imbecilic. Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor who was a founder of the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers’ group of which I’ve long been a member (and a member of its visiting board), nailed it: Trump’s suggestion was “fascistic.” It was the ploy of a would-be dictator, albeit an inept one.

Calabresi added that Trump should be impeached and removed for his tweet, and if Trump ever acted on it, and were there time, I’d agree. Trump should have been removed already twice over, for obstructing the Russia investigation and extorting Ukraine. His effort to sabotage a democratic system he swore to protect only confirms his unfitness for the job. But it’s too late for impeachment now.

Trump’s sanction must come at the polls, and beyond. For the sake of our constitutional republic, he must lose, and lose badly. Yet that should be just a start: We should only honor former presidents who uphold and sustain our nation’s enduring democratic values. There should be no schools, bridges or statues devoted to Trump. His name should live in infamy, and he should be remembered, if at all, for precisely what he was — not a president, but a blundering cheat.

 

[Howl]

Claudia popped up on my Twitter feed, so I don't think her account is private! 

[JMarie]

1 hour ago, Howl said:

Claudia popped up on my Twitter feed, so I don't think her account is private! 

It's not. I'm not on Twitter and I can see her tweets.

[faraway]

Claudia just asked on Twitter how to get in touch with pro bono family lawyers. I have seen a screenshot from her Tik Tok, she posted that she has past suicide attempts & her parents are abusive, CPS is involved... She probably lives in a very unhealthy situation and I really wish her all the best. I wonder if both her parents are neglecting their children with their respective political work. I cannot imagine what life in that house looks like. Also I have a feeling neither KA nor George are very nice people. I wish Claudia all the best and if that means emancipation from her parents then she will hopefully get a great guardian.

[fraurosena]

She forgot the "get rid of" part.

 

[JMarie]

She's leaving her post! To focus on family daughter?

[CTRLZero]

It appears both Kellyanne and George are stepping away from their jobs to deal with family matters, at least temporarily. 

[Audrey2]

I would love to start skipping around singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead", but Trump abhors a vacuum and will probably find someone worse.

I do hope Claudia is okay. I have a feeling that her views on Twitter and her desire to get in touch with lawyers, probably for emancipation has brought this on, as opposed to the usual "spend more time with the family" reason for quitting.

I refuse to get any closer to speculation about a minor.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Audrey2

[Howl]

Totally startled by this.  

Have to wonder if the very Catholic marriage of George and KA is falling apart.  Something is going to hell.  This was announced on a Sunday evening before the GOP convention, which is also odd. 

I know it will never happen, but if Kellyanne came out as a Trump critic, it would be so, so awesome.  

#ETTD

Edited August 24, 2020 by Howl

[justwatching]

It appears both Kellyanne and George are stepping away from their jobs to deal with family matters, at least temporarily. 

Even though it’s several years later than it should have been, I’m glad to see this. Hopefully they’ll be able to stay out of the limelight and truly get their priorities straight.

[fraurosena]

Kellyanne and George are both leaving their respective jobs with Trump’s administration and the Lincoln Project.

Despite rumors that they have a sham marriage, I still believe Kellyanne and George are playing both sides. Now that it’s pretty clear Trump is going to lose, they’re getting out of the public eye. Even daughter Claudia is quitting social media.

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by fraurosena

[IrishCarrie]

I vow here and now that no matter how much I might want to read a tell-all book from Kellyanne, I will NEVER give one cent of my money towards her.

[onekidanddone]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Kellyanne and George are both leaving their respective jobs with Trump’s administration and the Lincoln Project.

Despite rumors that they have a sham marriage, I still believe Kellyanne and George are playing both sides. Now that it’s pretty clear Trump is going to lose, they’re getting out of the public eye. Even daughter Claudia is quitting social media.

 

By nature I can be a negative person as it is part of my clinical depression. I hope you are right that it is clear the orange dark lord will lose only the convention is this week and I’m scared of the bounce he will receive. The lie upon lying bile he and all his sycophants will spew forth is going to be hard to counter. I wish the Democrats had their convention after Trump’s 

3 minutes ago, IrishCarrie said:

I vow here and now that no matter how much I might want to read a tell-all book from Kellyanne, I will NEVER give one cent of my money towards her.

