Just more of the same…
The statement, which has dominated social media and news commentary since burped out by Trump during what he calls “a speech” yesterday:
“Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know…”
Observations:
1. Trump’s juvenile and inarticulate habit of expressing half-formed thoughts as they occur to him requires him to figure out what he has said after the fact, as he is now with his latest blather. This is no different from his infamous “rapist” remark, his complaint about the “Mexican” judge, and so many, many others. When a competent adult makes a mistake with dire consequences, he or she typically adjusts future conduct accordingly. Not this idiot. This kind of thing will happen over and over again, almost daily, until the election. This was obvious too, years ago. Good job, Republicans. You disgust me.
2. Even knowing that Trump says things extemporaneously with no more thought than a frog gives to catching a fly, the news media (and of course the Clinton campaign) intentionally are treating it was if it were a solemn scripted statement developed over days of careful consideration. The Clinton campaign can be forgiven: any political campaign would do this when an adversary makes a fool of himself. The news media, however, is intentionally reporting the comment as something it’s not. It was not a call to assassinate Hillary. It was just an ad-lib that popped into Trump’s alleged brain. Was it a bad joke? A “speako”? Who knows? Trump definitely doesn’t know. Whatever it was, the comment was not a serious, substantive statement, though certainly not something a responsible or trustworthy individual would utter in public. And, of course, Trump is 100% accountable for it, and all the disruption it causes, as he will be for the hundreds of similar irresponsible ad libs he makes between now and November.
3. Much more substantive news could and should be covered by the news media, including newly released Hillary Clinton e-mails that show the extent to which she used her position and her staff in the State Department to enrich the Clinton Foundation. This is pure corruption, a true outrage, and a smoking gun. But we know that the news media is rooting for Hillary, so Trump’s comment–did I mention that he’s an idiot?—give journalists an excuse to allow Clinton’s actual misconduct slip under the radar, while they obsess about The Donald’s addled musings. Although the fact that Trump is an irresponsible fool is something the public needs to know, they also have a right to know that the woman they have to elect to protect the nation from Trump is perhaps the most corrupt and dishonest individual ever to be this close to the White House.
4. Trump’s latest self-created controversy is signature significance. No trustworthy, competent, intelligent candidate for high office would or could be so undisciplined, inarticulate, and impulsive to allow something like this to issue from his mouth, in public, on video. Those who are defending him in this instance are proving themselves to be untrustworthy, or incompetent, or both.
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Sources: Daily Kos, Mother Jones, Politicus USA, Washington Post, Raw Story, Taylor Marsh, Common Dreams, Boing Boing, Occupy Democrats, The American Spectator, The Atlantic, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, The New Civil Rights Movement, Vox, Mashable, Media Matters for America, Mediaite, Washington Free Beacon, MichelleMalkin.com, Althouse, Esquire, BizPac Review, The Times of Israel, Occupy Democrats, twitchy.com, NBC News, KTLA, Politicus USA, ABC News, The Week, The Democratic Daily, Politico, Deadline, CBS Pittsburgh, CBS Los Angeles
Ethics Alarms 
If either of these idiots had just locked themselves in a basement and plastered posters with their face in blue and red relief with a slogan under it, something absolutely benign… “Hope” “Change” “Prosperity” “Transparency” “Success” They would have done better than they have. But no. They’ve acquired a taste for show leather.
Yum.
“Not this idiot.” Has a nice ring to it.
Thanks for some lucidity on today’s kerfuffle. Joe Scarborough evidently says the FBI should interview Trump and make him clarify his statement, under threat of prosecution, of course. That’s signature significance as well.
When I heard Trump’s comment, I truly thought he was referring to lobbying power — I really did. But I also thought, “Wow. This could be interpreted as encouraging the assassination of a sitting President. What an idiot.”
I am really getting sick of the media jumping all over Trump for these gaffes. The truth is that Trump is not smart enough to pull off a statement that can intentionally be read as an assassination plea while being able to claim plausible deniability at the same time. Trump is an idiot. The media’s coverage of these incidents are getting dull. It would be like covering my senile ancient cat as a major party candidate. “Can you believe it? The cat just pooped outside of her litter box! Clearly, that is a sign that she is unhappy with the state of litter boxes in this country. She holds utter disdain for them.” No, you freaking morons — it is a sign that you nominated a brain-addled cat as your major party candidate.
