Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Thing is, he doesn't have a "strategy" beyond just yelling his cultists' grievances back at them.

Eh, Mussolini was pretty lazy.

That's a dangerous assumption to make, hitting the competition on SS and Medicare is a fairly smart direction to go. It will be more difficult for him to paint himself as the moderate option as he did in 2016, but this kind of stuff pushes in that direction.

xp

Moodles, he has lucked into good lines of attack but there aren't principles behind it - it's all in the service of ego.

Mostly though he is a human feedback loop for MAGApplause. Doesn't matter what he says or whether he believes it or can even articulate it correctly, it's just "how do I get these chuds to cheer me and wear my stupid hats?" Like, embracing diversity would be a real position. Trump can only manage to tweet that he loves taco bowls. Acknowledging that non-college-educated voters are real people with real concerns would be an actual position; the best he can do is the garbled "I love the poorly educated."

Everything is filtered through the lens of whether it glorifies his name or doesn't. Everything that works gets repeated; anything that doesn't work gets rapidly abandoned. There is no secret sauce other than that. It is a remarkably simple formula, and it slightly depresses me that it has worked this well for this long.

lol remember when he praised the vaccine in fall '21 -- the only good thing to emerge from his wretched term -- but stopped when the crowd booed? Now he's attacking DeSantis for not opening the state early enough.

I agree that there are no principles behind it, but principles and strategy are two different things. He clearly doesn't have any strong beliefs or moral center, but he is running an actual campaign and trying to win.

giving people what they want aka populism is a powerful political art, particularly when contrasted with politicians who are more concerned with giving corporations what they want

or at least telling people what they want to hear, the actual giving is a little trickier

and doesn’t matter, since his base don’t care or find excuses for his total failure to deliver on the wall, health care, infrastructure, etc etc etc

he seemed so sad when he got booed for the vaccine, he was so proud of it initially I think he was convinced that he had actually done the research himself

lol yeah it was kinda like a snake oil salesman who stumbled on a snake oil that actually worked.

gotta admit, after about two years of not being worried about trump winning in 2024, i am now a little worried about trump winning in 2024.

after getting a long hard look at DeSantis yeah I think he is probably gonna be the nominee again

I'm less worried about Trump winning than DeSantis, but Ye Olde Fossil will beat Trump in November. Trump ain't wooing back voters he lost in those '20 swing states.

will be interesting to see just how senile they can both get

Poll time?

but Ye Olde Fossil will beat Trump in November

if things stay the same. there's a decent possibility biden has some sort of health scare in the next 18 months. i don't think that would increase trump's vote, but it might suppress biden's. enthusiasm for harris in the 2020 primaries was even less than it was for biden

Yes he did pic.twitter.com/neN3aV4tii

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 6, 2023

bird flu is gonna take out Mar-a-Lago

Trump stares up into the sun as he is wont to do, seagull flies by and shits in his mouth, he dies one week later

it's funny that he is still posting on truth social instead of twitter

truth social is more stable

Maddow talking about new GA law for firing/discipling prosecutors (pending gov sig) was good for that “i’d like to to see ol Trump wriggle outta THIS one” vibe i’ve been missing.

...up to ten new “Freedom Cities,” built from the ground up on federal land.

Some people are saying we should build them from the sky down, but I say no, from the ground up is the way. It's better.

it how our ancestors did it

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a text message after the 2020 election that he "passionately hated" Donald Trump, according to new court filings.

Mr Carlson's message to a colleague in January 2021 emerged as part of a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

The electronic voting firm accuses the network of promoting baseless claims of vote-rigging in the election.

Fox News denies defamation and says on-air comments were taken out of context.

The latest filings in the case suggest Mr Carlson expressed his dislike of the outgoing US president two days before Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to derail lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden's election win.

"We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights," he wrote in a text sent on 4 January 2021. "I truly can't wait."
"I hate him passionately," he added.

Mr Carlson, the top-rated host on the conservative network, also appeared to denigrate the Trump presidency in these private messages, despite lauding his achievements on air.

tucker is a true sicko

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71E4b1ldo+L._SX425_.jpg

it's funny how there was that whole thing about fox news knowingly lying to their own viewers and how everyone knew it from the top to the bottom in the organization, but yet, none of their viewers cared. fox continues to dominate the ratings as if nothing happened. and i don't think any advertisers left, either (?)

maybe it's because the viewers just don't know about it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/03/business/media/fox-dominion-conservative-media.html

On 26 of the most popular conservative television news networks, radio shows, podcasts and websites, only four — National Review, Townhall, The Federalist and Breitbart News — have mentioned the private messages from Fox News hosts that disparaged election fraud claims since Feb. 16, when the first batch of court filings were released publicly, according to a review by The New York Times.

