I'm astounded that we are not talking this morning about DJT's statement that he is entitled to interfere in elections if he wants to, if he feels that there is a need for him to do so. It's not that we don't know where he stands on the issue. It's that he now is saying it right out in the open, with January 6 no obstacle at all to his s…
I'm astounded that we are not talking this morning about DJT's statement that he is entitled to interfere in elections if he wants to, if he feels that there is a need for him to do so. It's not that we don't know where he stands on the issue. It's that he now is saying it right out in the open, with January 6 no obstacle at all to his sense of entitlement and grievance, and with no fear of consequences because he knows none are coming.
We can say that he has gone down this road so many times that nothing he says truly shocks anymore. But that is his enabling mechanism right there -- knowing that his allies will have his back no matter what, and betting, apparently successfully, that his opposition is so worn down by his mendacity and blatantly self-serving attitude in the face of all laws and societal norms that that they will not bother objecting anymore, are afraid of consequences from him and his supporters for doing it, and/or that they will do so only meekly, and that the media likewise will give it only passing mention anymore. Guess what? Apparently he is right, if our morning anti-DJT column does not even mention it. How about losing the literary license and taking this issue head-on instead? No, we haven't heard enough about it already. We need much more time and attention to this rather important matter.
From where I sit it is his most egregious statement of antidemocratic thought and intentions. It is right there out in the open, with no shade and no shadows. He could not be more clear that he does not respect fundamental democracy and election integrity. It is his roadmap to gaining and wielding near-absolute power. Yet those in the best position to hold him accountable mostly are letting it pass now. Unconscionable.
His allies will say, "He didn't really mean interfere. He meant exercise his right and obligation to challenge fraudulent results!"
Most other people apparently think: "He says crazy things all the time. So what?"
It is perpetually flabbergasting to see what he gets away with - because his allies decreed that he's too special to be judged by any rules external to himself, and most of the journalistic establishment decided it was in their interest to sanewash a psychopath.
He said what he meant and he meant what he said. Simple as that. We know from ample experience, for all of his stupidity in extemporary speaking, he weighs such statements very carefully before uttering them, to maximize their impact.
One of the things that I hold onto for my sanity for why I know that the other side is wrong; is that he never, NEVER, clarifies these things in terms that a rational person willing to give benefit of the doubt could take on board.
The next time Trump says something like, "Hey, I can see where you'd think that based on what I said. Not the way I meant it. Here's what I really mean: ..." Will be the first.
There are so many cases of "fortunately or unfortunately" and "maybe or maybe not" and "we'll be looking into that very strongly, I can tell you." He always leaves himself and out and he says enough to let the listener read anything into his statements that the listener wants to.
I really don't think he carefully weighs his statements before he makes them. It's always seemed to me they follow a pretty simple pattern:
1. "I know you are, but what am I." That's the projection part.
2. What do I need to say to get through this day?
3. The Airing of the Grievances
So, he'll start out with something like this. "It's so unfair. The Democrat Party is racist and everyone knows it. Everyone knows it, Mark, seriously. They're racists, but what do they do? They call me a racist. I'm the least racist person, seriously, and everyone knows it. Best President ever for the Blacks, maybe since Abraham Lincoln. And I must tell you, maybe better."
And then he'll go on with something like this. "And, Mark, seriously, what these people are doing, it's incredible. It's a total disaster what they're doing. Our cities. They're burning. The crime. People tell me all the time. They say, "Sir, we have to do something about the crime because it's destroying this country."
And then he finishes with this. "It's a coup, Mark. Seriously. I spent a hundred million, a hundred million, Mark! A lotta money. A tremendous amount of money and I was winning. I was ahead in all the polls. By a lot. And what do they do? They put somebody in. Nobody's ever heard of this person. Some, I dunno, some person who nobody's ever heard of..."
I see and respect your points, but I have to say that while you may be right for the most part, my feeling is that the businessman and showman in him do understand the impact and importance of calculated statements, carefully worded to ensure both attention and their service as a rallying cry to his base. He knows that he has to feed the monster -- the rage machine -- every so often so that they do not drift away or become distracted. It is his stock in trade, and in fairness he is good at it -- not that it is good for the rest of us by any means.
Well said Deutchmeister. I'll also add the assault on the official at Arlington has not only died down, (which I thought would happen) but Trump has actually weaponize it, blaming it on others as always. Tom Cotton even blamed the Secretary of the Army. To quote Kamala; it's the same old same old. But the media has said next question. Move on.
It’s up to 81 million plus Americans to send a message on 11/5/24.
It’s up to us to crush the MAGA lemmings(estimated at 14 million) and the fascist mongers, who will never allow truth or common sense to dent their ignorance.
Vote Blue and send these cowards to the most remote corner of civilized society where they belong.
Yes! Thank you!! I am hoping that we see some movement on this today because he phrasing alone has got to have some play in a court room... right? Harris' campaign had better be cutting an ad that plays along with this and I want to be a dictator on day 1.
