Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Biden should deny trump intelligence briefings and let him prominently and publicly litigate that until Election Day

there was a good thread on that sort of thing a few days ago on bluesky

give him fake Intelligence Briefings which are just Curious George books

just do a bunch of crazy shit, every day

Michael Tae Sweeney @mtsw.bsky.social
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3d
Maybe even create a way to keep the story going, offer a negotiation where Trump is allowed the security briefings but only if he agrees to have a FBI agent standing over his shoulder the entire time or something humiliating like that. Keep it in the news!

focus goups, can't beat em https://t.co/8B4onntuQT pic.twitter.com/KhcLBrG632

— tyson brody (@tysonbrody) June 4, 2024

https://x.com/nilocobau/status/1798044637468508329

lol, you should crime better

honestly if Biden can't wipe this scumbag off the map in a single debate then we need a new nominee. just let him talk and then point out how what he said was fucking disturbingly nuts

― Heez, Tuesday, June 4, 2024 11:02 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes

And also the “can you believe this asshole” face

I haven’t enjoyed how the discourse has coarsened in the last decade - swearing etc - but I would love for Biden to ask Trump “what the fuck are you talking about, you loon?” on national TV

I remember when he kept saying "That's a load of stuff" in his debate with Paul Ryan.

y'all, the focus group:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/04/opinion/trump-verdict-focus-group.html

yeah I agree 100% with Scott there, there's something distinctly inhuman about Trump that I've never really felt about a politician before.

You never had Thatcher.

"can we really trust a man who can't even pull off a hush money payment" is a decent point I must admit

worth repeating that if Trump had just paid Daniels out of his own pocket instead of trying to fob it off as a business expense he'd be in the clear instead of a convicted felon

maybe when 2coups is at long last imprisoned he can get on with his 'art of the deal' literary oeuvre, a la ezra pound and his cantos?

they are both, after all, university of pennsylvania alumni

Orange is the New Orange

I mean that seriously too like outside of The Apprentice everything he's done has been an abject failure, not only would he be way richer if he'd just invested his inheritance he also had to commit massive amounts of fraud just to tread water

worth repeating that if Trump had just paid Daniels out of his own pocket instead of trying to fob it off as a business expense he'd be in the clear instead of a convicted felon

True, but even something that small would be antithetical to his fundamental operating principle. The closest thing Trump has to an ideology is that he is never, ever, ever responsible or accountable for anything. Accepting any kind of responsibility — legal, moral or ethical — is a mug's game. And that's a big part of his appeal imo. The fantasy he embodies is wealth and power without consequences. It's also why even this verdict in a relatively minor and legally novel case is a real dent for him. It tugs back the curtain just a little.

the dude (Nixon) was smart, could be thoughtful on occasion, and had a crabbed affection for the people around him.

Hell, he also created the EPA and signed into law the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Even the worst of the worst signed into law bipartisan legislation that benefited the country at large here and there.

It's astonishing how far things have fallen since Gingrich and more importantly McConnell. They enabled much of this present day partisan strife and paved the way for Trump's ascendancy.

xp Yup, narcissists are always doubling down inside their house of cards. It's always an illusory con game with them, and so so so necessary to keep up appearances for your cult, because it's all so fragile in the end - similarly with dictatorships.

Hell, he also created the EPA and signed into law the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Even the worst of the worst signed into law bipartisan legislation that benefited the country at large here and there.

wellllll no -- don't give him too much credit. Nixon was the first (and last?) president to start his term controlling neither chamber of Congress. Dems had overwhelming majorities. He signed what they gave him.

the fact that he continues to deny this stuff even after losing in court is truly insane, he's still out there claiming E Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels are just people he maybe took a picture with once

...and then he goes further by saying they're ugly and/or "not my type"

one aspect that hasn't really been talked about much is how Stormy described the encounter, she made it sound like she was not really feeling it and while she stopped short of calling it rape she did testify that she felt really nervous in a way that was only tempered by Trump himself being such a weird oaf. the point that this is the guy we heard on the Access Hollywood tape, which was a big reason why Trump didn't want it to get out

y'all, the focus group:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/04/opinion/trump-verdict-focus-group.html

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 4, 2024 1:18 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

And here's why that's bad news for Joe Biden:

https://i.imgur.com/ezGSnbP.png
https://i.imgur.com/ezGSnbP.png

Oops, second image was supposed to be:

https://i.imgur.com/7x3CGuN.png

John, excellent at customer relations.

