Rachel Leingang writes that you have to listen to in full to the rally speeches of serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) to appreciate how unhinged they are. The snippets that are broadcast, even if they are of his lies and lunacies, actually make him seem more lucid than he really is.
He’s on the campaign trail less these days than he was in previous cycles – and less than you’d expect from a guy with dedicated superfans who brags about the size of his crowds every chance he gets. But when he has held rallies, he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one.
Trump’s tone, as many have noted, is decidedly more vengeful this time around, as he seeks to reclaim the White House after a bruising loss that he insists was a steal. This alone is a cause for concern, foreshadowing what the Trump presidency redux could look like. But he’s also, quite frequently, rambling and incoherent, running off on tangents that would grab headlines for their oddness should any other candidate say them.
…Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories.
…These tangents can be part of a tirade, or they can be what one can only describe as complete nonsense.
Leingang does us the favor of quoting verbatim some parts of the speeches so that we do not have to torture ourselves listening to them though, as she says, the transcription may not capture the full flowering of the craziness.
Some of these bizarre asides are best seen in full, like this one about Biden at the beach in Trump’s Georgia response to the State of the Union:
“Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”
Or another Hollywood-related bop, inspired by a rant about [Fani] Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s romantic relationship:
“It’s a magnificent love story, like Gone With the Wind. You know Gone With the Wind, you’re not allowed to watch it any more. You know that, right? It’s politically incorrect to watch Gone With the Wind. They have a list. What were the greatest movies ever made? Well, Gone With the Wind is usually number one or two or three. And then they have another list you’re not allowed to watch any more, Gone With the Wind. You tell me, is our country screwed up?”
He still claims to have “done more for Black people than any president other than Abraham Lincoln” and also now says he’s being persecuted more than Lincoln and Andrew Jackson:
“All my life you’ve heard of Andrew Jackson, he was actually a great general and a very good president. They say that he was persecuted as president more than anybody else, second was Abraham Lincoln. This is just what they said. This is in the history books. They were brutal, Andrew Jackson’s wife actually died over it.”
You not only see the truly bizarre nature of his speeches when viewing them in full, but you see the sheer breadth of his menace and animus toward those who disagree with him.
While many Republicans will undoubtedly react positively to the stream of venom when it is aimed at Democrats, liberals, and assorted enemies, they may not be so responsive when it is turned towards those whom they like, such as fellow Republicans like Nikki Haley. SSAT and his allies seem determined to attack her even after she dropped out, rather than try to woo her and her voters back.
There is little sign of Trump seeking to win these dissenters back. He has reportedly not called Haley since her withdrawal from the race. Steve Bannon, a former Trump ally, said on his podcast after Super Tuesday: “Screw Nikki Haley – we don’t need her endorsement.” Trump has used incendiary language and pushed an extreme agenda instead of making the nominee’s traditional pivot towards the political centre.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “Trump has continued to get crazier and crazier. If he had been running a more normal campaign where he reached out to Haley voters, where he reached out to disaffected Democrats, it’s one thing, but instead he’s running a campaign that’s based on hatred and retribution and he’s more incoherent than ever.”
I don’t understand it. It seems so counterproductive. SSAT and his camp seem to be more driven by anger and the desire to wreak vengeance on anyone who ever dared to challenge him than to try and get their supporters on his side.
This presents an opening for the Biden camp and their drive to get anti-Trump voters to commit to him is getting into high gear.
Haley’s donors, whom in January Trump threatened to blacklist, are another target for the Biden campaign. The CNBC network reported that at least half a dozen former Haley bundlers – people who organise and collect campaign contributions from other donors – have chosen to help Biden rather than Trump. It noted the creation of a WhatsApp group named “Haley Supporters for Biden”.
Republican Voters Against Trump this week released an ad featuring a former Trump voter explaining why he cannot support him again. Ramer urged former Trump officials and military generals to do more than merely express their misgivings to journalists or authors.
“I encourage them to be more honest and more forthright with how serious of a threat Trump is to our democracy because they were closest to it,” he said. “That’s why I think Mike Pence refusing to endorse Donald Trump was important. But there are so many more out there who could speak up.
“It’s frustrating because we have our grassroots supporters – everyday relatable voters willing to stick their neck out and say, ‘I previously supported Trump but I can’t.’ It shows tremendous courage and bravery but there are people who know better who could do a lot more to stand up against Donald Trump.”
The Biden campaign is trying to take advantage of this before the anger of Haley voters against SSAT for being so nasty to the person they voted for cools, with an ad courting Haley voters and other Republicans who might be disenchanted with SSAT
The 30-second ad, entitled Save America. Join Us, targets Haley voters in predominantly suburban battleground state postal districts where she performed well against Trump in Republican primary contests. It raises the prospect that the former president’s past disdain for Haley and her supporters could come back to haunt him if he fails to unite the party in November.
Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “It’s incredibly smart of the Biden campaign to begin planting the seeds to give Haley voters and swing state independent voters a permission structure to vote for him.
“Partisanship and loyalty to your tribe has become a very powerful tool and breaking away from that has been incredibly difficult for a lot of people. But Donald Trump’s antics, rantings, continued extremism and attacks on women in particular are making it very difficult for those Haley voters to stay under the tent with Trump.”
