Trump’s campaign warned in late spring that his juggernaut political operation — the “Death Star,” he called it — was about to start “pressing FIRE” for the first time…
The Death Star attack did not have the intended effect.
My story w @ZekeJMillerhttps://t.co/FA8Fj0A5Ok
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) June 16, 2020
Brad Parscale doesn’t seem much of a propaganda maven, without the supervision of the GRU and the eager assistance of America’s best-known Media Village Idiots:
President Donald Trump’s campaign manager warned in late spring that his juggernaut political operation — the “Death Star,” he called it — was about to start “pressing FIRE” for the first time.
What followed was a massive investment in television and online advertising designed to demonstrate the true might of Trump’s reelection team. The Republican’s campaign poured nearly $24 million into paid advertising focused largely on six battleground states in the seven-week period from the last week in April through the first week of June, according to spending data obtained by The Associated Press.
The Death Star attack did not have the intended effect.
Some recent polls suggest a dip in Trump’s standing and a majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. And nearly two months after Trump first unleashed his advertising tsunami, there are signs that his inability to demonstrate consistent leadership through multiple national crises has neutralized one of the best advertising campaigns money can buy…
Last week, Trump made a big deal out of hiring the hilariously pro-Trump outfit McLaughlin & Associates last week to counter his tanking poll numbers.
Today their model gave him his worst approval numbers since Flynn pleaded guilty. pic.twitter.com/Nr4gmhXQyc
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) June 17, 2020
prosecuting your own daughter, harsh but fair https://t.co/ie9BlK4qG0
— kilgore trout, a ramp with no steps (@KT_So_It_Goes) June 17, 2020
Campaign’s gonna blame it on Parscale (or Jarvanka); Jarvanka (via favored court stenographer Haberman) is gonna blame it on a lousy candidate…
In a recent meeting with his top political advisers, President Trump was impatient as they warned him that he was on a path to defeat in November if he continued his incendiary behavior in public and on Twitter.
Days earlier, Mr. Trump had sparked alarm by responding to protests over police brutality with a threat that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Mr. Trump pushed back against his aides. “I have to be myself,” he replied, according to three people familiar with the meeting. A few hours later, he posted on Twitter a letter from his former personal lawyer describing some of the protesters as “terrorists.”
In those moments, and in repeated ones since then, the president’s customary defiance has been suffused with a heightened sense of agitation as he confronts a series of external crises he has failed to contain, or has exacerbated, according to people close to him. They say his repeated acts of political self-sabotage — a widely denounced photo-op at a church for which peaceful protesters were forcibly removed, a threat to use the American military to quell protests — have significantly damaged his re-election prospects, and yet he appears mostly unable, or unwilling, to curtail them…
…[T]he president is acting trapped and defensive, and his self-destructive behavior has been so out of step for an incumbent in an election year that many advisers wonder if he is truly interested in serving a second term.
Rather than focus on plans and goals for another four years in office, Mr. Trump has been wallowing in self-pity about news coverage of him since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, people who have spoken with him said. He has told advisers that no matter what he does, he cannot get “good” stories from the press, which has often been his primary interest. “These people,” Mr. Trump has growled to advisers about reporters, throwing an expletive between the two words…
Aides acknowledged that he has always had difficulty controlling his behavior, which goes far beyond the bounds of traditional presidential conduct. His penchant for using racist language — such as the tweet about shooting looters — is something that has long defined and undercut his presidency. But his recent behavior and remarks, and his inability to move beyond them, strike advisers as different from his usual aberrations…
You can’t fire me — I quit!
We should be so lucky…
Patricia Kayden
Patricia Kayden
Me too.
Yutsano
@Patricia Kayden:
Kamala got an answer for dat.
MisterForkbeard
@Patricia Kayden: So Trump’s defense is that he knew Bolton was crazy and hired him as NSA anyway?
This does not seem better.
Yutsano
Also: is it me or have we been remarkably troll free the last couple of weeks?
laura
President Trump was impatient as they warned him that he was on a path to defeat in November if he continued his incendiary behavior in public and on Twitter.
“They” had to inform him he’s a losing loser who is losing and if he continues being the losing loser he’s always been, he’s going to lose. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that meetin.
His losering is no reason what so ever to make any presumptions on the election in these fraught and perilous times just in case there was a doubt.
dmsilev
Exclusive footage of Trump looking back on his actions over the last few months
dmsilev
@Yutsano: They’re all in line outside that arena in Tulsa.
