Peter Meijer is an example of why I've lost patience trying to understand "normie" Republicans and their motivations. Shit, Brett Stephens is at least willing to drop acid in order to bring himself to vote for Biden, Why can't we find more courage like that?
No such animal as a normie Republican on the Federal level.
There are a few on the state level.
One has to go to the still existing local "thinking constiuent" level to find elected officials who actual care about governing instead of feathering their own political bed.
I was just thinking this. I can't begin to comprehend the logic of someone who would vote to impeach someone for insurrection only to then publicly state they would still support the insurrectionist. How do we even begin to overcome this? Are we just entering a post-ethical era? That should work out well, almost as well as our post-racial era is working out
I heard him on POTUS yesterday and was surprised how rational he sounded on basic topics being discussed until he rolled out the typical talking points about Uncle Joe not caring about China as a potential enemy.
It seems as if they realize that their potential voters will simply listen to their lies without question.
And even those are getting to be fewer and farther between. Here in my little mostly-red corner of Virginia, we have our state delegate Marie March, once photographed with her husband, kids, and all their guns, and her acolyte Johanna Hicks on the local allegedly non-partisan town council who does nothing but cause trouble and then play the victim. Former head of the local county republicans (who also owns the local t**** store, natch) stepped down because the group wasn't far enough right for her liking.
Insite of being in the heart of Trump country Indiana, with the similarly-minded Lying Sack of Rokita as the Atty General recently censured by our State Supreme Court for his attack on the doctor who performed the abortion of the 13-year old rape victim from Ohio, we have many normie Republicans and normie Democrats in greater Lafayette.
Governmentally speaking, it's like living in a time warp. It's sometimes difficult to determine party by voting patterns.
There is one lunatic book-banner on the Lafayette School Board and a die-hard lefty on the West Lafayette School Board, but otherwise we live in the state of normalcy, where pols actually work for the benefit of the greater community good.
Yeah, that alleviated the little part of me that felt bad that Dems screwed him by backing his loony primary opponent. Given Meijer’s position here he’s going to deserve the loss he gets in this primary, too.
I’ve wondered if a reason why Republicans like Meijer say they support trump is to keep the MAGA crazies from attacking his family and campaign staff. But, I’m probably trying to find a rational explanation for an irrational situation, which just leads to SMDH.
That's probably the case. It is also the case that the more the 'normies' bend the knee to Trump, the more powerful he becomes. It NEVER gets easier to face down a would-be tyrant. He's afraid of the mob now? Regardless of the outcome of 2024, Trump's cult will have as its only focus exacting revenge. Nobody will be safe.
Checking in to see where The Bulwark crow buffet will be served for all of those people that ended up on the fainting couch as Dems played hardball to take out "Good Republican" Peter Meijer.
They didn't even play hardball; they said completely honest things about how his *primary opponent* was insane, and it played with his voters. That's barely wiffle ball. The Republican primary constituency is just *that* crazy, but rather than coming to terms with that, they'd rather blame Democrats.
Remember they all voted for Johnson after faking weeks of performance art playing the disorganized party. They new exactly who was going to become apeaker, they just had to tire everyone out before the ax fell.
No one who has been following Trump's behavior over the past eight years can claim to be surprised by his courtroom antics. Whether it is intentional or simply him giving in to his primal urges is open to debate. But unquestionably it is Trump engaging in a sort of (free, of course) publicity campaign for his person and his brand. The Professional Victim plays the victim card in as high profile of a manner as he can, slathered in overly generous dollops of self-pity and grievance to make it more appetizing to his followers. Because he knows that this is the fuel that fires his rocket. As long as he can keep them wallowing in grievance and victimization, they are able to look past facts as if a secondary (or worse) priority in the evaluation of Trump as both a politician and as a person. How convenient for them. How pathetic for the rest of us.
No less pathetic is how familiar all this is, inverted. A generation ago the political right expressed its frustration and outrage about the far left engaging in political correctness and grievance-based agendas. It was what enabled Rush Limbaugh to become more than just Jeff Christie, a Pittsburgh radio DJ spinning musical hits and misses. It also gave us far more of Ted Nugent than we ever needed to hear outside of the musical realm and Newt Gingrich going from a bank-bench legislator to Speaker. Yet here they are now, wallowing in it all as if hogs in filth, gleefully playing those cards for all they are worth. As others before have said, there's little new in the developments of our world so much as there are variations on existing themes, reinterpreted for the benefit of the (bad) actors who both seize and hold the stage.