Wait until you can find a copy at Goodwill. It will only cost a dollar or two and none of that money will end up in her pocket 

[fraurosena]

2 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

By nature I can be a negative person as it is part of my clinical depression. I hope you are right that it is clear the orange dark lord will lose only the convention is this week and I’m scared of the bounce he will receive. The lie upon lying bile he and all his sycophants will spew forth is going to be hard to counter. I wish the Democrats had their convention after Trump’s 

Don't worry. The TNC convention is going to be one gigantic flop. It's going to be "The Trump show!" instead of a normal political convention -- the GOP is barely involved, if at all. Nothing has been properly prepared (whereas the Dems prepared their virtual convention for months) and reportedly Trump himself has been meddling in the preparations and changing things on an almost daily basis. Trump will be ranting on all four days, producing so much fodder for anti-Trump political ads that they'll be spoiled for choice.

To be honest, I have to confess I'm looking forward to watching that shitshow. 

 

[Xan]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Kellyanne and George are both leaving their respective jobs with Trump’s administration and the Lincoln Project.

Despite rumors that they have a sham marriage, I still believe Kellyanne and George are playing both sides. Now that it’s pretty clear Trump is going to lose, they’re getting out of the public eye. Even daughter Claudia is quitting social media.

I agree.  I think this was always their plan.  They were playing both sides.  Now they've gotten a lot of publicity and I suppose they hope they can parlay that into talking head gigs, book deals, and future consultant jobs.  I've liked what George has written but I didn't trust him.  I've never liked Smellyanne but I did feel like she was just playing along until she could find a good exit spot.

I don't think they counted on the damage that they were doing to the children with their little act.  

[Xan]

Sorry to double post.  I just came across this comment on another site on what the writer thinks is the real reason George and Kellyanne are stepping down.  It's worth the read:

Spoiler

AUGUST 24, 2020 AT 12:13 AM

@Tom Levenson:

George and KellyAnne Conway’s eldest daughter, Claudia, who is 15, went on twitter late last night and earlier today alleging that 1) her mother has been emotionally and physically abusing her for years, 2) her father is just as bad politically as her mom, except on Trump so no one should be giving him any credit, and 3) this is why she was seeking to be legally emancipated from both of her parents. I expect this was repeated on Claudia’s Instagram and Tik Tok accounts. Or on others.

Conway isn’t quitting the White House because the Mercers are pulling the plug, she’s quitting because her eldest daughter, who is the eldest of four children, has publicly accused her of being emotionally and physically abusive. And that this is the reason she is seeking to be legally emancipated. While KellyAnne has a law degree, but as far as I know has never practices, George is a very, very, very good attorney. He knows exactly the jeopardy that has been created for them. As an officer of the court he’s a mandatory reporter, so if there was abuse and he didn’t report it, he’s in almost as much trouble as KellyAnne may well be in if Claudia’s allegations are substantiated. If they actually care about her and their other kids they’re quitting the White House (KellyAnne) and the Lincoln Group (George) to try to get her help. If they’re as transactional and psychopathic as I actually expect and believe, they’re trying to figure out how to stay ahead of the authorities and how to keep Claudia from going forward with the emancipation she said she’s pursuing and that would bring everything into the open.

I expect someone flagged Claudia’s tweets for DC’s child protective services. And that an initial contact was made and that prompted PANIC!!!!! The Conways have a primary residence in Manhattan, the apartment they own in one of the Trump buildings, and George actually practices out of his firm’s NY office, though they’ve given him a DC office while his wife worked for Trump so he can work remotely. They also have a large family property in New Jersey, which is where KellyAnne is from – her grandfather was the senior enforcer for the Philly and greater Philadelphia area mob. I would not be surprised to find out that the Conways have left the home they got in DC when KellyAnne took the White House job and are heading to one of their other homes in one of the other jurisdictions, which would slow down any investigations, as well as make it harder for Claudia to pursue emancipation.

That’s the story.

 

[Flossie]

3 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Don't worry. The TNC convention is going to be one gigantic flop. It's going to be "The Trump show!" instead of a normal political convention -- the GOP is barely involved, if at all. Nothing has been properly prepared (whereas the Dems prepared their virtual convention for months) and reportedly Trump himself has been meddling in the preparations and changing things on an almost daily basis. Trump will be ranting on all four days, producing so much fodder for anti-Trump political ads that they'll be spoiled for choice.

To be honest, I have to confess I'm looking forward to watching that shitshow. 

Chump will rant and rave, desperately seeking the narcissistic supply he needs to prop up his fragile ego.

Then he'll simultaneously lap up the praise while bemoaning how much of a victim he is when he reads the negative reviews.

