It was the same garbled nonsense, empty catchphrases, and nasty gibberish so familiar from his four years in the White House.
That describes politicians in general. It's all "garbled nonsense, empty catchphrases, and nasty gibberish." It just bothers you more when someone you loathe dishes it out with brio and has fans who love it.
This 2024 Trump still does not speak in coherent sentences or make arguments. He’s a demagogue. He demagogued.
Biden also fails to speak in coherent sentences. The interviewer should listen to the candidate's statements and drill into the meaning, not get distracted by the thought that this is so obviously defective that voters must deem it all worthless.
Aside from the sheer awful spectacle, it’s hard to say that any actual news came out of the questioning....
There was a person doing that questioning, Kaitlan Collins, but she's left out of that sentence, as if she had no way to improve the quality of event. Earlier in the article, Glasser gives her credit for trying, but the trying consisted of repeatedly stating the conclusion that a statement of Trump's was not true.
We're told she "struggled, and how could she not, having been assigned a near-impossible task?" What exactly was the "task" and why was it "near-impossible"?
Perhaps "the task" was misdefined, understood as giving Trump enough rope to hang himself and needling him endlessly about how wrong he is about everything in the hope that he'd snap. That is, the task was understood as producing a "sheer awful spectacle." And I suspect what Collins was trying and struggling to do was to break Trump — to make Trump explode into some "blood coming out of her" moment — and that was the "actual news" that didn't happen.
पोस्ट्स
१५७ टिप्पण्या:
I suspect a lot of our Professional Journalists are not capable of dropping the attack and dealing with the substance.
After all, they've got years of hate and BS tied up in the attack, and they really don't want to change that.
A secure border with law and order...
SO RADICAL! SO EXTREME!
A government run by... not the mob --- SO EXTREME!
Low taxes and low inflation and a thriving economy - SO EXTREMIST!
I could not agree more.
hence the censorship industrial complex, hence the procurations been planned in Gotham, the Capitol and the crooked Fulton borough
The entire left wing EXTREMIST press - including Susan B Glaszxier - are Soviet mob-boss leftist corruption excusing war-mongering lying Clintonian pro-murder mob-ass-kissing assholes.
I have no respect for any of them. She and Maddow and the entire on-air cast of freaks and liars at MicroSoft-NBC... and the fuckheads at CNN and the assholes at NYT and all the staffers who write for bullshit liar publications like Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair or The New Yorker and WaPo(D-house organ for The Party) - can DIAF.
They believe that if they just say it enough times, combined with the exclusion of other voices on the platforms they can control, enough people will believe it's true in order for them to win.
A lying crook mob-boss who enriched himself and his family illegally with international pay-to-play money from China and Ukraine - is considered by the loyalist leftist asshole press, and the likes of one Susan B Glazxier - as completely normal.
Trump is an EXTREMIST! All that law, order, secure border, strong economy etc... and accountability to the people is just so.... EXTREME!
A lot of good points made in this post. I suspect a lot of Dems are still rational, regular Americans and would like to hear a rational appeal. But I also rather think the crazies have the control. Not sure why. The kind of smoke in the smoke-filled rooms? The end of an era is like the end of a party? By end of a party, I mean New Years Eve, 2am, lurching about, incoherent, falling into lamps. Or should I just say Don Lemon on New Years Eve is the Dem party leadership 24/7 at the end of the New Deal. Suuure I kin w w walk th' line, offisher.
“Millions” was just over 3 million. The ratings were low. Same as Biden’s CNN Townhall.
But they still hype Trump for clicks.
The Althouse advice is sound. But it is probably irrelevant to the people at whom she has directed it.
They are not involved in a policy dispute. They have arrived at the place they occupy in our politics by some confluence of events and influences that have made them radically and extremely anti-liberty. They are, in Isaiah Berlin's perfect phrase, Enemies of Freedom.
Thus the hysterical tone that will not go away. Some may imagine they have solved the political questions of human nature and are ready to give the rest of us Utopia. Some want only the power to drive their jackboots into our faces.
But whatever their specific fantasies, the Susan Glassers and Anderson Coopers and Jake Tappers are exactly the people this nation's founders were afraid of -- the people who tyrannical quest the founders did everything they could think of to blunt and obstruct via our Constitutional limitations and the Bill of Rights.
So asking them to behave reasonably is both quixotic and underestimates the trends they represent.
The Ass brays and the caravan passes.
"Does the mere fact of his large following in an increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?"
Now AOC?
Of course, the key word is: "require". And NO, nothing* "requires" them to broadcast
nothing* except ratings. Serious Question: What CNN show had the highest rating this year? Was it Trump?
Let the elitist and biased New Yorker say whatever it wants. The FACT of the matter is that Collins did lie about Biden's documents. She had not done her homework. Duh!
We know that Trump speaks in hyperbole; it's in his New York real estate mogul DNA. But neither the New Yorker or ANY of the other mainstream media will admit that they are just as biased on THEIR side as Trump is on his. That's the infuriating part.
There's no effort—not even a wink, wink, nod, nod—anywhere to parse what Trump says for the good points. And like him or not, he makes some good points.
I'm so tired of Orange Man bad, especially when Biden gets a complete pass on everything stupid he says and does.
I guess double standards are better than no standards at all.
I don’t know. I like the substance of the four years of the Trump presidency (low inflation, strong economic growth, secure borders, and so on) a lot more than the two plus years of Biden.
not just that press, but local fiswhrap like the unsensible (tribune), and the journal (gannett) the titles may vary, so this caucasus shakedown, the sacrifices to the sky dragon, the supplications to the zombie mobs (blm and antifa) is the right and only path,
I forgot to mention the lying assholes at PBS "news' and "Frontline" - the WHITE LEFT Extremists and work dutifully as the propaganda arm for the Soviet-Mob FBI Democrat Party, USA.
Putin invaded Crimea during Obama. Media dutifully call it an "annexation"
Putin waits for hollow husk mob-controlled grifting crook Biden to invade Ukraine again.
Happy coincidence.
Similar to all the suicides that surround Clinton-Epstein.
If the left engages with ideas they lose. They know they lose. Their ideas are unpopular and they know it. Hence the gaming the vote, the trillion dollar taxpayer funded slush funds, the evil Bond villain billionaires...
...imagine how well engaging with ideas will go when we engage with the fact all the left's major leaders are evil and corrupt and we have the receipts...
Keep believing you'll win because Trump doesn't speak in complete sentences, though.
forbes: CNN took a rare ratings victory in prime time Wednesday night, with the network’s town hall featuring former President Donald Trump drawing 3.1 million viewers, according to early overnight Nielsen ratings. From 8 p.m. t0 9:15 p.m., CNN was the most-watched cable news network, more than doubling the ratings of Fox News (1.4 million viewers) and MSNBC (1.37 million viewers).
I don't know how we return to a free press in the age of clickbait. We're begging them to do as Althouse suggests, and they can't. The endorphin rush from the likes and thumbs up is too strong, and they don't seem to have the character to recognize their addiction.
I am still trying to figure out how former Democrat Donald Trump is an extremist and a racist.
Those terms are meaningless to people who have an IQ above room temperature, but the bullshit sells for the idiots who vote the DNC line.
In 2016 we had Democrat overconfidence that they didn't need to steal more votes and a third party that hurt the Democrat more than Trump. Neither of those things will be around next year.
cnn has burned much of it's credibility in this exercise, this cigar store indian that the tech companies and the organs installed is relevant to no ones real interests, but they pretended otherwise, like they put the kackler and the golem in our face, to show their contempt for us,
Trump is a blunt instrument, you can't expect subtlety from him, but often that is not what is called for,
You are not allowed to write "Republican Party without the words "radicalized and extremist," or you will lose your cushy sinecure writing stuff that, after all, anybody else could write. So the way to keep your job is to demonstrate how cravenly you want the job, and the things you are willing to do for it. Kind of like the Harry Weinstein test.
