I think much of what Trump spouts amounts to getting in front of a situation he has been told is coming out in the press. $50 says someone was working on a story about Trump’s relationship with Club for Growth, and maybe specifically this meeting. So, he launches a peremptory strike, hoping to shut down discussion beforehand. Why step out of the bar and into the alley for a brawl when you can sucker punch the guy while he’s ordering the first beer?
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Which is actually really smart of him, as obnoxious and immature as it may be. He’s well aware of what his base is, he knows how to play them. They don’t want real arguments or substantive criticisms. He’s like the living, breathing, YUUUGE personification of their id and he just continues to gratify it. Offering actual commentary and policy would just make him like everyone else.
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time for a tag team wrestling match, trump and david duke versus rand paul and ted cruz
I think this guy, Trump, just has insomnia and starts this crap for entertainment value only.
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Goooo’ Donald! Don’t you let those establishment insiders and career politicos push you around. Hittem’ back…harder and harder until they scream, “No Mas!” …Oops! sorry.
Just tweet two words - Third Party - and watch em’ squirm!
Ahhhh…pass the popcorn!
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And the CFG is taking him seriously enough to respond to his tweets. Like a number of other organizations, the CFG hasn’t yet quite taken in the fact that the GOP base doesn’t object to the social welfare state per se if they can be sure that “those other people” won’t benefit from it or 11M of those other, “other” people will be deported.
All those poor and middle class white southerners voted very happily for FDR and the new deal in an era when other people still knew their place and Jim Crow was at large. White populism in the U.S. has historically been both anti-capitatist, anti-banker and racist. Now and in those days one could be both be a progressive and a bigot. Black Lives Matter understands this and so do I.
Trump is not stupid. He’s filling a niche and I think he knows it.
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Agree with Trump here. But why would he go out of his way to trash a prominent conservative organization? Could it be that his hubris overwhelms his desire to be President? Or does he really not want to be President? It could also be that he is convinced his supporters couldn’t care less about the Club for Growth. It is like a man trying to get out of a relationship but doesn’t want to be the one to break up. Pick a fight with the woman at every opportunity hoping she will break up.
I will agree that Trump is the unpolitician. He is turning upside down every tenet of politics and negotiation. Or has the completely negative approach to campaigning become the predominant way of winning elections? He reduces everything to the simplistic formula as to whether people are nice or not nice to him. Issues mean nothing unless they can be used to inflame the right wing part of the electorate.
The Club for Growth @club4growth
Actually @realDonaldTrump asked for that mtg & then asked for races he could support. Thought he could buy us off. Worst Kind of Politician
Club for growth cannot be bought! They do they buying, thank you very much.
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A quotable post. What you say is succinct and appropriate (especially for these Murdoch/Ailes/Limbaugh times).
Although your humour can be arresting, what’s in your post should be taken DEAD SERIOUSLY.
On a side note, I recall the excellent documentary series on the Roosevelts…how Eleanor Roosevelt (who worked very closely with the magnificent Mary McLeod Bethune) was well aware of the Dixie Dichotomy of “yeah, I’ll take some government help” and “I hate n****rs”…and worked as best she could to nudge the needle.
.
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There’s not nearly enough popcorn to get through this election season.
We will need to set up a strategic popcorn reserve.
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Well said.
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What I NEED are your insights. Although what has been posted here seems to bode well for the Democrats, the post 2009 Democratic Party seems to have a knack for failing to take advantage of “opportunities”. Moreover, the brilliance of REThugg messaging coupled with the abject stupidity of their voters make predictions by all but the most insightful an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
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Thanks, emiliano, but I am totally at sea over these recent developments.
A heartless mean-spiritedness has overtaken many Republicans and independents, and Trump is feeding them red meat.
Trump must feel that the GOP “base” is fed up with the Republican policy wonks, insiders, pencil pushers, and handlers and is looking for someone to take off the gloves and fight.
They don’t want principled policy statements, reasoned discourse, or collegiality. They want a brawl.
Who knows where this might lead?
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This is what he does that is so brilliant in a perverse way. He talks like Joe Sixpack. The people who cheer him on are angry and can’t form the words, and he’s become a kind of surrogate for that anger. He stirs them up with hateful speeches, makes them angry, he channels the anger, et voila, le candidate.
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He’s been going after monied interests that many Republicans in the base happen not to like very much . . . and some of whom (those interests), ominously for Democrats, have close ties with Clinton. A few days back, he went after hedge fund managers as not deserving of protection from tax increases; the rumor is that in Trump’s tax plan to be announced, he’ll raise taxes on capital gains and carried interest. And now the Club for Growth.
The base also doesn’t like the Chamber of Commerce; will they be the next recipient of Trump’s tweets?
Brilliant insight. Too bad the MSM doesn’t read comments at TPM. It explains Trump and the way he is prying the “base” from the monied Republicans. You ought to publish this someplace.
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If there was a title attached to someone who tweets incessantly, The Harumph would be Tweeter In Chief. It’s been his MO for years, anyone who’s lived in New York can verify that. He doesn’t elaborate, just 140 characters and he’s gone. Oh, and he will change back Denali’s name at earliest possible opportunity
It’s hilarious how these working class people have come to identify with Trump.
It’s like in 2012, after complaining about bank bailouts and crony capitalism, the GOP “base” voted for Mr. Wall Street Mitt Romney.
Trump is Romney without the manners or restraint – he’s the bad boy billionaire…
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I hope this doesn’t sound too concern-troll-y, but: Here’s hoping the Democrats are watching what Trump is doing here and will pay attention to his tax proposal coming soon (which is rumored to target capital gains and carried interest–direct shots at hedge fund managers).
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