Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

In after Baud. Damn.

This fight is for everything.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

No one could have predicted…

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

An almost top 10,000 blog!

White supremacy is terrorism.

“woke” is the new caravan.

This blog will pay for itself.

Second rate reporter says what?

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

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144Comments

  4. 4.

    lollipopguild

    Trump could announce that he has sold America to the Chinese and the right-wing media and Gop would all talk about what a great deal he got.

  5. 5.

    guachi

    There should be only one tag at Balloon Juice. And it should be the tag for this post – Assholes.

    Maybe two tags. Assholes and Open Thread. We don’t ever need more than that.

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    I’ve been saying for awhile that Trump will throw everyone under the bus, with the possible exception of Ivanka, before he leaves. So….anyone have any idea in what order he’ll start tossing people? Will Spicer and/or Priebus be next on the chopping block? How long before he starts blaming Pence for the Russia stuff?

  9. 9.

    lollipopguild

    @Yarrow: How can he blame anyone for the Russia stuff when trump does the worst most stupidest things himself and brags about it. “Look at ME!”

  14. 14.

    Yarrow

    @lollipopguild: Because he always blames other people for any problems he has. He doesn’t take responsibility. So his pattern predicts it’s what he’ll do this time.

  16. 16.

    smintheus

    Is there another country in the NATO alliance (apart from despotic Turkey) where behavior by the head of government similar to Trump’s would not have resulted in the removal of that person more or less immediately? Even Berlusconi at his most irresponsible never came remotely close to the way Trump has repeatedly violated his oath of faithfully execute the office of President.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    Repeating myself from the thread below:

    Jesus, when The Virgin Ben is making sense …

    Ben Shapiro‏Verified account @benshapiro 2h2 hours ago
    Before we say a specifically worded denial is credible from an administration caught lying *last week*, perhaps let’s wait 24 hours.

  21. 21.

    opiejeanne

    @Yarrow: Hi! Glad to see you here.

    Also, this is what I get for falling asleep this afternoon and sleeping until 7:30PDT. I’m still reeling an hour later from the most recent outrage.

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    Because he always blames other people for any problems he has. He doesn’t take responsibility.

    Yep. It’s the narcissist in him. Protecting his fragile self-image requires defending himself at all cost, no matter what he has to say or who has to be thrown under the bus. For a narcissist, the only “truth” is what’s inside his or her head. Objective truth does not exist, and if objective truth somehow asserts itself, it will always be someone else’s fault. Always.

  23. 23.

    Jeffro

    Here’s a funny: Brooksie is on board with calling Trumpov a manbaby! And a dumb as heck one at that…

    He is thus the all-time record-holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon in which the incompetent person is too incompetent to understand his own incompetence. Trump thought he’d be celebrated for firing James Comey. He thought his press coverage would grow wildly positive once he won the nomination. He is perpetually surprised because reality does not comport with his fantasies.

  25. 25.

    mai naem mobile

    Well, at least Ivanka has Jared to give her tips in how to deal with prison visits with your daddy. Her father in law meanwhile can give her tips on how to deal with visits with her kids in case she ends up in the slammer. Tiffany can be given temporary custody of all the grandkids if all of Lumpys other adult kids and spouses end up at Club Fed.

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:

    We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

    “We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him,” David Roberts writes in Vox. “It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?”

    If Trump actually read anything, I’d worry that he might see this…as it is, we might do well to clip it and mail it to every GOP elected official…

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ok, fine. Now let’s hear Cole walk back his bullshit about McMaster. Or double down. His escape into hockey isn’t cutting it.

  33. 33.

    GregB

    Trump is a Mayan priest and his staff is first in line at the temple of sacrifice.

    We come after them.

  34. 34.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Since Adam isn’t planning to post and it’s too late at night for me to do a good job at writing, here’s an explainer, somewhat in Adam’s style, of classification, including the codeword classification to which the information Trump shared with the Russians seems to belong.

  35. 35.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: Yep. And he’s gotten away with it for his entire life. He will not change now. I just can’t figure out the order of people being thrown under the bus. And what happens with Don, Jr. and Eric are indicted?

