Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

anyways, the point is, this shit happens in plain sight and it's just normal now because he normalized it on a broad scale

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is no longer allowed on Trump properties or at Trump parties after a high-profile donor accused him of sexual misconduct...

'Donor' being the key word here

when you drive down a highway in the middle of nowhere, any state, and a white person passes you in the car, they're probably a fucking asshole. those are just the percentages. if they're in a city, hey some white people, some of them are cool ok. but if you're in a rural area, any state pretty much, it's better than 50/50 odds that this person either votes for trump or nods along to all that shit.

to me that is terrifying, and i say that with the obvious benefit of not being an immediate target. but even with that, it's just terrifying to me, to be in rural areas and walk around places and just be in the midst of total hysteria, just the fuckenn worst ever

Karl I obviously understand your despair but I need to remind you that widespread, baldfaced lying and enshrinement of white supremacy by our presidents has been a thing for ...uh... a pretty long time. The number of times the US has put military boots to the ground in other countries under false pretenses is enough to convince anyone of this fact, and that's just one arena of untruth and misrepresentation.

What is different is that with widespread social media usage and increased class and racial stratification, the ability for people to either reject these lies outright or strongly get behind them *as lies* has become more vocal, and in the latter case, more unhinged.

It's like, we all knew W was lying. Everyone knew he was lying.

Same with Bush Sr. and Reagan.

And to be fucking honest, same with Obama and Clinton, too.

But that's obvious, all politicians are lying sacks of shit, this country is doomed, etc.

i think all of that is true, but there was a difference. you may have known. many people here probably knew. i'm talking about this:

It's like, we all knew W was lying. Everyone knew he was lying.

Same with Bush Sr. and Reagan.

And to be fucking honest, same with Obama and Clinton, too.

i truly believe that most people reading this knew, most of those times. maybe not, but i think of ilxors as people who tend to "know" things at a rate that is above average, and you know what? i'll take it. BUT

it was still coded, or hidden. there was still an attempt to at least cover it with a veneer of plausibility or at least a competently constructed chart or something. that, alone, was enough to create a whole subclass of george will / david brooks "respectable" centrists that could be the "intellectual" (ugh) face of the GOP and the punditry, etc.

i believe that what's happening now is categorically different than that. i understand that this all goes way back. it's not new, donald trump didn't invent it, i get all that. i'm saying that shit gets real when the veneer wears off, when suddenly it becomes very clear that if you stand with THIS, you are standing for a fascist autocrat. ----waitwaitwaitwaitwait i know, that was also very clear in 2016. in fact, everyone here is so smart that THEY knew that the fascist autocracy was coming in the mid-70s. but now, all the excuses are gone, it's not even debated, there's no other explanation for trump. it's just are you for the christian fascist party or not. it's different, not because it feels different to any of you (of course it doesn't -- you already knew it would happen) but because it feels different to other people

and so, to me at least, it is different now, and terrifying, to drive down rural highways and know that the person is not only likely a trump voter, but also that a "trump voter" is something kind of new, kind of like being a "wallace voter" in the 60s, only wallace is dominant

Normally when somebody loses the presidency (and perhaps loses Congress as well), the defeated party pretty much shuns them and stops inviting them to things, at least for awhile. That didn't happen here. The big loser that lost everything is arguably still the top republican, and there isn't even a splinter faction to speak of.

just like when Bush Sr lost, right? lol

god, also the fact that since Bush Sr lost, republicans have only won the popular vote ONCE in a presidential election, and even that was close

The moment a democrat wins the electoral without the popular, only then will the GOP call for dismantling the Electoral College.. it's worked out pretty well for them overall

but i see table's point. and it's sad, just thinking - during the last few decades, as we've tilted toward elections where democrats must carry 55-60% of the vote in order to have a chance of holding majorities, i'm sure good old bush sr and many of his pals had a good idea of what was coming ahead.

i'm just saying, i think things are different now because that evil scum has been totally revealed and there's no easy excuse for doofuses to point to anymore. things are very stark now

A one term president who lost by seven million votes might rethink his platform and messaging, but that also not the case here... he's doubling down. Critical race theory? Does he even know what that is? No, he doesn't, but it's good for some applause.

