So…Booman has posted yet another attempt at making Trump look ridiculous.
Donald Trump and the Other Wall
And the responses are ludicrous.
“I still have to wonder what he’s actually doing. Does he really want to be president? He’d be like the dog who caught the car.”
“Perhaps he isn’t really thinking that far ahead. He’s a colossal narcissist, so he’s got to be enjoying all the attention. And not just attention, but slavish adoration from his followers. So he may just be reveling in it, and not really thinking about where it leads to.”
“As far as I can tell, it’s 99.4% an ego trip for Mr. Trump.”
“I agree that it’s all a big ego trip for Trump. Listen to his comments about actual governing: he knows nothing about the Constitution that he hasn’t gotten as Cliff Notes talking points. He claims to be a superior businessman, but he’s had to be bailed out of bankruptcy. He claims to have economic strategies for building industry in the US, but he has yet to spell them out. We know he’s an empty suit.”
Sigh…
Read on.
Yes, he is a potential monster if elected.
Yes, he is sincere in what he is saying and sincere in his desire for the presidency. He really believes that he has the answers to what is going on in this sinking country.
And a big, fat NO!!! to any and all opponents of his candidacy who:
A-Refuse to take him seriously.
B-Believe that ridicule will eventually wake up his supporters and save the U.S. from a Trump presidency. As I said in another post, you cannot laugh a clown offstage.
C-Think that he is “stupid.”
and
D-Think that Hillary Clinton would easily beat him in a national election.
So…resolved: Trump is not a “good” candidate for president and his presidency would eventually be catastrophic for both the U.S. and the world.
Here’s the debate question:
What are you gonna do about it?
I mean really, folks.
You’ve been lapping up the mass media drivel about what a bad guy he is for months now and regurgitating it on sites like this one. And yet he continues to soar in the polls. How? Why? Because for every one of you there are two or three or a dozen others who think that the entire media system is full of shit and kneejerk in the opposite direction from your own hammered leftiness reflexes.
Wake the fuck up.
What’re you gonna do about it?
Seriously.
Hmmmmm….
Back HRC?
C’mon…he’ll clean her clock in terms of what the people who agree with him think, and lots of them will come out of their houses and vote for the first time in a long time because they sense a kindred spirit. Meanwhile, HRC will most certainly lose large parts of the massive minority vote that got Obama elected. Hell, if Obama could run again he would lose large parts of that vote because he hasn’t come down hard enough on the various homicidal, racist cops that have dominated the news for the past couple of years. Plus…Trump will point out over and over again that he warned against Middle Eastern destabilization well before all hell broke loose over there while HRC sat on her rump and voted for it and then later as Secretary of State essentially presided over the moves that enabled the ISIS rebellion to gain such strength.
There is a serious rightward movement going on throughout Europe now, an anti-Muslim movement that is a direct result immigrations that are entirely due to policies put in place while HRC was in the Senate and later Secretary of State. She can’t disown that responsibility because she was so public about supporting it out front.
So…what to do, what to do?
Damned if I know.
The very first thing that we must do is…sigh again…WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
Hmmmmm…
And now the news.
Trump is still in the headlines. 40+% in the polls over his RatPub rivals and pulling away.
Bill Clinton is being equated with Bill Cosby. That’s gonna be a big help to HRC, eh?
Most of Northern Europe had a big wake-up call New Year’s Eve when large groups of Middle Eastern men went nuts in the middle of major cities and molested European women by the hundreds…non-Muslim women that in many of the more primitive fundamentalist Muslim cultures are considered to be no better than whores. Even peaceful Finland is seeing the rise of vigilante groups now, a development that…I have spent a good deal of time there over the years and have many Finnish friends…surprises me no end. Imagine if something along the same lines happened…involving any ethnic group…in say Cincinnati, Boston, Seattle and Boston. Please. There’d be blood in the streets before a week went by.
There’s a situation going on in Oregon that’s only one shot away from becoming Waco II. If it does, that will strengthen the Trump candidacy even more.
And y’all are still treating him as some kind of joke.
Wake the fuck up.
The joke’s gonna be on you, sooner rather than later.