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    Update from this morning…..
    mrs efg and her mother had the conference call (this afternoon) with the VT DA about the murdering bastard who shot mrs efg’s sister. I was there but didn’t participate. I have no say, nor should I.
    DA is proposing manslaughter 1 with aggravated domestic assault. Proposed sentence is 15 years, ten to serve, five years probation. Bastard is over 60, not in the best of health. He will likely die in prison.
    DA explains, correctly, if they go to trial on murder 2, while evidence is open/shut to them and us, only takes one juror to believe his story that gun discharged during a struggle. Makes much more sense to take bird in hand.
    mrs efg’s mom is OK with it; she is 86, and not in the greatest health herself. She’s fine as long as the bastard is behind bars when she dies. Also is vengeance satisfied because HIS mother will be dead while he’s in prison. So they are going to check with other sisters (in PA and OH) and then call the DA tomorrow.
    As a bonus, DA told them that she’s made a referral to the US attorney on a weapons charge. On search, they found an illegally modified weapon (don’t know what kind) with the serial number filed, So any federal time would be on top of state time. More the merrier.
    It was a surprising unemotional occurrence, which surprised me. mrs efg is not known for handling situations unemotionally. I guess 15 months is enough time/distance.
    So I hope that’s it, that he takes the plea and everybody has closure. There’s still some of sister’s stuff in our garage, but mrs efg has pretty well sorted it into various destinations. About 2/3 of it is already gone.
    Thank you all for your concern and sympathy. This is a great place to vent, whether that’s how John meant it to be or not.

  39. 39.

    Ian

    @smintheus:

    Is there another country in the NATO alliance (apart from despotic Turkey) where behavior by the head of government similar to Trump’s would not have resulted in the removal of that person more or less immediately?

    Nato was always military, not primarily diplomatic. Dictatorships were not the problem (Greece, Turkey, Portugal) nor is inconsistent treatment of civilian rights (see the Baltic republics, France, or UK). The question of Nato is how do we defend ourselves, not an alliance of free minded people.

  41. 41.

    Yarrow

    @Jeffro:

    “But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?”

    Christ, these people are stupid. it’s obvious to anyone who has ever spent about ten minutes watching Trump do his thing that there’s no there there. They really are desperate for The Pivot, aren’t they?

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jeffro:

    “We badly want to understand Trump, to grasp him,” David Roberts writes in Vox. “It might give us some sense of control, or at least an ability to predict what he will do next. But what if there’s nothing to understand? What if there is no there there?”

    The only thing to understand about Trump is that he will say or do anything to protect himself, and he will do things that normal people — even unscrupulous normal people — would never dream of doing.

    If you think, Nah, nobody would do something that stupid/cynical/crude, Trump will do it. There’s a reason I keep telling the story of my narcissistic sister-in-law trying to take stuff out of my brother’s house less than 6 hours after he died in it — that’s the kind of completely shameless shit narcissists do, because they don’t see any reason not to do it.

  46. 46.

    efgoldman

    @Yarrow: Hey welcome back. I missed you. Aren’t that many jackals here who are as nasty and cynical as I am.

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: Thank you for the update. Given all the issues, it sounds like a (don’t know the right word here) way to close this horrible chapter in her and your (and all of your loved ones) lives.

    Best wishes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    dm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Hmm, the article says otherwise, but I thought codewords were all classified — for the simple reason that if you displayed knowledge of them, you might be able to social-engineer your way into learning what the thing they designated was all about.

    (Though it’s a safe bet that no one mentioned the codewords to Trump — I’ve assumed the “codeword” designation bouncing around in the press was just a way of saying the material Trump discussed was compartmented.)

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    @mai naem mobile:

    There probably is some dementia as well, especially since his father apparently contracted dementia relatively early, but dementia only exacerbates existing personality issues. He’s not lying and constantly changing his story because of dementia, it’s what he’s always done, and the dementia just makes it worse.

  54. 54.

    efgoldman

    @smintheus:

    Trump has repeatedly violated his oath of faithfully execute the office of President.

    He had his fingers crossed behing his back

  57. 57.

    Mary G

    @Yarrow: My money’s on Spicer. Getting played by a woman on SNL to great publicity, as well as making WaPo issue a correction of being “amongst the bushes” instead of “in the bushes” makes him a laughingstock. And the one thing Twitler hates more than anything is being ridiculed.

    This is exhausting. I so long for the last eight years when wondering what the president was up too was more about having great musicians perform in the East Room or giving a thoughtful speech about an important topic. Occasionally the Congressional Republicans would give me that “what fresh hell” feeling, but not 24/7 every minute like now.

  58. 58.

    Ian G.

