"...as the body politic has grown increasingly numb to Trump’s fire hose of malice.... It must feel almost providential to Trump that his rise to power has also coincided with the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media, as well as the emergence of just the sort of alternative-reality information silos that he needed to shape his narrative and platform his bluster, bombast and fakery. So now, despite (waves hand) all this, Trump is about to clinch the GOP nomination for the third time, and most national polls show him leading President Biden.... Has anyone
ever been this lucky?"
Writes Charles Sykes, in
"Donald Trump, the luckiest politician who ever lived" (WaPo).
You could just as well ask has anyone ever been this unlucky. Trump's antagonists have come at him so many times. That's why he's had so many opportunities to be lucky. Who would want all the trouble that's come his way?
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66 comments:
Charles Sykes lives in an alternate universe. He has proven the Multiverse Theory is true.
The odd thing to me is that Trump is the closest thing Rs had had to a typical progressive candidate I've ever seen. As someone in the middle, I'm struck how he mirrors the demagoguery of the Left and they are aghast to see how it looks like all without recognizing it.
Trump's greatest luck has been dealing with political commentators like Mr. Sykes.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, talk about silos. Dude!
I hope to God that's an op-ed and not "fact-based" news. There is, indeed, a "firehose of malice" out there, but it's wielded by Sykes and his ilk.
I suppose poorly written cheap shots in things you post Professor get a lot of responses that some call "click bait".
"He's not like a traditional politician, who obsesses over what the media reports on him. HE MUST BE CRAZY!"
TBH, the traditional media pretty much threw away their credibility on Trump when he ran for President the first time. Before then, he was a NYC celebrity, liked for what he'd done for the city.
Afterward? Nope, totally incompetent, hated, reviled - he was just full of 'bluster, bombast and fakery.'
The 'journalists' decided that he couldn't/shouldn't be President, and that's been the slant of every story for the last 8 years.
Meanwhile, Biden's a fiery beast that his staff can't keep up with, intellectually or physically. Totes ready for another 4 years as Prez, where he'll do even more amazing things for us all...
And they wonder why there's a bit of suspicion over their 'impartial, evenhanded reporting'...
"In his oddly charmed political life, …"
WTF? He's fighting 90-something politically motivated criminal charges.
The rabid utterances of these people continues to astound me. It's like they turn their brains off when it comes to Trump. They just can't think straight.
Considering that he ran on a lark in the first place with no expectation of winning -- and looked like he'd just swallowed the turd in the punchbowl on the night the election was handed to him -- this whole real-life reality show adventure has been nothing if not consistent in its defiance of expectations. During the 2016 campaign, big-business folk familiar with Trump's shady reputation were certain that just by running he was opening himself up to white-collar criminal investigations that would otherwise never have happened, and that is one of the few prognostications that anyone has gotten right. Not that it seems to be stopping him.
"Who would want all the trouble that's come his way?"
Only a crazy like a fox man
I listened to Charlie Sykes’ radio show back in the day to know these two things:
1) He does not have original thoughts. He parrots a narrative.
2) He desperately wants to be popular with the movers and shakers. Working class people are beneath him.
Traditional media, especially 'news' organizations are dying.
Trump just makes their demise more obvious and inevitable...
Fire hose of malice? Unlike the current POTUS I find no evidence of Trump maligning Democrats as a group.
Fact based media?
Same fact based media who sold the big lie that Trump and Russia colluded to beat Hillary in 2016?
Because Hillary and Brennan needed revenge? - and the best they could do was the laughable mueller report? A report that said "we think he is guilty!" but could never prove it. Even though the proof was all faked.. never true at all.
That lie was dutifully obsessed over and pimped for 3+ years by the dutiful corrupt democrat State Run Loyalist hack press.
They attack his personna because people vote on personality. It used to be a good strategy back before Democrats became insane. Now more people are worried about policy. Democrats know they lose on policy so gotta keep attacking on style…and they gotts cheat, destroying everything in their wake.
Charlie Sykes is a fraud. He was once every bit as smarmy and assertive as a right-wing conservative talk show host in Milwaukee as he is now among the Never Trumpers. I recall listening to him often on my way to work in Fort Atkinson. Mark Belling, who was even more to the right and even a bit crankier, nevertheless vastly exceeded Sykes in his knowledge of the nuts and bolts of local Milwaukee politics. Sykes was more superficial, but more glibly in line with a respectable right-wing crowd. He made black conservative Sheriff David Clark his hero and put him on the map, only to turn on him viciously and on a dime when Clark came out for Trump. Trump truly deranged Sykes, I think, and triggered his turn to the left (one of the fastest in history, I believe). Or maybe money did, who knows?
