Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

And, lo, gigantic TRUMP flags will emerge upon many a Dodge Ram pickup and yacht flotilla and fill the land with tumult and the owning of libs by invincible stupidity.

2024 is gonna suck no doubt but I’ve also come to realize that a big part of what made 2016-2020 so unbearable was just being on Twitter all the time. So I’m almost thankful to Elon for killing it. The reality is federal government shit doesn’t matter a whole lot in my life, not as much as local issues like who wins school board, obviously this is because I’m in a privileged group and I’m very sorry to those who are not but I think it’s important that everyone finds a way to stay sane through all this. My advice is to cut as many of the freaks out of your life as you can. I was so miserable trying to reason with certain people in my family who really did believe everyone smarter than them in any subject was full of shit, once you recognize it as the no-win situation it actually is it’s a lot easier to navigate.

Of course I may be delusional but I’m not completely freaked out because I really don’t think Trump has what it takes to actually overthrow the entire government. He’s gonna hurt a lot of people out of incompetence but I really do think this country’s come too far to turn into a fascist hellhole overnight

And, lo, gigantic TRUMP flags will emerge upon many a Dodge Ram pickup and yacht flotilla and fill the land with tumult and the owning of libs by invincible stupidity.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless),

Where I live "will" has nothing to do with it.

the government has already been overthrown, nobody is actually running things anymore

What do you mean, I’m right here. But my messages keep getting ignored.

Of course I may be delusional but I’m not completely freaked out because I really don’t think Trump has what it takes to actually overthrow the entire government. He’s gonna hurt a lot of people out of incompetence but I really do think this country’s come too far to turn into a fascist hellhole overnight

kind of ignores the last 43 years dunnit?

And, lo, gigantic TRUMP flags will emerge upon many a Dodge Ram pickup and yacht flotilla and fill the land with tumult and the owning of libs by invincible stupidity.

Reporting from blood-red rural Montana, I am not seeing any Trump gear or bumper stickers or anything anywhere. Nor do I ever hear anyone talking politics in a loud, "I dare you to shut me up" voice, which is almost always a sign of a Trumpoid. When people talk politics around here they're complaining about local stuff — most people, including Republicans, really, really hate the governor, because he's done shit like raise their property taxes a lot and express the desire to put public lands up for sale. I would not be at all surprised if Montana has a Democratic governor a year from now — the D candidate is a former gun company executive whose position on social issues mostly boils down to "mind your own goddamn business." Which is a very winning message in the West.

Yeah Gianforte is a true grade A asshole - would love to see him out on his ear.

I have noticed that all the MAGA bumper stickers/hats/lawn signs which stayed up since 2021 have now come down, surely a lot will come back once the election season really starts up but I also wonder if the hundred felonies and open embrace of fascist language is gonna affect how these fuckers present themselves in public. Especially as virtually every Republican I know has lost friends and family ties over it. I still maintain the idea that 90% of Republican voters really don’t like Trump, but the other 10% are 10x as loud. They’ll still vote him though, in part because every other candidate is so pathetic, in part because they probably think he’s the only guy who can win

the last time I spotted a Trump flag on a pickup truck was a couple months ago and it ended up actually being a Taylor Swift flag

Trump,

we are never ever ever getting back together

Love,

America

"Stop calling me."

the thing is authoritarians generally come into power when domestic conditions are legitimately bad, and no matter how much rightwing media spins it as such things are simply not that bad right now. unemployment is low, gas prices are low, the stock market is high, and inflation has stalled. yes there are a lot of people struggling but it's not like the levels we saw in 2008 or 2020. and even if "I alone can fix the economy" is a winning message, that's not the message Trump is sending out right now. there's really nothing in Trump's "platform" that's claiming it's gonna make anyone's life better, he's skipped directly to revenge and fascism and "rooting out the vermin". this isn't like 2016 where moderates still saw him as a harmless bozo, or even like 2020 where a lot of voters still thought he was all talk when it came to his inevitable attempts to steal the election. despite Biden's historic unpopularity and inability to excite anyone (not to mention how bad he's fucking up the Gaza situation) I still don't see how Trump is gonna do better this time around if he's gonna run as even more psycho and unpleasant than he was four years ago. yes I know the polls are worrying right now but I also know the way nearly every election since 2016 has gone. obviously a lot can change between now and then and anything can happen when the incumbant is as unpopular as Biden is but idk I'm not calling this a lock for Trump the way a lot of my friends are.

The first, last and best service Trump could do for humanity is to die.

Assassinations never happen anymore it’s awful.