Bet on it.
Watch.
Personally, I think that there is only one Dem politician of national stature who could successfully run against Trump.
Elizabeth Warren.
And she’s not running.
UH oh!!!
Bernie?
Please.
He’d go all petulant during a debate and viewers the nation over would turn him off like a defective light bulb.
Who else?
Anybody?
I’m all ears.
And worried, too.
AG
Petulant? More petulant than Trump?
The word “petulant…”
To me it means weakly, unenforceably angry, unable to be backed up by action. The foot stamping of a dissatisfied child.
Trump threatens much more than that. He threatens an S.S./.Gestapo-like force that will round up thousands and thousands of “undesirables” and export them back to their homelands.
Where does that “undesirable” definition end, exactly?
Mexico?
Central America?
Africa?
The Middle East?
All anti-PermaGov forces in the U.S.?
Where?
“Petulant” has nothing to do with it.
Given the potential force implicit in a U.S. presidency?
Almost infinite in scope.
Watch.
AG
Its a bit early for so much fear and loathing. Without any real votes its as hard to say who will come out on top as it is easy to assume it will be Trump. But lets look at some things.
First, Trump is where he is in the polls largely because he has been able to control the battle field and play to his own strengths. He’s also benefited from the large field of candidates. But as the voting starts and the field narrows, he will find himself in a different sort of contest with candidates who haven’t really been damaged by his attack style. Another related angle is that all the attacks against Trump so far have been weak and poorly pursued. You cannot beat even someone as ill prepared as Jeb with that weak sauce. Rubio and Cruz are likely to have a better strategy than Jeb–mostly because they are taking the time to develop one.
Second, his comical ego and self serving bluster will wear thin. As time passes his attack style will have less impact. I think we’ve seen him have great impact on Bush–largely because Bush was not prepared to run a contested campaign, but also because he became an early–and laughably easy–target. I think we’ve already seen the impact of his bluster lessen. Another angle on this is the more he attacks the more people he turns off. The Republicans already have a demographics problem and he makes it much worse.
Third, Trump relies largely on his bluster about being a winner. If he looses much beyond Iowa, he won’t look much like a winner. Since he hasn’t built much of a traditional campaign structure and what he has built got started late, there is a big chance he will not turn out the votes.
So far Trump looks like a one-dimensional campaigner with a limited site picture. He has made several mistakes that caused him considerable trouble among all but a dedicated following. If he wins he will not have the large field of contenders to diluting the pool of voters. His style is more likely to drive people toward the Democratic nominee than away. Since he clearly drinks the right-wing conspirosphere cool-aide, he is prone to making remarks that get easily disproved and so have him more or less explaining–or spinning. We all know how good a communication strategy that is. Finally, there have been several comments from the establishment of the party about the potential destructive impact on the party if Trump wins the nomination. If true, the resulting chaos will make more people look on him and his campaign as dangerous and he’ll have very little time to make anything useful out of it.
I’m not trying to paint an overly rosy picture here, we have pitfalls of our own. But the point is that we have some valuable time, Trump is not all that, and we already see the Clinton campaign not being willing to play in Trump’s backyard, so lets take a deep breath and focus on what we can do to keep the elephants out of our china shop.
You write:
And who exactly will that be? I can’t think of one candidate like that, myself. You?
Oh yeah? How many months has he been climbing the polls so far? When does this begin to happen?
He has gone straight up in the polls by doing exactly that!!! When exactly do you think that this progress will begin to regress?
We shall see. Won’t we.
“We all know how good a communication strategy that is!!!???” Whadda you, kiddin’ me or what!!!??? Since you obviously clearly drink the progressive conspirosphere Kool-Aid, why should I pay any attention whatsoever to what you are saying? He’s winning every goddamned poll available and has been doing so for about 6 months.
Wake the fuck up.
He’s a serious candidate and the current front-runner.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
For our consideration:
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10732496/donald-trump-implode
“The kind of persona-based, expectations-based support Trump is receiving works as long as it’s working. It wins as long as it’s winning.
But “I always win” is a brittle claim. All it takes to disprove it is a single loss.
