{"id":5277,"date":"2017-06-29T16:22:50","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T21:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5277"},"modified":"2017-07-12T13:43:06","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T18:43:06","slug":"help-im-steppin-into-the-twilight-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5277","title":{"rendered":"Help, I&#8217;m steppin&#8217; into the Twilight Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Golden earring - Twilight zone\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a1sf2CzEq0w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>President Trump tweeted that he&#8217;d snubbed Mika Brzezinski last new years eve, because she was bleeding still from a face lift.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"474\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8230;to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year&#39;s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/880410114456465411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 29, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Sheesh.\u00c2\u00a0 OK, so here&#8217;s where things get interesting, at least for the sake of argument.\u00c2\u00a0 When asked to explain\/defend\/just talk about apologetically Trump&#8217;s tweet, Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says he was fighting &#8220;fire with fire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I think the president has been attacked several times by people on those programs. They elected someone who is stuff, smart, and a fighter. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it is a surprise to anyone that <strong>he fights fire with fire<\/strong>. The things this show called him, not just him but numerous members of his staff, incuding myself and many others, has been very deeply personal. So to turn and pretend like this approach is, you know,<strong> I guess it is kind of like living in the Twilight Zone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So there are two things happening here.\u00c2\u00a0 First is the thought that if one&#8217;s criticized in harsh terms, one has the right to do so in reply.\u00c2\u00a0 Second is that when one is criticized for one&#8217;s tone in reply, it is like the Twilight Zone, that it&#8217;s not just <em>wrong <\/em>but <em>bizarre.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The first point is one about two wrongs reasoning.\u00c2\u00a0 For sure, arguers should be allowed to give back as good as they get, but there are occasions where this is inappropriate.\u00c2\u00a0 Consider being a teacher &#8212; students are often rude to you, criticize you relentlessly, and maybe make ridiculous requests and claims.\u00c2\u00a0 But they do so because they don&#8217;t know any better.\u00c2\u00a0 Lucky for them, they have a teacher.\u00c2\u00a0 And it would be inappropriate to fly off the handle and reply in kind to every critique, no matter how badly off base they are.\u00c2\u00a0 So, the lesson is: there are institutional roles one plays wherein it is inappropriate to give back in kind.\u00c2\u00a0 The POTUS is one of those roles.\u00c2\u00a0 Surely using one&#8217;s voice in the role of that office to single out private citizens for hateful censure is an abuse of that office (just as it would be for a teacher to do so in a classroom).<\/p>\n<p>The second is one about what censure one incurs when one breaks a rule of discourse.\u00c2\u00a0 For sure, it can seem <em>wrong <\/em>to someone who follows the <em>give it back as good as you got it<\/em> rule to be on the receiving side of some criticism for doing so.\u00c2\u00a0 But when is it like the <em>Twilight Zone<\/em>, where it is bizarre, not even identifiably relevant?\u00c2\u00a0 Invoking the Twilight Zone is a move that says that the lines of argument are so far off base, one doesn&#8217;t even know what to say back.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a theater of the absurd.\u00c2\u00a0 But surely Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows what this all means.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s why she follows up with:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If it happened in the previous administration, the type of attacks launched on this program, the things they say, utterly stupid, personality disorder, mentally ill, constant personality attacks, calling people liars to their faces on programs. <strong>They would have said no way, hold on<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes.\u00c2\u00a0 But that&#8217;s exactly what happened.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you remember when President Obama had that SC Representative yell out &#8220;You Lie!&#8221; in the midst of the State of the Union?\u00c2\u00a0 Watch the President stay on track, reply and go on.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GOP Rep. to Obama: &#039;You Lie!&#039;\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qgce06Yw2ro?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For sure, people said &#8220;no way, hold on,&#8221; but the President didn&#8217;t go on a twitter tear about what a doofus Representative Joe Wilson looks like. Or how there&#8217;s a question about whether he wears adult diapers. (People are saying!)<\/p>\n<p>But the point is that there&#8217;s a difference between (a) saying &#8220;no, wait, hold on&#8221; when faced with nasty bile and (b) spitting bile back.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I think it&#8217;s pretty great that folks on the right, too, are invoking Rod Serling&#8217;s great contribution to our culture, a television series about how fragile our grasp on reality really is.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, yes, in this political climate, I, too, feel like I&#8217;m steppin&#8217; into the Twilight Zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump tweeted that he&#8217;d snubbed Mika Brzezinski last new years eve, because she was bleeding still from a face lift.\u00c2\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the tweet: Sheesh.\u00c2\u00a0 OK, so here&#8217;s where things get interesting, at least for the sake of argument.\u00c2\u00a0 When asked to explain\/defend\/just talk about apologetically Trump&#8217;s tweet, Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5277\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Help, I&#8217;m steppin&#8217; into the Twilight Zone<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,141],"tags":[2193,1111],"class_list":["post-5277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-specious-allegations-of-fallacy","category-specious-comparisons","tag-twilight-zone","tag-two-wrongs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5281,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5277\/revisions\/5281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}