The answer to how Trump has succeeded is really simple: He lies nonstop, and lying works. Sure, there are other factors in play—he tapped into and intensified a certain strain of profound proletarian resentment of liberal elites, and … well, that’s about it. But mostly, it’s the lies.
…And, to reiterate, Trump tells many such lies a day. He talks to the press two or three times a day most days, which probably adds up to what, 45 minutes, an hour? Spitballing it at one lie every two minutes, which may well be low, that’s around 25 factual lies a day.
Finally? The guy that phoned in to a newspaper pretending to be his own publicist in the 80s?
He was also doing his shit even back in high-school when he tried to make every failure look like a success, and when he was still working closely for his dad in the 70s some newspapers even mocked him for promising the moon but delivering a moonpie. They noted his tendency to exaggerate everything he did as the best and biggest even when it plain to see that it was not.
no it isnt
Doubt
When we say America, hopefully, here in Europe, we’re mainly thinking about up to 50% of the voting population. The great majority are not the loud morons
I’m getting tired of saying this: no the fuck they aren’t. Trump’s approval rating is at 41% today, which is higher than it was a couple weeks ago.
Everybody keeps saying, this, this latest shenanigan will be the one that finally wakes America up so they can somehow end this. And it never is. The camel’s back is vibranium.
I agree with the sentiment, but disagree with the polling.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin Show’s the Cheeto down
RCP shows him at least level with a few weeks ago, and way down overall.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
There are others as well, but basically, he’s beginning to hurt hard on some of the issues and that’s making midterms looks difficult for the Republican next year. It’s telling to me that he’s stopped his tariff crusade, especially lifting ones on food. Also did the ACA extension, in spite of being so against it that he wanted to remove the filibuster. His staff is desperate for big wins and he’s been stymied in finding them when the courts reject his deployments, curtail or.monitor his ICE raids, and even reject his parties gerrymandering attempts. Many many people are beginning to just ignore his histrionic, such as Ukraine and Europe, as well as China.
In essence, while I am not as optimistic as the article, as I think he’s got lots of damage to be done under the news radar (like gutting the edu dept), I do think the middle ground who voted him in (the middle 20% of voting Americans, not the conservative 40%, or progressive 40%) has come to realize the folly of their choice… Or begun to.
43% approve. You are delusional.
I want to see polling from the realestclearestpolling.com and if it doesn’t align with my expectations I’m going with bestestmostawesomepolling.com. I still have a few more. I’ll keep searching for more.
Indeed, tis a cute jest about Confirmation Bias, which is fair in polling given the challenge it is.
Just a note that Real clear politics, the owner of realclearpolling.com was considered nonpartisan until a few years when more conservative influences have taken root. I point it out in contrast to Nate Silver who tends to lean left a bit.
Dumbasses so desperate for just a small hit of copium. You think that over the course of the last fucking decade, something would have sunk in for idiots to realize they’re being fed horseshit, but no. They’ll keep believing the house of cards is totally going to fall down any day now because they read some bullshit tweet and are too fucking stupid to look up facts for themselves.
I’d still rub it in on a tRump voter. They complain to me about losing Medicaid? I’d ask, “why are you so upset? This is what you voted for.”
Say four guys are sitting in a bar having a sports argument—talking about the upcoming college football playoffs, say. They begin by agreeing that Ohio State is the favorite because it is currently ranked number one in the polls, which it in fact is.
But one of them says: No, Texas A&M is number one. The other three look at him like he’s insane. They reach for their phones, they tap, tap, tap, and they show him the rankings. But he keeps insisting. Those polls are fake. It’s Texas A&M. Everybody says so.
The conversation stalls. The liar has “won” the argument. Not in the sense that he is factually correct; he is not. But he has won in two senses. First, he has shut down what might have been a rational, interesting, spirited debate that proceeded from shared factual premises. Second, he has forced the other three to waste time and mental energy debating a proposition that is not remotely up for debate, and in the process has succeeded in making himself the center of attention and controversy whom everyone else talks about.
Sounds like they should remove the liar from the bar. Maybe not beat the shit out of him and leave him in a sobbing pile of piss and vomit in the back alleyway, but certainly not just letting it slide.
Liars and such get by because people are too polite to do anything about it. This goes for other bad behavior, too.