大芒果 Dà mángguǒ Big Mango
At long last folks are noticing the emperor has no clothes. He can’t generate good headlines and is getting hammered daily from the press, BLM, Corona virus, Biden, Lincoln Project etc. etc. Folks have to keep it up….keep the pressure on and hit him repeatedly daily
jonas
Totally. What idiot hired him?
mrmoshpotato
TO HELL WITH KELLYANNE CONJOB!
Her disgusting ass will always be The Scriptkeeper!
jonas
@MisterForkbeard: Same with Mattis. Worst SecDef ever. Only a drug-addled fool would have appointed him. Also Rex Tillerson. Complete idiot. Massively incompetent. Only the most deluded, asinine president in history would have possibly nominated him.
Major Major Major Major
Parscale is such a putz.
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: He’s very good at sounding tough. And also grifting; he’s pretty skilled at that.
jonas
Um, wouldn’t that be Bill Barr in a network news interview the other day?
jonas
@Major Major Major Major: It’s the classic carny/casino situation. If you look around the table and can’t tell who the mark is, it’s you. Trump can’t tell who the mark is anymore, but still thinks he’s running the table.
mad citizen
There’s no way he holds it together through this summer. Maybe he has big ego event around Independence Day, but after that I think he will game out his life as Florida Man.
Anne Laurie
Sure, but do you have a Ferrari?, Parscale replies.
dmsilev
@mad citizen: He had that big military song-and-dance thing last July 4th. I’m sure he wanted to have another one this year.
Redshift
Another example of the inability of the mainstream press not to present this as a normal administration, even while using phrases like “different from his usual aberrations.”
He’s not “focusing on plans and goals” for a second term because a) he doesn’t focus on anything but the teevee, and b) he’s never had any plans and goals beyond “build the Wall,” “lock her up,” and “all the money in my pockets.” So the fact that he has no plans now isn’t any kind of indication that he “doesn’t really want to win.”
HumboldtBlue
This was posted downstairs but now that TBogg is on it it’s worth another post.
The mayonnaise for Jesus band in Tulsa
MisterForkbeard
@Redshift: I don’t think Trump has EVER focused on plans going out more than a few months.
Hell, to the extent he did this at all in his first campaign it was basically all just wishful thinking.
Redshift
@dmsilev: Oh, definitely, he’s already talked about it. We’ll see whether he wins that fight with the DC government. Mayor Bowser is being even more cautious than the surrounding jurisdictions, and there’s no way “large crowd of unmasked screaming people” is going to be allowed by July 4.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
In all seriousness, it wouldn’t floor me if he just walks away in September or October, if it sinks into even his thick-ass head that he’s going to go down. After all, if he quits before he loses, he’ll never lose. It’s worked for him all his life.
trnc
He may not care that much about getting 4 more years of insults and bad polls, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to be prosecuted at noon sharp on Jan 20. At any rate, self wallowing is his whole thing, so that doesn’t really provide any clues about his feeling on being reelected.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: I… I mean… What the… JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTWHATWASTHAT?
Kent
@Yutsano: and a damn good answer at that. Best answer I have ever heard on the topic.
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Beware of white girls with Taylor guitars.
Ken
Where? Where?
Ah, I see. They have, as often happens, confused most expensive with best.
Anne Laurie
@Redshift: I seem to remember hearing he wants to hold his ‘Independence Day’ rally outdoors in Florida this year — as a trial run for the Big Convention Coronation.
After all, the Washington DC weather treated him very badly last year, a total disgrace, the NOAA has never been a trustworthy ally!
(Don’t think Trump’s ever been through a Florida hurricane — he usually decamps to Bedford NJ when the Sunshine State gets too hot / humid.)
Kent
@Redshift: Trump has ZERO plans or goals on his campaign web site. He doesn’t even have a section tab for what he wants to do for the next four years. Nothing.
But he does have a whole crazy pop up rant about helping him fight ANTIFA that covers your screen when you soil your computer by surfing over there.
Seriously. I’m not making that up. It’s all ANTIFA and nothing else.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@HumboldtBlue: Yowza. Reminds me of a number of music videos from the aughts that you were never quite sure if they were parody or not. Condoleeza Will Lead Us (which I think was not) It’s Raining McCain (which IIRC was). There were more, but I can’t think of specifics right now
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah.
