Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

No Justins, No Peace

People are complicated. Love is not.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

No one could have predicted…

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / He Never Had a Chance

He Never Had a Chance

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Adam’s discussed the summit stuff at length, but it’s just so absurd to me that there were people who actually thought that not only it might happen, but that some good would come out of it. Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger.

Let’s put it this way. The North Korean leadership and Kim Jong Un think about nothing else but this issue, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are constantly balancing their behavior so that China just doesn’t say fuck off and wipe them off the face of the earth. They’ve explored every angle, know what they want, and have gamed everything out beyond anything you or I could imagine.

In the other corner is Donald Trump, who has not thought about this at all. Ever. He’s thought about how good it could be for him if he could “win,” but he has no idea what a win is or how to achieve it. He’s surrounded by sycophants and ideologues, and most of the ideologues (BOLTON) know only threats of force and use of force- that’s their entire intellectual arsenal. And while Kim Jong Un and company are used to dealing with China, Twitler’s debate partner is… Steve fucking Doocy.

So, yeah. This ended about how anyone should have expected- with us looking stupid, our allies betrayed and burned, and NoKo with a clear win.

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    In the other corner is Donald Trump, who has not thought about this at all. Ever. He’s thought about how good it could be for him if he could “win,” but he has no idea what a win is or how to achieve it.

    Trump has already won. He won this showdown with KJU.

  5. 5.

    Smiling Mortician

    Trump doesn’t think. He only feels. That’s a problem in a “leader.” Duh.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    Part of the issue is, of course, that Kim didn’t actually offer a summit. He had communicated to Moon that he’d be willing to meet with the President. When Moon’s delegation came to DC to meet with LTG McMaster and some of the other senior members of the National Security Staff, Trump barged into the meeting, asked what was going on, was told that Kim said that he’d be willing to meet with the President, and immediately told the ROK delegation that he agreed and wanted a summit. He then made them do that hastily arranged press statement in front of the White House. That’s how this actually got started. Not with an official or formal overture, not with a diplomatic request, but with the President barging into someone else’s meeting, hearing what he wanted to hear, and impulsively giving away the farm. Very stable genius indeed!

  8. 8.

    ? Martin

    Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger.

    When you distill ‘Lord, let me have the confidence of a mediocre white man’ down to it’s purest essence, you get Donald Trump.

  10. 10.

    Hunter Gathers

    Remember being chastised for not immediately giving Trump the Nobel Peace Prize?
    Good times.
    Good times.

  11. 11.

    Jeffro

    Cole, Trumpov is the bestest negotiator EVER – he himself said so. I won’t stand for this blasphemy.

    I’ll sit ;)

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    Excellent summary. Trump is his own chaos agent.

    However

    So, yeah. This ended about how anyone should have expected- with us looking stupid, our allies betrayed and burned, and NoKo with a clear win.

    I don’t think that anyone could have expected this. Nor is North Korea a clear winner. The peace overtures of South Korea are still hanging out there, an opportunity.

    ETA. Trump slipped in a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, but stepped on his own positive PR.

  13. 13.

    Corner Stone

    @Chet Murthy: Well, yeah. Xi actually won. With KJU somewhere in the mix.
    But Fox history shall record the great Backdown Deal of the violent, murderous North Koreans by the heroic Supreme Leader For Life Donald J. Trump.

  15. 15.

    Shell

    Its the letter thats so pure Trump . He cancels the summit, but then says to Kim “If you change your mind..” It sounds like the whole thing was over an order of storm windows.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    Some of you people need to adjust your snark detectors, especially when reading CS.

  21. 21.

    Dimbulb

    I thought that the meeting itself would occur, but only because Li’l Kim would simply use it to suck a little more nectar from the plum that Trump was serving to him on a silver platter.

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Corner Stone: I never got that impression. What I got was the President didn’t understand what the ROK folks were telling him, acted impulsively, and off to the races we went.

  24. 24.

    TS (the original)

    @rikyrah:

    A weeping mother has been forced to wear a yellow insignia (bracelet) as she is ripped away from her children indefinitely

    And when was the other time that people were forced to wear insignia identifying who they were?

    Corrupt and horrifying – the trump regime.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: @TS (the original): Saw that earlier. As soon as I can find a picture of the bracelet, I’ll post it on the front page and we can figure out if we want to order a bunch and wear them to confuse the hell out of ICE and CBP. Or the obviously white ones among us do!

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Some of you people need to adjust your snark detectors, especially when reading CS.

    But but but CS has no sense of humour and never does snark.

  28. 28.

    Platonailedit

    Constant con. Constant corruption. Covered up by constant chaff. And look what it begot the bigot.

