Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:11am

Only Four Billion and a Bad Toupee Separate Them

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David Griffey at his blog Daffey Thoughts, notes the similarity between Mark Shea and Donald Trump:

 

By that, I don’t mean Mark supports or likes Donald Trump. Quite the contrary.  Mark routinely takes on Trump and Trump’s supporters the way Mark does most things: in the same manner as Donald Trump.  In fact, that’s my point.  If you want to be brutally honest, you’ll admit that Mark Shea is simply a Catholic Internet version of Donald Trump.  If you visit Facebook or similar Social Media sites, you’ll see that Mark is far from the glaring exception.  Go onto most Internet sites, including major media outlets, read the comments and you’ll see Donald Trump all over.  And in some cases, such as Daily Kos or Salon.com or even such esteemed sites as the Huffington Post, you might find published editorials that aren’t much different.

I hate to say it, but my boys are correct.  Donald Trump is the candidate that the Facebook generation deserves.  And it isn’t because of a few radical exceptions to the rule.  It is the rule.  We are the generation that liberal society has been striving for over the decades.  From the 50s through the 60s and 70s and beyond, Trump is what we’ve been aiming at.

Just look at Mark Shea as an obvious example. Mark is familiar to most Catholics on the Internet and is highly regarded by many. And yet, not only does he resemble Trump in his approach to topics and interaction on his various sites, he does so as a representative of the Catholic Church.  At least Trump just represents politics.  And yet Mark is quite the hero for many Catholics.  For many non-Catholics, too.  Including those who are quick to attack and bemoan the Trump phenomenon.

How can I be so heartless and judgmental to compare Mark to Trump?  Or compare others on Social Media to Trump?  Easy.  I read.  I listen to Trump and what people criticize him for, and then visit various Facebook pages, including Mark’s, and I see no difference.   Trump, beyond the policies he advocates – when we can figure them out – is brash, crude, rude, vulgar, sinful, mean spirited, ill-informed and simply a lousy person because of how he interacts with others and treats others who dare disagree with him.

So how is that different than Mark, or even Mark’s own followers?  Or the followers on any one of a million sites?  For instance, Mark’s own lack of substance and knowledge of topics he comments on outside of Catholicism is legendary.  Even those who support him and agree with him have hung their heads over his approach to such topics as the Death Penalty or Gun Control.  The same is a common complaint about Trump.  Mark thinks nothing of using the same language Trump is condemned for using.  Mark attacks through name calling and condescension and scorn any who dare disagree, unless Mark happens to be friends with the violators.  Mark isn’t even above making false and slanderous accusations against people, even to the point of libel.

But Trump says horrible things!  He mocks people for things they can’t help.  He made fun of Carly Fiorina’s looks.  He talks about killing people.  He talks about destroying other countries.  So does Mark.  One of his Facebook followers recently said that things would be better off if America was burned to ashes.  Mark only disagreed because he said Americans, being the murderous barbarians that we are, would take millions of innocent lives with us.  Mark justified his view of America by reminding us of the millions of Indians and Slaves who fell to our murderous, barbaric ancestors.  Imagine if Trump or a Trump supporter produced the same dialogue about another country, like Mexico or China.  Imagine the outrage and anger.

And Mark not only uses death and suffering to advance his opinions, he even has begun to mock people murdered by guns – if those same people were hard right wing activists.  That might seem understandable to some.  But remember, Mark and many others were shocked at how many celebrated the death of Osama bin Ladin or Hugo Chavez, saying that the only appropriate Christian response was to pray for their souls.  Yet many of those same Catholics are rightly shocked when Trump appears so callous and cruel to other people in the world.  Notice a trend?   What about making fun of others like Trump does?  Last election cycle Mark was forced by his own readers to remove a post he had submitted that made fun of Michelle Bachmann’s eyes and facial features.  Sound familiar?

If you want to be objective, there is little difference between how Mark Shea approaches the modern debate and the way Trump does.  Unless you blindly follow and agree with Mark, you see some glaring problems in his approach and his stances that are not unlike Trump’s.  Ah, but that’s the rub.  How can people honestly follow Trump despite his views and behavior?  I give you Mark Shea.  More than one Catholic on the Internet has railed against Donald Trump for multiple reasons, while at the same time endorsing and loving Mark Shea and similar individuals who approach.

 

Go here to read the rest.  Bluster and insults are ever a poor substitute for knowledge and a willingness to believe that perhaps people who disagree with you do not have the worst possible motives that you can ascribe to them.