Will it work? Who knows? Since the Biden campaign seems to have raised a ton of money, they can afford to run these ads even if it results in only a small percentage of the 17% of Haley voters in the primaries voting for him or not voting at all.
First question: how many Presidential elections has “Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington” won? Answer: one fewer than Trump. Yet she feels herself qualified to pontificate on what he’s doing wrong.
You misunderstand, clearly -- you don’t need to understand it. It’s not aimed at you. You might just as well express bafflement at why adverts for women’s sanitary products are the way they are -- nobody in that supply chain gives two shits what you think, for good reason.
Can you at the very least acknowledge that despite your bafflement, it seems to be at the very least not harming his campaign?
I mean, in any normal world, doing what he’s doing would/should absolutely tank his poll numbers. And yet, look here:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
[Aside: 24 polls over there. A little while back, it was very tight and where it was in favour of anyone, it was usually Trump. Now margins are very slightly wider, and Trump is ahead in only 10. This is cause for cautious positivity, as it’s an improvement over where Biden was a few weeks ago. It is NOT cause to relax and think Trump can’t possibly win. We’ve been there before and apparently learned nothing from it.]
Now, there are those who’ll respond “pffft, polls”. To which I would say -- how else are you going to measure how well/badly it’s going? There are of course those who correctly point out that only one poll really matters, the one in November, to which I would say sure, I’ll stop worrying my pretty little head about it unti AFTER Trump has won, if that’s what you think I should do Mr. Expert. (Note: not all experts who recommend ignoring unfavourable poll numbers are male, it just feels that way).
Consider that this approach is proven to work. I simply don’t get why otherwise intelligent people don’t want to acknowledge this.
There are 3 main ways to win an election: motivate your base, convince undecided voters, and demoralize the opposition. Trump mostly focuses on the first. His speeches are vicious and crazy because his ardent supporters are vicious and crazy. A little bit, he’s also speaking to the unvoiced racism just below the surface in some undecideds.
Supporting #2: never forget that between 2016 and 2020, Trump gained 11 million votes compared to when he won in 2016.
Imagine a scenario where Cheetolini gets absolutely dragged in public by Stormy Daniel’s before being convicted of fraud. His shady as shit bond is rejected, the stock in his shady as shit new company continues to plummet , and his NY properties get seized to satisfy the previous civil fraud judgement.
That’s just the next month of his various criminal proceedings.
He will continue to attack anyone he perceives a threat, and I’m sure the fact that Nicky Haley won the DC primary (and continues getting a significant number R votes despite dropping out of the race) is a deep wound in his bloated ego.
I wonder if the GOP is going to survive having its face eaten off.
Trump’s speeches are, deliberately, entertainment for the crowd, and they adore it. Written out, they don’t make any sense. But you can understand them if you imagine crowd reactions. His speech about Biden on the beach probably went something like this:
Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right?
(scattered laughter about how ridiculous it would be that Biden could look good in a bathing suit -- subtext being that democrats are liars and make up the stupidest PC lies. Nobody stops to wonder who said that or whether anyone did, which nobody did of course, it was made up, but even if they knew that the crowd wouldn’t care. They’re there to be entertained, not educated or lectured to)
And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand
(laughter, an obvious dig at Biden)
because you know sand is heavy
(louder laughter -- SSAT is reading the crowd and drawing out the joke)
the, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy
(loud laughter -- everyone in the crowd has got it now. Some realise how “three solid ounces per foot” is deliberate nonsense and laugh at SSAT’s silliness; many don’t but it doesn’t matter. People feeling the warm companionship of everyone laughing together)
and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right?
(applause and cheers, whistles. Most have only ever seen Cary Grant in photos dropped in the middle of their usual sitcoms or Fox News articles if at all, but they’ve heard the name)
I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today.
(more applause. Crowd thinks of how all films now have to have a quota of blacks, gays and empowered women, and they empathise. Anger at it. Nostalgia for a past they’ve never seen)
We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people.
(crowd express their appreciation of how much better things were in the past. Subtext: before the Democrats came to power)
Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies.
(laughter)
I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies.
(louder laughter)
But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, ‘The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Cary Grant.’ Well, we don’t have that any more,
(rapturous applause. SSAT name drops Michael Jackson as a celebrity the crowd will have heard of -- SSAT probably never once met Michael and certainly never had that conversation with him, but the crowd don’t care. The stupidest in the crowd become positive it actually happened. Reiteration of how much better things were before the world got too PC and woke)
but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was pretty good-looking, right?”
(applause. SSAT hammers home his point, the straw man is demolished, and the crowd love it)
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Jeb Bush.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat John Kasich.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Ted Cruz.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Marco Rubio.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Ben Carson.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Jim Gilmore.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Chris Christie.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Carly Fiorina.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Rand Paul.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Mike Huckabee.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Rick Santorum.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Lindsay Graham.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat George Pataki.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Bobby Jindal.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Hillary Clinton.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Ron Desantis.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Nikki Haley (two k’s and an I, Tethys, give the woman the respect of spelling her name right ffs)
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Ryan Binkley.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Vivek Ramaswamy.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Asa Hutchinson.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Jeb Bush.
We can all sit here and imagine, and comfort ourselves with how we imagine that would have turned out. I hope you’re right, I really do… but the follow up question is -- what difference do you think it’ll make? I’m with Newt in Aliens…
I mean -- imagine a scenario where Trump doesn’t beat Biden in November.
