Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

They can interview my family: they hate anyone whom they suspect of receiving unearned benefits. That's the whole story.

don’t actually do anything noticeable to decrease his vote count.

well except decreasing it below how many EVs the leading vote-getter had. the important part.

that's the main thing. we all want all of these controversies to like, embarrass Trump and cause him to lose 538-0, but in today's America nothing like that will ever happen again, even if the candidate is a dog with one leg. I do too! but each party has a significant amount of built in votes now which requires humongous domino-toppling to flip. Georgia is a state a Dem can flip, and Pennsylvania could be flipped by an R like Trump did, but flipping Texas or a Republican flipping California would likely require massive vote-rigging.

but these things DO have an effect on his performance, just not in the monumental way we want it to happen. the impact is more noticeable at midterms, but Trump could have spun COVID into a war-time bump to his numbers and instead it became a liability.

lets be real I think most dogs would probably win in a landslide right now

Eminem vs 2 loud-assed, motherfuckin' barking dogs 2028

but yeah I think you're right, that stuff does move the needle a little, particularly amongst a subset of middle/upper class Republicans who legitimately do not like Trump. I know some of these people and when they talk politics it really is always about boring local issues, like who should be paying for this sidewalk, whether or not the Olive Garden should be subsidized, why the "free market" will always be better than a centralized system, etc. etc. They do not give a shit about Hunter Biden or Bud Lite or "wokeness" or CRT or any of the other shit Ron DeSantis constantly talks about. they really dislike violent protests but that's as far as they go in that direction. I really do think some of them are flippable, I know because I happen to know a few who actually did vote Biden, mostly because they think Trump is really bad for conservatism in general.

that said I think it's true that your average Trump voter is just someone whose life isn't great, who is probably working their ass off just to get by, who doesn't really give a shit about politics other than the fact that everyone is screwing them, so when they do consume any political media they're led directly to FOX News or Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro or anyone else who will talk to them like they're a child, who insist that everything sucks but it could get better if only we elimainate wokeness or whatever. it doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to. when people like Rex Tillerson say Trump's an idiot, they think "if he's an idiot than I'm an idiot too, and I'm no idiot. You're the idiot."

If Trump can be said to have a talent, it surely is convincing those people that he is one of them, and not one of the Rex Tillersons of the world. Which, truth to be told, he really would be if not for his father's money.

frogbs otm except about their money. I walk among Cuban McMansions with Trump or DeSantis signs every morning

A sense of aggrievement is universal

multi-xps if I had to put it in a nutshell, I'd say reactionaries fear anything unfamiliar or difficult to understand, modern life is inherently complex and difficult to understand, fascism promises to control that complexity by violently suppressing or removing whatever provokes those fears, while progressives attempt to explain why those fears are unnecessary - and fail because the explanations themselves are complex and difficult to understand.

xp And Trump is a writhing mass of aggrievement, the filthy little climber.

non-reactionaries need a far better model of the reactionary mind, as most Discourse on this shit doesn’t have an accurate idea what motivates voter behavior, or even voter whim

It begins with o and ends with s

The middle part is wnthelib

It begins with o and ends with s

The middle part is wnthelib

Well yeah, _ressentiment_ is certainly a core part much of it, but it doesn’t explain why some would go for DeSantis and some for Trump. And how many people are just regular GOP voters out of some vaguely understood habit of voting GOP because that’s what they’ve done for decades.

frogbs otm except about their money. I walk among Cuban McMansions with Trump or DeSantis signs every morning

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, June 30, 2023 12:21 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure but the dynamic going on with Cubans in Florida is a very different thing entirely, idk if I understand it really but I've heard they really do push the "everything left of George W Bush is COMMUNISM!!" angle hard

I've worked some blue collar jobs and it did occur to me that you could accurately predict who was left or right leaning based on the amount of shit they gave you if you slacked off/came a few minutes late/didn't hit your target. some people were like "this job sucks" and others were like "my coworkers suck" and its the people in the latter category who always seemed to be particularly upset about Barrack Obama

sure! I'm just reminding of you of the difference!

i.e. rich people like Trump

Biden communist About 12,100,000 results (0.44 seconds) xpost to frogs

I mean, I think Dem = Communist is hardwired into conservative rhetoric now

74 million people voted for trump. I'm not sure outlining the psychology of the "average trump voter" is anything more than solipsistic fantasizing.

