As long as we're on the subject of interviewing presidential candidates:
Former President Trump turned down a "60 Minutes" offer of back-to-back conversations with both presidential nominees, with his campaign saying he didn't want interruptions for fact checks. https://t.co/yVRNAHsDop
— Axios (@axios) October 1, 2024
Trump refuses to submit himself to a fact check. Could he possibly make it any more obvious that his campaign is built entirely around an insane firehose of lies, insults, and flat-out inventions? I mean:
OK it's coming together now. Someone close to trump told him about some conspiracy theory that Harris had a cartel boss phone app. Trump didn't know what a phone app was. That's why he said yesterday that no one knows what phone apps are, and why he's now repeating the weird app… https://t.co/QtkC2ncToh
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) October 1, 2024
Where does this drivel even come from? He thinks CBP One, a mobile app planned and released under his own administration, tells cartel drug lords where to unload all their illegal immigrants? This is drooling imbecility, and on second thought, who cares where it comes from? It's a blaring red siren of dementia no matter what.
Trump is so far down the rabbit hole that he regurgitates literally anything that pops up on his timeline. Haitians are eating pet cats. Kamala Harris only recently became Black. CBP One is a human trafficking app. Democrats are withholding Secret Service protection. We should have a day of unlimited police brutality. These aren't just bizarre policies, they're signs of an increasingly unhinged mind. The press needs to start calling this exactly what it is.
sanewashing should be the next word of the year
And what do we mean by "now"? Always has been.
Again, why are you trying to connect the dots for Trump? Let him explain his wacko weird conspiracies.
Also, c'mon, he has a 31 year old Laura Loomer, who has his "ear", with him on trips. He's just barely hiding it.
Don't hold your breath.
This is war. "Truth," "facts," "consensus reality" are meaningless. Reality in war is what you make it. The winner wins, and the loser is executed and their heads put on pikes. In his gangster- brain way Trump knows exactly what he's doing, and he's executing flawlessly. The hard right knows one thing - how to fight to win, brutally, with zero consideration for anything but winning. We are Romans, we are chimpanzees, far more than we are anything else, no matter how much weight we put into exalting our 'special' rationality. Trump is doing exactly what he has to do to set up whatever power move(s) come with and after the election, which he has a better than even chance of winning. There are many, many quiet Trumpers out here, and he's radicalizing all of them to fight his fight. And they'll do it, with prejudice.
It was only eighty years ago that "undesirables" were being gassed by the million, seventy years ago when Emmett Till was broken into pieces. Trump knows exactly what he's doing.
"In his gangster- brain way Trump knows exactly what he's doing, and he's executing flawlessly."
For fuck's sake stop Stop STOP this nonsense. Trump is not smart. Trump is not effective. Trump is not strong or forceful or capable of executing anything significant particularly well, let alone "flawlessly." He is a mediocre trustafarian clown who longshotted his way into the presidency once, and proceeded to lose every election since.
His supporters like to portray him as some inevitable man of destiny, and trafficking in nonsense about Trump being some amazingly skillful gangster or strongman or revolutionary figure or whatever just serves to enhance that mythmaking. We need to stop doing this.
Animal cunning is a thing. It doesn't need to be smart to be vicious.
I'm not saying he isn't a threat--obviously, he's got a 50-50 shot at being president. I'm saying that we need to stop buying into the myth that he's some sort of superlatively-describable anything.
When Trump says he's the Only One Who Can Fix It, when his supporters say that he's chosen by God or that he'll fight-fight-fight, and when folks on our side say he's got unshakeable support and is "executing flawlessly" some strategy, the commonality is that everybody is saying that Trump is incredibly strong and formidable.
But he simply is not. He's a dummy who won't shut up about Hannibal Lecter. He got his ass handed to him in a debate by the last-minute sub-in on the Dem ticket. His businesses lose money, everybody who worked in his first administration thinks he's a moron and won't work with him again, and he is incredibly easy to manipulate. Let's stop lending aid to the other side by pretending he's anything other than a clown.
How about this: 60 Minutes agrees not to fact-check Trump and Trump agrees to show up. I doubt he'll accept, of course, but I admit to certain curiosity as to what excuse his handlers will come up with for the no-show.
Yep Kevin, all true. And today I hear NPR interviewing an 80+ year old couple -- she says she doesn't like Harris because "she lies" and he says that he likes Trump because "he's just a regular guy."
That's the world of bubbles we live in.