And eventually, Trump will lose something — maybe Iowa, maybe New Hampshire, maybe just a couple of news cycles. (And make no mistake: To a winner, second place is losing.) When he’s being pressed to explain his loss, what he did wrong, do you suppose he will acknowledge error?
No. What error could there be? He can’t communicate his message any better. The message is Trump. And he’s Trump! If voters aren’t voting for him, they’re stupid.
…
Under attack, or in the face of skepticism or, y’know, losing, Trump’s thin skin will make him defensive and volatile. He can’t modulate, can’t do humility, can’t abide the thought of anyone above him. All his claims, all his stories, all his insults are yuge, the best you’ll find anywhere.
The same belligerence that looked like strength when Trump was on top will look defensive and bitter when he’s not. And the more doubtful or skeptical voters and the media become, the more Trump will escalate, the more his chest will puff. He doesn’t know any other strategy. He’ll enter a negative spiral as self-reinforcing as his rise has been.
For as long as he’s been in the US public eye, Trump’s been winning. He won every week on The Apprentice, and ever since he descended on his classy escalator, he has dominated every week of the GOP primary. Most of his supporters (few of whom reside in New York City) have never seen Trump when he’s losing.
I suspect they won’t like it. And he won’t like them for not liking it. And they won’t like that either. And so will go the inevitable fall.
“
To add to these points, Trump has never won a single vote from a public electorate. His viability remains a theoretical proposition. As well as he is polling in the GOP primary, there is an ocean of voters who have not identified themselves as Trump supporters. He has a long and disgusting personal and public record that he adds to every day which the Democratic candidate and their supporters would roll out; they won’t be shy to throw away the votes of racists and sexists, unlike the Republican candidates. The GOP base voter pool is highly distinct from the general electorate; very few will like Trump’s record. And he will most definitely turn out people to vote against him.
Worry if you like. I am not worried, one bit. Here’s some perspective:
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/spring/lbj-and-white-backlash-1.html
“It was the summer of 1964, and Lyndon Johnson was scared. Having just achieved one of the greatest congressional victories in history by passing the Civil Rights Act (CRA) over the strident objections of his native South, Johnson was now confronted by black riots in several urban centers. He feared that his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, would exploit the racial turmoil by appealing to the white backlash. The riots were even labeled “Goldwater rallies” since the conflagrations helped the GOP so directly. Would racial politics cost LBJ the White House?“
How’d that turn out?
“Finally, there have been several comments from the establishment of the party
about the potential destructive impact on the party if Trump wins the nomination.”
All the more reason for non-registered Democrats and Independents to vote FOR Trump during the primaries. GO TRUMP GO!
According to a PPP poll in December, in a 3-way match-up running as an Independent, Donald Trump would get a majority of the Independent voters.
I fear we’re missing something big and unfortunate.
Yes, we are missing something big and unfortunate.
Oui quotes the NY Times as saying:
The kicker here is “…including several on Long Island…”
I wrote in a comment recently:
“…including several on Long Island…”
I grew up on Long Island. It was…and remains to a great degree…the prototypical suburban, middle-to-upper middle class bedroom suburbia. It is solidly “conservative” in the sense that it elects large numbers of Republicans, many of whom are…like Sen. Al D’Amato and Rep. Peter King…foaming at the mouth warmongers and
not socloset racists. Here is the map of Trump’s support configuration from the Times article that Oui referenced.Please notice his strength in the bedroom suburb areas around Boston, NYC and Washington DC. These are not strongholds of redneck Christian fundamentalism nor are they failing Rust Belt cities, the two areas where common wisdom might expect large numbers of white people to support Trump. They are solidly middle class and above. he has yet to really reach out past the midwest and south, but if he shows strong in the early primaries you can bet that he will do so. Big time. His coalition will end up being working class whites, middle class and upper class whites and down-to-the-bone Tea Party types/redneck, peckerwood racists. Across the country. North and south, east and west and all that stuff in the middle, too.
I repeat:
Look at the map. Like I said…
UH oh!!!
Watch.
The Trump cancer will metastasize westward.
Watch.