Or, possibly, try to take some actual action to stop him, if you can. You could start by taking the threat seriously rather than trying to wish it away.
sonofrojblake, you do amuse with your selective crapping and how impressed you are by Trump’s supposed success.
Imagine a scenario where Trump didn’t beat Joe Biden in 2020.
(That’s this very timeline!)
—
Whining about how his prospects are looking up is not some actual action to stop him.
Bah.
You could start by no longer imagining only you take the threat seriously. Seriously.
@ 6 It’s an impressive display of chicken little theatre.
Imagine the sky is falling x21.
Meanwhile, all those consequences I’m imagining are going to occur soon. I just read on Pharyngula endless thread that there are many lawyers looking for clients to start a class action ‘pump and dump’ suit against TS, so that will be fun.
As far as actions go, we will have to wait until November to see the results.
https://www.propublica.org/article/new-wisconsin-district-map-gop-gerrymander-elections
@ 6
Jeb Bush is the alpha and the omega. X-D
@ Tethys, 8:
Again calling me “chicken little”, ignoring the fact that I did this in 2016 and the fucking sky actually did fall in.
Two things:
1. I admire your confidence. It’s exactly like the confidence people had that Trump was a joke who couldn’t beat Jeb Bush. And again -- I hope you’re right.
2. Let’s assume those things do happen -- a large assumption. Again, in the words of Newt from Aliens: “It won’t make any difference.” Trump has shown, again and again and again and again, that things that would bring down and end the career of any normal politician at best make no difference, and at worst get used to increase his wealth and/or poll numbers. The obvious example is selling mugs with his mugshot on when he was arrested. Any other candidate would have been ended by that -- yet here we are, and you persist in ignoring the evidence.
You call me “chicken little”. I dub you Question Hound.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/memes/this-is-fine/
Eh. Trump is just your average internet shitlord taken out of context. It’s just the first time the hee-haw or shuffleboard crowds have seen such a thing so they’re mighty impressed. And they’re committed to yucking it up at everyone else’s expense because that’s normal in the US already. That was normalized by the NRA when they committed to batshit lunacy around gun control.
I mean, think about it. It isn’t about protection and it never has been. So what is the lack of meaningful gun control about? Gun hobbyists. Now for the real challenge. Try to think of another hobby that seriously endangers people who don’t have anything to do with it and aren’t even willingly spectators to it. You’re probably thinking something with vehicles, right? They don’t even come close, guns laws based on our “well regulated militia” idea don’t even compare to vehicular regulation. This is our normal and these are the people this has specifically been normalized for.
So yeah, we all know how dangerous Trump is. He’s the ignoramus whisperer and he’s taking advantage of something like half a century’s work with a carefully groomed population of ignoramuses.
As far as why Trump is being nasty to Haley and friends I think it’s less 4d chess and more that surrounding oneself with yes-men leads to believing your own lies. Since Trump lies an awful lot, he seems particularly susceptible to this.
Both the ignoramus whisperer and yes-men leading to smoking your own kool-aid concepts are simplifications but I think they represent very real and very significant factors in what’s going on with him.
Narcissists don’t have allies, they have accessories.
Tfg is acting like a typical psychotic stalker who got rejected by the electorate.
———
As for #10 earning his moniker by obsessively squawking on about 2016 yet again, here is the moral of the Chicken Little story.
We might summarise the moral messages of the story as follows: 1) don’t form incorrect conclusions from insufficient data; 2) don’t stoke fear in others without good cause to do so; and 3) don’t take other people’s word for things, especially when those other people are making extraordinary claims.
The 2020 election and every special election and the primaries are all saying the same thing. 70% of America hates tfg, and that was before he attempted a coup and his ilk decided they are experts on gynecology and obstetrics.
It’s true that wealth can buy you many lawyers, but since you are dim-witted, the current score for tfg against NY is 0-3.
He’s doing a fabulous job at destroying the GOP from within. Just wait until all the down ballot R candidates figure out that they aren’t getting any RNC campaign funds because it’s all getting funneled to paying tfg’s legal bills.
Thats because you are expecting a logical and reasonable reason for trumps behavior. The media too treats Trump(and Musk) as if Trump has some master plan and is executing it. File Thirteen @5 has it right though. Trump has a good sense of what works with his base. And if you listen to his speeches you can feel it too. I had that experience when i think it was one of his speeches where he was saying no one can buy him coz hes already rich. You know thats totally untrue but you can see why it would carry weight with his audience, You can see it when he tries out various insults. He keeps trying till he sees something that the audience responds to. It doesnt matter if the insult is to his allies or to his enemies. The point is Trump is the alpha male. He’s tough , he is the no nonsense guy , he doesnt suffer fools even if they are his allies. And a majority of the Hsley supporters will all fall in llne (else they wouldnt still identify as republicans!). The mindless ramblings and diversions also paradoxically work in his favor.
@sonofrojblake @1
If I am not mistaken , you are a British , resident in Britain are you not ?
Deepak @13, yes.
Basically like a stand-up comedian and a conman and a guru, rolled into one.
No substance, but obviously charismatic enough to have a following.
@John Morales
You forgot sex symbol :).
@Question Hound, 12:
Votes for Trump in 2016: fewer than 63 million.
Votes for Trump in 2020: more than 74 million.