We are doomed.
Well-said and reasoned, “Spart”…
And therein lies the one major problem – after a while the public is going to go deaf to the media’s alarm bells, just saying they are more of the same. It’s no wonder the media are all in the tank for Hillary – with her they can continue their eight-year nap, but with Trump they would just keep pointing up gaffe after gaffe and no one would give a damn.
I am a lifelong Republican, but I am not sure I will be after this election. The GOP had a perfect chance to take back the White House, a president whose policies a good chunk of the population were getting tired of, a deep bench, a presumptive Democratic candidate with a ton of baggage and a proven record of lying and corrupt behavior. The GOP also had the lesson of Howard Dean if they’d bothered to turn back the pages of history just over a decade. Whatever else you might think of Democratic voters, they weren’t so dumb as to nominate a screaming, populist whacko who GWB would have roasted like a roadhouse weenie.
Jonah Bergman spelled it out quite nicely in his brief profile of Dean in the 100 people who were screwing up America. Dean carried himself with a no-neck pugnacity that was fine in a wrestling coach or a tax attorney, but not in a president. He also told a senior citizen, not too nicely, to sit down and put a sock in it during a town hall, behavior not really encouraged. This was all before the famous scream that ended his career as a serious candidate and put him behind the scenes (where he was actually very effective).
Yet, even with this fairly recent lesson in what NOT to do, the GOP allowed Trump to yell, bully, and insult his way onto the stage with 16 other real candidates, then routinely insult and bully every single group the GOP needs or might need plus everyone who even crossed him a little. The media did a lot of the rest, giving him twice the coverage it gave all the other candidates combined, to move him to the front. The other candidates did the rest of the rest, as Chris Christie, the only other candidate with the ability to throw a decisive rhetorical haymaker and have it land, sold out for an empty dream and instead fatally wounded Marco Rubio, who, for whatever flaws he might have, I think we can all agree would have been nowhere as bad as Trump. The GOP itself didn’t help, as it let fear of a third-party run paralyze it from even telling him to take it down just one notch. The fact it’s now obvious that such a run would have either eaten itself alive or faded into nothing very quickly is cold comfort, I’m sure.
That leaves the GOP, and all that it stands for, poised for the biggest defeat since Fritz Mondale had Ronald Reagan roll over him like an Abrams tank over a kitten. It stands to lose the SCOTUS for a generation, and possibly see its brand damaged to the point of becoming a rump Southern party. It also stands to see a lot of the very important positions that should at least be fully vetted before decisions are made – fiscal restraint, avoidance of welfare dependency as a lifestyle, enforcement of the borders, the rule of law, the First and Second Amendments, and others, be reduced to nothing more than a sniff and sneer by dominant progressives.
Interestingly, the GOP claims to be the party better versed in history and often quotes the line about how those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it. It wouldn’t be the first time governments or parties ignored the lessons that were right there under their noses – the UK ignored the lessons learned in the Boer War and wasn’t really ready for WWI, the West ignored the lessons taught in the Russo-Polish War and so fell quickly before the Nazi juggernaut, and let’s not forget the whole damn world forgetting the lesson as to how the League of Nations failed and signing onto the flop that is the UN. The GOP failed to learn its own lessons, and it’s going to pay a very heavy price. Ultimately the country is likely to pay a heavy price too, since a one-party system really isn’t healthy.
Thanks for the well elucidated current political history lesson on the Republican Party and how it got where it is. It is too right on several points, the last being the most devastating : a one-party system would be disastrous for everyone in the country.
Well said. . . Erm . . . written.
jvb
A good analysis but there is not much Rx in it. Why has this collapse come about?
And if a conservative party of any sort is going to coalesce again (question: is the Republican party dead do you think?) and find a way into power, on what base will it be constructed?
You imply that the GOP is suffering this catastrophe because it made mistakes. But is that all? I mean, is it possible that it expired because it has become outmoded?
Also, isn’t it more likely that the ‘one party’ you refer to will divide into distinct camps? There will be a centrist party (democrat with many former republicans) and a socialist wing: up and coming and ready for the next phases.