"No one who has been following Trump's behavior over the past eight years can claim to be surprised by his courtroom antics."
The only thing I'd change is the 8 years part. How long did we put up with the Obama "birther" nonsense (a handy tool for thinly disguised racism)? I like to go all the way back to Trump's pissing match with Graydon Carter (Spy Magazine). Graydon Carter coined the term "short fingered vulgarian" in Spy and Trump sent him pictures of his hands for decades afterwards.
But it doesn't matter since almost any Trump supporter views him as the businessman hero of "The Apprentice." I'm hoping there is a special place in Hell for Mark Burnett.
Well see that's it. People see tv as real. If you play a smart savy business person on TV, that's who the majority of TV addicts will believe. How often have actors who played doctors on TV get gigs "playing" who recommend "health" products.
Businessman hero of The Apprentice - how right you are. How many people tuned in to hear the great and powerful Oz cue up the ominous music to build suspense around the plight of some hapless idiot fake employee who wanted to be on television, all leading to the completely predictable conclusion... "You're Fired".
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
How sad for our country that tens of millions can't tell the difference?
If you're from NYC it's more like 40 years. He is and always was a Putz. He couldn't have gotten elected street sweeper to follow the Ringling Brothers elephant walk if he ran unopposed.
As a warning to the nation back in 2017, Dr. Brandy X. Lee and other psychiatrists/psychologists published "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump", documenting his psychopathic narcissism and forecasting where it would lead. Trump has been acting according to script ever since. That's what makes Trump so boring. Once you take his psychopathy into account, he is entirely predictable, including his narcissistic rage - which he will unleash upon the world if he is ever again given the power of the presidency.
What's scary is how many people buy into this persona. There are tyrants and mass murderers who have had millions follow them off a cliff. There just seem to be a significant segment of the human population who have no defense against a grifter's lies because they cannot think critically.
The GOP is not only personally, politically and morally bankrupt from top to bottom, it is certifiably insane. Trump should be impeached, but I am all in for Trump 2024. Hello??? And these are the “normies”???
Unfortunately these “leaders” have all gone mad because their voters have. I fear we may get what we deserve, the most repressive, dictatorial autocracy imaginable, and soon. I never thought I would see this, but it could well be coming. The “right” and beyond the “right” has lost its mind. We are not the crazies, right Charlie?
Plus, Trump continues to claim that Mar a Lago, for which he pays property taxes on $18 million, is worth $1500 million--$1.5 billion. Is it possible to invoke the 25 Amendment prophylactically?
It would be justice right after he pays the state of NY what he owes. I am a New Yorker and pay my full taxes annually and it's time Trump paid his fair share!!!
Now that you have established that, you can take loans off that value, buy some more properties, rinse and repeat. Before long you can launch a fake airline, a fake university, bankrupt a couple casinos and launch an incredibly stupid fake TV show where millions of people will tune in to hear you say "You're fired". Next stop the presidency.
Then, when you get there can you make it all just stop??
Well, to give Trump his due, maybe he was including the value of the classified documents that were held at Mar-A-Lago as part of its overall valuation?
Meijer’s illogical support for Trump after voting to impeach is as baffling as Adam Kinzinger’s admission that he DIDN’T vote for Trump in 2016, but he DID vote for Trump in 2020. At least he’s on a perpetual mea culpa tour. But I’ll never understand.
Polls are not a science; they are subjective and flawed. It is like the stock market. People can lose their socks by predictions. I remember that when Bush came to power, I was working for NASA. We had this system toward retirement. We could put this money in a Thrift Savings Account, and we could choose to put it in government bonds or the stock market. I don't know why, but as soon as Bush was elected, I took it all out of the stock market and put it in government bonds. Many people lost their savings when they put them in the stock market. My point? Polls are as unreliable as the stock market. Just VOTE! And Edward, I have the same question for Charlie, what is his end game? Why is he creating despair? Is it that Charlie as a conservative who used to be a staunched Reagan Republican sees his party go to shit and he does not know what hit him? So, let us feel sorry for him, he is after all a human being and worthy of our respect. I don't envy him, though, I am glad that I never voted Republican, I always loved Democracy too much, especially as a woman who wants her right to choose.
Great comment about the interpretive nature of polls.
I think Charlie hasn't fundamentally changed with reflect to his belief structures. He is still conservative and (I suspect) deeply Christian. But that has not closed his eyes to the ways in which folks have been hypnotized by TFG.
I give him much credit for having the courage to simply stand up and say no.