His mind is a clusterfuck.  He's so focused on trying to make himself feel better that he actively refuses to see how he's being used in so many ways.  And he doesn't even care, because all he wants are the things that matter to him. 

He wants to be admired and loved.  He has no concept of how to get those things, and he's not even sure what they are, but he craves them.  He wasn't brought up to be a loving, helpful person who wants to make the world a better place.  He's no Mr. Rogers.  He wants power.  He wants money, because it represents power.  

Everything is transnational for him, and he's selfish.  He wants the people around him to give ten times more effort funneled into him than he'll give back to them.

His sole purpose in life is to make himself feel better.  He surrounds himself with yes men, and he's hyper vigilant about loyalty.  They must be loyal to him, and if things go to shit, he might be loyal back, but he doesn't really care about them.  I think for Trump, loyalty represents that thing he can't really identify but he really wants.

He'll happily pander to people who seem to agree with him on almost any subject.  He'll tell them what they want to hear, but it's a lie.  He's not speaking for his 'base', he's using them to assure himself that he's the one in power, he's the one they admire.  Maybe even love, although his concept of love is vastly different from what most of us would have.

Trump is a profoundly damaged person, and he's the president of the USA.  How he got there is something I don't fully understand, but I'm ashamed that it happened.  He's spent the last four years dismantling our nation, trying to make it into an enlarged version of himself.  He's been an asshole to our allies, while cozying up to dictators because he admires them.  He's a racist fucker, and pretends to have religious convictions in the Christian faith, but I doubt he really feels that, he's pandering to his supporters.

Trump isn't really fully in charge, and I think that part of him realizes it.  He's trying to fulfill his fantasies of being loved and adored by the masses; the manliest of men, the ultimate lover that women dream about, the most powerful ruler of all time.  But he only got this far because there are a lot of people who are helping him along, and not because they believe in him.  They've got their own plans, and Trump is just a pawn.

Not matter what happens in the upcoming election, the internet is forever, and the world will know at least most of what really happened.  A man with at least one personality disorder somehow got to be POTUS, and he set out to destroy our country.  He was driven by the need for attention, to feel important, to matter.  He wanted to feel loved, admired, be seen as a savior.  For most of us, he's failed.  Epically.

Hey Donald, you're an idiot.  No one loves you, because you don't know what love is.  At the most, you have relationships with people who tolerate you for various reasons.  Your immediate family has given up on having a real relationship with you.  Many of them hate you and distance themselves from you.  Many of them tolerate you because it's easier that way, or they get something from it.  Baron has no choice, he's stuck with you.  Everyone else is using you for their own purposes.  I should feel bad for you because it's obvious your mental skills are declining, but you've been such a horrible person for so long, I can only hope that with your last breath you realize just how awful you are and how many people will be glad you're gone.

To anyone who's read this far, I'm sorry for being so mean, but I just hate the guy.  I can't find one redeeming thing about him.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kellyanne Conway’s legacy: The ‘alternative facts’-ification of the GOP"

Spoiler

Kellyanne Conway, one of the longest-tenured and most influential members of President Trump’s inner circle, abruptly announced her resignation from the White House on Sunday.

Conway’s resignation came as her husband, vocal Trump critic George Conway, also resigned from a group of anti-Trump Republicans. Both said they were stepping aside for family reasons.

Despite her quick exit just ahead of the 2020 election, there is no disputing the central role Kellyanne Conway played in paving the way for Trumpism to take hold in the Republican Party. Through a mixture of illogical arguments, strange comments and an almost undying devotion to defending Trump at all costs — including her own credibility — in many ways what’s on the ballot in November will bear her fingerprints, for better or worse for the party.

Conway was named Trump’s campaign manager late in the 2016 election, emerging as a rare establishment Republican in a campaign full of fringe figures. Both during the campaign and then through the early part of the Trump presidency, she served as a bridge between Trump’s controversial political methods and the more traditional party brand. Eventually she helped merge the two almost completely — to the point where the GOP’s 2020 platform is essentially whatever-Trump-says.

More often than not, this involved Conway pitching Trump’s actions in inexplicable ways and contorting herself to explain his falsehoods.

Most infamous was Conway’s explanation that Trump’s advisers have “alternative facts.” Conway used the phrase to explain then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s utterly false and easily disprovable claims about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd — comments clearly meant to bolster Trump’s own false claims and ego.

“Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” Conway told NBC News’s Chuck Todd when he noted that the White House basically began the Trump presidency with these falsehoods. “You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and they’re giving — our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that."