It kind of looks to me that the radicalized and extremist party is the Democrats, but they have this pet technique of accusing the other side of whatever unsavory thing they are doing to muddy the waters. Democrats are the cult, and they use cult-proven mind control techniques to keep their voters in the fold.
Pro-life, anti-diversity (inequity, exclusion) [DIE], anti-war (e.g. ethnic Springs), pro-safety, pro-equal treatment, anti-labor and environmental arbitrage, anti-shared/responsibility through progressive prices, pro-medical etc. available and affordable prices (not costs), anti-single/central/monopolistic regimes, pro-acknowledgment of sex and gender, anti-transgender conversion trials during and before puberty, pro-emigration reform, pro-civil unions (anti-political congruence exclusion), anti-cargo cults and mandates... radical, extreme.
“Act as if he's a completely ordinary politician — pose as if you felt neutrality toward him personally — and engage with the ideas.”
That’s how David Frost got Nixon to say “when the president does it, it’s not illegal”.
Not by engaging Nixon as though they were in a school yard verbal tussle.
CNN squandered an opportunity because they thought an ATTACK script is how you get him. Making Trump play defense actually enhanced his bonafides with the people who mattered. The people who may nominate him. At the Fox debate Trump had to go on offence to distinguish himself from the rest of his opponents. That time Trump spent in wrestling business serve him tremendously.
His supporters tune you out.
This really is the outcome. As it becomes hard to ignore the "professional news media" being one-sided propagandist, the only option is to go elsewhere to learn about events in the world.
The real extremists are the Soviet Left writers(D) who dutifully scream "Extremist" instead of engaging in honest curiosity, and you know.... honest down the middle journalism. They are all craven party hacks.
Party of the People: Biden Schmoozes Billionaires in Manhattan as Border Crisis Worsens
I bet all those Billionaires are.... WHITE.
"increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party"
Extremist these days means wanting to stop the invasion, reduce the debt, protect children against mutilation, stand up to China, support Israel, move to an endgame in Ukraine, and, oh yes, prosecute Hunter.
"Here's my radical idea: Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments. Act as if"
More good-faith suggestions in an ocean of bad-faith BS. By the way, I agree with Trump's positions on many issues, but does he have "arguments"? (Not saying Dems do etc. etc.)
"he's got an even chance of getting re-elected to the presidency"
How so?
"Be normal, and treat him as if he were normal"
One problem: they are acting like normal progs, and Trump isn't normal by anyone's standards. Hence the constant outrage, which also serves as battlefield prep. Progs can advance the cause even while they vent. They are counting on stigmatizing Trump just a little bit more, as too abnormal for nice people to support. It worked in 2020 and is likely to work again.
The Republican party is approximately where it's been for the last 10 years. For example.
Men are Men and Women are Women.
Secure Borders are good.
Words aren't violence and violence isn't free speech.
Parents are important and work best in pairs.
People with 40+ arrests should be in prison to protect public safety.
Saying something doesn't make it real. Prove it.
Children are not adults and shouldn't be assumed to be mature enough to make adult decisions.
Look in the mirror Susan. The Democratic party has gone from walking left to sprinting left. The reason your views and Republican views seem so far apart is because of you. The reason they seem to be yelling and screaming at you is that you are so far away now that you can't hear them if they just use their indoor voice.
"Does the mere fact of his large following in an increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?"
Confession by projection. Which party is more radicalized and extremist?
"Here's my radical idea: Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments. "
Who knew that trying to return us to our constitutional roots was extreme.
Question, (for the record. when I ask a question of the left I genuinely want an answer. I want to know your thought process), What is so radical about the Abraham Accords?
These "activists" sure do a good job of following their Masters orders.
When you've lost in the ratings to TikTok, when it's Election time, too
And your gravitas fails and negativity don't pull you through
Like a secure border?
why... you're an "EXTREMIST!"
Don't parrot the liar left-wing lie that the Border is Secure? Don't use proper pro-nouns? GUARDS - SEIZE THEM... FOR THEY ARE EXTREMISTS!"
Here is another of "only the best" staff hires of the last administrations fella who hasn't ended up convicted, indicted, pardoned talking from firsthand knowledge about policies.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said Friday that former President Trump will deliver “chaos” and a “horror show” if he returned to the White House in 2024.
“If you believe in his policies, what he’s advertising as his policies, he’s the last person who could actually execute them and achieve them,” Barr said of Trump at an event in Cleveland. “He does not have the discipline. "When pressed further, Barr claimed his former boss doesn’t have “the ability for strategic thinking” or “setting priorities.”
“It is a horror show when he’s left to his own devices,” Barr said. “And so, you may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver Trump policies.”
C'mon man
"Here's my radical idea: Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments."
The intent is not consistent. The corporate press will give Trump a platform through the primaries, then switch to destruction mode in support of whatever lackey the Dems settle on.
Literally, the Trump Party of 2020 had no policy agenda; they did not advance, formally pass, or publish a Party Platform. Notoriously, they failed to produce a Platform. Trump doesn't do policy speeches. Trump does rallies, where he shouts about the same grievances all the time.
So now I'll bite, Althouse; let's do some " actual Trump policy."
A. Would Trump sign on to a national abortion ban? Or the equivalent of a national abortion ban? A limitation? What would a national limitation be?
B. Trump seems to like the current House GOP plan to slash discretionary spending in the federal budget, without reforming Social Security, or Medicare, or touching defense spending. While few people remember it, the Trump White House put out such a budget plan in 2017. It crashed and burned so fast, with massive Republican rejection, that almost no one even remembers it. Look it up.
C. Trump makes the ridiculous claim that he would end the war in Ukraine in "24 hours." Why won't he say how he would do that? Is that a realistic plan for resolving that conflict?
D. Inflation is a problem. How, exactly, would Trump fix it?
E. Trump wants a "great border wall." In four years, he did not build a great border wall, and Mexico paid nothing toward any border wall. (Lulz.) Let's presume that in 2025, Trump is President, with a Congress that is so narrowly divided that he would have to negotiate with Democrats to get funding and legal authority for any major new wall construction. How would he do that? Moreover, what would "comprehensive immigration reform" look like to Trump?
The problem for them now with addressing the substance is that the record of Trump's term was peace and prosperity. Border security. No inflation. Low gas prices.
Trump himself could make these arguments but largely chooses not to for some reason.
Democrats are pro-crime...
Democrats are pro-open border
Democrats are pro illegal entrants to the tune of millions
Democrats are the party of lies.
Democrats are pro-wasteful spending. (waste billions on a daily basis)
Democrats are the party of war
Democrats are the party of suspicious Clintonian "suicides"
Democrats are the party of hiding facts and truth
Democrats are the mob-boss party with FBI/CIA/DOJ corruption
Democrats are the party of Maddow and Adam Schitt(D)
Democrats are the party of happy coincidences like the cameras being turned off just at the moment Epstein "killed" himself.
Democrats obsess over Trump and ignore Biden completely - other than to praise him in loyalist unison.
Democrats are the party who want to allow biological men compete with women.
Democrats are the anti-women
Democrats want to abolish "mom and dad" as language to describe parents.
Democrats want to install pro-noun police and other Soviet Speech Crime bullshit.
Democrats want a ONE PARTY STATE. (See China)
Democrats are the party of political grift for personal gain.
Democrats are the party of waste and fraud (see Covid fraud)
Democrats are the party of media hacks
Democrats are the party of punitive taxation
Democrats are the party of lies
Democrats are the party of lock-downs
Democrats are the party of forced jabs
Democrats are the party of killing the elderly
Democrats are obsessed with abortion
Democrats are EXTREMIST LEFTISTS.
What is more tired than Trump? The hack-D press whining about Trump.