Some “rejection”. I mean, he didn’t WIN, but characterising a 17% increase as “rejection” is motivated reasoning.
You’ll have sufficient data for your certainty that Trump’s not going to win the election AFTER the election.
If you don’t think the possibility of Trump winning the election isn’t good cause to stoke fear, I can only conclude you support him.
Trump winning an election unexpectedly is NOT an extraordinary claim. In case you’re too young or stupid to remember -- it already happened once. And I’m not asking you or anyone else to take my word for anything. I’m asking you to look at the evidence that keeps piling up. Yet you refuse. Again -- you are coming across like you support him.
The 2020 election gave people the opportunity to vote Trump, and compared to 2016, eleven million MORE of them turned out to vote for him than before. Every “special election” didn’t give people the opportunity to vote Trump, and in case you haven’t been following the primaries, TRUMP WON.
THAT is the data set you’re offering to support your conclusion that everything’s fine? Do you even reality?
Citation needed. Also -- irrelevant. Again, in case you’re too young or too stupid to remember something that happened 8 years ago -- Trump LOST the popular vote in 2016. How did that turn out?
How many days has he spent in a cell? How badly have his poll numbers been affected by those results? Since you are dim-witted, allow me to help you -- zero, and not at all.
On that, finally, we agree. But you say that as though it’s in some way relevant. Trump doesn’t represent the GOP, he represents Trump. The GOP is just a means to an end for him, and that end is NOT political, it’s personal and financial. You, like so many before, have made the mistake of thinking (if I can call what you do “thinking”, which is generous) of Trump as a politician. He’s not -- he’s a conman. People have said that about politicians before, but before it’s always been an apt metaphor rather than actual literal truth.
I think you’re doing a disservice to those other Rethuglicans. They know perfectly well he’s no good for them. Thing is, they also recognise that going against him is a mug’s game. I hope all this will change if/when he loses the election. At that point AND NOT BEFORE his legal woes will come home to roost, his base will rise up in anger and be crushed, and his “allies” will turn on him because realistically there’s no way he can run in 2028. And even as I type that I feel like I’m sitting in that burning room with you, Question Hound, and agreeing with you that everything’s fine.
——————
@Deepak Shetty, 14:
Yes, I am, as you put it, “a British”. Relevance?
Deepak @13
I find the Haley supporters are solidly never trump, though I’ve not gotten any reasonable explanation for why they still considered themselves Republicans.
1) don’t form incorrect conclusions from insufficient data
You are an especially dull tool. Do quote these supposed prognostications since you’ve decided to cluck louder with your incorrect conclusions.
@ 17 sonofrojblake
C’mon man. You know this is fallacious. You’re not that dumb. You are perfectly aware the US does not have compulsory voting and how many people vote reflects how motivated they are -- how controversial is the election.
There was not a “17% increase” in support for Trump. He was such a disaster there was a huge motivation to get rid of him, and therefore a huge motivation for Republicans to defend him.
What are the relative figures?
What proportion of voters backed Trump in 2020 vs 2016? That’s the only relevant number.
2020 presidential election results: How many votes Biden got
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/12/19/how-many-people-voted-biden-2020/71758521007/
@Question Hound, 19:
That’s it? That’s your whole response to #17?
Let me walk you through it.
You call me “chicken little”, i.e. you accuse me of :
1. forming incorrect conclusions (i.e. that there’s a risk of Trump winning the election) from insufficient data (i.e. reputable polling organisations and history).
It is YOUR judgement that my conclusion is incorrect (i.e. that there’s NOT a risk of Trump winning the election), but since you’re positing a negative, the only data that works to support your judgement is an election loss for Trump in November. D’you see dear?
2. stoking fear in others without good cause to do so.
It is YOUR judgement that the risk of Trump becoming President again is NOT sufficient cause for fear. Do you support him? Or do you simply feel in your guts that there’s no need to worry? (Hence my dubbing of you as Question Hound.)
3. taking other people’s word for things, especially when those other people are making extraordinary claims
It is YOUR judgement that the risk of Trump winning the election is an extraordinary claim, despite the evidence of history. I wouldn’t say I “believe” the polls, as such, but they’re a warning if not a prediction. The warning is “don’t write him off”. The Dems wrote him off in 2016… and here we are.
In summary:
You are certain there is no risk of Trump winning the election OR that there no danger if he does, and therefore anyone such as myself warning about that possibility is being “chicken little” and bleating on about something nobody needs to worry about.
Yes? Or No?
OK -- this is speculation, but since you explicitly state you don’t know, maybe entertain the possibility: they consider themselves still Republican because although they hate Trump, when the moment comes, they’ll still vote R… and hence Trump. People do.
@Tethys
I would hope so. But Haley herself will make noises like Trump Bad , Biden worse -- so I guess we shall know once the results are out.
@sonofrojblake @17
I quoted the line that I thought it was relevant to.
Also
This is exactly what you would expect out of a polarizing figure. They can motivate their base.
The fact that you deliberately left out that the Democrats went from 65M to 81M (were 81M really enthusiastic about Biden ? a good number were anyone but Trump) , indicates you dont really think through your arguments -and ultimately the above numbers are meaningless in the USA -- 4-8 states will determine the outcome , the rest is just noise for the presidential outcome.