Sykes immediately became the darling of a new set of marginal and highly pretentious players at the Bulwark. They pretend to lament, as he puts it here, "the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media," ignoring totally how many times that media has failed in the "fact-based" business on so many crucial matters, such as Hunter and the Laptop, the Russia Collusion fable, the origins of COVID and so much more.
I don't know about the 'banality of crazy' but the man's one lucky son of a bitch! Kamala Harris just wrote his next campaign commercial for him.
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1766312069035409534
And yes, this is apparently real.
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1766314368357048709
WaPoo, clean my shoe. Three, four, Pelosi, too. Tick tock, black rock. Five, six, NYT. Seven, eight, Hochul militarizes the State. Nine, ten, People of Brown replace People of Black. Progress... and don't spare the babies. The banality of Democratic politics.
Charlie Sykes never got over the fact that Trump didn't know who he was when Trump called into Sykes' old radio show during the 2016 campaign.
Trump is such a fascinating phenom I can't be objective about him tbh. I just want to sit back and watch it all unfold.
Is that bad?
So someone at the WaPoo is all wee wee'd up about Trump? Firehose of malice? Charlie is trying too hard. Full of bluster bombast and fakery? That would describe a significant portion of the Noo Yawkahs I've known--and danged near every commercial real estate developer I ever met. There's a certain amount of fake it until you make it among the breed--and that's how they got to be a success. OTOH that carries the risk of the developer not being much liked in his or her home town. I've seen it in New York, Los Angeles and in my home town of San Diego. A lot of real estate developers go bust along the way, and a lot of the same developers rise from the ashes and get back to the top, or at least towards the top again.
Whats striking about Sykes is what a liar and a fake he is. LIke many Never-trumpers, he pretended to be a "True Conservative" before Trump came along. Then when the choice was between Trump and Hillary with the SCOTUS at stake (and a lot more), they threw in their lot with Hillary.
Then after 4 years of a TRump Presidency, which proved he wasn't "Crazy" or "Hitler" or blabblah all the other crap they'd been hysterical about in 2016, what did they do? They supported Biden or went AWOL.
Even worse, is once these characters stop screeching and hurling insults at Trump, they can't (or wont) tell you what Trump POLICIES upset them so much. I want tell them "Put on your big boy pants, and stop talking vague generalizations, and Character, and tell what Policies make Trump so bad".
But then cant. And now like David French and Bill Kristol and other Never Trumpers, Sykes is now just a Liberal Democrat, cheerleading for Biden and hoping the Republicans get wiped out in 2024.
What frauds and liars.
Trump's "fire hose of malice."
And all this time everyone's been so nice to him. Go figure.
"Trump's antagonists have come at him so many times. That's why he's had so many opportunities to be lucky."
Or, flip the script, DJT is a total POS that should have been garbaged way back w/ just the beginning of his antagonists coming at him. But his supporters have a devotion that is atypical. So financial law breaking, swindling normal people out of money for work done as contractors or Trump U etc, sexual abuse of women, hoping for the overthrowing a fair election and so on all add up to no big deal for these devoted supporters.
Who knows why? Meade?
Syckes claims that “[Trump’s] rise to power has also coincided with the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media”. Is that the same "traditional fact-based media" that helped Obama cover up his failure to defend US diplomats and troops from attack in Benghazi? The same "fact-based media" that used fake documents in an attempt to smear G.W. Bush? The same "fact-based media" that gave Hillary Clinton a pass on her illegal use of a private cell phone and computer server to conduct "government business" as Secretary of State and the destruction of the evidence that she was actually conducting "Clinton business". Was it the "fact-based media" that covered up the evidence from the Hunter Biden laptop that the Biden Family was selling Joe Biden's influence to various foreign interests?
Tell me: What actual or imagined misconduct by Trump has NOT been broadcast far and wide by "the traditional fact-based media"?
Somewhere between Stage 3 and Stage 4. Still angry, but starting to accept it.
Original Mike,
You make a dangerous mistake if you think their brains are switched on for other subjects. Cases in point: global warming, COVID.
Tucker on Joe
To ask an Althousian question, do progs believe what they profess to believe? As in, do they buy this BS?
"fire hose of malice"
It's malicious to stand up to the Chinese? To want to close the border? To make America more energy-independent? And if that is malicious, how does it compare to the malice of resupplying Hamas while it still holds Americans hostage, of of botching the Afghanistan exit, or of having the FBI go after ordinary citizens?
"the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media"
The media that peddled the collusion hoax for years and suppressed Hunter's laptop?
"Has anyone ever been this lucky?"
Lucky to have the entire deep state go after him, followed by prog persecution on multiple fronts?
"In his oddly charmed political life..."
The one where he takes bribes and everybody knows it, he takes political prisoners and everybody knows it and his opponent is impeached for winning an election and everybody knows it? And nobody dos anything about it? Yeah, that Brandon is one lucky SOB, isn't he?