Peter Meijer is an example of why I've lost patience trying to understand "normie" Republicans and their motivations. Shit, Brett Stephens is at least willing to drop acid in order to bring himself to vote for Biden, Why can't we find more courage like that?
Meijer's motivations are transparent. He wants to be in power. And he'll twist himself into knots to get there.
I think he went to his family’s supermarket to get a case of Kool-Aid to drink.
The Jim Jones brand.
And I thought pretzels were twisted.
No such animal as a normie Republican on the Federal level.
There are a few on the state level.
One has to go to the still existing local "thinking constiuent" level to find elected officials who actual care about governing instead of feathering their own political bed.
I was just thinking this. I can't begin to comprehend the logic of someone who would vote to impeach someone for insurrection only to then publicly state they would still support the insurrectionist. How do we even begin to overcome this? Are we just entering a post-ethical era? That should work out well, almost as well as our post-racial era is working out
We overcome it by turning out in droves for elections at all levels.
I heard him on POTUS yesterday and was surprised how rational he sounded on basic topics being discussed until he rolled out the typical talking points about Uncle Joe not caring about China as a potential enemy.
It seems as if they realize that their potential voters will simply listen to their lies without question.
Sure works for Trump.
I don't get the feeling those statements are made to influence those with solid critical thought processes
LIKE AMERICAN VOTERS.
Two words come to mind; supinate or pronate.Take your pick.
And even those are getting to be fewer and farther between. Here in my little mostly-red corner of Virginia, we have our state delegate Marie March, once photographed with her husband, kids, and all their guns, and her acolyte Johanna Hicks on the local allegedly non-partisan town council who does nothing but cause trouble and then play the victim. Former head of the local county republicans (who also owns the local t**** store, natch) stepped down because the group wasn't far enough right for her liking.
Sad.
Insite of being in the heart of Trump country Indiana, with the similarly-minded Lying Sack of Rokita as the Atty General recently censured by our State Supreme Court for his attack on the doctor who performed the abortion of the 13-year old rape victim from Ohio, we have many normie Republicans and normie Democrats in greater Lafayette.
Governmentally speaking, it's like living in a time warp. It's sometimes difficult to determine party by voting patterns.
There is one lunatic book-banner on the Lafayette School Board and a die-hard lefty on the West Lafayette School Board, but otherwise we live in the state of normalcy, where pols actually work for the benefit of the greater community good.
I guess you could say, we live in a bubble.
That's amazing. I think I'd wake every morning wondering if the dream had turned into a nightmare.
That Meijer tweet made me spit coffee.
A seven year nightmare and counting.
"Black is gray and yellow is white.It is we who decide what is real.Or what is an illusion." *Moody Blues Late Lament
Yeah, that alleviated the little part of me that felt bad that Dems screwed him by backing his loony primary opponent. Given Meijer’s position here he’s going to deserve the loss he gets in this primary, too.
He'll lose.
I’ve wondered if a reason why Republicans like Meijer say they support trump is to keep the MAGA crazies from attacking his family and campaign staff. But, I’m probably trying to find a rational explanation for an irrational situation, which just leads to SMDH.
If that were the case, I think the easiest way not to be attacked is not to go on television. But then he wouldn't be "famous."
What a dilemma! The ones with a thinking brain are saddled with cognitive dissonance.
"Performance art" as Charlie says.
That's probably the case. It is also the case that the more the 'normies' bend the knee to Trump, the more powerful he becomes. It NEVER gets easier to face down a would-be tyrant. He's afraid of the mob now? Regardless of the outcome of 2024, Trump's cult will have as its only focus exacting revenge. Nobody will be safe.
"Bending the knee" sure worked in Game of Thrones just as it does with Trump
The Trump supporters are like storm troopers.if you criticize the object of their devotion they physically harm you.
Asked and answered in your last sentence.
Ah the shroud treatment!
Wait what? Tell me more about Bret Stephens dropping acid -- I missed that!
Was in Beg To Differ Podcast. It was his way of saying how big a deal it would be to vote for Biden. Pissed me off.
If you need to drop acid, I wouldn’t call it courage; more like exasperation and desperation. Just saying...:)
In support (albeit miniscule support) of Meijer...at least he wasn't threatened with hanging like Pence who will now vote for Trump. <heavy sarc>
Really Bret … you need to drop acid to vote for Biden … it’s really not that hard!
Checking in to see where The Bulwark crow buffet will be served for all of those people that ended up on the fainting couch as Dems played hardball to take out "Good Republican" Peter Meijer.