"TRUMP CAN'T WIN" reminds me so much of 2016 that it's become very boring.
Ann Althouse wrote: "... pose as if you felt neutrality toward him personally — and engage with the ideas."
There is so much wrong with this advice it's hard to know where to start ... but I'll give it a go.
Ann, they cannot allow Trump to present an argument. If they did, the American people would agree with him. And that cannot be allowed to occur (to them). Trump policies and ideas are widely supported throughout America. They are anathema to the corrupt regime currently - and one hopes temporarily - allowed to wield power in the United States.
Secondly, these are people you're talking to here. They have jobs. They have mortgages, kids to feed. They cannot even define what a woman is or that's all gone. If they treated Donald Trump like a normal person and engaged with his ideas, then they'd be fired. Reassigned to cover the city council. Sent over to the Obit desk. Their careers finished. They would be un-hireable. Their careers stunted to the point of oblivion. They'd lose their homes, their kids would not be getting the G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip.
I don't know what world you're living in up there in Wisconsin, Ann, but it's dead. You and people like you killed it long ago.
Cease pining for it. America as you know it is gone forever. Congratulations.
Why change treatment of Trump from 2020 when he has only gotten worse since?
It's happening again.
I'm falling in love with Trump again.
I'm taking pleasure in the caterwauling of his enemies again.
I'm thinking, "Screw it, let the chips fall where they may!" again.
Damn.
If one compared 2000 party platforms to 2023 party platforms it would clearly show that it the Democrats who have moved further from the center.
As for Trump. The Democrats played him wrong. They could have used his lack of any philosophical core (except that his ego must be satisfied) and his unbridled narcissism against the Republicans.
What would have happened if, in 2017, the Democrats came out and said “Donald Trump is someone we can work with.?
He would have governed as a Progressive Democrat. People who say nice things about Trump get what they want from Trump.
Here's my radical idea: Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments. Act as if he's a completely ordinary politician — pose as if you felt neutrality toward him personally — and engage with the ideas.
@Althouse, neither Susan Glasser nor anyone else who writes for outfits like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or The New Yorker is going to take your excellent advice, for two simple reasons.
(1) They are intellectually incapable of engaging in policy discussions. You probably think I’m wrong, since these are not low-IQ individuals, but the left at this point is pushing policies with no justification other than “if you oppose this you are (pick one) racist, sexist, a white supremacist, homophobic, Islamaphobic, or all of the above.”
(2) If they did manage to follow your advice they’d lose.
In 2016 the MSM took him literally but not seriously. His followers took him seriously but not literally.
I think that what the left and the anti-Trump contingent are trying to do is make character count again. It doesn't matter if Trump has workable policy ideas, that so-called "vision thing", he is a despicable person, in their view, and so he should not be allowed to be in power.
Not that they really care that he's contemptible or that their own candidate is as equally odious they're just trying to make the rest of us care. But character hasn't counted in American politics for a long time now, I think since Bill Clinton.
I've decided to look for competence, someone who surrounds him or herself with equally competent people, not their daughter or son-in-law or someone who appeared as a contestant on a reality tv show. I know that's down there with character though, not enough to win an election.
Glad Trump is willing to help CNN rehabilitate itself.
Long way to go, but good start.
Trump has supplied enough devastating sound bites to carry him right to the 2024 election.
But he is only getting started.
They're supporting the narrative that their audience gets its thrills from because they pay the bills. IF they don't pay the bills, the solution is to be more thrilling, not more accurate. The article is just the academic version of the narrative.
Neutrality would include the business forces.
Is asking about January 6 and the 2020 election an attack or a policy question?
This post and its comments to date remind me of the old movie trope where the weary travelers are floating in a shallow boat down a branch of the deepest Amazon and throw a piece of meat into the water to check for piranhas.
Not quite safe to get in the water yet... As soon as reason overrules fear, you can safety do the backstroke to the welcoming shore. As for now, the headhunters are on the loose right behind the river full of piranhas.
I'd stay in the boat for now.
Thank you Althouse. This has been driving my blood pressure thorugh the roof since 2016. The MSM and Uniparty REFUSES to debate the issues. They dont want to discuss the border, immigration, crime, Ukraine, etc. etc. etc. Not up for debate, sorry. THe decision has been made, and the peons need to shut up.
Instead we get constant endless NOISE and attacks on Trump. THe voters don't care about J6. They don't care about "LIES ABOUT THE ELECTION". They don't care about Joe Barry Carroll and her lawsuit. But that's all we get. Everytime Trump is on TV, he doesn't get interviewed, he gets attacked and debated by a DNC Shill.
Do people understand that Charlottsville and J6 are manufactured events? They have zero effect on our lives or well-being of the USA. Endless talk of Nazis and Insurrection is just NOISE to drown out talking about the REAL issues.
Also notice the MSM protects Joe Biden by throwing him softball questions, approved in advance. And they stay away from any topic that will make him look bad. Whether its important to the USA or not.
I don’t know. I like the substance of the four years of the Trump presidency (low inflation, strong economic growth, secure borders, and so on) a lot more than the two plus years of Biden.
The COVID lockdown. Trillions of dollars welfare (eerr "stimulus" checks) that nobody needed that directly lead to the inflation we are experiencing....
What happens when everyone if has (cumulatively trillions of dollars) more money to chase after the same scarce goods and services? 🤔
The Democrats can't lose in 2024 no matter who the Republicans nominate. A non-Trump Republican might win back Arizona and Georgia- those states probably still lean just a bit right, still, and such a Republican will probably be able to more easily win North Carolina. However, such a Republican will have zero chance of winning Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, and will struggle to win Iowa and Ohio. Winning Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, and Ohio isn't enough to get you to 270 electoral votes. With mail-in-voting and ballot harvesting/fraud, they will likely lose exactly the same states they lost in 2020.
Things have to get a lot, lot worse for Republicans to be able to overcome the ballot fraud that has arisen due to mail-in-vote processes. A lot worse.
This is the playbook for the democrat media and political party now. Trump is the front runner, they have particular hatred of him for beating their darling Hillary. If he were gone, you would see EXACTLY the same rhetoric pointed at desantis, EXACTLY the same.
The democrats policies are so radical that they are literally tearing this country apart and destroying millions with their inflation policies.
Young lady, logic will get you nowhere!
One more thing. Throughout the Trump presidency and the 2020 election, I kept waiting for the "Adults in the Room", to step up and pushback against the endless media attacks on Trump, the refusal to discuss immigration and limits on USA international power, the rising deficit, 2 impeachments, the Democrat refusal to approve almost any Trump appointee, the rigged debates, and whole refusal to treat Trump as the legitimate POTUS.
And they said nothing. Bush was always jabbering about "Protecting the power of the Presidency against encrouchment by Congress". But said ZERO when the institution of the Presidency was under assault. We had two partisan fake impeachments under Trump, and suddenley all that Republican establishment concern show in 1998 about impeaching a POTUS, and being Very, Very careful to ensure it was the right thing, went out the window.
Bush, Romney, etc. showed themselves to be unprincipled hacks. Willing to go along with anything because they disliked Trump for beating them.
Blogger Limited blogger said...
Trump has supplied enough devastating sound bites to carry him right to the 2024 election.
But he is only getting started.
5/13/23, 9:26 AM
—————
Change “to the 2024 election” to “to the 2024 GOP nomination” and you might have something.
Trump cannot win the 2024 election. His performance the other night shows why. His fans were thrilled, however, independents (you know, the people who decide elections) are turned off by it.
The question one must ask after every Trump utterance or outburst is this: how many independent voters did that convince to vote for Trump? Invariably, the answer is usually 0 or less than 0.
Blogger rehajm said...
If the left engages with ideas they lose. They know they lose. Their ideas are unpopular and they know it. Hence the gaming the vote, the trillion dollar taxpayer funded slush funds, the evil Bond villain billionaires...
