In the past few days and weeks, Donald Trump has:
- Pointed at Matt Gaetz and repeatedly called him Rick Gates.
- Confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
- Claimed that Obama was still president.
- Said that Russia should feel free to attack NATO if they "don't pay."
- Posted an endless stream of unhinged rants on Truth Social.
.
- Snidely asked why Nikki Haley's husband is never around (he's stationed overseas).
- Explicitly told Republicans to kill an immigration bill so things would stay chaotic during his presidential campaign.
- Confused E. Jean Carroll with Marla Maples, his ex-wife.
- Asserted that the United States is "an institute in a powerful death penalty," whatever that means.
- Said that Viktor Orbán is the head of Turkey (he's the prime minister of Hungary).
- Claimed that Jeb Bush started the Iraq war.
- Said that Nancy Pelosi started the January 6 insurrection.
- Insisted that he never endorsed James Lankford (he did).
I know how dispiriting it would be if the presidential campaign devolved into a battle over which candidate is the worst dotard. But it's absurd to obsess over Joe Biden's age just because a partisan special counsel decided to cover his ass by highlighting a couple of occasions where Biden momentarily couldn't remember a date.
It's true that Biden looks old and has trouble enunciating certain sounds. But look below the surface. Every personal report about Biden is the same: he's engaged, knowledgeable, lucid, and in charge.
By contrast, we've heard an endless stream of personal reports about Donald Trump's behavior when he was in office, and they were also all the same: he watches a lot of TV, can't be bothered to do any reading, flies off the handle routinely, and lacks understanding of even simple issues. This comes from Republican loyalists who worked directly with him. Adjectives include: unhinged, idiot, off the rails (John Kelly), has the understanding of a fifth grader (Jim Mattis); racist, misogynist and bigot (Omarosa Manigault Newman); dumb as shit (Gary Cohn); dope, intelligence of a kindergartner (H.R. McMaster); wholly unfit to be in office, the most divisive president in history (Cassidy Hutchinson); idiot (Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus); like an 11-year-old-child (Steve Bannon); moron (Rex Tillerson); detached from reality, shouldn't be anywhere near the Oval Office (Bill Barr); fucking liar (John Dowd); threatens our democracy (Mark Esper); laughing fool (John Bolton); failed at being the president (Mick Mulvaney); utter disgrace (Tom Bossert); racist, conman, cheat (Michael Cohen); wholly unfit to hold office ever again (Sarah Matthews); has never cared about America, its citizens, its future or anything but himself (Ty Cobb); shown time and time again that he's willing to put his political ambitions ahead of what's best for the country (Alyssa Farah Griffin); doing great and irreparable harm to my country (Gen. Mark Milley); undermine[d] a peaceful transition in accordance with our Constitution (Gen. Joseph Dunford); threat to democracy (Miles Taylor); very little understanding of what it means to be in the military (Richard Spencer); off the rails, crazy, nihilistic (Anthony Scaramucci); cares about no one but himself (Stephanie Grisham); absolutely failed (Elizabeth Neumann); flat-out disregard for human life (Olivia Troye); has no principles. None. None. (Maryanne Berry Trump); fucking maniac (Mary Trump).
How much clearer can things get?
If you translate this rant to German, you can probably find quite good matches to it in Nazi propganda.
Don’t feed the troll. Also, burn in fucking hell.
Presumably you misunderstand what I wrote. The "rant" is the rant that Kevin shows above, not the whole post.
den Sumpf trocken legen does have a certain teutonic charm to it.
Spelled propaganda wrong. Ha ha.
How much clearer can things get?
For someone without other motives, perhaps not much clearer. But:
-- For 25-30% of the voting public, he is a cult figurehead, which means not one word of it is relevant (and besides it's ALL LIES).
-- For another 15-20% or more, he's still believed to be controllable enough to do things that will profit them personally and not to single them out for some pogrom or other, which means they're gonna gamble on him.
-- And for the newsertainment industry, he's an endless source of easy material, and he's essential to keeping a horse-race narrative going for the next eight-and-a-half months, both of which are vital to their profits and personal careers.