Even the freaking Taliban seem to know this

but...do you see how it doesn't matter?

put aside whether it should matter (though not permanently - god, please, let us all maintain our ideas of why it SHOULD matter!)

but do you see how it doesn't matter?

sometimes people want a King.

i imagine rolled eyes, but maybe not. sometimes people want a king. christians want a King. they want a king to come and return and rule for eternity. that's part of being a christian. that's most of the people in the US, still. the aggrieved white christian minority. so hard for them, and yet, when it comes down to it they all want a king

so it shouldn't be surprising that when a wannabe autocrat comes along, no matter how incompetent they are, and they have the correct answer on abortion, they are the king

Since losing both elections he ran in hasn't diminished his power, the only real question is, would a... non-electoral solution (think JFK) do anything? In that situation, would someone equally compelling spring up in his place? I doubt it. People are forever talking about how "if it's not him, it'll be someone like him, but smarter and more competent," but I don't think that's true. And I think there's an easy(ish) and obvious way to prove that hypothesis.

'non-electoral solution'

I'm thinking choking on a hot wing bone, but whatever works

No, it's got to be obviously external.

Getting back to the Ashli Babbit thing I think Jeet Heer was saying that she’s becoming Trumpworld’s Horst Wessel in a new Dolchstosslegend.

Not sure what you’re saying unperson. the only non-electoral solution that seems to be on the horizon to me is legislatures in republican states, by the laws they are enacting now, overturning legitimate vote counts in 2024 to install their preferred candidate, Trump

I'm talking about the kind of non-electoral solution that involves a man in a high place with a rifle.

:) ok get it now

BACK and to the LEFT.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AromaticBelatedJapanesebeetle-max-1mb.gif

Oliver Stone's DJT

sometimes people want a King.

i imagine rolled eyes, but maybe not. sometimes people want a king. christians want a King. they want a king to come and return and rule for eternity. that's part of being a christian. that's most of the people in the US, still. the aggrieved white christian minority. so hard for them, and yet, when it comes down to it they all want a king

No rolled eyes here, I think this is absolutely true and always has been. The idea that everyone likes or is on board with democracy, I just don't see it. The rural peasant class in multiple democracies resisted the introduction of democracy in the first place, I don't see that that has fundamentally changed

I think the fascism angle isn't the right one, its monarchy/aristocracy rather than fascism (which I think certainly overlaps but isn't what we're seeing here).

i think they want a solomon but they're going to get a fascist instead

a lot of people on ilx haven't prayed in a long time, i'd wager. here is a contemporary prayer:

Pray for him to have courage. Because I can tell you that when you step into this, everybody’s out to get you. Everybody’s out to make you look bad. And there’s a lot of you know, there’s a lot of just spiritual warfare stuff that seems to happen in the middle of it. Like, I don’t fully understand why this audit is so pivotal in what’s happening in our country right now. But it is in the spiritual realm. It’s not just in the physical realm. It has a core impact of where our country is going. And I’m truly believing for revival. I don’t know how revival comes out of an audit, but that’s what I’ve been praying for.

that was the ceo of the bullshit "arizona audit" company cyber ninjas (oh, stfu people who name these things)
https://flux.community/right-wing-watch/peter-montgomery/2021/10/ceo-company-hired-arizona-republicans-says-americans-must

after the audit found nothing, the ceo of cyber ninjas and virginia state senator and shitlord Amanda Chase held a call with a bunch of christians to complain about how persecuted they were and share good thoughts about how the apocalypse is nigh.

IFA’s Kris Kubal told listeners to be encouraged, saying that if God were done with America, “there would be no battle,” adding that “We know that God still has plans and purposes because the enemy is trying his best to stop them.”

When Chase joined the call, she commended Logan, saying, “He has the mind of Christ,” adding that she knew that whatever the “audit” revealed, “it’s gonna be the truth.”

Chase complained about Democrats’ control of the Virginia statehouse and legislature, claiming, “I basically live in a Marxist state.” She complained about being censured for saying that the 2020 election was stolen and for having a plexiglass wall built around her desk when she refused to wear a mask. “You just would not even believe the amount of persecution” she said.

She charged that “there was complete maladministration by Maricopa County” and claimed, “They just obstructed justice.” Republican officials in Maricopa County and journalists have repeatedly discredited the “audit” as procedurally flawed and a partisan ploy.

