Discussion: Bill Maher: Donald Trump Is Like The GOP’s ‘Godzilla’ – He Keeps Getting Stronger

Discussion for article #239451

I don’t know about you but I am beginning to take Trump seriously. He says stuff a lot of people, and not just conservatives, are thinking.

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Like Donald Trump, you can depend on Bill Maher to nicely articulate what everyone’s thinking! He is willing to go out on a limb. I like that!

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Tump’s speech yesterday in New Hampshire was pretty good. I am sure the corporate kleptocrats in the Republican party are annoyed that Trump is openly discussing how easily politicians can be bought and sold.

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like?

Though he is getting 23% to 25% of the GOP (poll) nod, when a reporter has to stick a microphone in front of a Trump ‘supporter’s’ face; their eyes go wide, mouth drops down, and they slowly begin to back peddle from any previous love.

End of the day (and ESPECIALLY if he’s around next summer), Trump is getting carpet-bombed with negative ads. Now it wouldn’t have mattered who the GOP candidate was in regards to ads.

However, there’s too much dirt now on Trump, not to have something stick.

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Maher returned last week and his first two shows have been great. He pisses me off sometime but I must admit, I love the show.

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REALLY??? i must say to BIL, “HELLO pot”! YOU have no room to talk.

Bill should sweep his own PORCH, before he sweeps someone elses.

“I would laugh, except his plan to defeat Fox News worked,” Maher said, alluding to Trump’s clash with Fox News over moderator Megyn Kelly’s tough line of questioning during the network’s GOP debate.

if Ailes hadn’t capitulated so early…

I really wish Maher hadn’t jumped on the anti-vaxxer bandwagon, because otherwise he’s so good at using logic to poke holes in the right’s web o’crap.

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Well, here are three examples. He says he opposed both the Vietnam war and the Iraq invasion at the time. He says that the economy always does better under the Democrats. He has said that he favors a single payer health care system, and that the Canadian and Australian single payer systems work great. How many TPMers disagree with these? Yes, of course, he has begun to fudge on these positions a bit, but not so far that he can’t revive a version of each one if he should get to the general election. I’ve thought from the beginning that the commentariat really miss much of what is at play here. Trump is historically a Democrat. Trump is culturally a working class Democrat (despite his birth with a silver service on his high chair tray). And Trump’s assertiveness and anger play well to a lot of folks, not just the Tea Party, who are furious with how their fortunes have deteriorated in the past decade. This same anger drives both Trump and Sanders, and arises from the failure of democratic capitalism to provide enough jobs for ordinary folks. Hillary will need to capture this and channel it or it will be a very long year.

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I can’t take Trump seriously. He’s a celebrity. A vacuous blustering fool. Trump is about money and what is profitable to him. Nothing else matters.

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The host also referenced Trump’s remarks this week about his plan “to knock the hell out of” the Islamic State by cutting off its oil income as President.

Which was dumber ?
Trump or Nero.
Nero would of sent in the Artists to sing the enemy to death.Trumpo says he’ll stop their oil income.

More to the point, this is what happens in the absence of authentic political debate. Our politics have become superficial, bombastic, propagandist, vain and downright surreal. Trump has simply seized the moment with what is, in effect, a “Reality TV” approach to politics.

The Republican debates – hell the presidential debates – might as well be hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

This happened in Italy, of course, with Berlusconi.

I am very concerned that the same thing may be happening to us.

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Usual disclaimer: Trump is a despicable human being and a lousy American. The single word that describes him best is: inadequate.

But he did say that bare truth of our kleptocracy: politicians are bought. Almost everyone across the spectrum agrees this is bad, if from slight different angles.

Of course, his solution then appears to be that only billionaires are qualified to run, and he’s off in the woods again. But you can’t deny that along with all his usual bigoted bluster, he occasionally says the truth; and coming from him it can be more effective. (Which is sad commentary on the electorate, but that’s a whole 'nother topic.)

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I think it’s denial.

They’ve budgeted for all this coverage of Podunk County politics, reporting rumors based on anonymous advisers to the State County Party chairmen’s babysitter, and they’re ticked that Trump is cutting in to the traditional media production. They believe politicians should be dancing to their tune.

Unfortunately, journalists don’t sell ads, so they don’t run the business anymore. Billionaires do, and billionaires are more than comfy with calling up another billionaire and coming to a mutually-profitable understanding.

Might as well join Meghan on vacation.

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Like politicians are bought and sold by rich people like him.

Nothing’s sacred for Bill Maher. That’s why he manages to annoy even his fans and admirers.

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That’s a meme I keep hearing lately, and its utterly false. Trump is, and always has been, about Trump. He freely admitted during the debates that he pays off politicians for favors and that he games the bankruptcy laws to benefit him. One of his continuing messages, is he does what he does to benefit him and his family (occasionally he will toss in there his employees, but that has been proven to be patently false. Chris Wallace did so during the debates).

What, in all he has done and said, would make anyone believe he would do anything else but use the power of the Presidency to enrich himself and his family? His “blue collar” appeal is one of the most blatant examples of “Whats Wrong With Kansas” I have seen.

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The best part of last night’s show was Jennifer Granholm. She was amazing (as she always is), the perfect mix of intelligence and pep all rolled into one package. She just has the most amazing way of peppering her opponents with the exactly correct stats, and then drops a prediction, that no matter how scarily out there it may be, she says its with such complete, unwavering, confidence that something inside you goes, “Damn…I think I believe her!”

Her piece on Trump as a reality TV star was soooo spot on. In reality TV shows, they always want to keep the “villian” on as long as possible, because he brings in so many viewers, he makes the show interesting. But invariably, he always loses in the end. And Trump…is a reality TV star.

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