See also Sinclair, Upton, on the difficulty of getting a man to understand something.
(And #2 should be Nancy Pelosi.)
I like "Nancy Obama" much better.
I'm pretty sure that Kevin used "Nancy Obama" deliberately to highlight both Trump's confusion and the way he conflates those he hates.
Unless Kevin's losing it, too.
Trump has challenged Biden to do a cognitive test on live TV. Why not take him up on it? Let them both do the same test simultaneously with the world watching.
He also challenged Liz Warren to take a DNA test. That didn't benefit her at all, he reneged on his promise to make a charitable donation, and he suffered nothing for all that. There would be no point in playing his game on this.
"Trump has challenged Biden to do a cognitive test on live TV. Why not take him up on it?"
Yeah! And let's see his birth certificate, too!
Here's a thing (maybe not the thing, but certainly a thing): Biden is much sharper than Trump. But even if he wasn't, and even if hypothetical Trump were some sort of genius (instead of the conspiracy-theory addled sundowning dummy he really is), Biden would *still* be the better pick. Why? Because Biden demonstrably wants to acomplish good things: investment in US infrastructure, maintenance of US democracy, environmental protection, strengthening of alliances with other democracies, etc. Worst case scenario, Biden isn't as good in term 2 at doing those things as in term 1.
But Trump is actively campaigning on doing horrible things: idiotic and self-destructive tarifs, weaponizing the department of justice, supporting dictators and alienating allies. I frankly wouldn't care if Biden died on January 21, 2025 and Harris took over--that's way better than Trump being anywhere near the whitehouse.
+ 1
It seems your position can be translated to:
1. Bidden is the better candidate than Trump because of policy whatever his mental state.
2. Biden is clearly suffering more age related mental deterioration than Trump.
3. You do not want to admit that because you do not believe the American people will vote for Both of that believe this is true.
4. So any objective test of mental competency for both candidates is out of the question.
Correct?
And yet the New York Times chooses to contrast the two by saying "Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways." It really is a journalistic choice to selectively emphasize certain physical traits and not the obvious differences in their mental competence. It's curious that Trump dying his hair is merely a neutral observation, while if Biden dyed his hair it would be a major story for months.
Trump combines a ridiculous comb-over, weird and yellowy hair dye, and layers and layers of greasy face paint to appear "vibrant."
Yet Trump can't walk for any distance (not even on a golf course) while President Biden rides a bike for exercise. Clearly, Joe Biden is in better shape.
Mentally it's not close. Trump is suffering from brain worms. As Kevin points out, dozens of people who worked for Trump in recent years think he is dangerous, insane, and above all stupid. People who work with Biden say he is curious and engaged.
Donald appears to have been home-schooled by his mother
(and had an affair with his teacher)
Scorching!
The NYT has to say silly manifestly incorrect things to continually demonstrate it is not a liberal newspaper. It doesn't work, conservatives still think it's liberal and progressives think it's silly and often incorrect. For what it’s worth, NPR is probably worse.
I honestly don't understand how the people at NYT can be so stupid. How can they, in 2024, still think this? (But clearly they do.)
Especially after they did so much to put TFG in office with their "but her emails" obsession.
The NYT is utter trash, might as well read the Weekly World News for real information at this point.
Come to think of it, isn't Ed Anger writing most of the NYT opinion columns these days? Are you sure he's not? Really sure?
“Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time” because stupidity and multiple psychopathologies got to him first. FIFY, NYT.
It's okay if you are a Republican.
But seriously... the fundie Xtianists who worship the Defendant are big on "Jayzus forgives!!", so that anybody they agree with can do anything and it's all good, because "they're forgiven." However, they will never extend their Gawd's courtesy to a Dem or lefty.
And they're not big on this elitist "consistency" thing, either.
Nancy Obama?
That’s it, Drum can’t be President.
hahaha.
his denial of endorsing lankford is just a standard trump lie. would have done the same if he was 20 years younger.
By now, the Defendant has never met, never even heard of this "Lankfurt guy." Which he'd say, even while looking at a photo of himself kissing Lankford.