A charitable reading would be that Conway was simply inartfully referring to the evidence the White House had to dispute the reporting. But there really was no disputing it. And Conway’s tenure as White House counselor would very much follow in the vein of “alternative facts.”

Shortly before the “alternative facts” comment, Conway urged the media to be less critical of Trump and to instead rely upon the highly subjective method of peering into his soul.

“Why is everything taken at face value?” Conway said unironically while defending Trump’s mocking of a reporter’s disability. She added: “You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this, and he’s telling you what was in his heart? You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Conway also defended Trump’s racist tweet urging minority congresswomen who were born in the United States to “go back” to their countries. She said Trump merely meant the congresswoman should go back to where their families were “originally” from, as if that was better.

In the course of that answer, she even asked a reporter, “What’s your ethnicity?” Conway said later that she simply meant the vast majority of Americans descended from immigrants, but again it’s not clear how that was in service of a valid point.

At some junctures, she would cast criticism of Trump as unpatriotic and the refuge of sore losers who couldn’t reconcile Trump’s 2016 win. She played up Trump’s record in dubious ways, including by noting that no other president had gotten a Supreme Court justice confirmed in his first 100 days. (Conway ignored that very few presidents even had vacancies in their first 100 days, much less walked into office with both a vacancy and control of the Senate, as Trump did.)

When Trump said he was targeting Iranian sites including those “important to Iran & the Iranian culture,” which would have run afoul of international law, Conway again stepped forward to argue the unarguable. She explained that the country had many “strategic military sites that you may cite are also cultural sites.”

When Trump falsely claimed he won the 2016 popular vote because fraudulent votes deprived him of it, Conway was asked whether it was presidential behavior.

“Well, he’s the presidential-elect, so that’s presidential behavior, yes,” she said.

“Just because the president does something doesn’t make it presidential,” CNN’s Jake Tapper responded.

“Yes, I wasn’t saying otherwise,” Conway replied — except that’s exactly what she was saying.

Trump’s trampling of political norms has perhaps been best echoed by Conway’s own conduct. Conway has been found on multiple occasions to have violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from political activity while serving in their official roles. A government watchdog even said it was so blatant and repeated that she should be fired. Conway responded by suggesting that it was an attempt to stifle her free speech.

“This is my First Amendment right,” Conway said, ignoring that there is a clear restriction on specific types of speech by government officials like her. “They want to chill free speech because they don’t know how to beat [Trump] at the ballot box.”

She responded to the allegations at another point by saying, succinctly, “Blah blah blah.”

That example, while lower-profile than some of the others, is instructive. In it, Conway took what seemed to be a pretty cut-and-dried — if unenforced — violation of the law and reframed it as persecution. It diverted attention from the specifics of the case and instead focused on furthering an allegation that Trump’s supporters latched onto, however implausibly. The details and facts mattered less than the narrative, which is a pretty apt distillation of Trumpism today. Everything must be boiled down to nefarious people trying to bring down the president, no matter how oversimplified that case, because litigating the actual details and facts is a futile battle. “Blah blah blah,” indeed.

The logical lines in Conway’s defenses of Trump were almost always difficult to follow, if not utterly nonexistent. She was willing to say the kinds of dumbfounding things that Trump’s most ardent social media supporters would say. But these things were coming from a unique place: a longtime establishment Republican figure who provided at least a veneer of this being normal GOP politics.

It wasn’t, but it has become so. Politics is inherently a game in which people take liberties with the truth and logical consistency, but the degree to which Conway took it was often unparalleled among Trump aides, even in the White House press briefing room. By virtue of that, along with her high-profile role in the final months of the 2016 Trump campaign and then her tenure in the White House, which lasted longer than most any other top adviser, Conway played a massive role in the upheaval of a major American political party.

Whether that’s the kind of party the American people actually want will apparently be decided with one of its architects sidelined.

 

[Howl]

On 8/6/2020 at 12:46 PM, faraway said:

I wonder if both her parents are neglecting their children with their respective political work.

Kellyanne and George have four children, Claudia is the oldest. After Trump was elected, Kellyanne said she was not joining the administration because of the insane time demands.  However, when offered a position in the WH, she hopped on it  instantly.   

I think it is significant that BOTH parents are pulling back from their respective public roles.  On the other hand, they are very wealthy people and can afford to "take some time off."  I suspect they'll also be working on their marriage.  Holy Shit on a Stick, can you imagine being their marriage counselor?