    Honestly, I’m going with Hanlon’s Razor here. There was no ill intent by our half-senile reality TV buffoon of a president. He just doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand that assholish bluster to the Russian foreign minister is on a different level than assholish bluster to Mario Van Peebles on the latest episode of “Celebrity Apprentice”.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone: I am not Cole. I knew and respected the fuck out of the guy nearly 30 years ago. He subsequently indicated that he was his own man throughout his career. That was where I came from on him. If he shits himself on Trump’s behalf, i count myself as disillusioned.

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    @efgoldman: What a horrible situation and how tragic and draining for you all. Glad it seems to have gone as well as could be expected given those circumstances.

  61. 61.

    smintheus

    @Ian: NATO is a group of countries most analogous to the US, which need to maintain a basic level of trustworthiness through their governmental institutions to retain their standing in the alliance. The US has now forfeited basic trustworthiness by permitting a head of state who violates his oath of office on a regular basis.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ian: The other issue is that in any other NATO member state, including Turkey – though now it is functionally impossible in Turkey, the procedures for changing a government, as in the ruling party and head of state government, are much simpler, easier, and streamlined to put into effect than in the US.

  66. 66.

    BBA

    I wish any of this would matter. But I’m afraid we’re still stuck with the fucktard until noon on January 20, 2021, so let’s do all we can to keep him from breaking anything else.

  67. 67.

    dm

    @Adam L Silverman: Maybe we just need to come to regard impeachment as the equivalent of a no-confidence vote in a parliamentary system instead of the Constitutional Crisis we’re used to thinking of it as.

    ETA: the “Maybe” — beware the law of unintended consequences.

    I suppose for that to work, we’d also have to repeal the 22nd Amendment.

  74. 74.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    I’m convinced this is all part of his giant game of one-dimensional “Go Fish”.

  75. 75.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. That’s why I twice asked Cole to share his defense. You mentioned McMaster in your comment and I did not ask what you had to say about him. I specifically mentioned Cole and his bullshit excuse making. Then You gave another answer I didn’t give a shit about. Now a third one. Ok. I’ll try not to tag you in comments you actually use verbiage I am referring to.
    Assface.

  76. 76.

    smintheus

    @Adam L Silverman: Even so, the NATO states I’m most familiar with, perhaps excepting Canada, would solve the issue with mass demonstrations leading to the collapse of the government’s ruling parties. There is something fundamentally unhealthy about the American democracy that has relatively little to do with the difficulty of initiating impeachment hearings, and a lot to do with the conditions that saw the election of Trump in the first place.

  77. 77.

    lollipopguild

    @efgoldman: Yes, I have. My daughter who is a grown adult and on her own. At four years old she was smarter and more grown up than the lump of flesh in the White House.

  78. 78.

    Ian

    @Yarrow:
    That whole thread was BS. It basically said he is insane-ergo he is not responsible or aware of what he is doing. While he might suffer mental derangement, he is cognisant of his actions. He knows he is breaking the law.

  80. 80.

    Adam L Silverman

    @dm: For that to happen we’d have to amend the Constitution and establish a parliamentary system.

  82. 82.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Speaking of assholes, still — STILL — conservatives are supporting their Great Blight Hope. Obama put his feet up on a desk and they shat their pants.

    How a majority of white males (and, what, 42% of white females, 29% of Latinos and 7% of blacks) voted for this stupid, racist, misogynistic, bloated meal worm is beyond me.

    I swear, he could roast a newborn on TV and his supporters would suggest it had been a very mean baby who probably deserved it.

  84. 84.

    amk

    speaking of courageous cowards.

    BREAKING: Sen. McCain just raised his threat level to "furrowed brow," while Sen. Graham has gone from "concerned" to "very concerned."— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) May 15, 2017

  87. 87.

    Lyrebird

    No notion what Cole will or won’t say, but fwiw I’ll offer some possibilities. Even if they’re laughable, maybe laughing will lower blood pressure? Joking aside, I certainly noticed that McMaster inserted the “as reported” in his denial, and I wonder if any of us outside the IC are likely ever to learn who McM might want to a) signal to or b) protect.

    He’s certainly not projecting that K McEnany (sp?) or J Lord look from the talk shows, “oh yes this is all SO GREAT YES I AM SMILING” crap.

    I want impeachment yesterday, and I thought he shoulda (the despot himself, not McM) been jailed for hate speech before the campaign was over, but I could imagine a lot of reasons why McM might both grant an interview and then issue a denial.