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    @? Martin:
    drumpf would be much better if he could rise to the level of mediocre. He’s so far below that though, the concept that he could possibly rise to any occasion other than pure fuck up is absurd.

  31. 31.

    The Dangerman

    I’d call it the Peter Principle Presidency except Trump has been fucking up for years. Then again, he can’t think much beyond his Peter, so it kinda fits.

  32. 32.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: I wrote about that, but it was a mess and violated the Godwin rule, so I deleted my post. So angry. The wristbands have to be yellow? WTF? The bastards.

    @Adam L Silverman: Excellent idea, I would buy a big batch.

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @Adam L Silverman: ISTM that SK were in mortal terror and wanted to push Trump in the direction that did not lead to 1M deaths in the first day on the peninsula. I have, personally, long suspected that Moon knew what buttons to push to get the meeting with KJU to make sense for NK/SK and will now go forward no matter what Trump says. Trump cancelling a part of the military exercises may not mean much to the US but, IMO, they are a huge signal in that part of the world.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chet Murthy: That may be, but let those of us with less immediate risk go first.

    Semi break
    @Mary G:

    If anyone finds a pic of the yellow bracelet they’re being forced to wear, email me a link or a jpg of it and I’ll take it from there.

  36. 36.

    danielx

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Because in his mind he DID win – he had the last word and cancelled the meeting his very own self*!

    *Encouraged, no doubt, by the Mustache of Mayhem. After all, how is Bolton supposed to get started in his program of regime change in every country he doesn’t like if Trump persists in talking to them?

  37. 37.

    MobiusKlein

    Gadzooks, somebody fix the mobile site.
    It will be some obscure CSS selector rule dorked over from the responsive setup.

  38. 38.

    danielx

    I do not make a habit of reposting from downstairs threads, but I am feeling particularly stabby this evening. So please forgive me…

    Goddamnit.

    I try not fall into fits of silent but frothing rage, because it makes me hard(er) to live with. And I try not to grind my teeth, with which I have enough trouble already. But the constant bombardment of Trumpian bullshit does get to me periodically, and this is one of those times.

    There hasn’t been a president in my lifetime, or since I was old enough to vote, who hasn’t been a disappointment one way or another. But Trump has reached depths to which I never thought an occupant of the Oval Office could sink, and goes deeper every day. How can anyone “normalize” this, much less view it favorably? Those who can are true believers, and true believers are fanatics – the sort of people who know exactly what God (however he, she or they are perceived) would do, if only all the “facts” were in his possession. Republicans in Congress are in some ways worse, because they know a fool and would-be tyrant is in charge and they are unwilling to do anything about it as long as their policy priorities (tax cuts and opportunities for looting) are making progress.

    Goddamn these people.

    PS – this checkbox you have to click to save your name and addy to comment more than once is REALLY fucking annoying. I admit part of the annoyance is likely due to the fact that I am more or less in a constant state of low grade irritability, and have been since January 2017.

  39. 39.

    cmorenc

    @Corner Stone:

    @Adam L Silverman: I could be wrong, but am of the opinion that SK and Moon’s people basically suckered Trump into this in the first place.

    Can you think of any other American President since Lincoln who would have made such a consequential impulsive decision, and with such a limited, vain, understanding of the situation? Or even one before Lincoln?

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’ve pinged Alain regarding the mobile site not working well. If he’s up, he’ll check and see if he can get it fixed. If he’s not, you all may have to persevere until tomorrow.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @danielx:

    Because in his mind he DID win – he had the last word and cancelled the meeting his very own self*!

    Trump is delusional. Who cares if he is a winner in his own fantasy land.

    Even one of the hosts on a pro-Trump radio station notes that Trump’s letter sounds like something a jilted teenager would write to a hot coed who didn’t want to go out with him.

  45. 45.

    jl

    WH is now saying that real reason Trump cancelled was that he was afraid NK would cancel, which would be embarrassing.
    So, I guess now we are into an infinite regress, hall of mirrors, game of chicken based on fear of losing credibility national security poker chips based on who cancels, or cancels a cancellation, first.

    Doesn’t sound promising as a way to get to a productive meeting (or any meeting at all), but that won’t happen anyway because Trump. But, would be a way to pass the time until the midterms in way that makes Trumpsters look maximally idiotic, which might be good.

    Thinking though the common sense, or high-tone esoteric national security pundit credibility logic, of this is getting confusing to me. So, I’ll just read what others think for a while.

    @ShibelyTelhami
    A White House official told me this evening there is every expectation Trump-Kim summit will be held, after period of posturing. Also confirmed one reason for decision was fear, based on NK signals, that Kim may cancel, which would have been embarrassing.
    https://twitter.com/ShibleyTelhami/status/999833579856285696

    Found via Josh Marshall’s twitter feed.