The prescription, if there is one, is to tell Trump to step down and appoint a new nominee, or in the alternative to pull all party identity from Trump. Is the GOP dead? I do not know. It is definitely wounded, and this last wound is self-inflicted. Outmoded? Maybe, it appears that, at least for now, the era of the social conservative is over, however a large amount of the party’s support comes from the religious right, who are not about to give up the ghost.
Will a dominant Democratic Party divide eventually into centrists and socialists? Possibly, but if the day arrives when we have an honest-to-goodness socialist party in power, then this will be the first nation who actually defeated itself in a war it won a quarter century ago.
Your solution is to tell the GOP to stop being the GOP.
Trump is not a cause, he’s a symptom. He really does accurately represent the GOP base.
It wasn’t always like this. It doesn’t have to be like this (and that is where I disagree with those of the Left).
Under the Republican Administration, as our country has prospered, so have its people. This is as it should be, for as President Eisenhower said: “Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America.”
The Eisenhower Administration has brought to our people the highest employment, the highest wages and the highest standard of living ever enjoyed by any nation. Today there are nearly 67 million men and women at work in the United States, 4 million more than in 1952. Wages have increased substantially over the past 3 1/2 years; but, more important, the American wage earner today can buy more than ever before for himself and his family because his pay check has not been eaten away by rising taxes and soaring prices.
The record of performance of the Republican Administration on behalf of our working men and women goes still further. The Federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers. Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers and the benefits raised for 6 1/2 million. The protection of unemployment insurance has been brought to 4 million additional workers. There have been increased workmen’s compensation benefits for longshoremen and harbor workers, increased retirement benefits for railroad employees, and wage increases and improved welfare and pension plans for federal employees.
In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people.
Workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform. All workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions.
Furthermore, the process of free collective bargaining has been strengthened by the insistence of this Administration that labor and management settle their differences at the bargaining table without the intervention of the Government. This policy has brought to our country an unprecedented period of labor-management peace and understanding.
We applaud the effective, unhindered, collective bargaining which brought an early end to the 1956 steel strike, in contrast to the six months’ upheaval, Presidential seizure of the steel industry and ultimate Supreme Court intervention under the last Democrat Administration.
The Eisenhower Administration will continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:
Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers;
Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers;
Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system;
Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits;
Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;
Clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who are subject to federal wage standards on Federal and Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts;
Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable;
Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;
Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment;
Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration. In 1954, 1955 and again in 1956, President Eisenhower recommended constructive amendments to this Act. The Democrats in Congress have consistently blocked these needed changes by parliamentary maneuvers. The Republican Party pledges itself to overhaul and improve the Taft-Hartley Act along the lines of these recommendations.
Health, Education and Welfare
The Republican Party believes that the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people is as important as their economic health. It will continue to support this conviction with vigorous action.
Republican action created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare as the first new Federal department in 40 years, to raise the continuing consideration of these problems for the first time to the highest council of Government, the President’s Cabinet.
Through the White House Conference on Education, our Republican Administration initiated the most comprehensive Community-State-Federal attempt ever made to solve the pressing problems of primary and secondary education.
Four thousand communities, studying their school populations and their physical and financial resources, encouraged our Republican Administration to urge a five-year program of Federal assistance in building schools to relieve a critical classroom shortage.
The Republican Party will renew its efforts to enact a program based on sound principles of need and designed to encourage increased state and local efforts to build more classrooms.
Our Administration also proposed for the first time in history, a thorough nation-wide analysis of rapidly growing problems in education beyond the high schools.
The Republican Party is determined to press all such actions that will help insure that every child has the educational opportunity to advance to his own greatest capacity.
We have fully resolved to continue our steady gains in man’s unending struggle against disease and disability.
We have supported the distribution of free vaccine to protect millions of children against dreaded polio.
Republican leadership has enlarged Federal assistance for construction of hospitals, emphasizing low-cost care of chronic diseases and the special problems of older persons, and increased Federal aid for medical care of the needy.
We have asked the largest increase in research funds ever sought in one year to intensify attacks on cancer, mental illness, heart disease and other dread diseases.
We demand once again, despite the reluctance of the Democrat 84th Congress, Federal assistance to help build facilities to train more physicians and scientists.