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Michael Brennick
Michael Brennick
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 8:24am

Mark Shea is catholycism’s low rent Trump.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 8:55am

I don’t know what’s a greater endorsement of DaDonald, the attack speech from Mitt Romney or a fatwa from OSheama Bin Libel?

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 9:33am

We are the generation that liberal society has been striving for over the decades. From the 50s through the 60s and 70s and beyond, Trump is what we’ve been aiming at.

Bingo.

The decent folks get brow-beaten down or– if they won’t be beaten and are too persuasive– ignored.
The loud, angry, nasty ones get attention.
I think that may be why I use to like reading Shea– and then I noticed that he was actually doing some of the things that had driven me over to read him. I’m not cool with someone doing a bad thing just because they say they’re on my side, so I left. (and that was before the various big, obvious lies got out)

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 9:57am

A really brilliant satirist could get a lot of mileage out of a Jerry Springer-Bachelor/Bachelorette-American Idol mash-up of a Presidntial Election reality TV show

TomD
TomD
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 10:04am

I’d be willing to wager that the number of people who like both Donald Trump and Mark Shea is not zero.

Pinky
Pinky
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 10:12am

Devil’s Advocate – It’s possible to expect a president to be better than we are. It’s possible to even regret one’s own occasional sinking into the muck and still expect a presidential candidate to appeal to our better angels. It’s not even unreasonable to look for the best among us to be our leaders, and to be discouraged when we don’t choose among our best.

Less Devil’s Advocate – We are responsible to the extent that we elevate or degrade our culture. It’s hard to be like the person I described above if you’re in other respects making things worse. Maybe you just don’t see yourself that way.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 10:30am

It occurs to me that a fella might could blow Shea’s mind by pointing out the ways in which his own activities prove Judge Bork’s thesis from Slouching Towards Gammorah.

Fr. John Higgins
Fr. John Higgins
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 10:46am

I’m not really a Trump supporter, but this attack piece on The Donald is below the belt. By the way, that’s not a bad toupee it’s his own hair.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 12:05pm

Mark Shea = Donald Trump
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Hmmmmm…….I would still vote for Donald Trump over Mark Shea any day of the week.
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😉

Nancy b
Nancy b
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 12:13pm

Me too Cincinnatus and then I’d exit the voting booth running & flailing my arms like a lunatic.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 12:38pm

*looks at the facebook screenshot* So has anyone tallied how much of Shea’s complaints there do NOT apply to Bernie Sanders? So far I’ve… not found one.

Don the Kiwi
Don the Kiwi
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 3:21pm

Our world has descended into a range of personality cults. Some of those who have not fallen for the extremism and invective do their best to look for the good in people, while acknowledging their faults .
The “personalty cult” that I follow has a leader who says has a Leader who says, forgive one another.
Some advice all can follow, particularly in an election year:
“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

Philip
Philip
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 3:38pm

Don the Kiwi.

Beautiful.

Christine
Christine
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 5:47pm

I think that comparison is an insult to Donald Trump.
I applauded Trumps comments on ‘water boarding’ which I don’t consider torture.
P.S. Mark Shea wears a toupee?

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 6:15pm

I am staying out of politics here for a while, at least as far as it concerns the GOP candidates. Reason being that (my opinion) the worst of Donald Trump is better than the should-be convict Clinton or the communist.

Should Trump end up destroying the GOP, then so be it. The most he can destroy is the Washington Establishment, the quislings who talk tough on the Sunday morning political shows almost nobody watches and then cave to the Democrats.

I am sick and tired of the Republican Party. For decades, they have sent out junk mail asking for donations while pledging support for lower spending, less regulations, lower taxes and greater economic opportunity. We have seen none of this. This nation would be in almost complete economic collapse due to the obscene regulations banning coal fired power plants and choking the nuclear power industry, had it not been for the Marcellus Shale natural gas.

The GOP allowed Obumblercare to proceed. The GOP did not put an end to the mortgage mess that the Democrats started under Carter and accelerated under Clinton and that should be convict Barney Frank. Bush Senior gave us Souter. Dubya gave us the nincompoop John Roberts.

Dubya left the Iraqi Christians twist in the wind.

Mittens spent more time trashing Trump than he spent smacking around that putrid, pathetic race-baiting little snot in the White House.

That’s just a sample. So, if Trump wrecks them, trashes them, destroys them (the McConnells, the McCains, the Mitten Romneys and their syncophants), more power to Trump. When they are finished, I’ll be happy to bring a shovel to help bury them.