I don't want anyone to go to jail for killing him. His heart must be the size of a canned ham, surely it will just blow up one of these days.

His parents lived to 88 and 93, their hearts fuelled like his by hostility and terror

The preservative power of bitterness and venom.

Reporting from blood-red rural Montana, I am not seeing any Trump gear or bumper stickers or anything anywhere. Nor do I ever hear anyone talking politics in a loud, "I dare you to shut me up" voice

I am also fond of Montana and think it's generally thought of in a 2D way by people who haven't been here, but this is what the 2020 Montana presidential map looked like.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Montana_Presidential_Election_Results_2020.svg/2560px-Montana_Presidential_Election_Results_2020.svg.png

Unperson denied none of that, though.

Tbf most state maps look kinda like that

You are quite otm and have been repeating a variation of your post to typically terrified Dems.

Been thinking about the dynamics of Biden v Trump and the novelty of an election where the winner definitely only has one term. I think Trump catastrophists — of which I can be one, in the right mood — underestimate the fading gravitational pull of lame-duck-hood. If Biden wins obviously he’s immediately yesterday’s news, he’s practically a lame duck right now. Trump less so because all the hoopla of changing administrations and all the batshit stuff he’ll do or try right off the bat. But especially if Congress is divided he won’t get MUCH done, apart from naming judges. And in any case the 2028 election basically starts immediately. I feel like Trump exhaustion sets in quickly whether he wins or loses.

Tbf most state maps look kinda like that

yeah this is true tbh

Many Trump catastrophists I know think elections will cease to exist come January '25.

Sorry if this has already been shared https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/28/politics/trump-maine-14th-amendment-ballot/index.html

xxxp see that's what 2020 came down to as well - imo the strongest force was "if Biden wins, it means you don't have to care about what Donald Trump does or says anymore". obviously that turned out to not be true since the GOP has absolutely nothing to offer anyone, but I think it really is true this time. if he loses he's really fucked legally. given how sick everyone's gonna be of him by the end of the year I think that's gonna paper over a lot of Biden's flaws.

Many Trump catastrophists I know think elections will cease to exist come January '25.

I'm less worried about than I was a few years ago. Not that I'm unworried about it. But I feel like our dystopia is taking a different turn than playing Third Reich dress-up. More like a reversion to many former American means, or an attempted one state by state. That includes the subversion of democracy for sure, but I don't think it's like Trump gets in and just wipes out the Constitution. He's less powerful on day two than on day one and so forth. And lots of Republicans really are sick of him.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fca85f4da-db4e-11e6-a7b1-3a60b507a068.jpg?crop=2046%2C1364%2C164%2C173

It is kind of no wonder really.

Adam Kinzinger describes Donald Trump’s odor situation as “not good” and says he smells like arm pits, ketchup, makeup, and ass pic.twitter.com/LvqQ5As9Ez

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 28, 2023

Purchase a case of Lume. Tailor-made for all the smelly areas, as the commercials say ad nauseum.

we needed confirmation

Arm pits, Ketchup, Makeup & Ass = Best New Order live boot

Armpits, ketchup, ass, makeup
All must be preserved
Still life displayed forever
No less than he deserved

Armpit ketchup, ass make-up

Armpit, Ketchup, Makeup, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, and Ass

^^ second-tier '70s prog rock act

to add to his list of crimes he's now getting accused of not engaging with disinfection

It’s hard to keep up with all the legal shit

https://www.newsweek.com/all-states-trying-kick-trump-off-ballot-where-cases-stand-1856331

i think reasonable people will disagree (sorry..."reasonable people"...i hate how this phrase sounds - i guess another way to put it is "i don't think there's an obviously correct answer to this but i expect that other people think there's an obviously correct answer"), but i would prefer that trump is on the ballot.

i just typed out a partial explanation of why, but i don't think it will survive. i have a lot of contradictory thoughts about the whole thing. maybe this will resonate with someone, maybe not, but i think part of why i argue myself into circles with this is that i think political, election-related violence/revenge - worse than jan 6, and across the country - seems like such a likely possibility if trump loses. whether he's on the ballot or not. the whole thing gets snowballed, for me, into a larger issue of how to combat political violence on a large scale.

if violence weren't an issue, it would be easy. kick his ass off the ballot. the constitution clearly says to kick him off - it is a sign of our collective wandering dysphoria that this is even a question. and even with the acceptance of violence, i think "reasonable people" could very persuasively argue that fascism must be confronted head on, with force if necessary. our elections should not be influenced by fear of violent fascists. i believe that, of course. but again, there is the violence itself, and how likely it is, and the most marginalized people will be the first targets. it seems all too easy (and wrong) to say "bring it on". (but then again - it is wrong to make decisions based on trying not to make violent angry people even madder and more wrong than they usually are!)