  46. 46.

    TS (the original)

    And … the NYT apologist on Lawrence – making the case for the wonderful letter from trump and how all will be solved – seriously making me ill. Are political journalists/pundits really this stupid?

  51. 51.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    Yeah. Everything you said. I knew that it was likely the meeting would never happen, and that if it did happen, it would have been awful. Trump would have fucked this up, because he can’t not fuck it up.

    I have a friend who’s a Trumper, and he was going on and on for the last few months about how this was going to bring peace to the world, and wouldn’t we all feel dumb when Trump won bigly, and he was going to kick Kim’s ass, and everything good in the world was going to happen from here on out, and nothing bad in the world was ever going to happen ever again. He really believed this. I can’t understand it, but he did. He was so invested in this working. He went around telling everybody who would listen that this was inevitable. Trump would win. He’d bring peace to the world, and we’d all look stupid. Now he’s trying to tell people that Trump’s peevish letter was the greatest letter anybody ever wrote, and that it’s going to embarrass Kim into slinking back, begging for a meeting where he would give us everything we want and more.

    When people would point out that this was inevitably going to end disastrously at worst, and ignominiously without any meeting at all at best, he’d ask us why we were “rooting for America to fail” or some such horseshit. But acknowledging the truth about a bad situation isn’t rooting for something bad to happen; it’s just facing up to reality.

    The unending willingness Trump’s voters have to be proven wrong over and over and over just amazes me. I can’t understand it. There’s no way this was ever going to work, because Trump would have been running it. Donald Trump running the country is like if everybody in the cockpit of a plane carrying 100 drunks all died. And none of the drunks could fly, and, of course, they’re all drunk. And so one of the drunks has to try to land the fucking plane, and everybody on the ground talking the guy down knows they’re all going to die, and everybody following the news knows they’re all going to die. Everybody knows it’s going to end in a disaster. The only question is whether it’ll be the comparatively tolerable disaster of a plane full of drunks going down, or a truly horrendous disaster of the plane killing all the drunks but also smashing into a playground full of adorable toddlers.

    And everybody has to do their best to get the plane down safely, because that’s what we do at times like that, even when we know it’s going to end badly. But the people who say, “Shit. This is going to be fucking ugly,” aren’t “rooting” for everybody to die. They’re only acknowledging the truth of what’s happening.

  53. 53.

    Mike in NC

    Spent most of the day on airplanes but pleased to hear that Trump fucked up the summit with North Korea, bigly! May or may not invest in one of those hideous coins (we have no children or grandkids).

  59. 59.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Corner Stone: Trump has already won. He won this showdown with KJU. the greatest Presidential race ever, and the ability to be the greatest president ever, presidenting better, more beautifully, more wonderfully than anyone, ever. It was YUUUUUGE.

    Fixed that for ya. (Well, chose to make a second statement, springboarding off yours. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

  60. 60.

    Starfish

    I think this fed the same fantasy that people had in the beginning. Any minute now, Trump will become presidential. ?

  61. 61.

    MoCA Ace

    I admit part of the annoyance is likely due to the fact that I am more or less in a constant state of low grade irritability, and have been since January 2017.

    You lucky lucky bastard!!! I yearn for the innocent days of yore when I was cursed with a mere “constant low grade irritability”. These days it seems to be a nearly all consuming rage… I know this can’t be healthy.

  62. 62.

    Mary G

    Today's paper. AZ Republic. P 3. I was wrong. It's 1475 kids not 1424. Some were released to human traffickers. pic.twitter.com/smXLz8Kis1— lehimesa (@lehimesa) May 25, 2018

    Of 7,000 kids in Arizona, ICE has misplaced 1,475 of them (picture of dead tree paper in tweet.)

  63. 63.

    The Pale Sc

    @Cheryl Rofer: Interesting, though I think the USN is more concerned about China’s diesel subs than carrier targeting ballistic missiles, there’s no evidence they can actually do that without nuclear warheads. Carriers can travel 30 miles after the ballistic missile launches, sensors capabilities are limited when they’re traveling at 15G MPH, that’s just physics. So it would need to be guided in by remote control, but the same physics make radio control problematic.

    But yeah, there is no way to decapitate NK’s command and control with out first use of nukes, and I’m sure they have dead man switches on their plentiful supply of bio and chem weapons.

    There is no way to moderate NK. Any deal to allow NK back into the world economic system means NK criminal activities (illicit drug manufacturing, currency counterfeiting, etc) get to expand. And the NKs aren’t going to give that up, Kim is only going to allow economic expansion that he controls, not just get a piece of the action like other regimes. As far as we know there isn’t even a concept of defying the regime among the military or the population. Unless China decides, as JC said, to wipe NK out, it will continue to be a grenade with the pin pulled.