You seem to think that you are the only person that is aware that Trump may win again in 2024 -- I believe the majority of people on this blog are also similarly aware of that possibility. Theres not much that can be done differently though.
If your point was that it’s not aimed at me either, I can only say “duh”.
Not at all. But there are fairly few people outwardly taking the threat seriously, and multiple people EITHER mocking what they characterise as “setbacks” (which, yes, they would be for any other candidate but at best don’t affect his poll numbers, and at worst actually improve them) OR outright trying to insult me as “chicken little” for suggesting that he might win. I mean -- you have read the resident Question Hound, loudly insisting everything is fine, right?
Wow. I mean, I criticise people for complacency, but that’s not even that -- that’s just hand-washing fatalism. “not much that can be done”??? If Trump’s gonna win, he’s gonna win, I guess, no point complaining.
You are what is wrong with the left, And I Claim My Five Pounds.
@sonofrojblake
More the sentiment being expressed. 1) That people misunderstand stuff if its not aimed to them 2) That nobody (presumably the Trump campaign , sanitary products supply chain) give 2 shits about what Mano thinks -- The irony in making those sort of statements when you yourself arent part of the target audience doesnt seem to strike you.
See similar example
You feel qualified to point out all the things that Biden/Democrats are doing wrong , dont you -- So why make statements like the above? And as far as I know your real name is not Boris Johnson (though I guess you can pass off as the blog clown)
So 2 things. Apparently you have some surefire winning strategy that if Biden / The Democratic party follow then victory is assured right? So go ahead tell us , also tell us your plan to getting the Democratic party to listen , and also why the hell did you not do anything when Boris was getting elected ?
Second your comments are addressed to people on this blog. So given my assumption that there are no high ranking democratic party members here nor people high up in the media chain nor people here who are responsible for Taylor/Travis enacting the last step of the grand plan to endorse Biden nor are they members of the deep state elite cabal who are going to influence the election , we are left with what we can do in our individual capacity. Which is a. Vote(I cant) b. Convince others to vote c. Convince Trump supporters that they need to get their heads examined.
Of which c. is futile. Those who could be convinced were already convinced when Trump bragged about molesting women.
The rest i cant convince any more than I can convince a Christian that Jesus is both God and the son of God is a daft statement.
It would be ironic… if I’d expressed similar bafflement at it. Since I didn’t, you come across like Alanis Morrissette, saying “isn’t it ironic” about things which… aren’t. (As Ed Byrne famously said, the only ironic thing about that song is that it’s a song about irony written and sung by someone who doesn’t know what irony is.)
I feel qualified to have a personal opinion and express it in the comments section of someone else’s blog stating clearly that it is just that and that I’m just some limey engineer. I’m not touting a title like “senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington” and getting quoted in an international news source. They’re not really comparable.
I have been doing. There’s not that much to it.
1. Stop being complacent about the real threat of Trump being elected, and in particular stop spreading memes and news stories that amount to “check out this latest crazy thing he’s said/done, he’s obviously finished now”.
2. VOTE.
3. Do whatever you can to make sure anyone you know who has an above-room-temperature IQ votes too.
Funny you should mention that. Similar stories of complacent ridicule abounded when Johnson was in the frame, and if you look back to then you will find me repeatedly referring to him as “Alexander Johnson” -- his real first name and the one his friends call him. The point I was making then was that “Boris” and the persona that went with it are a comedy character he developed for use on TV, and one he used to fool the rubes. (And it worked.) I also repeatedly pointed out that he is NOT a buffoon but in fact one of the sharpest minds in UK politics and a very, very smart person indeed. I repeatedly pointed out that you can buy a place at Eton (and Johnson’s family could easily afford it), but you can’t buy a King’s Scholarship -- for that you have to pass what is widely held to be one of the hardest exams in the world, and Johnson passed, qualifying for the reduced fees. He is NOT stupid. What he is, is lazy and selfish and dishonest to an incredible degree. But no, people didn’t take the threat seriously. He was of course aided by having as his opposition at the last election the worst Labour leader since 1983.
Nevertheless, I held my nose and voted for the anti-semitic Trot, and indeed drove my neighbours to the polling station (not for the first time) when they said they probably weren’t going to bother voting. I did what I could because I was afraid of complacency. I want more people to be afraid of complacency. I want more people to positively vote for candidates they disagree with (e.g. Corbyn, Biden), because the alternative (e.g. Johnson, Trump) is much, much, much worse, and taking a principled stand and withholding your vote because of some specific policy or even a generalised objection is a mug’s game in a two-party system, especially when the poll numbers are as close as they are and the choice is between “won’t protect your rights in just the way you’d like” and “will actively start dismantling those rights and empowering your enemies on day one”.
And I’ve never suggested trying to convert Trumpistas. I’ve repeated said, here, VOTE, ffs, and do whatever you can to get others to vote. Do NOT take victory for granted. Thanks for giving me another excuse to rant on about it.
I’d take this any day. Your lack of bafflement however has nothing much to do with the irony in your comments though _ You may think you understand/know what Trump is doing and why- but like you yourself mention later is just an opinion , same as the rest of us
So now you want to deny reality ? This person IS a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington -- you can assign whatever weightage you want to that -- that can be the same as , a tiny bit more or a lot more than a limey engineer, no. Nowhere does it say that a thinktank opinions are the same as a commandment from God,
Heh. Funny then how he got kicked out. You’d think a very very smart person would have figured out how to stay in power once there. But you are basically saying you know about the dangers , you tried to convince people and then you failed miserably , no ? Why then are you going about expressing opinions on Trump now -- or why do you feel this time is going to be different
I fail to see how your plan is different from “not much can be done” -- Its vote and hope the numbers are on your side in the swing states , no ? I doubt there is a single person on this blog who thinks people shouldnt vote .
