I originally wrote the following as a comment on Booman’s recent post Crazy is a Dangerous Thing. I am now posting it as a standalone article.
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The Molly Ball article to which Booman linked in his post (Can the Republican Party Survive Trump?) will prove to be part of yet another failed attempt to stop Trump’s rise. It says all the right things in all the right places about Trump, but it does not try to do the one thing that works on a bully.
A punch in the face.
All the reasoning in the world will neither stop Trump from running his game…a game at which he is proving to be very good, I might add…nor will it quell the admiration of those who are now supporting him.
Read on for more.
As above, so below.
Think of Donald Trump as if he is a small time, local schoolyard/streetcorner bully. He’s a hero to his hangers-on and boss of the neighborhood until somebody publicly refuses to be bullied and then successfully puts him on his ass. Afterward? Abandoned by his supporters, just another big, dumb guy with a mean streak.
No one has tried that yet. Not really. Bush III flying a little plane over one of Trump’s rallies with a sign that says “TRUMP 4 HIGHER TAXES, JEB 4 PREZ” just won’t cut it.
WEAK!!!
Is there a RatPublican candidate who is willing to (and capable of) putting him down? Not as far as I can see. The next “debate” will tell the story, but I don’t think it’s happening.
Ball writes:
In the (possibly apocryphal) past, there would have been a smoke-filled room where the GOP grandees could meet and hatch a plan to excommunicate Trump. His success, and the inability to stop him, speaks to the weakness of the party establishment in the time of the Tea Party. These days, the counter-establishment devoted to attacking Republican incumbents often seems better organized than the establishment it harasses. (Early on, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tried calling Trump and asking him to back off; the tactic backfired.)
“Possibly apocryphal!!!???” Is she stupid or is that a phrase that was forced upon her by some lawyer-guided editor? Please!!! Ain’t no “apocryphal” about it, and those rooms are in action as we speak. Bet on it. Only thing is, they have no leverage on a multi-billionaire who doesn’t give a shit what they say because he has their number with his big right hand punch.
Which big right hand punch?
This one.
THIRD PARTY!!!
BOOM!!!
Down they go for fear of being made powerless. Better a nutcase president who is at least nominally a Republican (and on the evidence of his career will play ball) and continued control of the House and Senate than a DemRat president and the possibility of losing that legislative control.
UH oh!!!
There’s money to be made!!!
HELLO, RatPub candidate Trump!!!
Bet on that as well.
So who does that leave? Why the DemRats, of course. With some likely under-the-table help from the RatPubs because both parties want the sweet PermaGov fix deal to continue uninterrupted for as long as they can swing it.
But the question remains…which DemRat!!!???
Ay, there’s the rub.
Rub-a-dub-dub,
Two (or three) pols in a tub,
And who do you think they were?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
They all sailed out to sea,
‘Twas enough to make a man stare.
We shall see. Soon enough.
Does Hillary survive her email travails? And if she does, is she a good enough fighter? A willing enough fighter? After Bill was honey-trapped by the right, she was madder than hell.That’s when she publicly acknowledged a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Plainer words have yet to be spoken about the condition of the U.S., but I neither hear nor see that any of that fire remains in her. It’s all careful, defense-first fighting. She lost one battle to Obama that way and I think that she is on the way to losing another one…even earlier this time.
Does Unca Bernie have the public energy to take on the bully? At 75? I doubt it.
Does Affable Joe have a sufficient mean streak to successfully deck him? Maybe. But then what would we have? The Preznit from MBNA? I guess that would be better than the Preznit from Hell, but still…look where we are now after the Preznit from Narcissusville.
Hmmmm…
Stay tuned.
The soap opera continues.
Bet on it.
There are really three things that are sure in the life of a U.S.A-er
Death, taxes and a fix every four years.
Bet on that as well.
How are they gonna try to “fix” Trump?
We shall see.
Won’t we.
Watch.
Later…
AG
Who’s gonna knock Trump down? And when?
It’s getting late early out here, to paraphrase the great seer Yogi Berra.
Earlier than ever before, to my knowledge.
Let us pray…or be preyed upon.
Later…
AG
All true. I can add no more. I gave money to Bernie. He sent me a sticker and I put it on my car. But blacks hate Bernie so he’s not going to be nominated. The best we can hope for from Bernie is a split in the Democratic Party between the “we the people” faction and the “we the political whores” faction.
Jeb! vs Hillary? YAWN! A pox on both your houses.
Trump vs Hillary/Biden/O’Malley? YAWN! Pick your poison.
Any of the seven (10?) crazy Dwarves vs anyone acceptable to your PermaGov? Write in Mickey Mouse. Don’t get caught, it’s a trademark violation.
Apologies for the tangential question: if the PermaGov reinforces its control every four years, how does change ever happen?
How does change ever happen? It doesn’t. Not really. Only the outward trappings change. Tactics change. Not strategy.