On 8/5/2020 at 6:22 AM, Howl said:

Claudia popped up on my Twitter feed, so I don't think her account is private! 

She also has an active Instagram account. 

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

Kellyanne and George have four children, Claudia is the oldest. After Trump was elected, Kellyanne said she was not joining the administration because of the insane time demands.  However, when offered a position in the WH, she hopped on it  instantly.   

 I remember her comments about how mothers shouldn't work in the White House.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Farewell to Kellyanne Conway, the ultimate Woman for Trump"

Spoiler

Kellyanne Conway had a two-word weapon that she deployed with shrewd skill during her almost-four-year stint at the White House, and it left her targets defenseless.

Excuse me, she would say, needling a news anchor to permit her to barge into the conversation and take it in a more alternative-factsy direction.

Excuse me, she would say to fellow guests who tried, unsuccessfully, to join in with their own opinions. It was a filibuster of false manners, a prim reminder that she would not be yielding the floor.

“What if his spittle — excuse me — what if Biden’s spittle had gone beyond the teleprompters and everybody there was at risk?” she demanded, absurdly, at a news conference earlier this summer, turning attention away from President Trump’s own coronavirus failures. In a 2018 interview with Chris Cuomo regarding payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, she once excused herself a half-dozen times, all the while steamrolling a narrative that her boss was the real victim in the whole mess.

For Kellyanne Conway, “Excuse me” really meant “Excuse you.” It was a shaming. It implied that the other party was in the wrong for not permitting her bulldozing, browbeating and bloviating. It relied, successfully, on the assumption that nobody wanted to be seen interrupting a tiny blond woman on live television. And so it excused her.

She is brilliant. She is terrifying.

She is also gone, theoretically. Earlier this week, Conway announced she would be resigning from her role as senior adviser to the president. Her Wednesday speech at the Republican National Convention was a farewell of sorts, the last time we can expect to see her behaving as an official mouthpiece for Trump before she retreats to her new “less drama, more mama” lifestyle.

It was the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the vote, so she approached the lectern and talked about her own place in the history of American women. “A woman in a leadership role can still seem novel,” she said. “Not so for President Trump. For decades he has elevated women to senior positions.” She talked about being raised in an all-female house, and she thanked — in a way that seemed sincere — “all the women who empower me.”

Sigh. What to make of Kellyanne?

No part of me will miss the triple-jointed way she manipulated the media, and by extension the American people. But it was darkly fascinating to watch her relentless femininity — her excuse me’s and pardon me’s and God bless you’s — and how she skillfully wielded it on behalf of a mostly male administration.

She used her very presence to bat away charges of sexism against Trump. Again and again she reminded us — as she did again Wednesday — Trump had named her the first female campaign manager of a winning presidential ticket. How could he possibly be sexist?

And then there were times that she used her status as a woman to accuse others of nonexistent sexist behavior, as when CNN reporter Jim Acosta accidentally knocked the arm of a White House intern as she reached for the microphone in his hand. “No young woman should have someone swiping away at them,” Conway said at a news conference, language that implied Acosta’s behavior had been misogynistic or violent. 

Ever since the dawn of the #MeToo movement, affronted male readers have occasionally written me to say they are tired of reading about toxic masculinity all the time and wondering whether there was a female corollary: toxic femininity. If there is, I can’t help but think it looks like Kellyanne Conway: someone who takes the stereotypical gentle niceties we once sent girls to charm school to learn — and uses them to sow information chaos.

On Facebook, a liberal friend of mine recently confessed that, against all possible reason and for reasons she could not explain, she felt vaguely sorry for Conway right now. Her husband, George Conway, hated her boss and daily shamed the administration she dedicated her life to. Her boss hated her husband, and her marriage became a source of prurient speculation.

Beneath all of Conway’s falsehoods and repugnant policies, some primal sisterly recognition had sprung up for my friend: an acknowledgment that Conway had worked her butt off to reach the top of her career, in a profession and political party that make it impossible for women — and now she was leaving it, to surrender to domesticity.

There is absolutely zero need to feel sorry for Kellyanne. But she does make me feel . . . something. Some combination of awe and repugnance and confusion that she’s spent so many of her obviously prodigious talents spinning stories for men who need their stories spun. Some mixture of rage and embarrassment at the memory of her brittle grimace and her defiant untruths, spooled for four years into our living rooms, unstitching the country she claims to love. Wearing her suffragist white to give her address at the Republican National Convention, in an ode to whatever perverse feminism she’d worked out in her own head.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.