Trump's "luck" is that his enemies all have shit for their brains.
Populism is what happens when elites of both parties screw the pooch. Seen from that perspective, Trump was inevitable; no luck was required.
The Left is incapable of seeing its own craziness, utterly impervious to considering what their own actions have wrought.
The "downfall of the traditional fact-based media" was directly linked to Trump's ascendancy. For decades, liberal journalists slanted the news in favor of the left, but in a gentle enough way that they could pretend there was no institutional bias; and that included actual objective news. As a result, it was still plausible for retired midwestern academics to look to the Times and WaPo as credible sources of news. But with Trump, the masks were off. The reporters' palpable hatred for him blinded them to the risks they might be taking in undermining their credibility by revealing what had always been true. All the way up to Dean Bacquet, the virus spread, justifying the stance that it was just not right to be fair or objective when it came to Trump. No lie about him ever came with a price to pay when it was debunked. This coincided (or at least overlapped) with the Woke invasion of newsrooms calling for journalists to be partisan activists, and not neutral reporters.
COVID accelerated the process. No one who told pro-establishment lies about COVID would ever have to pay any price, and many of the dissenters to be stifled were pro-Trump, too -- a two-fer. And so, the lamentable downfall.
downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media,
you know? maybe, Just Maybe; IF the traditional media WAS Still "fact-based" it wouldn't have fallen so far
A corrupt Democrat party is the only entity on planet Earth that could turn Donald Trump into a martyr. And they've done a good job.
Who would want all the trouble that's come his way?
No mere charlatan, that's for sure.
Charlie Sykes is a cunt.
What Paddy O said 👆🏽
I remember, back in 2016 when Trump won, my biggest fear was that Pelosi would charm her way into his presidency and take it over.
They chose to fight him instead.
I suppose others have noted that the public has instead grown numb to the over-the-top reaction to the existence of Donald Trump in politics.
Trump is lucky to be alive, because some judge would give him a death sentence if he thought he could get away with it. Presumably to save democracy.
A big chunk of Trump's "luck" comes from the enemies he's made. Many of them seem genuinely unhinged, which is fine so long as they're just talking to each other. But when they turn outward and talk to the broader public, a substantial portion of the electorate is repelled by their disconnection from reality and their virulent rhetoric. Could anyone have better enemies than Robert Reich and Lawrence Tribe in their current incarnations?
In Bizarro world the traditional media are "fact based" and Trump is lucky.
Another contributor to the downfall of "fact-based" media.
Charlie Sykes used to have a thousand long playlist at YouTube Bulwark channel but he left last month and they've deleted it (though the videos are there but not specifically collected).
A shuffle-play of the list used to be fun. Gone now.
The malice I have seen is coming from the so-called elite. Trump is a New York Yankee, with all the baggage that entails. But he at least attempted to do what he promised he would do......unlike Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Biden.
Paddy O -
Yes.
Considering that he ran on a lark in the first place with no expectation of winning...
I never cease to be amazed by the mindreading skills of our resident leftists.
fakery
You mean like the Steele Dossier? The intelligence memo signed by 51 liars about Hunter's laptop? That fakery?
Actual fact-based media has long existed, and still exists today.
Case in point: "Aviation Safety" monthly, which, when I first subscribed in 1994, cost $90 p.a. for an 8 page newsletter. Still exists today. No ads, at all. Just the brutal reality.
Mass news media are not even in the same solar system, both in ideology and business.
Value for money, boys. With oh-so-rare exceptions like this very forum.
Another version TDS. Trump was on his way to a very successful first term when the world shut down due to COVID. I would call that unlucky. Let's talk Biden and "good luck" - one of the most unqualified persons ever just happened to be standing around when Democrats were looking for someone to steal the election for.
The left keeps calling Trump 'Hitler.'
What has he done to deserve that other than be an America-first president?
I call Biden a drooling idiot and he proves me right every day.
As a President, If Trump was a charlatan, or a thief, he would have moved on getting money. He got no money, unlike Beiden. Trump is the most vetted innocent man that lives. If he had one shred of actual guilt, he would have been convicted by Hillary! And her FBI. And the Russia! Hoax would not have been needed. The Judge Enron may be right, but I expect the 8th amendment will prevail.
Trump was a native player in NY real estate. He dealt with the Unions. He got results. He excelled at the game. I expect that Hochule and the DA are going to find nothing but trouble. Hocchule will rue the day.
Trump stronk, like boooll!
Amazing how little evidence there is of Trump "shady dealings" and how much evidence there is of Joe Biden's corruption. Why do Joe and Jill Biden control 20 shell corporations whose main function seems to be to pass money around in some kind of shell game, and whose tax returns are not included in his financial disclosures? That's why they have to accuse Trump, because the stink of corruption is out there, and they need to deflect it from its actual source.