They didn't even play hardball; they said completely honest things about how his *primary opponent* was insane, and it played with his voters. That's barely wiffle ball. The Republican primary constituency is just *that* crazy, but rather than coming to terms with that, they'd rather blame Democrats.
I also like how the definition of "Good Republican" had already by that point been stretched to "craven coward, but an articulate one"
The bar is very low and falling, for a “good” Republican.
More like noxious fumes emanating from some of those vaults.
Remember they all voted for Johnson after faking weeks of performance art playing the disorganized party. They new exactly who was going to become apeaker, they just had to tire everyone out before the ax fell.
Yep. All those anti trump Republicans didn't think the Dems should try to win elections against another Republican---go figure.
No one who has been following Trump's behavior over the past eight years can claim to be surprised by his courtroom antics. Whether it is intentional or simply him giving in to his primal urges is open to debate. But unquestionably it is Trump engaging in a sort of (free, of course) publicity campaign for his person and his brand. The Professional Victim plays the victim card in as high profile of a manner as he can, slathered in overly generous dollops of self-pity and grievance to make it more appetizing to his followers. Because he knows that this is the fuel that fires his rocket. As long as he can keep them wallowing in grievance and victimization, they are able to look past facts as if a secondary (or worse) priority in the evaluation of Trump as both a politician and as a person. How convenient for them. How pathetic for the rest of us.
No less pathetic is how familiar all this is, inverted. A generation ago the political right expressed its frustration and outrage about the far left engaging in political correctness and grievance-based agendas. It was what enabled Rush Limbaugh to become more than just Jeff Christie, a Pittsburgh radio DJ spinning musical hits and misses. It also gave us far more of Ted Nugent than we ever needed to hear outside of the musical realm and Newt Gingrich going from a bank-bench legislator to Speaker. Yet here they are now, wallowing in it all as if hogs in filth, gleefully playing those cards for all they are worth. As others before have said, there's little new in the developments of our world so much as there are variations on existing themes, reinterpreted for the benefit of the (bad) actors who both seize and hold the stage.
"No one who has been following Trump's behavior over the past eight years can claim to be surprised by his courtroom antics."
The only thing I'd change is the 8 years part. How long did we put up with the Obama "birther" nonsense (a handy tool for thinly disguised racism)? I like to go all the way back to Trump's pissing match with Graydon Carter (Spy Magazine). Graydon Carter coined the term "short fingered vulgarian" in Spy and Trump sent him pictures of his hands for decades afterwards.
But it doesn't matter since almost any Trump supporter views him as the businessman hero of "The Apprentice." I'm hoping there is a special place in Hell for Mark Burnett.
Well see that's it. People see tv as real. If you play a smart savy business person on TV, that's who the majority of TV addicts will believe. How often have actors who played doctors on TV get gigs "playing" who recommend "health" products.
Businessman hero of The Apprentice - how right you are. How many people tuned in to hear the great and powerful Oz cue up the ominous music to build suspense around the plight of some hapless idiot fake employee who wanted to be on television, all leading to the completely predictable conclusion... "You're Fired".
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
How sad for our country that tens of millions can't tell the difference?
If you're from NYC it's more like 40 years. He is and always was a Putz. He couldn't have gotten elected street sweeper to follow the Ringling Brothers elephant walk if he ran unopposed.
New game show from Mark Burnett;The masked apprentice.
As a warning to the nation back in 2017, Dr. Brandy X. Lee and other psychiatrists/psychologists published "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump", documenting his psychopathic narcissism and forecasting where it would lead. Trump has been acting according to script ever since. That's what makes Trump so boring. Once you take his psychopathy into account, he is entirely predictable, including his narcissistic rage - which he will unleash upon the world if he is ever again given the power of the presidency.
And all the best thinkers of MAGA-world say "That's just Trump being Trump. Look at all the great judges he appointed!!"
What's scary is how many people buy into this persona. There are tyrants and mass murderers who have had millions follow them off a cliff. There just seem to be a significant segment of the human population who have no defense against a grifter's lies because they cannot think critically.
I have always liked Mike Murphy’s take on The Donald...(from memory) He’s the atomic clock of being Trump.
"The more things change, the more they stay the same".
The GOP is not only personally, politically and morally bankrupt from top to bottom, it is certifiably insane. Trump should be impeached, but I am all in for Trump 2024. Hello??? And these are the “normies”???