Ginny
Ginny
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 6:31pm

Penguins Fan,
Thank you for that comment! FWIW, I agree with you.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 6:34pm

Spot on analysis, and Shea’s facebook post highlights his bone dry ignorance. National Review dedicated an entire issue to opposing Trump. Virtually all of its regular writers have consistently written against Trump, so much so they are subject to constant scorn on social media from Trump acolytes. And yet the Archie Bunker of the Catholic blogosphere rips into National Review as “whoring” for Trump because it posts one op-ed that speaks non-negatively of him.

The tragedy of Shea is this is someone who supposedly dedicated his career to preaching the Gospel of Christ and yet he has devoted most of his public time writing virulent political screeds.Christianity would have died 2000 years ago if St. Paul eschewed epistle writing for writing treatises on the Roman Empire.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 7:23pm

Mr. McClarey, the GOP controlled Congress passed that sickening funding bill led by Paul Ryan that did nothing to stop ObumblerCare, or Planned Parenthood for that matter.

True, not a single GOP member of Congress voted for it, but the House controls the purse strings. Yet, they are so scared of being called racist and having Obumbler label them as obstructionists that they have done nothing to stop it. Crybaby Boehner and Paul Ryan did what the Establishment wanted them to do and to hell with the voters.

The Democrat Party is in no shape to end the GOP establishment. Their presidential candidates are a convict in waiting and a socialist and both are two years older than dirt.

Shea is, to put it charitably, a twit. Shea is not worth a fraction of the effort that so many have taken to write about him, his views and those he disagrees with.

For years, the GOP has had an opportunity to identify a successful governor (Scott Walker? Rick Perry?) who has cut taxes and spending and grown his state’s economy. Instead we got Jeb.

I repeat, with a little more clarity. If Cruz cannot pull ahead of Trump – and he should never have been behind Trump – then I hope Trump destroys the GOP establishment in Washington right to its foundations. The State GOPs, who have sought out, nominated and elected conservative candidates, can bulldoze the wreckage left behind. I am just as sick of Romney, McCain, Graham, Thad Cochran, Boehner, Ryan and the entire K Street bunch who enables them – no, more, than I am of Obumbler, the Clintons and their organized crime syndicate known as the Democrat Party.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 7:27pm

Referring to Shea as the Archie Bunker of the blogosphere is an insult to Archie Bunker. Bigoted, but at least honest, and an invention by lib TV producer Norman Lear to smear the working class. Lear is the same twit who had the Maude character get an abortion.

Shea has no excuse.

Foxfier
Admin
Monday, March 7, AD 2016 8:45pm

Have you thought through the whole “hope he destroys the GOP” thing?
Your complaint with the GOP is that they weren’t sufficiently successful in stopping the Democrats, so you’re hoping…that only the Democrats will exist?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 12:18am

I’m sympathetic to Penguins Fan’s desire that the GOP stop playing the part of the Washington Generals. As a long suffering Minnesota Vikings fan, the GOP brain trust, whomever they are, remind me of Denny Green: they play so as not to lose, and that’s not the same thing as playing to win.
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So I get the attraction of Trump. And if the GOP’s base sells the party down the river for a mess of pottage, it’s really no more than the GOPe deserves. After all, they’ve been in the pottage selling business for most of this century.
.
If I seem sanguine about the fate of the GOP, it’s because I am. I’m a conservative, not a Republican, and I’ve come to feel about the GOP the same way Reagan felt about the Democrats –they’ve left me.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 6:55am

I have $10 that says Mark-who will never write anything ne-er so vile about Hillary or Joe Biden (please God, Hillary is in prison). Because social justice and 53 million aborted babies are “chopped liver.”

.
BTW: Read a “The Nation,” February 15, 2016 article on the Clinton’s (how she commands $625,000 fees for Wall Street speeches) first, eight-year regime, which was great for stock market wealth/fat cats, but not so good (lost ground on most measures) for working class Americans.

.
PS – that bet is a win-win for me. I’m happy if Mark-who goes “straight” (someone will have to post it here) and happy if I win $10 Bitburger bier!.

Missy
Missy
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 7:01am

After all this time, what I’m greatly shocked about is that Patrick Madrid does not correct Mark Shea. Patrick seems to be oblivious to Mark’s rantings and support of socialism. I keep waiting for fraternal correction, but it never comes.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 8:48am

Well, Missy, some of us have tried to get prominent apologists like Madrid and others to fraternally correct Shea for about a decade now with no avail. When push really comes to shove, the Catholic Media Complex is no better than the left-wing secular MSM.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 5:54pm

I will repeat it again. The GOP establishment needs to go. They have failed us.

