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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    Assuming there is one, the presidential debate(s) next year will be... ummm... interesting. Biden will be slow, but articulate and well prepared. Trump, (if he participates) will be incoherent, rambling and abusive. I suspect he'll do everything he can to give it a miss. Since he lost the election he's, understandably, avoided any event where he has to give off the cuff answers or comments.

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  • Sean of the Shed
    replied
    When you have an ego the size of Trump's anything that has gone wrong is down to other people's failings.

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  • Patrick Thistle
    replied
    Yeah he doesn't have any regrets. The 'situation' is a cause for rage not reflection. In his mind he is the President.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Again, that presumes a degree of self-awareness and capacity for reflection that isn't supported by the evidence

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  • WOM
    replied
    I often wonder if he genuinely regrets coming down that tacky escalator 8-ish years ago. He had it pretty sweet, and this ‘situation’ is now the rest of his life.

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    I basically agree with that, and think that a key lies in his non-political celebrity and the image of limitless wealth that came with that.

    That allows him to pull this off with what looks to the base like effortlessness/genuineness, whereas all of the rivals are very obviously trying too hard.

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  • San Bernardhinault
    replied
    Originally posted by big dog View Post
    This will only end when Trump drops dead, and if there is still democracy in America when this happens, someone else will emerge as the extreme grievance candidate because Trump has shown it is both lucrative and potentially successful.
    This is true - but...

    Yes, this group will always exist in the US and always have these views. But I'm not sure Trump is necessarily replicable. Everyone who's tried to do it has failed miserably. I don't know what it is about Trump that makes him a special case, but clearly when career politicians have played Pretend Trump they've fizzled out. I wonder if it's because you need to do it all authentically. But to be authentically that stupid and believe you're right about everything and be a racist shit is one thing, to have that authentic stupidity and ego and also manage to rise up to a position to make it count may not be so common. The Ted Cruzes and Ron deSantises and even Vivek Ramaswamys are all a bit too cynical, putting the incoherent libtard baiting as a performance rather than it being part of their id.

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  • Snake Plissken
    replied
    Originally posted by Slightly Brown View Post
    Only way he loses support is if they all burn together, Waco-style.
    A plan with no drawbacks.

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  • Slightly Brown
    replied
    Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
    I'm not even sure how much his base would shrink, if at all, if he were caught on tape molesting a child. That's the only scenario where I can imagine serious damage to the base but even that is not guaranteed to be terminal.
    Exactly. He was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury (six men and three women), not some “deep state”, “left-wing looney” judge, and…it’s not even part of the conversation. As UA says, it’s a personality cult (his and theirs). Only way he loses support is if they all burn together, Waco-style.

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  • Patrick Thistle
    replied
    The Q-anonvangelicals would find a way of explaining it. It'll be a deepfake or something. Or an apparition conjured by Satan worshipping demoncrats.

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  • Satchmo Distel
    replied
    I'm not even sure how much his base would shrink, if at all, if he were caught on tape molesting a child. That's the only scenario where I can imagine serious damage to the base but even that is not guaranteed to be terminal.
    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 18-11-2023, 08:41.

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  • Patrick Thistle
    replied
    Don't forget the way he has achieved demi-messiah status among American Evangelicals, although that demographic is in decline. But evangelicalism is an authoritarian religion and admitting you're wrong about things just isn't done.

    You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Most ardent Trumpers are there for emotional reasons (mainly fear and anger tbh). Ironically given the way they like "triggering the libs" they are an easily triggered group. It doesn't take much to scare them into even more extreme views.
    Last edited by Patrick Thistle; 18-11-2023, 08:28.

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  • Sean of the Shed
    replied
    Some are still making the mistake of assuming that Trumpers use logic and thought process.
    These people are merely moths in the night time who have found a light and will continue to flit around it until they die of exhaustion.

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  • big dog
    replied
    Based on anecdotal encounters, that base will go with Trump until the very end.

    The bulk of Trump's base is obsessed with paedophile cabals, religious dogma and far right republican purity (among other things) and yet will still happily hand over their life savings to a man who was a registered Democrat in the early 2000's, was listed in the Epstein flight logs, heavily promoted the COVID vaccine and has publically criticized Republican states' attempts at making it harder to get an abortion. There is nothing that can change their minds now-- this isn't about ideological consistency, this is about 'triggering the libs' and feeling like they are pushing back against a country changing around them.

    This will only end when Trump drops dead, and if there is still democracy in America when this happens, someone else will emerge as the extreme grievance candidate because Trump has shown it is both lucrative and potentially successful.

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  • caja-dglh
    replied
    Pretty much. It seems unlikely he will pick up more somehow (moving right is his natural inclination and there isn’t much more to collect).

    His base is a combination of disaffected / hardcore Republicans and a bunch of Libertarians. Oh, and old fuckers. It is a tricky growth market but it is a strong reliable subscription market.

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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    So "the base' is with him forever? He can't say, or do, anything that would turn them against him in any circumstance?

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Not in the slightest.

    It is a cult of personality. The base doesn't care about anyone else at all.

    The entourage has shrunk because those bailing still have professional aspirations in the non-Trump world, care about being shunned from polite society, and/or are facing jail time or significant personal liability.

    If the base has shrunk, it will because people have died without being replaced.

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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    Where did I say anything about his base?

    I was talking about his entourage. See, for instance, the likes of Barr, Meadows, Kelly, etc falling away leaving no one but Miller, McEntee and Bannon.
    I know, I was making a comparison. If the standard bearers are dropping out, aren't the grunts on the ground likely to follow?

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Judges, man

    https://twitter.com/rparloff/status/1725665207106633815

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Where did I say anything about his base?

    I was talking about his entourage. See, for instance, the likes of Barr, Meadows, Kelly, etc falling away leaving no one but Miller, McEntee and Bannon.

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  • Amor de Cosmos
    replied
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    Yes.

    Trump's only concern is that his outbursts are greeted with thumbs up from his base and donations.

    And as that entourage has shrunk to the point where it can easily fit in a bunker, the rhetoric has become even more extreme and overtly inspired by the Nazis.
    Has his base shrunk that much? I genuinely don't know. If the polls are to be believed (I'm not claiming they are) then, a year way from the election, he's edging Biden. FWIW I've always considered him a cartoon version of Mussolini — they share some of the same mannerisms. In that sense he's a clumsy sketch of a pastiche, but like his predecessor very dangerous.

    Re: Tom Nichols. I generally admire his analyses. As an old school conservative Republican he writes from both the heart and the head about the loss of his party. You feel the genuine anger. For me, even if I'd never vote as he does, it's far more revelatory than slurs and sloganeering.


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  • Slightly Brown
    replied
    At this stage, I think Laurie Strode running as a third-party candidate is our only hope.

    Anyway, the next 15 years of a Trump presidency should allow us more time to reflect on fascist nomenclature
    Last edited by Slightly Brown; 17-11-2023, 22:24.

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  • Plodder
    replied
    Genetics! I knew it! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was the genetics.

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  • Lang Spoon
    replied
    Originally posted by Plodder View Post
    How can someone that unhealthy live this long? It's enough to make you doubt medical science. And why do we not hear about how he's too old, the way we constantly do with the (checks notes...) 3 year older Biden?
    Genetics. Both his awful parents lived ages despite looking hideously unwell.

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  • Hot Pepsi
    replied
    Originally posted by WOM View Post
    Nobody gives a damn about impressing Jodie Foster any more....
    That's an outstanding post.

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