We have encouraged a notable expansion and improvement of voluntary health insurance, and urge that reinsurance and pooling arrangements be authorized to speed this progress.
We have strengthened the Food and Drug Administration, and we have increased the vocational rehabilitation program to enable a larger number of the disabled to return to satisfying activity.
We have supported measures that have made more housing available than ever before in history, reduced urban slums in local-federal partnership, stimulated record home ownership, and authorized additional low-rent public housing.
We initiated the first flood insurance program in history under Government sponsorship in cooperation with private enterprise.
We shall continue to seek extension and perfection of a sound social security system.
We pledge close cooperation with State, local and private agencies to reduce the ghastly toll of fatalities on the Nation’s highways.
Sometimes it takes a conservative to put a liberal idea into practice – Nixon going to China, Eisenhower and the interstate and what you’ve just set forth, or at least someone viewed as strong for this country, like JFK and the Civil Rights Act. I might add that it was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, who was the first president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and that same Republican president established the National Forestry Service and greatly expanded conservation and the National Park system. That said, they were all operating in different times and under different circumstances. It also wasn’t all about those who need access to government to get their way dominating government at the expense of those who don’t need government to keep going. Further, it wasn’t all about identity politics, and so far the biggest racist ever to sit in the White House was progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
I am not opposed to women in high office. I personally voted for both a female county executive and a female governor. I am deeply opposed to corrupt, lying, proto-tyrants. I dunno where the bases of both parties went as wrong as they did to bring us to where we are today. However, frequently in history it’s not a matter of the majority changing their hearts and minds, but of a determined minority pushing and pushing and pushing until they get their way. That’s why the American Revolution got off the ground, when maybe 1/3 of the colonists wanted to break away. That’s why the death penalty has been under siege for decades. That’s also why parts of the First and Second Amendments are under siege now, as well as why the Second Amendment is very unlikely to fall. All these things have a hard core of determined people who won’t give up no matter what behind them. That’s the real problem with conservativism now – there’s no determined core really pushing and pushing and pushing.
Chris-in-NJ writes: “That’s the real problem with conservativism now – there’s no determined core really pushing and pushing and pushing.”
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Interesting analysis. My impression — and it is only fair to say that I do not have much experience in politics and I am only trying to learn — is that the bottom has fallen out of the conservative movement as a unified group of ideas. George Hawley in ‘Right-winf Critics of American Conservatism’ has outlined pretty well the ideological weaknesses which developed in the Rebulican party. One focus against which it was possible to ‘push and push’ was the Soviet empire. When it collapsed inward there was no longer a large, dangerous enemy to fight against and so some large part of the impetous — the internal cohesion — of conservatism fell away.
Do you think this is true?
Another aspect of conservatism, if Hawley is right, had been in an aggressive military posture. But without the Soviet Union to arm against, on what base could one hold to a preparedness/militaristic ethos? And so this pulled out another pillar of classic conservatism. If there was no more enemy, why so much preparedness?
I wonder if it is true that enemies were ‘sought out’ and even ‘constructed’? This would fit with the military-as-industry, needing to ‘open markets’ and extend itself.
What do you think of this?
Social Conservatism: What does this even mean now? Now, even the conservatives are moving away from classic social conservative postures. If one were to defend ‘social conservatism’, how would one even describe it?
If this is so, it points to the philosophical undermining of a conservative position at the level of idea. It is now untenable to hold to, to think, in socially conservative terms. Conservatism then has become a sort of ‘ghost’ of what it once was. And for this reason is fading away.
One becomes now a liberal and one defines a more staid or conservative liberalism as against a raging, radical and hyper-liberalism.
Do you think I am on the mark here? If not, what have I got wrong?
You did better than me. When I heard Trump’s comment, I couldn’t parse any meaning out of it. He switched from discussing the future conditional to “By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks….” to an indeterminate clause: “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know…”
In order for Trump to call for executing a president, he would have to be able to think ahead into the future…. (When exactly has he demonstrated such ability?) Sadly, because Clinton thinks she now has a gotcha moment, her campaign will fixate on it; thus ensuring that Trump supporters stop listening, and assume she is distorting and exaggerating (which she, in fact, is).
Beth,
Why did you pick “spartan” as your new screen name?