Not sure his phrasing WOULD get any play in a court room - hasn't his personally selected SC already said he was immune? So, basically he could say "Yeah - I went to the jail and hung Epstein myself - what you gonna do about it?"
And to validate it, his base would say "well, the guy was a pedo! So - well done, Oh Great orange One!"
I guess, but to say anything Donald Trump says has any internal coherence is just pointless. I know people want to impose some structure where none exists, but it's just not there.
I'm not saying these statements shouldn't be entered into the record in any court proceeding Trump finds himself in, but I don't think there's even one voter who's going to say, "That's it! He just admitted to everything. I was going to vote for him, but now I see that he really did exactly what the Democrats have been saying he was doing, so I'm out!"
Rambling, incoherent word-salads are what he does. It's all he does. And he does it with tools like Mark Levin so there's no brake on it. He just goes. And his base understands and loves it.
I've said this before, yeah. Smart, educated people *desperately* need to believe that there's some plan behind what Trump says or does, or that he's a cunning manipulator who fooled and outmaneuvered everyone. He's not - he's a moron who's banging his fingers on the keyboard. I understand why that's too horrible to accept for most people - but I really do think it's true. There is no structure. There is no strategy. He's just an idiot who James Comey handed a free win.
I'm not going to argue he's some kind of Super Genius, certainly. He's not even smart. But...
Neither is a Komodo Dragon.
Here's the thing Komodo Dragons know, though: how to be a Komodo Dragon. You get face-to-face with a Komodo Dragon and you're pretty much screwed because that beast, with its primitive, reptilian brain only knows one thing: how to find and kill its prey. And you, to paraphrase Jacque Cousteau, "you have just entered the food chain, but not at the top."
Trump is a Komodo Dragon. Now, the nice thing about Komodo Dragons is that they're 100% predictable. If Harris can learn his ways, she can defeat him. She can't reason with him. She can't use subtlety to confuse him. She can't shame him. Proving, through superior debating skills, that she's smarter than him won't work. She cannot dazzle him with brilliance. She needs to understand his primitive ways and limitations, trap him and destroy him.
I'm with you when it comes to the average voter and what he says. The way they have been able to twist and bankrupt the meaning of words will soon be seen as a cancer. We are down to just the courts taking actions and words seriously, so if we can at least get some traction there, maybe, just maybe people will start to be repulsed by what these people are actually saying.
I'm astounded that we are not talking this morning about DJT's statement that he is entitled to interfere in elections if he wants to, if he feels that there is a need for him to do so. It's not that we don't know where he stands on the issue. It's that he now is saying it right out in the open, with January 6 no obstacle at all to his sense of entitlement and grievance, and with no fear of consequences because he knows none are coming.
We can say that he has gone down this road so many times that nothing he says truly shocks anymore. But that is his enabling mechanism right there -- knowing that his allies will have his back no matter what, and betting, apparently successfully, that his opposition is so worn down by his mendacity and blatantly self-serving attitude in the face of all laws and societal norms that that they will not bother objecting anymore, are afraid of consequences from him and his supporters for doing it, and/or that they will do so only meekly, and that the media likewise will give it only passing mention anymore. Guess what? Apparently he is right, if our morning anti-DJT column does not even mention it. How about losing the literary license and taking this issue head-on instead? No, we haven't heard enough about it already. We need much more time and attention to this rather important matter.
From where I sit it is his most egregious statement of antidemocratic thought and intentions. It is right there out in the open, with no shade and no shadows. He could not be more clear that he does not respect fundamental democracy and election integrity. It is his roadmap to gaining and wielding near-absolute power. Yet those in the best position to hold him accountable mostly are letting it pass now. Unconscionable.
His allies will say, "He didn't really mean interfere. He meant exercise his right and obligation to challenge fraudulent results!"
Most other people apparently think: "He says crazy things all the time. So what?"
It is perpetually flabbergasting to see what he gets away with - because his allies decreed that he's too special to be judged by any rules external to himself, and most of the journalistic establishment decided it was in their interest to sanewash a psychopath.
He said what he meant and he meant what he said. Simple as that. We know from ample experience, for all of his stupidity in extemporary speaking, he weighs such statements very carefully before uttering them, to maximize their impact.
One of the things that I hold onto for my sanity for why I know that the other side is wrong; is that he never, NEVER, clarifies these things in terms that a rational person willing to give benefit of the doubt could take on board.
The next time Trump says something like, "Hey, I can see where you'd think that based on what I said. Not the way I meant it. Here's what I really mean: ..." Will be the first.
Trump mastered the dialect of Newspeak called Plausible Deniability when he was very young.
There are so many cases of "fortunately or unfortunately" and "maybe or maybe not" and "we'll be looking into that very strongly, I can tell you." He always leaves himself and out and he says enough to let the listener read anything into his statements that the listener wants to.
I really don't think he carefully weighs his statements before he makes them. It's always seemed to me they follow a pretty simple pattern:
1. "I know you are, but what am I." That's the projection part.