Exactly !
---The Democratic party has gone from walking left to sprinting left. [Tangerine]
Is there any issue for which the Democratic Party's solution is NOT to destroy one of the Bill of Rights amendments?
Religious freedom and free speech? Disgusting and vile, should be jettisoned.
Right to bear arms? They are working hard on that one.
Right of protection from unreasonable search and seizure? They violate that one regularly.
Trial by an impartial jury? LOL.
The 8th Amendment -- no cruel and unusual punishments? Burning climate heretics at the stake is really not cruel and unusual when you consider how dangerous their anti-science viewpoint is.
The 10th they already ignore routinely.
The only one of the Bill of Rights the Democratic Party might be willing to preserve in its original form is the 5th amendment, since their frauds and grifters need it so badly.
Other Constitutional elements like the Electoral College are obsolete and can also be dispensed with whenever the Democrats think they have or can create the majority of the vote.
Fyi: https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Its-Betrayal-Enemies-Liberty/dp/0691114994
Althouse writes:
"You really do need to take him seriously. He's presumptively the Republican nominee, and he's got an even chance of getting re-elected to the presidency. You can freak out about that, but you've been freaking about about him for 8 years, and it hasn't fazed him. His supporters tune you out."
No, I don't "need to take him seriously." Nobody "needs" to do that. We can keep hammering away at Trump with the same relentless messaging, just like MAGA keeps hammering away with its own repetitive messaging. We beat Trump in 2020, and with a couple dozen more felony counts hanging on Trump -- including stuff like insurrection and mishandling classified documents -- I think we can beat him even more conclusively in 2024.
I'm not looking for neutrality. I don't want a conversation with Trump World. I don't wish to build anything with them. I don't care what they may be convinced of at this point. I feel no need to argue with them. I just want to beat them. To beat Trump, again. To make Trump that one thing that is intolerable for him; a Loser.
Althouse your notion that "You need to take him seriously" reminds me of one of the many great columns found at The Bulwark; You Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, “Gotta Hand It to Tucker Carlson”
"Does the mere fact of his large following in an increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?"
Shorter: Why can't we just ban "radicalized, extremist" speech?
let this... kidsplain the problem we're facing with troublesome speech.
They really really want to otherize if not outright outlaw the Republican Party. But they have to use Trump as their Goldstein to criticize us otherwise middle America notices we’re getting the middle finger from the Elites again. This somewhat brain dead author fails to understand that most people almost half of adults now are independent unregistered and thoroughly turned off by politics, the thing she thinks is the most important thing in the universe: hating Trump. And a Hate Cult like progressives have built and nurtured among their snooty liberal white woman base cannot have a positive effect. All that unabated self-reinforcing raw hate has to go somewhere, the energy must be expended and so they tear down everything they do not control.
“Respect the courts.” Nevermind, we lost the majority so we must destroy the SCOTUS and remake it with new rules that put us back in power. “Question authority.” Nope now we control 99% of info that is available to most people so silence any questions of our authority.
Lincoln had it correct of course. You can’t fool all the people all the time because when they find out your news outlets becomes today’s Gawker or Buzzfeed etc. This article is written by someone who is destroying her own credibility along with the rest of the media. Is peddling nonstop trumphatred going to save Jour No Lism? IDTS.
I complained to my son (again) that whereas JFK could identify anyone who was 60 as too old, now we're stuck with the 80-year olds, by no means functioning in the most impressive way possible. How could this happen? His answer: rejection by the woke of anyone between them and the 80 plusers, i.e. rejection of the boomers. We may be approaching the epitaph of the boomers: those losers were widely perceived as hopeless. Trump barely a boomer (1946). DeSantis is only 44.
Do the woke have any heroes? I would think they struggle to admire any Pres other than JFK, and that would have to be a somewhat mythical JFK.
They are counting on stigmatizing Trump just a little bit more, as too abnormal for nice people to support. It worked in 2020 and is likely to work again.
@Sebastian, ordinarily you’d be right. But the Biden administration has a track record that makes them even more abnormal than Donald Trump.
“You hicks, no one is coming for your gas stoves.” Except they are.
Thirty plus years ago my sons’ teachers and public school administrators were asking for more and more parental involvement in the schools. Today trying to be an involved parent gets one labeled a “MAGA extremist” or worse. Indeed, the Attorney General of the United States has decreed that parental involvement is tantamount to terrorism. Has he ever walked that back? If he did, it wasn’t exactly widely publicized.
Parents of high school girls raped by boys who put on skirts and followed the daughters into girls’ rest rooms should just suck it up. Besides, she must have been asking for it. Once upon a time “she was asking for it” would reliably trigger feminists, but once the Washington Post floated that meme regarding the girls of Loudoun County, Virginia, I saw no pushback from any feminists (not even Althouse, to my recollection).
People are trying to make sense of regulations that will ban gasoline powered cars on the one hand, combined with regulations calculated to make electrical power generation less robust and more unreliable.
So tell me agsin, Sebastian, why stigmatizing Trump will work?
They can't treat Trump like a normal politician, because then they'd have to acknowledge that his supporters have legitimate concerns.
What would have happened if, in 2017, the Democrats came out and said “Donald Trump is someone we can work with.?
He would have governed as a Progressive Democrat. People who say nice things about Trump get what they want from Trump.
This is what surprised me. Both sides could have done this, but their own egos, disdain for the working class, and the need by the left to play to the hysteria of their base, along with the right's desire to appease corporate interests, prevented it.
All of my letters to editors of MSM publications asking that they focus on issues, not personalities, have found their way to the digital waste basket.
It's as if they were trying to keep us distracted. It gives them leeway to just grab what they want. Fascism. Literally. A big business/big government military censorship regime, with the goodies to be divided among government toadies. Lots of LLCs to squirrel away those fun little payments for the big guys.
The Left can't debate on the merits. That's why they call conservatives "radicals" and "extremists." Same reason why they cancel and censor us.
"Well, I never!" The MSM's dignified dowager is being upstaged by Trump's Marxism (Groucho, that is).
Oh..."brio" nice word choice.
I keep waiting for the right-wing strongman that will never come.
It's the only thing that will save this country.
Without it, we will inevitably slide into socialism and second-world status...
Saw that it was Susan B. Glasser and knew this was going to be trash.
The same garbage names keep popping up: Glasser, Goldberg, Rupar, Legum, Cohen, Merlan, Marcotte.
At least no one listens to nor cares about creepy child porn scribe Kurt Eichenwald anymore.
"That’s how David Frost got Nixon to say “when the president does it, it’s not illegal”. Not by engaging Nixon as though they were in a school yard verbal tussle."
Great point.
"broadcast... views to millions"
I saw elsewhere a video on Twitter by the Tennessee Titans showing their schedule for the upcoming NFL season. It posted about 36 hours ago and has over 20 million views. Um, congratulations on CNN reaching 3 million? Then there is Tucker Carlson's viewership now that he's on Twitter. Look at <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1656037032538390530>that</a>, 128M since May 9th.
If you were to ask Susan B. Glasser whether it is possible for men to become women, she would say "Of course!". So, she's nuts, OK? No functioning brain on board. So she can do shrill, she can do hysterical, she can do bat-shit crazy. Can and does. Cool, calm and analytical? Cruelly neutral? If that's what it takes, well, someone else is gonna have to do it.
The unexpected bounty of calling Jan6 worst than 9/11 is that now calling Trump supporters “radicalised” sound psychoanalytical. It’s not their fault. Their thinking faculties have been compromised. They are like the walking dead. What do you do with people who are like the walking dead? People who won’t take their vaccines and boosters? People who won’t do as they are told?
Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments.
I wish. That would be the quickest way for the Dems to lose in '24. And it's not even that Trump's policies are better than what Dems have to offer (which they obviously are), it's that the Dems can't run on what they have to offer. You see it on this and other blogs all the time. No policy discussion by lefties, just ad hominem.