OTOH, Arlie Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land attempts to explain the specific resentment of benefits/entitlements that both frogbs and Alfred mentioned and her main points are fairly solid. But it is imo pretty flawed; most unforgivably, she simply takes her white xtian GOP louisianan interlocutors' word for it that they aren't motivated by racism

Dem = Communist is hardwired into conservative rhetoric now

The irony is that so many of the FDR policies that are now considered 'communist' (social security, new deal, WPA etc.) were promoted explicitly to avoid communism which was much more of a threat in the 1930's than it is now

somehow the overwhelming irony of so much of US politics never seems to make any difference to how people vote

Ironocracy

Always nice to see it made explicit

Donald Trump says he's a target of special counsel's criminal probe into 2020 election aftermath | CNN Politics https://t.co/AWXSCayEfL

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 18, 2023

countdown to post saying this doesn't mean anything and he'll never be indicted in 3,2...

For those who don't want to go to the other failing social media site owned by a fascist. pic.twitter.com/3F0nah2bqR

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) July 18, 2023

At this point the numbers are getting kind of abstract. 34 indictments in NYC, 37 in Florida, that's 71 indictments, with more in the way, apparently re: Jan. 6 and, one presumes, in Georgia. Plus whatever other ongoing Sword of Damocles stuff we've forgotten about.

At what point does the party cut him loose? Never?

Only when he hits a million indictments.

If he loses again and takes out down ticket Rs, I don't see them nominating him for 2028, but he is a lock for 2024.

They can't nominate him in 2028 unless they're explicit about ignoring the Constitution (which, you know).

I think they can if he loses in 2024.

of course at that point he'd be 82.

They can't nominate him in 2028 unless they're explicit about ignoring the Constitution (which, you know).

no because he'll be dead

or we will

Choices choices

no because he'll be dead

I generally wish for an Ariel Sharon situation with this guy, a long, long, LONG period of brain death that will keep his family and hangers-on distracted and infighting for many years.

He would still get the nomination

He may even be more electable

Well, he'd be quiet. We'd only hear the gurgling from the machiens.

*machines.

"And a good day to you, sir!"

I've probably said this before but I'll say it again to get it on the record: when Trump caught COVID, I experienced a terrifying premonition of Ivanka in a tell-all interview tearing up while she talks about how hard it was seeing the entire estate sold off piece by piece to pay her father's creditors.

Terrifying? This sounds amazing.

Somebody got ketchup all over a Dead Sea Scroll

Ancient artefacts sent from Israel to the US four years ago on a short-term basis and intended for display at a White House event have ended up at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to a report.

It is not clear how the artifacts ended up at Mar-a-Lago, or whether Trump is aware they are on the premises.

lol

This is straight out of a super villain origin story

At this point the numbers are getting kind of abstract. 34 indictments in NYC, 37 in Florida, that's 71 indictments, with more in the way, apparently re: Jan. 6 and, one presumes, in Georgia. Plus whatever other ongoing Sword of Damocles stuff we've forgotten about.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 8:56 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

🎶 On an award tour, with Mohammad my man 🎵

Ancient artefacts sent from Israel to the US four years ago on a short-term basis and intended for display at a White House event have ended up at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate

Obligatory melting nazi jpg

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.de8d747dee503e952bd120009a2606cd?rik=NJsyBGThX26uqw&riu=http%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2fIvcwXzJ1HiTTi%2fgiphy-facebook_s.jpg&ehk=1KfSq8EFZCjfpLw62HIwKxT8zoGDaVqEP2gE7RePUgo%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0

Lol Raymond