The majority — 18 in all, including Fox News itself — did not cover the lawsuit at all with their own staff. (Some of those 18 published wire stories originally written by The Associated Press or other services.)

Four outlets mentioned the lawsuit in some way, but did not mention the comments from Fox News hosts. One of those, The Gateway Pundit, published three articles that included additional unfounded allegations about Dominion, including a suggestion that security vulnerabilities at one election site using Dominion machines could have led to some fraud, despite no evidence that votes were mismanaged.

even if they did would they believe it?

yeah, probably not! it's tough down there in the hole, stacking mud, waiting for tucker to tell you what is wrong

Howard Kurtz was quoted on his show as saying he'd love to talk about it but essentially had been told by management that he couldn't, likely for obvious reasons but also because they were the subject of said litigation and it wouldn't help their side much. Which is interesting to me because given Tucker's current on-air screeds, kinda seems like Dominion's team is probably thinking "Ah, thanks for the additional evidence, very helpful."

i don't think any advertisers left, either (?)

― z_tbd, Wednesday, March 8, 2023 10:49 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbf all the advertisers who would care left a long time ago, the pillow guy is their biggest spender

i periodically ask this, but is there a good source for tracking advertiser spending? the scenario that always comes up, year after year, is when someone like rush limbaugh says something even more horrible than normal, and then there's news that advertisers are dropping him. and i wonder...for how long? do the same advertisers come back? and who fills the void while they're gone?

and what i'm driving at, i guess, is if it's possible to come up with a "boycott these shitty companies that are even worse than the normal companies" list that is even close to comprehensive.

i guess either a lot of it is proprietary or something, and/or, like most financial stuff, the advertiser's ownership structures are so fucking complicated that it's tough to make the connections between the entities spending the ad money and the name brand crap we actually recognize?

the safest assumption is that every single company is horrible and to try to buy as little as possible, i know. but it would be nice to have a giant printed list to throw darts at and to clean out muddy cleats

is anyone actually surprised tucker carlson personally hates trump? anyone who has had to deal with trump personally, especially during the presidential years, seems to feel this way. this is why so many people left his administration even though they shared his egregious politics.

I assumed Trump had better relations with media personalities than with underlings, but apparently he alienates everyone he meets

and it's everyone else's fault, I bet

Does Donald J. Trump still have your support?

YES or NO? 👇 pic.twitter.com/I68fAtjSuw

— shaneyyricch (@shaneyyricch) March 8, 2023

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/03/19/lens/19xp-waxfigure-photo/19xp-waxfigure-photo-mediumSquareAt3X.jpg

I thought Diane Arbus died years ago but clearly she's still out there, shooting at conservative events.

i periodically ask this, but is there a good source for tracking advertiser spending?

― z_tbd, Wednesday, March 8, 2023 11:06 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

im sure you could find this info if you wanted its def tracked by various industry entities and their are activists that put together lists who feel like have been pretty successful in the case of fox news at least there arent a ton of blue chip advertisers on there

ok i googled it, first result this this is old but https://adage.com/article/media/beyond-mypillow-other-biggest-brand-advertisers-fox-news-revealed/2354321

The biggest advertisers on Fox News by TV ad impressions, from Jan. 1 through July 29, 2021, per iSpot:
1. Fox News (8.5 million)
2. Balance of Nature (4.6 million)
3. Liberty Mutual (3.9 million)
4. Fox Nation (3.8 million)
5. NewDay USA (3.7 million)
6. MyPillow (2.3 million)
7. Relief Factor (2.2 million)
8. USAA (2.0 million)
9. Indeed (1.8 million)
10. Nutrisystem (1.6 million)
11. Fox (1.3 million)
12. Progressive (1.3 million)
13. Safelite Auto Glass (1.3 million)
14. Applebee’s (1.0 million)
15. ADT (1.0 million)

I have no clue who shaneyyricch is. Every time I see one of these tweets I have to research "okay, who's this fucking doorknob now..."

14. Applebee’s (1.0 million)

No more appletinis for me

bunch of orgs going after the advertisers none of which date their lists is it so hard to throw a date on there folks

https://dropfox.com/advertisers/ (© Media Matters for America 2021)

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-these-advertisers-to-stop-funding-fox-news-now

http://foxnewsboycott.com/fox-news-sponsors/fox-sponsors-a-l/ (comments from 2011 lol)

thanking u lag00n

but of course

now - let's get out there and take down fox news with our purchasing decisions!!

*buys a local stick*

im skeptical of the efficacy of ethical shopping etc but it is pretty funny that fox has to pander to the pillow man