I suppose everyone has already noticed this, but it's remarkable to see how much laser-focused pandering Donald Trump has been doing lately:
- He attended the Libertarian Party convention and suddenly announced he would pardon their hero, convicted internet drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht.
- After a call from billionaire mega-donor Jeff Yass, an early investor in TikTok, he suddenly pulled a 180 and said that he opposed a TikTok ban.
- He attended a Bitcoin conference in Nashville and suddenly announced that he favored a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
- After months of railing against electric cars, he suddenly switched gears and said, "I'm for electric cars" because "Elon endorsed me very strongly."
- He met a waitress in Las Vegas and suddenly had a brainstorm that he could win votes by endorsing a policy of no tax on tips.
- After polls showed that he was losing support among seniors, he suddenly announced that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”
Everyone does some of this. Ethanol becomes very popular in Iowa every four years. But Trump is certainly carrying it to cynical new heights.
He has some scruples, the oil industry has to donate $1Billion to his campaign before he'll give them everything they want.
Of course he had the characteristically bad taste to go and say the loud part out loud in a recent meeting with industry leaders, where he basically asked them to bribe him to do favors for their industry. Fortunately SCOTUS has ruled that it's only corrupt if you call the bribe a "gratuity" after the fact or something.
They made the tough call so he won't have to.
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unhinged, deranged, delusional... dementia donald at his finest
“What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE,” the post read. “He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!”
Biden is still the president. He only conceded the nomination. This wacko hypothetical is odd even for Trump. Though mentioning a coup and wanting the presidency back is probably a bit of a confession and projection.
golack: Is that like a quid pro quo?
It's like a quid for Donald.
He'll take dollars, quids, etc., though not sure about Euros.
A quid would never get a glance from Don Trumpleone. The amount must be the Greatest, the Most Beautiful Number in history to snag his Mayfly attention span
Perhaps closer to a quo pro quid($)
The hilarious thing is, some people actually BELIEVE him when he says things like this, even when they're a 180-degree reversal from things he's said previously.
He is a "bullshitter" in the philosophical sense. He does not care AT ALL about the truth or falsity of his words, only about the immediate effect he thinks they will have. Anyone who bothers to listen to what he says is a fool. Because the moment he says it, it's gone for him.
What matters are his consistent attitudes and actions over YEARS. He is a misogynist and a racist, a grifter and a con-man, and a fraud and a cheat. He's even been convicted criminally and/or found legally liable for all those things multiple times. THAT's who he is and what he means.
Unfortunately, most Republicans know this, but they'll vote for him anyway. That's who THEY are. "By their deeds, you shall know them." -- Matt. 7:16
it's the old 'literal vs serious' schtick; his followers don't give a rat's ass about the policy minutiae so long as he sticks it to the libs
this is why the nytimes/etc calling for kamala to sit down for a two hour interview on policy questions is bullshit; it's all about feeding their commercial interest in publishing crap for the right wing to take out of context and attack so the nytimes gets more clicks for their 'both sides' and 'some people say' navel gazers
everyone knows the basic contours of a dem administration vs a rep administration; it hasn't changed in 50 years and every voter knows "what's in the box"
with all the sludge floating around trump's personal behavior and his manhattan business dealings in 2016 and those fuckers at the nytimes did nothing to cover a guy who literally lived down the block while they ran breathless headlines about comey and a fucking email server
fuck the nytimes
It's a shame. I used to subscribe, and now I barely even bother to click over to their homepage. I've started using the nickname "Vichy Times."
TBF they still do excellent investigative and overseas journalism. But their political stuff has been garbage for years, and now the rest of their domestic coverage is following suit.
Their decline will be a rich vein for future dissertation writers.
I’m with you there! Cancelled them about a year ago. I’d had enough. WaPo going the same. Cancelled them also.
"He is a misogynist and a racist, a grifter and a con-man, and a fraud and a cheat."
You missed out admirer of "strong" dictators, i.e. dictators that suppress the population. That is the most standing out feature. The ones you listed are just assholeness taken to the extreme.
Not obvious how many of the Republicans/MAGA actually miss it too.
Aside from really, really hating Hispanic immigrants and loving authoritarian rulers, Trump has absolutely no core set of values or principles. He knows nothing, and gives a shit about even less. So he's kinda an empty vessel that whoever speaks to him last can fill with whatever they want and he'll take it and run with it if he thinks it will benefit him right then and there or make him look smart. This drove his advisers and aides nuts during his first (and, inshallah, last) term.
Idiocy combined with boundless insecurity and a pathalogical desire to appear otherwise is a dangerous combination. It's really, really bad when it's the POTUS we're talking about.
What even IS a "strategic bitcoin reserve?" An empty salt dome pumped full of bullshit?
It's empty all right. It's an empty promise to use federal money to buy (and thereby prop up) a commodity whose price is sustained almost entirely by speculation. It's a promise to the Tulip Bulb Exchange to use tax money to buy tulip bulbs, and like all promises by the Felon it's worth nothing (although some of them will believe it anyway).
"... whose price is sustained almost entirely by speculation."
Not really. Its main strength is that it is used as a laundering service for large criminal organizations.
To work as a laundering mechanism you need legitimate people to ultimately buy the bitcoins. It is those speculators that make the whole thing work for the money launderers.
Speculators help, but the flow of money from launderers is what ensures that Bitcoin (and similars) stays alive and well.
Something he thinks he can easily just walk away with, because it's said to be untraceable.
wikipedia:
Sarah Meiklejohn is an American computer scientist.
Meiklejohn led a team at the University of California, San Diego which traced bitcoin by creating maps using blockchain records which could potentially be used to identify specific users
Trump will not know this and no one will tell him.
Give the man a break. He is desperately trying to stay out of prison. His judges can delay the inevitable for only so long. Right now he’ll say anything.
…. By the way , I know someone at my work who is voting for trump based on his pledge to end taxes on social security. So pandering can work. It’s goofy that my coworker or anyone else believes he will do any of this stuff.
house d's should put a bill together to see how many r's are on board with this (or any of the other trump panderings)
"House D's" don't control the flow of legislation. Go back and re-take that American Government class you flunked in Eleventh Grade.
Any member in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at any time while the House is in session by simply placing it in the “hopper” at the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber. The sponsor's signature must appear on the bill. A public bill may have an unlimited number of co-sponsoring members. The bill is assigned its legislative number by the Clerk and referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker, with the assistance of the Parliamentarian. The bill is then printed in its introduced form, which you can read in Bill Text.
https://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/the-legislative-process/introduction-referral
"... I know someone at my work who is voting for trump based on his pledge to end taxes on social security."
How do you know that?
That what they tell you?
Why would you believe them, consirdering that they are apparently going to vote for an anti-honesty person?
"Trump is certainly carrying it to cynical new heights."
We ain't seen nothing yet. They say nobody pays attention to presidential elections before Labor Day.
The same day Trump flipped on Tik Tok, Tik Tok started pushing Trump puff pieces into user's streams. Some of this pandering is bought.
We actually have a "Space Force" with a friggen Star Trek badge. That's Exhibit A for you and we don't really need an Exhibit B.