    I so hope more Republicans put country before party, very very very soon…

    ETA: removed reference since it was not wanted

  88. 88.

    Adam L Silverman

    @smintheus: Yes and no. Almost every other NATO member state is either a parliamentary system or has an easy mechanism for calling a new/snap election to change a government when the party in power does something significantly problematic that causes it to lose enough public support to make governing problematic. The US has no such system. Sure, you could impeach the President, but that wouldn’t necessarily resolve a problem that is also partially rooted in the Congress.

  90. 90.

    Aleta

    @Yarrow: Ivan. may know how to dodge his destructive effects but I think that if she manages to, it won’t be because he restrained his use of her for her sake. Just my feeling that people like this destroy their children too, while simultaneously forcing them to stick around.

  92. 92.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @dm: Yeah, I think your last gets at it. I’m not entirely familiar with the NSI system, but what I understand is that the codewords themselves are classified, but not the fact that codeword classification exists. Or, since I’m not in any system, that’s what the Just Security article and other open sources say.

  93. 93.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    That’s pretty much it. Especially this pair of tweets:

    David Roberts‏Verified account @drvox May 10
    34. The idea that Trump is simply doing what produces good feels in a particular situation, that he is utterly unconstrained by …
    35. … consistency, by past commitments or statements, by laws or norms, by *anything* — that’s there’s no “mind” as such — is chilling.

    Trump is not strategic, or thinking ahead. He does what he wants to do in the moment and makes excuses for it later. That makes it very difficult to predict what the fuck he’s going to do next.

  94. 94.

    Calouste

    @Adam L Silverman: For starters, America would need to separate the functions of head of state and head of government. I don’t think there’s any country where the dismissal of the government via a motion of no confidence would lead to the dismissal of the head of state.

  96. 96.

    amk

    And tomorrow brings the turkish twitler into the WH. What fresh hell will break loose? Looking at ya, susan collins, the useless tool.

  97. 97.

    smintheus

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s also a general agreement among European states that there are limits to acceptable behavior as head of government, and that if a ruling party doesn’t uphold them then the people will make their will known and effect a change. That’s lacking in the US. We can shrug off a president who willfully violates his office more or less on a daily basis, whereas smaller states don’t have that arrogance bred of a sense of invincibility.

  98. 98.

    Yarrow

    @Aleta: That’s why I say “possible exception.” I can’t quite figure out if he’ll toss Ivanka under the bus or not. I’m sure he would toss any of his other kids out to the wolves, but he’s got some weird thing (blech) with Ivanka and that may impact his decision making. Not that he would save her for any positive reason, but I still think he might not toss her under the bus like he would all the other kids.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Calouste: Prepare the operating theater. Call Dr. Carson. We need to separate the head of state from the head of government!//

    What? Like you all weren’t thinking it.

  101. 101.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I saw him back in about 1990. He was so funny and quite a showman. Not sure that it always comes across nowadays. His humor probably seems a bit ponderous and cornball by contemporary standards.

  102. 102.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ian:

    It basically said he is insane-ergo he is not responsible or aware of what he is doing. While he might suffer mental derangement, he is cognisant of his actions. He knows he is breaking the law.

    Almost, but not quite. What it says is that Trump doesn’t care that he’s breaking the law and is perfectly willing to lie and change his story as many times as it takes to get the other person to give up and drop the charges.

    The law doesn’t matter to him. It’s completely abstract. The only thing that means anything to him is protecting his self-image.

    As that tweetstorm says, it’s a very, very difficult concept for normal people to wrap their heads around. Someone was saying the other day that it sounded like they were saying he’s delusional, but being delusional requires a fixed set of beliefs.

    Trump is a walking, talking example of Cleek’s Law: he believes whatever he wants to believe at that moment, updated daily, and everyone else has to scramble to keep up. Or, in more clinical terms, he probably has a Cluster B Personality Disorder, which is the most difficult cluster to treat or even mitigate.

  103. 103.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I didn’t agree with the entire thread but it contained a lot of good observations about how Trump operates. He doesn’t think ahead–he just does what seems good at the time and handles any consequences later.

  105. 105.

    hilts

    Bottom Line Takeaway from the past 115 days:

    Donald J. Trump is dumber than a goddamn horse’s ass. Therefore, it is incumbent upon every investigative journalist to dig as hard as humanly possible to find sufficient evidence for this ratfucking, cocksucking bastard to be indicted and later convicted so that his fat fucking ass can be kicked out of the White House.