AG
I hear you. I grew up on the North Shore near Queens and Trump has perfected the cadence, accent and, sadly, the acerbic, often ungenerous, opinions of the working-class, cops and firemen I recall from youth. I doubt much has changed. This is a constituency that hasn’t been spoken to in their own language much at all; Christie is another purveyor of this genre and but he hasn’t been able to make the transition. Trump’s appeal in formerly working-class cohorts nationwide I fear is being vastly underestimated; we won’t really know until post-Cleveland and that’s too damn late. I think we had better nominate Bernie, frankly, he’s our only hope. When Republicans realise he’s also ‘Trump the Hillary-hunter’ they are going to have a group hug and cheer-lead him all the way.
To Trump, in his innocence, there isn’t local, state and national constituencies; just cameras. He’s a modern man in that respect.
Yes Shaun!!!
Would that more “progressives” had progressed to the same level.
AG
Trump’s strategy should be to wrap up the nomination early and pivot against Hillary. As entertaining as it might be months of him jumping on Hillary and Bill’s every nerve is a pretty big risk.
No risk if you have nothing to lose.
What happens if he fails?
More celebrity.
Win/win.
The perfect negotiation.
AG
I meant a risk to Hillary specifically and Democrats in general. I see only one reason why a Trump candidacy is flawed and that is the certain knowledge that he is not going to pay for a general election campaign out of his own pocket; yet it is a conundrum which strikes at the heart of his campaign’s narrative and legitimacy.
He’s made a promise he will have to walk-back even before the election; assuming he’s nominated.
Once he’s nominated the money will flow towards him….if only because it’s good for business.
Business interests recognize a winner before the voters. After all, they’er the ones who control the media.
Watch.
AG
His whole shtick is that he’s not answerable to anyone but his supporters and offers as proof his self-funding campaign. He’s gotten lots of mileage out of this at the debates too. And he’s put his money where his mouth is which is very important to his new-found, wannabe constituents. This is a big part of his act and an article of trust with his potential supporters.
I watched him try to wriggle out of it a couple of times at early televised live events; it seemed already exercising whatever morsel of his brain is labelled ‘planning ahead’. But it didn’t fly; in fact it fell flat every time.
“What do you think, folks, should I let them give me some of their money…?”, he asked, or some-such, unironically. Each time a noisy, encouraging crowd fell into petulant silence and inarticulate jeers. He even tried to promise it wouldn’t make any difference to him or his voice for the people, on their trust. Nah. They weren’t buying any and he quickly changed the subject..
Haven’t seen him try since, anyone else? I reckon this is a serious problem for him; maybe even strategically disqualifying for the general. I reckon a pivot to accepting outside money, even RNC money, is the most dangerous moment of his campaign; maybe fatal. I have never heard this essential paradox of his campaign explained satisfactorily, or even mentioned. How does he perpetuate his whole shtick after he’s nominated? I don’t get it. Anyone who thinks he’s self-financing a billion dollar presidential election campaign doesn’t know the same Trump I do. When I see him working this spiel lately I have to wonder if he’s unserious about the nomination and what lays beyond.
I have stated early on, Donald is the teflon man. Once he stays out in front during the early primaries, he is home free.
He gets even more leeway to do as he pleases, people tend to back the “winner”.
Oui pins it below. Once Trump has the nomination the Republican Party machine will be forced to support him…financially, in terms of rhetoric/spiel, whatever…or contemplate electoral suicide.
Plus…a hype machine like The Donald almost doesn’t need advertising. The networks advertise for him every time he says or does something outrageous. He understands this on a visceral level. His “schtick” is natural. He ain’t acting, per se; he’s just being himself. He’s genuine on some very deep levels, and his supporters are moved by this authenticity more than by what he says or does.
Much more.
AG
Is not that the GOP will need to support him but that the populist rationale of his outsider candidacy evaporates when he accepts corporate money. I’m pretty convinced of this.
Betcha it doesn’t happen. His supporters are now so convinced of his ubermensch status…he’s played them perfectly…that he can do no wrong.
AG
This seems to me the Achilles heel of his campaign. In any case I agree he is not to be underestimated; trust Donald to have caught this wave, of all people.
