And sadly, they don’t see the similarity. Refusal to see.
Yes, because a business executive generally has a say in the hiring/firing of the VPs.
Unfortunately, for 45, he has no say in the hiring/firing of us. Sad. [/s]
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Like x 1000.
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We are also reminded periodically that Trump’s advisers keep from him real statistics and negative reactions to his policies. So, he really thinks he’s got strong support. That also makes his advisers both truly evil and incompetent.
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Well, that’s a given.
Ain’t God good?
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I’ve been thinking about this. Trump has several cons going. I thinking of a con as a way to manipulate people, either by deceiving them or using some other kind of leverage against them, to get something which otherwise is unearned.
(1) Trump knows his base and his base knows him. They communicate with each other fairly easily and accurately. That’s why his base is so loyal to him, because they know were he’s coming from and he validates their beliefs, tuning out other sources of information, either rejecting the idea that he is lying or not caring about the lies.
(2) He has another con going with elected Republicans who are not a part of his base. They can’t quite figure out what he’s doing, and are appalled, but they don’t want to alienate the base. Since they understand the base’s behavior, they bend to Trump’s will.
(3) He has another con going with the non-Trump media. They also cannot figure Trump out entirely, although they are getting better at predicting his moves, if not substantively, them stylistically. Since they are trying to uphold journalistic standards, they have to cover the confusion and discuss it to death, crowding out reporting of other scandals. The con is called colloquially by several names: shiny object, rabbit hole, what-aboutism, pivoting, alternative facts, distraction – the genius of this con is that there is no attempt to hide it.
(4) The TPM audience falls for the same con as described in (3), but is possibly more savvy than the non-trump media and restrained less by mainstream reportorial standards. We are as distracted as hell, analyzing everything profoundly and snarking it up and strategizing.
(5) Elected Democrats are falling for another con. There are elements of (2) through (4) present, but they are not totally on the same page. Do they talk about impeachment or not? Do they talk about standard Democratic values, goals and aspirations or not? Are they inclusive or just get out the base? Bannon has thought through this con pretty well.
(6) Mueller has the most information about what Trump is up to, other than Trump and Putin and the intelligence community. But he has to be exquisitely careful about the path he takes, trying not to trigger Trump into pulling the trigger. I think he will ultimately prevail, but it is going to be an agonizingly long process.
(7) Judges, the intelligence community, the justice system, and other constitutional institutions that are trying to maintain their integrity in the face of Trump, are having to be super careful in how they comment or react publically to events. So the cons that Trump is running are manipulating their behavior.
I’m sure that there are other cons at play, which would explain North Korea and G6+1, but I’m exhausted thinking about it
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I have to wonder how that effort to keep people from leaking is going, since this is one of the most despicable thoughts you could hear a human being voice. All the time he was crying crocodile tears over the optics in his non-people’s eyes, he was thinking how much his base liked the idea of snatching children from their impoverished and desperate parents and sending them away into oblivion with no effort at all to ever reunite them. It’s an utterly amoral attitude toward one of the most evil things the federal government has ever done. And all he could do was look at the poll numbers among the mouth-breathers. You knew he felt this way, but to hear it said is chilling.
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That’s what is confusing. Are they his people, or are they his advisors? Who exactly is he setting up as fall guy?
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Well done.
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I was figuring they would be.
He was really awesome last night!
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Keep talking to your people, Don. Especially out loud. The honesty is very refreshing.
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well, potus is supposedly the president of all of us. why do i feel so left out in this conversation. i would like to add: “my people” hate family separation. what a dick.
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I don’t know if he ever worked with patients directly, but that quote brings to mind that Krauthammer was trained and worked as a psychiatrist in the early part of his life. And whatever else you say about him, he could be insightful.
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What an obtuse beast
Hey Stupid - Your “My People” are so filled with toxic hate that they would also love it if you set up machine gun towers and mowed down 100-200 Mexicans /Guatemalans / Hondurans a day … really - they would be ecstatic - just like they perversely get off on seeing an innocent unarmed black person running away from the police get 6 rounds in the back …
This is the “My People” that Trump is playing to - and now is seeking to satisfy - and is hoping will be his leverage to being able to hold power … and it does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that His “My People” have an insatiable appetite for racist bigoted brutality … and it will take more and more increasing ugliness to sustain their support.
There will come a tipping point where he will have to pledge to be a white supremacist in order to retain the full love of his “My People”… and he will do it …
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Think we’ve already gone past it.
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Thank you for that!
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“Some very fine people on both sides…”
Yeah, right…
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He did.
I disagreed with Krauthammner on 98% of political issues, but his take on Trump was not only accurate, but medically sound.
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It’s like with Obama, where people thought they had been promised the public option. Trump’s base heard all the sublimated threats of violence and that became the pony they were promised for Christmas. We’re drifting toward a Kent State situation here.
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