Good radical idea, Althouse, but it won't happen. The leftmedia and the intellectual, moral pygmies to whom they cater don't deal in ideas or issues. They deal in descriptive nouns. Racist! Extremist! Supremacist!
Energy independence, constitutionalism, real borders, safe streets, deficit reduction, minority employment, strong middle class, pro-life, etc. Pretty extremist stuff.
Antifa riots, inflation, BLM, energy dependence, DOJ/FBI corruption, maiming children, open borders, men in women's sports, killing unborn babies, grifting, anti-constitutionalism, censorship, etc. All "normal".
Maybe this explains the genesis of the leftmedia's problem: "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." Orwell.
Speaking of radical and extremist, apparently this includes Amy Klobuchar now. Even she is being cancelled from speaking to the public.
You're asking all those "journalists," so frustrated that they couldn't get into law school that they manipulate "reportage", to start covering the Weekend-at-Bernie's that is our White House? Silly Althouse.
Glasser's comment is Exhibit A to the state of our culture war after fifteen years: can't answer them so silence them. This is a war. To adopt your sensible approach would be equivalent to defeat. Nice try.
Is asking about January 6 and the 2020 election an attack or a policy question?
You should be able to answer that yourself. Even if you believe the lies about what happened and how it came about that your side likes to cling to, what policy was Trump putting forth? Policy.
It is entertaining, if pathetic, to watch Sen. Kennedy interrogate the trained monkeys from the Bidencorps. They will not give him a straight answer to his questions.
It may not be that they want to be evasive. It seems evident that they just don't know the answers to questions pertaining to competent governance. They are playing to the media and the media prefers incompetent governance. CRISIS!
Many times over the last four or six years I have asked my lefty friends to name the two Trump policies they most disliked. Try it. The look you will get is of one so flabbergasted, so infuriated, so amazed that you would ask such a question. They splutter. There are so many! Well then name just one. They can’t. TDS is a very real thing crazy but real.
So good luck talking about Trump and policy. But not to worry, lefties, Trump is the only person in America who Biden has a chance of beating.
“LOL 3 million viewers. Lame.”
But they still hype Trump for clicks
So close! It’s the highlights, which in this case is all Trump, that circle the interwebs for hundreds of millions of impressions that completely go around and make obsolete the information suppression this Big Media gatekeeper is trying so desperately to protect. You guys have no clue what comes next.
Like THIS is normal??
Comfortably Smug
@ComfortablySmug
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When's the last time you traveled to a country and got a free hotel, free cell phone, and 3 meals a day, and all you had to do was show up with no passport
10:16 AM · May 13, 2023
Or how about THIS lie that the media runs with?? As they are kicking veterans out of hotels so they can give the rooms to illegal aliens that Joe invited in..
"The last thing this country needs is a manufactured crisis.
But MAGA Republicans are creating exactly that by holding America’s economy hostage—all to try to force cuts to veterans’ benefits, education, health care, and more."
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 12, 2023
That’s how David Frost got Nixon to say “when the president does it, it’s not illegal”.
I am sympathetic to your perspective, and empathize with your situation... Now, take a knee, beg... good boy.
Daniel12: "Is asking about January 6 and the 2020 election an attack or a policy question?"
It was a setup question which was exposed at the CNN post-debate (it was a debate, not a townhall) focus group where the democratical operative asked the focus group why it was they thought Trump keeps bringing up 2020 and does it bother the focus group members that Donald Trump keeps talking about 2020.
The thoughtful fellow in the front gave the democratical operative the "side look" and responded: "well, I feel that part of it is also the media narrative as you guys asked him the first question at the Townhall about the 2020 election rather than current stuff."
Kaboom.
To which the democratical operative did the lefty two-step and quickly asked: Don't you think he could talk about 2024?
The thoughtful fellow replied: "Couldn't the media ask him about 2024?"
Kaboom 2: Son of Kaboom.
Then the democratical operative did the quick lefty/LLR-democratical slither "move on" as fast as his (I'm assuming gender, sorry not sorry Dumb Lefty Mark) belly muscles could move his serpent like democratical operative body across the rhetorical terrain.
Taking Stock: Oxford Union to Set Up “Welfare Spaces” for Students to Cope With Gender Debate
Stock is a feminist who has joined those (like the author J.K. Rowling) in raising concerns over transgender ideology. Her book, “Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism,” explores the subject and calls for a reaffirming of fixed biological realities.
At the same time, Stock has stressed her support for trans rights generally, writing that trans people “deserve to be safe, to be visible throughout society without shame or stigma, and to have exactly the same life opportunities as non-trans people do.”
I sympathize, empathize...
Why can't I have my baby, and abort her, too? The little "burden".
“LOL 3 million viewers. Lame.”
CNN has had over 100million downloads and "watches" from its streaming service and website for the Debate (wasn't a Townhall).
Which is vastly and by far the most content consumer interaction they've had on anything they've generated in years.
Not quite so lame.
You know what is lame? Not understanding IP/content and how it is channeled/delivered and consumed and by who.
"That’s how David Frost got Nixon to say “when the president does it, it’s not illegal”. Not by engaging Nixon as though they were in a school yard verbal tussle."
But it's true. Congress can't legislate what the President can and can't do when it's within the executive powers already. Separation of powers.
They can impeach, as we know, for any reason. But it's not legislation.
Nice Dowd column in my beloved NY Times on the importance of the town hall.
AMDG: "As for Trump. The Democrats played him wrong. They could have used his lack of any philosophical core (except that his ego must be satisfied) and his unbridled narcissism against the Republicans.
What would have happened if, in 2017, the Democrats came out and said “Donald Trump is someone we can work with.?
He would have governed as a Progressive Democrat. People who say nice things about Trump get what they want from Trump."
The 4 years of Trump were the most conservative and pro-America in terms of what the Chief Executive pushed in policy and rhetoric than at any other time in any of our lifetimes.
For those republicans that oppose Trump, this presents a real messaging problem going into 2024. These republicans can't argue that Trump's policies were wrong so they are left with 2 choices, and we often see them both:
1) Trump only did what any republican would do.
2) Trump really didn't want to do any of that and is a "secret" russian asse...er...progressive.
Number 1) is easily refuted: March for life, demand NATO live up to its commitments and put teeth behind it, move the US embassy to Jerusalem, the Abraham Accords, fighting against the GOPe and dems to secure the borders more effectively, etc.
And because 1) is easily refuted, we see the usual suspects going the Alternate History route, because the actual history is too difficult to deal with for their current goals.
Of course, this won't help the Alternate History crowd advance the interests of their preferred candidates because the core voter base that supports Trump watched and listened the Alternate History Crew lie to them for decades and reward those who opposed the core republican base.
How about this for an Alternate History hot take: what if the republican party leadership decided to recognize the opportunity for generational realignment of the parties with the onset of the growing Tea Party movement?
What did the republican party leadership actually do? We know all too well: they aligned themselves completely with the dems and deep state to crush the Tea Party movement, allowing full weaponization of the state against the Tea Party members and groups, and let the republican base know they were never, ever, going to get consideration from GOP leadership.
Ever.
Now that's an Inconvenient Alternate History possibility that the Alternate History Crew avoids like a vampire avoids sunlight.
"You really do need to take him seriously. He's presumptively the Republican nominee,"
No he's not.
As I noted in a comment on one of the first of your Trump Town Hall posts, the Democrats have not contested an election on policy since at least 1988.
The seems not to be any emotional intelligence among the radical left. If they had some, they could separate their adolescent hatred for Trump the man from his policy positions. They are like the girls in elementary school who said boys had cooties. Several years later they flirted with the same boys.
I know many otherwise liberal people, in the traditional sense, myself included, who vote for Trump based on his policies.