I believe she is a Michigan State alumnette, in some past life.
I graduated from MSU and I was sick of using my name.
Someone using a screen name that hearkens back to an old alma mater as though they are grasping for “the good old days” must be suffering from some sort of psycholo….
Never mind.
You’re good.
Ah ha ha ha good one
You know, I actually thought of you when I came up with it! (Don’t say that you haven’t changed my life, albeit in a small way.) 🙂
I just wanted to live a more anonymous life online — there’s too much real overlap with Jack and many of the people here. It was making me a little uncomfortable.
The gift that keeps on giving. These two birds running are a material gold mine. Jack – you are going to need a six pack of servers before this election is over.
Most of the media, I agree, are missing the point. But the point is not that he did or did not mean it as a serious comment, it’s that he pretty clearly to my I meant it as a joke.
The problem is that it should be absolutely no joking matter. They say in TSA lines not to joke about bombs; candidates should not joke about assassination–too many wackos out there read ambiguity the way they want.
He may not have been serious–but it’s no laughing matter.
When you mentioned things candidates shouldn’t joke about, although it’s not directly relevant, I remembered the fact that Obama joked about auditing his enemies prior to the IRS excessively auditing conservative groups. Even if it’s a joke, someone might take you seriously and try to act on it, or someone might do it independently creating a plausible claim of responsibility.
I do believe he has won the “Idiot of the Year” award. I am educated and when I heard his “gaffe,” I took it as permission to incite violence on Hillary. I’ve watched it many times, he knew what he was doing. His whole platform is violence. I’m no Hillary fan, but had she said that, I think all hell would have broke loose. I cannot believe the knucklehead GOP’s are still endorsing Trump. Also- remember who Trumps supporters are. He keeps giving them permission to “punch them in the face” and now, make use of their 2nd Amend. rights.
I know the media puts their own spin on things but today we have video. Both candidates have been caught in lies and flip-flopping.
I already know the answer to this, but I want to put it out there. Is it OK for the media to be unethical in their practices if the end result would be the demise of an unethical candidate, thus saving us the biggest tragedy? (probably anti-ethics # ? where the ends justify the means.) I think the GOP wants the negative spin because they want him out and lost their opportunity.
But the end result won’t be the demise of a candidate… The media has already blown it’s wad. They called McCain and Romney all the negative buzzphrases in their arsenals, and now that you have someone who might actually be dangerous, they’ve nowhere left to go. Where do to take the rhetoric from there?
And this…. Did Trump means it as a call to assassination? An off colour joke? As a lobbying movement? Who know? Who cares? The media blew their load on this kind of situation when Trump was talking about Clinton’s Emails and the Russians. “Trump Incites Foreign Power to Hack Classified Information!” Well, no he didn’t. He couldn’t. The server was disconnected from the internet at the FBI, if it hadn’t already been put through a smelter or something, at worst he was calling for the Russians to release what they already had.
We don’t pick our battles anymore…. we just fight. And as opposed to getting better at it, we just draw the partisan line in the sand, stand on our appropriate side and yell at the other side until we feel better about ourselves. Could you imagine had the media not been doing their best to shit on Trump for every time he opened his stupid fat mouth? Something like this might even matter.
The media can “blow their wad again”……they just have to wait a few hours. I don’t trust the Poll numbers, or better said, those reporting them but it does look like Trump is going down. He is Sarah Palin in a bad wig.
I’d vote for Palin over Trump as POTUS. Easy call. She wasn’t a bad mayor or governor. And she might quit…
LOL…..Jack, I knew you’d jump on that comment. I love the part “she might quit.”
Oh, no. I am becoming too predictable.
Yeah, but do you really think that this has anything to do with the scorn the media is heaping on him? Their hate made him stronger in the Republican Primary.
The current media scorn for Donald is part of the fix for this year. The earlier scorn, during the primaries, was fixed so that all of Donald’s “in-party” competitors would be frustrated. It’s all a big fix this year, HT.
Yet it seems to me that the essence of the ‘media scorn’ is not precisely about Trump. In the early phase the media (the Times in any case) seemed mostly to speak about the political base Trump draws to him: ignorant, pushed to the side by historical events (new trade patterns), angry, and of course white.