"ungracious"? the was four hours after the verdict. he barely spoke about it on the day. wtf.

I read that whole thing and one thing I will say is: they're all morons, but hilary is a special kind

America 2024: the calls are coming from inside the house

amazing how often someone wants to find a take on things that they think is smart because it's different and uniquely their own - and it just runs off into weird tail-chasing logic

i shudder to think of all the insane evidence attesting to

1) 2coups' guilt vis-a-vis various sexual assaults (some of minors),

2) classified document subterfuge (hint hint: he stole documentation of his many, many putonian / epsteinian crimes),

3) random abuse-of-power

4) how much the self-made playboy WWE-hall-of-fame billioniare owes e. jean caroll and the state of new york but can't begin to pay

and 5) fake elector / pressure-to-cheat-/-muck-with-raw-actual-vote-totals witness-stand-takes

that will flood the old golf fraud's campaign in coming months :(

But now we know that Biden shouldn't campaign on any of that because he should try to be above it

the only thing missing that would make Trump the complete personification of this country's dark Id is that i don't think he cares about or likes guns. otherwise he checks all the gluttonous, selfish, destructive, and hateful boxes. he is totally the complete personification of the american internet though. he is the internet in human form. he just spews nonsense and lies and hamburgers and porn and anger and gloom and doom and his idea of telling a joke is to say "don't call chris christie fat. you can't call him fat". and he's a 77 year old man who doesn't even have an e-mail address and who has never texted in his life. go figure.

I think the only takeaway from that deranged focus group is that having two candidates that are essentially both incumbents is super dispiriting and especially lethal for people suffering from undecided voter brain syndrome

77 year old man who doesn't even have an e-mail address

there was a somewhat respected former journalist on his team who's primary job was to print out positive news stories about him, and always have one ready to hand him when he was feeling down

when people really get into the weeds about Trump's oddness I actually kinda think of the Dilbert guy who wrote a lot about Trump's "persuasion abilities" and the way he "hypnotizes people", back when everyone thought he was a joke. obviously the Dilbert dude is a moron but I think there's something to this. not in the way he frames it, implying it's a conscious and calculated thing he's doing, or that he even studies this stuff at all. I think Trump is as dumb as he appears to be. but he has gotten to live a life that virtually nobody in history gets to live. I mean he was born with incredible privilege and used it to enter a world built from the ground up to benefit guys like him. he never had any need to learn empathy or how to be nice or even how to have a normal human conversation. he has no friends, he knows nothing about his family, in fact I actually believe him when he says he's never drank, he never had the need to socialize. thats why when they have him on like these UFC streams or whatever he just says shit like "oh I like the strong men, but you gotta watch out for the fast guys, oooh yeah it's fun when they beat the hell out of each other"

basically I think his every interaction is framed through the lens of "how do I get this person to do what I want", and every time he answers a question the only thing he thinks is "what does this person want to hear". he can't turn it off, this is how he always speaks. he was born into a system where guys like him can't fail. he maybe isn't even consciously trying to con people it's just the way the neural pathways in his brain developed. he naturally phrases things in the way that gives him the pellet most often. most people don't fall for it, I mean Donald Trump may be one of the most unpopular people in human history, but his bullshit works here, because this is the system that produced a guy like him. it's a useful skill when you're trying to con a mark, and the Republican party is full of marks, thanks to the likes of Mitch McConnell turning every Republican position into something logically untenable. there's so much time and effort tring to understand what makes Republican voters "tick" but I think it's really just this. probably a very direct coorelation between how likely a person is to get scammed and how likely that person is to vote Trump. I mean didn't the Dilbert guy give 15 grand to camgirls or something?

sorry, maybe this is obvious to everyone else. I think Elon Musk is the same way btw

i think that's partially right, in that our system is designed to reward people who have money with ever-more money. trump is absolutely a sociopath for whom 'winning' is such a core concept that he cannot accept any other reality and would rather blow up the world than admit it. but he does, aided by the media for 40 years, have presence

there are a thousand guys like elon; he's just the one who happened to win out. what he has in common with trump is mostly an ability to manipulate court proceedings

Those are good analyses. I think you also gotta figure in his having been mentored by/having spent significant time in close proximity to dad Fred, Roy Cohn, and Roger Stone, along with his application of Norman Vincent Peale's stuff in a most warped fashion.