2. What do I need to say to get through this day?
3. The Airing of the Grievances
So, he'll start out with something like this. "It's so unfair. The Democrat Party is racist and everyone knows it. Everyone knows it, Mark, seriously. They're racists, but what do they do? They call me a racist. I'm the least racist person, seriously, and everyone knows it. Best President ever for the Blacks, maybe since Abraham Lincoln. And I must tell you, maybe better."
And then he'll go on with something like this. "And, Mark, seriously, what these people are doing, it's incredible. It's a total disaster what they're doing. Our cities. They're burning. The crime. People tell me all the time. They say, "Sir, we have to do something about the crime because it's destroying this country."
And then he finishes with this. "It's a coup, Mark. Seriously. I spent a hundred million, a hundred million, Mark! A lotta money. A tremendous amount of money and I was winning. I was ahead in all the polls. By a lot. And what do they do? They put somebody in. Nobody's ever heard of this person. Some, I dunno, some person who nobody's ever heard of..."
I see and respect your points, but I have to say that while you may be right for the most part, my feeling is that the businessman and showman in him do understand the impact and importance of calculated statements, carefully worded to ensure both attention and their service as a rallying cry to his base. He knows that he has to feed the monster -- the rage machine -- every so often so that they do not drift away or become distracted. It is his stock in trade, and in fairness he is good at it -- not that it is good for the rest of us by any means.
Well said Deutchmeister. I'll also add the assault on the official at Arlington has not only died down, (which I thought would happen) but Trump has actually weaponize it, blaming it on others as always. Tom Cotton even blamed the Secretary of the Army. To quote Kamala; it's the same old same old. But the media has said next question. Move on.
It’s up to 81 million plus Americans to send a message on 11/5/24.
It’s up to us to crush the MAGA lemmings(estimated at 14 million) and the fascist mongers, who will never allow truth or common sense to dent their ignorance.
Vote Blue and send these cowards to the most remote corner of civilized society where they belong.
That’ll be the Corporate Media.
No different than the Corporate shadow government that owns them.
Yes! Thank you!! I am hoping that we see some movement on this today because he phrasing alone has got to have some play in a court room... right? Harris' campaign had better be cutting an ad that plays along with this and I want to be a dictator on day 1.
Not sure his phrasing WOULD get any play in a court room - hasn't his personally selected SC already said he was immune? So, basically he could say "Yeah - I went to the jail and hung Epstein myself - what you gonna do about it?"
And to validate it, his base would say "well, the guy was a pedo! So - well done, Oh Great orange One!"
I guess, but to say anything Donald Trump says has any internal coherence is just pointless. I know people want to impose some structure where none exists, but it's just not there.
I'm not saying these statements shouldn't be entered into the record in any court proceeding Trump finds himself in, but I don't think there's even one voter who's going to say, "That's it! He just admitted to everything. I was going to vote for him, but now I see that he really did exactly what the Democrats have been saying he was doing, so I'm out!"
Rambling, incoherent word-salads are what he does. It's all he does. And he does it with tools like Mark Levin so there's no brake on it. He just goes. And his base understands and loves it.
I've said this before, yeah. Smart, educated people *desperately* need to believe that there's some plan behind what Trump says or does, or that he's a cunning manipulator who fooled and outmaneuvered everyone. He's not - he's a moron who's banging his fingers on the keyboard. I understand why that's too horrible to accept for most people - but I really do think it's true. There is no structure. There is no strategy. He's just an idiot who James Comey handed a free win.
I'm not going to argue he's some kind of Super Genius, certainly. He's not even smart. But...
Neither is a Komodo Dragon.
Here's the thing Komodo Dragons know, though: how to be a Komodo Dragon. You get face-to-face with a Komodo Dragon and you're pretty much screwed because that beast, with its primitive, reptilian brain only knows one thing: how to find and kill its prey. And you, to paraphrase Jacque Cousteau, "you have just entered the food chain, but not at the top."
Trump is a Komodo Dragon. Now, the nice thing about Komodo Dragons is that they're 100% predictable. If Harris can learn his ways, she can defeat him. She can't reason with him. She can't use subtlety to confuse him. She can't shame him. Proving, through superior debating skills, that she's smarter than him won't work. She cannot dazzle him with brilliance. She needs to understand his primitive ways and limitations, trap him and destroy him.
Completely agreed. I'm just tired of people talking about him like he's some kind of fucking supervillain, as opposed to a Komodo Dragon.
If we need a decoder ring or cult membership to understand him, he should not be POTUS.
I'm with you when it comes to the average voter and what he says. The way they have been able to twist and bankrupt the meaning of words will soon be seen as a cancer. We are down to just the courts taking actions and words seriously, so if we can at least get some traction there, maybe, just maybe people will start to be repulsed by what these people are actually saying.
It's all dog whistles, it's like they speak a completely different language.
"These people cheat" = "You are Black, Hispanic, a Liberal"
"You are an immigrant" = "you are a rapist murderer drug dealer."
"You are a Communist" =" You want to steal my money"