If one accepts the NYTs as analysis we know that it is this class or this group which is fading out of the picture. According to their description (it is a ‘narrative’) they can still cause problems but also according to that description they can be contained.
But what is feared is a powerful demagogue and Trump is portrayed as precisely that figure. One might wish it were not so and yet, objectively, this is precisely what Trump is. A half-maddened demagogue. If the Right or even the Far Right were to rely on him to gain some political position I wonder if this would not ultimately be bad for the right and the more-far right.
Trump is simply not the right man.
What is going to happen? is the question I have. I mean. What sort of political organizing will go on among the right when the Clinton democrats get power? Because the only hope for a genuine political right is to regroup and to become active. Along what lines? Who will be their base?
Alizia, there would be no reason for the NYT to waste its propcasters’ time making its scorn about Donald’s base, if that base is truly fading out of the picture. The scorn is about beating up any threat to the DEMOCRAT PARTY base, of which it has been presumed (by the NYT and other Democrat propcasting enterprises) that it is possible that a significant portion would “defect” (I don’t like that word, in context of refusing to vote for D party candidates, so from now on I’ll use “bolt” – or even, “PERfect” [as a verb]) – in favor of Donald.
“Trump is simply not the right man.” You don’t have any argument from me on that. Now, considering myself more and more a person who is on what I expect you would call the Far Right, you’d better believe I am not relying on Donald for any one of my ilk to gain some political position. (I skipped over the demagogue stuff you said about him, because there, you come across as being as self-blinded as Jack, if for some other reason.)
Who knows what will become of the now “Old Right” and who will lead them? I think you can expect to see (or maybe, just hear about – carefully scripted and spun in negativity, of course) a flourishing of sorts among right-wingers. You might even see some right-wing extremism that you never thought possible in these geographic parts. I’m not talking about gray-bearded KKK dragons, either. “Right-wingedness” will find new homes among Spanish speakers and people of widely varying ages and skin pigmentations, for example. You might live long enough to see what I can only imagine (and hope for) in a new New Right. I don’t think they’ll be making America great again. I think they’ll be making a whole new America.
Luckiesteeyoreman wrote: “Trump is simply not the right man.” You don’t have any argument from me on that. Now, considering myself more and more a person who is on what I expect you would call the Far Right, you’d better believe I am not relying on Donald for any one of my ilk to gain some political position. (I skipped over the demagogue stuff you said about him, because there, you come across as being as self-blinded as Jack, if for some other reason.)”
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Thanks for your comment. I have flipped back and forth as I have tried to come up with a label or various labels for Trump. I cannot say he is more or less of a demagogue than numerous recent political personages. It seems possible to say that Obama is a very sophisticated Demagogue and his demagoguery slips in unnoticed.
I would only say that because he is attracting a base from outside the classic political spectrum, and because he has been such an entertainment figure, and because he surely must know how to stimulate (if not manipulate) an audience, that the term is fair. What I appreciate of him is that he has done this work: he has energized people who may start thinking of alternatives.
It is interesting what you say about ‘making a whole new America’. It seems if that were to happen it would happen because the country divided. I remember reading some articles some years back that explored that as a possibility. Stranger things have happened in history, that is for sure.
I have no other option but to pay attention to Jack’s perspective because it is grounded in an understanding of the political system, and the history of presidencies, and the character of presidents, that I have no real knowledge of. I have been moved to recognize that Trump-as-man has too many ‘character defects’ and for this reason (and others) he is not the right man to fulfil the role of president. I wish he had more grounding in some level of philosophical position that I could appreciate and which he could articulate.
I admit that I am resolved, with a rather quesy feeling in my stomach, to a Clinton presidency. I figure that ‘four more years’ must be put up with because the alternative — and a radical one at that — is simply too much too quickly. I suspect that a coherent Right will not be able to pull itself together for quite some time. After all their task is huge: to reformulate and rearticulate an entire political perspective and line of action. I just cannot see how that will happen.
Donald is ignorant enough to use demagoguery without knowing that he is using it, and is incompetent enough to use it to guarantee his own downfall. That (ignorance and incompetence) makes him most valuable to Hillary – a most convenient tool for fixing her 2016 landslide victory.