His sister, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry said of him:

"All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. His goddamned tweeting and lying... oh my god. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit. [...] It's the phoniness of it all. It's the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel." She added that he did not read books and had someone take the college entrance exam in his place. In the recordings, Barry also criticized her brother's family separation policy and the bankruptcies of his businesses, adding that "you can't trust him".

I think all of the above is true, and coincided with the rise of ad-supported, algorithmic social media as alternate news sources in a period of unrestrained consolidation in media and broadband. A perfect petri dish for spreading misinformation in various rabbit holes and echo chambers.

del otm. The key thing is that he grew up in the weird confluence of high fliers and grubby street fighting that is New York metro area real estate development. He grew up around mobsters and money launderers. Their principles are his principles.

This also explains the Jersey City supper club demeanor, the schticky glad-handing, the boasting - all of it.

What is interesting is that his sister also grew up that way and was merely a corruptish Federal Court of Appeals Judge, not the full-on sociopath. Maybe a bit of patriarchy as well.

Rereading her bio, she went way back with Alito and Roy Cohn so I take that back. Maybe just more of a veneer.

"he was born into a system where guys like him can't fail."

he has a pretty profound fear of failure though. more than most people. which is why he can never accept losing anything. he's very insecure. a lot of people like him are. and he wants everyone to love him and he is someone who will go to his grave not understanding why everyone didn't love him. like his supporters, he's fear-based. but, yeah, he's also just mean. and likes to laugh at people.
there were so many public things that Presidents do that he didn't do because i think he knew he would be booed and i always wondered how he really felt about that. not going to sports stuff other than the army/navy game where they aren't allowed to boo him. being the only President to not do the correspondent's dinner because he knew people would laugh at him. only appearing in front of Maga crowds. doing Maga rallies as president just to get that dopamine rush again. the Trumps really did live as dictators. tightly controlled. very few public opportunities for people to confront them in person. Melania was the perfect dictator's wife. Silent and unseen for the most part.

Nice insights, I never put all that together.

it's why the debates are such a good opportunity. get obama out there provoking him (yes, too soon)

"Proceed, Mr. Trump."

oh I think that's totally true, just saying because the system is what it is it's given him a sense of 'expertise' which essentially boils down to figuring out how to get away with shit. so his 'strategy' of just not paying people, or inflating/deflating your assets for tax/loan reasons - that's what 'business' is to him, the idea of actually providing a valuable product or service never really factors in. so yes he's successful in some sense but he's a success in a way that can't really be replicated because too many guys like him brings the whole system down. like you can't have a world where everyone's just stiffing contractors left and right, but a few people can get away with it if they're willing to be total parasites.

but yeah his fear of failure, or fear of being seen as a failure, is really unlike any other public figure I've ever seen. entrepreneurs usually love to talk about their failures, because then they can talk about how they overcame them. they want to be seen as people who encounter problems and obstacles just like everyone else, but they can solve them because they're just smarter and more innovative. they want to project the image of a person who could find a way to be successful anywhere. I don't think Trump ever really has thoughts like that because he doesn't understand why you'd ever want to identify with someone on a human level.

I remember some comedians talking about that after they'd done that Comedy Central roast of him a while ago - they present whoever they're "roasting" with a list of subjects they might poke fun of, and they can say such-and-such is off-limits. one of those subjects was his horniness for his own daughter, which was the thing they all expected him to zero in on, but apparently he was fine with that, the only thing he said you couldn't poke fun of was the idea that he was inflating his net worth.

I mean

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/trump-files-when-trump-called-donald-jr-a-loser/

Seven o’clock in the morning, I’m going to school—hugs, kisses, and he used to say a couple things. ‘No smoking, no drinking, no drugs.’ I think a great lesson for any kid. But then he followed up with: ‘Don’t. Trust. Anyone. Ever.’ And, you know, he’d follow it up two seconds later with, ‘So, do you trust me?’ I’d say, ‘Of course, you’re my dad.’ He’d say, ‘What did I just—’ You know, he thought I was a total failure. He goes, ‘My son’s a loser, I guess.’ Because I couldn’t even understand what he meant at the time. I mean, it’s not something you tell a four-year-old, right? But it really means something to him.”