But Trump hatred is a cult for the urban atheists.
It is awfully hard to separate the person from the policies. The policies matter, certainly, but it is the person who governs.
"Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments."
But Progressives have been unable to engage successfully with the substance of his policy arguments, so "attacking Trump, the person" is all that's left. But I think voters have been exposed to enough of that by now to have developed a natural immunity. (Where have I heard that term before?)
What astounds me in today's political world is how people can look at the exact same facts and draw completely opposite conclusions. Trump has good positions, but the other side cannot hear them.
Nixon was wrong in saying "it's not illegal when the President does it"
It's not illegal when the Deep State does it.
If Trump is not the nominee, the guy or gal who earns the nomination will certainly be called a racist, transphobe, homophobe and general extremist by our Soviet Democrat media.
"It is awfully hard to separate the person from the policies."
No, it's not. It's pretty easy, actually, if you want to.
Here's the WHITE president of the once United States...Nothing better than pushing that division. And he is the MOST racist president in recent history.
RNC Research
@RNCResearch
BIDEN at Howard University: "The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy, and I'm not saying this because I'm at a Black HBCU..."https://twitter.com/i/status/1657414374682681352
CR said...
"It is awfully hard to separate the person from the policies. The policies matter, certainly, but it is the person who governs."
And when he was allowed to govern Trump governed very well. He said what he was going to do for the American people and then , as much as the entrenched interests in DC allowed, he proceeded to do those things.
"It is awfully hard to separate the person from the policies."
I mean, are you really going to say, "I'm for border security, a robust economy, reliable energy, and no foreign interventions, but I don't like that Trump guy so I'm going to vote for the other guy who's policies are diametrically the opposite."?
Sadly, I think that's what a lot of people have done. It's baffling.
If they focus on the substance, they lose. And they know it.
That's why they don't. And won't.
But there is an increasingly radicalized, intolerant, and extremist Democrat Party.
Did Susan Glasser forget how many times Hillary! denied she had lost the 2016 election? That Hillary! manufactured the Russian collusion hoax to deflect from her monumental loss? Trump lies but try fact checking Biden. Today at Howard University graduation:
BIDEN: "The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy, and I'm not saying this because I'm at a Black HBCU...
Biden claiming Ketanji Brown Jackson is smarter than all the other Justices. Biden claiming that the Republicans want to put Blacks back in chains.
Whose lies are more pernicious to the American a soul?
This is the narrative that the political establishment has pushed since 2015. Orange Man Bad.
Meanwhile everything is failing apart for the great unwashed. I detest the Susan Glasser brigade that tell me over and over to trust them, while they ignore the Biden family corruption, and Democrat malfeasance.
IIRC, this is how the Dems and their lapdog media treated previous presidents:
NIXON - Refined, pure evil. A demon in human form. Burn him with fire!
Ford - Paid lackey of the demon Nixon, nothing more, nothing less. Clumsy and stupid, too.
Reagan - An insane, doddering megalomaniac who WANTS a nuclear war with the Soviets.
GHW Bush - THE CIA IS NOW RUNNING THE WHITE HOUSE! WE ALL GONNA DIE!
GW Bush - Chimpy McHitler Bush, aka "Shrub" aka "War Criminal" aka "Frat Boy" and so on.
Trump - Mean Tweets, and the new Hitler. That's HITLER!
Note that none of the actual policies of the above presidents is mentioned in the list.
Alinsky from all the way back.
Why talk policy when you can isolate, freeze, ridicule, dehumanize the man?
I for one don't care what Trump's policy positions are. I don't care if he would advance policy positions I like and Biden is awful. My problem with Trump is that he doesn't care about the law or the norms of democratic governance. He cares only about gaining power. He always had that tendency but after the 2020 election he demonstrated, convincingly, that's all he cares about. To those of you who say you don't care about Trump's lies about election fraud or his attempt to overturn the election or his recklessness in stirring up a mob to march on the Capitol, let me ask you, what would bother you? Would you have cared if he had marched at the head of the January 6 rioters? If he had declared martial law and ordered a new election (as some of his advisers recommended)? If he had ordered the arrest of the congressional leadership and the suspension of any elections for the "duration?" I'm really curious - how far would you be willing to go to support Trump? I'm not seeing any limits on the will-to-power gang and that's why I won't vote for Trump under any circumstances.
Does popularity require coverage? YES.
Otherwise, I would know nothing about the Kardashians.
I would certainly like to see her list of what she considers "radical" and "extreme." I expect much of it would be the elements of republican government and good citizenship that I learned in American history and civics classes nearly 60 years ago.
I really don't care for predictable media writers. But here we go again: No matter what Trump does or says in the future, there too will be Susan Glasser of the New Yorker presenting her latest manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's 2023. She will continue writing this stuff into 2025. Yawn.
I went back and read some of Althouse's pieces tagged "Susan Glasser." Glasser has every right to write her predictable opinions, but she's getting easier to ignore.
"Would you have cared if he had marched at the head of the January 6 rioters?"
If he had, I would believe the bullshit that he instigated an insurrection. But he didn't, did he?
"If he had declared martial law?"
But he didn't, did he?
"If he had ordered the arrest of the congressional leadership and the suspension of any elections for the "duration?""
But he didn't, did he?
Your "evidence" for Trump only caring about gaining power is all stuff that didn't happen. Do you ever glimpse that, perhaps in fleeting episodes of lucidity?
My problem with Trump is that he doesn't care about the law or the norms of democratic governance.
And just how are your precious, fucking 'norms' now?
"My problem with Trump is that he doesn't care about the law or the norms of democratic governance."
Bahahhahahahhahhahahahhaha...I think you spelled Biden wrong. Are you blind?? Do you REALLY think this administration that is there fraudulently cares about the law or the norms of democratic governance??? You people are too much.
Trump brought 3 million viewers to CNN, and they can't read the writing on the wall.
I see you really do a lot to publicize everything Trump says and mute every criticism of his character and behavior, but without ever examining his policies in much detail - either.
How do you feel about doing so as a former lawyer, given that this requires you to basically ignore the fact that he was just fined $5 million in liabilities for sexually assaulting and defaming a woman whom he confused for his 2nd wife? The jury that found him liable deliberated for just 3 hours.
That’s on top of the 60+ court cases striking down his ridiculous election fraud claims.
Do you just think that the rape, defamation, court/jury rulings and insurrectionist behaviors are just insignificant details that everyone needs to ignore so that they can instead help promote and legitimize the political ambitions of a megalomaniacal liar? If you really do feel that rule of law and basic ethical principles are less important than appealing to mob tactics and raw political power, wouldn’t it feel better if you just said so?
Pretending to be “fair” to a guy (or his followers) who has no use for the concept just makes you out to be someone with no principles. Blogging about him and doing what CNN did tell us nothing more about the guy or what he’s up to or would do than what everyone already knows. It’s simply a ritual, participatory act for indulging his followers in the lies they prefer to believe. Even Tucker Carlson knew this - but at least he was honest about, behind the scenes anyway. On camera he knowingly lied.
Does your blog just seek to promote the lies, then? At least Tucker knew he was doing it for money. It appears you do it just for blog attention. Do you?
"... require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?"
Well, only if they actually ARE news organizations. After all, he is a former POTUS. The last three Dem Presidents are a doddering old crook, a Marxist and a rapist. None of them have problems getting their views broadcasted.
"Does the mere fact of his large following in an increasingly radicalized and extremist Republican Party require that news organizations broadcast his views to millions?"
Increasingly radicalized? Who's been increasingly radicalized? I'll bet if you used the wrong pronoun with me, the only thing that would happen is that I'd give you a confused look. On the other hand, try using the 'wrong' pronoun to any random progressive. See what happens. Then report back to me on who's been radicalized.