  106. 106.

    efgoldman

    @Mnemosyne:

    The law doesn’t matter to him. It’s completely abstract.

    That’s true as far as his experience… which is in all the civil suits he’s won, or settled, or outwaited or out-papered the opposition.
    Criminal violations are different. He can’t out-motion the government.

  108. 108.

    Marcopolo

    @efgoldman: Just a great blog spot for sharing: good, bad, interesting & noteworthy. I think what we have here is a great community. I know following comments here help in maintaining my sanity in this post-Trumpacolyptic world.

    As for you and your family, wishing you all will now have the closure you need having gone through such an awful situation.

  109. 109.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): You have three of the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.

    Sorry just quoting from that link I posted.

    I know what you mean in one sense, but in another sense I think he holds up as well as the Marx Brothers. Timeless. I was just watching a clip with him on the Dean Martin show and thinking okay, that really doesn’t hold up, ol Deano drunk and smoking right there on stage. Nothing against him and I kind of liked him, but wow, now that looks dated. But Victor right next to him doing the punctuation routine actually held up well. Kind of Pythonesque, I was thinking, all the word play and so on.

  110. 110.

    David Spikes

    This is interesting in an awful sort of way. Coulter is giving up on Trump-he isn’t being awful enough. But she’s starting to feel some real luvvins for JB Sessions.
    Honestly for anyone to pretend that any member of this admin. is not total slime, is total bullshit, and that goes for that smarmy assistant AG., fuck him.

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @Aleta:

    Just my feeling that people like this destroy their children too, while simultaneously forcing them to stick around.

    That’s generally what happens, from what I’ve read. Ivanka may be the last one to be thrown out of the sled to the wolves, but if Trump thinks it’s necessary, he won’t even blink.

    @Yarrow:

    He doesn’t think ahead–he just does what seems good at the time and handles any consequences later.

    Yep. He assumes that he will always be able to talk or buy his way out of any problem he encounters, and any hint that he might not be able to do so pushes him even further into the pattern.

    @efgoldman:

    Criminal violations are different. He an’t out-motion the government.

    I hope so. He can afford really, really expensive lawyers. Millionaire Robert Durst managed to get himself acquitted of murder even though he’d dismembered his victim and thrown the pieces in Galveston Bay after killing him.

  112. 112.

    efgoldman

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    But Victor right next to him doing the punctuation routine actually held up well.

    Saw him live with the Boston Pops in the 80s (our radio station’s annual night at Pops.) We were sitting second row from the stage. On the TV program that was made from the concert, you can clearly hear mrs efg’s very distinctive cackle on the line “She was a soprano. Five feet tall. In every direction.” , mrs efg is a five-foot soprano (not in every direction).
    The sign of a really great entertainer is, the same routines work for decades. i first saw him on TV in the 50s; Hilarious then, hilarious for decades.

  114. 114.

    Marcopolo

    @Mary G: My favorite old-normal was always when Obama hosted the kids and their science projects. I particularly remember when they fired a potato gun and it was slightly more explosive than they’d anticipated.

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: The horror…

    One of the major problems we have, which we’ve all observed as it eats the US and many state governments from the inside out, is that the current Republican Party functions like a parliamentary party in the House, the Senate, and in many of the state legislative equivalents. None of these institutions are designed for this. Either when the GOP is in the minority (opposition) or majority (governing party). Given this reality the sane thing to do would be to change our legislatures into parliaments. Given the reality of the Constitution this is practically impossible.

  116. 116.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: He just has such a weird, creepy thing with Ivanka…I don’t know if he’d throw her under the bus or what might happen there. He’d throw Jared under the bus without hesitation, though, and that would create an interesting situation for Ivanka.
    @rikyrah: Hey!

  117. 117.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @efgoldman: I think he’s even funnier for musicians.

    “The Baldwin Piano Company has asked me to announce that this is a Steinway”

    Link

  118. 118.

    ??‍? Martin

    Since this information is now claimed to be declassified, there is certain to be a slew of FOIA requests for it. Should be fun.

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    He might sacrifice her last, but if it came down to a choice between himself and her, he wouldn’t even hesitate to get rid of her.

    ETA: His Prime Directive is self-protection first, last, and always.

  120. 120.

