Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

I guess I'm too uptight but it does genuinely bug me when people on the left who otherwise despise him are like "he's so funny! I hope this king never dies so we won't ever be denied moments like this" in response to the latest dumbass thing that he's said during a rally or whatever. I am incapable of enjoying anything about him or any aspect of his personal presentation, no matter how much of an ironic remove I situate myself at. I find him repellent in an absolute sense, and I don't want to see or hear from him ever again.

Should I loosen up and enjoy the ride as he enters his late Elvis phase and starts to morph into irl something like how Eli Valley depicts him? Maybe... but when he calls Chris Christie a fat slob or whatever I just feel like I am at the most depressing dive bar ever, listening to a drunken loudmouth regular commenting on whatever's showing on the tv overhead. Soon it will be almost a decade that he's been blasted into our consciousness on a more or less daily basis. Just a bad dream that never ends, or a particularly shitty horror movie franchise.

Soon it will be almost a decade that he's been blasted into our consciousness on a more or less daily basis.

Imagine having grown up in the East Coast media market and knowing the fucker by face, name and reputation for 40 years, maybe longer. In New York and New Jersey, he's been famous — and a famous piece of shit — for pretty much my entire life.

I guess I'm too uptight but it does genuinely bug me when people on the left who otherwise despise him are like "he's so funny! I hope this king never dies so we won't ever be denied moments like this"

About that last sentence -- wow, you know people who've said this?

yea I feel that's overstating it, I think it's possible to hate his guts and still think he does shit that's funny, I know a lot of people who feel that way who think him potentially dying of Covid would've been the funniest thing ever

I do admit I've got pretty mixed feelings about those Twitter personalities who made their entire shtick "look at this dumb asshole", feel like they've got a pretty symbiotic relationship with him that makes that shit tough to watch. like that lady who got a billion views just lip synching Trump speeches, that shit fucking sucked

I mean it in no complimentary way whatsoever to acknowledge his showmanship and weird sort of charisma. Those are both key to successful authoritarian figures. It’s not that I in any way enjoy him, I just recognize that for all his ludicrous lunacy he has actual political strengths that (obviously) we underestimate at our peril.

Every day I pray for a chicken or fish bone to do its deadly chore, but then I realize he only eats chicken tenders shaped like dinosaurs, and never eats fish outside of an annual shrimp cocktail

It's like denying that Reagan had genuine political gifts -- the guy won in two electoral landslides, he must have done a lot to woo Dems.

The thing is Trumps political instincts are terrible. He got jack shit done in office and permanently alienated a bunch of the base. He keeps backing the biggest freaks possible many of whom go on to lose races that shouldn’t have even been close. He was literally attacking the country’s World Cup team just a few days ago. What he’s good at is television. He knows how to chuck red meat and how to get himself on the news. He knows that being the GOP nominee means you can say and do whatever the fuck you want and no one will hold you accountable. He won the nom in 2016 because he was the most shameless and nakedly racist. That seems a lot different to me than what Reagan had, even as shameless and racist as that guy was

Btw I know you’re not comparing the two Alf just remarking it’s a very different thing, Reagan definitely did know how to court moderates and centrist Dems, I can’t imagine Trump winning over a single 2020 Biden voter in 2024, he just has no clue how to do anything but pull ratings

Keep 'em coming:

Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who has been investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the Georgia 2020 election results, is likely to go before the grand jury next week to present her case, sources tell ABC News.
https://t.co/TpLKqedGhe

— Olivia Rubin (@OliviaRubinABC) August 8, 2023

Reagan was a middling actor who made his political bones by betraying his friends. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of his life.

Btw I know you’re not comparing the two Alf just remarking it’s a very different thing, Reagan definitely did know how to court moderates and centrist Dems, I can’t imagine Trump winning over a single 2020 Biden voter in 2024, he just has no clue how to do anything but pull ratings

― frogbs,

No, I know you don't think so! I'm saying that acknowledging the enemy's gifts isn't endorsement.

and like you I've spent hundreds of hours at this point reminding my Dem base in South Florida that it's been downhill for Trump since 2016.

xp There was actually a thing called a 'Reagan democrat' and they numbered in the tens of thousands... I'm sure Trump converted a handful in 2016 but none in 2020

It didn't help that the Dems in 84 ran . . . Walter Mondale.

There was actually a thing called a 'Reagan democrat' and they numbered in the tens of thousands..

More than that if you count both presidential elections and what went on for the next 20 years

There's an old Mondale event poster in a liquor store on San Pablo Ave on the Oakland/Emeryville border... 'Featuring Gov. Jerry Brown"

I have no idea why they haven't taken it down

The thing is Trumps political instincts are terrible.

This is true but it also supposes that he cares about politics as we think of them. If you view this all as the grandest prima donna act in a life full of them — a relentless need and urge to be bigger and bigger and bigger — rather than as some kind of political enterprise, I think he makes more sense. Of course people around him are using him for political ends, and he's happy for them to do it as long as they put him in front of adoring crowds, but also he's constantly getting in the way of their political ends because most of them he doesn't really care about. (Except, like, the racist and sexist ones, he's fully on board with those.)