Someone in my extended friend group got a divorce, and her ex-husband started acting like a creeper. He was bothering the other women in the group. Eventually, another dude in the group pulled him aside and said if he doesn’t behave, he can’t hang out with them anymore. The guy didn’t change, and now he’s out of the friend group.
Of course, there’s so many shitty maga-hats that maybe he went and found a new group of misogynists .
One of the craziest things I saw in the 2016 election was when they showed Trump voters messages from real New Yorkers who talked about their hometown boy.
New Yorkers hated him for destroying a historic building façade he’d sworn to preserve; they hated him because he called for the lynching of the Central Park 5; they hated him for the way he treated his first wife; they just hated him.
The Trump people thought that if New Yorkers hated him he must be good.
Press (X) to doubt
Everyday I’m amazed at the stupidity of the people surrounding me. It was always obvious
This. I remember people that I know who lived through the 80s and knew this fraud for the loudmouthed failson that he was back then still turn around and vote for him anyway, because, well, they had no choice.
What are they going to do, vote for a Democrat? Never mind a female one?
I really don’t want a war but I would not hesitate to pull the trigger on the pedofile worshipping Nazis in one because they are Nazis and the German Nazis believed stupid q anon shit too. Is there a way out of this without a war?
“Hey, libtards, you keep saying Donald Trump is dumb, but if he’s so dumb, how come he got elected president twice?"
Because his level of ignorance makes him relatable to voters who also don’t know anything. 🤔
This is the same thing that keeps getting people like Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, MTG, and Boebert elected.
“They don’t know anything! They’re just like me!”
Kakistocracy
Well, let’s see how much America is seeing it come time in mid-terms.
I remember hoping he would be enough for America to get corporate money out of government. It doesn’t look like we’re even close to it, and that it will something way worse for America to get there.
I remember hoping he would be enough for America to get corporate money out of government.
you really fell for that?
a man who’s bankrupted himself multiple times and failed at casinos, you think someone like that is going to ‘get corporate money out of government’?
I mean it’s easy with hindsight, we all made silly fucking assumptions. I assumed that after toying with this idiocy that we’d elect clinton, suck it up, and drive on with a democracy, because tho there’s a huge racist streak in america, no one would vote that cynically in the face of utter incompetence and stupidity.
silly fucking assumptions.
No, not that he would get corporate money out of govt, fucking hell no. Just that he would be bad enough for American government to realize that “well, we can’t let that happen again” and get corruption out of our system. Similar to how Germany stopped corruption after Hitler. And for like 14 months before Oct 7th, there were constant protest in Tel Aviv over Bibi’s corruption, I hope that as soon as possible, Israel also ends their corruption in government. But I’m really seeing now that it will have to get way worse than Trump for corruption to end in America.
Just that he would be bad enough for American government to realize that “well, we can’t let that happen again” and get corruption out of our system.
valid. I thought, on j6, “well thank goodness this is the end of him”… because no country in their right mind would let that shit pass.
and here we are. fuck.
This era of American politics will be studied for centuries. Like the fall of Rome. I’m sure that after he’s gone the truth will come out about who was really driving. His coddling of Russia in the context of Republican history is the biggest red flag. Especially when you take into account his penchant for money (bitcoin rug pull, Qatari Force One etc etc)
This era of American politics will be studied for centuries.
well put. I was wondering the other day - will any of them see consequences? I just couldn’t decide if it was generations away, or five years away.
and yeah, russia looms over every aspect of his 45/47 shitshow. meetings without translators (!), fucking ukraine over, past visits to moscow, parnas, the NRA, it’s like: yeah, we get it. he’s compromised. very compromised. then he stashes nuclear secrets in his fucking guest bathroom.
like, any single one of these should DOOM a presidency into infamy and wreck the party that rode it in, but…
$. and a spineless congress, and a bought and paid for supreme court, + citizens united = we’re fucked and no lube is on the horizon
The Conservative/Nazi party really isn’t for anything besides lowering taxes for the wealthy, they’re just against whatever the other side wants.
Really wish we at least had a side against that side. Instead we’re stuck with a pro-genocide, pro overthrowing the Venezuelan government, pro corporate money in politics, against primaring the dem leaders in power party. I’m getting really sick of the “It puts the lotion in the basket, or else it gets the Trump again” party.
Surely they’ll get it this time.
Like there is no way… Right?
The fuck took so long?