    GregB

    @amk:

    Maybe Erdogan will call the German’s Nazis while standing next to a red-faced, tight lipped Pres. Low-T.

    Pres. Low-T will give a bigly thumbs up.

  121. 121.

    Chet Murthy

    A while back (last week?) when the Roberts tweetstorm was being discussed, I argued that Dampnut was doing his thing with full knowledge. That sure he was a raging narcissist, but the rest was wilful. “jacy” tried to school me. I read elsewhere the writings of other psychologists, saying the same thing — that no, Dampnut isn’t playing with a full deck, even setting aside the narcissism.

    Today’s antics have convinced me fully. I don’t know what cards he’s missing, but I’m convinced. jacy, you’re absolutely, right, the man’s mentally deficient.

  122. 122.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @efgoldman:

    “The soprano comes out onto stage in a single pile… she hides, more or less, behind the tree…”

  123. 123.

    jacy

    @Yarrow:

    So glad you’re back!

    Re: Trump. He may literally believe he’s done nothing wrong. Because he believes nothing he does is wrong. And if it was wrong it was somebody else’s fault it was wrong. If he does have any inkling that something was “wrong,” he will move to projection and blame-shifting. And, if it’s bad enough, he’ll just rewrite his memories so the wrong thing never actually occurred or occurred in some wildly divergent manner. He can never accept fault, which may necessitate him changing his perception of reality.

  125. 125.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: I generally agree with you. It’s just that the Ivanka thing is so weird I don’t know if he would toss her under the bus. There’s just something so creepy and intertwined about them. It might be like tossing a part of himself under the bus, which he wouldn’t do. I understand your position and agree with you that he would do that with everyone else. Just something about watching him with Ivanka…I’m just not sure. It wouldn’t be because he loves her and would sacrifice himself for her or anything. It would be because of yet another sick psychological issue.

    @jacy: Thanks! I’ve enjoyed reading your (and Mnem’s) takes on narcissists. You both have dealt with them and once you’ve dealt with one you know them.

  126. 126.

    hovercraft

    @efgoldman:
    While there is no “good” outcome, this seems like a resolution that will leave your sister-in-laws loved ones satisfied.

  127. 127.

    jacy

    @Chet Murthy:

    Not trying to “school” you. :) Just speaking from experience with something that most people have never experienced in real life. Once you do experience it, it’s really clear and recognizable. I read an interesting series of tweets from Dana Houle — who has experience with someone with malignant narcissism. Basically said that in the 100 or so people who had contacted him saying that they had first-hand experience with malignant narcissists, not one of them said, “No, he doesn’t fit this.” Every single one of them said they recognized it immediately, no doubt. Until you’ve dealt with somebody who creates their own moment-moment reality it’s really hard to imagine. It’s incredibly disconcerting.

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    @Chet Murthy:

    Narcissists can be really hard to grasp until you’ve actually encountered one. The stuff they do just seems so strange and counter-intuitive that there has to be a better explanation, but responding solely to inner cues covers just about everything they do.

    I’m trying to remember the exact story because I don’t want to hunt it down, but it was someone whose narcissistic father tried to convince her that she was the one who had driven his car into a fence at her own wedding, not him. And he came very close to getting her to give in and pay for the damage just to shut him up, because he absolutely was not going to accept responsibility for what had happened.

  129. 129.

    hovercraft

    I was watching Anderson Cooper replay, and CNN has hired John Dean as a contributer. The shitgibbons antics have gotten so bad that they felt the need to hire a Watergate veteran so he would be on hand to analyze this WH’s antics.
    If they didn’t take away his cell phone tonight or put some sort of jamming device in his bedroom tonight they are in for some crazy tweets tomorrow morning. As mad as he was coming off of all the Comey coverage he may actually save us all by stroking out over this.

  130. 130.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    Ivanka is the Golden Child. It’s a tough spot to be in, because all of the narcissist’s focus is on you and they constantly set you against the rest of the family. But when push comes to shove, the narcissist will save themselves and abandon everyone else, even the Golden Child.

  131. 131.

    jacy

    @Yarrow:

    The therapist I have who has helped me deal with the fallout in my life explained it this way: a narcissist’s children are “limbs.” You would hate to cut off a limb, and would do almost anything not to. But if it came to the choice of amputating the limb to save the rest of yourself, you do it. The most important thing to a narcissist — the only important thing — is their secret self, which must be protected at all costs. One of the things that makes narcissists worse is aging — the thought of death extinguishing them causes them to get worse, because the worst thing to them is the loss of self. They’ll literally do anything to protect themselves, at the expense of their of children. One theory, and I don’t know how true this is, is that the only person who cannot be sacrificed is the parent who created the original narcissistic crisis, because the narcissist’s entire existence is predicated on not feeling the pain of the disappointment of that parent. In my situation, that seems to be true — but that’s totally anecdotal and I would hesitate to make a blanket statement like that.