Tactical considerations are are how you get wherever you want to go. Like a route to a given destination.
Strategic considerations have to do with the destination .
The desired destination of the corporate-controlled PermaGov is very much like what Ross Perot described in his debates w/Bill Clinton + Bush I.
Overall corporate profit at any cost, including the cost to the people of the so-called “home country.” Multinational corporations have no home country. Thus they owe nothing to anyone except their shareholders.
“Change?”
Chump change as far as The U.S. public is concerned.
Clinton I? Bush II? Obama? Clinton II, Bush III? Trump? All in the service…one way or another…of the PermaGov strategic goal.
And what is that goal?
Again…corporate profit.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Bet on it.
AG
○ Republic of TURKEY Is Hot for Lobbyists
The revolving door hard at work.
Buying alliances no matter what the result.
Disgusting.
AG
Thanks for the response, but I wasn’t asking how Bush, Clinton, et al, create change. I was curious about your theory (if any) for how citizens create change.
massappeal…
I really do not know, given this oligarchical system as it now stands.
People demonstrate for “change,” but are invariably very effectively minimized and thus sidelined by the media. At conventions they are herded into mini-internment camps and if they resist they are arrested and or beaten.
People organize for “change,” but the power of trillions of dollars in the hands of those who are making those trillions of dollars through resistance to change makes those organization seem trivially weak.
People resist in the streets for “change,” but if that resistance becomes even mildly stubborn the National Guard and the police simply shut the whole scene down.
People write on the web for “change,” but if a site becomes powerful enough to actually have any effect it goes the way of Daily Kos. Right into the center. Where the money is.
So like I said…i don’t know, massappeal. I think that “change” of the sort you are referencing only comes with real, troubling collapse, like the New Deal followed the Great Depression. And once that collapse is remedied, the system begins its usual trek towards…towards profit for the few and misery for the many.
Change that?
Good luck.
Survive, massappeal. Survive.
That’s the best i can offer.
Survive and try to reach a few others.
Dassit.
Later…
AG
Violence. it’s as American as Apple Pie. And it seems to be the only thing that works. They sit in their mansions and sneer, but they start to sweat when the mob comes with torches.
Only thing is…the mob never gets to the mansions. Not these days they don’t. They end up burning their own neighborhoods, and everybody except the rich sweats as a result.
AG
I will add here…the whole Tuesday Univision kerfuffle was played by the PermaGov media as Trump picking on some little reporter who was asking a question. More weak efforts to stop Trump, and they simply won’t work. The guy was out of turn; Trump told him to sit down; he didn’t and he was escorted out of the room. End of story. Trump had every right to do so. Later the reporter came back…was allowed back by Trump… and lobbed weakly reasoned and weakly phrased accusatory questions at Trump, which Trump proceed to smack right out of the stadium like he was taking batting practice.
These lame efforts are why Trump is on top of all of the polls. Anybody with half a mind could see that Megyn Kelly was trying to take him down right from the beginning of that Fox debate. Calling him names or saying that he is anti-immigrant and anti-female simply won’t work with this guy. Only hard facts…provable facts…will work. If no one digs deeply enough to find out what kinds of dirty business he has undoubtedly practiced during his rise to billionaire status…casino business, real estate business, financial business, bribe business, construction business, the usual litany of unavoidable shady deals with unavoidably shady people that produce his kind of wealth…then he’s not going to be stopped.
And that would be a big drag, because he is a dangerous man. He really is. A Trumped-up United States? Glitz from shore to shore. No content, all glitter. Like his Atlantic City casino, once the grift was over the country would collapse of its own emptiness.
Let us pray not.
And let us refuse to be preyed upon.
He is a predator. A very high-level predator. Nothing more.
Please.
Resist.
But resist efficiently.
Please.
Later…
AG
And what would efficient (or effective) resistance look like, in your view?
In this case? Waking up others to the problem that their present efforts…their tactics… are simply not going to work on Trump. I posted something here in the idea as early as mid-July:
The Trump Problem. You Cannot Laugh A Clown Offstage.
After people basically gave up on mockery as a useful tool, they started with insult. “Gotcha” stuff. He’s anti-minority, anti-Hispanic, anti-female. Only it backfired. They were….and continue…to do his advertising for him. His audience is “anti-minority, anti-Hispanic, anti-female.” Duh!!!
I repeat:
If had lived a life that enabled me to be an investigative reporter instead of a musician, that is exactly what I would be doing now. But I didn’t, so all I can do is point out the facts as I see them.
Dassit.
That’s all I can do.
You?
AG
Thanks for the response. I agree that using the kind of “opposition research” you describe could be an effective tactic against Trump.
More generally, I think most political/social/economic power comes from organized money and/or organized people. So…people should organize, in whatever ways makes sense for them.