Unfortunately these “leaders” have all gone mad because their voters have. I fear we may get what we deserve, the most repressive, dictatorial autocracy imaginable, and soon. I never thought I would see this, but it could well be coming. The “right” and beyond the “right” has lost its mind. We are not the crazies, right Charlie?
Plus, Trump continues to claim that Mar a Lago, for which he pays property taxes on $18 million, is worth $1500 million--$1.5 billion. Is it possible to invoke the 25 Amendment prophylactically?
Waiting for the property taxes to increase a thousand-fold, and TFF*G to claim he was being fleeced.
It would be justice right after he pays the state of NY what he owes. I am a New Yorker and pay my full taxes annually and it's time Trump paid his fair share!!!
Should we use his numbers for the taxes or the real ones? :-) If the city/state used his "numbers", they would hear his scream on the moon!
It'll probably be another fundraising grift.
Actually something like 83.3 fold. By the way, the valuation at $18 million was appealed as being too high.
LOL! I almost used the 83.3 (yes, I did the math :-)). But thousand-fold sounds niftier. :-)
By that reasoning, my place is worth about $75 million. Don't tell the Assessor, and yes, my "brand" too is gold plated.
Now that you have established that, you can take loans off that value, buy some more properties, rinse and repeat. Before long you can launch a fake airline, a fake university, bankrupt a couple casinos and launch an incredibly stupid fake TV show where millions of people will tune in to hear you say "You're fired". Next stop the presidency.
Then, when you get there can you make it all just stop??
Is your toilet to?
Well, to give Trump his due, maybe he was including the value of the classified documents that were held at Mar-A-Lago as part of its overall valuation?
Too bad we can't go back in time and prophylactically eliminate tRump.....
Meijer’s illogical support for Trump after voting to impeach is as baffling as Adam Kinzinger’s admission that he DIDN’T vote for Trump in 2016, but he DID vote for Trump in 2020. At least he’s on a perpetual mea culpa tour. But I’ll never understand.
And let's not forget that Adam then QUIT
Charley - I will say briefly what I said on JVL's post.
The polls are incompetently done. The methodology is terrible.
This is the same poll that said Roe v Wade would not be a factor in 22.
When you have demonstrably false/incomplete data, you can draw NO conclusion except to say the data is bad.
When you give it air time, you are helping Trump by giving it legitimacy and creating despair.
Why do that?
It’s shocking how those headlines are everywhere, without any digging into the methodology.
Polls also predicted a solid win for Hillary in 2016, so I try to tune it out, but the media seems irresponsible, yet again.
Polls are not a science; they are subjective and flawed. It is like the stock market. People can lose their socks by predictions. I remember that when Bush came to power, I was working for NASA. We had this system toward retirement. We could put this money in a Thrift Savings Account, and we could choose to put it in government bonds or the stock market. I don't know why, but as soon as Bush was elected, I took it all out of the stock market and put it in government bonds. Many people lost their savings when they put them in the stock market. My point? Polls are as unreliable as the stock market. Just VOTE! And Edward, I have the same question for Charlie, what is his end game? Why is he creating despair? Is it that Charlie as a conservative who used to be a staunched Reagan Republican sees his party go to shit and he does not know what hit him? So, let us feel sorry for him, he is after all a human being and worthy of our respect. I don't envy him, though, I am glad that I never voted Republican, I always loved Democracy too much, especially as a woman who wants her right to choose.
Great comment about the interpretive nature of polls.
I think Charlie hasn't fundamentally changed with reflect to his belief structures. He is still conservative and (I suspect) deeply Christian. But that has not closed his eyes to the ways in which folks have been hypnotized by TFG.
I give him much credit for having the courage to simply stand up and say no.
like Bill Krystal,Lizz Chenney,Addam Kinzinger
I read a poll a week ago that over 50% of voters didn't want Trump to be the presidential candidate. Go figure
Maybe he wants to scare normal people into voting for Biden.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"!
48-44 is still not enough for Biden to win the EC.
Iffy
"At one point, Judge Engoron pleaded with the ex-president’s lawyer: 'I beseech you to control him if you can.'
"But that’s the point. You can’t control him. And that was on full display yesterday."
There is a way to control Trump. It's just the way to do so shouldn't be discussed in polite company and hasn't been used yet.
I understand as a last resort, shock collars are an effective deterrent.
I wouldn't use it on a dog but I'm okay with popping one on Trump.
How do I like that twice?
In that vein we could just spray him in the face with a vinegar/water mixture every time he acts up, I would be okay with that too.
Give him some big Mac s,a bucket of KFC,That may calm him down.