Alizia, are you “resolved” to a Clinton presidency – or, are you RESIGNED to one? I am resigned to one. It’s fixed. I have no doubt. Even if Donald did get elected, it would happen only if Hillary and her enterprises decided to make that happen. Now, how fast a Right will organize and become competitive again is anyone’s guess. Stuff can happen pretty fast – within the time span of one generation, as plenty of history confirms – just not history in this country, so far.
Hillary’s ability to appoint Supreme Court justices if she is elected President is extremely frightening to me. She would be in a position to do exactly what she wants to do regarding the gutting of the 2nd Amendment, developing her awful plan for health care and who gets it, and giving the Feds even more control over the lives of Americans. This election reminds me of what I have read about the fall of the Roman Empire with Trump playing the part of one of the most incompetent emperors.
It’s not to me, someone will buy it, and that person won’t be ideologically driven.
HT, never underestimate the party discipline of the Democrat Party. (Pssst – In other countries, it’s just called dictatorship.)
But Caligula and Nero were inert, weren’t they? They were so incompetent that they couldn’t do any damage, weren’t they? Right, Lucky?
I am so sick of the “Trump is too incompetent to do any damage as President” lie. It is obviously wrong, yet the Hillary Deranged are clutching it like a life raft….because, really, that’s the only excuse they’ve got. They are even beginning to believe it.
I don’t know if you are referring to my post, but you misunderstand me if you think that my position is Trump is too incompetent to do any damage. On the contrary, he has already done enormous damage to the country thanks to the fools that voted for him in the primary and prevented a candidate who could seriously challenge corrupt and devious Hillary in the election. He reminds me of the soldiers who left the gate open during the Siege of Constantiople and therefore let the Ottoman Turks to enter and sack the city.
Trump didn’t do the damage – the Republican party did it. THAT took some spectacular incompetence. So it’s just as well that the Republican party would fade into history, until a competent challenger to the one-party system can rise up.
You probably thought I wasn’t reading here. Caligula and Nero were dictators. Right? They somehow obtained obedience from certain others at the top level, right? Those certain others were, in turn, at least loyal enough and competent enough to make the emperors’ atrocities actually happen. Wow. That sure is reminiscent of Hillary, Obama, and the Democrat Party – and of a couple of other parties of historical note, in other countries.
Then, there’s Donald. A guy with fewer friends every day. A guy who can do nothing right – just let him talk. A guy who nevertheless obviously has made a lot of money – probably conned a lot of people. But he obviously isn’t ready to take on the racket of the Executive Branch, and all its racketeers. So Jack, you think Donald can hire a squad of zombies to carry out his nefarious agenda. (Because he is so competent – right?) I think – no, I know – that Hillary can (and will) do exactly what you think Donald would do.
Gotta hand it to the Democrats (a piece of my shit, that is) for putting in such a sure fix this year.
Jack: in fairness you should mention this 2008 remark by HRC
Video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0QAewVrR28 Comment about RFK assassination supporting why she is not dropping out in 2008 occurs at 1:57 into the full clip.
Does “Trump’s latest self-created controversy is signature significance. No trustworthy, competent, intelligent candidate for high office would or could be so undisciplined, inarticulate, and impulsive to allow something like this to issue from his mouth, in public, on video” apply to HRC when she said it?
Not relevant to Trump, or mitigating. “She did it too—8 years ago!” is a pretty lame defense, especially for someone who does this over and over again.
But it is relevant to Clinton.
Jack: Not trying to mitigate anything. It is relevant when the statement is used to justify a candidate’s disqualification. I never said it was appropriate, excuse it, nor was I trying to use it as a rationalization.
If two candidates do identical things and because of it one is deemed incompetent then the other by default must too be incompetent or that behavior is being rationalized in some manner.
Trump has proven time and time again that he doesn’t give a damn what he says as long as it keeps the cameras in focus on him where Clinton wants absolutely no one looking because they “might” find something more. Fro Clinton to win, all she has to do is keep the focus on Trump and his lunacy.
I’m going to predict, just as I have in the past, that Clinton will win the election against Trump in the biggest landslide election in the history of the United States. By the time the election rolls around, I think Trump will likely get considerably less than 40% of the vote, maybe even as low as 30%. Clinton and the Democratic Party will FALSELY proclaim that the election proves that they have an overwhelming mandate from the people of the United States to support their ideology and policies and the phrase “elections have consequences” and “they won” will be plastered in everyone faces thus demanding capitulation of their opposition to their ideology.