Jesus. The Left is a hot mess and incapable of taking care of itself or the cities it runs. Or the nation it's been given the keys to. We're a mess until we get the Left out of the way.
It’s interesting and telling to hear accusations of suffering from a derangement “syndrome” by cultish followers of a guy who claimed that the rape and defamation lawsuit filed against him was just the workings of yet another crazy woman.
These strategies used to work, until you’re discovered to be just another Bill Cosby and lose your case. And then you have to open up your cheap pocketbook and pay the $5 million dollar damages awarded because of it.
But it’s ok. As Trump himself reminded those deposing him - powerful people get to get away with whatever they want. He said it’s been this way “for a million years,” even. And further, that that might be a “fortunate” thing.
So the Trump followers are just showing us what they’re about - and he’s just appealing to it. They are people who can’t reason and who think that might makes right; therefore Trump’s sense of “strength” and power must be supported.
And that’s what these publicity stunts are all about. Just raw power declarations. The power of his ego, the power of his senseless followers in prostrating themselves to it.
The policies never mattered. They’re just the policies people naive and spineless enough to follow him want, and that he gives them in exchange for that corrupt bargain they’ve made with his ego. Hate a group, push for a policy that disrespects that group. It’s all his followers were ever capable of coming up with, and now that they have a leader who thinks in the same terms and doesn’t even care how much it costs him in damages and attorney fees, they feel vindicated and high off his ego supply.
It’s about putting their hate to use by sharing in the exhilaration he feels from his narcissistic supply for enacting it. That’s all. Pretty simple, actually.
Just name enemies, and worship the narcissistic child-man who will use his political power against them. It’s a two-way parasitic relationship as a narcissist and his followers feast on the American body politic.
If she didn't say what she said or didn't ask the questions she did, she would not have gotten paid for that evening. It's not her job to modify the questions which are set to reinforce Democratic talking points. People have to understand these "town halls" are not meant for discussion but to get certain talking points out on TV, no matter what the moderator or other party(s) have to say.
"Give up on attacking Trump, the person, and engage with the substance of his policy arguments. Act as if he's a completely ordinary politician — pose as if you felt neutrality toward him personally — and engage with the ideas."
Funny. That's the opposite of the advice the Right has given up to now for anything related to the Left. For instance, the Right has always declared that one can NOT separate Roman Polanski's behavior from his films. That you can NOT morally treat him as if you "felt neutrally toward him personally - and engage with the ideas" of his films alone.
Just goes to show that the Right is no different than the Left. NONE give a damn about principle. They only reference principle if it 'helps' their Tribe.
In other words, in the battle between Left and Right, your witnessing nothing but brute Tribalism - exactly the same as the Crips and the Bloods.
Blogger Douglas B. Levene said...
I for one don't care what Trump's policy positions are. I don't care if he would advance policy positions I like and Biden is awful. My problem with Trump is that he doesn't care about the law or the norms of democratic governance. He cares only about gaining power. He always had that tendency but after the 2020 election he demonstrated, convincingly, that's all he cares about. To those of you who say you don't care about Trump's lies about election fraud or his attempt to overturn the election or his recklessness in stirring up a mob to march on the Capitol, let me ask you, what would bother you? Would you have cared if he had marched at the head of the January 6 rioters? If he had declared martial law and ordered a new election (as some of his advisers recommended)? If he had ordered the arrest of the congressional leadership and the suspension of any elections for the "duration?" I'm really curious - how far would you be willing to go to support Trump? I'm not seeing any limits on the will-to-power gang and that's why I won't vote for Trump under any circumstances.
5/13/23, 3:29 PM
———————-
Bingo!
When considering a President you should go through series of questions. The first question is will he or she abide by the oath. Trump has demonstrated that when the choice is between the oath of office and his ego he will choose his ego.
He is morally unfit for office.
Douglas B Levene
Ah the norms of democratic governance! Gas stoves. Electric car mandates. Pipeline cancellation. Billions to the IRS.
You out here in the real world or stuck in some lefty shithole where hypotheticals are considered sophisticated rhetoric.
"Are you blind?? Do you REALLY think this administration that is there fraudulently cares about the law or the norms of democratic governance??? You people are too much."
Are you blind? After three years of moaning and bitching and shrieking "the election was stolen, wah wah wah!" no evidence has been supplied to validate the temper tantrum. The insistence to the contrary despite no proof is indicative that Evertrumpers are just big, bawling babies having a hissy fit because their collective diaper is full of shit. They don't care about the norms of evidence or proof or democratic succession or governance. You people are too much.
"Would you have cared if he had marched at the head of the January 6 rioters?"
If he had, I would believe the bullshit that he instigated an insurrection. But he didn't, did he?
"If he had declared martial law?"
But he didn't, did he?
"If he had ordered the arrest of the congressional leadership and the suspension of any elections for the "duration?""
But he didn't, did he?"
Indeed, we keep getting told he's the end of democracy,but it was the Democrats who took advantage of Covid to seize more power. Its the Democrats weaponizing the FBI and censoring opposing views.
All the recent presidents (including Trump) have abused executive orders.
The end of democracy comes not from one person, but from discarding the principles and protections.
It’s kind of funny that anyone is being accused of not engaging Trump’s policy agenda, when his own party refused to adopt one at all during the last election (which he lost)!
Is Ann aware that for probably the first time in who knows how long, the incumbent president’s party actually refused to write a policy platform at all!? It basically consisted of a slogan - we’ll follow whatever our “America First” (a la Lindbergh) president Donald J Trump says or wants!
You say jump, Mr. President, and we say how high!
His opposition is not the one responsible for refusing to engage on policy.
To pretend that there’s anything left but to analyze the psychology of such a dictatorial figure and his authoritarian party is a ridiculous waste of time.
“He is morally unfit for office.”
Hell. He’s morally unfit for accompanying a woman through the Bergdorf Goodman Department store.
His followers know it, too.
After all, they’re probably the same incels that issue anonymous rape threats online to any woman whose opinion they don’t like, as well.
What would have happened if, in 2017, the Democrats came out and said “Donald Trump is someone we can work with.?
He would have governed as a Progressive Democrat. People who say nice things about Trump get what they want from Trump."
This wouldn’t have happened because progressives, liberals, and the left want nothing to do with anyone who lacks principles.
But for the right-wing conservatives - authoritarian power is all that matters. So deciding to be led by a guy who lacks for any principles whatsoever suits them just fine.
Listen to their chatter. It’s the ruthlessness that turns them on - and remains all that they care about. Their policies are cruel, and the cruelty is the point.
Nominating someone with any principles defeats that purpose. In this sense his psychological unsoundness makes him the perfect fit.
They know it. You know it.
"...ridiculous election fraud claims..."
Tell me you can't understand math without telling me.
When a leader of a country is a narcissistic sociopath, it affects the policies he promotes. Why should the US ignore the pathology of Trump? To do so is dangerous and foolish.
To separate children from their families and brag about it
To brag how “I alone can fix it”
To characterize the US as an “American Carnage”
To lie non stop about the election being “rigged”
To incite your followers to riot at the Capitol
To try to steal an election by promoting fraudulent electors
Stealing documents that belong to the National Archives, lying about having the right to take them and show them to whoever you want
To paint Jan.6th as some patriotic love fest
To tweet how his own VP didn’t do as Trump wanted to stop the election certification, knowing it was illegal. This caused his followers to call for Pence to be hung
To antagonize our allies while embracing our adversaries
Standing next to Putin in Helsinki and saying he has no reason to disbelieve him
To appoint his daughter and son in law as advisors, talk about in your face nepotism.
I’m sorry, to pretend Trump is a normal politician is not possible. To normalize this sort of behavior invites even worse behavior. Trump is an autocrat, he identifies and is drawn to other world autocrats.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
hpudding: "This wouldn’t have happened because progressives, liberals, and the left want nothing to do with anyone who lacks principles."