    This isn’t going to end well for anyone, me thinks. Unless climate change just starves them all into submission.

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This morning Alain said that he had sent a trouble ticket to the people who did the mobile module and that he was waiting to hear back from them.

  66. 66.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    @danielx:

    Republican media lies 24/7; Fauxnews endlessly prattles about Trump’s record-breaking presidency and implies (when it does not outright state) lib’ruls are the only thing holding us back from creating Utopia.

    Old people grew up with Walter Cronkite; they don’t expect the news to lie. Most treaties and trade agreements are so complicated an average person can’t comprehend them; they rely on the media to to tell them what a winning deal looks like—if Faux says this is a win for Trump they’ll believe it wholeheartedly.

    I may not have mentioned this in the last five minutes or so, but we are bigly screwed. I’ve been thinking about Charlotte Corday a lot lately; who would be our Marat?

  69. 69.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @hervevillechaizelounge:

    I’ve been thinking about Charlotte Corday a lot lately; who would be our Marat?

    Are you seeing Corday as the good person here?

    And can I suggest how tired I am of people say we are fucked? I am not naive: I know that things are ugly. I also know that we have been winning special elections. I know that volunteering is at a record high. I am tired of people who are allegedly on my side saying it is over before the real fight even starts. Just stop it.* Get out there and do something. Then, if we lose, history will show that we put up a fight.

    *Nothing especially personal but for the fact that you were tonight’s last straw.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    What does this have to do with Lily?

    Baud, I greatly admire the way you always home in on the essentials.

    Baud ‘n’ Lily! 2020!

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @rikyrah:

    Yellow. Goddammit. That’s twisting the knife and pouring salt in the resulting wound. Those goddamned fuckers.

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I would most def wear a yellow bracelet. I like to believe that I would have worn a yellow Star of David had I been a European in the 1930s-1940s. Just to mess with the fuckers.

  83. 83.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: I will change when we see effective pushback. IMO waiting for Godot, I mean Mueller, is stupid. He is too slow for this. We (the D’s) may or may not win the House in November but we aren’t winning 67 Senators.

  84. 84.

    kattails

    @Omnes Omnibus: You’re right. Thanks for the dope slap er–reminder. Seriously.
    @Adam L Silverman: Well I’m close to what a friend once called “fish-belly white” and live nearer to the northern borders. Not a lot of deporting going on up here. Keep us appraised of the search for yellow bracelets and I’ll happily wear one.

  85. 85.

    Procopius

    Bolton is crazy, and also an ideologue, but he’s not stupid. Violence is not the only weapon in his arsenal. Look how he totally undercut Trump with two little words, “Libyan Model.” No one familiar with recent history (and as you point out the North Koreans definitely are) could possibly hear that as other than “bayonet up the ass.” Of course I believe Trump did not know that (there’s an alternative explanation) so did not understand why Kim was upset. The alternative explanation is that this is what Trump, for whatever passes for reasons in his head, wanted and so he worked the ploy out with Bolton who would have been delighted by the plan.

  86. 86.

    Procopius

    @Mary G:

    I wrote about that, but it was a mess and violated the Godwin rule, so I deleted my post.

    This annoys me because I am not familiar with all internet traditions, but the Godwin Rule is one that I am familiar with. The Godwin Rule says that as any discussion on the internet continues, the probability that Nazis will me mentioned approaches one, or becomes certain to happen. Therefore if you were mentioning Nazis you were fulfilling the Godwin Rule, not violating it. I don’t know why so many people have never read what Godwin actually wrote. /nit-picking

  87. 87.

    Citizen Alan

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    When people would point out that this was inevitably going to end disastrously at worst, and ignominiously without any meeting at all at best, he’d ask us why we were “rooting for America to fail” or some such horseshit.

    The only proper response to that is “Fuck you, you ignorant muppet.” I am very proud of the fact that I have absolutely no Trump trash in my life. Or if I do, they have enough sense to not mouth off about it in my presence given my stated willingness to tell Trump trash to their faces that they are worthless America-hating garbage-humans who deserve the hell they’re going to burn in.

  89. 89.

    Gvg

    IMO one of Trumps more problematic traits is the unshakable belief that no other person who has held been President has really tried to solve any problem and that HE could fix it just by will power. He gives no credit for anyone else’s Intellegence or will power. He doesn’t respect others work or expertise. He doesn’t accept that some problems are really hard nor that any other country has a right to their own interests.
    What is more, his voters think this.

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