Trump is the perfect storm for the Democratic Party and Progressive ideology.
Oops, forgot a couple of words.
“…Clinton wants absolutely no one looking at her because they “might” find something more.”
Something just struck me; above I said, “For Clinton to win, all she has to do is keep the focus on Trump and his lunacy.”
What just struck me is that this is also true; For Trump to loose, all he has to do is keep the focus on himself and his lunacy.
Go figure that both Clinton and Trump are doing exactly what’s needed for Clinton to win. How about that for some thoughtful innuendo? 😉
Again; Trump is the perfect storm for the Democratic Party and Progressive ideology.
Usually when something is too good to be true, then it probably is and we intuitively start looking for deception; how often is your intuition about too good to be true incorrect?
Trump’s comment was clearly an ad lib gaffe. Did he mean the NRA’s lobbying powers? Did he mean that gun lovers are going to whack the Democrat candidate? Probably neither. He merely said something off the cuff, with no real thought behind it, just to get a rise out of his audience. That is it. Nothing more.
My wife is from Mexico. She sees things from a completely different perspective. Her thinks Trump is trying to sabotage his campaign so that Clinton wins in November. She thinks he really doesn’t want the job but has no way to back out at this point. So, if he says dumb things and gets obliterated in the press, he gets to claim that he is being mistreated. I think she is right.
I agree that a professional seeking the highest executive office in the nation should be more circumspect about the things he or she says, especially in the information age where everything one says or does will be under the immediate cut of the net surgeons, most of whom are waiting to pounce on any mistake or misstep. Trump does not think that way. He says and does whatever comes to his mind with no real thought about the consequences. He should know better by now.
Trump is right, though, about the media kerfuffle, even though it is a self-inflicted wound for which I don’t have much sympathy. For instance, Don Lemon spent two whole hours on CNN gnashing his teeth and rending his suit over Trump’s latest gaffe. By God! He even interviewed Rob Reiner (Rob Reiner, everyone! We all need to know what Rob Reiner thinks!!!) to get his enlightened perspective on Trump’s candidacy and potential presidency. It didn’t take Lemon and Reiner too long to equate Trump’s comments to encouraging his supporters’ establishment of ‘labor’ camps and lighting ‘camp’ fires while singing songs of love and affection to the fuhrer, because we all know that if you support the Second Amendment you are a knuckle-dragging troglodyte bent on Semitic genocide and reestablishment of Jim Crow. Did Lemon address the latest emails relating to the former Secretary of State and foreign influence? Nope. Instead, we had to listen to Lemon and Reiner accuse a former Secret Service agent of being in the tank for Trump because everyone knows that Trump supporters only need that one little push to go on a blood thirsty rampage through the nation seeking to assassinate the queen apparent. Shameful. Just shameful.
jvb
PS: I know. That last paragraph was/is very awkward. I tried to clean it up, but that is the best I could do. I would spend some time on it to clarify it but there are Secret Service agents at my door at the moment . . . Help!!!!
Stand your ground, John. Stand your ground!
I’m with your wife – ah, um, I didn’t mean it THAT way.
Hey, now. I wondered where she was going for lunch today. Sheesh! But seriously. My wife’s virtue is beyond reproach.
jvb
Of course, I meant what you meant (and said): “I think she is right.”
Aughghghghghghghgh! That third sentence in the second paragraph should read, “She thinks Trump is trying to . . . ” I apologize for the grammatical error and hang my keyboard in shame!
jvb
See, there’s part of me that agrees with your wife. I can’t imagine Trump is this stupid in reality.
I am not sure she is wrong, either. Trump isn’t stupid; he suffers from loose mouth syndrome.
I have a whole tin-foil-hat-Clinton-conspiracy theory about this election cycle and how it was set up for Hillary to win this year as pay off for all of her years as a good Clinton soldier. The more things happen, the more my tin-foil-hat theory seems to be making sense.
jvb
Is it the air in and around Houston that’s doing this to us? The water? The heat and humidity? I wish we could share our theories somehow, away (FAR away!) from Jack’s commentariat…