 

[JMarie]

44 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Farewell to Kellyanne Conway, the ultimate Woman for Trump"

  Hide contents

Kellyanne Conway had a two-word weapon that she deployed with shrewd skill during her almost-four-year stint at the White House, and it left her targets defenseless.

Excuse me, she would say, needling a news anchor to permit her to barge into the conversation and take it in a more alternative-factsy direction.

Excuse me, she would say to fellow guests who tried, unsuccessfully, to join in with their own opinions. It was a filibuster of false manners, a prim reminder that she would not be yielding the floor.

“What if his spittle — excuse me — what if Biden’s spittle had gone beyond the teleprompters and everybody there was at risk?” she demanded, absurdly, at a news conference earlier this summer, turning attention away from President Trump’s own coronavirus failures. In a 2018 interview with Chris Cuomo regarding payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, she once excused herself a half-dozen times, all the while steamrolling a narrative that her boss was the real victim in the whole mess.

For Kellyanne Conway, “Excuse me” really meant “Excuse you.” It was a shaming. It implied that the other party was in the wrong for not permitting her bulldozing, browbeating and bloviating. It relied, successfully, on the assumption that nobody wanted to be seen interrupting a tiny blond woman on live television. And so it excused her.

She is brilliant. She is terrifying.

She is also gone, theoretically. Earlier this week, Conway announced she would be resigning from her role as senior adviser to the president. Her Wednesday speech at the Republican National Convention was a farewell of sorts, the last time we can expect to see her behaving as an official mouthpiece for Trump before she retreats to her new “less drama, more mama” lifestyle.

It was the hundredth anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the vote, so she approached the lectern and talked about her own place in the history of American women. “A woman in a leadership role can still seem novel,” she said. “Not so for President Trump. For decades he has elevated women to senior positions.” She talked about being raised in an all-female house, and she thanked — in a way that seemed sincere — “all the women who empower me.”

Sigh. What to make of Kellyanne?

No part of me will miss the triple-jointed way she manipulated the media, and by extension the American people. But it was darkly fascinating to watch her relentless femininity — her excuse me’s and pardon me’s and God bless you’s — and how she skillfully wielded it on behalf of a mostly male administration.

She used her very presence to bat away charges of sexism against Trump. Again and again she reminded us — as she did again Wednesday — Trump had named her the first female campaign manager of a winning presidential ticket. How could he possibly be sexist?

And then there were times that she used her status as a woman to accuse others of nonexistent sexist behavior, as when CNN reporter Jim Acosta accidentally knocked the arm of a White House intern as she reached for the microphone in his hand. “No young woman should have someone swiping away at them,” Conway said at a news conference, language that implied Acosta’s behavior had been misogynistic or violent. 

Ever since the dawn of the #MeToo movement, affronted male readers have occasionally written me to say they are tired of reading about toxic masculinity all the time and wondering whether there was a female corollary: toxic femininity. If there is, I can’t help but think it looks like Kellyanne Conway: someone who takes the stereotypical gentle niceties we once sent girls to charm school to learn — and uses them to sow information chaos.

On Facebook, a liberal friend of mine recently confessed that, against all possible reason and for reasons she could not explain, she felt vaguely sorry for Conway right now. Her husband, George Conway, hated her boss and daily shamed the administration she dedicated her life to. Her boss hated her husband, and her marriage became a source of prurient speculation.

Beneath all of Conway’s falsehoods and repugnant policies, some primal sisterly recognition had sprung up for my friend: an acknowledgment that Conway had worked her butt off to reach the top of her career, in a profession and political party that make it impossible for women — and now she was leaving it, to surrender to domesticity.

There is absolutely zero need to feel sorry for Kellyanne. But she does make me feel . . . something. Some combination of awe and repugnance and confusion that she’s spent so many of her obviously prodigious talents spinning stories for men who need their stories spun. Some mixture of rage and embarrassment at the memory of her brittle grimace and her defiant untruths, spooled for four years into our living rooms, unstitching the country she claims to love. Wearing her suffragist white to give her address at the Republican National Convention, in an ode to whatever perverse feminism she’d worked out in her own head.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.

 

I hated the way she would chide Chris Cuomo and call him Christopher, like she was his mother.

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, JMarie said:

I hated the way she would chide Chris Cuomo and call him Christopher, like she was his mother.

What I hated the most was the fact she got paid good taxpayer money to condscendingly obfuscate the truth and spin alternative facts.

[fraurosena]