Asshole Nation Quotes

“Scum America is a select group of low-life assholes. These scummers have become so hardened in their assholery that they excuse almost any kind of bad behavior by anyone who agrees with them—no matter how deviant that person is.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“The entire Enlightenment project of trying to establish rational government—of which the American Framers were the most successful proponents—can be understood, in a sense, as an attempt to purge assholery from the seats of political power.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Societal norms dictate that we behave, for example, kindly toward others. These norms do not exist to squash some putative “right” we have to behave unkindly. They exist because decent human beings want to be good, know that they are not perfect, and use social norms to habituate themselves to virtue. We become”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“His own supporters know this. They celebrate his assholery. They dream of emulating it. They adore him for parading it in public. They aspire someday to be assholes just as huge as Trump, so that they too may get what they really want in life—benefits without responsibilities, respect without worthiness, selfishness without recriminations.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“In the first half of the 60s, Presidents Kennedy and Johnson started moving the nation toward social justice, passing civil rights laws in opposition to the well-known racism of the Dixiecrats. That bunch got mighty irascible. The idea that they might have to abandon their racism, parochialism, anti-federalism, and ignorant religion to continue living in a nation of decent people just got their blood a’boilin’.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“H. L. Mencken once wrote, “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“YOU CAN BEAT THE OPPOSITION! If liberals and progressives really want to move America forward again, they have to marshal every single voter who is onboard with the program to turn Republicans out of Congress. This will not be easy. The Republicans have used their stranglehold on Congress to pile up money, gerrymander everything they can, suppress voting, and generally make it hard for liberals and progressives to prevail-—even though there are far more liberals and progressive than conservatives. (Trump lost the popular vote by three million—ten million if you count votes for third-party candidates!) If non-asshole voters can energize, if they come out in larger numbers than at the last election, and if they can stop bickering about ideological purity, they can swamp the Republicans.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Behind this divergence, however, lies the common trait of all conservatives: fear. All conservatives fear loss more than is good for human beings. Loss is an inevitable part of existence, but conservatives fear loss so much that they spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to prevent losing anything.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“To stop Scum America, the decent majority must arise now and do four things: Vote in huge numbers and hand massive electoral defeats to Asshole Nation and Scum America Call out scummers when they trumpet their base and vile notions Never stop ridiculing “conservative” ideas Get together with other decent Americans to brainstorm ways to spread the attitude of decency”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“I never want to hear any evangelical ever again taking the moral high ground for anything. They support Trump to the hilt—according to polls, somewhere in the 90% range. Get that? The group of Americans who profess to be holier than everybody else because of the Pharisee-like over-religiosity backs the most immoral troglodyte in politics.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“In the many debased parts of Scum America, one group stands out for particular shame. It’s Evangelicals who support Trump.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Is is wrong to call Trump acolytes scum? I don’t think so. There is no redeeming value whatsoever in Trump. A creature so venal, so self-absorbed, so anti-social, so vulgar, and so imbecilic is not in any way supportable for a decent person. Conclusion? Only indecent people could possibly support Trump.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“The truth is that conservatives very seldom produce any valid critiques of anything. They merely spout grievance, spite, hatred, and ignorance. Sometimes it’s dressed up like valid reasoning. But it seldom actually is anything but a cover for repugnant beliefs.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“There is only one future worth having—a future in which the root evil of conservatism (see my series on demolishing conservatism) is extirpated from America.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Democrats must take over both houses of Congress with a cleansing majority that will stop all Republican initiatives in their tracks and impeach this buffoonish asshole president.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Democrats must take over both houses of Congress with a cleansing majority that will stop all Republican initiatives”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“It is impossible to have a nation worth living in when too many people are unregenerate assholes. After forty years of Asshole Nation being lifted up by the Republicans, Decent America has no option left but to crush the assholes and the Republican party that is now their home.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Liberals who do believe in God merely hate the vile image of God that conservatives and Republicans have created in their own selfish and fearful image. And those who don’t believe in God certainly don’t hate a being they don’t acknowledge.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“America’s smartest must stand up again. The would-be despot in the White House and his benighted supporters must be beaten back. Their stupidity must be repudiated. Their fierceness must be quenched. Their arrogance must be smothered.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“For forty years, Republicans have been destroying the economy, ruining the environment, rigging congressional districts in their favor, giving the county away to corporations, and funneling wealth to the already wealthy.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“The Republican party is filled with people who don’t know right from wrong. Forty years of trying to seize power by any means necessary have extinguished the consciences of most Republicans.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“So when is a racist a racist? When he’s Donald Trump.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“People like this need to be slapped around.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“She might as well have said, “I’m so much smarter than you that I don’t even have to explain why we’re so utterly pathetic, incompetent, and worthless.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“Conservatism is nothing but a pack of lies that are proved to be wrong every time they are put into practice.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“they were only putting lipstick on a pig.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“By the 1950s, Liberalism was the dominant viewpoint because it had long before sided with intelligence, science, and truth.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“So again, how did we get here? Through forty years of excessive tolerance of Republican lying. From Reagan’s “ketchup is a vegetable” and “trickle-down economics” to Poppy Bush’s “no new taxes” to Newt Gingrich’s fake “Contract with America” to Dubya’s “weapons of mass destruction” to Trump’s towering pile of lies (over 2,500 so far by the count of the Washington Post), the Republican party has turned the shame of lying into an artform.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“So again, how did we get here? Through forty years of excessive tolerance of Republican lying. From”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America

“How did we get here, where a bunch of idiotic amateur actors are putting on a pathetically bad show that doesn’t even pretend to be a real presidency? No one in the administration, from Trump on down to his lowliest toady, knows anything about governing.”
― Scott McMurrey, Asshole Nation: Trump and the Rise of Scum America