Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

We’re not going back!

This fight is for everything.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Democrats are back in array!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Sad Trombone Open Thread: When Grifters Start to Lose Their Grip

Sad Trombone Open Thread: When Grifters Start to Lose Their Grip

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What if Trump threw a tantrum-rally, and nobody paid attention? Even the NYTimes couldn’t work up any real enthusiasm for the Toddler-in-Chief’s latest frantic attempt to salve his wounded ego:

… In many ways, the speech was a return to first principles for Mr. Trump, reviving an insurgent theme that had fueled his campaign in 2016. He said the Russia investigation underlined the need to “drain the swamp,” and he celebrated his cheering supporters over what he described as the faithless elites in Washington.

“I’m president and they’re not,” he said.

“I have a better education than them. I’m smarter than them. I went to better schools than them,” he added. “Much more beautiful house. Much more beautiful everything.”…

The mood in the arena, however, was no more intense than at other Trump rallies. If anything, the crowd seemed a bit sedate as he began speaking. Many held up signs that said “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” reflecting the economic priorities that drive voting in this Rust Belt state.

And for all his indignation at the start of the speech, Mr. Trump lapsed into well-worn themes later in the one hour and 22-minute speech, even delivering a leisurely reminiscence about his election victory…

On the flight to Grand Rapids, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, two former campaign advisers known for riling up Mr. Trump on Air Force One before his rallies, were aboard.

Inside the White House, aides were concerned about the two of them tagging along — and possibly having open access to the president — but ultimately did not take steps to limit their travel, according to a person familiar with the planning.

Mr. Trump has long savored his victory in Michigan. But the state could be more of an uphill struggle in 2020. Democrats made significant gains in the 2018 midterm elections, including winning the governorship…

In Reuters’ two-minute video recap (below the fold), Trump doesn’t look triumphant, or even angry. His eyes keep darting from side to side, like he’s looking for the exit — or for the authorities…

Of course, he’ll still have his Deplorables, right there in the bunker with him:


 
And while we’re discussing, shall we say, outside-the-box firebrands whose audience may be going in search of fresher novelties:

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  3. 3.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Mary G: I’m not surprised. Those are the kinds of people who were legitimately radicalized by right-wing Twitter and Facebook.

  4. 4.

    Ruckus

    @BlueDWarrior:
    Legitimately radicalized?
    Not sure I’m following correctly. There’s legitimate radicalization of Trump supporters? I seem to be missing something.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    “I have a better education than them. I’m smarter than them. I went to better schools than them,” he added.

    Is there no end to Trump’s lies?

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    @Plato:
    Die, die sich mit dem Gedanke trösten, dass Bigotterie mit den alten Bigotten aussterben wird, vergessen leider, dass junge Bigotten jeden Tag mündig werden.

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ruckus:
    I think BlueDWarrior is referring to people who actually were radicalised by RW social media, rather than by some other means.

  21. 21.

    Jay

    @opiejeanne:

    I think its a reference to the past and recent Social Media “bans” which blocks ISIL, and now some Nazi’s,

    But Social Media still allows all the long pathways to radicalization to exist, they’ve just banned the end zone pages of some of the most deadly terrorist groups.

    So, one can start watching “edgelord” you tubes on line, follow the path downwards, but it doesnt lead to Stormfront or AtomWaffen, the trail stops one webpage short of enlisting to fight the coming race war.

  26. 26.

    trnc

    @Sherparick:

    Trump will be lying to his dying breadth.

    And, hell, why wouldn’t he? The signature feature of today’s republican is that they would gouge out their own eyes if they ever thought they would have to see any actual information about DT or other republicans.

  27. 27.

    Chris Johnson

    @Jay: For ‘follow the path’ I would put ‘get persistently led’ downwards.

    As someone who watches a fair bit of YouTube including woke stuff like Shaun, donoteat01 and Contrapoints, I know that if you click on the wrong thing out of curiosity the right side of your screen (recommendations) fills up with garbage, all clickbait, all alt-right.

    I think this is in part because the platform is actively pushing people to be alt-right, but much more because the algorithm dictates it. This is what we get out of AI: the ‘paperclip-maximizer’ AI told to maximize people’s engagement with itself (and increase usage of YouTube in general) works out that if you get sucked into alt-right you start obsessively watching all these freaking crazy videos and abandon your life and previous beliefs to become an internet psycho.

    And Google goes, ‘Yay! Engagement!’. And so the raw mechanism of how YouTube ‘thinks’ about engagement, gets you propagandized, because YouTube’s interests are alt-right interests when alt-right equals ‘crazy obsessives who do nothing but make and watch propaganda videos that they think are THE most important thing EVER’.

    This is a kind of AI in action. It’s not a nice kind. The antidote is somewhat labor intensive and could be killed off by YouTube at any time: hide alt-right videos when you recognize them (without watching them) in the sidebar, and tell YouTube you don’t want to see that channel. You do this by clicking on the vertical three dots in the sidebar (not the video!) and select Not Interested. Then you get an option for Tell Us Why, and that gives you an option “I’m not interested in this channel” (note you’ve never actually been to the channel, but it’s probably got some kind of horrible name too) and choosing that is the magic bullet to train the AI.

