“I think some of this is sad to watch,” Nunberg said. “It’s getting to the point where he’s almost turning into a laughingstock. What I’m worried about is whether he wants to completely self-destruct and take everything down with him vis-à-vis the election and the Republican Party.” He added, “This is a guy who’s not gonna lose joyfully.”
It does appear at times as though self-destruction may be the point. How else could you explain the Plague Parade circling Walter Reed, in which a very sick Trump boarded a tightly sealed SUV with his Secret Service agents so he could wave at the supporters who had come to fly their flags on the street? Or the Evita-inspired return to the White House, in which a still very sick Trump ascended the staircase to the balcony, ripped off his face mask, and saluted to no one as his photographer snapped away? Or calling in to the Fox Business Channel to suggest his infection may be the fault of the Gold Star military families, since they were always asking to hug him?
...
The president’s staff, this person said, have no ability to think strategically because the president’s behavior poses new threats to survival every five minutes. “I don’t think they’re even considering what happens if he’s back in the White House and he needs oxygen or a ventilator. Their view is ‘If it happens, well, we’ll fucking figure it out when it happens!’ ”
Like Gingrich, they have to stay optimistic. “They aren’t even considering what happens when he’s feeling worse than he’s feeling now, when he’s hopped up full of steroids and other performance enhancers. He’s on the sort of drugs you’d see with a Tour de France rider in the mid-’90s!” Another way to say this, the former White House official said, was that the president is “hopped up on more drugs than a Belgian racing pigeon.” In keeping with the bird theme, this person said the president’s illness was proof that “the chickens are coming home to roost.”
Serious question: How does one tell the difference between Trump when he is “hopped up on more drugs than a Belgian racing pigeon” and when he is not? Or has he ever been "not"? There have been allegations for years that Trump abuses Adderall and gobbles down British Sudafed like candy.
That's just part of the hypocrisy. Anti-vaxxers have, for years, claimed a religious exemption for vacciens because some were oritigally derived from fetal tieeus. The monoclonal antibodies Trup took (or is still taking) were derived from fetal tissue. But Trump has been against research on new drugs that use cell lines derrived from fetal tissue. The evangelical anti-vaxxers seem to also be slient about Their Orange Deity taking a drug that they normally would oppose.
I don't need to go on on this, do I? Almost everyone has watched moralists' objections to things crumble when the rubber really hits the road on a personal issue.
As for Trump blaming his sickness on military families, that's about what one would expect from a man who can't comprehend why those families' loved ones would willingly choose to join the military, let alone go during wartime.
9 comments:
I think everyone knew back in 2016 when he descended the escalator that Trump was different. Most people saw him as a whacko, out to gum up the primaries and cause havoc in the Republican party. His base saw him as an avenger, a disruptor of the business-as-usual Washington. Still others saw him as a person from the business world who would run the government as a business, ie, logically, fiscally responsible, and with a purpose. People bought into the hype, the con, and the salesman, not realizing that it was all smoke and mirrors. And now, not wanting to look foolish and admit they were duped, they deny reality and support him even though he has driven the economy, the environment, and the country to the edge of the cliff.
Dale
Wow, druggie and methhead, and we are surprised?
What happening is all the little stories of his misuses
and abuses are surfacing some again and some new. We know
Drumpf is a sack of crap. Getting the cult of drumpf to
even see that is a serious challenge.
THe yabut is if he fails to get elected what happens to
the cult of drumpf? They have a no one to follow and
they may even realize they have been had and abused. That
might be funny to watch but I think the cult of drumpf
are also inclined to run off the end and go nutty. Its
how they got there in the first place.
Eck!
We need a remake of the "It's not Fascism when we do it" poster with a Trump supporter with a "It's not insanity when we believe it" flag. The difficulty is how to represent the Trump supporter.... As a knuckle-dragging Nazi? In a strait jacket? In a hospital in a wheelchair with oxygen tank and those humongous Trump flag attached to the back of the wheelchair?
Or a series, It's not delusion when we deny [denialist article of faith].
> 'It's not delusion when we deny climate change' on the flag carried by a man with a MAGA hat standing in the ruins of a burnt out neighborhood.