Yup. And there were many, many Germans well into the 1960's and 70's who defended Hitler to their death. Trump is pulling out all the stops, calling Harris and Walz "sick" and"morons" and all kinds of shit; TrumpCo are going to fight like rabid animals - which they are - and they are going to escalate and it will work. The only question is can Dems bring the heavy artillery, and I mean nukes because that's what it's going to take.
Yes, the "Good Old Days". The boys would come back from the occupied countries with all kinds of plunder and foodstuffs for the folks at home. The Jews upstairs disappeared one day and the doors were open and all the nice things they left behind disappeared into the neighbors' apartments.
the zone of interest piece.
Did the interviewer do any "fact-check", e.g. mentioning that WaPo counted 30000 lies by Trump during his presidency, and that he thinks there are nice things to say about Hitler?
Because if they don't, this kind of interviews helps trump, by making such nonsense "reasonable".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-despots-advisers-sound-alarm/index.html
that his administration incidentally coincided with the tail end of the last business cycle is so unfortunate
"The press needs to start calling this exactly what it is."
And lose ACCESS?!?
Someday the story about Bob Woodward hearing Trump's admission about downplaying COVID because of the election -- and Woodward sitting on it for months for his book--will finally start to get talked about. Probably in the comments under Bob's gushing obit.
"The press needs to start calling this exactly what it is."
And lose ACCESS?!?
Someday the story about Bob Woodward hearing Trump's admission about downplaying COVID because of the election -- and Woodward sitting on it for months for his book--will finally start to get talked about.
Probably in the comments under Bob's gushing obit.
"The press needs to start calling this exactly what it is."
But, as your other post observes, the press "needs" to hold Democrats to a higher standard than they do Republicans.
So really, what are the odds? Somewhere between a snowball's chance in hell and zero.
Say whatever you will, Kevin. Trump is within striking distance of the presidency. Neither Kamala nor Tim Walz nor anyone else has found the right combination of words to land a knockout blow.
It's like everyone forgets that Biden knocked him out in 2020. By seven million. Biden fucking won Georgia!
Kevin doesn't understand how to do journalism. The correct way to report the story is as follows:
Well played!
The phrase 'a self-confessed humbug' springs to mind.
And through of Trump's insanity which has been ongoing now, checks notes, 9 fucking years, he still is very well within the margin of victory for the EC. I have maintained for years that Trump will lose by millions of votes in the popular vote, but the goddamned fucking abominable EC will be razor thin.
I've also been saying that this piece of shit country deserves another Trump term if that is, in fact, how stupid we are.
Looks like the love affair between Trump and Kim Jong Un is over. Trump just let us know that the President of North Korea is trying to kill him. Obviously that’s the case and he didn’t confuse Iran with North Korea.
the lovers quarrel piece.
donold & li'l kim are the tammy wynette & george jones of geopolitics.
But Tammy and George were great performers. Kim and Don (to any reasonable person) are not.
Maybe Trump is not the problem. As a Canadian, looking in from the outside, it seems the US has an epidemic of conspiracy belief. Maybe that is the issue that needs to be addressed long-term. MIT is doing research on how to counter this: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/mit-study-ai-chatbot-can-reduce-belief-conspiracy-theories.
"Maybe Trump is not the problem. As a Canadian, looking in from the outside, it seems the US has an epidemic of conspiracy belief."
We're not any worse or better than any other similar country (including Canada) on that front; we just have a president, not a prime minister, and a goofy electoral college-mediated way of electing said president. Unsurprisingly, a completely different system ends up with completely different results, despite the US and Canada having nearly identical cultures.
It really seems that Trump is losing it. I can’t even follow what he is talking about anymore. He just throws stuff out and bluffs his way through things. This is why he won’t do the interview. It is now too hard for him to dream up fake answers to serious questions. He just wants to get up in front of a handpicked audience and ramble.
MEOOOOOW. The Press !!! What Press ?? There is non. They have been bought off during the CONVICTED FELON'S 1st , and LAST term. Kitties know.
I think the dementia talk is unhelpful for a variety of reasons: nearly impossible to prove (especially in the limited time before the election), makes Trump less responsible for his words, and clouds what's really happening. What' really happening is that Trump will say anything to anybody if he thinks it will score a point. Arguing about lies is a game played in rational-land, which is too analytical and gets into the weeds - which helps Trump. What's really happening is that Trump is spouting:
Cynical nonsense.