    As soon as you click another alt-right or adjacent video, you’ll get bombed with alt-right again and have to do it all over. But if you go to all this trouble you can watch YouTube and pretty much get recommended just more of stuff you know and trust, often stuff you’ve seen already. Which is much more stress-reducing, I find :)

  29. 29.

    z

    @Chris Johnson: Given that the basis of the Q anon conspiracy theory consists of harassing real people and their real children with ridiculous conspiracy theories and regularly including private information (eg screenshots of emails in twitter posts and youtube videos) I’d really like to see Podesta and others targeted sue the hell out of google/facebook/twitter. If AI can make this content more visible it can also be used to identify it and shut it down. I regularly report posts of that nature on Twitter as personal harassment and nothing happens. Not everyone involved is a public figure; particularly children named.

  30. 30.

    Libraryguy

    Though to be fair to The Nation’s current image, they do also have 2 new essays: Aaron Mate’s “RIP, Russiagate” and Stephen F Cohen’s “The Real Costs of Russiagate.”

    The subtitles tell it all: Mate is “The implosion of the collusion theory is a humiliation for everyone who promoted it.”

    Cohen: “Its perpetrators, not Putin or Trump, “attacked American democracy.””

    Both, based on Barr’s letter and nothing else, and ignoring everything that has been publicly revealed over the last 3 years.

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    “I have a better education than them. I’m smarter than them. I went to better schools than them,”

    Than THEY, you fucking imbecile. Can’t you even speak English properly, with all your “education”?

    And going to Fordham, and then Wharton, for an undergraduate BFA is not quite on a par with going to … oh, I don’t know … going to UMich (horrors, a state school!) or the Cal system (OMFG, another set of state schools!) before Reagan did his best to destroy it. At least W made it through Harvard B-school, asshole, which is a shitload better than any FAKE degree you might claim to have earned.

    Lying motherfucker.

  33. 33.

    SFAW

    @Libraryguy:
    Refresh my memory: isn’t “The Nation” supposed to be a non-wingnut rag?

    Asking for the plane of existence f/k/a “Reality.”

  36. 36.

    Julia Grey

    I read a much different take on the rally over at TPM. About how the crowd was hugely enthusiastic and “roaring” and had camped out for tickets, etc. I found it terribly depressing.

    What do the QAnon people believe about the Mueller investigation now? I thought they believed it was a secret effort to investigate Hillary?

  37. 37.

    FlipYrWhig

    @SFAW: They’ve been plagued with raving tankies like Stephen Cohen for decades. And then there’s the other aspect, the leftier-than-thou side, for which the single most important thing to know about 2016 is that Hillary Clinton lost because she sucks, and that SOMEONE WHO ISN’T HILLARY CLINTON wouldn’t have lost by virtue of not sucking, and that any story about 2016 other than “Hillary Clinton uniquely sucks” is a distraction/waste/myth/hoax. It’s tiresome.

  38. 38.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Julia Grey: When Jimmy Buffett has a concert, excited Jimmy Buffett fans break out the gear and go nuts at the hits. That doesn’t really tell you very much about how many Jimmy Buffett fans there are. The same applies to Trump. Don’t let it get you down.

  39. 39.

    Skepticat

    I have a better education than them. I’m smarter than them. I went to better schools than them.

    And may this nitpicking proofreader/copy editor note that it’s apparent that in none of these schools did he learn proper grammar.
    I’m also fairly sure we all know that anyone who has to tell you how smart he is usually isn’t.

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    @Skepticat:

    in none of these schools did he learn proper grammar.

    RWMF response: “Libtard! He was sent to DC by God so that he would shake things up and drain the correct-grammar swamp!!! Libtard!!”

  43. 43.

    Just Chuck

    @SFAW:

    Than THEY, you fucking imbecile.

    “Them” is the objective pronoun, “They” is subjective. He is using “them” correctly.

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @Just Chuck:

    “Them” is the objective pronoun, “They” is subjective. He is using “them” correctly.

    It would help — if you’re going to issue a “correction” — that you know what you’re talking about. [Yes, I realize that this meaning of “about” is not supposed to end a sentence.]

    Yes, I know that “they” is subjective, and “them” is objective. The sentence that the Traitor-in-Chief constructed (so to speak) is a shortened form — understood by most persons with a knowledge of English grammar — of “I have a better education than THEY DO. I’m smarter than THEY ARE. I went to better schools than THEY DID.” The verbs do/are/did were implied/unspoken by the sentence construction. This is standard English construction. That people choose to use incorrect grammar because they think it sounds better does not magically confer correctness upon it/them.

    And, just to pile on: The sentence “It is me” is also grammatically incorrect; the grammatically correct version is “It is I.”. The use of the verb “to be,” in that format, means one should use the subjective case of the pronoun, not the objective. That it has been popular to use “me” for the last 50-or-so years is immaterial.

    I ain’t no English teacher, nor is I a professional grammarian, but unless some of the basic rules regarding grammar have been rewritten, my original comment is the correct version.

  45. 45.

    Dan B

    Sanjay Gupta has researched lifespans worldwide. They are increasing in almost every cohort. The US is decreasing. All the decrease is in the white working class. He attributes this to constant stress. So there may be some truth to the “economic anxiety” line. At the same time this is no excuse to blame black, brown, LGBTQ, OTHERZ!, for your stress. But it’s easy to radicalize people when they are under stress.

  46. 46.

    Mike G

    Trump doesn’t look triumphant, or even angry. His eyes keep darting from side to side, like he’s looking for the exit — or for the authorities…

    I live for the day Trump has his Ceaucescu-on-the-balcony moment, when he realizes the crowd isn’t buying his tired bullshit anymore and is turning ugly on him; and we see a flash of raw fear at what he’s created.

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