It's always been clear and these things have always been the point.
How about:
“I'm genuinely surprised how people close to Trump haven't talked about
the odor.
It's truly something to behold. Wear a mask if you can.”
Adam Kinzinger
all of this is true and yet is doenst matter; he 'grabbed women by the p***y' and was elected any way; as will happen this year again.
lets not forget that the Putin / Russia Enabler Tucker Carlson will be his running mate.
Also, on the flip, Biden might be better, but he is perceived as TOO OLD, so there is that. put it in caps to make it more 'meta'.
also, same old same old, REPs just have better PR / larger FOX 'News' 'educated' audience that will just gobble up all the shit that is flung at them.
Whereas DEMs never really manage to properly PR their accomplishments.
See current border ordeal, REPs will spin that Biden is bad for the border despite its them blocking any sensible legislature.
ultimately the question is, and has been since at least Bush v Gore - how to bridge the divide, and unite the country again.
at the current rate, its not looking good where we are headed as so called Greatest Nation.
It isn’t easy when there isn’t some credible, external existential threat, preferably one which doesn’t require substantial lifestyle changes.
A Washington Post article from last month titled "Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized" quoted Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins and the author of “Uncivilized Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.” Here's the quote:
"We wouldn’t have civilization if we didn’t create groups. We are designed to make groups, and the only way to define a group is there has to be someone who’s not in it."
That sounded cynically pessimistic to me. What wasn't said is why.
Is there some kind of natural law limiting group size? If so, what is the limit? Is it 300 million? Is 8 billion too large? If defining a group means there has to be someone who's not in it, then can we simply say that it includes Homo sapiens and excludes other species?
Translation: I agree that it's not looking good, but maybe that's just because so many people are looking in the wrong direction and all that's needed is for enough people to simply turn around and look in the other direction.
"When we are no longer able to challenge a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." - Viktor Frankl
Some sociologists are fond of saying you can learn a lot about human behavior by studying chimpanzees. And chimps are incredibly tribal.
Mason's quote isn't pessimistic at all.
This.
If you want more on our tribal nature, read Robert Sapolky's "Behave," (although his "Determined" is better / more important overall)
There actually is a limit of about 150 people with whom any fairly normal person can have genuine relationships with at any one time. This is why companies in nearly every successful military are about that size.
Your truly intimate relationships are with your squaddies, a dozen or so comrades whose individual way of moving in battle you'll know by sound. Then there are your platoon, three or four squads most whose voices you'll know at night for security, and then a pair or if they're small three platoons in the company. Passwords are usually needed to move between platoons at night.
If you transfer this to civilian life, it means we have our family, our "friends", acquaintencnes with whom we intermittently work or play together, and everybody else. It's hard for humans to value the lives and success of folks in the "everybody else" group as much as those in our set of 150 relationships.
To add to this, it's called Dunbar's number and appears to be linked to brain size.
The political media want Trump back.
How much clearer can things get?
"[TFG] might not be good for the country, but he's good for CBS' ratings"
-Les Mooves (from memory)
actually Moonves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Moonves
preaching to the choir
The worst thing is that his followers consider this a feature rather than a bug.
Donald Trump is NUTS! BUT, he didn't rape that girl back in the 90's.
You can PIN a rape on someone, without evidence.
THat's wrong, just wrong.
"that girl"?
E. Jean Carroll was 47 in 1990. If Trump did rape her, it would be entirely consistent with his rapacious personality.
It's really bizarre that rogerdalien fixates on this so much. Yes, Trump was not convicted in a criminal trial of raping Carroll--that's why he's not in jail for rape. But he was found civilly liable, so if you really want to get pedantic about it, a court determined that it was more likely than not that he did in fact rape Carroll.
"More likely than not a rapist" seems like an odd hill for roger to be planting his flag in.
Indeed.
And you know this . . . how?
There was a civil trial that included plenty of evidence. Enough for Donald to refuse to even try testify, enough for the jury to agree.
Try to stay informed. You look silly.
And you this how? Right, you don't. Just blowing BS.
