December 20, 2021

"Appears"? You mean to you?

I balk at this headline in The Guardian: "Why Trump appears deeply unnerved as Capitol attack investigation closes in."

They have to use the word "appears," because they obviously don't know how Trump feels — deeply or shallowly — inside. Then the word throws off the whole idea, so it seems to be only what it is: How it looks to the Guardian writer (Hugo Lowell). I haven't read the piece, not yet anyway, but the easy answer to "Why Trump appears deeply unnerved" is that the author is seeing what he wants to see — which is Trump deeply unnerved. The brief headline also contains a second element of wishful perception: the Capitol attack investigation is closing in on Trump. Is it? We're expect to believe that it is, but that's not what I think. And I don't think Trump is deeply unnerved. I'm not convinced he's deeply anything.

53 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

FBI Director Wray appears deeply unnerved as his secret operatives in the "Insurrection" are exposed

Fernandinande said...

"Trump will soon be arrested!" they said for at least five years.

R C Belaire said...

This may be inelegant phrasing, but I believe Trump is deeply pro-America, unlike many Dems and Progressives.

DanTheMan said...

"What does the author want to be true?" - The Last Psychiatrist

David Begley said...

There is a very long and extremely well-researched piece at Revolver that establishes that the Feds instigated and planned out the January 6 riot.

I’d say the walls are closing in on Chris Wray and the FBI.

Expect Tucker to talk about this Revolver story this week. Lots of video evidence.

chickelit said...

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections... What a man had rather were true he more readily believes."

Francis Bacon

rehajm said...

I'm not convinced he's deeply anything

Yah, this shit gets wheeled out every single time. The Republican is the shallow rube. Riiight….and John Kerry is the intellectual candidate…Riiight…

People who believe this are usually ignorant of the things Trump cares about and how they impact people in a positive way so they lump those things in with the mocking of the bombastic persona.

If we keep going the way we are and choose not to keep the republic, the things Trump cares about will become more obvious in their absence.

wendybar said...

Because it WASN'T an insurrection, it was a few unruly people who were egged on by Ray Epps who appears to have had help and seems to be a fed. Read the Revolver article with pictures and details. It will floor you. WHERE are the DOJ and the FBI?? Joining with Nasty Nancy to lie about 1/6/21, so they can try to claim that Trump planned a Coup when it was THEM all the time. https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

Some people in Congress need to go to prison for this lying fiasco, and Nancy Pelosi, I am looking at you.

gilbar said...

of course, The Real Question Is: Why isn't the Investigation closing in on Roy Epps?

gilbar said...

https://wentworthreport.com/2021/10/26/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

Then, on July 1, … the FBI finally took action on Ray Epps. … Someone at the FBI quietly and stealthily purged every trace of Ray Epps from the Capitol Riots Most Wanted database

Fernandinande said...

Any minute now!

Original Mike said...

"but the easy answer to "Why Trump appears deeply unnerved" is that the author is seeing what he wants to see "

Here's another easy answer: it doesn't even appear that way to Hugo Lowell. It's just something he wrote in order to get paid.

Joe Smith said...

Who is Ray Epps?

Figure that out and you'll know what happened that day...

Wince said...

I think Trump is deeply un-unnerved for somebody who has been the target from the beginning of a Pelosi-picked star chamber.

Lucien said...

The walls are closing in! This is the beginning of the end! Trump camp in chaos!

Achilles said...

I'm not convinced he's deeply anything.


Ann has decided she is the arbiter of sincerity.

The beautiful people judge others.

Themselves not so much.

Howard said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Howard said...

Trump relishes every minute his name appears above the fold and the Davos stream media needs the clicks which serendipitously completes a symbiotic love triangle with his base. Synergy 1+1=4.

Achilles said...

The desperation of the regime is going to start leaking out in bullshit stories like this.

Trump has nothing to fear.

The people that the Democrats stalinist committee are dragging in are winning in court. The vast majority of Americans see the nature of the Biden Regime. Even their ridiculously weighted "polls" can't hide that democrats are polling around 30% right now.

Sinema added another nail in the coffin with her comments about other democrats hiding behind her skirts.

Temujin said...

Projection much?

Jaq said...

Adam Schiff is the ultimate four flusher.

Lurker21 said...

This wishful thinking should have died when Russiagate didn't pan out.

The chaos of Jan. 6th is prima facie evidence that there was no master plan for a coup, unless it was some plan by the other side for a Reichstag-style provocation that would discredit Trump.

Also, "Hugo Lowell" ... British uppercrust parents should stop giving their kids Bond villain names.

Kevin said...

I'm not convinced he's deeply anything.

Hated
Feared
Misunderstood
Mischaracterized

For starters.

Critter said...

File this article in the Worthless file, not worth reading.

Drago said...

The Walls Are Closing In!!!...

....again and again and again and again...

This is quite literally the only thing the lefties/LLR's/NeverTrumpers will write about, their hallucinations re: Trump, now that Biden's Earpiece Admin has been utterly exposed as obambi's massive 3rd term failure.