Why does Joe share bank accounts with his son Hunter, who takes payments from shady people worldwide?
Each and every one of these never Trump pundits w/o an alternative needs to be shown their “I love Biden” voter registration. So sick of these rudderless fucks.
So Trump is unlucky because he has been caught red-handed constantly breaking the law? No, he has been racketeering since he was old enough to collect rent for Fred Sr. The only thing different now is that he attracts attention while demanding authority that he has never been granted.
tim in vermont said...
Amazing how little evidence there is of Trump "shady dealings" and how much evidence there is of Joe Biden's corruption. Why do Joe and Jill Biden control 20 shell corporations whose main function seems to be to pass money around in some kind of shell game, and whose tax returns are not included in his financial disclosures? That's why they have to accuse Trump, because the stink of corruption is out there, and they need to deflect it from its actual source.
Why does Joe share bank accounts with his son Hunter, who takes payments from shady people worldwide?
What is amazing is how many lies you can repeat in two paragraphs. Strangely, Joe Biden has no shell corporations for passing around money that Tim can name, while Trump has over 500 shell companies. President Biden's tax returns are displayed online but we have never seen a full return provided willingly by Trump. If Joe and Hunter share a bank account it has never been shown, let alone proved. Trump and his failsons dip into many company bank accounts as they see fit. Both Donald and Eric signed checks that were to reimburse Michael Cohen for paying the $135,000 bribe to Stormy Daniels as recorded in Cohen's trial. Stay tuned for Trump's criminal trial in NYC beginning on March 25.
Sure. With all the CRAZY Progressives lying about him, and going after him like he is a serial killer and installing Joe "illegal aliens built this country" Biden...HE's the crazy one.
Charlie “3wives” Sykes?
the downfall of much of the traditional fact-based media
He slides right over this thought.
Does he mean "downfall" as in loss of viewers, loss of readers, loss of influence, loss of respect?
Loss of professionalism?
Maybe the media suffers a downfall because it's no longer seen as fact-based at all.
You could say the same thing about our legal system. Trump is being charged with a massive number of crimes and his voters don't give a shit.
That's because we see the bias and the lies.
When journalists write about Trump, they leave "fact-based" way, way behind. As have a few prosecutors and their juries. They make up "novel prosecution theories" because they are not charging him with actual crimes. It's all narrative and bile at this point.
Trump has been lucky in that his enemies are so obvious and so unhinged. Trump seems more and more normal and the people attacking him seem crazier and crazier.
Trump's never had much of a mask. He is who he is. But the "nice liberals" who hate him so much are out of their minds with anger. And what that reveals has not been pretty.
DJT is a total POS that should have been garbaged way back w/ just the beginning of his antagonists coming at him. But his supporters have a devotion that is atypical. So financial law breaking, swindling normal people out of money for work done as contractors or Trump U etc, sexual abuse of women, hoping for the overthrowing a fair election and so on all add up to no big deal for these devoted supporters.
Interesting that your list doesn't include "Hitler" or "spy for Putin."
Why so many lies about Mr. Trump if the truth is enough to disparage him?
Did Trump defraud the banks out of $450 million? (Weird that the banks didn't complain!) Or is the corrupt and dishonest New York judicial system trying to defraud a lot of money out of Trump?
As for "swindling normal people out of money for work done as contractors or Trump U etc," have we time-traveled back to the 2016 campaign?
He was president of the USA for four years. Surely you have some horrific stories from his time in the White House to share with us?
Your side has been claiming that he's "Hitler" and "spy for Putin" and "guilty of 91 crimes."
Have you noticed that he was not Hitler when he was president from 2016-2020?
Have you noticed that he was not a spy for Putin from 2016-2020?
It would be nice if our "fact-based journalists" would talk about how Trump is not Hitler. And he's not a spy for Putin. Is anybody on the left capable of honesty vis-a-vis Donald Trump?
Gadfly lying again, I see. The money paid to Daniels, Gadfly, isn't a bribe. You clearly have no fucking clue what a bribe actually is if that is how you describe it, or you are lying.
The "firehose of malice" seems to have only played on Trump.
Gadfly forgets that Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, is a convicted fraudster and that Ms. Daniels was ordered to pay damages to Donald Trump. Which is unusual in that the alleged whore has to pay the alleged john.
tim in vermont said...
"Amazing how little evidence there is of Trump "shady dealings" and how much evidence there is of Joe Biden's corruption."
That's because Trump deals in a lot less cash than the Bidens. His small army of accountants make sure he can back up all his reciepts.
If this is what "lucky Trump" looks like, what would "unlucky Trump" be?
Ruining Trump financially doesn't seem like good fortune. But he does have a history of not paying his contractors and floating his bills, so perhaps he's not as rattled as Democrats would like him to be. He's had plenty of practice skating on bankruptcy's edge.
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