Leave us with only Democrats? Well, to me it feels like that is the case now and has been for a long time. Look at the bang up job Boehner did as Speaker. Look at the miserable results of the 2012 Presidential and Senate races. Need I go on? I see NO hope for reform of the GOP due to the Washington establishment.

The GOP has left me. Voters have embraced the pompous Trump because Trump has dared to say that the illegal aliens should be deported…something our Catholic bishops want no part of. Trump has talked about jobs and lowering taxes and gone after the should be convict Shrillary.

I am not endorsing Trump. It is that I despise the GOP establishment. We need a new conservative political party, not a bunch of Democrat Lite weenies. The GOPe has foistered losers and they couldn’t even stop Trump.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 7:37pm

When was the last time Congress fulfilled its duty to pass a budget and how much culpability is on Boehner for the tripling of the national debt?
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I’ll grant Boehner gets some credit for arresting the rate of growth of the debt, but that “one-time” “don’t let a crisis go to waste” stimulus is part of the baseline now and it’s been re-spent every damn year since 2009 which, if memory serves, was the last year we passed an actual budget instead of a continuing resolution.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 7:46pm

[C]onservatives need to stop moaning and crying, grow up and take back the Republican Party.
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What makes you think the Republican half of the new elite/ruling class/establishment would let them? After all, it’s not the Democrats threatening their rice bowls.
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The proof is in all the anybody but Trump (except Cruz) maneuverings.

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 8:00pm

When was the last time Congress fulfilled its duty to pass a budget and how much culpability is on Boehner for the tripling of the national debt?

How on earth are the Republicans both responsible for Reid refusing to allow a vote on the bills they passed, and responsible for not moving stuff even further away from what the Democrats want? The only way he would have allowed a vote would be if they’d done even more of what he wanted.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 10:54pm

It’s not Trump or Cruz’s people talking about rewriting the rules Romney’s people rewrote four years ago, is it?

Or hanging out with Tech Billionaires.

Christine
Christine
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 11:12pm

Hey guys…Trump is winning.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 8, AD 2016 11:18pm

How on earth are the Republicans both responsible for Reid refusing to allow a vote on the bills they passed, and responsible for not moving stuff even further away from what the Democrats want?
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I’m not saying the Republicans are responsible, just that they were complicit. Boehner’s House was never under any obligation to save Reid’s bacon by signing up for the whole continuing resolution charade. But then, explaining why the government is “shut down” and Christmas is cancelled until further notice because the Senate can’t fulfill it’s Constitutional duty on the Sunday shows is hard work when you’re a peter-principaled drunk I guess.
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All this anger and mistrust that Trump is channeling is neither irrational nor misplaced; just misdirected in the sense that Trump isn’t suited to redressing the grievances that the GOP has over promised and under delivered on for the last three election cycles.

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 9, AD 2016 7:10am

“All this anger and mistrust that Trump is channeling is neither irrational nor misplaced…”

Yes a lot of it is, and a good writer named Ernst Schreiber said so a few days ago on this site when he wrote that people were looking for a Deliverer. At least that’s how I understood that comment (Deliverer Donald, along with Deliverer Hilary and Deliverer Bernie).

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, March 9, AD 2016 8:37am

Hence the “misdirected” part.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, March 9, AD 2016 10:59am

But then, explaining why the government is “shut down” and Christmas is cancelled until further notice because the Senate can’t fulfill it’s Constitutional duty on the Sunday shows is hard work when you’re a peter-principaled drunk I guess.
Forcing people to listen to something they don’t want to hear is quite hard. Especially when you don’t have any power to make “the Sunday shows” air what you say, and when you do give the detailed explanation it’s either ignored, misquoted or the objection changes.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Wednesday, March 9, AD 2016 3:26pm

I’m going to attempt to stick to my original goal and stay out of presidential politics here. Mr. McClarey is a gracious host and I am a guest here. We disagree on the GOP and I would rather not get in arguments about it.

The current Roman Pontiff always provides lots to discuss.

TomD
TomD
Wednesday, March 9, AD 2016 4:50pm

Sorry Ernst, anyone looking for a Deliverer in American politics is more than misdirected. Their faith is misplaced, they are immature, many if not most are to at least some degree irrational.

tom s
tom s
Thursday, March 10, AD 2016 7:06pm

I see Shea more as having the less pleasing aspects of Pope Francis: loving to shock us via harsh scoldings based only erratically on facts.

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