Latinos are now registering/voicing support for republicans in equal percentages as support for democraticals due to the dems slide into open "happy face" marxism so they (dems/LKR'S/NeverTrump) might as well pretend Trump is the topic forever and ever.

Michael K said...

The Walls are always "closing in."

Tom T. said...

This same article ran every day when Trump was president.

eLocke said...

Donald Trump has always appeared to me to be deeply interested in the promotion of Donald Trump.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Well put.

Brian said...

is that the author is seeing what he wants to see — which is Trump deeply unnerved.

It's what the readers of the Guardian want to see, so the Guardian provides what they want. Then the Guardian can write a "what went wrong" piece after it doesn't come to fruition...

Wilbur said...

I'm experiencing deja vu.

No, wait. I'm just remembering the Mueller Report, which was going to be Trump's ticket to impeachment and then prison.

JPS said...

The Walls Are Closing In.

(Sorry, my guess is 37 Althouse commenters beat me to it but I just had to say it.)

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

I like Trump, of course from a distance. I suspect I would have trouble sitting through a conversation with him. I still think he was the best candidate in 2016; I'm not sure about 2020.

My son says regardless of issues and all the lies that were told about him, there is the issue of temperament. Perhaps this relates to depth. Penn Gillette spent quite a bit of time with Trump on that stupid "reality" show, and it is troubling to hear about how Trump would babble on monomaniacally at a so-called meeting. You pay people to sit around and listen to whatever you feel like saying? And then there is the question whether there were any real rules to the "game" on the "you're fired" show.

JPS said...

OK, more seriously:

I think the people lovingly pushing this Capitol Insurrection Investigation are having a failure of imagination. They just can't imagine – and I could be wrong about this, but I think it's possible – that there was no larger plan. No intention or expectation to Overthrow Democracy [sic]. That Trump, with an ego bigger than Zaphod Beeblebrox', couldn't accept that he'd lost, so there had to have been massive cheating. And he fired up his supporters to go down there and give them hell; then he had an Oh Crap moment when it got out of hand.

I don't think he really expected anything to come of it, he just loved that people wanted to raise some hell for him. And when the demonstration turned into a riot and spilled into the Capitol he was deeply torn: between saying "Hey, no, you're going too far," and "They love me. They really love me. This is great!"

It is possible that the main jackasses involved were Trump superfans, pure and simple; and that there were some antifa among them in the spirit of "The worse, the better!"; and a few feds saying, We've had our eye on these people, now if they're going to do it, let's see how far they go so we can nail them.

All these things can be true. It's bad enough. I'm skeptical that an ideal investigation would find anything much more conclusive than that.

Earnest Prole said...

And I don't think Trump is deeply unnerved. I'm not convinced he's deeply anything.

I think we can all agree Trump is deeply fabulous, like Elton John’s fannypack or a diamond as big as the Ritz.

doctrev said...

If people lack talent or principles, why are they so convinced everyone else is likewise?

tolkein said...

I thought they'd closed in on him during the Russia collusion investigation. There's a lot of projection going on, I feel

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

The walls are closing in!

gadfly said...

It "appears" that our former president Donald Trump is losing his appeal and he is getting little-if-any help from his fully-vaccinated former Fox News star (also out-of-work as a result of illegal activities) Bill O'Reilly during Trump's ho-hum re-election tour which goes largely unattended.

"Donald Trump was met with boos when he revealed he had received a booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine on Sunday. Trump made the revelation after telling a mostly unmasked crowd at the American Airlines Center in Dallas that they should “take credit” for the coronavirus vaccines developed during his presidency. Trump was on the final stop of “The History Tour” with former Fox host Bill O’Reilly."

mikee said...

Bill Murray and Robert de Niro made a forgettable film called Mad Dog and Glory, where Murray played a violent mobster and De Niro an insecure crime scene photographer. Yeah, casting got that backwards. But they have a scene where they discuss a recent bodega robbery that goes:


De Niro: The shooter? I know who he is. The net's closing.
Murray: "The net's closing"? I like that. "The net's closing." I'm the expediter of your dreams, pal.
De Niro: No, not me, brother. I'm flush.
Murray: You're "flush"? "The net's closing"?

Later Murray arranges for the criminal to be found dead wrapped in a fishnet.

That scene reminds me of Trump and the press, who have played a little game of "the net is closing" for years now, with Trump ending up making the press look really, really bad. Trump will eventually be charged with some crime - a process crime or a tax crime or even a RICO charge for using the advice of lawyers and accountants to help run his business (which should scare hell out of anyone who does the same). But until then, the net is always closing, and never closed.

And as we all learned from that fine Alec Baldwin performance in the opening scene of Glengary Glen Ross, "ALWAYS be closing. Coffee is for closers!"

StephenFearby said...

AA: "...I'm not convinced [Trump's] deeply anything."

How could you not include hubris...and especially narcissism?

Mayo Clinic:

Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662

Current cringe-worthy example: Trying to depose Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell because he criticized the idiotic ways Trump tried to overturn the election results. (By hiring certified idiots to do this).