Which is to say, Trump and Reagan wanted different things from politics and the presidency. Reagan cared about both in ways Trump never will.

xps my dad (who is horrible but that's not relevant to this example) literally voted Republican/Reagan for the first time in his life b/c he hated Mondale so much

I'm saying that acknowledging the enemy's gifts isn't endorsement.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

see the thing is framing it as a "gift" I think implies a level of skill that may not be there. its true that being an abrasive asshole loudmouth who speaks off the cuff and doesn't learn shit got him really far in life, but it's also true that this is a country where those born rich can do no wrong, with a legal system where you can stymie pretty much any lawsuit by just bleeding the plantiff dry and a tax system where rich property owners can effectively pay nothing. and of course a political & media system that really loves controversy. I mean this is a country that briefly made Charlie Sheen its biggest celebrity when he was going through a mental breakdown and allowed the "cash me outside" girl to bank millions of dollars for no reason at all. We made the Jersey Shore cast household names and the Kardashians billionaires. By the way I'm not saying anything bad about those folks, I have nothing against any of them, just saying Trump strikes me as a uniquely American thing. Fascists and racists and authoratarians can and do win elections all over the globe but Trump feels like a guy who could only win in America. You think his approval rating was low here? Every poll ran outside of America revealed that 85% of the planet thought Trump was a tremendous dipshit.

so like, if he was actually 'gifted', or was indeed some kind of "master wizard" as the Dilbert guy liked to say, surely he could leverage that shit a bit better? he was reduced to a babbling maniac on the debate stage by...Joe Biden. he floated tremendously dumb ideas constantly and immediately had to either walk them back or spend weeks insisting people heard him wrong. literally every single person who's ever worked for him says he's a moron who's trivially easy to manipulate. he was played like a fiddle by Steve Bannon, the guy commiting fraud in broad daylight who is currently suggesting that a Trump/RFK ticket would unite the nation. so does he actually have gifts or do we live in one sick fuck of a nation?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3BuPzfXkAAadG9.jpg

Just want to interject that he looks like a Frank Miller drawing of himself at this point.

EMERGENCY EYEWASH STATION

Obviously Trump has unusual political abilities. Tons of people with more political experience than him and much savvier political teams have tried to get elected president and failed. It's not an easy thing to do, especially running as he did the first time with no real infrastructure or even any real clue about how to go about it. It's not giving him credit to say he has actual political talents, it's just acknowledging the obvious. That doesn't make him "smart," obviously, but ask Liz Warren how far smart gets you.

If we accept that the man is trivially easy to manipulate then it becomes much harder to explain why he always ends up doing exactly as he pleases in spite of dozens of his closest political advisors, defense lawyers, members of Congress and sitting judges trying to persuade him to do otherwise, including Steve Bannon, who was tossed aside and verbally abused just like every other person who enters his inner circle. The manipulators seem to have a very poor track record imo.

xxxpost Donald Trump as Flattop in...Dick Tracy

I think that’s more down to the fact that, as every book written about him claims, he only remembers what the last person he talked to said

he got Covid because he held a huge event in celebration of the death of RBG, the exact sort of mass gathering that every doctor in the country was saying you shouldn't do.

lmao I forgot about this.

Just want to interject that he looks like a Frank Miller drawing of himself at this point.

there is a method to how he conducts himself. he treats everyone and everything around him with contempt, as if life itself is a joke. this makes a certain % of people love him as they wish they too were liberated from moral constraints. and then for the people who try to stop him, they just end up embarrassing themselves. ever try to discipline an unruly kid and then have the kid laugh at you? that’s what it’s like to criticize him.

he was reduced to a babbling maniac on the debate stage by...Joe Biden.

By the way I'm not saying anything bad about those folks, I have nothing against any of them

Oh, I do. This country worships absolute morons. Maybe that’s true elsewhere, I dunno, but thanks for reminding me that a dumb, affected teenager could signed to a recording contract thanks to an appearance on Jerry Springer. (many do)

That was supposed to say many xp, stupid phone.

It's not an easy thing to do, especially running as he did the first time with no real infrastructure or even any real clue about how to go about it.

Who needs campaign infrastructure when you can just tweet out dumb shit 24/7 and have the media run your campaign for you?? If you can attack CNN nonstop and have them reward you by broadcasting footage of an empty podium you’re set to speak at while your opponent is giving policy speeches why do you need to know how to do anything at all?

^^^

i wish a hacker org could somehow mute all text and vid from trump it’d make it better and make him nuts.

Trump is not uniquely gifted either, just gripped with enough survivor sense, carved out of three decades of getting away with shit, to delay prosecution, etc. And emough sense to realize the GOP base didn't give a shit about "policy" -- they wanted grievances.

WILL YOU SHUT UP MAN?

I still think this was the moment Biden won the election

I doubt anyone had ever told Trump to shut up before.

both otm

imagine if he'd said "up your nose with a rubber hose", he'd have the Horshack vote

Would have to take it back from Romney:

In the current New Republic, the editors have this to say about Mitt Romney: "He's unbearably unctuous - the Arnold Horseshack of the race, furiously waving his hand to grab the teacher's attention."

trump is very funny when is not in power and very unfunny when he is in power

^^^ this is otm, urgent & key

Civilian Trump commenting on Kristen Stewart cheating--funny

President Trump complaining about Jimmy Kimmel jokes--not funny

I mean laugh-at funny, tbc.

NEWS: Special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump's Twitter account in January.

A delay in compliance by the company prompted a federal judge to hold Twitter in contempt and fine the company $350,000.

Details TK

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 9, 2023

Good luck getting this info from Musk, but still.

Aw it was nice of Elongated to buy Twitter to help further try and (badly) protect his best bud.

Oh, wait, delay in compliance means they got what they wanted, right? Apparently the delay was because Twitter was prohibited from telling Trump they even got the warrant.

I hold Twitter in contempt myself.