Sworn testimony IS evidence.
So Roger, how many women have you assaulted in dressing rooms?
If Joe Biden is reelected, he will surround himself with smart competent people and listen to them. It really won't make a difference if he is a step slower than he was 10 years ago. If Donald Trump is elected, he will surround himself with ambitious genuflecting sycophants, and only pay attention to their advice when he thinks it favors him personally. The minimal guard rails that existed during his first term will be removed.
This.
But only the best genuflecting sycophants!
great post, will send to my gun loving brother. and he will vote for the orange maniac anyway. sigh
Thank you Kevin! 👏 👏 👏 👏
A lack of enunciation at the end of words is what we Americans excel at, and that's before most of us get tired. Most of you/us pronounce words that end with D and T without the "duh" and "tuh" sound by snapping your tongue off the roof of your/our mouth.
When we're very tired, much like when we're drunk, our slurred speech is markedly obvious as our tongues barely move. Both men slur their speech and get details and people mixed up when they're tired. Watch the squint of their eyes to spot when they're tired.
Those complaints from former staffers are easily dismissed. Everyone knows they, including Haley, had no problem helping Agent Orange destroy this country and would have continued working for Trump if he had won reelection and was willing to take them back. They are not so different.
For instance: Just saw Christie — one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics, right? — say on one of the talk shows that he agrees with Trump’s policies, but the problem was with his character. In other words, I agree with all the horrible things he did; I just wish he had been more classy about it. And these are the Republicans that some people are hoping will “save” us from Trump. Just a pack of more “classy” Trumps.
I agree that many of the policies Trump espouses (migrant roundups and camps, reneging on our treaty obligations, etc) are jaw-droppingly awful. But some of the things he favors, like, say, tax cuts for the rich, are standard-issue movement conservatism.
I think when Christie talks of Trump's "character" he is talking about his disdain for democratic norms. One can favor a lot of dodgy policies (like, say, Nikki Haley) while opposing turning our country into a dictatorship.
But yes, Chritie's a Republican, so, he's not going to be on the same page, policy-wise, with most of Kevin's readers.
So the only “character “ issue was the attempted coup? Nah. If Trump had won (or if the coup attempt had succeeded), none of these idiots would be questioning his “character”. Many of them would have loved to have served in a Trump dictatorship. I’m not convinced that Trump’s republican critics are champions of “democratic norms.” Same with a lot of republican voters.
Great piece, Kevin. Also, is there anyway you could prevail upon the New York Times to hire you for their editorial staff?
Amen.
Shhhh! Don't tell the New York Times....They might actually, you know, do a story on this list Trump perfidies instead of being obsessed with running Biden out of the race. God what they won't do for brokered convention!
Amazing how they don't think Biden has any support, as if South Carolina was a mirage and winning a write-in vote by the largest margin ever never happened. If Biden sweep's the rest of the primaries, including Dean Phillip's Minnesota which he most certainly will, what excuses will they come up with to explain what happened? I will be curious to find out.
Pundits gotta pundit …
Trump is sharper than you think. He recently said this...
"“We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania,” Trump said."
He has figured out our master plan here in PA. After using Pentagon assets to insure KC won the Super Bowl we are going to rename the state to Swiftievania this fall. Only Trump can stop it.
Steve
trump is ignorant, stupid and almost certainly in significant mental decline, but he's also such a pathological liar that i honestly can never tell when he's making a mistake or purposely spouting idiotic nonsense to manipulate his voters and the media.
Trump's craziness can't be held against him because it's what his base wants from him. That he'll burn the whole place down is what they want from him. That he's becoming a dotard doesn't matter because crazy dotards are real, real crazy and they love it. Biden, on the other hand, is supposed to be the safe hand at the rudder.
The only issues are turnout and third-party candidates. A majority surely doesn't want crazy. But if they don't trust Biden, a lot of people will stay at home or lodge a protest vote. Biden should realize NOW he's not running against the Don but against abstention.
Gary Cohn called Trump a "professional liar," the characterization which has struck me as most apt, just ahead of Tillerson's "fucking moron."