> "It's not delusion when we deny racism" on the flag carried by a man with a MAGA hat watching as Nazis parade by his house with Tiki-torches
...and so on
His popularity is all about the racism, end of story. White men especially are darn sick and tired of having to pretend that black people and minorities are their equal. They really hate it when their racist words and actions are called racist. With an open bigot like trump setting the tone they feel free to air their hatred and imaginary grieviences. White men, while still running things, can see their control slipping. This is amped up by the ruling plutocrats' use of media and by masterful Russian propaganda and election ratfucking. Got to hand it the Ivans, with the assistance of traitorous useful idiot fellow traveler Americans they have nailed the septic mindset of the mouth breathing cousin fucking paste eating neo-confederate rump all over the USA. Unfortunately for them and for the Ivans that base is 'only' about 38% of voters and last time I checked you need 47% to win as a Republican and 53% to win as a Democratic president. So already Putin is saying sweet things about Joe and trying to make nice. So trump is being unter-bussed by his own boss and only creditor. Help him out, GOTV.
After wading through that pool of shite, I needed to go high:
https://kottke.org/20/08/michelle-obama-makes-the-case-for-voting-trump-out
"THe yabut is if he fails to get elected what happens to
the cult of drumpf?"
Well, if past is prologue, they will don funny hats and begin denying they had ever heard of him, and besides, they never liked the tweeting anyway, and all of the sudden become VERY CONCERNED about debt and deficits, and get a Fox News personality as their billion dollar cheerleader (along with the remaining Koch brother and most likely the Mercers, and my money is on Tom Cotton stepping into the Dick Armey role this time) and continue playing the media game it always has been.
They say that narcissists will do anything for the attention they crave, but even the worst of them (and most household pets) learn at a very young age that there is good attention and bad attention, and now having leveraged his presidency and campaign past their eyeballs to get the good variety however he could scrounge it, and from whomever lowlife scum he had to pander to in order to get his fix of it, the bill is coming due in the form of a massive overwhelming wave of the other variety, and he was not equipped to handle that even before the covid and the drugs, so now his ugly dangerous dissolution is on display for the whole world, who never asked for such a disgusting spectacle, and deserve far better than him and his final public tantrum that will damage who knows how many more lives in its denouement.
I think the more interesting question is what is to become of the Republican party if they lose the trifecta, which many even among their own ranks are now betting on.
Do they really believe they have another Tea Party in them? I hear people talking about the 2022 midterms already, and the prospects of Republican apostates like the Lincoln lads to come riding in and take over all of that electoral real estate that will be up for grabs about then.
The seeming consensus among them is, simply put, accountability. The same operatives/weasels slithered their way back into power last time by distancing themselves from the flaming wreckage of the Bush administration (and promptly forgot why they'd had to do so and backed Jeb, helping to fuel Fergus' primary blowout) and now sit in positions of influence in government and especially media.
Now we see them looking for exits from the slow-motion catastrophe that will still include nice fat paychecks and future onramps to power and I feel like if we wish to avoid a repeat of 2010 we should burn those life boats they are building, and do our dead level best to make them own this at least as long as it takes to clean up after it.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Quoth Doug:
"I think the more interesting question is what is to become of the Republican party if they lose the trifecta, which many even among their own ranks are now betting on."
My bet: they'll conclude that they didn't Do It Hard Enough, and they'll embark on a frantic search for a Leader who's like Trump, only more so. They might even find one, since the Constitution doesn't prohibit people with felony convictions from holding office.
" ... Republican apostates like the Lincoln lads to come riding in and take over all of that electoral real estate that will be up for grabs about then."
The Lincoln lads are probably pre-screwed. The Republican base will see their backgrounds and block them by any means necessary. A lot of other people will just see the (R)s next to their names and rule out even listening to them.
I could be wrong, but 40 (or more) years of Party history leads me to doubt it.
BTW, there are substantial chunks of the Democratic Party for which I also lack respect. Political ideology turns pathological much too easily, especially in countries where it's either part of a religion or a substitute for same.
Quoth JackL:
"...a Leader who's like Trump, only more so."
Which conservative is most like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro? He said about Brazil's record number of dead, “So what? I’m sorry. What do you want to do?”
Maybe Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga? She sees herself as more conservative than Attila the Hun.
Perhaps Mitch McConnell, R-KY? He's sly, plays the long game, lies and obfuscates, and is relentlessly packing the courts with incompetent, but loyal arbiters.
And there's a number of "Stephen Miller" doppelgangers chafing to grab the reins. You can thank conservative activist David Horowitz for providing anti-immigration strategy to Miller.
Who will always put party above country?
https://robertreich.org/post/189419164570 Who is Worse: Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell? He explains all the attributes required to take on Republican dictatorship. Time to vote them all out.
I think Tom Cotton could be worse, and he certainly has ambitions that way. Imagine Fergus without all of the gratuitous debilitating self-owns.
Anyway, they always find a way to find someone worse, that's maybe the only thing you can count on them to do any more.
-Doug in Sugar Pine
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