It hasn’t worked that way for Hillary. People see what they want to see.
“I am speaking of white working and middle-class New Jersey, Long Island, Queens, a large part of (non-hyped) Brooklyn, Staten Island and the counties north of NYC that are not part of the Manhattan bedroom suburban sprawl.” Same here in the Chicago Suburbs as Long Island. People are PISSED! And Obama shooing them away, cooking the books to make the economy look good is just feeding that innate mistrust of government.
Yes, Voice!!!
Precisely.
Same same throughout the most of the rest of the country.
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Buffalo
Rochester
Detroit
Atlanta
Indianapolis
And other points west and south.
Watch.
AG
If this is where New Yorkers come to warn our compatriots not to underestimate the public’s appetite for Trump’s brand of demagoguery count me in. Consider yourselves warned.
We can revisit this after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
I think that Trump scored a direct hit on Cruz at the end of this week or all of a sudden birtherism is dead by bipartisan agreement.
Ridicule has limited worth in motivating people to vote, which I believe is the whole point of elections. If they laugh and don’t mark a ballot when the time comes, the gesture is worthless as far as political power is concerned. That is true. The question is whether Trump can shift so as to broaden the number of people who will march down to their precinct and mark the ballot for him. Or is his current percentage of Republican voters his ceiling? We don’t know and will not know until there are actual votes that count for electing delegates and he has banked a number of delegates compared to others.
And far enough along in the primaries, you can look at actual turnout comparisons between the Democratic primaries and the Republican primaries compared to previous cycles.
There are a lot of people, much more than previous years, saying “Well, the United States of America has had a pretty good run to make it 240 years.” And forsee an unraveling this year. I don’t know yet whether that is a collective “Wheeeeee” or a turn to sobriety in political thinking.
Also more people are predicting very low turnouts, which I doubt will be true of all demographics.
Here is a soothing children’s bedtime story along that line by Arthur Silber, Arthur Silber, Power of Narrative: Once Upon a Time.
Interesting that the framing is the opposite of “Wake the Fuck Up!”
Typically clowns get yanked offstage with a hook because they are not funny.
And it is proper you should remind us about Gandhi’s four stages of a popular movement:
The hidden assumption is that neither Trump nor the other clowns on the stage represent a popular movement sufficient to govern the country. That assumption just might not be true. Remember the complacency about Reagan.
Sliber’s story rings false.
Why?
Because the corporate-controlled media…just like a drug dealer…will not let its addicts kick peacefully. No money in it. Instead it will make ever-more powerful drugs available with exciting new names.
Death’s Head
New Age
Obama
Trump
Like dat.
And the addicts will continue to buy the poison until they wake the fuck up.
If ever.
And if and when they do wake the fuck up?
They’ll fall asleep again sooner or later. That’s why they’re called “revolutions.”
The controllers will wait.
Eventually it all comes around again.
Same old addictions, brand new drugs.
Just as it’s always been.
Just as it’s always been.
Later…
AG
Silber’s story is explicitly framed as a comforting bedtime story that exploits false sang-froid as a comforter.
I understand that oxygen and hydrous oxide are addictions as well. And sleep. And a certain blood-sugar level.
There are no monsters under the bed; it’s the barbarians at the gate; in their limousines. And their escorts of security.
There may not be any monsters under the bed, Tarheel, but their surveillance apparatus is damned well watching you, me and everyone else. i am quite confident that there are algorithms in place that at least purport to single out people of real danger to the PermaGov. Not Bush II’s “terr’ists” and such…they do the PermaGov a favor by keeping its subjects in a state of constant fear. Quiet desperation, as Thoreau had it. The real danger lies in people like Ed Snowden. People like you and me, too. The whistle blowers, the messengers of a certain truth.
Da watchbird’s watching us all, now.
Bet on it.
And dis is some watchbirds, watching you!!!
Bet on it.
AG
○ Joe Biden ‘Feels the Bern’–Boosts Bernie Against Hillary
○ Joe Biden just trolled Hillary Clinton. Big time.
Posted earlier in fladem’s diary – Amazing Day in polls: maybe some dem blogs will notice.