Eh? How do you even get to that straw man? No, I have no interest in denying reality. You appear to have missed the point. I indicated that this woman holds that title, and appears to consider it confers her authority to use her position to pontificate about how badly Trump is doing. I was merely pointing out that when it comes to winning Presidential elections, right now he’s 1-0 up on her, and it’s not ridiculous to suggest that before the year is out his score will be 2-0.
Unlike you I’m a smart enough person to consider the possibility that GETTING power and KEEPING power are two different motivations, and while Johnson was clearly motivated to achieve the one, I have never seen even a scrap of evidence he was ever motivated by the other. In that he was similar to Trump -- what he wanted was to have WON. He had zero interest in actually doing the job. That was never his intention, and it’s touchingly naive of you to think he was ever interested in actually keeping power once he’d got it. He’s far too lazy for that. See also David Cameron, saying “fuck this” on the morning of the referendum result in 2016 and fucking whistling as he walked back into number 10 for almost the last time. The PM job was a badge, and he’d got it. Off to a cushy job in the City. Imagining these people want power for its own sake or in order to enact policies that align with their principles is be deluded that they have any.
Well, yes. The UK electorate is provably thicker than pigshit. I did what I could, and yes, failed. But I didn’t go round saying “Johnson’s a buffoon, we can relax, he’ll never win”.
I don’t know if it’s going to be different, but here’s why I express these opinions -- you can’t beat Trump from the right. People on the right are too benightedly stupid to be persuaded. You can only beat him from the left -- by getting more voters out. And the enemy of that is complacency, the idea that NOW he’s finished, he’s crazy, he’s incoherent, he’s mad, he SURELY can’t win now that THIS thing has happened. If even a few lefty voters stay home because they can’t be bothered because obviously he’s not fit to be President and can’t possibly win, then we could get 2016 all over again. And that’s a big thing -- I’m NOT being chicken little, THIS HAS ALREADY HAPPENED ONCE.
It’s very slightly more than that. It’s
1. vote
2. do whatever you can to get other reasonably smart people (i.e. not Republicans)
3. DON’T do anything that might persuade such people that Trump isn’t a threat to the point that they don’t bother.
I agree -- I don’t think there are people commenting here who thinks people shouldn’t vote. But there’s at least one here who thinks too many people in 2016 felt they didn’t need to bother because the contest was between the person whose turn it was, obviously, and a clown off the telly. And that complacency, combined with that supposedly unbeatable candidate’s shocking arrogance, got us where we are. There’s at least one person here who thinks the message should NEVER be to laugh at Trump because this is the end for him -- the message should be that he hasn’t gone away, and that he’s a real threat, so vote, vote, vote and get everyone you know to vote too.
I’m cautiously optimistic, actually, that the stramash over abortion will sink him. I wouldn’t take even that for granted, though.
@Deepak
After tfg declared how proud he was of getting Roe v Wade overturned, I can foresee those voters doing the same as they did in 2020, and voting for Biden and any democrat that supports full reproductive rights for women.
I appreciate all your careful reasoning upthread, especially the exchange about irony.
John Morales noted the same back at #12, but apparently all those paragraphs of justification are simply advocating voting. There aren’t any ruffled feathers at all!
What was the OP? Why does TFG attack Haley even though she dropped out?? How much irony is an overdose?
Update to my original comment @4 that was about the legal case that tfg has been attempting to stop from happening.
What happens if your parties presumptive nominee for POTUS is a convicted and jailed felon? Can Nikki Haley get back on the ballot?
Nor is Boris Johnson’s! It’s Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson; “Boris” was invented at Eton and has only been refined since -- supposedly bright but scatty, upper-class but a man-of-the-people, a “loveable rogue”. His family and cronies (narcissists don’t have friends) call him Al. Most of those who’ve had much to do with him personally (and this includes fellow-Tories) recognise that there’s nothing either scatty or loveable about him. He resembles Trump in many ways, particularly in having constructed a persona that many found appealing, but which bore scant similarity to the reality -- and in being a sufficiently talented liar and demagogue to gain power, but unable to overcome his laziness, ignorance, arrogance and greed sufficiently to retain it, when this should have been relatively straightforward (even the pandemic was a chance for each to show how he could deal with a real crisis, rallying the nation around him, and both flubbed it completely).
That there’s a very real danger of Trump regaining power is obvious to most here, but sonofrojblake
suffers fromenjoys a superiority complex. Evidence be damned, he’s convinced himself that everyone here but him is unable to see it.KG, #32:
Well, in fairness, we all sometimes need to take a deep breath and maybe shitpost about how shitty everything is…. But of course, that will always look to some others like not taking things seriously enough or not comprehending something important, which can be very frustrating. I guess it happens a lot because you can never quite know how to look through this personality being presented to you and yet still see the actual person you’re talking to (especially these days).
@sonofrojblake
You object to “senior fellow…” , You implied if she had just said she was just a nobody (or no more than a limey engineer) expressing an opinion you’d be ok with it.