Chase said that we are living in the End Times and that things written about in the biblical book of Revelation are being fulfilled, but that there is still work to do. “Virginia is not a lost cause,” she said, urging people to pray for the state’s elections and saying that “the best number one solution for Virginia to have better election integrity is to elect a Republican governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and replace all the members in the House so that we have Republican majority.” Having a Republican governor, she said, would mean a state election board with a Republican majority, “and that will change everything.”

Chase said that the “election integrity caucus” she started has had five or six phone calls. Caucus members are still reviewing and digesting the Cyber Ninjas’ final report, she said, before releasing a statement on behalf of the group.

Logan closed the session with a prayer for revival, asking, “May our nation remember its roots, its Christian roots, oh God, and may they turn away from their wicked ways.”

what do they want? monarchy? fascism? theocracy? heaven on earth? they want heaven on earth. does anyone _want_ fascism? not really, since mussolini. but they'll get some version of it

“Virginia is not a lost cause,” she said

with no apparent awareness, at all, of anything that had ever happened

The rural peasant class in multiple democracies resisted the introduction of democracy in the first place, I don't see that that has fundamentally changed

To be fair the introduction of democracy didn't include the rural peasant class at all in most cases (only allowing votes for ppl w/ a certain degree of schooling, heads of households, etc.)

many would argue that the introduction of democracy did not include almost everyone

Like any women at all.

Getting back to the Ashli Babbit thing I think Jeet Heer was saying that she’s becoming Trumpworld’s Horst Wessel in a new Dolchstosslegend.

― And of course the worms! (Boring, Maryland), Monday, October 11, 2021 8:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

A second trump term would be more surreal and fucked up than the first. It must be presented.

Saw an interview with Babbit's mom. She insists that she supports the police, but that the capital police are not real police and should be investigated. Also, that the election was stolen, there's been a cover up, and that her daughter died fighting for the truth.

These people barely know which way is up.

I forgive her mom. Her daughter was shot. She truly doesn’t know what way is up. The former president is going on tv to wish her dead daughter happy birthday and proclaim her total innocence, that in fact she was a martyr. All those things make perfect sense to a grieving family.

I blame everyone else

Semi related, but doesn't the father of one of the survivors of the Parkland massacre now think his son is a crisis actor?

I read that long New Yorker piece on Kyle Rittenhouse, and at the end of it I did kind of emerge thinking "I blame everyone else." Because he *was* led astray, and other people actively took advantage of him, and so on. But then I shook myself out of it and recalibrated. "No, wait, fuck that kid, he was definitely vulnerable and taken advantage of and exploited, but he still went out of his way to shoot three people."

Karl, your points well-taken regarding my comments from yesterday. You have to understand that in the world I was in as a teenager, the teens read Harper's and the adults had "WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER" stickers on their Volvos— I think that a lot of people knew what was happening was a sham, same with the 2000 election, but that my environment was much more progressive than most, so I sometimes forget how gung-ho jingoist the rest of this godforsaken country still was when Baghdad was lit up in 2003.

Who could have known that The King would be a twice-divorced, serially bankrupt casino developer smothered in tanning spray?

Mysterious ways, indeed

Really want to know his take on the Bad Art Friend.

Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time!

🤔 Trump just threatened to have Republican voters stay home in 2022 and 2024 unless the party is able to "solve" (by which he seems to mean overturn) the result of the last presidential election, which he lost. pic.twitter.com/sHvXHrKZtH

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 13, 2021

Trump to launch new social media platform TRUTH Social

TMTG, which he chairs, also intends to launch a subscription video-on-demand service.

TMTG said its video-on-demand service would "feature 'non-woke' entertainment programming, news, podcasts, and more"..

Finally a venue for the Song of the South/Faces of Death dream pairing

Excited for a group of bored teens to hack this site and dox everyone who signs up

But within hours, pranksters found what appeared to be an unreleased test version and posted a picture of a defecating pig to the “donaldjtrump” account.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/21/trump-truth-social-fake-accounts/

Apparently there is no platform yet, just a sign-up page

The site looks almost entirely like a Twitter clone: A user can post Truths, which are like tweets, or Re-Truths, which are retweets. There’s also a news feed, called the Truth Feed, a notification system so users can know “who’s interacting with your TRUTH’s,” the social network’s App Store profile states.

so far beyond parody

there was one, the skeleton of one. they took it down after signing up donaldjtrump and mikepence (pranking teens and a washington post reporter, respectively) within a couple hours

The best part of that fake profile was the profile pic was the taco bowl photo.

TRUTH can't handle the truth.