again, i think the vast majority of the 22 people reading this don't think that violence on a wide scale is likely, and things are much more simple if it's not a factor. god i hope it's not. and i apologize to people who think that i'm a downer by bringing it up. i'm usually not.

i think political, election-related violence/revenge - worse than jan 6, and across the country - seems like such a likely possibility if trump loses

You are wrong to think this, and here's why:

- Trump is not as popular as he once was. Not by a long shot. And he was never popular. His approval rating never broke the 50% mark the entire time he was in office. Not once. Not for a day, not for an hour.

- Many of his most violent supporters are already under arrest. The others have seen their peers arrested and thrown in federal prison. Even the ones who have not been arrested and put in federal prison have seen how normal people view them. January 6 rioters are not American heroes. They are viewed as at best, deluded idiots, and at worst, violent terrorists. And they know it.

Trump is going to lose next year. And it's not going to be close. The "leftists" claiming they won't vote for Biden because they think he's the president of Israel...well, they probably won't vote. But they won't be in states where it will matter. And things like gas prices and grocery bills will feel better by next fall. And Trump will have said many more, ever increasingly insane things between now and next fall, because he's insane, and he can't help himself, especially not when he gets desperate and can feel that the tide has turned against him. He is not winning anyone over at this point. At best, he is keeping the most diehard members of his cult on the compound with him. But nobody is signing up to join the cult in 2023/2024. Nobody.

One of the things that struck me talking to Trump supporters after the 2020 election: they do not understand how much those of us who are not Trump supporters loathe him.

I thought they fed off of knowing how much everyone else hates them

One of many the things that made my head spin on election night was this nbc/cnn interview with a mellow middle age trump voter, asking her what her message is to all the people scared for their future under trump, her response was this super chipper dismissive “oh don’t worry! it’ll be fine!”, like someone told her she forgot to leave her porch light on.

(2020)

(2016, I mean, sorry, stopping posting now)

I'm not as confident as unperson that Trump will surely lose but I think the rest is pretty otm. rightwing violence is very much an issue and I am sure there's gonna be some dust ups if/when he loses but I really don't think we'll see something on the scale of J6 again (at least, not in service of Donald Trump). if there's one thing the right is really really good at it's astroturfing. they very much want you to believe they've got an entire militia on standby ready to fuck shit up if people mess with Trump. but yeah, I think this is very much the reality:

Many of his most violent supporters are already under arrest. The others have seen their peers arrested and thrown in federal prison. Even the ones who have not been arrested and put in federal prison have seen how normal people view them. January 6 rioters are not American heroes. They are viewed as at best, deluded idiots, and at worst, violent terrorists. And they know it.

it's hard to say anyone who participated in the J6 riot "won" in any sense. maybe the few people whose images got plastered all over TV, but nah, this thing has been an albatross for pretty much everyone involved. they accomplished nothing. many of them got arrested and thrown in jail. and I think it's not insignificant that Trump himself kinda left them all out to dry. I'm still very skeptical that Donald Trump commands some sort of sleeper cell army in this country - I think what he really controls is a mass of loud folks who very very badly want to be on TV.

Look at what happened to Tucker Carlson this year. He got fired from Fox, and instantly his audience diminished by about 90 percent, because "his" viewers weren't going to change the channel or go somewhere looking for him; they were just watching him because he was on Fox at 8 PM, or whatever. Same thing happened to Bill O'Reilly before him. When he was on Fox, when he was being spoon-fed to a vast herd of buffoons, he was very popular. The instant he was no longer on Fox, he was reduced to podcasting from his basement. This is just as observable with Trump, except losing Fox wasn't the blow — it was losing Twitter. Since losing his Twitter account in 2021, he's been on a downward slide. Not only does nobody outside the cult have any awareness of his Truth Social posts, even journalists don't bother covering them to the degree or in the manner that they covered his tweets. Trump has the stink of loser all over him.

unperson/frogbs (responding to you both as one, though frogbs i note you disagreed with unperson on trump surely losing (as do i))

i definitely hope you're both right!

something i wanted to ask, then: if trump is politically obsolete, already, then (going back to what i was attempting to address in my post) what are your views on taking him off the ballot in some states? does it make any difference? (i have more baloney to say but want to make sure i understand what you're saying first)