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’m going with Kay’s theory: Trump beshittens everyone who comes into his orbit. He’s like the tar baby of ignominy, ruined credibility and career destruction.

  133. 133.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: @jacy: You’re both probably right. It’s why I word my statement as “possible exception.” I do know how narcissists work, but there’s something about his relationship with Ivanka that still gives me pause. I wonder how his apparent developing dementia issues play into the whole thing. That’s not just aging and the general issues that surround aging. It affects how the brain itself functions.

    At times I take a step back and simply cannot believe this man was elected president.

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    If you want to get really gruesome about it, another extreme a narcissist could go to is deciding that their Golden Child can’t possibly survive without them, so the kindest thing to do is murder-suicide. It’s been known to happen.

  136. 136.

    Elie

    @Yarrow:
    So good to have you back!
    Trump and his regime are in a death spiral w each day bringing deeper problems and interconnected complications. The question is can anyone manage anything in his administration? They have not managed anything successfully yet. Can you imagine a real crisis requiring action? His advisers are stressed and in perpetual defense so there is no time or energy for strategy. The situation is quite dangerous with no clear remedy on the horizon

  137. 137.

    CM

    @smintheus:

    “Trump has repeatedly violated his oath of faithfully execute the office of President.”

    This is a good example of the “other high … misdemeanors” for which he could be, well, you know. Not to mention the “other high crimes” like obstruction of justice that he committed last week.

    Looking at the faces of the Russian diplomats in the White House, I would say that right there is proof of “aid and comfort”. Nicely documented by that friendly Russian photographer.

    And Trump has been emolumenting the Presidency in ways previously unimaginable (see, for example, the Kushner side of the family in China). In the case at hand, Putin asked for a reception for his diplomats — and he got it. Trump brags repeatedly about making what he calls deals. When a politician makes the kind of deals Trump has experience with, it’s called “bribery”.

  139. 139.

    CM

    @hilts:

    “(S)o that his fat fucking ass can be kicked out of the White House.”

    Serious point: Trump’s face seems to be getting more puffy & degenerative. His speech often becomes a word salad, and his physical features reflect that.

    I think there is something really wrong with him.

  140. 140.

    CM

    @Adam L Silverman:

    “The current Republican Party functions like a parliamentary party in the House, the Senate, and in many of the state legislative equivalents. None of these institutions are designed for this.”

    The current Republican Party! Look at what has happened to the party since Goldwater and Nixon. Their “southern strategy” included a deal with several devils, above all unreconstructed confederate racists.

    Then there is the right-wing media machine, with Limbaugh and Fox as key elements. We have a propaganda operation in America beyond what Goebels and Pravda envisioned, because it has been entirely voluntary for its millions and millions of listeners and viewers.

    Particularly striking also is the deterioration at the top. Goldwater had principles and Nixon had intelligence. Then came Reagan. Then came Dubya and Palin. And then Trump.

  141. 141.

    TenguPhule

    @Mnemosyne: I can’t muster any sympathy for her in that scenario. Sorry but she went into his arms willingly and with both eyes wide open.

  142. 142.

    sherparick

    Just another day in Trumpland. By the way, has there ever been a more honest statement from a TV asshole then Les Moonves of CBS who said in Feb of 2016 that “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, (and my implication CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.). http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464

    Trump has the 40% of white people who think completely as a tribe. He is their leader and they will follow him into Hell (and apparently will).

  143. 143.

    Denali

    @E F Goldman,

    Thanks for updating us on your family. My thoughts are with your wife and her mother.

  144. 144.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    It IS a good place to vent, as needed. I well remember the events you speak of, and the sentence outlined in the plea seems adequate. It is a lesser crime than was committed, but it is a crime that will put the said bastard away for a long time, especially if the federal weapons charges work out, which should be a no brainer.

    Prison for these dicks can be a really hard place, no one will be afraid of them, they will be on the bottom of every selection list. I’m glad Mrs EFG was less emotional about it, that’s a good thing.

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