Calouste
@Yutsano: Well, those
rublesdollars can either pay for a TV campaign or trolling an almost top 10,000 blog, not for both.dmsilev
@Anne Laurie: They’ve only got about two weeks left to go, so hopefully they haven’t yet figured that out and will have to half-ass an event at the last minute.
Calouste
@Anne Laurie: I think that’s the Big Convention Corona-tion.
gwangung
@dmsilev: Isn’t halfassing things at the last minute their usual operating procedure?
Benw
The “thermal exhaust port” of the Trump Death Star is “letting 120,000 Americans needlessly die through sheer incompetence”.
The fact that many of the 120k deaths (2x Vietnam in 3-4 months!!) were preventable should be the screaming headline in every paper.
Kent
Obvious fundies. I knew families like that in Waco Texas. 99% chance they attend some fundie mega-church and normally sing evangelical folk songs and other trite shit from the stage.
Yutsano
@Kent: She’s still number one on my VP list. And I would love to see her pants Tom Cotton in 2024.
HumboldtBlue
@Kent:
Of course. They’re the white people who put raisins in potato salad,
marklar
@HumboldtBlue:
K-K-Karen and the Jets! (Elton John reference…I would never accuse somebody of being in the Klan without evidence)
TaMara (HFG)
@Yutsano: I adore her.
I’ve suddenly been receiving a LOT more emails from her – I’m hoping that’s a sign of things to come.
Amir Khalid
@Kent:
It’s not like he’s running on a coherent policy strategy, is it? He’s really just one of his own base: an ignorant, spiteful white supremacist. They don’t care about policy, they only care about WINNING! That war on Antifa is plenty of policy for them.
Yutsano
@TaMara (HFG): That has me more excited than a Golden who just spotted the BALL!!!
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
@Yutsano:
Love her so much.
Kent
@HumboldtBlue: They are the ones who put the shredded carrots into the orange jello mold.
And one a month they have taco night to be ethnic and worldly.
Kent
I wonder when someone is going tell him that Eisenhower, McArthur, and Patton were all ANTIFA as well.
Yutsano
@Kent: He would have to know or care who those people were first.
kindness
Yes Trump is a bit of a psycho but if he flips out he isn’t going to go out like quivering blob, he’s going to go out like Hitler in his bunker. He’ll burn the world down for spite and his re-election. I wonder how good our military is at ignoring the orders of a crazy president?
HumboldtBlue
@Kent:
Taco night.
I had a grandma who did that shredded carrot thing in the Jello.
West of the Rockies
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
He may pull a Palin. What reason did she offer for her hasty departure (to the Benny Hill theme)?
West of the Rockies
I hope that Biden announces his VP choice at a time to inflict maximum damage to Trump. I suspect Pence will shit his drawers if he learns he will have to debate Harris or Abrahms.
smike
@West of the Rockies:
I think he does as much damage as he can, resigns with enough time left for Pence to pardon him, then disappears somewhere for unspecified treatment of some unspecified disorder in some unspecified foreign location.
Ruckus
shitforbrains® had no plans for this time in office, other than revel in the part of him being president. Do anything, have any kind of plan for the future? You must be kidding. shitforbrains never, ever steps out of the moment. He is 100% reactionary and has no luck at doing that well. And that was when he wasn’t as mentally ill or in dementia or so drugged, or all three. He’s a walking disaster and he ain’t getting better. Ever.
frosty
Once again, any pardon that Pence gives him doesn’t count in New York.
Calouste
@West of the Rockies: Pence might not have to worry about that too much now that Ivanka is over 35.
terry chay
@Yutsano: Russian trolls are all dying in hospitals from “pneumonia.”
Sloane Ranger
@Kent: Well, Eisenhower did use the army to enforce anti segregation rulings by SCOTUS so it’s a reasonable speculation.
MacArthur and Patton? Good patriotic Americans both. Didn’t they fight against the National SOCIALIST Party?
Sm*t Cl*de
@terry chay:
I’ve been saying for a while that the boiler-rooms are unsafe environments and there should be arrangements for trolls to work from home.
Mike G
damaged his re-election prospects, and yet he appears mostly unable, or unwilling, to curtail them…
Shorter Trump: “I can’t stop being an asshole. I gotta be me.”
SFAW
@Yutsano:
Apologies; I’ve been busy with other things. I’ll try to get my head back in the game.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Except Queeg at least had some self-awareness. The Coward-in-Chief has none.
different-church-lady
@Patricia Kayden: people who say that don’t mean stop doing identity politics; they mean “Continue doing white identity politics, and we won’t call it that.”