This might just be the funniest thing posted online, anywhere, over the last month.
Douglas Levene: "I'm really curious - how far would you be willing to go to support Trump? I'm not seeing any limits on the will-to-power gang and that's why I won't vote for Trump under any circumstances."
We have already seen how far you are willing to go to advance transparent lies and support the full weaponization of govt power to crush opposition.
Your "muh principles" and "muh precious norms" have already been exposed as complete and utter BS which you only kick up like a dust cloud to try and rhetorically obscure your weakness in the face of the actual destruction of our national norms which are occurring as we speak...and with the full support of those you politically back.
So, sorry, we cant hear your "arguments" over the din of our open southern border, impending economic disaster and collapse of our major cities.
But yeah. Trump is the problem.
The problem is Trump is an outlier to or disrupter of the elites of both parties. He’s Republican because he believes in the Constitution and the rule of law.
Trump is the underdog facing a force which is destroying our country. We don’t care about the occasional character flaw (Biden has oodles of those, too), we care about getting our institutional and national norms back. We want the honest truth from the media, not elite propaganda. We want lady Justice to balance the scales. We want the invasion to stop. We want economic growth and fiscal discipline that will sustain Social Security and Medicare. Etc. Trump is the incredibly tough leader we need for all this.
Trump is the underdog facing a force which is destroying our country. We don’t care about the occasional character flaw (Biden has oodles of those, too), we care about getting our institutional and national norms back. We want the honest truth from the media, not elite propaganda. We want lady Justice to balance the scales. We want the invasion to stop. We want economic growth and fiscal discipline that will sustain Social Security and Medicare. Etc. Trump is the incredibly tough leader we need for all this.
5/14/23, 5:27 AM
HEAR!! HEAR!! Breezy!!!
@Drago: You didn’t answer my question. Trump wanted to march to the Capitol but the secret service wouldn’t allow it. If he had, and had entered the Capitol with the rioters, would you have been OK with that? Some of Trump’s advisers wanted him to declare martial law and order a new election. Would you have been OK with that? A simple yes or no answer is all that is required.
@Gemma: You didn’t answer my questions, either. I want to know if there are any lines that if Trump crossed them, you couldn’t support him, or if you will support him whatever he does. This is a simple question. If the answer is that there is a line, then tell me what it is.Trump believes, not without reason, that his supporters will stick with him no matter what he does. Is that true for you?
Douglas B. Levene: "@Drago: You didn’t answer my question. Trump wanted to march to the Capitol but the secret service wouldn’t allow it."
LOL
Trump clearly told the crowd to "peacefully and patriotically" make their voices heard at the capital. Not at all surprising.
That Trump wanted to go and speak to crowd at the capital is not at all surprising.
That the Secret Service said yeah, we really arent set up for that, is not at all surprising.
But then again, this is FBI-false flag fanboy Levene who dreams of Trump lurching over seats to commandeer The Beast to lead an "armed insurrection" with "secret weapons caches" and "functional pipe bombs" and Whitmer fednappings and French Revolution gallows to lop off the heads of anyone whose name was knitted into Madam Trump's scarf...and all under Putin's direction.
Levene is so far down the Pelosi/Schiffty conspiracy hole his only hope for validation is a corrupted republic-crushing lawfare "victory" against Trump to make all of the BS nonsense Levene has bought into for 7+ years seem legit.
If what Trump had done was so bad you guys would not be spending so much time lying about the facts and desperately seeking hypotheticals to "win".
You want Trump gone and his supporters smashed and you are more than happy to destroy all the "precious norms" to make it happen...all the while weeping alligator tears about those very norms.
The jig is up.
We already have fully established there are NO corrupted practices or corrupt lines Levene would NOT cross in terms of govt action to remove Trump from office, preclude Trump from running again and denying Americans their option to vote for him, or simply just go full Soviet and throw him in jail.
Look in the mirror Levene, and you'll get a good solid look at the problem.
Levene's preferred world is the one where Epstein and his clients are protected, Biden's grandkids receive payments from the ChiComs, Hunter gets to sex traffuc underage women, swiss bank accounts of foreign leaders are filled with US taxpayer money, homeless US vets are tossed out onto the streets to make room for millions of illegals, and on and on and on.
Trump and others oppose all that and more. They are upsetting the applecart and thats the "problem" for the establishment.
Those are precisely Levene's et al "precious norms" that need "protecting" against the deplorable crass orangemanbad.
Breezy: "...we care about getting our institutional and national norms back. We want the honest truth from the media, not elite propaganda. We want lady Justice to balance the scales. We want the invasion to stop. We want economic growth and fiscal discipline that will sustain Social Security and Medicare. Etc. Trump is the incredibly tough leader we need for all this."
The problems you so eloquently itemize are precisely the "norms" Team "Muh Principles" seek to promote and expand.
Thats precisely why they want Trump and anyone like him gone.
@Drago: Stop filibustering and answer my questions.
“Levene's preferred world is the one where Epstein and his clients are protected, Biden's grandkids receive payments from the ChiComs, Hunter gets to sex traffuc underage women, swiss bank accounts of foreign leaders are filled with US taxpayer money, homeless US vets are tossed out onto the streets to make room for millions of illegals, and on and on and on.”
There goes The Moscow Trained Propagandist, Drag Queen, “reading minds” again, or more plainly said, lying his ass off as he was trained to do in Mother Russia. Or maybe he’s just an American pretending to be a Moscow Trained Propagandist.
Drago said...
hpudding: "This wouldn’t have happened because progressives, liberals, and the left want nothing to do with anyone who lacks principles."
"This might just be the funniest thing posted online, anywhere, over the last month."
And if you don't like those he has others. Parump bump clash! I'm here all week!
I don't think puddin even knows what "principles" means.
@ hpudding
Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself bark?
Douglas B. Levene: "@Drago: Stop filibustering and answer my questions."
Where do you believe you are counselor?
You'd better spend some time justifying your continued patsy-hood in accepting one transparent establishment lie/hoax after another for years and excusing away inexcusable govt corruption all in the name of nailing the disruptive outsider...or is it not so much patsy-hood and much more active support for that known corruption?
Not to worry laddie. You've got Russia Collusion Truther and Hillary/FBI Hoax Dossier Dead Ender Inga chiming in on your behalf now which is quite representative of our current political standoff.
Inga recognizes an ally when she sees one.
Congrats.
The only reason the Inga's of the world use hilariously moronic claims of russia collusion and hookers peeing on beds in Moscow and moscow trained propagandists (which I have to admit is my new favorite Inga-ism by far) is that she and the dems know for a fact based on the last 7+ years there is an army of Levene's that should know better but will go along with whatever the latest hoax happens to be as long as it targets the "right" parties.
Drago said...
hpudding: "This wouldn’t have happened because progressives, liberals, and the left want nothing to do with anyone who lacks principles."
"This might just be the funniest thing posted online, anywhere, over the last month."
And if you don't like those he has others. Parump bump clash! I'm here all week!
I don't think puddin even knows what "principles" means.
Shoot, if they do that, they'll lose.
@Drago: You're still filibustering and you still haven't answered my questions. People are going to start wondering what you're afraid of.
The election will turn out to be whether Milwaukee, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Las Vegas can churn votes.
Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself bark?
Better than letting the ignorant nonsense you brownshirts spew go uncorrected.
Do you never get tired of following a leader who told you to inject bleach and take deworming agents to treat a viral pandemic illness that he did nothing about? Are you avoiding the windmills he said would cause cancer?
Douglas B. Levene: "@Drago: You're still filibustering and you still haven't answered my questions. People are going to start wondering what you're afraid of"
You wont address the actual corrupt practices you've come to support to "rid yourself of this troublesome man" but I'm supposed to speculate on and be held accountable your hypotheticals?
LOL
I wonder what people will wonder about that?
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