Also Donald trump is 1-1 on Presidential elections but he is also 1-0 (As you are counting) on almost everyone in the United States . That seems to imply to you that he knows what he is doing more than anyone else in the United States barring Barack Obama, Joe Biden , Bill Clinton , George Bush Jnr etc. Somehow you think that is a reasonable position to take.
Hmm ,he should have resigned on Day 1 i guess.
So what makes you qualified, by your own standards, to try again ? Its not like you are trying anything new , is it ?
FWIW Hillary didnt lose because of complacency -- she lost swing states by a narrow margin and thats also that , unless you were paying attention Trump was a largely unknown quantity. In 2016 I would have bet that once in power he would ditch the evangelicals and get to the task of enriching himself -- And it shocked me that I was only half right
@Tethys @30
Thanks
@KG
Mea culpa. He’ll forever be BoJo though to me. Yeah agreed , he could have easily retained power if he had demonstrated a little bit of competence.
Not meaning to pick on you, but the use of “limey” as a disparaging term for Brits is rather odd, especially from a liberal/lefty American: British sailors sucking limes was a rational preventative measure* against scurvy -- rather akin to a vaccine!
*Although I believe lemons would have been better -- more vitamin C.
@KG
Deepak is merely quoting the limey engineer, which is how he referred to himself. I think most Americans understand the idiom as a synonym for British.
@KG
Indians( like me, though resident about 100 miles from Mano) , have better disparaging (non-English) terms for the British 🙂 -I was quoting their own description of themselves(@27) to highlight sonofrojblake’s version of IOKIYAR -- He used it in a self deprecating way to try to justify why he can have an opinion ,similar to the Joe the Plumber thing , i.e. that a layperson can have weighty opinions about topics like the economy/politics but experts (like economists or fellows at a thinktank) -- pfft what do they know?
A topic for another time!
Or, if you read for comprehension, I was pointing out that I never set myself up as a supposed expert, but that the supposed expert was presuming to lecture someone demonstrably more successful in the field at issue than themself. /shrug/
@Tethys, 31:
That’s a really interesting question. In fact, I think it breaks down into two equally interesting questions:
-- what happens to the process? i.e. does he still get to be the candidate? I assume with absolutely no evidence and no research that the party MUST have a mechanism for deselecting him… but I have no confidence even if such a mechanism exists that they’d trigger it, or if they did that they could get it to stick in the face of the legal onslaught that would immediately ensue, given that he was the duly selected representative.
-- what happens to his poll numbers? Like -- if he’s literally convicted and jailed, does that tank his popularity… or boost it?I honestly don’t know what would happen, and neither do you. I suspect you’re comfortable with the fantasy that jailing Trump would cause his vote to collapse, but as ever that’s applying logic and history to a candidate who has consistently said and done shit that would have sunk any other candidate in history, but who is currently neck and neck with the incumbent President in the polls. What a time to be alive.
@KG, 32:
Not everyone. I only have a go back at people who persist in complacency. That’s far from everyone. It’s just that those people are louder and more persistent.
@Deepak, 34:
Sure. You keep telling yourself that. I mean, she wrote a whole book blaming all the people whose fault it was, and not a single one of them had the initials HRC. Complacency wasn’t a problem in 2016. “Basket of deplorables” didn’t contribute to those narrow losses in swing states. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
So Donald trump is successful in the field because he won a presidential election and lost one.
What does that make Biden , then in your opinion ? 1-0 on presidential elections , 2-0 as VP. Many years as senator.
Next be honest and list all the things he’s doing wrong that may tank his re-election -- (actually dont) -The fact that someone won an election doesnt mean that they can do wrong or necessarily know more than someone who hasnt run for election . And no one was “lecturing” anyone.
I re-looked up the definition of complacency , i still dont see what a book written after the fact has to do with complacency during the elections.
One it may be that this is indeed a factor in her loss (I vaguely remember her too saying it is) but how does that demonstrate complacency? or is your theory is that Hillary thought , I have this in the bag , let me go out and insult some Trump voters. Then people who were going to vote for Hillary or were on the fence looked at her comments and said Let me see -- Candidate one calls some people basket of deplorables and Candidate two only brags about grabbing women by their genitals. Candidate two it is!
Two look at other possible factors -- some deeply entrenched (single issue voters e.g. abortion/guns, sexism) , some circumstantial (social media disinformation, following the election of the first black resident), some deliberate (Her emails! James Comey!) and say yeah all that was nothing the real issue was her calling people “basket of deplorables”.
Deepak Shetty@37,
Thanks I missed that. Somehow I tend to skim sonofrojblake’s effusions a bit. Can’t think why.
An expert.
Biden? Can’t think of anything. Trump? The problem with that question is that what for a normal candidate would be obviously wrong (e.g. being recorded saying you can “grab ’em by the pussy” and having everyone hear it) demonstrably is NOT wrong for Trump, doesn’t dent his support and sometimes even seems to help. So… dunno.
No -- it was more that she considered that being filmed in public saying those things didn’t matter. She didn’t go out to insult per se, I think, she just blurted out because she was comfortable “knowing” that that clown couldn’t beat her. Complacency.
Here, I’ll hold your hand and walk you through it slowly:
1. she was complacent.