(Slightly related is this interview with the deeply thoughtful and insightful Eric Foner, talking about abolitionism, the Civil War, Reconstruction and change: https:/www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/eric-foner-reconstruction-abolitionism-republican-party-lin
coln-emancipation )
The Donald’s ego will take him down. All it will take is the right person at the right time to poke him in the eye with words. His over the top response will convince the dumbest of the dumb that he has no business in charge of a bomb that will kill millions.
I don’t mean to be contrary, shan, but he is smarter than that. By far.Over the last 2 months he has been poked and prodded by pretty much the best the PermaGov media have to offer…a lame lot, overall, but that’s what’s available. He has not taken a backward step!!!
Not one.
He’s a tough cookie. Gotta give him that. Most sociopaths/megalomaniacs are. So it goes. Gotta find another approach…one for which he cannot formulate an answer., like a recorded backroom deal with the Mafia…..to take him down.
So that goes as well.
Watch.
AG
I’m not sure why anyone thinks that Trump is definitely going to implode, at least to the extent that he is going to be out of contention before the primaries actually begin.
The pig people don’t care about facts and evidence, and they just love emotional attacks levied by their favorite Dear Leader. All Trump really has to do is stay on the attack, give shit to any Republican who attempts to step into the race, and the media will continue covering him, giving him free advertisements to keep the pig people riled up.
That said, I believe Trump has basically 0% chance of getting elected President, and I also believe he kills the GOP dead if he becomes the nominee. Perhaps the only thing that would be better is if Trump ran as an Independent, thereby making it impossible for the Republican candidate to carry more than a handful of states. If I were a billionaire, I’d start dumping money into statewide elections and getting “capital I” Independents (I) in races that (D)s have a chance at winning, since Trump could throw down-ticket races to the (D) if he also ran as a capital I Independent (I).
Yes, I absolutely loathe the Republican party, whereas I just consider the Democratic party to be ineffective and basically useless in terms of enacting actual progressive policies.
First, kill the GOP as a national party. Then, when sane conservatives have to run as (D)s, progressives can pursue a new party/coalition to push shit to the left.
Until the entire BothSidesDoItTM BigLie is murdered, we’re stuck in the status quo that inches rightward economically and leftward socially, forever.
The panicked, chaotic reaction to Trump misses the point. Trump doesn’t start and stop. He is Trump and may at this point in life feel that he has nothing to lose. Presumably he has enough money to finance himself indefinitely (or is he lying about his wealth?) and has decided to give in to his penchant for brinkmanship and glitter. Unlike professional politicians, he has nothing on the line except himself and that’s what a lot people must like about him: he proves the myth of the rugged individual. Give me a gun in the wild west and I’ll give you a homestead and a dead US Aborigine…Mexican, give me a skyscraper on Fifth Ave. and I’ll give you the world! Just follow me and see. And if you don’t get what you thought you deserved, it’s your own damn fault. ‘Don’t bitch me’, says Donald Trump.
I have heard this man say he is “I’m like a really smart person.” on several occasions.
Trump Refuses To Release His College Transcript Despite Once Demanding Obama Release His
Talk is cheap. Release the transcripts of the little rich boy.
He doesn’t have to. The people who believe him, believe him and the people that don’t won’t believe anything including “transcripts”…transcripts that a billionaire could easily manage to alter, bet on it. He understands this full well. It’s the same principle that he used with the birther thing. The classic example is of this is the question “When did you stop beating your wife?” All the protestations in the world of “I never beat my wife!!!” will do no good once the question has been forcefully and publicly asked. There will be people…lots of people…who will always believe that someone did indeed beat his wife if it fits their worldview in some way, and there it is. The damage is done.
He is refusing to be hoist with his own petard, which really proves his intelligence. There is no question that his man is smart; the only question is what he will do with those smarts.
AG
Obama ran around shouting smart this and smart that, in fact referring to himself, echoed by his SoS. Such a superficial observation: someone is smart. The people I know who have done the dumbest things are amongst those I personally considered the smartest. Smartness has nothing to do with it, smart-ass, that’s what Trump is and I have just seen that the smart sex bomb former vice-presidential repugnant mandate has weighed in praising Trump. Will she run again? Is she smart? Stupid people can also do smart things. Maybe it’s time to concentrate on substance and not on personality.
It can’t hurt to call him out. Maybe he will lie and use his money to deceive us. Maybe he is like really smart. So is Ted Kaczynski so as Quentin says it doesn’t matter. Then call him on his net worth and the four bankruptcies.
The press has to call this piece of shit out on something. Trump is ratings just like violence and death. That is not acceptable its just not acceptable.
We cannot defeat ourselves by thinking of every ruse he’ll use before he uses it.
Sometimes I think he is some kind of Red Herring so that Vox Populi will think the other Repugs are sane or stable or human.
Not THAT smart.
None of them.
Bet on it.
AG