NY Post Dec 19

Trump calls McConnell a ‘disaster,’ says Republicans need new leadership

'...Trump, who has been railing about the Kentucky Republican for months, often calling him a “Broken Old Crow,” also slammed the Senate minority leader for working out a compromise with Democrats to allow them to raise the debt ceiling last week and avert a federal default.'

https://nypost.com/2021/12/19/trump-calls-mcconnell-disaster-says-gop-needs-new-leadership/

Blair said...

The Grauniad frequently does these articles. They had one a while ago about Trump and family "losing sleep" over supposedly pending tax fraud charges. We're still waiting on that. Victory is always imminent in the Guardian. They're like Baghdad Bob.

Chris Lopes said...

As much as I dislike Trump, this does sound like wishful thinking. There isn't anything to close in on Trump for and he's already been impeached for any imaginary crimes involved. That's the problem with turning a Constitutional safe guard into a partisan political tool. It loses power every time you use it.

Bill Peschel said...

If you look at the sidebar at The Daily Mail, you'll get a lot of captions like those. They write them as if the "sad Keneau" meme reflected reality.

Forget it, Jake, it's the Narrative.

Scott said...

Trump deeply loves his country - unlike most on the left.

Drago said...

StephenFearby: "Current cringe-worthy example: Trying to depose Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell because he criticized the idiotic ways Trump tried to overturn the election results. (By hiring certified idiots to do this)."

The idea that this is the ONLY reason anyone would like to see a change in republican leadership in the Senate is delusional.

McConnell worked hand in glove the establishment wreckers in ensuring Trump got almost none of his picks into key administration roles, helped the democraticals bury evidence of what Hillary and her team did for years, cut back door deals with Schumer over and over again with with the latest being the farcical Failure Theatre deal which allowed the dems to raise the debt ceiling with no republican votes and NO concessions to republicans, targeted the tea party for destruction, remains silent on the weaponization of the govt against conservative groups, etc etc etc.

But yeah, it's all just about the election.

Next up for StephenFearby: why Mitt Romney is such an effective advocate in pushing back on the democratical agenda..............(wink wink).

Drago said...

The Poor Man's LLR ***** gadfly: "It "appears" that our former president Donald Trump is losing his appeal....."

Is being this dense something that just comes naturally to you, or do you have to really work at it?

Latest 2024 republican presidential primary poll averages (which I hate, but there it is):

Trump 52.7%
DeSantis 14.9% (Just needs to keep improving on name recognition by ignoring gadfly-like liars across the media)
Pence 7.2% (Future DeSantis supporters)
Haley 4.3% (The remaining JEB! vote that will soon be registering as democrats)
Cruz 3.0%
Romney 3.0% (probably dems crossover voting)
Owens 2.0%
Rubio 2.0% (obviously not fooling anyone)

https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-republican-presidential-nomination/

Results across other reputable pollsters (Trafalgar, Peoples_Pundit/Rich Baris, etc) show Trump well above 60% for republican primary voters, demonstrating the populist working class inclinations that led to Trump's victory in 2016 and increasing vote total in 2020 is becoming firmly established as the Rep party identity at the grassroots level, which is about 10 years ahead of the sellout Dem-lite republican "leadership" in DC.

Not to worry, I hear Kevin McCarthy has another sit down/dial turning meeting with Frank Luntz.....so....you know.....its all good........not.

Drago said...

PollTracker
@PollTrackerUSA·7h
2024 National General Election Poll:

Donald Trump 49% (+8)
Joe Biden 41%

InsiderAdvantage/
@theamgreatness
(R) ~ 750 RV ~ 12/17-12/19
https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/20/poll-58-of-americans-disapprove-of-bidens-job-performance/

Yes, that's a registered voters poll, not likely voters. And yes, Biden's Earpiece will not be on the ballot in 2024, but it's just another data point that gadfly's silly lies he/she/xe reposts from DailyKos won't get the job done.

I'm beginning to think gadfly is asexual......and not in a "good" way......

Narayanan said...

The Walls Are Closing In!!!...

....again and again and again and again...
------------
too bad that The Walls never Closing In on the southern border!!!

Abbott seems to be making an effort.

Rollo said...

The problem with diagnosing politicians we don't personally know is that they usually have real world problems to deal with, and those problems constrain them and keep them from fully acting out the pathologies we claim to detect in them. Trump in office was, and had to be, more issue-focused and policy-focused than Trump out of office is now.

I'm not happy about what Trump out of office has been up to, but I see that today's post-presidential Trump (or last century's pre-presidential Trump) doesn't necessarily reflect his presidency. Other presidents have likewise been more self-indulgent and "narcissistic" after leaving office than they were in their White House years, if not quite so dramatic or so self-dramatizing as Trump.

Mutaman said...

"This may be inelegant phrasing, but I believe Trump is deeply pro-America, unlike many Dems and Progressives.'


Bone spurs?

JAORE said...

Applicant: I have a BS in Journalism from Columbia. I also have an internet certificate from Madame Zola's School of Psychic Intuition.

Times Editor: Perfect! You're hired.

Drago said...

Mutaman: "Bone spurs?"

Asthma?