2. she lost
3. she failed to learn the lesson
4. she wrote a book that demonstrated that she’d failed to learn the lesson.
It’s not complicated.
As for there being other factors -- duh. But you made the point that Trump’s victory was narrow. Olympic swimmers shave off their body hair. By doing so, they’re not expecting to gain five seconds over 50 metres, they’re expecting to gain hundredths of a second. Why do they bother? Because they know competitions are decided by margins that small, so they take EVERY advantage they can. And when you’re up against Trump, you need to be shaving your legs. (That didn’t end up where I expected, but even you understand the point, unless you’re being deliberately obtuse…. which is obviously likely)
@27 sonofrojblake:
Or, as Johnny Marr wrote:
If we’re giving Johnson his full name there is a lot to be said for Stewart Lee’s take in the Guardian NB some of this is seriously offensive, but it is all things Johnson said “Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Letterbox Cake Bumboys Vampires Haircut Wall-Spaffer Spunk-Burster Fuck-Business Fuck-the-Families Get-Off-My-Fucking-Laptop Girly-Swot Big-Girl’s-Blouse Chicken-frit Hulk-Smash Noseringed-Crusties Death-Humbug Technology-Lessons Surrender-Bullshit French-Turds Dog-Whistle Get-Stuffed FactcheckUK@CCHQ 88%-lies Get-Brexit-Done Bung-a-Bob-for-Big-Ben’s-Bongs Cocaine-Event Spiritual-Worth Three-Men-and-a-Dog Whatever-It-Takes I-Shook-Hands-With-Everyone Herd-Immunity I-Want-to-Thank-Po-Ling Squash-the-Sombrero Johnson.
@sonofrojblake
Thats your view. A more reasonable view is that she thought it would help. For e.g. would pointing out that Trump had literal nazis as his supporters , in his cabinet , as his advisors hinder or help ? Its still possible that FOX news could portray this as yet another way the liberals demonize good old Americans , so what ?
Heh. So if she wrote the book and said everything was her fault , how would it demonstrate she was not complacent during the election? Ultimately your view is if she wrote the book saying she was complacent , then you’d point to it as proof that she was complacent during the elections and if she wrote the book saying she wasnt complacent , then you’d say see -- she was complacent and she didnt even learn her lesson!.
Again this is your telling -- 2 highly competent and experienced swimmers face off -- once shaves their legs one doesnt -- the one who shaves their legs wins by the narrowest of margins and you say see , the tiny bits matter.
My analogy would be a singing competition (or the Oscars) -- there is an experienced good singer. The competitor is a good for nothing arse who nevertheless has a new lets say racist song that appeals to the racists, of which there seem to be many in the judges/audience. The female singer shows up in a pantsuit instead of feminine wear and loses the competition and you seem to be saying the loss was due to the pantsuit -- if only she had worn a dress.
@44:
See, the interesting thing is I credit Clinton with more sense than that. I don’t consider her actually stupid. She knows (and more importantly, knew and had it relatively fresh in her memory at the time) what happened to Mitt Romney. Google “Mitt Romney 47%” if you’ve forgotten. The difference is, Romney made his comments in a private meeting where he had no reasonable expectation that someone hostile was recording him. Clinton made her objectively similar comments ON TELEVISION. I believe she’s smart enough to know it couldn’t help, but yes, it’s just my opinion that arrogance led her to say it anyway because she didn’t think it would harm her the way it harmed Romney.
Oh dear, I didn’t walk you through it slowly enough.
First, and most important, the election at issue is the one coming up (there being nothing we can do about the one that’s finished, duh), and how it can be compared to the one in 2016 -- the one I contend was lost, in part, due to complacency.
If she wrote the book and said everything was her fault, then at least one could say “ah, lesson learned then, they won’t do that again.” Whereas here, in reality, she wrote the book, blamed everyone but herself, and lefties like those posting here are still gathering around and crowing that Trump is finished and can’t possibly win, even with the lesson of 2016 only 8 years in the past. Nothing appears to have been learned.
Then your analogy would be shit. Elite athletes provably DO take the trouble to make changes to their technique and equipment that make marginal differences to their performance. Are you saying they’re wasting their time? That you know more about their area of specialism than them? Seems arrogant.
Also, your analogy is shit because you’re comparing something with a measureable, objective result (a race, a national general election) with something based on the opinions of a small panel of judges. Unfortunately, there’s a perfect example from sports of why your analogy is bullshit.
Speed skiers wear skintight aerodynamic clothes, teardrop shaped efficient helmets, and spend a huge amount of effort on the precise formulation of wax to use for the snow crystal type and temperature -- because they’re up against an objective measure -- were they fastest over the course, or not? People doing freestylle moguls or halfpipe don’t bother with such details. Why not? Because they don’t matter -- their competition is judged subjectively by a small panel.
I won’t bother asking if you understand the difference between objective and subjective.
(Aside: I have of course assumed in the foregoing that national general elections are in fact decided by the will of the people and the number of votes cast, that being the way elections are conducted in advanced civilised nations. It should be obvious that such assumptions do not apply to one-party states (e.g. China), effective dictatorships (e.g. Russia), and backward self-deluding shitholes where the result of a national election can be decided by a small panel of judges rather than the electorate (e.g. the USA in 2000). In the foregoing I have pretended that the US in 2024 is not such a place… we’ll see, eh?)